A whistle cut through the night air just before the wire snapped.
Two men crouched beneath the bridge at Zdice, sweat freezing on their brows.
The explosives didn't detonate the line didn't carry ammunition, only timber but the message was sent.
Inside the War Ministry's night office, General Krejčí looked at the telegram without expression.
"Who authorized this?"
His aide, a captain barely thirty, didn't look up. "No one, sir."
Krejčí tapped the table.
Then said, almost to himself, "So it begins."
In a cellar beneath Vinohrady, seven men and three women met by candlelight.
They had no uniforms.
No arms.
No leader.
But they had names.
Lists.
Locations.
A map of printing presses, safe houses, and one shortwave transmitter they'd scavenged from a derelict airfield.
They called themselves S13 after the thirteenth article of the Czech constitution.
The Republic shall defend its democratic form.
They didn't speak of war.
They spoke of preparation.
