As she handed out the items, assisted by Rolf, Manfred walked from around the cab.

"There's a phone call for you," he said.

She looked at him as if to say, "Who?"

"Felix Richter," Manfred told her.

Karin's expression didn't change. It rarely did. But she was surprised. She didn't expect to speak with him tonight at the rally in Hanover, much less talk to him before then.

She handed Manfred the rifle she was holding. Without a word, she made her way to the driver's side of the van, climbed in, and shut the door. Manfred had left the phone on the seat. She picked it up and hesitated.

Karin disliked Richter. It wasn't just the old rivalry which made her feel that way-- his political movement versus her military movement. Both were different means to the same goal, the realization of the dream that had been launched when Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany in 1933: the establishment of an Aryan world. Both knew that this could only come about through formidable nationalism followed by an economic blitzkrieg against foreign investments and culture. Both knew that these goals would take more organization and diversity than each now possessed.

What troubled her about Richter was that she had never been convinced of his devotion to Nazism. He seemed to be more interested in making Felix Richter a dictator of anything, it didn't matter what. Unlike Karin, who wanted Germany more than she wanted life itself, she always felt that he could be content ruling Myanmar or Uganda or Iraq.

She killed the mute button. "Good afternoon, Felix."

"Karin, good afternoon. Have you heard?"

"About what?"

"Then you haven't or you wouldn't ask. We've been attacked. Germany has. The movement."

"What are you talking about? By whom?"

"The French," said Richter.

The word alone was enough to blacken her day. Her grandfather had been an Oberfeldarzt, a lieutenant colonel in the medical troops in Occupied France. He was killed by a Frenchman while caring for German soldiers wounded during the fall of St. Sauveur. Growing up, she would lie in bed and listen as her parents and their friends swapped tales of French cowardice, disloyalty, and betrayal of their own country.

"Go on," Karin said.

"This morning," said Richter, "I met with Dominique's emissary to Chaos Days. He demanded that I fold my organization into his. When I refused, my club was destroyed. Burned."

Karin didn't care. The club was for degenerates, and she was happy to see it gone. "Where were you?" she asked.

"I was led out at gunpoint."

Karin watched the parade of her Feuermenschen as they made their way through the trees. Each soldier bore a symbol of the Reich. Not a one of them would have run from a Frenchman, gun or no gun.

"Where are you now?" she asked.