Chapter 1 — A Dead Man's Uniform
Lorraine, German-occupied France. August 1944.
The Allied bombers arrived in the afternoon.
Konrad Adler had barely returned to the building being used as a temporary headquarters when the first explosions shook the town.
The windows rattled violently.
Then another bomb struck nearby.
The building trembled, part of the ceiling collapsed, and a piece of debris slammed into the back of Konrad's head.
Everything went black.
When he opened his eyes again, Ryan was looking at 1944.
A German soldier was crouched beside him.
"Hauptsturmführer! Can you hear me?"
Ryan stared at the man.
He recognized the uniform.
He recognized the language.
Then the memories came.
Konrad Adler.
Twenty-eight years old.
SS-Hauptsturmführer.
Company commander.
The memories came all at once, flooding his mind with another man's childhood, training, battles, comrades, and years of war.
Ryan remembered his own life too.
Then he understood.
He had transmigrated into Konrad Adler.
His eyes moved toward the documents lying on the nearby table.
One of them was a transfer order.
His company had once numbered nearly one hundred men.
Only thirty-six remained.
The order was simple.
Return to Germany.
Re-equip.
Receive replacements.
Then transfer to the Eastern Front.
Ryan stared at the final destination for several seconds.
The Eastern Front.
He knew exactly what that meant.
Germany was already losing.
The Soviets were pushing west, and the German army was desperately throwing whatever manpower remained into the collapsing front.
He knew how the war ended.
He knew what happened to Germany.
And he knew what could happen to an SS officer captured by the Soviets.
Ryan folded the order.
He couldn't obey it.
But he couldn't simply refuse it either.
Konrad Adler was a soldier.
An officer.
If he openly disobeyed, he would be executed, and his men would still be sent east.
There was only one way out.
If they couldn't leave the army individually, then the company had to disappear together.
That night, Ryan gathered his thirty-five remaining soldiers.
The meeting took place in an abandoned barn on the outskirts of the town, temporarily used by the company for storage and shelter after the bombing had damaged their previous quarters.
The thirty-six men formed a half-circle.
Ryan stood before them.
"Every communication device."
The men looked at him.
"Radios. Field telephones. Signal equipment. Codebooks. Put everything in the middle."
Nobody asked why.
One after another, they stepped forward.
Several radios were placed in the center.
Then the field telephones.
Signal equipment.
Codebooks.
The pile grew.
Ryan glanced toward one of the SS soldiers standing near the edge of the formation.
"Erich Brandt."
Brandt met his eyes.
Ryan gave him a single nod.
Brandt didn't ask a question.
He walked to the side of the barn, picked up a shovel, and returned to the center.
Then he brought it down on the first radio.
Bang.
The soldiers watched in silence.
He struck it again.
And again.
Metal bent.
Glass shattered.
The communication equipment was destroyed piece by piece.
Brandt moved through the pile without saying a word.
The other soldiers simply watched.
Many of the Wehrmacht replacements were barely old enough to be there.
Germany had become so desperate for manpower that teenagers were being sent toward the front.
They were confused.
Frightened.
They didn't understand what their commander was doing.
But they didn't move.
German military discipline had been drilled into them for years.
Even when they believed their commander was doing something wrong, none of them stepped forward to stop him.
They simply stood there until the last radio was destroyed and the last codebook was thrown into the fire.
When the work was finished, Brandt lowered the shovel.
Silence filled the barn.
Ryan stepped forward into the center of the half-circle.
He looked at his men.
"My brothers."
His voice was quiet.
"My dear brothers, you are the closest people in this world to my heart."
He looked around the circle.
"I would love nothing more than to see every one of you married, with your own children running around your own farm. I want to meet you at night, when we can play games, drink some alcohol, and sleep safely without worrying about enemies creeping toward us in the darkness."
Emotion appeared in several men's eyes.
Longing.
Despair.
Ryan could see it.
War was truly an ugly thing.
He took a breath.
"My brothers, I bring you one of the saddest pieces of news I have ever had to deliver."
The men listened.
"The intelligence we have gathered has confirmed what we feared."
He paused.
"American factories are producing aircraft on a scale we cannot match. Thousands of Allied aircraft are being prepared and sent toward Europe. Their fleets are growing. Their armies are growing. Their supplies are growing."
His voice became heavier.
"On the Eastern Front, our brothers are losing ground and being pushed back every day."
The room remained silent.
"My brothers…"
Ryan looked at every face in front of him.
"The war is over."
His voice cracked.
"We have lost."
For several seconds, nobody reacted.
Then Ryan's eyes began to fill with tears.
He didn't wipe them away.
The men standing before him were doing the same.
They had spent years fighting.
They had watched friends die.
They had watched fathers disappear.
They had believed all of it meant something.
Now their commander had told them that it was already over.
One of the SS soldiers finally stepped forward.
His name was Heinrich Baumann.
Tears stood in his eyes, but there was still a small trace of hope in his expression.
"Company Commander… could the intelligence be wrong?"
Ryan looked at him.
"Could they be trying to throw us into chaos before the final battle?"
Ryan slowly shook his head.
"No, Heinrich."
His voice was tired.
"This intelligence matches what I received months ago."
He looked around the barn.
"This is why we are here. This is our real objective. SS-Jagdverband Mitte was stationed here primarily to confirm this information. Everything else we have been doing — sabotage, reconnaissance, creating chaos — served that purpose."
He paused.
"And now it has been confirmed."
Ryan's voice became quieter.
"We have lost."
He looked at Heinrich.
"Accept it, Heinrich."
He pointed toward the young soldiers.
"The Motherland has nothing prepared to deal with what is coming. We are running low on everything. Men. Fuel. Ammunition. Equipment."
His eyes moved across the Wehrmacht soldiers.
"Look at them."
He pointed toward several of the youngest soldiers.
"They are children."
His voice trembled.
"When I was their age, I was in military academy learning how to operate a mortar."
He clenched his fists.
"We are already running out of men."
His voice suddenly rose.
"What comes next? Do we send women to fight?"
Nobody answered.
"We are fighting against the world!"
His shout echoed through the barn.
"It is only in fairy tales that the righteous always win. It is a fairy tale because that is what people want to hear."
His breathing became heavier.
"Accept reality."
His eyes were filled with tears.
"Our homeland has lost this war."
He stopped.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
The soldiers had already seen the truth themselves.
Every convoy brought more Allied equipment.
More tanks.
More soldiers.
Better supplies.
They could see the enemy growing stronger while Germany became weaker.
They simply hadn't wanted to speak about it.
Because speaking about it meant admitting that their sacrifices, their friends' deaths, and their fathers' deaths might have been for nothing.
Germany was losing.
Ryan finally exhaled.
"Take off your uniforms."
The men stared at him.
"We are disbanding."
The words caused immediate shock.
An SS company commander was ordering his own company to desert.
Fear appeared on the faces of several Wehrmacht soldiers.
They knew what desertion meant.
And they knew that being caught as former SS personnel could be even worse.
Erich Brandt stepped forward.
"Company Commander, this—"
Ryan turned his head.
He looked at Brandt coldly.
For several seconds, neither man moved.
Brandt slowly closed his mouth.
Ryan stepped forward.
Then his expression changed.
"The German race…"
He paused.
"The Aryan race…"
The words came out slowly.
"We believed we were the strongest people in the world. We fought the whole world and believed we could bring it to its knees."
He looked around the room.
"So what if we fail this time?"
Nobody spoke.
"We had only a few decades to prepare for this war against the world. So what if we lose this time?"
His voice grew stronger.
"We will disappear."
He clenched his fist.
"We will rebuild."
His eyes moved from soldier to soldier.
"And one day, we will rise again."
He paused.
"But not today."
Ryan looked down at his own uniform.
"Today, we survive."
He straightened.
"Soldiers, I don't want to see another German die."
His voice became firm.
"This is an order."
He began removing his uniform.
"Take off your uniforms."
The first belt came loose.
"Disappear across Europe."
His jacket followed.
"Go to Spain or italy Go wherever you can survive."
He pulled the uniform from his shoulders.
"Choose new names."
He looked at them.
"Forget the German army."
He paused.
"You have Learned French this past years stationed here."
His eyes hardened.
"From now on, you are Frenchmen escaping the war."
He removed the last part of his military uniform.
"Speak French. Find work. Marry. Have children."
He looked at the men one final time.
"And never look back."
Ryan's voice dropped.
"Today, shame is the stepping stone for tomorrow's glory."
He looked down at the discarded uniform.
Then he stepped away from it.
"Hail Germany."
The words felt strange coming from Ryan.
But they were Konrad's words too.
The SS soldiers gritted their teeth.
Some had tears running down their faces.
Then they began removing their uniforms.
The Wehrmacht soldiers followed.
One by one, the military uniforms disappeared.
They changed into civilian clothing gathered from whatever sources they could find.
Their German weapons were abandoned.
The rifles were too conspicuous.
Instead, they kept a few concealed pistols and captured Allied sidearms.
Weapons they had once looked down upon were now the only weapons they were willing to carry.
Eventually, everyone stood dressed as civilians.
They no longer looked like a German military company.
They looked like ordinary men displaced by a war that had destroyed their country.
The soldiers formed a line.
One by one, they approached Ryan.
They saluted him for the final time.
Some might never see him again.
Some might never survive the journey.
Ryan returned every salute.
Then the men left in groups of three and four.
They disappeared into the night.
Ryan watched until the last group was gone.
Only nine men remained.
Ryan and eight SS soldiers.
They were not merely his subordinates.
They were his friends.
They had attended the military academy together.
They had trained together.
They had fought together.
They had experienced some of the best and worst years of their lives together.
For the first time since the meeting began, there was no military formation.
No orders.
No rank.
Just nine men standing in the darkness.
Heinrich finally spoke.
He no longer called Ryan Company Commander.
"Konrad…"
Ryan looked at him.
"Where do we go now?"
The others looked at him too.
They were lost.
For years, someone had always told them where to go.
Now nobody did.
Max Hartmann was the first to speak.
"Let's go to Ireland."
Kurt Scholz, smoking a cigarette near the wall, glanced at him.
"How are we going to get there?"
Max shrugged.
"Getting there isn't the problem."
He grinned faintly.
"We could steal a U-boat."
A few of the men gave tired smiles.
Ryan shook his head.
"The problem isn't getting there."
He looked at them.
"The problem is living there."
The smiles disappeared.
"We don't speak Irish. We're strangers. Nine German men suddenly appearing in Ireland would attract attention."
He paused.
"We can't disappear there."
Heinrich nodded.
"Then Spain."
Ryan looked at him.
"Spain."
"It's close. It's neutral. And there are already refugees crossing toward it."
Ryan considered the idea.
Then nodded.
"Spain."
He looked at the eight men.
"You have one month."
They stared at him.
"One month to learn spanish."
His voice became serious.
"After that, we forge french documents and cross into Spain as Frenchmen."
He turned toward the exit.
"Start moving."
The men gathered what little they had left.
Nine former German soldiers stepped into the night.
They were no longer soldiers.
They had no unit.
No orders.
No uniforms.
Behind them, the German army continued fighting a war that Ryan already knew was lost.
Ahead waited France, Spain, and an uncertain future.
Ryan knew how the war would end.
He just didn't know what would happen to them before it did.