Chapter 575: Return to Order
Navarre, near Tudela; dusk.
A dusty wind tore across the old Roman road, rattling shutters in whitewashed hamlets and carrying the faint reek of burnt hay.
Two covered trucks crawled along the ruts, their black-painted flanks bearing no insignia.
Only mud-caked license plates and a sullen cluster of local Guardia escorts gave any clue they were official at all.
Inside the lead truck, under a canvas rig, wooden crates stenciled with blocky Gothic script were wedged tight in straw.
Rifles, submachine guns, sealed tins of 8mm Mauser rounds; all still slick with factory grease from somewhere east of Vienna.
A broad-shouldered German in a drab field tunic watched the countryside slip by. Ernst Röhm’s wolves had arrived.
He ran a finger over the silver wolfsangel badge on his collar, then adjusted the riding crop across his knees.
Beside him, a wiry Spaniard in the faded green of a Guardia lieutenant lit a cigarette with trembling hands.
"Señor Hauptmann," he rasped, exhaling a ghost of smoke, "the governor in Zaragoza... he does not know you are coming. If the Cortes learns foreign companies march through Aragon — "
"Then remind him," the Werwolf officer cut in quietly, his accent grinding each Spanish syllable, "that it is either foreign rifles, or Barcelona’s syndicalists with their French coin and French slogans. If he prefers red banners in the Plaza del Pilar, we can turn around."
The Spaniard swallowed, nodding, smoke curling between sweat-streaked temples.