Weapons of choice

"So you've found a few converts, have you? Let me guess, they'd be the poorest, dumbest, sorriest sacks of shit in the whole crew. Who'd you turn? Those Surabayan peasants from the engine room, haven't got enough sense to wash their hands after wiping their asses; or that rock ape from Kalimantan, the one who still thinks the CIA blew up his grandfather in New York?"

Damiri's strained, almost constipated look caused Moertopo to burst out laughing in genuine mirth. He rolled in his bunk, clutching his sides and howling. "Go on, Damiri. Go off and martyr yourself," he managed to gasp.

The born-again jihadi stalked out of his cabin as Moertopo subsided into a fit of giggles.

With his role in Japan drawing to an end, and a return to the Fatherland looming, Brasch knew he should be looking forward to seeing his wife and son, but a terrible wasting of the soul had taken hold of him again. It was even worse than the depression he'd suffered on returning from the front. He felt as if it would never lift. There was no mystery to the condition. The explanation lay in his hands, in a file called BELSEN.

Brasch had once believed he was fighting for Germany. Then, in Russia, he was simply fighting for his life. Now, after two weeks' exposure to the Sutanto's files, he was beginning to understand that he was fighting a losing battle for a monstrous cause that had nothing to do with the salvation of Germany at all. Germany, it transpired, would do very well without the Nazi Party. Under Hitler, however, it had become a charnel house and a byword for evil.

His back ached and his head pounded. As he lay in his bunk propping himself against the gentle motion of the ship, he came to the desolate conclusion that while he could fight for Germany, he could not fight for Belsen or Auschwitz or Treblinka. He had no real feeling for Jews, and was as happy to be rid of their presence as not. But this Final Solution, no civilized man could support such a bestial policy. Especially not a man whose own family might one day be touched by the Einsatzgruppen.

As a little deaf boy with a cleft palate, Brasch's son Manfred was eminently suitable for disposal under something called the T4 program-the elimination of the physically and mentally undesirable.

The engineer's stomach burned at the very idea. He didn't bother to delude himself that his own status as a hero of the Reich would protect Manny forever. He had come to understand that Germany under the Nazis would inevitably eat its own young.

He had no idea what he could do to save his family.

At some point he dozed off and slept fitfully for a few hours. He no longer suffered regular nightmares from the Eastern Front. Now his sleep was tormented by visions of Manny dying in an SS camp.

An Indonesian shook him awake sometime well before dawn. He'd been sobbing into his pillow.

He came to with a start and waved the concerned sailor away.

There was a bottle of pills by his bed. Happy pills, Moertopo called them.

He dry swallowed three and hauled himself up out of bed.

"At last," said Hidaka.

He took a pair of Starlite night vision binoculars and moved from the bridge onto a gangway. The flying boat leapt into bright, emerald-green clarity as he put them to his eyes. The toys these little monkeys had to play with were forever amazing him. While he waited for the plane to pull alongside the Sutanto he occupied himself with the binoculars. Moertopo had told him that such things were standard issue to the marines in Kolhammer's fleet. Indeed, he claimed their gear was much better than this. Some people in his own time, the Indonesian said, had even been "gene clipped" to see in the dark, like cats. Hidaka thought that patently ridiculous, but he would withhold judgment for now.

He was learning that it didn't pay to be too skeptical of Moertopo's fairy tales.

On the deck below, a party of Indonesians wore bulky night vision devices on their heads. The awkward-looking instruments didn't seem to hamper them, though, as they scurried about in the dark. Their visitors climbed out of the plane and into a small motor launch that had puttered over from the docks.

"A fine night for it, Captain."

Hidaka recognized Brasch's voice. The German had come out of his cocoon again. He was a moody character. Hidaka had given up tracking the man's intemperate emotional shifts. He hoped this positive frame of mind would last, but he held no great expectation. Major Brasch would probably swing through a few more highs and lows before they were done. At least his work ethic had improved.

"A beautiful night, Major," said Hidaka. "And an important one, yes?"

"We'll see," said Brasch. "These SS types are prone to tunnel vision. They'll love a lot of what they'll see here-"

"But they'll hate the message we've brought," the Japanese finished for him. "I don't envy you, Brasch. Your fuhrer has never struck me as a reasonable man. He may have you shot, just on general principles."

The prospect did not seem to bother him.