To Rolf's right, behind the oak, Karin Doring finished removing Werner's uniform while the hulking Manfred Piper put it on. Once the corpse had been stripped to its underwear, the twenty-eight-year-old woman dragged it through the soft grasses toward a boulder. Rolf didn't offer to help. When they'd finally gotten a close look at the uniform, she'd told him to stand guard. And that was what he was going to do.

From the corner of his eye, Rolf saw Manfred squirm as he dressed. The plan required Karin and one of the men to get close to the movie set, which meant that one of them had to look like a Sichern guard. Because the guard had been so barrel-chested, the clothes would have looked ludicrous on Rolf. So although the sleeves were short and the collar was tight, Manfred got the job.

"I already miss my windbreaker," Manfred said as he struggled to button the jacket. "Did you watch as Herr Dagover came toward us?"

Rolf knew that Manfred wasn't addressing him, so he said nothing. Karin was busy hiding Werner's body in the tall grasses behind the boulder, so she also didn't answer.

"The way he adjusted his badge and hat," Manfred went on, "took pride 9n his uniform, walked erect. I could tell he was raised in the Reich. Very possibly as a Young Wolf. In his heart, I suspect he was still one of us." The co-founder of Feuer shook his large, bald head. He finished with the buttons and tugged the jacket sleeves as far as they would go. "It's too bad that men of his pedigree get comfortable. With a little ambition and imagination, they could be of great use to the cause."

Karin stood. She said nothing as she walked to the limb where she'd hung her weapon and backpack. She was not the talker that Manfred was.

Yet, thought Rolf, Manfred is right. Werner Dagover probably was like them. And when the firestorm finally came, they would find allies among people like him. Men and women who were not afraid to cleanse the earth of the physically and mentally deficient, of the foreign-colored, of ethnic and religious undesirables. But the guard had tried to signal his superiors, and Karin was not one to forgive opposition. She'd kill him if he questioned her authority, and she'd be right to. As she'd told Rolf when he dropped out of school to become a full-time soldier, if someone opposes you once, they'll do it again. And that, she'd said, was something no commander could risk.

Karin picked up her Uzi, slipped it in the backpack, and walked to where Manfred was standing. The thirty-four-year-old wasn't as driven or well read as his companion, but he was devoted to her. In the two years that Rolf had been with Feuer, he'd never seen them apart. He didn't know whether it was love, mutual protection, or both, but he envied them their bond.