Jurgen Brehmer was in a lousy mood. It wasn't hard to see. He had become uncommunicative lately, terse to the point of rudeness. Right now he was seemingly staring a hole into his coffee cup, Bruno noted.

"What's eating you?" said Bruno. "You're as friendly as a caged leopard these days."

"A good comparison," commented Brehmer coldly, continuing to stare at his coffee.

"Huh!" grunted Bruno, noncommitally.

Martin smiled. Bruno had such a way with words. "I know what's bothering our hero, Bruno. He wishes he was in Russia right now, shooting down the damn Bolsheviks in record droves...don't you, Brehmer? His 11 little victories in France and England are as nothing now, when our experten are shooting down 100 ruskies...or 150...or more. Eh, Brehmer?"

Brehmer shot him a dark glance from his icy blue eyes. "A hundred and fifty dead Russians may not be enough, Martin. Perhaps not nearly enough. Have you gentlemen been paying attention to the news lately?"

"I have," admitted Bruno, "but you can't believe everything you hear in this damned country. Ninety-five percent of it is outrageous propaganda and the rest is sheer conjecture. The winter will be hard as always, but we'll tough it out and hold...just like last year...and when Spring comes we will whip their red arses right back to the gates of Moscow, and hang that bastard Stalin in his Kremlin with the rest of the murdering lot of commissars and hellhounds."

"Like we hung that bastard Churchill in London?" inquired Brehmer. "When we took the British parliament and burned Buckingham Palace last year after our glorious invasion?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Brehmer! If you are going to be completely miserable, sarcastic, and bloody-minded you can do it alone." Bruno threw down his papers angrily and stalked out of the room.

Martin puffed thoughtfully on his cigarette...he liked American cigarettes very much. "You're quite right of course, Brehmer. They're in a hell of a fix at Stalingrad. I know it. You know it. We all know it, but people don't like to talk about it. If this thing about the secret bomb is true, it is our greatest chance to turn the tide in a most unexpected way and win this war. It's absolutely vital. You do see that, don't you?"

"Yes," said Brehmer. "I see it plainly. And I hate it."

"But why?" expostulated Martin.

"I'll tell you why," replied Brehmer bitterly, looking straight into Martin's eyes with his jaw muscles clenched tightly. "Two reasons why. Number one: Suppose Otto is right. Suppose this strange uranium device can blow up half a city in a single burst. Suppose it is even much worse than that..."

He got up and walked swiftly across to the large map of Europe that was pinned on the wall. Someone had put little markers all along the fighting lines in Russia. They clustered around Stalingrad in a dense concentration...red for the Russians, blue for the Werhmacht. More markers stood in North Africa, where Erwin Rommel's fortunes of war had swung wildly back and forth in the past year from triumpth to disaster to further triumph and even greater disaster.

"Do you know what that would mean, Martin? A device like that falling on a city? It would be the end of a brave soldier's courage or usefullness. The end of moral decency of any kind. The end of meaningful service and justifiable sacrifice. The end of all measure of sanity. The end of whatever it is that keeps us human. That is precisely why I hate it. I wish I had never heard of such a thing."

"See this map, Martin?" He swept a pointing finger from the peninsula of Brittany sharply across to Warsaw...or what was now more like the ruins of what had once been Warsaw. "Europe is quite small...or it would be without that hellish morass of Soviet Russia in the East, stretching on forever and ever. What in God's name led them to attack Russia in '41? We were not finished with the British Empire yet, and they attacked the biggest country in the world. It was an act of madness! I tell you, if Gerd Barkhorn and the others shoot down 500 Russians apiece it may not be enough. And imagine, Martin...imagine what this bomb could do in a small country like Germany. This is an enormous country here, Martin, almost as big as Russia. This is a country that could arm the entire world from its factories, but look at our country. We are strong, but Germany is small."

"And that is why we MUST stop this American project now," declared Martin vehemently, jumping out of his chair. "We have to beat them to the punch or it's all over. But watch it...Otto does not like defeatist talk in the least, nor does he like anyone to question the wisdom of the higher-ups, and you know that."

"I know it too well," muttered Brehmer. "I heard they basically sacked 'Dolpho' Galland for questioning 'the Fat One's' judgement. The best ace on the Western Front and they kicked him upstairs...the last place for a man like him. He doesn't fly anymore in combat. Stupid bastards!"

"You really love the air force don't you, Brehmer?" Martin offered him a cigarette.

Brehmer took it, lit up, and took a long draw. His eyes were far off, looking across dappled skies at 5,000 meters, contrails streaming off the wingtips in a shallow climb. Checking the trim. Looking back for his wingman. Sun gleaming on perspex in a sudden rainbow display...

"Yes. Damn right I do, Martin. I should be there, not here. I am not a spy, but Otto won't let me go." He stood lost in thought, then shook his head and took another puff. "So...what is your new identity for this month?"

"Oh," laughed Martin. "I'm a Dutchman. Again! I almost begin to believe I AM Dutch. A Mr Van Schelde. I sell refrigerators, and I have a loving wife in Mexico who is probably screwing the greengrocer in my absence. And you?"

"I am a Pole," answered Brehmer wryly. "Imagine that. My name is Wally Krupinski, American-style Polish. Lovely name, wouldn't you say?"

"Indeed," agreed Martin, "...but, Brehmer?"

"Yes, what?"

"You said there were two specific reasons you hated 'it'. The uranium device. What was the second?"

Brehmer sighed deeply, sat down and rested his head in his hands for a long moment, then looked up slowly. His eyes were bleak and empty. "Did you see them?"

"Did I see who?"

"Who do you think? The monkeys Otto used. The...the little chimpanzees, they call them. Did you see them afterward?"

Martin didn't answer. He had seen them, and it wasn't something he wanted to dwell on or think about at all.

"I tell you, Martin, we are playing with fire here, but not your ordinary fire. It's Hellfire this time, my friend...and it's going to poison everything and everyone it touches. It has only just begun."

Martin said nothing, but looked down at his shoes, while Brehmer smoked furiously. They stood there in a morbid silence until Bruno came bursting joyfully back in and shattered the spell..."By God, gentlemen, it's my lucky day! My horse came in! Look at this. Panquitch by a nose! By a nose I tell you! Drinks all around, you poor gloomy bastards, and I'm buying. That'll put a smile on your ugly faces. It's Panquitch uber alles, and all is well with the world tonight..."

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