(Right, figured you would) Sadly for Rene, he was passed oved in favor of a close fellow to Himmler, Obergruppenfürher Gotlub Berger as Himmler's successor. Meanwhile, Snake squad had found out through its tracking of Rene drew the conclusion that he was becoming increasingly paranoid about being next in the wave of assassinations in France. Mattress Fortress was working, pure and simple. They also found out they weren't the only ones hunting Rene, so they took a break from their hunt to find this "coyote" squad.
The Coyotes prowled the northern French countryside, easily avoiding German patrols while taking the advantages to the tight streets of ruined towns with explosives, demolishing plenty of German soldiers that passed by. Although their identity's were unknown, word about the Coyotes certainly existed amongst the German forces. While not as much as the Snakes, the Coyotes were feared with good reason with their lightning fast raids on Nazi soldiers and vanishing in thin air. The eight of them spent time in Saint-Quentin, a town in Northern France which was hit very hard during the Great War almost thirty years ago. All of them were inside of the train station gathering intelligence from other civilians who were lucky enough not to be harassed by the occupying Germans in a quiet manner. Katz sat at a cafe and was busy drinking coffee, which is where the Snakes would eventually find them.
Ruby had finally gotten a location from a Resistence member, and mext thing he knew, he had stepped into a cafe, a picture hidden in his hand. Looking around, he discreetly double checked the photograph and instantly picked out the man the Resistance member had said was Coyote squad's leader. Walking brisly but no in a way that would attract attention, he slid into a seat opposite of Katz. "The eagle hunts." Ryan said to him, it was Snake swuad's code phrase in case of encounters with other squads so that they would know who he was
Katz nodded in response to the man he knew was from Snake Squad, and that he instantly swapped to English in response. "And the Coyote prowls through the night", Jared replied back with his own generic greeting. "Glad to meet you. As much as I would love to talk, I'm afraid that we need to skip the introductions for now. This isn’t exactly a good place to speak. We can talk after.”
"Meet me here as soon as you can. Bring friends, parties are always more fun with friends" Ryan said befoee placing a folded peice of paper on the table and leaving, going to a remote barn where his squad was hiding. Ryan had his men hang up their "borrowed" German soldier uniforms so that they could explain, then they waited for Coyote squad to show up...
A few hours later, a group of Coyotes went to meet a very specific group of Snakes at the location. The group of soldiers pulled up in a German truck and got out some hundred meters from the barn. How they managed to obtain the truck itself was unknown, but it seemed to have a fairly large bloodstain on the side of the bonnet that wasn't cleaned up. All eight of them jumped out of the truck, Katz coming out from the back with five other men while the two drivers came out from the passenger and driver side respectfully. One of the soldiers carried a bag that contained some clothing, including the Coyotes original uniforms from when they arrived in France.
Ryan heard the truck pull up outaide the barn, and while at first freaked out about transport vehicle, he quickly relaxed as Americans hopped out. Giving a thumbs up to the Snakes, he walked over to the barn doir and opened it. And like how it at first looked like the Coyotes where German because of the truck, all four Snake squad members looked like SS officers on leave , which is why they were chosen, "Ah! Welcome! Hurry up, get that truck out of sight, get in here asap. I'm master sergeant Ryan Herman. We are Snake squad."
One member of the Coyotes drove the truck into the barn while the rest of the Coyotes followed the rest of the Snakes inside. The barn itself wasn't much, any animals that once lived here were now long gone. All that remained of their presence was a collection of hay which had been converted to makeshift beds. In the center of the barn was a table that contained intel involving the targets and actions of German movement. It also involved Resistance actions and movement alongside the Coyotes and Snakes own attacks.
Ryan and the three other Snakes introduced themselvea before Ryan stepped forward, "You are looking at the people responsible for the sniper attack om Hitler and his inner circle. I was the sniper, three shots at about 1,200 yards and 5 casualties." Ryan said, "My comrades and I have been fighting Nazis since Operation Torch, and we are all some of the best snipers in service." Ryan told them, "If I remember correctly, you guys were chosen for your stealth and sabotage abilities?"
"That is correct." Katz responded. "We were selected because of our abilities to sabotage or destroy important fortifications through stealth measures. We are not particularly big on heavy combat, we act small and we are all incredibly mobile. We're trained as infiltrators as well. But we are also key players on assassinations, although not through the means of long range. We play to our strengths, such as placing explosives in a van that's parked nearby an important location and so forth."
Holger nodded, "So you guys use tactics much more pinnable on French Resistance, while our way is pretty much obviously either Allied troops or rogue German soldiers." He nodded slowly before going back to waxing their Volkswagon. Ryan cleared his throat, "Anyways, we are wondering if there is any way we can assist you as command has given us free range over who we choose to attack and when. Right now, we are chasing the same SS oberfuhrer as you. One "Rene"."
"Ah, yes. Rene Schneider, the third most powerful man in France. Genius, charismatic and absolutely fanatical to Hitler, he takes the whole "God-Emperor" worship side of Hitler from the Nazi brainwashing process up to eleven. He makes even the most fanatical of Nazi's look tame in comparison. We kill him and the German power in France should be weak enough for the allied forces to finally commit one final push onto France. If you know what we know, then we don't really need to explain it's importance." Katz responded. "If we want to take Rene out right now, we'll both need to do the deed and maybe get the entire Resistance involved, because we will fail miserably if we don't get their help. Only problem about that idea is that he has around 3,000 elite German soldiers under his disposal conducting searches and acting as bodyguards, nothing short of a small army. We can wait a while as well, but that would give time for Rene to commit more atrocities and consolidate his power in Northern France."
Herman shook his head, "Committing such large resources to one thing is dangerous, it would be easily found and stopped before we even got close. The best assassins are the ones done either by one person or a small group." Ryan nodded in agreement, "Yes, it is best to leave the Resistance out so they can continue their own caimpaign."
"Your right. We were originally thinking of a single assassin to deal with him, but Rene actually knows how to defend himself unlike any of the other SS officers. He's dangerous, and added with the extra 3,000 soldiers he has, it would practically be a suicide mission." Katz replied, thinking to himself for a moment. "We could target any other officer to weaken morale and support before deciding to take Rene out and then follow-.... ....no.....no, they would be expecting us then."
Snake squad looked at each other before chuckling before Ryan pulled out his Gweher 43, "Put us within a mile of him with a clear shot, and we can take care of it from there."
"Or...we could go with that," Katz replied before entering another period of thought. "I'm sure we can think of something" (Time-skip?)
During the next month, the Coyotes decided to play to their advantages and sabotage any German trains and convoys. While destroying trainlines and raiding trucks passing by, the Coyotes decided to head into Germany for a single mission for a sole objective. Blowing up an entire Dam and getting the hell out before too much attention was pinned down on them.
While the Coyotes went off on their own mission, the Snakes stalked their prey, learning his habits and gathering intel on him. At this point, they felt like they were toying with him, as his expectance for an up close assassination made Rene overlook extreme long range possibilities, however he did seem to realize there was the possibility of snipers, as they learned he kept a 750 yard bubble of control around him. But they also noticed his defense force was slowly shrinking, likely higher ups in the German military getting tired of having 3,000 men protecting a man who a single assassination attempt hasn't even been found out about, especially with everyone knowing the Allied invasion was coming soon, but how soon and where was a massive question. So they decided after a month of tracking to break off stalking Rene as their predictions put Rene's bodyguard at only 500 soldiers by the time of May. So, they left, keeping only limited tabs on him as Snake squad began a process of hitting low level officers, striking only those between Unterscharfuhrer/Unteroffizier to Standartenfuhrer/Oberst to make sure inexperienced leaders were on the front lines when the invasion came and only striking at, at least to them, short distances to make it seem like it was Resistance snipers attacking the soldiers.
Somewhere along the Eder River, the Coyotes infiltrated the Edersee Dam that was right in the heart of Germany. While it was previously destroyed only last year by British Lancaster bombers of No. 617 Squadron RAF as part of Operation Chastise, the American Coyotes knew that the rebuilding process was occurring rapidly. In order to help the allied war-effort, the Coyotes were going to ensure that the entire dam would be leveled. Protection of the dam was smaller then they expected, with almost 90% of the soldiers that were stationed there being moved into the two different fronts. This not only ensured for an easy operation then previously expected, but they knew how they were going to make sure that the mission happened successfully. After disguising themselves as German engineers and soldiers, they Coyotes managed to slip directly into the heart of the Dam. The Engineers themselves planted some incredibly powerful bombs into the weakened support areas of the Dam that haven't been fixed since last year. The 'soldiers' were there to ensure that everything went smoothly and to make their cover story that this was official 'state business'. Surprisingly, this worked on almost every guard except the officer himself and was promptly dealt with quietly. The Coyotes got the hell out of the Dam before anybody realized what was happening, detonating the explosives as the entire weakened support structure of the Dam simply collapsed and the entire Dam split into two before dissolving entirely, with the entire Edersee reservoir violently spilling out. By the time that Germany reported about what was going on, the Coyotes had just passed the border into France. The mission was a success.
