The doors to the Tyrolean War Room opened with a hydraulic sigh, the sound swallowed by the low thrum of generators beneath the Chancellery complex.
Bruno stepped inside wearing his formal field-gray uniform, Not gilded. Not ceremonial. Just the uniform of a man who had work to do.
Officers rose instinctively.
He waved them down with the smallest flick of two fingers.
"Sit. What do we have?"
The room was cold; the air recycling system always made it so. Teleprinters clattered along the far wall, feeding out lines of battlefield updates from Manila and its surrounding districts.
An aide hurried forward with a fresh packet of reports, each page still warm from the machine.
Bruno took them, scanning without expression.
"Initial airborne deployment successful," one officer summarized. "Oberleutnant von Zehntner's battalion is dispersed but operational As is the brigade it is attached to. They secured three intersections in the Sta. Mesa district."
