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CHAPTER ONE

June 7, 1944

Nearly two days into the D-Day invasion of Normandy Beach, newly promoted Army Ranger Major Garrett "Coop" Sinclair stood atop Pointe du Hoc with the sun setting behind an American flag snapping in the stiff breeze.

Coop's youthful face was smeared with mud and camouflage on top of three days of beard stubble. His tired eyes stared into the horizon of the undulating Normandy Peninsula as a line of German prisoners, hands laced over their Stahlhelm helmets, walked under guard just beyond the casement Coop's Rangers had captured.

Second Ranger Battalion Commander Lieutenant Colonel James Rudder approached with a young Frenchman in tow.

"The 505th paras are having a hard go of it a few miles from here," Rudder said. "This is Marius. He's with a resistance group that was tasked with guiding us, but he says there're some women and children in trouble up the road. Take five men and go see what's happening. Then come back or we'll come to you, whichever makes sense."

The eager-eyed Frenchman was maybe sixteen years old. He was wearing a black beret and gray herringbone coat. His leather shoes looked ill-suited for the task of guiding Rangers through German defenses. When Marius pointed west, a rhombus-shaped black tattoo flashed inside the wrist of his right hand. It was the same insignia turned on its side, like an elongated baseball diamond, that Coop and the other Rangers wore on the sleeve of their uniforms. The Rangers had been briefed they would be linking up with resistance members and that they should look for the Ranger rhombus-shaped tattoos that signaled they were talking to bona fide allies.

"Rapide! Rapide!" the man said.

"Cool it, Frenchy," Coop said, then to Rudder: "Sir, we're barely hanging on here. If I take five of my men things will get even more dicey."

As if to emphasize Coop's point, machine-gun fire chattered nearby, snapping overhead with white arcs of German tracers etching against the muted purple hues of dusk. Waves of Allied troops continued to pour onto Utah and Omaha beaches below Coop's position.

"We've got this, Coop. If we can't save women and children, what's the point? Now get moving," Rudder said.

"Roger that, Colonel," Coop replied. He'd made his protest and now would follow his commander's orders.

Explosions from the naval artillery blanketing the coastline rumbled. The ground shook. Someone yelled, "Incoming!" and Coop grabbed Marius and dove to the ground, shrapnel whizzing like angry hornets.

"Can't show us the way if you're dead," Coop grumbled.

"Je suis pierre-tranchant," Marius said, holding up his wrist with the tattoo and pointing at the small black rhombus. "La pierre est tranchant."

"Rudder said you're good to go, but thanks for that. Yes, the stone is sharp," Coop said in reply to Marius' offering of bona fides. The planning in Titchfield, England, had called for French resistance members to etch a small Ranger rhombus henna tattoo on the inside of their right wrist and use the phrase "The stone is sharp" when linking up with the Rangers. The French liaison suggested this because the Ranger insignia looked like a "sharp stone."

Coop pulled Marius by his trench coat the way a coach tugs a quarterback into a sideline huddle. He eyed his gaggle of twenty men and gathered his five nearest Rangers, who were cleaning their M1 Garand rifles and licking the inside of combat ration cans, commonly known as "c-rats."

"Special mission, men, let's go," he said. They reassembled their weapons and grabbed their gear without complaint. They had survived the climb up Pointe du Hoc and most likely considered themselves invincible or lucky or both. Coop tucked in behind Marius, who hurried them along a trail that kept the assault on Utah Beach to their immediate rear and right flank. Marius' shoes didn't seem to be an impediment as Coop and his men began running to keep up with the worried Frenchman.

"Rapide! Rapide!" Marius whispered over his shoulder, loud enough for the men to hear.

It was the second night of the invasion. Coop and his men had been operating continuously. Artillery rained down. Naval ships bombed the coast without precision. Machine-gun fire chattered. Lead pinged off thousands of landing craft in Seine Bay, which fronted Normandy Beach, sounding like a symphony from hell.