'We've counted the cost,' Taylor said. 'Apart from Joan, it was terrible. In the first attack, the j.a.ps capsized one battleship and completely destroyed three others. In the second attack, they sank three destroyers and badly damaged two others. Everything on Ford Island was destroyed, including our airplanes, and we had nearly three thousand casualties, most of them fatal. Luckily, they missed the entire aircraft carrier fleet it was out to sea at the time but no doubt about the damage they inflicted... And now the United States is at war. We've lost our virginity.'

'Right,' Bradley said, feeling drugged.

'Our almost total lack of knowledge about j.a.panese intentions,' Taylor said, 'due to the fragmentation of our intelligence gathering and lack of cooperation between those involved in it, has compelled us to do what you've been recommending for years: namely, form a centralized intelligence agency the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS which we hope to have running by the middle of next year. I want you to join the organization as an agent.'

'I don't want to,' Bradley said.

'Yes, you do,' Taylor insisted, sipping his bourbon and sounding determined. 'We've just been informed by British intelligence that according to various European resistance groups, remote-controlled bombs and flying rockets are being constructed at a n.a.z.i research centre in Peenemnde, in the Baltic. Based on that information, British intelligence conducted further research and can confirm that in 1936, work did in fact begin on the construction of a secret proving ground in the vicinity of a small fishing village called Peenemnde and that it's since become one of the n.a.z.is' most advanced experimental stations. a.n.a.lysis of aerial photography taken in the past few weeks shows that the proving ground exists, that the southern part contains workshops where, we believe, the missiles are constructed, and an extensive settlement that has since been verified as being occupied by the scientists. A little farther on, near the village of Karls.h.a.gen, are barracks for soldiers and workers, plus a prisoner-of-war camp and concentration camp.'

'Sounds pretty cosy,' Bradley said, not wanting to know.

But Taylor persisted. 'Since we'd already informed the Limeys about your old friend, John Wilson, they're now working on the theory that the new weapons, while ostensibly being made at Peenemnde, may in fact be the indirect products of Wilson's genius in that field, since the rocket team was originally based in k.u.mmersdorf, Berlin, at the other side of a former firing range where Wilson and some other German rocket scientists were working at the same time.'

'That sounds logical,' Bradley said sourly.

Taylor was unmoved. 'So the British Secret Intelligence Service,' he continued doggedly, 'recently got in touch with us and asked us if we had any opinions about their latest theory. Naturally we agreed that in all probability their theory is substantially correct and that Wilson, the traitorous b.a.s.t.a.r.d, is largely responsible for the Peenemnde flying bombs and rockets. This has naturally led all of us to wonder just how advanced Wilson is and what other diabolical innovations he has up his sleeve. It has, in fact, convinced us that he has to be tracked down and taken off the stage and that's why we want you. We want you to find that son of a b.i.t.c.h and terminate him.'

'I'm too old,' Bradley said.

'Bulls.h.i.t,' Taylor responded. 'We need you because you were once an excellent pilot, have done unofficial intelligence work both for the US Army and as a civilian lawyer, know a h.e.l.l of a lot about aeronautics, speak French and German, know Europe like the back of your hand, and are obsessed with John Wilson and what he's up to.'

'True, but I'm still too old,' Bradley said, feeling only the pain of his loss and the lack of enthusiasm for life that Joan's death had engendered.

'No, you're not,' Taylor said. 'You're just in a state of shock. And that's exactly why you need this kind of distraction and why you'll be good at it. As for your general fitness, if you join OSS, you'll be put through a tough retraining program, with a special emphasis on espionage, self-defence and undercover, or guerilla, operations. So when the time comes, you'll be fit enough. And believe me, Mike, you need this job to help you forget Joan. You need it. So take it!'

Deeply moved by what his friend was trying to do for him, aware, also, that he really did need something to distract him from his anguish, Bradley said, 'And once I finish with the training... What happens then?'

'You'll be posted to London, to help the British Special Operations Executive track down Wilson and put an end to his activities. Now do you want it or not?'

Bradley leaned forward in his chair, covered his face with his hands, and accepted he had to escape.

'I want it,' he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 'They're perfect specimens,' the white-smocked hospital surgeon informed Wilson and Ernst Stoll as he removed the guillotined human heads from the laboratory's refrigerator and placed them into tin cans.

'Jewish only?' Wilson asked.

'No,' the orderly said, placing the last severed head in a can and putting the lids back on. 'When we received a letter from Professor Hirt, the head of the Anatomical Inst.i.tute of the University of Strasbourg, telling us that the number of skulls in the university's collection was too limited, we started obtaining them from captured Russian troops, and these heads are mostly those.'

'All undamaged?'

'Of course! Once the heads of the living specimens are measured and selected, death is induced by injection, then the head is severed from the body and shipped in these cans, which will be hermetically sealed, to the Anatomical Inst.i.tute.'

'Good,' Wilson said. Turning to Stoll, who was looking distinctly queasy, he said, 'There's a lot we can learn from these heads. There are ways we can use them: the psychological and physical creation of the Superman and a work force that has no free will. Himmler's Inst.i.tute for Research into Human Heredity, the Ahmenerbe, must not be wasted on quasi-mystical research, but utilized for a more practical purpose: medical and surgical experimentation of the most fearless kind. We must look at the human brain and learn how to control it, study the human body and learn how to change it. In doing this, we can create a new kind of man any kind that we want. This is what we're doing here.'

'Can we leave now?' Stoll asked.

'Yes,' Wilson said. After thanking the surgeon, he led Stoll out of the laboratory and back through the corridors of the SS hospital, taking note of the fact that the young Kapitn was still looking queasy and understanding that he could use his moral qualms when the occasion called for it.

Right now, however, he was intent on preparing Stoll for the world he would inherit. To that end, as they pa.s.sed the guarded doors of other laboratories and operating theaters, he said, 'Our experiments are wide-ranging and in fact know no bounds, which is why we're using human beings instead of just animals. It's through our ruthless experimentation on these human beings that we're learning about brain manipulation, limb and other bodily replacements, the causes, nature, control, and use of fear, even the effects of freezing and decompression, all of which will be useful when we move to our underground colony in Antarctica.'

Ernst nodded thoughtfully, trying to accept the unacceptable. Wilson knew, as they left the hospital, that he would in time do so.

The hospital entrance was heavily guarded by armed SS troops, with more troops placed strategically at the far side of the road. Wilson glanced along the street of this suburb of Berlin, quiet and almost empty in the gray light of August, and thought of how the whole of Germany had become a huge armed camp in which fear, torture, and death were commonplace. It was a prototype for the kind of colony he envisaged in the Antarctic; but the world he would create would be controlled by scientists and dedicated to the advancement of knowledge. It would not be controlled, as Himmler thought, by his blond young G.o.ds of war and dedicated to his mystical notions of a world of ice and fire.

'I haven't seen much of you lately,' he said to Stoll, as the chauffeur-driven SS car carried them around the outskirts of Berlin, through the outlying villages, past columns of troop trucks, and on toward the research centre at k.u.mmersdorf, south of the city. 'What have you been up to?'

'My work with the Lebensborn organization,' Ernst replied, rolling the window down to let air in, then lighting a cigarette.

'Which many Germans still think are maternity homes.'

'Yes.'

'And this work keeps you busy?'

Ernst sighed. 'It's all for Projekt Saucer, Herr Wilson. As you know, the real aim of the inst.i.tutions is the controlled breeding of the perfect Aryan, a Nordic super-race, through the disciplined mating of men and women selected in accordance with the racial principles defined by the Ahnenerbe.'