The map was lying.
It showed arrows.
Blue for Republicans, red for Nationalists.
It showed roads, elevations, depots.
What it didn't show were the fires still burning in the fields where towns used to be.
It didn't show the bodies slumped in ditches, tied at the wrists.
It didn't show the smoke rising up from bombed water towers.
Guderian didn't look at maps anymore.
He looked at details.
Every morning, at 0400, a French PAP team passed through a dry gully southeast of Lécera.
Every evening, at 1830, a supply column refueled under the cover of an abandoned schoolhouse, ten kilometers north of Teruel.
And every third day, a gap appeared just a sliver where the French moved too fast to replace its own shadow.
Guderian aimed to slip into that gap.
"Phase III begins now," he told his men.
"We stop hunting his doctrine. We let it lead us to his blood, to his backbone."
That same night, Moreau climbed from a foxhole and adjusted his headset.
