She stubbed hers out while it was only half done-a rare thing in Spain these days. When she spoke again, she came straight to the point: "What do you want from me?" She knew what she'd done. Oh, yes.

"A little understanding would be nice," Chaim said.

"What do you mean, 'understanding'? If you think I'll be your mattress or suck your stupid cock, I'd sooner cut my throat." She sure as hell did come straight to the point.

"No, no, no," Chaim said, thinking Yes, yes, yes! He went on, "I was talking about politics. I didn't mean any harm when I said what I said, any more than you did just now. I don't think I should get in trouble for it."

"Oh. Politics." The way La Martellita said the word, it sounded more obscene than cocksucking. She drummed her fingers on the rickety little table she used for a desk. "Can you try not to talk about your own so loudly when you're not reeducating the Nationalists?"

It was like getting sent out of the confessional with a penance of three Our Fathers and five Hail Marys. "I'll try," Chaim said. He didn't even have to promise to do it.

"All right. Get the fuck out of here." La Martellita wanted to pretend she'd never had anything to do with him.

"Tell me your name first."

He would sooner have faced Nationalist artillery than her glare. "Magdalena," she spat. "Now get the fuck out of here."

"See you again, I hope," Chaim said.

"That makes one of us," she said, and for once he quit while he was ahead and got out. PETE MCGILL STOOD SENTRY OUTSIDE the American consulate in Shanghai. Because he wore two stripes on his left sleeve, he commanded the two-man detachment out there. He could have done without the honor. Shanghai was a good bit south of Peking. You couldn't have proved it by him, not this freezing early December morning.

"Fuck, it's cold," he muttered.

"Bet your ass," Max Weinstein agreed. They both spoke with barely moving lips. No one more than a few feet away would have had any idea they were talking. They were there to look impressive, and they did that. Like convicts, they managed to go back and forth without letting the outside world notice.

There wasn't much outside world to notice. Shanghai wasn't used to this kind of godawful weather. Hardly anybody was on the streets. The people who had to go out bundled up in all the clothes they owned. A lot of them seemed to be wearing two or three people's worth, and to be freezing even so. Inside his thick wool coat and tunic and trousers, Pete felt himself slowly turning into a block of ice.

"Liable to be fires in the Chinese part of town," he said. That was something over ninety percent of Shanghai, but he didn't think of it that way. "They'll throw anything that burns onto the brazier."

"Sure they will. And they live in those crappy little houses that go up like billy-be-damned, too," Max answered. "They're the exploited ones."

Sighing out fog, Pete said, "Don't get all Red on me, man. I was just saying it was something we need to be on the lookout for."

"Yeah, yeah. I was saying why we needed to be on the lookout for it. Don't you think why counts?" Weinstein said.

"What I think is, a Commie Marine's as crazy as a fish with fur or a general with sense," Pete said. "You take orders from guys like me, not from Stalin."

"Yeah, yeah," Max said again. "Don't remind me."

"Somebody better." Talking out of the side of his mouth, Pete felt like a movie gangster. But if a sergeant or an officer came out to check on the sentries, he wouldn't be seen moving his lips. "Why'd you join the Corps if you're a fuckin' Red?"

"On account of I like banging heads, an' they'd jug me if I did it back in the States," Max answered. "I thought about going to Spain instead. Sometimes it still looks like I shoulda done that. Wonder how many Fascists I woulda shot by now."

"They shoot back," Pete said dryly. "Besides, you're liable to get your chance against the Japs."

"Ain't like they don't deserve it, too. But I'd rather shoot Nazis any day," Max said.

"Gee, how come?" Pete asked.

Weinstein gave him a sidelong dirty look. "Two guesses, asshole, and the first one don't count."

"That's Corporal Asshole to you." Pete had given Max grief first. If the other Marine came back with something snappy, he couldn't very well resent it. Oh, he could, but then he'd really be an asshole.

"Funny guy. Funny like a truss," Max said.

Before McGill could answer, something blew up a couple of blocks away. Pete was on the ground before he knew how he'd got there: not knocked over by the blast but automatically hitting the deck. He'd brought his Springfield to his shoulder and had a round in the chamber and his finger on the trigger, ready for… well, for anything. Marine training and drill were wondrous things.

Weinstein sprawled a few feet away, as ready as Pete was. "The fuck?" he said.

"Yeah, I-" Pete got interrupted again. Another blast went off, and then another and another. "Son of a bitch!" he said. "I think they're trying to blow Shanghai up."

"Who's 'they'?" Max asked through several more booms, some almost as close as the first, others much farther off.

It was a good question. As far as Pete could see, it had only one possible answer: "Gotta be the Chinks. If this doesn't drive the Japs squirrely, what's going to?" More bombs went off as he spoke. No airplanes buzzed overhead; guerrillas inside the city must have planted the explosives. They'd get better results from bombs aimed right at the occupiers than they would have if the ordnance fell thousands of feet from a speeding plane.

They got the results they wanted, all right. Pete and Max had hardly climbed to their feet before Shanghai started bubbling like a pot with the lid on too tight. Chinese and Westerners came running out to see what the hell was going on. The American consul, a pink, double-chinned Rotarian named Bradley Worthington III, a worthy whom Pete had seen only two or three times before, came out for a look around. "Wow! That was something, wasn't it?" he said in Midwestern accents.

"Yes, sir," Pete said. He noticed Max's trousers were out at the knee from his dive to the pavement. If the consul said anything about it, Pete would have to gig the other sentry. Then Max would find ways to make him sorry, even if the Red Jew was only a private.

But Worthington wasn't going to get excited about pants with holes. He had bigger things to worry about. "The Japanese will turn this place inside out and upside down to catch the terrorists who just did that," he predicted.

"Yes, sir," McGill repeated, in a different tone of voice. He'd always assumed anyone plump, prosperous, and Midwestern was unlikely to have two brain cells to rub together. But Bradley Worthington III had just come up with the same conclusion he had himself. If that didn't make the consul a clever fellow, what would?

Shooting broke out a couple of minutes later. Max cocked his head to one side, listening. He was supposed to hold his stiff brace, but the times were irregular. "Arisakas-most of 'em, anyway," he said.

"Yeah. They are," Pete agreed.

"Not wasting any time, are they?" the consul said.

"No, sir," Pete answered. Suddenly, painfully, he hoped Vera was okay. The Chinese shouldn't have had much reason to target the joint where she danced and slept, but he knew he was going to worry any which way till he heard from her. How long till his relief came? He figured he'd go check on her as soon as he could.

Then a fire engine tore past, red lights blinking and bells clanging. More noise said ambulances were hauling casualties to hospitals. Please, God, went through Pete's mind. Don't let anything bad happen to her. Please.

A platoon of Japanese soldiers went by at a quick march. The lieutenant in charge of them shot the American consulate a look full of vitriol. Because it hadn't been bombed? That was how it seemed to Pete. One of the ordinary Japs started to aim his rifle at Worthington. A noncom yelled at him, and he didn't follow through. The platoon rounded the corner and disappeared.