Weapons of choice

Spruance and Black said nothing. The conversation at the other end of the table fell away, too, as the reporters picked up the sound of the names. Spruance was aware of how quickly the other two women shifted gear, from flighty to sober.

"In some ways, no matter what your views, or how broad-minded you might consider yourself," Halabi continued, directing her remarks at Black now, as well, "you would look on our world and shudder. But if the time since your day has taught us anything, it's that you can't pick and choose your freedoms. You take freedom's curses along with its blessings."

Halabi stared into the middle distance as though examining her own world from a new vantage point. "In some ways, our world is no different from yours," she said. "It's violent. I'd hesitate to say it's more violent, seeing as you're engaged in a world war. But so are we, of a sort. And ours has gone on for years longer than yours."

"Why haven't you won?" asked Curtis. "You're so powerful."

"Weapons are one thing, Ensign. You can kill a man; reduce him to nothing, literally. But the ideas that made him your enemy, those survive. Ideas are much harder to kill than men. They outlive us all."

"Could you avoid it, your war, knowing what you do now?" asked Spruance.

"I don't know," she replied honestly. "Why do you ask? It's a way off yet. It won't be yours to worry about."

"It just seems to me," said Spruance, "that you'd want to avoid it by all means. The things I've heard, a whole city destroyed by a bomb in a bag, millions killed by germ war, planes flying into high-rise buildings and football stadiums. It makes me wonder what we're doing here, if that's the only future."

"It's not the only future," said Halabi. "Little girls still go to ballet practice. Little boys want to be firemen. Families get together at Christmas and Thanksgiving. Life goes on. Just like here. If you have children or grandkids, you're willing to die for them. And to kill for them, too. Well, we are your children. We appreciate what you did. It's just too bad that our turn came around, too."

"You agree with that?" Black asked Duffy and Natoli.

"Pretty much so." Duffy shrugged.

"It's so bleak," said Dan Black.

"It's fine. We'd still all rather be there. It's home."

"You'd rather live in a place where your whole city could be blown up by one madman."

"It's home," she repeated. "It's really no worse than here."

"It's better, in some ways," said Natoli.

Spruance looked across the table to Karen Halabi. She just held his gaze and nodded.

35

AMBASSADOR HOTEL, LOS ANGELES, 10 JUNE 1942

The Ambassador Hotel was set within nearly twenty-five acres of manicured lawns. After lunch, Kolhammer and Einstein sat on a bench under a palm tree in the gardens while Agent Flint lurked nearby. Kolhammer was impressed. He'd experienced more than his fair share of close personal protection, having served once as the deputy UN military commander in Chechnya. Flint's technique could use some updating, but he was still pretty good.

"I suppose such things are routine in your world, Admiral," Einstein mused.

Kolhammer was intrigued by the insight.

"That's true. But why do you say so, Professor?"

Einstein crossed his legs and leaned back to feel the sun on his face.

"You seem to come from a militarized society, Admiral; the ease with which your men and women in uniform mix together. The way you don't appear to heed the race or creed of your comrades. Some might see that as enlightened, and I suppose it is. But you could also see it as the defensive response of a society that has been fighting for so long it has shed itself of all trappings save those needed to wage war. You can see the same thing happening here and now, to a lesser extent."

The reasoning was sound, even though the particulars weren't exactly as Einstein put them. Kolhammer took a moment to study their surroundings, the affluence and luxury, the monocultural certainty of forties America. LA was starting to fill up with minorities, drawn to the war industries, but you wouldn't know it here on the grounds of the Ambassador Hotel.

"You're partly right," he told Einstein. "Things have changed a lot in the last twenty years-my last twenty years, I mean. But the things you noticed, they were well on the way before the jihad."

"Your holy war?"

"I wouldn't call it that."

"Do you mind?" asked Einstein as he fetched his pipe and pouch from a trouser pocket. "None of you seems to smoke much, either."

"Not really." Kolhammer smiled. "But go ahead. It reminds me of my old uncle Hans."

"From the death camps?"

"From the death camps," said Kolhammer.

They sat in silence for another minute. It wasn't a companionable stillness. The sun beat down out of an azure sky just as before. The hint of a sea breeze ruffled Einstein's wild hair and took the edge off the day's heat. But a shadow that brought no comfort had fallen over them.