“Certainly, mein Herr—Company C, Twelfth Regiment of the Imperial Confederation, at present on garrison duty in the city of New York—”
“How the devil did you land?”
“We’ve been here for months awaiting orders—”
He saw the terrible truth in a flash. The secret agent of Imperial Europe had organized a royal army and armed them at his leisure, Villard acting under Waldron’s guidance. The six months’ delay in the meeting of the Pan-American Congress was made for this purpose. They were all trained soldiers. Their officers had landed during the past three months. The Peace Jubilee was the mask for their movements in every great center of population.
At a given signal they had blown in the doors of every armory in Greater New York, disarmed the National Guard and mounted machine guns on their parapets.
In ten minutes machine guns were bristling from the corners of every street leading to the captured armories.
It was a master stroke! There were at least a million aliens, trained soldiers of Northern and Central Europe, living in the United States.
A single master mind could direct this army as one man.