Look Behind You (The Order of the Silver Star) Read Online Free PDF

Chris drank gratefully. “I needed that,” he said quietly in English.
    “Bad day?” Nimrod returned sympathetically.
    Chris groaned. “Himself is determined to play Auburn at Alabama, come hell or high water.” College football wasn’t an established code, but he and Nimrod had used it a time or two on the fly, and he reckoned Nimrod could figure out what he meant as far as War Eagle and Crimson Tide.
    Nimrod nodded. “Yes, I know. That’s the problem. He needs more players than he has, and neither the free agent market nor the draft market gives him enough options. And he can’t cancel the Arizona State game, either. He has canceled the game against William and Mary, but he’s still worried that Sul Ross will turn up on the schedule. Having nightmares over it, as a matter of fact.”
    Chris blinked. Arizona State had to mean North Africa, and William and Mary meant England, but Sul Ross Normal School… was named after a Ranger captain, of course. Sheesh. “So what, he’s pulling out of the Orange Bowl?”
    “Not entirely.” Nimrod lowered his voice further and dropped the code. “You’ve heard talk of the Atlantic Wall?”
    “Yeah, some talk of getting the Horseman’s road crew to do it.” Really, there wasn’t another company in Germany aside from Organisation Todt that was capable of such an undertaking, and they did have experience; they’d already done the Autobahn and the Westwall . “Didn’t think they were planning to start it for another couple of years yet.”
    “They’re starting it next year, but not with the Horseman, and it won’t be literal. Himself wants enchantments.”
    “… You’re joking.”
    Nimrod shook his head. “Wish I were, old bean.”
    “A wall of enchantments to guard the western coast. Himself has lost his cotton-pickin’ mind.”
    “The warlocks have been over it. They think it can work, and they’ll be testing it with glamours to divert attention from the buildup in the east.”
    “How is that any sort of test?”
    “They’re working off the oldest and strongest forms they can find, spells no one’s tried for a thousand years.”
    “So what the Sam Hill makes them think it’ll work?”
    Nimrod shrugged.
    “… Will it work?”
    Nimrod shrugged again. “I suppose we’ll have to start from the assumption that it will, at least enough to be dangerous. They did manage to enspell Emil Hácha.”
    Chris frowned. “I thought that was the speedballs or whatever the hell the Injection Master gives Himself.”
    “Well, yes, that brought him around and brought on the heart attack. But the delaying tactic wasn’t only to wear him down physically. It’s only a light thrall now, but if he keeps fighting it, I suspect Himself will send Iron-heart and his mage in.”
    “ You have lost your cotton-pickin’ mind.” Heydrich was a menace, sure, and he’d murder the Czechs given half a chance, but Chris simply couldn’t believe all this mumbo-jumbo about thralls and mages and whatnot.
    “Don’t scoff so. It’s not only our lads that I’m worried about. This kind of magic, if it works, is every bit as deadly as poison gas to body, mind, and soul. Anyone could be hurt by it—those who fight it, those who must live under it, even those who wield it.”
    “The warlocks? Why the hell should we care about them?”
    Nimrod raised an eyebrow. “They, too, must face God’s judgment. Sometimes mercy requires stopping your enemy before he can destroy himself too completely.”
    Chris snorted.
    Nimrod leaned closer. “Lad, you have no notion of the plans I’m fighting to derail. Millions of lives will be lost if we don’t stop this war as soon as we possibly can. Himself wants to wipe out the Slavs and the Jews, as if they were so many cockroaches. Have you any idea the toll it would take on the soul of Germany even to attempt such a thing? This nation would never fully recover. And your very American grandchildren would still face the taunt that all Germans are