Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 731: Haunted Sands

The corridors of the White House had never felt so long.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt sat alone in the Cabinet Room, the soft ticking of the mantel clock drowning beneath the murmur of rain on the windows.

A silver coffee cup sat untouched beside a spread of dispatches and field reports, each one marked Top Secret and redacted so heavily they looked more like confessionals than documents.

General George S. Patton was dead. Ambushed outside Algiers.

No survivors from his convoy. No enemy bodies were recovered either.

Just a smoking crater, black sand, and a rumor.

Roosevelt adjusted his glasses and reread the communiqué from North Africa.

“Attack believed to be local retaliation, unknown irregular forces, possibly Arab or Berber nationalists. Further investigation ongoing.”

He had read it ten times already, and each time the words felt thinner.

Across the table, Director Donovan of the OSS leaned forward, his voice low but steady.

“Sir, our analysts confirm the engagement occurred well within the secured perimeter. No known insurgent cells operate there. The attackers were organized, disciplined, and vanished before reinforcements arrived.”

“Vanished?” Roosevelt repeated. “What does that mean, Bill?”

Donovan hesitated. “Our men found… no tracks, Mr. President. No casings. The radio operator swears he saw figures moving through the smoke, shapes, not men. Then the line went dead. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a mob.”

Across the room, Chief of Staff Leahy cleared his throat.

“Sir, with respect, the men are rattled. They’ve been fighting ghosts for months. Half the division sleeps with rifles under their bunks. The other half refuse to leave the wire after dark. The locals call them Les Spectres d’Alger. The Ghosts of Algiers.”

Roosevelt’s hands tightened around his cigarette holder. “Superstition.”

“Perhaps,” Donovan said softly.

“But morale is collapsing. Even Eisenhower reported whispers spreading through the officer corps. Some believe the Germans have developed new infiltration units. Others think it’s something else.”

The President’s eyes narrowed. “Something else?”

Donovan slid a thin envelope across the table. Inside were photographs, grainy film from a perimeter camera outside Oran. Blurry shapes, human in outline, moving between bursts of static. Eyes glinted like mirrors beneath strange goggles.

The last frame showed a silhouette crouched over a dead sentry. The sentry’s rifle was still slung on his shoulder.

Roosevelt exhaled slowly. “Have we confirmed these are authentic?”

“They came from three separate installations,” Donovan said. “All before dawn. Same night.”

The room fell silent except for the faint crack of thunder beyond the windows.

Later that afternoon, the president met with his war council in the Oval Office. The air was heavy with smoke and tension.

Across the polished desk, General Marshall reviewed casualty charts while Henry Stimson flipped through the latest intercepts from British Intelligence.

Marshall spoke first.

“Our intelligence liaison in Cairo reports that the Germans still have yet to breach beyond the Mediterranean. The Central Powers are quiet, almost too quiet. Yet our convoys keep getting hit, our depots burned. Whoever’s doing this knows our supply routes intimately.”

“Which means,” Stimson said grimly, “they’re inside already.”

Roosevelt leaned back, his voice barely above a whisper. “Gentlemen, we’ve faced saboteurs before. But this, this feels orchestrated. Deliberate. Almost… psychological.”

Marshall frowned. “With all due respect, sir, I don’t believe in ghosts. But the men do. And fear spreads faster than bullets.”

He laid down a telegram marked Algiers Command – Urgent. The message read:

’Entire 14th Regiment refuses night patrols. Claim enemy attacks without sound or warning. Reports of entire convoys obliterated, down to the last man. Whispers in the dark of their dead comrades begging for salvation. The locals say to burn the bodies.’

The President’s jaw tensed. “Burn them?”

Donovan nodded. “Local superstition. Nothing more, but it just serves to prove our men are not the only ones who think the deserts are haunted by something other than human.”

Roosevelt stared at him, then slowly looked toward the fireplace.

“Gentlemen,” he said at last, “I don’t care whether these things are men or monsters. The United States cannot afford hysteria. Europe is watching. The world is watching. Patton’s death will not become a legend to frighten our own soldiers.”

He turned to Marshall. “Issue a statement: General Patton fell heroically in the line of duty during a local insurrection. Full honors, immediate burial.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then classify every report that mentions these so-called ghosts. From this moment forward, they do not exist.”

Donovan hesitated. “Sir, that may not be possible. The media have already intercepted fragments of our North African transmissions. And… there are broadcasts.”

“Broadcasts?”

“Unauthorized frequencies, sir. Someone’s transmitting from inside the Maghreb. Nightly. They play static, whispers, music, then names of fallen American officers. Sometimes before they’re even confirmed dead.”

For the first time that day, Roosevelt’s expression cracked.”Before confirmation?”

“Yes, sir.”

—

By nightfall, the storm had moved east, leaving the city wrapped in fog.

The President remained alone in his office, with a single lamp burning over his papers. Outside, the Washington Monument loomed pale against the mist.

He stared at the dispatches again, the names, the coordinates, the testimonies of men driven to madness by what they thought they saw.

The “Ghosts of Algiers.” Propaganda, perhaps. Or something far older.

He rubbed his temples. “If this is Berlin’s doing, it’s genius. No bullets, no battles. Just fear.”

But a small voice whispered, what if it isn’t?

The phone on his desk rang. He snatched it up. “Roosevelt speaking.”

It was Marshall again, voice strained. “Mr. President, a new report just came in from the 5th Infantry. A supply convoy disappeared last night near Constantine. Found the trucks this morning. Engines still running. No crew. No bodies. Just…”

He paused. “Just footprints in the sand. Leading east.”

“How many?” Roosevelt asked quietly.

“Hundreds, sir. Barefoot. As if the desert itself walked away.”

Roosevelt closed his eyes. The line went dead.

For a long time, he said nothing.

The lamp flickered. For a moment, the room felt colder. Somewhere outside, a night watchman’s whistle echoed through the fog.

Roosevelt looked toward the window, toward the silent streets of Washington, and thought of Patton, the lion of America, buried in foreign sand.

Maybe the Germans hadn’t killed him. Maybe the dead had simply come to collect one of their own.