Amundson knew, for instance, that a field full of French cows most likely wasn’t mined, but if those cows kept staring at a bush or a hedgerow, there was probably a German hiding there. Their equipment was without a doubt the best. The poor old infantry, down in those Higgins boats, they didn’t get any Starlite goggles, or even body armor. And they were still armed with the M1 Garand, not the brand-new assault rifles with integrated grenade launchers.

But even though he’d been honed to a razor’s edge and was riding at the head of the most powerful cavalry unit ever assembled, Gil Amundson couldn’t help but wonder. Would he crumble when the first bullet zipped past? Would he freeze up over the Landing Zone? Would he fail his men? And would he look like a coward in front of this woman who seemed not to give a damn that they were less than an hour away from certain death?

The chopper banked sharply as the dark sky to the north suddenly filled with dozens of beautiful, sinuous lines of light. Tracer fire. Where the hell had that come from? They’d been told that the air force was going to bomb the coast back to the Stone Age.

He struggled to get a view back to the rest of the squadron, which followed the lead chopper. He heard the copilot calling in a position estimate for the antiaircraft batteries and half expected to see a couple of gunships peeling away to deal with them. But everyone stayed in formation, pressing on toward the objective.

They left the lead elements of the fleet behind them. The only movement on the sea was a rippling crescent of reflected moonlight as they sped on. The pilot’s voice crackled out of a speaker above Amundson’s head. “We’ll be over the coastline in five minutes.”

Amundson looked south as four gunships pulled ahead, their job to rake the ground clear of defenders. When he looked back at the woman, she was talking to Gadsden. Or rather he was yelling something in her ear. She smiled and nodded.