The first siren is a needle through the dark.
Then the sky rips open.
A Stuka drops out of the clouds and the hangar at Bielin snaps like dry bread.
Fuel drums go up in a stack of black fire, sparks spitting into the wind.
The air tastes like pennies and hot rubber.
A man runs with a hose and disappears in a sheet of smoke.
"Up! Up!" someone yells from the tower.
The radio answers with coughs, then the flat scream of feedback.
"Bielin hit....hangars...."
The sentence cuts off when the glass blows in.
On the road north of the field, engines are already awake.
German bikes flick past the hedgerow in pairs, goggles down, mouths tight.
A half-track eases off the verge to let a column of trucks nose forward.
In the first tank, the commander slides into the cupola, slaps the hatch twice, and leans to the radio.
"All callsigns, confirm green," he says, voice steady.
Green answers crackle in his ear.
He stares across the grey field toward the low black wire that means border.
