In war, there are battles fought with bullets.
And battles fought with paper, wine, and ink.
Emil Dufort was beginning to hate the second kind.
The Renault Estate
The chateau of Jules Renault stood on the outskirts of Paris—a sprawling stone manor, flanked by vineyards and motor garages, untouched by shellfire. It was here that the fate of armored warfare in France would be debated over roast duck and Bordeaux.
Henriette looked unimpressed as they were led into the drawing room.
"Their car factory is fifty times our size," she whispered. "Their war contracts a hundred."
"Which is why we need them," Emil replied. "And why they'll resist us."
At the far end of the room sat Jules Renault himself, a lion of French industry with a silver beard, stiff posture, and hands calloused from engines—despite his age.
"Dufort," he said, without rising. "The trench alchemist."
A Dangerous Dinner
Dinner was formal, but barbed.
Jules spoke in half-compliments and veiled threats.
"You've made quite the noise for a forge operator. Steel beasts, roaring up hills. The press loves you."
"So do the soldiers," Emil replied.
"That's not always the same thing."
Wine was poured. Game birds were served. Henriette declined to speak.
Finally, Renault leaned forward.
"Let me be blunt. Your Sanglier is real. And the Ministry is panicking. They need scale, and I can provide it. So here's my offer: Merge. I take over manufacturing, you oversee design. Fifty percent cut of profits, and your factory becomes a subsidiary of Renault Industrial."
Emil chewed once. Then swallowed.
"No."
"Pardon?"
"You don't want to help France. You want to own its future."
"And you'd rather gamble it on a village workshop?"
"No. I'd rather build an army from the ground up. Without parasites."
Renault stood. Cold, precise.
"You'll regret that."
Emil wiped his mouth calmly. "Maybe. But I'll still sleep knowing it's mine."
A New Path
That night, in a cramped Paris hotel, Henriette paced.
"We need an industrial partner. Renault has political reach, steel contracts, and international access. We don't. Turning him down was suicide."
Emil looked out the rain-spattered window. "I won't build a war machine for men who see it as a stock option."
She softened. "So what now?"
"We find a different ally. One who believes in the idea, not just the margin."
"Where do we find one of those?"
Emil turned, a small smirk on his face.
"Belgium."
Across the Border
Emil and Vera departed for Liège, the industrial heart of Belgian steel.
They traveled by disguised freight, using false documents supplied by Colonel Varin. Belgium's official neutrality made such visits risky—but Emil had a contact:
Hendrik DeWitt, an eccentric metallurgist with a private forge and a hatred for Prussian railroads.
DeWitt greeted them in a soot-covered apron, his glasses fogged.
"You're the tank boy?"
"I prefer strategist."
"Fine. Strategist. You want alloy? You want volume? You want treads that won't snap in winter?"
"All of the above."
"Then don't pay me in francs. Pay me in freedom."
"Meaning?"
"When the Germans come, and they will, I want three Sangliers parked in front of my house. Deal?"
Emil shook his hand. "Deal."
DeWitt Steel
DeWitt's steel was a revelation.
Tensile strength off the charts. Resilience under cold stress. And he had a backlog of unclaimed ingots—held in storage because no one trusted Belgian neutrality would last.
With Vera's help, Emil arranged a shadow contract: steel would be shipped under false labels to Leclerc Works via Swiss rail. Payments would be routed through a dummy firm in Marseille.
"This is illegal," Vera reminded him.
"So is losing."
Meanwhile, in Berlin…Across enemy lines, deep in a German testing ground outside Kassel, a different prototype rolled out of a reinforced warehouse.
The Sturmpanzerwagen A7V—an angular metal box with twin machine guns and a low, menacing profile.
General Erich von Stein observed the trial with a hawk's stare.
"They say the French have a boar," he muttered.
"Then this," replied the engineer, "is the wolf."
"Will it be ready by winter?"
"If we double the labor camps."
Von Stein nodded.
"Do it. And find me the man who built their machine. I want to know who I'm hunting."
Return to Normandy
Back in Leclerc Works, Emil returned with new hope and a rail manifest of Belgian steel. But celebrations were cut short.
Henriette stood at the gate, arms crossed.
"Three things happened while you were gone," she said.
"Go on."
"One: We were audited again. They questioned our hiring of 'foreign experts.' Two: A shipment from Bordeaux was intercepted—deliberate sabotage. And three…"
She hesitated.
"Three: Vera received a coded message. German, but addressed to you."
Emil opened the note. The cipher was familiar—one used in their earliest sabotage investigation.
It read:
"You've built your machine. Now build your conscience. War doesn't care who wins. Only who profits."
Below it: the seal of the Abwehr.
Weighing Shadows
That night, Emil met Vera in the blueprint room.
"What do they want?" he asked.
"They're warning you," she said quietly. "Or maybe… recruiting."
"Do they think I'd switch sides?"
"You've built something powerful. Power always gets invitations."
He didn't reply for a moment. Then:
"Burn it."
"What?"
"The letter. The cipher. Every trace. If war has taught me one thing—it's that neutrality is extinction."