Weapons of choice

"You find yourself at a loss, Admiral. Faced with evil on so vast a scale, do you think it beyond your capacity to effect change for the good?"

Kolhammer frowned and wiped at his damp brow.

"I made a promise once, that I would never let that sort of thing happen again if I could do anything to avoid it. I just wonder what I'm supposed to do now, what would be best."

Tendrils of blue smoke began to curl away from the bowl of Einstein's pipe. The smell did remind Kolhammer of his great-uncle Hans. The old guy would be in the camp pretty soon. Although he wouldn't be old, of course.

"Have you spoken with Roosevelt?" asked Einstein.

"Yes. They're all aware of the Nazis' programs. They were horrified at the extent of the Holocaust. But I got the impression they'd rather I hadn't brought it up. They said the best way to help the victims was to beat the Germans."

Einstein took that in like a professor considering a gifted student's thesis.

"And you do not agree."

"No, I do not."

"So what are you going to do?"

Before they could say anything more Agent Flint appeared at a run.

"Excuse me Admiral. Professor. But you have to come right away, sir. Your people are calling from Pearl. On your communications device. They've been trying to get you for some time."

"Dead? But how?"

The connection was flimsy. The boosted comm circuits and a large portable dish antenna, presently pointing skyward from the roof of the hotel, provided a real-time vid link, but Captain Karen Halabi appeared on the screen of Kolhammer's flexipad through a shower of static. They'd been trying for a secure link for nearly eighteen hours. He cursed their lack of satellite cover for about the hundredth time. Admiral King and General Eisenhower, however, standing behind him the hotel room, exchanged whispers about the marvel of secure, global communications by "movie phone."

"We're going to have to get on the ball with this stuff," murmured King.

Kolhammer pointedly ignored the chatter behind him and concentrated on the acting Multinational Force commander.

"It's very obvious… oubl… urder," said Halabi, her voice and image jumping as the signal bounced erratically off the troposphere.

"Any suspects yet?" Kolhammer asked loudly.

"Oh yes, thousands of them," Halabi said.

Great, thought Kolhammer. Halabi continued before he could reply.

"There's more, Admiral. The Nuku has been found. It materialized on top of a mountain in New Guinea. About half of it was fused into the rock, but the rest was sticking out, and I'm afraid the Japanese have got their hands on it."

King and Eisenhower suddenly appeared at Kolhammer's shoulder.

"What the hell is this about?" King demanded to know.

Kolhammer held up a hand to fend him off.

"Just a minute, Admiral. Captain Halabi, do we know status of the ship? What weapons and sensor systems were intact?"

Halabi disappeared inside in a small blizzard of static, which lasted for a few seconds. Kolhammer asked her to repeat herself.

"From the picture we… our intelligence analysts don't… they could… retrieved the choppers or most… mast-mounted arrays. They were buried… looks like the ship's CIC would have been cut in half by the edge of the mountain. But that… the forward missile mounts and a lot of incidental technology they… unbolted and walked off with."

"Suffering Christ," spat Admiral King. "Is she saying the Japs have their own missile boats, now? I knew this would happen. I knew those little bastards would get hold of this shit."

"Settle down," said Kolhammer. Turning back to the small screen, he collected his thoughts before going on.

"All right, Captain. You're on the spot. I'll leave the micromanagement of the Nuku to you. But I suggest we lay a world of hurt on that mountain ASAP."

"Already in hand, Admiral. We're just working our way around the lack of GPS now. We've got one catapult patched up, and we should have a strike inbound within four hours."

"Good work. What about Anderson and Miyazaki? What's the situation there?"

Kolhammer ignored King's muttered resentment at the distraction.

"We had a real pissing match with the locals at the crime scene," said Halabi. "Nimitz intervened on our behalf. We got carriage of the forensics-Captain Francois off the Kandahar is handling that. And your Captain Lunn is working with the local DA's office on the investigations."

Sitting on a footstool, hunched over the minicam sending his image back to Pearl, Kolhammer clenched and unclenched his fists.

"Local cops doing the footwork?" he asked.

"I'm afraid so," said Halabi, unconscious of the effect her words had on Admiral King.

"Arrogant fucking limeys," he muttered.

Kolhammer leaned forward and tried to focus on the stuttering video image.

"We got any hand at all in the detective work?"

"Nimitz is leaning on the local PD, but they're… difficult in all… orts of ways. Also, it's no… related, but we've had trouble on shore, a brawl in… tween some of our people and their… It's not connec… to the murders as far as… but it's not helping relations."