They’d have to approach from that direction. Clay signaled for Brady and Lyons to cover, and he motioned ahead.

Low and fast, Clay darted toward the unmanned gun.

Sensing Gene and Holman behind him, Clay yanked a grenade from his belt. He hurdled the concrete rim, found the dark opening to the shelter behind him, pulled the pin, and tossed the grenade inside.

The concussion made his legs wobble. Gene and Holman jumped inside the shelter to clear it while Clay covered Brady and Lyons’s approach.

“No one in here.” Gene climbed back out with Holman behind him.

Brady yanked off the shredded camouflage net and swore. “This ain’t a gun.”

Clay stared. “That—that’s a telephone pole.”

“Where’s the gun?” Gene asked.

Clay scanned the landscape, marred by days of aerial bombing and today’s naval bombardment. “The Germans must have moved the gun after the bomber boys did their work.” The telephone pole would have fooled the aerial photographers.

Brady spread his arms wide and snorted. “All this—for nothing?”

“Not for nothing.” Maybe the other five guns remained in place. Regardless, they had a second objective. “To the assembly point.”

In leapfrog fashion, Clay led his makeshift squad to a crater, then followed them toward the next. On the way, something caught his eye—parallel tracks. Partly obscured by chunks of earth, the tracks led inland from the gun pit. Maybe they could find that gun after all.

The crack of a gunshot. Clay squatted and saw a depression to his right. He jumped in.

A trench. He slammed back against the wall and whipped his rifle in a semicircle.

The trench ran about twenty-five feet south, then bent to the right.

Clay huffed out a breath. Not a safe place, but also not where he was going to die. At least the trench ran in the correct direction.

He edged toward the bend. With his finger on the trigger, he said a quick prayer, then popped around the corner, leading with his rifle.

No one, and his breath tumbled out.

He crept forward to the next zig in the trench.

A scuffling sound behind him. Friend or foe?

Clay spun around to his left, rifle at his hip.

Someone barreled into him, butted his rifle up and away. It fired into the air.

Lyons!

Clay’s foot swept out beneath him. Lyons threw him to the ground, his forearm across Clay’s throat, his knee grinding into Clay’s rifle arm above the elbow.

Clay grunted in pain. “I knew it was you.”

“You’re the only one who ever will.” Lyons tossed aside his BAR and unsheathed his knife. “And not for long.”

Clay gripped the wrist of the man’s knife hand, his heart pounding. This wasn’t how he was supposed to die. It wasn’t. But how could he defeat Lyons when he was losing air and stars flickered in his vision?