The celebration was brief.
Three days after the Sanglier Division's victory at Hill 119, Emil Dufort returned to Leclerc Works to find the gates flanked not by guards, but by inspectors—Ministry men in grey wool coats, notebooks in hand, and eyes that searched for weakness.
"Inspection orders," one barked.
"Inspection for what?" Emil asked.
"Safety. Scalability. Transparency."
Henriette appeared beside him, arms folded, fury flashing behind her glasses.
"Funny how they never inspect the Schneider plant," she whispered.
"That's because Schneider built the war," Emil replied. "We're just winning it."
Time, the Enemy
Inside the factory, the mood had shifted.
The clang of hammers still rang, and furnaces glowed red-hot, but tension crackled like static. Workers spoke in hushed tones. Vera stood in the blueprint room, watching the inspectors through slitted blinds.
"They've already made copies of the Sanglier Mk II design," she said. "One of them mentioned 'central archives.'"
Bruno growled from a nearby workbench. "Let them copy the shape. They'll never copy the soul."
Emil ran a hand over his forehead. "We need speed. Steel. Manpower. And silence."
Henriette handed him a folder.
"You have ten days to deliver two fully functional Sanglier units, or the government will assume breach of contract."
"We don't have enough tempered alloy for the hulls," Bruno said.
"Then we reforge scrap," Emil answered.
"And what about payroll?" Henriette added. "We can't keep feeding people promises."
"I'll sell the vineyard."
Everyone turned to look at him.
"My family's vineyard in Tôtes," he clarified. "It won't win this war. The Sanglier might."
Return of the Rat
That night, in the quiet corridors of the factory dormitories, a figure crept along the walls. He wore a worker's uniform. No one looked twice.
He made his way to the communications office, where encrypted telegrams were received and logged. He removed a folded page from his coat, scrawled in clean, German shorthand.
"Sanglier production behind schedule. Second prototype showed increased reliability. Sabotage of engine line possible without detection."
He slipped it into the outgoing bin, concealed beneath official logistics.
He left the room whistling a worker's tune.
He had been there for weeks.
The Schneider Ploy
Meanwhile, in Paris, Jacques Delmare—the silver-tongued executive from Schneider & Cie—stood before the Armament Committee.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the Sanglier has demonstrated tactical promise, yes. But a boutique factory cannot support a national campaign. Schneider offers production lines, supply chains, experienced labor—"
"And no results," came a voice from the back.
It was Colonel Varin, arms crossed.
"Schneider's designs haven't passed a single trench test. Dufort's machines breached the enemy in eleven minutes."
Delmare smiled thinly.
"Yes, but at what cost? That young man plays a dangerous game. War requires predictability, not visionaries."
Eyes on Vera
Back in Normandy, Vera Klein began her own investigation. The pattern was familiar—small errors, missing bolts, misfiled parts—but it was accelerating.
She confronted Henriette in the accounts office.
"Three requisition orders were signed by a ghost. No clerk remembers filing them. The signatures match yours…almost."
Henriette scanned the copies. "Forgery."
"And the engine coolant failure on the Mk II?" Vera continued. "It was deliberate."
Henriette blinked. "But we fixed that."
"Yes. But only because we found it early. This is escalation."
"Any suspects?"
Vera didn't answer.
Because the truth terrified her.
She had seen the forger once. Months ago. In Strasbourg. In the Abwehr archives.
A Test of Trust
Emil met Vera that night in the blueprint room.
She laid it out cold.
"There's a mole. Experienced. German. Embedded before the first Sanglier test."
"Do you know who?"
"Not yet. But I know how to draw him out."
"How?"
"We fake a prototype. Spread blueprints with false specs. Leak word of a new explosive system—volatile, unstable. And we wait."
Emil stared. "That's dangerous."
"So is losing this war."
"What if they sabotage the fake and kill people?"
Vera's jaw clenched.
"Then we feed the rat the wrong cheese."
Operation False Fire
Three days later, the Sanglier Mk III "prototype" was introduced.
It was impressive—on paper. A revolutionary internal combustion system, armor-piercing flares, an experimental cannon that could allegedly pierce bunkers.
Emil made sure it was paraded before the workers. Inspectors "accidentally" photographed the blueprints. And rumors were whispered among factory hands that the Germans would never survive it.
They gave it a night.
The sabotage came precisely on schedule.
A section of the false Mk III's coolant system was torn open and doused in nitric acid—designed to explode on engine ignition.
Bruno found it first.
"This was surgical."
Emil nodded. "So was the trap."
The Trap Closes
That night, Vera followed the signal.
The mole returned to the communications office, confident in his damage. But this time, the message was intercepted. Vera stood behind him, pistol drawn.
"Hands in the air, Herr Fuchs."
The man turned slowly. It was Étienne, one of the warehouse clerks. He had worked there since April. Ate with the men. Smiled at Camille. Flirted with the nurses.
"This is a mistake," he said in flawless French.
"No," Vera replied. "This is treason."
Emil and two guards entered. Étienne lunged—too late. They brought him down hard. Vera searched his coat.
Inside, a cipher wheel. A wax-sealed envelope. A German military badge.
Emil exhaled.
"Get him to Varin. Quietly."
Aftermath and Doubt
The next morning, the factory was tense but relieved. Workers murmured about the arrest. Some were shaken. Others vindicated. Henriette stood in the sunlight with her ledger.
"We've halted the bleed. But orders are stacking up."
"So is pressure," Emil replied.
He looked at the newest production roster. The numbers weren't lying.
Four Sangliers ordered per month. No overtime pay. No additional rail contracts.
They were building miracles under siege.
A Letter from the Front
Then a letter arrived. No name. No unit. Just scrawled on dirty parchment.
"We saw it. We saw the machine. It came through the mist like a god. It bought us time. It saved lives. Tell the man who built it: we lived because of his machine."
Henriette handed it to Emil.
"That's why we keep building."