"Why the-dickens not?" She wanted to say something hotter than that, but feared it would do her more harm than good.

"I am not obligated to discuss the Reich's policies with those affected by them. I am obliged only to communicate them to you," Hoppe said primly.

Fuck you, Charlie. Peggy didn't say that, either. A few years earlier, she would have. Maybe she was finally growing up. She rolled her eyes. She didn't think Herb would believe it. That made her roll them again. God only knew when-or if-she'd see her husband again.

She tried a different tack: "Okay, you're not obligated. Could you do it because you want to, or because it'd be a civilized kind of thing to do?"

Yes, she'd throw that in Hoppe's face. And his sallow cheeks did turn red. Russians got ticked off if you called them uncultured. Germans were almost as bad. A lot of them had an inferiority complex about France and England. And, oddly, that had got worse since Hitler took over. It was as if the Nazis were uneasily aware of what a bunch of bastards they were, and embarrassed when somebody called them on it.

"I believe…" Hoppe's voice trailed away. A little muscle under one eye twitched, the only visible sign of what had to be a struggle inside him. Human being against Nazi functionary? Peggy knew which way she would have bet. But she would have lost, because the Foreign Ministry official went on, "I believe it is to keep people from blaming the Reich for disrupted schedules when those are not of our making."

Who sank the Athenia? Peggy wondered again. But Hoppe would only deny it one more time if she threw it in his face. If Goebbels was saying the British had done it, that was Holy Writ inside the Third Reich. Hoppe probably believed it himself, even if it seemed like obvious horse manure to Peggy.

"Well, suppose I sign a pledge that says I won't be offended?" Peggy proposed. "If I badmouth you in the papers or anything, you can haul it out and tell people what a liar I am."

He shook his head. "No. That is not good. You would claim you signed the document under duress. We have experience with others who prove ungrateful after going beyond our borders."

And why do you suppose that is? Peggy knew goddamn well why it was. Konrad Hoppe seemed not to have the faintest idea. That he didn't-that so many like him didn't-was one measure of modern-day Germany's damnation.

"I really wouldn't," Peggy said. Honest! Cross my heart and hope to die! She would have promised anything and done damn near anything to escape the Reich. If he'd propositioned her, she wouldn't have loosened his teeth for him. She wouldn't have come across, but still…

"I am sorry. I have not the discretion to permit this." Now Hoppe did sound as if he might mean it, anyhow.

"Who does?" Peggy asked. "Ribbentrop?"

"Herr von Ribbentrop may have the authority." Konrad Hoppe stressed the aristocratic von, which the Nazi Foreign Minister, as Peggy understood it, had bought. "He may, I say."

"He's the head of the Foreign Ministry, right?" Peggy said. "If he doesn't, who does, for crying out loud?"

"Above the Foreign Minister-above everyone-is always the Fuhrer." Hoppe pointed out the obvious.

"Oh, my aching back!" Peggy burst out. "How am I supposed to get Hitler to pay attention to my case? There's a war on."

"I am afraid I can offer on that score no suggestions," the Nazi bureaucrat answered. "If you will excuse me…" He bowed once more and walked out without waiting to see whether Peggy would excuse him or not.

She thought about getting on the train for Denmark even if the Foreign Ministry said she couldn't. She not only thought about it, she headed for the station.

She presented her ticket. Then she had to present her passport. The conductor-he wasn't quite a conductor, but a more prominent kind of official, with a uniform a U.S. major general would have envied-checked her name against a list. As soon as he did that, she knew her goose was cooked. Damn Teutonic thoroughness anyway!

His Toploftiness looked up from the sheet of paper. "I am sorry, but for you travel is verboten," he said.

"It's not fair! It's not right!" she squawked.

The railroad official shrugged. "I am sorry. I can about that nothing do. I do not the orders give. I only carry them out."

"Right," Peggy said tightly. "What am I supposed to do now?"

"Go back to your hotel," the man replied. "Wait for German victory. It will soon come. Then, I have no doubt, you will be able where you please to travel. Although, since you are here in the Reich at this world-historical time, why would you anywhere else care to go?"

Peggy could have told him. She came that close-that close-to doing it. In the end, she held her tongue. Yeah, maybe she really and truly was growing up. Or maybe-and more likely-the Gestapo could scare the bejesus out of an immature person, too. VACLAV JEZEK LOVED HIS NEW antitank rifle. The damn thing was long and heavy. It kicked like a mule. The round it fired was as big as his thumb. Despite that, it wouldn't penetrate all the armor on a first-rate German panzer. But against side or rear panels, it had a good chance of punching through. Then it would do something nasty to the men inside the metal monster, or maybe to the engine.

He didn't like the way he'd got his hands on the antitank rifle. The Frenchman who had lugged it around lost the top of his head to a bullet or shell fragment. He wasn't pretty when Vaclav found him. He'd bled all over the weapon, too. Now, though, you could hardly see the stains.

Somebody moved in the bushes a few hundred meters ahead. Jezek swung the rifle in that direction. It shot nice and flat out to a kilometer and more. What you could see, you could hit, and what you could hit…Using the antitank rifle against a mere soldier was like killing a flea by dropping a house on it. Vaclav didn't care. He wanted Germans dead, and he wasn't fussy about how they got that way.

Czechs and Frenchmen and a few Englishmen were all intermingled here. They shouldn't have been, but the latest German drive had thrown the defenders in the Ardennes into confusion. Jezek had seen that in Czechoslovakia, to his sorrow. After a panzer thrust pierced the line you were trying to hold, you had to scramble like a madman to piece together a new one farther back. And the Germans were still pushing forward, and shelling you, and bombing you…

"Anybody have more clips for the antitank rifle?" he called in Czech. He could have said the same thing in German, but it probably would have got him shot. He didn't speak French or English.

But one of the French noncoms assigned as liaison to the Czechs translated for Vaclav. The man's Czech was none too good, but he spoke French fine. And a couple of soldiers coughed up the fat clips Vaclav needed.

"Thanks," he said as he stowed them in a sack on his belt-they were too big for standard ammunition pouches.

"Any time, pal. I bet I've hated the Nazis longer than you have," the sergeant said. He had a slight guttural accent, curly auburn hair, and a formidable plow of a nose.

Another Jew. They're fucking everywhere, Jezek thought. The guy named David was back of the lines with a bullet through his leg right now. He'd get better. Whether the line would wasn't so obvious.

"I wouldn't be surprised," Vaclav said aloud. This fellow wouldn't duck out of the fight the way the damned Slovaks did, anyhow.

German 105s started tearing up the landscape a few hundred meters off to the south. Nobody in Vaclav's bunch even flinched. That wasn't close enough to worry about. The noncom said, "Maybe there'll be some cows down, and we can get ourselves fresh beef."

"Or pork." The words came out of Vaclav's mouth before he thought about them.

He didn't faze the noncom in French uniform. "I've eaten it," the guy said. "Beats the crap out of going hungry."