Chapter 22

-/-/-/-/-/-/-

He was barely across the threshold on the way out of LeClerc's office when four military police shoved his face into the wall and clapped shackles on his wrists. They threw a black bag over his head and marched him away, banging him into things as they went. His senses prickled as they captured details of his surroundings, and soon, he was dodging the door jambs and railings.

It was down the steps and headfirst into a van, where somebody slopped a chemically rag over his mouth and nose, and the world went black.

The world sloshed back and forth. Everything was a screeching hiss and his head was pounding. He moved to rub it through the bag, but his hands were still stuck behind his back. He laid there a while, listening and sensing through the pounding in his skull, but all he picked up was someone sobbing. His senses were pinging, trying to make some sense of the surroundings, when weariness from the endless days and nights overtook him.

Boots smashed into his stomach, sending him scrabbling. Men were yelling and kicking, so he pushed to his feet and braced for the punches. It didn't take long and they were pounding into his stomach, waiting just until he started a breath to pound another in. Over and over, blows smashed his guts till he was choking. Metal screeched and chains ground, and they locked his wrists high above him, pounded more punches into his gut and knees into his thighs, and left.

How many months had he hung like this in Azkaban? The other person in the cell was crying and begging. Draco leaned into the chains and fell asleep to pains shooting up his shoulders.

His eyes fluttered open to numb arms and whimpering. The other man was begging, pleading to no one, cursing The Legion, and offering anything for release. With no better ideas, Draco nodded back off.

Crackling jolts shot into his back and locked his teeth while burning his wrists against the shackles. Men unhitched the chains, and he slid to the floor while the other man screeched and wailed and cried. They kicked him, and he balled up, covering his head against the blows while the other man howled in pain.

After the men left, he pushed his back against the bars and sat cross legged with his face in his hands. There was nothing to do but wait while his ribs and skull throbbed and the other man cried and railed.

He snorted awake to blubbering and scooted towards it. The man jerked when his knee hit the man's thigh. Draco said, "They aren't going to kill you. It's just a test."

"I hate this place! What was I thinking?" It was second lieutenant rule follower. "All I wanted was an education, but the dot-com bubble burst and nobody is hiring."

The crackling swirl of a Wesen woge sounded beside him. The bag was still over Draco's head when the intoxicating pork scent of bauerschwein flooded his nostrils. Drool slicked his face. The man snorted, and said, "This place is hell on earth. Look, they broke my nose."

Draco said, "So resign your commission."

"I can't. They paid for my college. I'm French Army, but they said they'll make me into an unranked legionnaire and send me to Iraq."

"There are worse things, like prison. You'll still have your degree. I'm sure you would advance quickly."

The man was still rambling when boots clattered down the hall. Draco scooted away but the fellow kept talking and talking until the kicking started again. Then, it was back to begging and crying.

An hour later, Draco was dragged down a hallway and then shackled to a metal ring set into a steel table in a small, concrete room. Cameras hung from the ceiling and a mirrored panel was set into the opposite wall. The first man in the door was a captain he had never met, who laid a thick folder on the table and announced that he was now participating in interrogation training. The first question was, what is the purpose of interrogation. Draco answered, "To demonstrate your power by dehumanizing and demoralizing the enemy. Done properly, it saps the enemy's will to resist."

The man quirked an eyebrow, paged through the file, and made a few notes. "So, it says here you have interrogated prisoners before?"

"Yes."

"And tortured them, including women and children?"

"Yes."

The man pinched the bridge of his nose. "In case anyone asks, the only correct answer in The Legion is that we don't torture anyone. It is illegal and will get you thrown in prison. We interrogate prisoners to gain valuable intelligence."

That didn't make any sense. That's what Occulmency, Legilmency, and Veritaserum were for. Of all the reasons he had tortured people, intelligence had never been on the list. "So, you aren't trying to demoralize the enemy?"

"Well," a slight sparkle lit the man's eye, "I don't remember saying that, but let's try again. Why do we interrogate prisoners?"

"To gain valuable intelligence."

"Is torture permissible?"

"Of course not. That's illegal."

They discussed the purpose of the exercise, and with that, the game was on. One after another, men and women trotted in. Some were rude and some were polite. Some were friendly, some angry, and some were stand-offish. Observing their styles, he realized some were very intentional while others seemed more intuitive. Without the specter of violence, resistance seemed like it should have been easier. Of course, the surly trolls and the endless talkers made it easy to clam up. Others, though, were nearly impossible not to talk to. Of course, it would be more... Interesting... if he cheated.

It became a game to see how quickly he could enter their minds and find the thing they wanted to talk about. For one, it was the annual football rivalry match between Auxerre and Troyes. Draco commiserated with the man about Troyes being forced to change their team name because of the stupid super market affair, but it seemed like the team was finally hitting its stride, and might have a real shot next season. He gave the next one congratulations on her engagement two nights prior. She didn't seem to even notice that she hadn't told him. Soon after, the woman was off to the races discussing wedding chapels and honeymoon locations. The next wanted to talk about plans an upcoming artillery exercise. The man kept wringing his hands over the expense of the shells. Draco sifted his mind a bit and reminded the fellow about supply paperwork for storage of left over world war two munitions. Perhaps they could test them, and if still viable, use the training as an excuse to dispose of it via firing.

His stomach was calling, so he scrambled the next trainee into bringing him some lunch. An hour later, he was sitting in a padded desk chair in the front office, signing off vacation requests and approving bereavement paperwork when the captain stopped mid-stride and turned to stare at him. "Recruit Malbec? What the hell are you doing here?"

"Following orders, sir. Apparently, several lieutenants were behind on paperwork."

"What?"

Draco shrugged and waved at the pile. The man looked like he was going to explode. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and stomped off. Half an hour later, Draco was back in the chair, shackled to the table. Now, though, he had a large cup of coffee in front of him. The captain was back, and he was angry. "This is serious business. Our men must be prepared to resist the enemy's efforts."

Draco said, "You saw my file. It's not about if you will break, it is when. Everyone breaks. It's not if they will get inside your head, it's how badly they ruin you."

"You really think that it is impossible to resist a truly determined interrogation?"

He bored into the man's mind and said, "Tonight's exercises, what are your plans?"

"Why would I tell you?"

"Six thousand against three hundred seems like hardly a challenge."

"If you say so."

"Perhaps you'd rather give First Battalion a real challenge rather than using thd penal battalion for their punching bag?"

"That's not the plan."

The corner of Draco's lip perked. "Plans can be changed."

The man leaned back in his chair. "Why would I do that?"

Rapping shook the door. The captain rolled his eyes, and met the sergeant. "It's your wife, sir."

"Don't you see I'm busy?"

"She said it's urgent, sir. Wants to know if you picked up the children from school."

"What the hell would I do with the children? I'm in the middle of an interrogation?"

The sergeant stood in the doorway and waited. With that, the captain left in a huff. Ten minutes later, he was back, pacing back and forth across the room. "Where were we?"

"You were going to adjust the plans for tonight's exercises."

"These things have been planned for weeks. Give me one good reason."

"Sofia certainly favors her mother, but Evie has your nose and eyebrows. Delightful children."

The man leapt at him, his face was flushed with fury, but it was too late. Strips of metal and fabric snared his wrists and ankles and lashed him to the chair. Draco slowly unclasped the shackles, laid them on the table, and rubbed his wrists. He asked the man, "Would you like a cup of coffee or some tea?"

The man's knuckles were white as he struggled and yelled. Banging on the door broke the silence. Draco opened to four military police. The captain yelled at them to release him, but they ignored him. Draco thanked them and they left.

The captain was shaking. It was a test, but the man probably didn't know that. Would the officer reveal his compromised position to command, or would he go along? Draco drawled, "Now, where were we? Yes. Children."

-/-/-/-/-/-

Nights and days slushed into an infinite blur of bailing officers out of jail, marching, classes, fighting werewolves, and ten thousand administrative duties, and then they were stuffing every single possession into their packs, emptying the whole barracks, and piling onto the hard steel benches of transport trucks. The midnight drive rumbled across the countryside before they stopped beside an old stone gate and piled back out.

They marched and ran and dug and hid and fought against ambushes and weariness, on and on and on with packs weighing more than their own body weight. The Farm was supposedly the final exercise before completing basic training. Crawling and pushing through brush and trees and mud, they made their way from a stone wall to a ditch, and scrabbled through to an overgrown hedgerow. The command came across the radio, and Draco prepared them to meet up with another force for an attack.

The tiniest scrap of moon hung high in the sky when they crept into the trees. Silence was impossible for a hundred men humping a mountain of gear, but they moved naturally, like a squirrel or a hare.

The point men signaled back to them, and they split into three groups. The first snuck around a crumbling stone wall and settled into position just inside the brushy margins of a field. The enemy's cigarette smoke wafted past in an acrid haze. The second team snaked from darkness to darkness and concealed themselves in hasty positions behind a barn, tractor, and outbuilding. The last readied their rifles from the weeds along an old ditch bank.

An hour later the head of a snaking formation came into view. Some men fidgeted while others checked their rifles. Knuckles whitened on guns from their positions as more and more men filed past.

Draco's radio clicked three times and he gave the signal. Guns roared and white flashes cut the night. Casualty beacons screamed. The enemy ran to and fro as his men's rifles chopped through the scrum. Men scattered while others fell. A second wave of enemy poured in, guns blazing. Draco signalled and his men fell back under waves of cover fire. A force ten times their own was now after them. They hopped from position to position, neutralizing a few enemy with each retreat.

His forces huddled in defensive positions, ready for the next move. Even as they sniped men breaking away from the main force, more and more massed at the far edge of the field. Rumbling like huge trucks echoed over the tops of the buildings. Suddenly, a dozen attack helicopters popped up directly over his position. Machine guns blasted overhead and mowed the enemy. A few men turned and fired, but the majority fell as their casualty beacons flashed and screeched. Within seconds, the opposing force was reduced by a third. Men were fleeing towards the tree line, scrambling to and fro, fighting each other for concealment within hedgerows or behind rock walls. A whistle blew and the opposing force melted away, but Draco was checking his lines. He moved from position to position, moving out "injured" troops and calming trembling nerves, and preparing them for another counter-assault.

Behind the stone farmhouse, he scratched notes and reviewed intelligence with a handful of sergeants. The men marked a folding map with new bits of information as the radioman relayed each forward team's reports.

The news wasn't good. They had two hundred twenty but even after the attacks, the enemy had resupplied and was up to five thousand. Their assignment was to hold the position until the main force arrived with a second round of close air support. At best, every option they had was bad. What he really needed was a good diversion to throw the enemy off balance. There was one thing, though. The enemy's field leaders were making amateurish mistakes. The enemy was rushing headlong into ambushes, failing to take account for field terrain like stone walls and swamps, and vacilating between foolhardy excessive aggression and dithering inaction. Then the intel he was looking for came in, and he had his opportunity.

He sent a third of the men out to his right and another third to the left. They slowly circled around the enemy encampment and attacked from the rear, invoking heavy losses. Instantly, the chase was on. A huge column of the enemy's forces was after them. Soon, his two teams met in the bottom of an old ditch. With enemy closing fast on both sides, they split up. His team popped smoke grenades amplified by extra powerful concealment and sticking charms and opened fire against both sides of the enemy surrounding them. Guns blazed and casualty beacons screeched as the enemy fought itself tooth and nail inside the fog. His force stole away into the night and regrouped at the farmhouse to find the remaining enemy force gone. Forward scouts reported the main force had performed a giant pincer move and was engaged against their own men. Half an hour later, their gun ships were on the way to begin the attack ahead of the arrival of their main force.

General Hoff arrived with a gaggle of officers and chief sergeants in tow. He scrubbed his hand through his hair when he received the field report. "I'm not sure how you pulled this off, but they're still fighting their own forces. We've decided to see how long it takes for them to figure it out."

He debriefed the command and then escorted the relief to give his men a break. They ate, bleary eyed, without even tasting anything, simply stuffing it down the gullet, bones and all, and then a sleep swallowed them.

The first reds and oranges of the dawn found Draco huddled with the sergeants over a styrofoam cup of coffee and a paper bowl of instant oatmeal. Inside the command tent, the general had been yelling for the last hour. Each time he stopped, the chief-sergeants picked up where he left off. The tent flapped open and they waved him in with his sergeants. Some faces turned beet red while others turned to stone as they drew out formations and troop movements from the prior evening. "You?" the familiar voice of second lieutenant rule follower yelled out. "There was nothing in tonight's exercise plans about a counterattack or attempts to draw our fire."

The general's teeth ground and his knuckles turned white on his clipboard. He motioned a lieutenant colonel over and said a few words. The man marched across the room and stripped the gold bars off of the man's uniform. He coughed and protested, but the colonel silenced him. "If you refuse to learn to lead, the only option which remains is to follow."

Tears filled the man's red face as two military police escorted him out. The general took his place at the front. "No one expects you to instantly have all the answers. As you can see, the opposing force made good use of terrain, confusion, and your own troop movements to create a diversion which baited you into attacking your own men. This sort of thing happens all to easily, but continuing to press the attack until your own forces are in tatters is particularly embarrassing."

He singled out another second lieutenant. "I would like you to meet with your sergeants to examine the various breakdowns in communication and command within your battalion. This evening, report back with several options on what you personally will do differently to avoid attacking your own men, inform other platoons within your command of your position and the situation, and how you could have gotten your own troops out sooner."

He turned to Draco. "What would you have done if the diversion failed?"

"I had a third of my men in reserve behind an old stone wall just inside the tree line ready with machine guns and mortars to cover our retreat."

"And you were in communication with them?"

"Yes sir, with prearranged signals, as well as my point men and field command, so that we all knew who was who and where we were."

One of the colonels gave him two tasks to review with his sergeants before moving down the line.

The general pointed to another young officer. "Did you know you had sixty enemy directly behind your position, ready to attack?"

The man swallowed hard and stuttered out a negative reply. "But command..."

The General waved him off. "Combat is fluid. Command relies on you personally for reports and intelligence pertaining to field conditions and enemy troop movements. I would like you to work with your sergeants on deploying effective sentries and point positions to keep you aware of developments in your immediate vicinity."

An hour later, Draco was chewing over half a dozen assignments for his own learning opportunities while on the march with his men.

Men asleep on their feet fell out of formation. Others balled up and cried each time they stopped. Many simply developed a heavy-lidded stare.

More attacks came day and night. Front and back. Ambushes tore through their rear guard, all too often roaring in during the lull after midnight. Each time came more debriefings and assignments from the command.

It was his job to keep everybody up and going. To make sure they jumped into position to challenge the attack and make effective retreats. To reassure the men and keep them off the edge. While he was free to help patch up injuries, the only prohibition LeClerc had drilled into him over the last month and a half was no mind control. Their bodies were fit. This was a test of their fortitude, and ability to cope with stress. The only thing that kept him moving were the visions of the men he lost to ministry ambushes. Waxy faces begging him to take care of their wives and children, crying as their blood leaked through his fingers, and then turning to grayish clay when the end came.

They had been marching along old stone fence lines for hours when the crack of apparition sounded beside them. The men scrambled and took defensive positions, but a voice beckoned. "Chef-sergeant!"

LeClerc marched over, and gave the command. "Attention! General on deck!"

The men loped out of their positions and fell into the squared parade formation.

General Hoff marched up and down the line and addressed the group. "Legionnaires, we are at war. The United States of America was attacked today. The World Trade Centers in New York were destroyed and the Pentagon was bombed. Your training is officially over. Meet the bus over the hill. Get your uniforms ready. You will receive your kepi tomorrow.

The men let out a cheer and galloped off. New energy filled them as they ran the mile to the transport trucks and piled in.

-/-/-/-/-/-

Rows of long tables clad in white linen spread out before them like a holiday dinner in Hogwarts. They streamed in, single file, in their perfectly starched and creased dress uniforms. Each of them filed through and settled into his appointed place.

Glasses of wine came out, and then appetizers, plates of roast beef, chicken, and pork, roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes and gravy, dozens of desserts, coffee, dessert wine, and liquors.

Now came time for presentation of the kepis. They lined up single file and passed The General, who shook each man's hand and laid the white hat on his head. When Draco came to the steps below the stage, LeClerc sidled up next to him, and whispered, "This way."

His stomach knotted as he was escorted to the kitchen, and they waited and waited and waited while the wait staff bustled around them. Empty plates and trays full of dirty wine glasses passed by. Last of all, waiters pushed large rolling carts full of table linens past.

LeClerc must have received a signal. He brought Draco to the kitchen door, escorted him into the empty hall, and then disappeared. General Hoff met him there with the other that attended his trial. They sat him down at a table and poured brandy into round glasses. The first general took a sip and spoke. "You did well. You made it to the end, but we could have pushed you just as hard for another week and you would have finished."

The second general picked up. "This situation with The Americans has us concerned. We're going to war, we just don't know against who or where. The men trust you. They naturally follow you."

"It was an interesting test out there to see the morale improvement when they knew you would patch them up. Less of them got injured. Same with the mind control. They pushed harder without it."

"We would never have told anyone, but you finished the seventy-two kilometer hike four days ago. At our direction, you led the men another hundred forty while facing ambushes and obstacles."

Draco nodded. His spirits were raising.

The first general tipped up his wine glass. "Unfortunately, France is bound by a number of treaties. Because of your status as a convicted war criminal, we cannot legally offer you either rank or promotion."

Draco's heart sunk into the pit of his stomach. Everything he had worked for was slipping through his fingers. Escape flashed through his mind, but he beat down all emotion down behind his mental guards while he stared into his wine glass.

The second general put a hand on his arm. "There is a loophole, though, and war brings opportunity. Are you interested in hearing more?"

Draco brought the wine glass to his lips and sipped. It was sweet, smooth, and fruity on his tongue, an easy drinking Beaujolais. "Yes, mon generals. I am interested."

"We thought you would be. Here is the offer. You will volunteer to go to war with The Legion, and serve the remainder of your five year commitment as an officer attached to the Joint forces wherever The Americans decide the war will be. This will be a combat role, leading Legionnaires in the field."

Draco watched. They were clearly waiting for him to ask, so he did. "And the loophole?"

"While we cannot grant you a commission or rank, there is an ancient regulation allowing French Nobility to purchase a commission and rank. This requires a command general's sponsorship."

He quirked an eyebrow, French nobility was eliminated during the French Revolution. The second general continued. "We understand your family maintains hereditary estates in France, as well as the titles that go along with them. If your family granted you the nobility, say a baron or a viscount, and the estate that goes with it, that would qualify. Second is the sponsorship."

General Hoff smiled. "I will agree to sponsor you. The price of the commission is set in the ancient regulation as seventeen thousand five hundred galleons, gold, payable to the exchequer of the Foreign Magical Legion. So, take your five days leave, talk it over with your family, and meet me in my office, first thing next Wednesday with your answer."

"And if I am able to arrange all of this in five days, and agree, when would I start my officer training?"

"As luck would have it, the next class of cadets begins next Thursday."