“I just don’t understand how . . .” began Alex, but he never finished his sentence. At that instant a van darted out from a side street, through a red light and rammed into the front corner of Alex’s car. Alex felt the seat belt lock him in place, but neither car had been going very fast so he thought, as the car spun around, he might escape any real injury. Then he heard a screeching noise and saw the headlights of the dump truck heading right for him. It flashed across his mind that it might be a good idea to pray when the screeching stopped and he looked to see the grille of the truck a few feet outside his window.

Alex could not open his door, but he heard much of what transpired in the street over the next few minutes. A woman jumped out of the van and approached the dump truck. She seemed to be weaving erratically as if she had been drinking for the past several hours. Then, as she passed into the glow of the headlights, Alex realized it was Patton.

Patton had been truly impressed with Franklin’s driving. When he saw the truck stopped at the light, he had managed to go around the block and come out of the side street just in time. Then he had managed to hit Alex’s car in such a way that it spun around and blocked most of the road but neither it nor the van Franklin was driving sustained enough damage to make it undrivable. And, he had managed to stop the van where it blocked the one part of the road the truck might have gotten through. In an instant, Patton was up and weaving toward the dump truck, banging on the window and shouting “Bitte” in a loud voice with a thick American accent.

“Can you tell us how to get to the Matterhorn!” Patton shouted. “Ma-ter-horn,” she repeated slowly, over enunciating each syllable. “It’s a mountain. A big old mountain. This is Switzerland, right?”

Patton climbed onto the step leading to the driver’s side of the cab and continued to bang on the window. She didn’t think the Germans would drive away with her on the truck, especially given the secrecy of their mission.

“Do you all live here? Do you live in Switzerland? We’re not still in Germany, are we?”

Franklin had stayed in the van, but now Bob emerged from his vehicle and strode over to the truck.