The first sign was not an explosion, but an absence.
In Liberec, the church bells did not ring at dawn.
The clock tower stood silent, hands paused at five-thirty.
In the gray light, shopkeepers pressed their ears to the radio, searching for familiar music, but finding only static then a German voice, reading the hour with precise, foreign consonants.
Petr Novák sat upright on his bunk at the barracks.
He blinked in the cold, wondering if the dream had followed him into waking columns of trucks crawling over the hills, their engines muttering like distant thunder.
In the command office, Captain Veselý stood at the telephone, listening for a line that would not answer.
The general's voice came through at last, thin and tinny.
"Any word from the north?" Veselý asked.
A pause.
Static.
Then.
"Nothing since midnight. Reports of armor moving on the Jablonec road, but no confirmation."
Veselý's hand tightened on the receiver. "Orders?"
