The Spandau lashed at the black tide. The boy stopped twitching. Brasch spoke calmly into the phone again, like a man inquiring at the butcher shop after his weekly bratwurst order.

"Where is my artillery?"

"Was ist los?"

He replaced the receiver.

The flood of berserkers began to slow, impeded by a foot of fresh snow, the thickness of their clothes, stiff muscles, and the littered corpses of their countrymen-but the advance remained unstoppable. Half the eternal steppe seemed filled with them, and still they poured over the horizon.

Brasch was so far beyond terror that he placidly took out his Luger, stood up in the dugout, placed one boot on the rock-hard cadaver of a Russian corporal, and commenced firing, slowly and meticulously, even though the Soviets were still well beyond the effective range of any sidearm. He wished he had a cigarette to smoke. The white-haired sergeant begged him piteously for permission to retreat, but Brasch ignored him. What's the point, he asked himself. You can die here, or a few yards from here.

The thunder of the charge hid the first rumble of the German guns so that Brasch didn't realize an artillery barrage was on its way until the first shells shrieked overhead, to explode in the center of the Russian mass half a second later. Enormous fountains of fire and ice and hateful Russian soil erupted just behind the leading edge of the attack, silhouetting the front ranks against a curtain of flames. They rushed on regardless, as smaller detonations started to thin out their ranks.

"Mortars," said Brasch with a detached air.

The machine-gunners weren't listening. They screamed at the Soviets, pouring a constant stream of fire into the maelstrom.

"You'll melt the barrel," said Brasch, whose wits were returning. He hopped down from his exposed perch and holstered his pistol. A frightful din, the thunder of a world riven in two, shook the frozen mud beneath their feet, as the big guns walked their barrage back through the densely packed Russians. He could no longer see any of the attackers inside the wild conflagration. He wondered how many had just died. Fifty thousand? A quarter of a million?

Then it was time to leave. The attack had been broken, but a few hundred crazed survivors might yet emerge from the killing field and overrun their little outpost.

"Let's go," he said to the old sergeant, turning his back to the carnage.

But some new horror paralyzed the man. His jaw hung slack and his eyes bulged. The truck driver simply howled and ran like a dog, stumbling over the corpse of the dead boy.

Twisting slowly back toward the open steppe, so slowly that it seemed as if he were forever turning, Brasch stared into the abyss. A million Russians appeared from within the boiling shroud of black smoke and blasts of flashing light.

OOOOOOOOOOoooouuuuurrraAAAaaahhhhh…

"Manfred," whispered Brasch as the barbarian horde came upon them.

A single man, a Siberian or a Mongol by his features, accelerated from the foremost rank, heading straight for their dugout. He launched himself into the air, clearing the windbreak of dead Communists, slamming into Brasch, his hands closing around the engineer's neck, his teeth finding purchase in the unshaven bristles of his throat.

"Herr Major, Herr Major, wake up sir, wake up. You are disturbing the others."

The Siberian's rough, choking grasp became a lighter, more considerate touch, shaking his shoulders, dragging him up out of the nightmare that had haunted him for weeks.

"Willie?" Brasch was disoriented. His heart still raced, almost as it had that day outside Belgorod. "Willie, is that you?"

"No, sir. It is I, Herr Steckel. From the embassy."

Brasch came upright and instantly a sharp, nearly blinding pain bit into his scalp. He cursed.

"Careful sir, there's not much headroom in here."

Brasch rubbed his head and blinked the crust of sleep from his eyes. The first thing he noticed, as always, was the warmth. He'd never expected to be warm again. Then he became conscious of his freedom of movement. He wore only a light vest and undershorts. Finally, he remembered. He was no longer at the Eastern Front. He was in the Far East, on the ship of wonders. A rush of half-formed thoughts and feelings blew through his sleep-disordered mind. Dominating them all, however, was a profound blankness and disbelief in the simple fact that he was still alive. He had numbered himself among the dead for so long, he felt ill at ease to be among the living once more.

"I am sorry, Herr Steckel. Please excuse me," he rasped. "My throat is dry. Some water, if you have it."

Steckel passed across a glass of chilled water. They had been through this ritual every night since the engineer's arrival. At first the diplomat had been awed and humbled just to draw breath in the same room as the legend of Belgorod. But two weeks of tending to this shattered husk of a man had obviously drained him of any such respect.

Brasch finished the drink in one long pull and eased himself out of the bunk. His vision was too blurred to read his watch, so he asked Steckel for the time.

"Zero four thirty-eight, Herr Major, as usual."

Is that a hint of peevishness I detect in his voice? Brasch wondered idly. Well, damn him anyway. Brasch pointed to the chair where his pants and yesterday's shirt hung. The attache fetched them without uttering a word.

"Find me some breakfast, Steckel. Some real breakfast, with sausages, and none of their damn rice. I'm sick of it. We might as well get working on this puzzle box again, eh?"

"Yes, Herr Major, right away, I have already seen to it."

"And coffee?"

"Right here, sir."

Brasch gratefully accepted the mug. Perhaps Steckel wasn't such an odious fellow after all.

"Is Captain Kruger with us yet, Steckel?"

"Still asleep, Herr Major. He turned in only three hours ago."

Brasch thought he detected a trace of censure in the man's voice. He seemed to think Brasch should be working twenty-five hours a day. He had no idea what it cost the engineer to get out of bed at all.

"What about Commander Hidaka?" he asked. "I'll bet he's awake."

"Yes, sir. I don't believe I have seen him off-duty yet. But then, I'm not here as much as you."

"That right," said Brasch. "You're not. Come on. Let us join the other master race, shall we?"

Steckel, who was uncomfortable with Brasch's less-than-reverent tone when discussing matters of genetic purity, covered his disquiet by retreating into form.

"But you have not shaved, Herr Major!"

Brasch stopped exactly where he stood, with one foot half in his boot. He stared at Steckel for some time before breaking out in a loud, raucous laugh.

"Herr Major?"

Brasch shook his head.

"It does not matter, Herr Steckel. Believe me."

The Sutanto lay at anchor in a secluded section of the moorage off Hashirajima Island, blocked from view by a screen of light cruisers and surrounded by three lines of torpedo nets. A squadron of Zero fighters circled perpetually high above. Admiral Yamamoto had decreed there was never to be a second when the precious ship lacked air cover.

There would be no Doolittle Raids over Hashirajima.

No deck lights burned on the Indonesian vessel, and blackout curtains had been draped across all her openings, allowing work to continue twenty-four hours a day. Contrary to rumor, Commander Jisaku Hidaka was not awake for every one of those hours, but he did drive himself for as long as humanly possible each day. Like Steckel, he made it clear he found Brasch's apparent lack of commitment perplexing, and occasionally disturbing.