"I've just arrived at my apartment. Karin, these people intend to build a network of organizations to serve them. They imagine that we will be just another voice in their chorus."

"Let them imagine that," she said. "The Führer allowed other governments to imagine whatever they wished. Then he forced his Will on them."

"How?" Richter asked.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "He did it through his will. Through his armies."

"No," Richter said. "He did it through the public. Don't you see? He tried to overthrow the Bavarian government in the Beer-Hall Putsch in 1923. He hadn't enough support and was arrested. In jail, he wrote Mein Kampf and set forth his plan for a new Germany. Within ten years he was in command of the nation. He was the same man saying the same things, but My Struggle helped him to win over the masses. Once he controlled them, he controlled the Fatherland. And once he did that, it didn't matter what other nations thought or did."

Karin was confused. "Felix, I don't treed a history lesson."

"This is not history," he said, "this is the future. We must control the people and they're here, Karin, now. I have a plan for making tonight an evening history will remember."

The woman did not care for Richter. He was a conceited, self-serving fop who had the Führer's arrogance and some of his vision, but very little of his courage.

Or did he? she wondered. Could the fire have changed him?

"All right, Felix," she said, "I'm listening. What do you propose?"

He told her. She listened carefully, her interest high and her respect for him rising slightly.

The glorification of Germany and Felix Richter permeated his every thought, his every word. But what he had to say made sense. And though Karin had undertaken every one of her thirty-nine missions with a plan, a result in mind, she had to admit that part of her responded to Richter's impulsive idea. It would be unexpected. Daring. Truly historic.

Karin looked out at the tents, at her warriors, at the artifacts they were carrying. This was what she loved, and it was all she needed. But what Richter had suggested gave her the opportunity to have that and strike at the French. The French… and the rest of the world.

"All right, Felix," she said. "I agree that we should do this. Come to my camp before the rally and we'll arrange it. Tonight, the French will learn that they can't fight Feuer with fire."

"I like that," Richter said. "I like that very much. But one of them will learn it before then, Karin. Definitely before then."

Richter hung up. Karin was sitting, listening to the dial tone, as Manfred wandered over. "Is everything all right?"