[BEFORE THE BOAT - HOURS EARLIER]
I'm standing over Jakub's body when the rage fully takes hold.
Harris is talking. Saying something about moving, about Germans, about getting back to the queue. The words wash over me without meaning.
Jakub is dead.
The machine gun killed him.
And the German crew—
I turn toward the destroyed nest. The grenade killed one gunner. But through the smoke and debris, I see movement. The second gunner. Crawling away from the wreckage, wounded but alive.
The medallion burns white-hot against my chest.
The fragments explode into full clarity—not whispers anymore, but voices. Shouting. Demanding.
Vengeance.
"Rio." Harris's voice, distant. "We need to go."
I'm already moving.
---
The German gunner has made it maybe twenty meters from the destroyed nest.
Wounded—shrapnel in his side, probably. Crawling through sand, leaving a blood trail, trying to reach his lines before death finds him.
I catch him easily.
He hears my footsteps, turns, reaches for a pistol at his belt.
I shoot it out of his hand.
He freezes. Looks up at me. Young. Maybe my age. Blond hair, cold blue eyes, an Iron Cross displayed on his uniform. Professional soldier. Just doing his job.
Just murdered my friend.
"Amerikaner," he says. His English is accented but clear. "You won."
I don't respond. Just stand there, rifle aimed at his chest.
He assesses the situation. Accepts it. "Schnell." Quick. "Make it fast."
"You killed him." My voice sounds strange. Flat. Empty. "The Polish soldier. You killed him."
"I killed many today. War." He coughs blood. "You will kill me. Also war. This is what we do."
"He had a wife. Two children. He was going home."
"Many men have wives. Children. Homes they won't see." The German's voice stays steady despite pain. "You think I wanted this? You think I enjoy killing?"
"I think you're very good at it."
"I am. You are too, I think." He gestures toward the destroyed nest. "Perfect grenade throw. Professional. You have killed before."
"Yes."
"Then you understand. We are soldiers. We kill because we are ordered to kill. Because war demands it." He meets my eyes. "So kill me. Finish it. I am ready."
I should shoot him and walk away.
That's the pragmatic move. The survival move. The smart move.
Instead, I lower my rifle slightly. "What's your name?"
"Klaus Fischer. Oberleutnant." He pauses. "Why do you care?"
"Because my friend's name was Jakub Kowalski. And I want someone to remember that he died killing you."
"Then remember. I will not." Fischer coughs again. "Now shoot me. Please. I am tired of this war."
The medallion pulses hot against my chest. The fragments are screaming for blood. For vengeance. For this German to pay for Jakub's death.
But looking at him—wounded, accepting, just another soldier caught in a war neither of us wanted—I see myself.
Different uniform. Different flag. Same fundamental reality: we're both weapons pointed at each other by people who will never bleed for their decisions.
Fletcher sent me to Warsaw.
Monarch used us as pawns.
And Klaus Fischer followed orders to set up a machine gun that killed the best friend I've had in this life.
We're all victims. We're all perpetrators. The lines blur until they don't exist.
"I could let you live," I say.
"Why would you?"
"Because killing you doesn't bring him back. Because you're just following orders, same as me. Because this war has taken enough."
Fischer laughs—bitter, painful. "You are soft, Amerikaner. That will get you killed."
"Maybe." I raise the rifle. Aim at his chest. "But not today."
I shoot him.
Twice. Center mass. He goes down, tries to speak, can't. Blood bubbles from his lips.
He dies.
And I feel nothing.
No satisfaction. No guilt. No righteous fury or hollow victory.
Just emptiness.
Jakub is still dead. Fischer is dead now too. The math of death adds up but solves nothing.
I turn away from the body and walk back toward Harris.
"What was that about?" he asks.
"Needed to know something."
"Did you learn it?"
"Yeah." I look at Jakub's body one last time. "Revenge doesn't fix anything. But sometimes you do it anyway."
---
Harris helps me carry Jakub's body away from the machine gun nest.
Not far. Just to the dune line where medics are collecting the dead, trying to give them some dignity before burial. We set him down gently among the others.
"He'll be buried here," Harris says. "Or at sea. Depends on when they have time."
"He won't care. He's dead." I take Jakub's dog tags, slip them around my neck beside Davies's. "But his family will care. They'll want to know where he died. How he died. That it meant something."
"You'll tell them?"
"If I find them. If they survived." I pull out the photograph Jakub gave me—Ewa, Zofia, Tomasz. Memorize their faces. "That's my promise to him. Find them. Tell them he died saving hundreds. That his last thoughts were of them."
"That's a good promise."
"It's the only one I can keep."
We stand there for a moment in silence. Hundreds of bodies around us. Thousands more on the beach. The cost of this evacuation measured in lives that won't go home.
"We should get back to the queue," Harris says finally. "Boats are still loading. We're close now. Maybe an hour to evacuation."
"Yeah." I take one last look at Jakub. "Goodbye, młody. I'll remember."
Then we walk back toward the queue, leaving Jakub among the honored dead.
---
We're maybe fifty meters from the water's edge when I see it.
Abandoned kit. British officer's equipment scattered on the sand near a crater. Like someone dropped it and ran when artillery hit.
Something makes me stop. Check it. Some instinct I can't explain.
Among the scattered equipment: a leather briefcase. Quality construction. Locked.
The medallion pulses cold. Warning. Recognition.
I've seen briefcases like this before. Fletcher carried one exactly like it.
"Rio, we need to keep moving," Harris says.
"One second." I break the lock with my rifle stock. Open the case.
Inside: documents. Dozens of them. German letterhead. British intelligence stamps. Photographs that make my stomach turn.
Project Monarch files.
Complete intelligence dossier. Facility locations. Scientist names. Extraction plans. Evidence of coordination between Allied intelligence and Nazi research programs. Proof of everything Élise told me. Proof of Fletcher's conspiracy.
And at the bottom, a note in English: "Deliver to Captain Fletcher, British Intelligence Liaison, Northern France Operations."
This briefcase was meant for Fletcher. Was being carried by someone in his network. Got abandoned when Dunkirk collapsed.
And I found it.
"What is it?" Harris asks.
"Evidence." I'm scanning documents rapidly, memorizing key details. Facility near Metz. Research station coordinates. List of scientists marked for "extraction not elimination." Allied bombing coordinates deliberately excluding certain Nazi installations. "Proof that British intelligence isn't just tracking Nazi research. They're stealing it."
"Stealing what?"
"Everything. Medical experiments. Occult artifacts. Advanced weapons. They're letting the Nazis do the evil work, then taking the results." I keep reading, committing names and locations to memory. "This is what Fletcher tried to kill us for. What Monarch has been doing this whole war."
"If that's true, you can't keep it. They'll kill you for it."
"They'll try to kill me anyway. Fletcher thinks I have evidence from Warsaw. This just confirms it." I look at the documents—hundreds of pages, impossible to carry everything without attracting attention. "I need to memorize what I can. Then destroy the briefcase."
"Memorize hundreds of pages?"
"I've died before. Lived multiple lives. My memory's better than it should be." The fragments are helping, actually—organizing information, creating connections, storing details in ways I don't fully understand. "Give me five minutes."
"Germans could attack. Boats could leave without us."
"Then I work fast."
---
I scan documents as quickly as possible.
Key names: Dr. Viktor Mann. Dr. Heinrich Strasser. Dr. Emil Werner. All marked for extraction. All working on different aspects of Nazi research—medical, occult, weapons.
Facility locations: Research station near Metz. Underground complex in Poland near Auschwitz. Installation in Germany's Black Forest. All protected by Allied policy of selective non-bombing.
Operation names: Project Monarch (overall coordination). Operation Paperclip (scientist extraction). Die Wächter-Münze Program (occult artifact research—specifically mentions the medallion I'm carrying).
And finally, the truth I've suspected but never had confirmed: Fletcher answers to higher authority. A shadowy office in British intelligence. People with names like Colonel Ashford, Director Pemberton, Minister Wallace. People who profit from this war while sending men like Jakub to die.
Five minutes. Maybe a hundred pages. My brain is screaming with information overload but the fragments are helping, organizing, preserving.
Then I close the briefcase.
"Got what you need?" Harris asks.
"Enough." I stand, look at the Channel. Grey water under grey sky. England visible in the distance. "Now I destroy it."
"You sure? Physical evidence is powerful."
"Physical evidence gets me killed. Memory, distributed through resistance networks, hidden in coded letters—that's harder to suppress." I walk toward the water. "Besides, I've got documents hidden in Paris. Copies Jakub and I made. This briefcase is just confirmation."
I wade into the cold Channel water. Knee-deep. Waist-deep.
Then I throw the briefcase as far as I can. It arcs through the air, hits the water, starts sinking.
Evidence destroyed. But knowledge preserved. In my head. In resistance networks. In multiple hidden locations.
Fletcher wants to suppress the truth. But truth is harder to kill than people.
I wade back to shore where Harris is waiting.
"Feel better?" he asks.
"No. But I feel ready." I look toward the queue. "Let's get on a boat. Time to leave France behind."
"And then what?"
"Then I find Fletcher. And I make him answer for Jakub. For Warsaw. For everyone Monarch has used and discarded."
"That's a dangerous plan."
"I'm a dangerous person now."
We walk back to the queue. Join the line that's moved significantly closer to the boats. Maybe thirty minutes to evacuation now.
Around my neck: Davies's dog tags. Jakub's dog tags. Weight of the dead I carry.
In my pack: Monarch documents from Paris, carefully preserved. Photograph of Jakub's family.
In my pocket: Kasia's embroidered cloth—K.N.
Against my chest: The medallion. The Wächter-Münze. Guardian Coin. Die to resurrect. Remember across lifetimes.
And in my head: The complete Project Monarch conspiracy. Every name. Every facility. Every lie. Memorized and ready to expose.
I'm going to England.
I'm going to survive.
And then I'm going to burn Monarch to the ground.
For Jakub who called me młody.
For Davies who died in Warsaw.
For Kasia who might be dead.
For everyone this conspiracy has destroyed.
They think they can suppress truth through violence.
They're wrong.
Because I don't stay dead.
And I don't forget.
---
Thirty minutes later, we wade into the Channel toward a waiting boat.
The same civilian fishing vessel from my memory. The same naval officer coordinating. The same hands reaching down to pull survivors aboard.
Harris, MacLeod, and I collapse on deck among dozens of others.
The boat pulls away from shore.
Behind us, Dunkirk burns. Jakub's body lies among the honored dead. Klaus Fischer's body lies near the destroyed machine gun nest.
And somewhere on that beach, buried in sand or washed out with tide, the briefcase sinks toward the Channel floor.
Physical evidence destroyed.
But truth preserved.
In multiple forms. Multiple locations. Multiple minds.
They can kill individuals. They can suppress documents. They can declare soldiers dead and rewrite history.
But they can't kill an idea whose time has come.
The boat crosses the Channel.
I sit in silence, memorizing names, planning exposure, carrying the weight of the dead.
Harris offers me water. I drink.
Someone asks if I'm wounded. I shake my head.
The blood on me isn't mine.
It never is.
I'm the one who survives. Who carries the dead. Who remembers across lifetimes.
That's my curse. My purpose. My mission.
And I'm just getting started.
---
[PRESENT - DOVER, ENGLAND]
Hours later, we dock at Dover.
White cliffs. British soil. Safety.
The same processing I remember. The same medical personnel. The same officer with clipboard asking for name and unit.
I give the answers mechanically.
Get assigned to barracks.
Walk in a daze toward quarters that will be temporary home until someone figures out what to do with survivors.
In my pack: Evidence that could expose the conspiracy reaching the highest levels of Allied command.
Around my neck: Dog tags of men who died trusting the system that killed them.
In my pocket: Photograph of family I promised to find. Cloth embroidered with initials of woman I might never see again.
Against my chest: Medallion that marks me. That makes me target. That might explain why I remember dying in wars I never fought.
And in my head: Every name. Every facility. Every lie.
Complete. Memorized. Ready.
I reach the barracks. Find my bunk. Collapse onto it.
And despite everything—despite grief and rage and the weight of dead friends—I smile.
Because they think they've won.
They think suppressing evidence and killing witnesses is enough.
But I'm not a witness. I'm not evidence. I'm not someone they can eliminate and move on.
I'm the weapon they can't control.
The soldier who doesn't stay dead.
The soul who remembers.
And I'm going to destroy them.
Tomorrow I rest.
The day after, I begin.
And Fletcher—wherever he is, whatever he's planning—better enjoy his victory.
Because I'm coming for him.
And death won't stop me.
Nothing will.