These three, however, were to complete their service to the Reich as experimental subjects. Over their gray striped camp uniform each wore a bulky vest of a slightly differing size. The project director, whose name Brasch had forgotten, spoke excitedly of the leaps in development they'd achieved since being given access to a calculating machine and a trained operator.

"What we have now are three options," he enthused. "Each is a trade-off, in its own way, Herr Reichsfuhrer. More protection still means greater bulk and weight, unfortunately, but the Farben engineers have made great strides the last two months. The material samples you delivered us have proved invaluable in answering a number of…"

Brasch was hardly listening. He was focused on the three men being tied to the poles at the other end of the bunker. Not one of them was struggling. He fancied he saw one of them sob, but that was about the extent of their reaction. As a man who had spent the better part of the last three years involved in mortal combat, often against the most overwhelming odds, he found it depressing that these men could go to their doom so meekly. Even more depressing, however, was the path his life had taken to deliver him to this place as a witness to their deaths. Since he'd arrived at Monovitz, the black wolf of his depression was stalking him again. He felt again as he had during the battles at Belgorod, like a bug about to be crushed under the tracks of a tiger tank.

"A good rifle, this Garand, yes?" Skorzeny said, interrupting his train of thought. The giant Nazi was turning a captured weapon over in his hands. "Better than the Tommy's Lee Enfield piece of shit. Semiautomatic, gas actuated. A good tool, although I do not like the way it makes so much noise when the clip ejects. That will get a few cowboys killed, I think."

"It may not be in use for much longer," said Brasch in a flat monotone. "I believe they may be moving in the direction of an assault rifle."

Himmler took the hankie away from his thin lips. "Don't be so glum, Herr Colonel. The SD tells me that is not yet a foregone conclusion. There is open disagreement in America over whether to retool for mass production of that weapon. At least outside of the Californian Zone."

"So Kolhammer is going to build these Russian guns for his mud people, then?" Skorzeny said. "I hear they are a good weapon, too. But in the hands of half-castes and fairies, what would it matter?"

"The bullet would kill you just as dead, no matter who fired it," Brasch replied. "I lost many comrades to rounds fired by untrained Untermenschen in Russia, Herr Colonel."

"Well, let's see if we can do something about that," bellowed the SS man, refusing to be cast out of his usual high spirits. "You are ready for us now?" he asked the research director.

The civilian checked with an aide, who confirmed that the prisoners were firmly secured. A horn blared harshly, and behind them a red lightbulb shut off while a green one lit up.

"We are ready for the test," he confirmed.

Brasch screwed in a pair of earplugs and hardened his heart to what was about to happen. He had personally killed dozens of men, some of them in hand-to-hand combat, but he had never murdered anybody in cold blood. And he was about to become complicit in three murders at once. It made him sick.

Skorzeny looked to Himmler, who had just finished fitting his own earplugs. The Reichsfuhrer nodded, and Skorzeny hefted the American rifle as smoothly as if he'd been practicing since childhood. He sighted down the barrel and squeezed off three shots. All three prisoners jumped. Skorzeny then picked up a British Lee Enfield 303 rifle and performed the same action, this time taking a little longer, as he was forced to work the bolt after each shot.

Again, the prisoners jumped, but their heads whipped back in a way that told Brasch they were already dead or unconscious.

Skorzeny was much less impressed with the English weapon. "Pah! You could not get great accuracy with this. The chamber is too loose, and the two-part stock and these rear-locking lugs on the bolt are all very poor design… And now for my old friend."

He scooped up a K98 Mauser and squeezed off three shots from the bolt-action weapon with as little thought as he would give to scratching his nose. Three dark puffs indicated where the 7.92 mm rounds hit.

"Shall we?" asked the director.

"They don't look very well, Herr Director," Himmler said as the small group made its way down the firing range. "Are you sure these vests are bulletproof?"

"Not as such, Herr Reichsfuhrer," the man said quickly. "The vests will stop a small-caliber handgun round, and all manner of shrapnel and flak, but we are not using what the Allies call nanotube technology. What we have done is to synthesize a lightweight but very strong polymer from alternating monomers of para-phenylenediamine and terephthalic acid. The resulting aromatic amide alternates benzene rings and amide groups. In a planar sheet structure, which is like a silk protein and-"

"But why do you call them 'bulletproof vests' if they do not stop bullets?" Himmler asked testily.

The researcher paled, and he hadn't had much coloring to begin with. "The vests by themselves could not stop a high-velocity round," he explained. "But we have augmented them with differing types of ballistic plate, and together they are enough to provide excellent protection."

They reached the three men, each of whom looked quite dead to Brasch, until he saw that they were breathing. But only just. The director hurried on, lest Himmler decide the whole exercise was a waste of his time. A good idea-people had died for less.

"Now, Herr Reichsfuhrer, these subjects were not in very good physical condition to begin with, certainly not as good as one of your storm troopers. And they have been hit three times with high-velocity rounds. It would still be an enormously traumatic event for the body. But I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the results."

Paul Brasch often felt as if his capacity to feel anything had been burned away during his time in the Soviet Union. Now as the project director's aides roughly stripped the bulky black vests away from the men's bodies, he found himself thankful for the crust of scar tissue that had formed around his feelings. It allowed him to appear as inhuman as his colleagues.

The director was babbling on to Himmler about some production-line issue that would involve the use of concentrated sulfuric acid. Skorzeny was boasting of his marksmanship to another SS officer, who was laughing at the way one of the prisoners' eyeballs had popped out onto his cheek. Brasch breathed in slowly and fought down the urge to draw his pistol and kill them all. Instead he watched with apparent detachment as SS orderlies finished removing the body armor and the men's prison camp shirts.

Their torsos were massively bruised, and one man had a large concave depression just under his heart. But none of the rounds had actually penetrated. Their guide was holding one of the jackets, pointing out features such as the pivoting shoulder pads, grenade hangers, and rifle butt patches. Himmler wanted to know how many of the vests would be ready in time for Operation Sea Dragon, and he was unhappy to be told that four hundred was the limit of current production capacity.

As the director kept babbling about sulfuric acid, Himmler tuned him out and turned to face Brasch instead. "Well, Herr Colonel, another miracle for you to work in our behalf, yes? I don't expect to be able to outfit every Waffen-SS Division, but I need at least two thousand of these vests by the time we are ready to go. Can you guarantee me that?"

Brasch shook his head emphatically. "No, Herr Reichsfuhrer, but I shall increase production by whatever amount is possible. Based on my experience at Demidenko, I imagine we can get you at least fifty percent more than the director believes possible."