The plain south of Zaragoza looked dead.
Not quiet but dead.
Heat shimmered off the dirt roads.
The vines were dry.
The olive trees still there.
A few French scouts thought the Nationalists had withdrawn, maybe even fractured.
They hadn't seen movement for sixteen hours.
Not even patrols.
But Moreau didn't believe in stillness.
Not from Guderian.
He stood beside an overturned cart, binoculars tight to his face, sweat rolling down his back.
"No smoke. No movement. And no retreat trail," he said. "That's not absence. That's camouflage."
Renaud crouched beside him, scanning with field glasses. "You think he's baiting us?"
"I think he's waiting to see who bites first."
Two kilometers ahead, a convoy rolled into view slow, vulnerable.
Six Republican trucks, a fuel tanker, a few motorcycles.
The drivers didn't radio.
They didn't respond to contact signals.
Moreau stared hard. "Republican insignia. But the pace is wrong. Too mechanical."
"They're ours?" Renaud asked.
