ething  else  in
mind.
     But first his victims need to be properly terrified. "Do you  know what
could happen to you? Hmm? Do you?"
     Neither  Rudy nor Angelo answers.  It is not  the sort of question that
really needs answering.
     Göring answers it  for them  by reaching out  with his riding crop  and
lifting up the  curtain. Harsh blue light, reflected from  snow, peals  into
the coach. Göring shuts his eyes and looks the other way.
     They are in the middle of an  open area, surrounded by tall barbed wire
fences,  filled with long rows of dark barracks. In the center, a tall stack
pours smoke into a white sky.  SS  troops in  greatcoats and jackboots  pace
around, blowing into their  hands. Just  a  few yards away from  them, on an
adjacent railway siding, a  gang of wretches in striped clothing are at work
in,  and around, a boxcar,  unloading pale  cargo. A large number  of  naked
human bodies have become all frozen together in a solid, tangled mass inside
the boxcar, and the prisoners are at  work with axes, bucksaws, and prybars,
dismantling them  and throwing the parts onto the  ground. Because they  are
frozen solid, there is no blood, and  so the entire operation is startlingly
clean.  The  double  glazed  windows  of   Göring's  coach  block  sound  so
effectively that the impact  of  a  big  fire  ax on  a frozen abdomen comes
through as a nearly imperceptible thud.
     One  of the  prisoners turns  towards them, carrying a  thigh  toward a
wheelbarrow,  and risks a direct look  at the  Reichsmarschall's train. This
prisoner  has  a  pink  triangle  sewn to  the  breast  of  his uniform. The
prisoner's  eyes are  trying to  probe through the window, past the curtain,
trying to make a  human connection with someone on  the inside of the coach.
Rudy stiffens  in panic for a moment, thinking that the  prisoner sees  him.
Then Göring withdraws the  riding crop and the curtain falls.  A few moments
later, the train begins to move again.
     Rudy looks at  his lover. Angelo is sitting  frozen, just  like  one of
those corpses, with his hands over his face.
     Göring flicks his crop dismissively. "Get out," he says.
     "What?" ask Rudy and Angelo simultaneously.
     Göring  laughs heartily. "No, no!  I don't mean get out of the train! I
mean, Angelo, get out of this coach. I want to talk to Herr Doktor Professor
von Hacklheber in private. You may wait in the parlor car."
     Angelo leaves  eagerly. Göring waves  his crop at a  couple of hovering
aides, and they leave too. Göring and Rudy are alone together.
     "I am sorry to  show  you these  unpleasant things,"  Göring  says.  "I
simply wanted to impress upon you the importance of keeping secrets."
     "I can assure the Reichsmarschall that "
     Göring shushes him with a wave  of the crop. "Don't be tedious. I  know
that you have sworn  any number of great oaths, and been through all of  the
indoctrination concerning secrecy. I have no doubt of your sincerity. But it
is all just words, and not good enough for the work that I wish you to begin
doing for me. To  work for me, you must  see  the thing I have shown you, so
that you can really understand the stakes."
     Rudy looks at the floor, takes a deep breath, and forces out the words:
     "It would be a great honor to work for  you, Reichsmarschall. But since
you have access to  so  many  of the great museums and libraries  of Europe,
there is only one small favor I, as a scholar, might humbly request of you."


     <B>***</B>


     Back  in  the church  basement in Norrsbruck,  Sweden,  Rudy yells, and
drops  a  cigarette on  the  floor,  having allowed it to burn  down to  his
fingers,  like a slow  fuse, while relating this story. He puts his  hand to
his mouth, sucks on  the  finger  briefly,  then  remembers his  manners and
composes himself. "G&ouml;ring knew a surprising amount about cryptology, and was
aware of my work on the Enigma. He didn't trust the machine. He told me that
he wanted me to come up  with  the very  best cryptosystem in the world, one
that could never be  broken he wanted to communicate (he  said) with U boats
at  sea and  with installations in  Manila and Tokyo. And so, I came up with
such a system."
     "And you handed it over," Bischoff says.
     "Yes,"  Rudy  says, and here, for the first  time  all  day, he  allows
himself a  slight smile. "And  it  is a reasonably  good system, despite the
fact that I crippled it before giving it to G&ouml;ring."
     "Crippled it?" Root asks. "What do you mean?"
     "Imagine  a new  engine  for  an  aeroplane.  Imagine  it  has  sixteen
cylinders. It is more powerful than any other engine in the  world. Even so,
a mechanic can do certain things very simple things to kill its performance.
Such  as  pulling out half  of the spark plug  wires.  Or tampering with the
timing. This is an analogy to what I did with G&ouml;ring's cryptosystem."
     "So  what went wrong?" Shaftoe asks.  "They figured  out that  you  had
crippled it?"
     Rudolf  von  Hacklheber laughs.  "Not very likely. Maybe half  a  dozen
people in the world  could figure that out. No, what went wrong was that you
fellows, you  Allies, landed  in Sicily, and then  in Italy,  and  not  long
afterwards,  Mussolini was  overthrown, the Italians withdrew from the Axis,
and Angelo, like all of the other hundreds of thousands of Italian nationals
living  and working in the Reich,  fell  under  suspicion. His services were
badly needed as a test pilot, but his situation was  tenuous. He volunteered
for the most dangerous work of  all flying the  new Messerschmidt prototype,
with the turbine jet engine. This proved his loyalty in the eyes of some.
     "Remember that, at the same time, I  was decrypting the message traffic
of Detachment 2702. I kept these results to myself, as I  no longer felt any
particular  loyalty  to the  Third  Reich.  There had been a great burst  of
activity around the middle of April, and then no messages for a while  as if
the  detachment  had  ceased to exist. At exactly  the  same  time, G&ouml;ring's
people  were very  active for a  few days they were afraid that Bischoff was
going to broadcast the secret of U 553."
     "So you know about that?" Bischoff asks.
     "Nat&uuml;rlich.  U  553  was  G&ouml;ring's  treasure  ship.  Its existence  was
supposed  to  be a secret.  When you,  Sergeant Shaftoe,  turned up on board
Bischoff's U boat, talking about this thing, G&ouml;ring was very concerned for a
few days. But then everything settled down, and there was no Detachment 2702
traffic  through the late spring and early  summer. Mussolini was overthrown
in late June. Then the troubles began for me  and Angelo. The  Wehrmacht was
defeated  by the  Russians at Kursk absolute proof, for those who needed it,
that the Eastern Front is lost. Since then G&ouml;ring has  redoubled his efforts
to  get  his  gold,  jewels,  and  art out  of  the country." Rudy  looks at
Bischoff. "I am frankly surprised that he has not tried to recruit you."
     "D&ouml;nitz has," Bischoff admits.
     Rudy nods; it all fits.
     "During all of  this,"  Rudy  continues,  "I  received only one message
intercept in the Detachment 2702 code. It took my machinery several weeks to
break it.  It  was a message from Enoch  Root, stating that he and  Sergeant
Shaftoe  were in Norrsbruck, Sweden, and  requesting further instructions. I
was aware that  Kapit&auml;nleutnant Bischoff  was also  in the  same  town,  and
became interested.  I decided that this  would  be  a good place for  me and
Angelo to escape to."
     "Why!?" Shaftoe says. "Of all the places "
     "Enoch  and  I  had  never  met.  But  there  are  certain  old  family
connections," Rudy says, "and certain shared interests."
     Bischoff mutters something in German.
     "The connections make a very long  story. I would have to write a whole
fucking book," Rudy says irritably.
     Bischoff looks only  slightly appeased,  but Rudy goes  on  anyway. "It
took us several weeks to make preparations. I packed up the Leibniz Archiv "
     "Hold on the what?"
     "Certain materials I use in my  research. They had been scattered among
many libraries, all over Europe.  G&ouml;ring brought them all together for me it
makes men  like him  feel  powerful, to  do  these  little  favors for their
slaves.  I  departed  from  Berlin last  week,  on  the pretext of  going to
Hannover, to do my Leibniz research. Instead I made my way to Sweden through
channels that were quite involved "
     "No shit! How'd you manage that little stunt?" Shaftoe asks.
     Rudy looks  at Enoch  Root as if expecting  him to answer the question.
Root shakes his head minutely.
     "It would be too tedious  to explain  here," Rudy says, sounding mildly
annoyed. "I found Enoch. We got a  message to Angelo saying that I  was safe
here. Angelo then  tried to make his escape in the  Messerschmidt prototype,
with the results that we have all seen."
     A long pause.
     "And now, here we are!" says Bobby Shaftoe.
     "Here we are," agrees Rudolf von Hacklheber.
     "What do you think we should do?" asks Shaftoe.
     "I  think  we  should  form  a  secret  conspiracy,"  says  Rudolf  von
Hacklheber offhandedly, as if proposing  to  go in  together  on a  fifth of
bourbon.  "We should  all  make our way  separately to  Manila and,  once we
arrive, we should take some, if not all, of the gold  that the Nazis and the
Nipponese have been hoarding there."
     "What do you want with a shitload of gold?" Bobby asks. "You're already
rich."
     "There are many deserving charities,"  Rudy says, looking significantly
at Root. Root averts his eyes.
     There is another long pause.
     "I can provide secure lines of communication, which is the <I>sine qua non</I>
of any secret conspiracy," says Rudolf von Hacklheber. "We will use the full
strength,  uncrippled version  of the same cryptosystem that I  invented for
G&ouml;ring.  Bischoff can be our man on the inside, since D&ouml;nitz  wants  him  so
badly. Sergeant Shaftoe can be "
     "Don't even say it, I already know," says Bobby Shaftoe.
     He and Bischoff look at Root,  who's sitting  on his hands, staring  at
Rudy. Looking oddly nervous.
     "Enoch the Red, your organization can get us to Manila," von Hacklheber
says.
     Shaftoe snorts. "Don't you think the Catholic Church has its hands sort
of full right now?"
     "I'm  not  talking about the  Church,"  Rudy says. "I'm  talking  about
<I>Societas Eruditorum."</I>

     Root freezes.
     "Congratulations there, Rudy!" Shaftoe says. "You  surprised the padre.
I didn't think it could be done. Now would you mind telling us what the fuck
you're talking about?"


     <B>Chapter 59 HOARD</B>


     Like  a client of  one of your  less reputable pufferfish  sushi chefs,
Randy  Waterhouse does  not  move  from his assigned seat for  a full ninety
minutes  after the jumbo leaves Ninoy Aquino International Airport. A can of
beer is embedded in the core of his spiraled hand. His arm lies on the extra
wide Business Class armrest, a shank on a  slab. He does not  turn his head,
or  turret his eyeballs, even, to look out the window at northern Luzon. All
that's out there is jungle, which has two sets  of connotations going for it
now.  One  is the spooky Tarzan/Stanley  &amp; Livingstone/"The horror,  the
horror"/natives  are  restless/Charlie's out there somewhere  waiting for us
kind.  The  second  is  the  more  modern and  enlightened  sort of  Jacques
Cousteauian teeming repository of brilliant and endangered species lungs  of
the  planet kind.  Neither  really  works  for Randy  anymore, which is  why
despite  the state of hibernatory torpor he shunted into  the moment his ass
impacted on the navy blue leather of the seat, he feels  a little  spike  of
irritation every time  one of the other  passengers, peering  out  a window,
pronounces the word "jungle." To him,  it is just a shitload  of  trees now,
trees going on for miles and miles, up the little hilly willies and down the
little hilly  willies.  It  is  easy,  now, for him  to understand  tropical
denizens' shockingly frank and blunt  craving to drive  through this sort of
territory in  the largest and widest available bulldozers (the only parts of
his  body  that  move during the  first hour and  a  half  of the flight are
certain  facial  muscles which pull the  corners of his mouth  back  into an
ironic rictus when  he imagines what Charlene would think of this it is just
too perfect Randy  goes off on  a Business Foray and  comes back identifying
with people who bulldoze rainforests). Randy  wants to bulldoze  the jungle,
all of it. Actually, thermonuclear weapons, detonated at  a suitable height,
would do  the job  faster. He needs to rationalize this urge. He will do so,
as soon as he solves the running out of planetary oxygen problem.
     By  the time it even  occurs to him to lift the beer to  his  lips, the
heat of  his body has gone into it, and his  hand has become as  chilly  and
stiff  as an uncooked rolled  roast.  For  that matter, his  whole body  has
adjourned into some kind of metabolic recess, and his  brain is  not exactly
purring at high RPM's either. He feels kind of the way  he  does, sometimes,
the day before he comes down with a total body cold and flu scenario, one of
those crushing viral Tet Offensives that, every few years, swats you out  of
the land of  the  fully  living for a week  or two. It is as if  about three
quarters of his body's resources of  nutrients and energy have been diverted
to  the  task of  manufacturing  quintillions of  viruses. At  the  currency
exchange  window of  NAIA,  Randy  had  stood behind a Chinese man who, just
before he stepped back from the window with his money, unloaded a  Sneeze of
such  titanic force that the rolling pressure wave turbulating outwards from
his raw,  flapping  facial orifices caused the  wall  of  bulletproof  glass
separating  him  from  the  moneychangers  to  flex  slightly,  so that  the
reflection of the  Chinese man, Randy behind him,  the lobby of NAIA and the
sunlit passenger  dropoff  lane  outside  underwent  a  subtle  warpage. The
viruses  must have roiled back  from the  glass, reflected  like  light, and
enveloped  Randy. So maybe Randy  is  the  personal  vector  of this  year's
version  of the flu named  after some city in East Asia that  annually tours
the United States, just barely preceded by rush shipments of flu vaccine. Or
maybe it's Ebola.
     Actually, he feels fine. Other than the fact that his mitochondria have
gone on strike,  or  that his thyroid seems  to  be failing  (perhaps it was
secretly removed by black market organ transplanters? He makes a mental note
to check for new scars in  the next mirror) he is not experiencing any viral
symptoms at all.
     It  is  some kind of post  stress thing. This is the first  time he has
relaxed in a couple of weeks. Not once has he sat down in a bar with a beer,
or put his  feet up on a desk, or  just collapsed  like a decaying corpse in
front of the television set. Now his body is telling him it's payback  time.
He does  not sleep;  he  does  not feel drowsy at all. Actually,  he's  been
sleeping  rather well. But his  body  refuses to  move for an hour, and then
most of another hour, and to the extent his brain is  working at  all it can
only chase its tail.
     But there is something that he could be doing. This is why laptops were
invented, so that  important  business  persons would  not fritter away long
flights relaxing. He can see it right there on the floor in front of him. He
knows  he should reach for it. But it would break the spell. He feels  as if
water condensed on his skin and  froze into a carapace that  will shatter as
soon as he moves any part of his  body. This is, he realizes, exactly  how a
laptop computer must feel when it drops into its power saving mode.
     Then  a flight  attendant is there holding a menu in front  of his face
and saying something that jolts him like a cattle prod. He  nearly jumps out
of  his seat, spills  his beer  a little, gropes for the menu. Before he can
drop back into his demi coma, he continues  the motion  and reaches down for
his laptop.  The  seat next to him is empty and he can  put his  dinner over
there while he works on the computer.
     People around him are watching CNN live, from CNN Center in Atlanta not
a canned  thing on tape. According  to the plethora of pseudotechnical  data
cards  jammed into the seatbacks, which Randy  is  the  only person who ever
reads,  this  plane  has some  kind  of antenna  that can keep a lock  on  a
communications satellite as it flies  across the Pacific. Furthermore,  it's
two way, so you can even transmit e mail. Randy spends a while familiarizing
himself  with the instructions, checks  the  rates, as if he really  gives a
shit how much it costs, then jacks the thing into the anus of his laptop. He
opens up the laptop and  checks  his e mail. Traffic is low because everyone
in Epiphyte knows he's en route somewhere.
     Nevertheless, there are three messages from Kia, Epiphyte's only actual
employee, the administrative assistant for the whole company. Kia works in a
totally alienated,  abstracted office in the Springboard  Capital  corporate
incubator complex in San Mateo. It is some sort of a federal regulation that
nascent  high tech  companies  must  not hire  pudgy fifty  year old support
staff, the way  big established companies do.  They must  hire topologically
enhanced twenty  year olds with names that  sound like new  models of  cars.
Since most  hackers are white males, their companies are disaster areas when
it  comes to  diversity, and it follows that  all of  the diversity must  be
concentrated in the one or two employees who are not hackers. In the part of
a  federal  equal opportunity form  where Randy would  simply  check  a  box
labeled  CAUCASIAN, Kia  would have to attach multiple  sheets on which  her
family  tree  would  be  ramified  backwards  through  time  ten  or  twelve
generations until  reaching ancestors who could  actually be  pegged  to one
specific  ethnic group  without  glossing anything  over,  and those  ethnic
groups  would  be intimidatingly hip ones  not Swedes, let's say, but Lapps,
and not Chinese but Hakka,  and  not  Spanish  but  Basque. Instead of doing
this, on  her job app for Epiphyte she simply checked "other" and then wrote
in TRANS ETHNIC.  In fact, Kia  is  trans&ndash;  just about every system of
human categorization, and what she isn't trans&ndash; she is post .
     Anyway, Kia  does  a  great job (it  is  part  of  the unspoken  social
contract with these people that they always do  an absolutely fantastic job)
and she has sent e mail to Randy notifying him that she has recently fielded
four trans Pacific telephone calls from  America Shaftoe, who wants  to know
Randy's  whereabouts,  plans, state of mind, and purity  of  spirit. Kia has
informed  Amy  that  Randy's  on  his  way  to  California  and has  somehow
insinuated, or Amy has somehow figured out, that the purpose of the visit is
NOT  BUSINESS.  Randy  senses  a  small  pane  of  glass  shattering over  a
neurological  alarm  button  somewhere.  He  is in  trouble. This is  divine
retribution for his having dared to sit still and not do anything for ninety
whole minutes. He uses  his word processor to whip out a note  explaining to
Amy that he needs  to straighten out some paperwork in  order  to sever  the
last clinging tendrils  of  his dead, dead, dead relationship  with Charlene
(which was  such a lousy idea  to begin with that it causes him to lie awake
at night questioning his own judgment and fitness to live), and  that he has
to be in California in order to do it. He faxes the note to Semper Marine in
Manila, and also faxes it to <I>Glory IV</I> in case Amy's out on the water.
     He then  does something that  probably means he's certifiably crazy. He
gets up and strolls up and down the business class aisle on pretext of using
the bathroom,  and  checks  out  the people sitting nearby,  paying  special
attention  to  their luggage,  the stuff they've  jammed  into the  overhead
compartments, the bags under the  seats in front of them. He is  looking for
anything that might contain  a Van Eck phreaking  type  of antenna.  It is a
completely useless thing to do, because just about any type of luggage might
contain such an antenna and he would never know  it. Furthermore, any actual
spy who had been planted on  this plane to  eavesdrop  on his computer would
not   be  sitting  there  holding  up  a  big  antenna  and  peering  at  an
oscilloscope. But performing  the check  (like  checking the rates  for live
data transmissions  to the  satellite) is sort of an empty ritual that makes
him feel vaguely responsible and arguably non stupid.
     Returning  to his seat, he fires up OrdoEmacs, which  is  a marvelously
paranoid piece of software invented  by  John Cantrell. Emacs  in its normal
form is the hacker's word processor, a text editor that offers little in the
way of fancy formatting capabilities but does the basic job of editing plain
text very well. Your normally cryptographically paranoid hacker would create
files using Emacs and then encrypt them with  Ordo later. But  if you forget
to encrypt them, or if your laptop  gets stolen before you get a chance  to,
or your plane crashes and you die but your laptop is sieved  out of the muck
by  baffled but dogged crash  investigators  and  falls  into  the hands  of
federal authorities, your files can  be read. For that matter it is possible
even to find ghostly traces of old bits on a hard drive's sectors even after
the file has been overwritten with new data.
     OrdoEmacs, on the other hand, works exactly like regular  Emacs, except
that it encrypts everything before writing  it out to  disk.  At no time  is
plaintext ever laid down on a disk by  OrdoEmacs the only place it exists in
its plain, readable form is in the pixels on the screen, and in the volatile
RAM  of the computer,  whence it vanishes the moment power is shut down. Not
only that, but  it's coupled to a screensaver that uses the little  built in
CCD camera in the laptop to check to see if you are actually there. It can't
recognize  your  face, but it can tell whether or not a vaguely human shaped
form is sitting in front  of it, and if  that vaguely human shaped form goes
away, even for a fraction of a second, it will drop into a screen saver that
will blank the display and freeze the machine until such time as you type in
a password, or biometrically verify your identity through voice recognition.
     Randy opens  up  a document template that Epiphyte  uses  for  internal
memoranda  and begins to lay out certain  facts that  will be  fresh, and no
doubt stimulating, to Avi, Beryl, John, Tom, and Eb.
     MY TRIP TO THE JUNGLE
     or
     THE DRUMS OF THE HUKS
     or
     GET A LOAD OF THIS
     or
     HE SQUEEZED MY TESTICLES
     or
     THE WEIRD TURN PRO
     a tale  of  adventure  and  discovery  in  the  majestic rain forest of
northern Luzon
     by
     Randall Lawrence Waterhouse
     As I stepped  on this unknown middle aged Filipina's feet during an ill
advised  ballroom dancing foray, she  leaned close to  me  and uttered  some
latitude  and  longitude  figures  with  a  conspicuously  large  number  of
significant digits of precision,  implying a maximum positional error on the
order of the size of a  dinner  plate.  Gosh,  was I  ever  curious! Subject
provided these numbers as part of a conversational gambit/thought experiment
concerning the  inherent value  (as in monetary) of  information, a  subject
(coincidentally?)  of interest  to us,  the  Management Team of  Epiphyte(2)
Corp. Examination  of  high res maps of Luzon  indicated  that  the lat. and
long,  in  question  were in  a hilly  (let's  just go  ahead  and  call  it
mountainous) region some  250  km north of  Manila.  For  those  of you  not
familiar  with  WW2  history,  this  area  was  within the  final  perimeter
controlled by  General  Yamashita,  the  Tiger  of  Malaya and  conqueror of
Singapore,  at the end of that war,  when Gen. MacArthur had driven him  and
his approx. l0^5 troops  out of the populated lowlands.  And no, this is not
just a fundamentally irrelevant historical note, as we shall see.
     Relayed  said  data  to  one  Douglas MacArthur  Shaftoe (refer  to  my
exceptionally colorful and readable status  reports on cable survey for more
anecdotal material concerning same) who asserted " someone is trying to send
you a  message" (note: all cheesy  dialog  hereinafter is DMS's) and offered
his assistance  with  a vigor bordering  on  scary  aggressiveness.  DMS  is
energetic and enterprising to a degree that from time to time leaves certain
persons (e.g. those burdened with a petty  fear of death or  torture) uneasy
(see my  prior speculation as to  possibility DMS may  have been born with a
redundant  Y  chromosome)  Primary role of  Yours  Truly  became as follows:
source  of  repetitious  and  evidently  irritating   counsels  of  caution,
restraint,  other  virtues given a  low  priority  by  DMS,  who  cites  his
longevity  (which unavoidably  exceeds that of Yours Truly  as  he was  born
before me), network of close personal  relationships (murky, globe spanning,
reputedly   puissant),  financial  prosperity  (commodities,  e.g.  precious
metals, distributed among many  locations  DMS  declines to reveal)  and (as
trump  card)  the corporeal perfection of his girlfriend (she must  carry an
umbrella  while  out  of  doors lest her face  cause  pilots  of  overflying
commercial airliners  to pitch  forward, dumb and inert, onto their  control
yokes)  all as proof that  the ideas shared by Yours Truly vis a  vis how to
avoid  death, dismemberment,  etc.  need not be  given more  than  the  most
cursory  attention. Yours Truly's only bargaining chips  were  appropriately
and ironically enough, information: namely the final few digits  of the lat.
and long, which were with held from DMS lest he simply  go there himself and
check them out (note:  DMS is honest to  a fault, and so the concern  is not
that  DMS might  steal or appropriate anything  but that situation would get
out of hand, to the extent it ever was in hand to begin with)
     Plans were made for a journey  ("mission" in DMS parlance) to said lat.
and long. Extra  batteries were purchased for the GPS receiver (see attached
expense report). Drinking  water, etc.  laid in.  A  jeepney  was  retained.
Concept of jeepney is  impossible  to convey  fully here: a minibus, usually
named after  a pop star, Biblical figure, or  abstract theological  concept,
whose engine &amp; frame  come from American,  or Nipponese auto company but
whose entire body, seats, upholstery, &amp; encrustations of lurid decor are
locally  manufactured by high spirited artisans. Jeepneys are  normally made
outside of Manila in towns or barangays (semiautonomous neighborhoods)  that
specialize in same; the design, materials, style, etc. of a jeepney  reflect
its provenance just  as good  wine allegedly betrays climate, soil, etc.  of
its terroir. Ours was (anomalously) a perfectly monochromatic jeepney mfged.
out of pure  stainless steel in the stainless  steel fabrication specialized
bgy. of  San Pablo, with (unlike normal  jeepneys) no colored decorations at
all  everything either stainless steel  colored or  (where  use was made  of
electric  lights)  pure  piercing halogen  white  with bluish  tinge  nicely
complementing hue of  stainless steel. Seats in  back  were stainless  steel
benches with surprisingly ergonomic lumbar support capabilities, Name of our
jeepney was THE GRACE OF GOD.  Readers of this memo will be disappointed  to
know that  Bong  Bong  Gad (sic),  designer/owner/driver/proprietor  of  the
vehicle, anticipated the inevitable "there but  for THE GRACE  OF GOD  go I"
witticism by unloading same on Yours Truly while we were still shaking hands
(Filipinos  go  in for long  handshakes,  and  the first party  to  initiate
termination of a  handshake usually the non Filipino is invariably left with
a nagging feeling that he is a shithead)
     Yours Truly, in discreet  one on one mode with DMS, adverted to lack of
windows in the rear (passenger) section of THE GRACE OF  GOD as prima  facie
evidence that it  lacked  air  conditioning, a technology  widely adopted in
Philippine Islands. DMS evinced skepticism as to moral fiber of Yours Truly,
commenced  with  a  series  of  probing questions  aimed  at establishing my
commitment  to  Mission, fiduciary resp. to Epiphyte  shareholders, level of
physical &amp; mental  vigor, and overall  level of  "serious"  ness  (being
"serious" is  some kind of  umbrella  concept strongly  correlated  with  my
fitness to  live, to have the privilege of knowing  DMS, and to go  on dates
with his daughter.  This gives me an opening to mention what would  normally
be  no  one's business  but  my own but which in these  circumstances  it is
ethically mandated that  I  disclose,  namely,  that I  am  infatuated  with
daughter of DMS and that while not  exactly  reciprocating these feelings at
full strength she finds me sufficiently non loathsome to have dinner with me
from  time to time. It  has  only occurred to me at this very moment that my
pursuit  of  rel'nship w/the female in  question, one America (sic) by name,
would  in context of modern  U.S. society be classified as SEXUAL HARASSMENT
and that if desired culmination is achieved it might be classified as SEXUAL
ABUSE  or RAPE owing  to "power imbalance" existing between me and her. Viz,
Yours Truly is on Management Team  of Corp that  has  retained Semper Marine
for large job &amp; provided them with majority of their revenue during last
fiscal year.  Anyone  with  thoughts  of  summoning  federal  authorities to
apprehend me upon  arrival at SFO &amp; expose my misdeeds  &amp; subject me
to  public  disgrace  &amp; compulsory  consciousness  raising workshops  is
advised to acquaint him or herself with the Shaftoes first &amp; to at least
remain open to possibility  that  Dad's martial prowess  in combination with
traditional  feelings   of  psychotic   protectiveness  toward  his   female
offspring, combined with Daughter's habit of carrying large Palawan stabbing
weapon  known as  a kris,  and Daughter's overall psychic  fierceness  &amp;
physical fitness &amp;  courage  exceeding that of Yours Truly, mitigate any
perceived  power imbalance, particularly given that most of our interactions
take place in settings which lend themselves admirably to  discreet homicide
&amp; corpse disposal. In other words, I make  you aware of  this amor stuff
not  as  confession  of personal  misdeeds but  to make  full disclosure  of
situation  that  could  influence my  judgment vis  a vis  Semper Marine and
conceivably  negatively impact shareholder value,  or, much  more plausibly,
that could  be SEEN as doing so by  minority shareholder  lawyers who infest
our industry like guinea worms, and used as pretext for legal action).
     Back  to the question  at  hand,  then.  Yours  Truly  asserted  calmly
(feeling that vigorous assertions would be perceived by DMS as defensiveness
&amp;  hence  a de  facto confession of  lack of "serious" ness) that (1)  a
couple of days' travel in open AC less vehicle through Philippine hinterland
would be a day  at the beach, a picnic, a walk in the  park, &amp;  a sunday
stroll  all  rolled  into one, and (2) furthermore that even  if it were the
most  hideous torture Yours  Truly  would gladly undergo  it given that  the
stakes, for all  concerned (incl.  Epiphyte shareholders) were  so  high and
generally  Serious. In  retrospect, (1) and (2) in  close succession seem to
betray some kind of  hedging strategy on part of Yours Truly, however at the
time DMS was mollified,  formally withdrew previous  accusations as to moral
fiber, etc., and divulged that use  of jeepney  was tactical masterstroke on
his (DMS's) part in that,  where we  were going, a Merc with smoked glass or
fifty  thousand  dollar Land  Rover,  or  (by extension)  any  vehicle  with
extravagances such as upholstered seats,  windows with glass in them,  shock
absorbers dating from  post Kennedy assassination era, etc., etc. would only
draw undesired attention to Mission.
     America Shaftoe remained in  Manila  to stay in touch with Mission  via
radio &amp;  (I  supposed) to call in  napalm strikes should we  find selves
embroiled. Bong Bong Gad &amp; his approx. 12 yr old son/business  associate
Fidel  occupied front  seat. DMS &amp; Yours  Truly  shared rear (passenger)
section  with three  mysterious,  precisely packed  G.I. green  duffel bags;
approx. 100  kilos of drinking water in  plastic  bottles;  &amp;  two Asian
gentlemen    in   their    30s   or   40s    who   exhibited   stereotypical
inscrutability/impassivity/dignity, etc.,  etc.  during the first four hours
of the  journey, which  were  spent  simply trying  to  drive from center of
Manila to northern outskirts  of same. Nationality  of  these  two  was  not
immediately evident. Many Filipinos are,  racially, almost pure Chinese even
though  their  families  have  been living here for  centuries. Perhaps this
explained strongly Asian features of our traveling companions and (I now had
to assume) business associates.
     Proverbial  ice was  broken as one consequence  of  pig truck  incident
which occurred  on four lane  highway,  narrowed  by  construction  to  two,
leading N from Manila.  Casual obsvn.  of Filipino swine suggests that their
ludicrous,  pink, tabloid  sized ears function  as heat  exchangers,  as do,
e.g.,  the tongues of  dogs. They are transported in vehicles consisting  of
big  cage constructed on  bed of  a straight (as opposed to semiarticulated)
truck. Construction of such vehicles appears  to tax local  resources to the
point where they  are  only  economical when maximum conceivable  number  of
swine are packed into confines at all times. Heat buildup ensues. Pigs adapt
by fighting their way to perimeter of cage &amp; hanging ear/heat exchangers
out over the side to flap in the wind of the truck's motion.
     The appearance  of such  a vehicle when approached  from  behind can be
easily  envisioned  without  further  description. Readers who devote a  few
moments'  consideration to the subject  of excreta need not be pounded  over
the  head  vis  a vis  what flies,  sprays, drips,  etc. from such  vehicles
either.  The  Pig  Truck Incident  was a  humorous demonstration of  applied
hydrodynamics,  though   since  no   actual   water  was  involved   perhaps
"excretodynamics" or "scatodynamics" might better fit.  THE GRACE OF GOD had
been  following  a  representative Pig Truck  for some miles in the hopes of
passing it. The sheer  quantity of excess  body heat radiating from its vast
phased array  of flapping  pink ears caused several  of our  drinking  water
bottles to achieve full rolling boil and explode. Bong Bong Gad maintained a
respectful distance because of excreta hazards, which  in no way  simplified
the problem of passing  the truck. Tension climbed to a palpable level &amp;
Bong  Bong  was  subjected to  steadily  increasing stream of  good  natured
heckling  and unsolicited driving advice from passenger area, esp.  from DMS
who  viewed  lingering  unwelcome  presence  of  pig  truck  in our  planned
trajectory as  personal affront &amp;  hence  challenge to be overcome w/all
due pluck, vigor, can do spirit, &amp; other qualities known to be possessed
in abundance by DMS.
     After some  time Bong Bong made his move, using one  hand to manipulate
steering wheel and other to time share equally important responsibilities of
shifting gears and depressing  the horn button. As we drew alongside the Pig
Truck (which was on my side of  the jeepney) the Truck slalomed toward us as
if  perhaps  swerving  around  some  real  or  imagined roadside hazard. The
primary horn  of  THE GRACE  OF GOD was apparently  going  unheard, possibly
because  it was competing for audio bandwidth against large numbers of swine
voicing their displeasure in same frequency range. With aplomb normally seen
only  among  senescent  English  butlers,  Bong  Bong  reached up  with  his
horn/gearshift  hand and gripped a brilliant stainless  steel chain flailing
from  ceiling of cab  with  a stainless steel crucifix  on the end of it and
jerked downwards, energizing the secondary, tertiary, and quaternary honking
systems: a trio of tuba sized stainless  steel horns mounted  to the roof of
THE GRACE OF GOD and collectively drawing so much  power that our  vehicle's
speed dropped by (I would estimate) ten km/hr as  its energies were diverted
into  decibel  production.  A  demi hyperbolic swath  of  agricultural crops
twenty miles long was flattened to the ground by the blast, and, hundreds of
miles  north,  the Taiwanese government,  its collective ears still ringing,
filed a diplomatic protest  with  the Philippine ambassador. Dead whales and
dolphins washed ashore on the beaches of Luzon for days, and sonar operators
in passing U.S.  Navy  submarines were sent into early retirement with blood
streaming from their ears.
     Terrified by this sound, all of the pigs (I would suppose) voided their
bowels just as  the driver of the Pig Truck swerved violently  away from us.
Certain first year physics conservation of momentum  issues dictated that  I
be showered with former pig bowel contents in order  to enhance  shareholder
value. This was evidently the  funniest  thing  that the  two Asian  looking
gentlemen had ever  seen and rendered them helpless for several minutes. One
of them actually  retched  from  laughing too hard (the  first time that our
vehicle's  lack  of windows came in handy). The  other extended his hand and
introduced himself as  one Jean Nguyen. This is the French male name "zhohn"
and not the  Anglo female name "jeen." Jean Nguyen looked at me  expectantly
after telling me his name, as did DMS, as if they were expecting me to get a
fairly obvious joke. Perhaps  preoccupied with hygienic issues. I  failed to
get  it.  and they  pointed out to  me that  when "Jean" is  pronounced like
"John"  and "Nguyen" is pronounced the way a lot of Americans mangle it, the
name sounds  arguably  like "John  Wayne," which is  how I was encouraged to
address this  Jean Nguyen from that point onwards. It  seemed  in retrospect
that  I  was  being  given an  opportunity  to have  a small chuckle at Jean
Nguyen's  expense  and  thereby  to  even  the  scales,  in  some  small but
symbolically important sense,  for  the pig  shit  incident.  My failure  to
exploit this opportunity  left  everyone feeling mildly uneasy and like they
still  owed me one. The other gentle man  was  introduced  as Jackie Woo. He
spoke English with a vaguely East Indian  crackle which  led me to peg  him,
speculatively,  as a Malay Peninsula native  of Chinese  descent, e.g.. from
Singapore or Penang.
     First  day's travel  got us across the  central  Luzon  plain (rice and
sugar cane)  to  the  town of  San  Jose  at the  foot  of  the southernmost
extension of the Cordillera Central (trees and bugs). By  this point it  was
dark, and to my relief, neither DMS nor Bong Bong was eager  to brave twisty
Cordillera roads  in darkness. We  stayed in  a guest house. At this  point,
having devoted much time  to  detailed Pig  Truck  description I  will elide
various details concerning  San  Juan, its inhabitants (of various taxonomic
phyla some of which I had never encountered until that night), the character
building nature of our lodgings and,  in particular, their fanciful plumbing
system  which was a credit to  the imagination,  though not the  hydrostatic
acumen, of its anonymous  creator. It was the kind of  hostel  that  makes a
traveler eager to get an early and explosively sudden start  in the morning,
which we did.
     A  note now  about the  physical properties  of space, as perceived  by
human beings imprisoned  within bodies of limited  physical  capabilities. I
have long noticed that space  seems  to be more compressed, more  involuted,
some  how psychically LARGER in some places than others. Covering a distance
of three or four miles in the totally open scrublands of central  Washington
State is  a simple matter,  and takes less than an hour on  foot. and only a
few minutes if you have  some kind of vehicle. Covering the same distance in
Manhattan takes much longer. It's  not just  that the space in  Manhattan is
more physically obstructed (though it  definitely is) but that there is some
kind of psychological impact that alters the way you perceive and experience
distance.  You  cannot see  as far, and  what you do see is  full of people,
buildings,  goods,  vehicles, and other stuff that it  takes your brain some
amount of effort  to sort  through, to process. Even if you had some kind of
magic carpet  that  would glide past  all of the  physical  obstructions the
distance would  seem  much longer, and  would  take  longer to cover, simply
because your mind would have to deal with more stuff.
     The same thing is  true of a jungle type of environment  as  opposed to
the plains. Traversing  the  physical space  is basically an ongoing  battle
against  hundreds  of  different  combatants each one  of  which  is,  to  a
traveler, an  obstruction, a hazard, or both. I.e.,  no matter which one  of
them predominates in a given ten  square  meter area, you are still screwed,
as far as  getting  across that ten square  meters is  concerned. There  are
roads through the jungle,  but  even when they are in  good repair they seem
more  like  bottlenecks than vectors  of motion, and they  are never in good
repair mudslides,  fallen trees,  huge chuckholes,  and  the like block them
every few hundred meters. Also the same perceptual thing is at work here you
can't see more  than a few meters  in any  direction,  and  inputs,  some of
which,  like  butterflies,  are  (okay,  okay)  beautiful.   My  reason  for
mentioning  this is that I know that  everyone who  reads  this probably has
multiple  maps of Luzon  on their  wall or  in  their computer, which,  when
consulted, will cause it to  seem  as if  we  are  dealing with a triflingly
small area, and  covering minuscule distances. But you must try not to think
this way and instead imagine that Luzon is effectively as large as, say, the
United States west of the Mississippi. In terms of the time  it takes to get
around the place, it is at least that big.
     I mention this not out  of some impulse to mewl and convince you all of
how strenuously I have worked, but because until you grasp this central fact
of  the  effectively vast size  of  this  part  of  the  world. you will  be
completely unable to believe the dumbfounding facts that I am slowly getting
around to revealing.
     We went into the  mountains.  Around  midday, we encountered  our first
military  roadblock.  Distance  covered from  San  Juan  was  pathetic  from
cartographic  p.o.v.  ,  but  in  terms  of  unexpected  hassles  creatively
surmounted,  wrenchingly  difficult  decisions  made,  &amp; pits of despair
climbed  out   of  by  the  emotional  fingernails,  should  be   considered
magnificent achievement on par with any given day  of  the Lewis &amp; Clark
expedition, (excluding,  of  course,  anomalous days  such  as  their  first
encounters  with Ursus horribilis &amp; their epic, stocking  foot traversal
of Bitterroot  Range.)  Roadblock was  established  in the low key  Filipino
style: one man in military uniform (U.S. Army castoffs) standing by roadside
smoking &amp; beckoning. We were at a rare wide  spot in  the  road, a place
where  oncoming  Chicken playing  vehicles  could pull  aside abjectly. Four
members of Army (later pegged by insignia savvy DMS as a first lieutenant, a
sergeant,  and two  privates)  had ensconced  selves on parked  Humvee  type
vehicle w/absurdly long  whip antenna clamped to bumper. The privates, armed
with  M 16s, stiffly  unfolded selves  from repose  &amp; adopted  positions
flanking THE GRACE OF GOD from behind, keeping their weapons pointed vaguely
at  the ground, as if more  worried  about entomological  threats  than  our
little  band of travelers. Sergeant was armed with what I first perceived as
L shaped nightstick fashioned from  parts scavenged from  plumbing aisle  of
home  improvement  store &amp;  painted black,  but  on  further examination
proved to be a submachine gun.
     Said Sergeant approached Bong Bong Gad's door &amp; conversed with same
in Tagalog.  Lieutenant was armed only  with sidearm &amp; supervised  these
operations  from  a shaded area  near the Humvee, seeming to espouse a hands
off,  as opposed to micromanaging,  leadership  style. This  inspection  was
limited  to the Sergeant peering in through  TGOG's glassless windows  &amp;
exchanging hearty greetings with DMS (evidently Jean Nguyen &amp; Jackie Woo
spoke even  less Tagalog than Yours Truly). We were then allowed to proceed,
although  I  noticed that  the  lieutenant  immediately  commenced  a  radio
transmission. "The sergeant say there are Nice People Around," Bong Bong Gad
explained to me, using a coy local euphemism for NPA,  or New People's Army,
a  supposedly  revolutionary,  but  evidently  somewhat  feckless   guerilla
organization descended in  a direct line from the  Hukbalahaps, or Huks, the
fighters who resisted  the Nipponese occupation (but  not so desultorily) in
WW2.
     We then  covered an amount of distance  equivalent, in  terms of  Fear,
Uncertainty,  and  Doubt,  to one  more Lewis  And Clark  Expedition Day,  a
convenient  unit  of  distance, danger,  perspirational  weight  loss,  poor
sphincter control, wishing you were  at home, exasperation, &amp;  emotional
toll  which I will hereinafter abbreviate as LAC. So after 1 LAC  we arrived
at another roadblock similar to the first except that here there was a troop
truck in addition to the Humvee, and  some tents pitched, and a pit latrine,
whose odor &amp; appearance suggested a long standing  military  presence in
this area. A luckless private was made to crawl underneath THE GRACE  OF GOD
with  a flashlight, inspecting its undercarriage. The three duffel bags were
removed and their contents spread out. I should mention that upon my joining
this  expedition in Manila, DMS had  gone through my bag  with  a  level  of
inquisitiveness annoying at the time,  refused to allow me to  bring certain
items (such  as  pharmaceuticals)  and transferred  remaining items to clear
plastic bags of Ziploc type which were placed in the duffels. Merits of this
highly modular  approach  now became clear  as  inspection of our  cargo was
wondrously  facilitated:  duffels  were simply upended over tarps  spread on
ground &amp; contents  inspected by sight  through transparent  inner  bags,
sometimes by feel  to check  for compositional  inhomogeneities.  Certain of
these bags  contained cartons of American  brand tobacco products  which  as
expected  did  not  make it  back into the duffels. Most of my  DMS mandated
supply  of  alkaline  AA batteries, which  I  had  thought  radically out of
proportion to projected demand, also vanished at this time. We were sent  on
our way and after approx. 0.6  LAC  (mostly  occasioned  by need  to  remove
downed tree from roadway) arrived at a town that  appeared seemingly out  of
nowhere  in  jungle valley, astride  a  river.  Slept  like  a  dead man  in
startlingly decent guesthouse that  night. Woke up next morning &amp; looked
out window  to observe large crowd of locals milling  around in street below
in their best  meshback caps &amp; American basketball t  shirts.  Descended
stairs  to discover DMS in dining room, strategically flanked by Jean Nguyen
&amp; Jackie Woo, at other tables in corners of room,  wearing  climatically
inappropriate  jackets  &amp; generally projecting  the  image of  concealed
weapon equipped badass motherfuckers not to be trifled with.
     Not  wishing  to  interfere  with this  psychodrama, Yours  Truly  took
innocuous position at yet another  table,  well away from  projected gunfire
corridors, accepted  coffee  from  proprietor,  declined  local  delicacies,
negotiated (see expense  report) for loan of bowl &amp;  spoon,  breakfasted
upon  Cap'n  Crunch &amp;  warm UHT  milk  from duffel  bag (former had been
packed  into a Ziploc that when fully loaded  adopted the distinctive pillow
shape of an individual nugget of Cap'n Crunch, only  much larger). Explosive
crunching noises  of  nuggets  caused  Yours  Truly  to feel conspicuous and
Western. Jean Nguyen &amp; Jackie Woo had  declined all  refreshments except
tea, the  better to project image  of hair trigger alertness &amp; potential
for instantaneous violence, DMS was eating an omelette with approx. diameter
of a Hula Hoop &amp; engaging in one  short conversation  after another with
locals, who were  admitted through front  door  of building one at a time by
proprietor  and  allowed to  present their  cases to  DMS as  if  he were  a
traveling magistrate. Between two  such interviews, DMS noted my presence in
room &amp; bade  me join  him. I moved  my  Cap'n Crunch  infrastructure  to
corner of table  not occupied by omelette &amp; sat with him during the next
couple  of dozen interviews, which were  conducted in mixture of English and
Tagalog. Crowd  in  street dwindled gradually  as  they were interviewed and
then dismissed by DMS.
     Subject  matter of  interviews could be induced by Yours Truly  only by
recognizing occasional English  words &amp; adopting  a  basically intuitive
pattern recognition approach not amenable to rational explication here. Most
common   keywords:  Nippon,   the   Nipponese,  the  War,  Gold,   Treasure,
Excavations,   Yamashita,   Mass  Executions.   Emotional  tenor  of   these
conversations consisted  of polite but  extreme skepticism  on  part of DMS,
while  confronted by desperate need to be  believed on part of interviewees.
In the end DMS did  not believe any of them as  far as I could discern. They
either  became obstreperous &amp; had to  be shown the door (glancing warily
at  Jean Nguyen &amp;  Jackie  Woo)  or  adopted  a wounded  &amp; aggrieved
stance. DMS was amused by the former &amp; disgusted  by  the latter.  Yours
Truly mused  silently  upon  inappropriateness  of his own presence in  this
setting  &amp;  fondly  remembered  predictable comforts  of  home,  even of
Manila. Upon completion of  breakfast &amp; of interviews, DMS divulged,  in
response to my  inquiries, that he had been at it for two hours before I had
arrived &amp; that  formation  of  this milling crowd  occurs  spontaneously
before  doors of any lodgings  he takes  in  the  Philippines  owing to  his
reputation as treasure hunter. We had avoided it in San Juan only because he
goes  there frequently  and has already interviewed  everyone in region with
Nipponese  War  Gold  stories  found  99.9%  of  them  lacking  credibility,
investigating the remaining .1% with occasionally lucrative results.
     THE  GRACE  OF  GOD  had  been  washed  and  buffed  by  Fidel  Gad  in
magnificently  insouciant  gesture  of  defiance  of  jungle  elements.   We
proceeded  across river. Racial variations were conspicuous on faces, and in
physiognomies,  of   townspeople.  Philippines  were  settled  by  countless
overlapping waves of prehistoric migrants each racially &amp; linguistically
incompatible with the last; this  in combination with the spatial involution
phenom. which  I have,  I think sufficiently belabored by this point,  makes
for  your basic  patchwork of different ethnic groups. The fork in the river
around which this town was  nucleated was meeting point of unofficial  turfs
of  three  such  different cultures. Lure of  bright  lights,  or  even dim,
flickering   ones,  has  drawn  thousands  down  from  mountains  in  recent
generations   to  establish   several  distinct  barangays.  This  morning's
interviewees  were migrants from the mountains, or  their sons or grandsons,
who claimed to  have first hand knowledge of sites of Yamashita's hoards, or
to have heard about same from late ancestors.
     After  covering  about 1.6 LACs through  jungle  (roads,  slopes, &amp;
conditions  getting  worse  all the  time) we  encountered  another military
roadblock  that had (somewhat incredibly to my mind) been established  at  a
pass over a  ridge,  overlooking  some  rice  terraces that  had (even  more
incredibly)  been hacked  out of an essentially vertical south facing  slope
thousands  of  years ago by the evidently fearsomely  tenacious ancestors of
the locals. Here we were thoroughly searched. My testicles were squeezed  at
some  length by a  sergeant  with  a  pencil mustache, whose motives did not
appear to be  sexual, but  who  simultaneously looked  me searchingly in the
eye,  awaiting a  look  of  submission or hopelessness on  the  face  of the
squeezed.  The  others  were  subjected to the  same treatment and  probably
endured it with more stoicism than Yours Truly. No lethal weapons were found
attached  to any of our  scrota, but (surprise!) Jean ("John  Wayne") Nguyen
and  Jackie Woo were discovered  to be armed to the  teeth, and DMS somewhat
less  so. This is the part where Yours Truly expected to be shot in the nape
of  the neck  whilst  kneeling  above  a shallow  grave, but  ironically the
authorities  were far more  interested in my cache of Cap'n Crunch  than the
weaponry sported by my comrades. Negotiations took place between DMS and the
captain in charge  of  this outpost, in  the privacy of a  tent. DMS emerged
with a thinner wallet and full  clearance to proceed, on the conditions that
(1) all supplies of Cap'n Crunch be donated to the officers' mess, and (2) a
full inventory  of weapons and ammo  would be taken  upon  our return  &amp;
compared with today's findings to make sure that we were not  smuggling arms
to the Nice People Around.
     Three  days' excruciatingly slow  travel,  comprising  maybe another 10
LACs, awaited  us. According  to my map and  GPS  we were circumnavigating a
cluster of active volcanoes that frequently spew out lahars (mud avalanches)
which, when they impact upon ruts in the jungle that I'm here calling roads,
cause logistical  problems well  into the  realm  of  the absurd. We  passed
entire  towns that had been buried  and abandoned. Church steeples projected
at angles from the grey mud, held up by the same flows that had knocked them
askew.  Skulls of goats,  dogs, etc.  protruded from  mud that  had hardened
around  living  animals  like  concrete.  We  bedded down  nightly  at small
settlements  after  propitiating  locals  with  gifts  of  penicillin (which
Filipinos use like  aspirin), batteries, disposable lighters, &amp; whatever
else  had been left  to us by the soldiers  at the  roadblocks.  We slept on
benches,  floor, roof, or front seats of THE GRACE  OF GOD, beneath mosquito
nets.
     Finally, when my GPS revealed that we  were less  than ten km. from our
mysterious destination, a local instructed  us to wait in  a nearby village.
We remained there for a day &amp; a night  resting up and reading books (DMS
is never without a milk crate of techno thrillers) until,  at  dawn, we were
approached by a trio of very young, short men, one of whom carried an AK 47.
He and his brethren climbed on the roof of THE GRACE OF GOD and we proceeded
into a  jungle track so  narrow that I would not  have pegged it even  as  a
footpath. A couple  of km. into the jungle we reached a point where we spent
more time pushing the jeepney than riding in it. Shortly thereafter  we left
Bong Bong  and Fidel and  one of the duffels behind,  the four  of us taking
turns humping  the two other  duffels.  I consulted  the GPS  &amp; verified
that,  although  we  had  for  a  time  (alarmingly)  moved  away  from  the
Destination, we  were now  moving  toward it  again. We were eight  thousand
m(eters)  away  and  proceeding  at a  rate that  varied between  about five
hundred and a  thousand  m per  hour, depending on  whether we  were  moving
steeply uphill  or  steeply downhill. It was  around noon. Those of you with
even  rudimentary math skills will have anticipated  that  when the sun went
down we were still a few thousand meters away.
     The three Filipinos our guides, guards, captors, or whatever  they were
wore  the  obligatory U.S.  t  shirts  which make it  so  easy, nowadays, to
underestimate  cultural  differences. They  had  not yet,  however, attained
transethnicity.  While in  town they  were shod in flip  flops,  but in  the
jungle they went barefoot (I have owned pairs of shoes less durable than the
calluses on their feet).  They spoke a language that apparently  had zero in
common with the Tagalog I'd heard ("Tagalog" is the old name; the government
is  ragging on  people  to call it "Filipina," as if to  imply that it is in
some sense  a  common language  of  the archipelago, which,  as  these  guys
demonstrated, is not the case). DMS had to converse with them in English. At
one  point he  gave one a  throwaway  plastic ballpoint  pen and their faces
absolutely  lit  up. Then we  had  to scrounge  up  two  more  pens for  his
companions. It was like Christmas. Progress halted for several minutes while
they  marveled at  the  pens'  handy clicking mechanisms and  doodled on the
palms of their hands. The American t  shirts were, in other words,  not worn
as Americans wear them but in the same spirit that the Queen of England wore
the exotic Koh I Noor  Diamond on her  crown.  Not for the  first time I was
overtaken by a strong not exactly in Kansas feeling.
     We  slogged through the inevitable late afternoon thunderstorm and kept
moving into the night. DMS produced U.S. Army MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) from
the duffels, only a  couple of weeks past their stenciled expiration  dates.
The Filipino men found these nearly as  exciting  as the ballpoint pen,  and
saved  the  disposable  foil  trays for  later use  as  roofing material. We
started  slogging again. The moon came out, which represented a bit of luck.
I  fell down a couple of times and banged myself up on trees, which ended up
being a good thing because it put me into a state of mild shock, dulling the
pain  and jacking me up on adrenaline.  Our guides, at one point,  seemed  a
little uncertain as to which way they  should  go. I took a fix with the GPS
(using  the screen's  nightlight function)  and established  that we were no
more than fifty meters away from  the destination, almost too small an error
for my GPS to resolve. In any  event, it  told us roughly which direction to
proceed, and  we trudged  through the  trees for another  few  moments.  The
guides  became animated  and very  cheerful finally they  had  gotten  their
bearings, they knew where we  were. I bumped into something heavy, cold, and
immovable that nearly broke my knee. I  reached down to touch  it, expecting
to find a rock outcropping, but instead felt some thing smooth and metallic.
It seemed to be a stack of smaller units, maybe comparable in size to loaves
of bread. "Is this what we're looking for?" I asked. DMS turned on a battery
powered lantern and whipped the beam around in my direction.
     I was instantly  blinded  by a thigh high  stack  of gold bars, about a
meter  and  a half  on a side, sitting  out in the  middle  of  the  jungle,
unmarked and unguarded.
     DMS came over and sat down on top of it and lit a cigar. After a while,
we  counted  the  bars and measured  them.  They  are trapezoidal  in  cross
section, about 10  cm  wide and 10 high,  and about  40 cm  in length.  This
enabled us to estimate their mass at about  75 kg. each, which works  out to
2,400 troy ounces. Since gold is normally measured in troy ounces and not in
kilograms (!) I'm  going to make a wild guess that these bars were  intended
to weigh an even 2,500 troy ounces apiece. At current rates ($400/troy oz. )
this means each  bar is worth  a million dollars. There are 5 layers of bars
in  the stack,  each layer consisting of  24 bars, and  so  the value of the
stack is $120 million. Both the mass estimate and the value estimate presume
that the bars are nearly pure gold. I  took a  rubbing of the stamp from one
of the bars,  which  bears the mark of the  Bank  of Singapore. Each bar  is
marked with a unique serial number and I copied down as  many  of those as I
could see.
     Then we went back to Manila. All along the way, I tried to  imagine the
logistics  of getting even  a single one of  those gold bars from the jungle
out to the nearest bank where it could be turned into something useful, like
cash.
     Let me transition to a Q&amp;A format here.
     Q: Randy, I get the feeling that you are about to lay out in detail all
of the hassles that would be involved in moving this gold overland, so let's
just cut to the chase and talk about helicopters.
     A:  There is no place for  a helicopter to land.  Terrain is  extremely
rugged. The nearest sufficiently  flat place is about one km. away. It would
have to be cleared. In Vietnam  this  was  accomplished using  'blockbuster"
bombs, but this is probably  not an option here. Trees would have to  be cut
down, creating a gap in the jungles conspicuous from the air.
     Q: Who cares if it's conspicuous? Who's going to see it?
     A: As should  be obvious from my anecdote,  the people who control this
gold have connections in Manila. We may assume that the area is overflown by
the Philippine Air Force regularly, and kept under radar surveillance.
     Q:  What would be involved in  getting  the bars to  the nearest decent
road?
     A:  They  would  have  to be  carried  over  the jungle  trails  I have
described. Each bar weighs as much as a full grown man.
     Q: Couldn't they be cut up into smaller pieces?
     A: DMS rates it as unlikely that the current owners would permit this.
     Q:  Is there any  chance  of  smuggling the  gold through  the military
checkpoints?
     A: Obviously not  in the  case  of  a mass  shipment. The gold weighs a
total of around ten tons, and would require a truck that could not negotiate
most of the roads we  saw. Concealing ten tons of goods  from the inspectors
at these checkpoints is not possible.
     Q: How about smuggling the bars out one at a time?
     A:  Still  very tricky.  Might be possible to  hike the bars out to  an
intermediate point  somewhere,  melt or chop  them down, and somehow secrete
them  in  the body of a jeepney or  other vehicle, then drive the vehicle to
Manila and  extract the  gold. This operation  would have to  be repeated  a
hundred  times. Driving  the same vehicle past one of  these  checkpoints  a
hundred (or  even two)  times would strike them as,  to put it mildly,  odd.
Even if this were possible there is the payment issue.
     Q: What is the payment issue?
     A: Obviously the people  who  control the  gold want to be paid for it.
Paying them in more  gold, or  in precious gems, would be ludicrous. They do
not  have bank accounts. They have to be paid in Philippine pesos.  Anything
bigger than about a 500 peso note is useless in this  area. A 500 peso  note
is worth about $20, and  so it would  be necessary  to bring six million  of
them into the jungle to perform the transaction.  Based on  some rudimentary
calculations I have made here using a mechanic's caliper and the contents of
my wallet, the stack of 500 peso notes  would be  about (please wait while I
switch my calculator over to the  "scientific notation" mode)  25,000 inches
high.  Or, if you prefer  the metric system,  something like two thirds of a
kilometer. If you  stacked the  bills a meter  high, you would  need  six or
seven  hundred such stacks, which if jammed  close together would  cover  an
area about three meters on  a side. Basically  we are talking about a  large
Ryder box truck full of money. This would have  to be  transported into  the
middle of  the  jungle, and obviously, melting  down  cash  and secreting it
inside of a truck is not an option.
     Q: Since the military seems to be the big obstacle here, why not simply
cut a deal with them? Let them keep  a big cut  of the  proceeds in exchange
for not hassling us.
     A: Because the money would go  to the  NPA which would  use  it  to buy
weapons for the purpose of killing people in the military.
     Q: There  must be some way to use the value of this  gold  to  leverage
some kind of extraction operation.
     A:  The gold  is worthless to a bank  until  it has been assayed. Until
then it is only a blurry Polaroid of a stack of yellow objects in what seems
to be a jungle. In order to perform an assay you need to go into the jungle,
find  the gold, bore out  a  sample, and transport it safely back to a large
city. But this proves nothing. Even if  the  potential  backers believe that
your  assay  really  came from  the  jungle (i.e.,  that you  did not switch
samples along the way) all they know now is the purity of one end of one bar
in the  stack. Basically  it is not possible  to  obtain full value for this
gold until the entire stack has been extracted and taken to a vault where it
can be systematically assayed.
     Q: Could  you  maybe just get the gold to some local bank and then sell
it at  steep  discount, so that  the  burden  of transporting it would be on
someone else's shoulders?
     A: DMS relates the tale of  one such transaction, in a provincial  town
in north  Luzon, which was  interrupted  when local entrepreneurs  literally
blew  one of the bank's walls off with  dynamite, came  in, and grabbed both
the  gold and the cash  that  was going to be used  to pay for the gold. DMS
asserts he  would rather slit his own throat quietly than walk  into a small
town bank with anything worth more than a few tens of thousands of dollars.
     Q: Is the situation basically impossible then?
     A: It is basically impossible.
     Q: Then what was the point of the whole exercise?
     A: To come full circle to the first thing DMS said. It was to send us a
message.
     Q: What is the message?
     A: That money is not worth having if you can't spend it.
     That certain  people have a lot of money that they badly want to spend.
And that  if we can give  them a way to spend it,  through  the Crypt,  that
these  people will be very  happy.  and conversely  that if we screw up they
will be very sad, and that whether they are  happy or sad they will be eager
to  share these emotions with us, the  shareholders and  management  team of
Epiphyte Corp.
     And  now  I am going to e  mail this to all of  you and then summon the
flight attendant  and  demand the array of alcoholic  beverages I  so richly
deserve. Cheers.
     &ndash; R
     Randall Lawrence Waterhouse
     Current meatspace  coordinates,  hot from the GPS receiver card  in  my
laptop:
     27 degrees,  14.95 minutes  N  latitude 143  degrees. 17.44  minutes  E
longitude
     Nearest geographical feature: the Bonin Islands


     <B>Chapter 60 ROCKET</B>


     Julieta  has  retreated  somewhere  far up  beyond the  Arctic  Circle.
Shaftoe  has  been pursuing her like a  dogged Mountie, slogging across  the
sexual tundra on frayed snowshoes and leaping  heroically from floe to floe.
But  she remains about as distant, and about as reachable, as  Polaris.  She
has spent more  time  lately  with  Enoch Root  than  with  him and Root's a
celibate priest or something. Or <I>is he?!</I>

     On the few occasions Bobby Shaftoe has actually gotten Julieta to crack
a smile, she has immediately  begun to ask difficult questions: Did you have
sex  with Glory, Bobby? Did you use a condom? Is it possible that  she might
have become pregnant? Can  you absolutely rule out  the possibility that you
have a child in the Philippines? How old would he or she be right now? Let's
see,  you fucked her on Pearl Harbor Day, so  the child would have been born
in early September of  '42. Your child would be fourteen, fifteen months old
now perhaps just learning to walk! How precious!
     It always gives Shaftoe the willies when  tough  girls like Julieta get
all fluttery  and  slip into baby talk. At first, he figures it's all a ruse
to keep him at arm's length. This smuggler's daughter, this atheist guerilla
intellectual what does  she care about some girl in  Manila? Snap out of it,
woman! There's a war on!
     Then he comes up with a better explanation: Julieta's pregnant.
     The  day  begins  with  the sound of a ship's  horn  in  the harbor  at
Norrsbruck. The town is a jumble of neat, wide  houses packed onto a spur of
rock that sticks out into the Gulf of Bothnia, forming the southern shore of
a  slender but  deep inlet lined with wharves. Half the  town  now turns out
beneath an  unsettling, turbulent peach and salmon  dawn to  see this quaint
harbor being deflowered by an  inexorable steel  phallus.  It comes complete
with spirochetes: several score men in black dress uniforms stand on the top
of the  thing, lined up neat as stanchions.  As the blast of  the horn fades
away, echoing back and forth  between the  stony ridges, it becomes possible
to hear the spirochetes <I>singing:</I> belting out a bawdy German sea chanty which
Bobby Shaftoe last heard during a convoy attack in the Bay of Biscay.
     Two other people in Norrsbruck will recognize  that tune. Shaftoe looks
for Enoch Root in his church cellar, but he is not present, his bed and lamp
are cold. Maybe the local chapter of <I>Societas Eruditorum</I> holds  its meetings
before dawn or maybe he's found another welcoming bed. But trusty old G&uuml;nter
Bischoff can be seen, leaning out the window  of his seaside garret,  elbows
in the air  and his trusty  Zeiss 735  binoculars  clamped  over  his  face,
scanning the lines of the invading ship.
     The Swedes stand with  arms folded for a  minute  or so, regarding this
apparition. Then they make some kind of collective decision that it does not
exist, that nothing  has happened  here. They turn their backs, pad grumpily
into their houses, begin to boil  coffee. Being neutral is  no less strange,
no less fraught  with awkward compromises, than being  a belligerent. Unlike
most of  Europe, they  can rest  assured that  the Germans are  not  here to
invade them or sink their ships. On the other hand, the vessel's presence is
a violation of  their sovereign territory and  they ought to  run down there
with  pitchforks and  flintlocks  and fight the Huns off. On the third hand,
this boat was probably made out of Swedish iron.
     Shaftoe fails, at  first, to recognize the German  vessel as  a U  boat
because it  is  shaped all wrong. A regular U boat is shaped like a  surface
vessel,  except longer  and skinnier.  Which is  to say it  has  a sort of V
shaped hull and a flat  deck, studded with guns, from which rises a gigantic
conning tower that is covered with junk: ack ack guns, antennas, stanchions,
safety lines, spray shields. The Krauts would put cuckoo clocks up there too
if they had room. As a regular U boat plunges through the waves, thick black
smoke spews from its diesel engines.
     This one is just a torpedo as long as a  football field.  Instead  of a
conning tower there's a streamlined bulge on the top, hardly noticeable.
     No guns, no antennas, no cuckoo clocks; the  whole thing's as smooth as
a river rock. And it's not making smoke or noise,  just venting a little bit
of  steam. The diesels don't rumble. The fucking thing doesn't even  seem to
<I>have</I> diesels. Instead there is a dim whine, like the sound  that came out of
Angelo's Messerschmidt.
     Shaftoe intercepts Bischoff just as the latter is coming down the steps
of the inn carrying a duffel bag  the size  of a dead sea lion. He's panting
with  exertion, or maybe excitement.  "That's the one," he  gasps. He sounds
like he's talking  to  himself, but he's  speaking  English,  so he must  be
addressing Shaftoe. "That's the rocket."
     "Rocket?"
     "Runs on rocket fuel hydrogen peroxide, eighty five  percent. Never has
to  recharge  its verdammt batteries! Clocks twenty  eight knots  submerged!
That's my baby." He's as fluttery as Julieta.
     "Can I help you carry anything?"
     "Footlocker upstairs," Bischoff says.
     Shaftoe stomps up the narrow staircase to find Bischoff's room stripped
to the bedsprings, and  a pile of gold  coins  on the table, weighing down a
thank you note addressed to the owners. The black locker rests in the middle
of the  floor like a child's coffin. A wild hollering noise reaches his ears
through the open window.
     Bischoff  is down there, heading for the pier  beneath his duffel  bag,
and his  men, up  on  the  rocket, have caught sight  of him. The U boat has
launched a dinghy, which is surging towards the pier like a racing scull.
     Shaftoe  heaves  the locker up  onto his shoulder and  trudges down the
stairs.  It reminds him of shipping out, which is what  Marines are supposed
to  do, and  which  he  has not  actually done in  a  long  time.  Vicarious
excitement is not as good as the real thing, he finds.
     He  follows  Bischoff's  tracks  through  a  film  of  snow,  down  the
cobblestone street, and onto the  pier. Three  men  in black scramble out of
the launch, onto the ladder, up to the pier.  They salute  Bischoff and then
two of  them embrace  him.  Shaftoe's close enough  and the  salmon light is
bright enough, that he can recognize  these two:  members of Bischoff's  old
crew. The third guy is taller, older, gaunter, grimmer, better dressed, more
highly decorated. All in all, more of a Nazi.
     Shaftoe can't believe himself. When he picked up the locker he was just
being considerate to his friend G&uuml;nter an ink stained retiree with  pacifist
leanings.  Now, all  of a  sudden, he's aiding and abetting the enemy!  What
would his fellow Marines think of him if they knew?
     Oh, yeah. Almost forgot. He is actually participating in the conspiracy
that  he,  Bischoff,  Rudy  von Hacklheber, and  Enoch  Root created  in the
basement of that church.  He  comes to a dead stop and slams the locker down
right there, in the  middle of the pier. The Nazi is startled  by the  noise
and raises his blue eyes in the direction of Shaftoe, who prepares  to stare
him down.
     Bischoff notices this. He turns towards  Shaftoe  and  shouts something
cheerful in Swedish. Shaftoe has the  presence of mind to  break eye contact
with  the  chilly  German. He grins and nods  back. This conspiracy thing is
going to be a  real pain  in the ass if  it  means backing down  from casual
fistfights.
     A couple of sailors have come up the  ladder now  to handle  Bischoff's
luggage. One of  them strides  down  the pier to get the footlocker. Shaftoe
recognizes him,  and  he recognizes Shaftoe, at the same  moment. Damn!  The
guy's  surprised,  but  not unpleasantly  so,  to  see  Shaftoe  here.  Then
something occurs to him and his face  freezes up in horror and his eyes dart
sideways, back toward the  tall Nazi. Shit! Shaftoe turns his back on all of
this, makes like he's strolling back into town.
     "Jens!  Jens!"  Bischoff  hollers, and  then  says  something  else  in
Swedish. He's running after Shaftoe. Shaftoe keeps his back prudently turned
until Bischoff throws  one  arm around  him with a final "JENS!" Then, sotto
voce,  in English:  "You have  my  family's address. If  I don't see  you in
Manila, let's get in touch after the war." He starts pounding Shaftoe on the
back,  pulls some paper money out  of his pocket, stuffs it  into  Shaftoe's
hand.
     "Goddamn it, you'll  see me  there," Shaftoe says. "What is  this  shit
for?"
     "I  am  tipping the nice Swedish boy who  carried my luggage," Bischoff
says.
     Shaftoe sucks his teeth and grimaces. He can tell he is not cut out for
this cloak and dagger nonsense. Questions come to his mind,  among  them <I>How
is  that big  torpedo full of rocket  fuel safer than  what you were  riding
around in before?</I> but he just says, "Good luck, I guess."
     "Godspeed, my friend," Bischoff  says.  "This will  remind you to check
your mail."  Then  he punches Shaftoe in the shoulder hard enough to raise a
three day welt, turns around, and begins walking towards salt water. Shaftoe
walks towards  snow and trees,  envying  him.  The next time he looks at the
harbor, fifteen minutes later, the U boat is  gone. Suddenly this town feels
just as cold, empty, and out in the middle of nowhere as it really is.
     He's  been  getting  his mail at  the  Norrsbruck post office,  general
delivery. When the place opens up a couple of hours later, Shaftoe's waiting
by the door; venting steam from his nostrils, like he's rocket fuel powered.
He receives a letter from his folks in Wisconsin,  and  one  large envelope,
posted yesterday  from somewhere in Norrsbruck,  Sweden,  bearing no  return
address but inscribed in G&uuml;nter Bischoff's hand.
     It  is full of notes and documents concerning the new U boat, including
one or  two letters  personally signed  by  John Huncock himself.  Shaftoe's
German is slightly better than it was before he went on his own U boat ride,
but he still can't follow most  of it. He sees a lot of numbers there, a lot
of technical looking stuff.
     It is your basic priceless naval intelligence. Shaftoe wraps the papers
up carefully, sticks them in his pants,  begins walking up the beach towards
the Kivistik residence.
     It  is a  long, cold, wet trudge. He has  plenty  of time to assess his
situation: stuck  in a neutral  country on the other side of the  world from
where he  wants  to be. Alienated  from  the  Corps. Lumped in with a  vague
conspiracy.
     Technically speaking,  he has been AWOL for several months now.  But if
he  suddenly turns up at the  American  Embassy in Stockholm, carrying these
documents, all will be forgiven. So this is his ticket home. And "home" is a
very large  country  that  includes places like  Hawaii,  which is closer to
Manila than is Norrsbruck, Sweden.
     Otto's boat is fresh in from Finland, bobbing on an incoming tide, tied
up  to  his bird's nest  of a  jetty. The boat, he knows, is still loaded up
with whatever Finns are exchanging for coffee and  bullets  at  the  moment.
Otto himself is sitting  in the cabin, drinking coffee  naturally,  red eyed
and plumb wrung out.
     "Where's Julieta?" Shaftoe says. He's starting to worry  that she moved
back to Finland or something.
     Otto turns a bit greyer every time he drives his tub across the Gulf of
Bothnia. He  looks  especially grey today.  "Did  you see that monster?"  he
says,  then  shakes  his  head in a  combination of wonderment, disgust, and
world weariness that can only  be attained by hardened  Finns. "Those German
bastards!"
     "I thought they were protecting you from the Russians."
     This elicits a long thunder roll of dark, chortling laughter from Otto.
"Zdrastuytchye, <I>tovarishch!"</I> he finally says.
     "Say what?"
     "That  means, 'Welcome,  comrade' in  Russian," Otto says. "I have been
practicing it."
     "You  should be  practicing the  Pledge  of  Allegiance," Shaftoe says.
"Soon as we get done taking down the Germans, I figure we'll  just kick  her
into high gear and beat the Russkies all the way back to Siberia."
     More laughter from Otto, who knows na&iuml;vet&eacute; when he sees it,  but is not
above  finding  it  charming.  "I have  buried  the  German air  turbine  in
Finland," he says. "I will sell it to  the Russians or the Americans whoever
gets there, first."
     "Where's Julieta?" Shaftoe asks again. Speaking of na&iuml;vet&eacute;.
     "In town," Otto says. "Shopping."
     "So you've got cash."
     Otto looks seasick. Tomorrow is payday.
     Then Shaftoe's going to be on a bus, headed for Stockholm.
     Shaftoe sits down across from Otto and they drink coffee and talk about
weather, smuggling, and the relative merits of various small fully automatic
weapons  for a  while. Actually,  what they  are  talking  about  is whether
Shaftoe will get paid, and how much.
     In the end, Otto issues a guarded promise to pay, provided that Julieta
does  not  spend all of the  money on her "shopping" trip, and provided that
Shaftoe unloads the boat.
     So Bobby Shaftoe spends the rest  of the day  carrying Soviet  mortars,
rusty tins of  caviar, bricks  of  black  tea  from  China, Lapp folk art, a
couple  of icons, cases  of pine flavored  Finnish  schnapps, coils of  vile
sausages, and bundles of pelts up  out of the hold of Otto's boat, down  the
dock, into the cabin.
     Meanwhile, Otto goes into town, and  still has not come back long after
night has fallen. Shaftoe sacks out in the cabin, tosses and turns for about
four hours, sleeps for about ten minutes, and then is awakened by a knocking
at the door.
     He approaches  the  door  on hands  and knees,  gets the  Suomi machine
pistol out of its hiding place, then crawls to the  far end of the cabin and
exits silently through  a trap door in the floor. There is ice  on the rocks
below, but his bare feet give him enough traction to clamber  around and get
a good view of whoever is standing there, pounding on the door.
     It is Enoch Root himself, nowhere to be seen this last week or so.
     "Yo!" Shaftoe says.
     "Bobby," Root says, turning around, "I gather you heard."
     "Heard what?"
     "That we are in danger."
     "Nah," Shaftoe says, "this is just how I always answer the door."
     They go into the cabin.  Root  declines to turn on any lights and keeps
looking out  the  windows like he's expecting someone. He  smells faintly of
Julieta's perfume, a  distinctive scent that Otto has  been  smuggling  into
Finland by the  fifty five gallon drum. Somehow, Shaftoe is not surprised by
this. He proceeds to make coffee.
     "A very complex situation has arisen," Root says.
     "I can see that."
     Root is startled by  this, and  looks up  blankly at Shaftoe, his  eyes
glowing stupidly in the moonlight. You can be the smartest guy in the world,
but when a woman comes into the picture, you're just like any other sap.
     "Did you come all this way to tell me that you're fucking Julieta?"
     "Oh, no, no, no!" Root says. He stops for a  moment,  furrows his brow.
"I mean, I  am. And I was going to  tell you. But that's just the first part
of a  more  complicated business."  Root  gets  up, shoves hands in pockets,
walks around the cabin again, looking out the windows. "You have any more of
those Finnish guns?"
     "In  that  crate to your  left," Shaftoe says. "Why?  We  gonna have  a
shootout?"
     "Maybe. Not between you and me! But other visitors may be coming."
     "Cops?"
     "Worse."
     "Finns?" Because Otto has his rivals.
     "Worse."
     "Who then?" Shaftoe can't imagine worse.
     "Germans. German."
     "Oh, fuck!" Shaftoe hollers disgustedly. "How can you say they're worse
than Finns?"
     Root  looks taken  aback.  "If you're going to tell me  that  Finns are
worse, pound for pound, than Germans, then I agree with you. But the trouble
with Germans is that they tend to be in communication with millions of other
Germans."
     "Okay," Shaftoe mutters.
     Root hauls the lid off a crate,  pulls out a machine pistol, checks the
chamber, aims the barrel at the moon, peers through it like a telescope. "In
any case, some Germans are coming to kill you."
     "Why?"
     "Because you know too much about certain things."
     "What certain things? G&uuml;nter and his new submarine?"
     "Yes."
     "And how, may I ask, do you know this? It has something to do with  the
fact that  you're  fucking Julieta, right?"  Shaftoe continues.  He's  bored
rather than pissed off. This whole Sweden thing is old and tired to him now.
He belongs in the Philippines.  Anything that doesn't get him  closer to the
Philippines just irritates him.
     "Right."  Root heaves a sigh.  "She thinks  highly  of you,  Bobby, but
after she saw that picture of your girlfriend "
     "Snap out of  it! She doesn't give  a shit  about you  or me. She  just
wants to have all of the good parts of being a Finn without the bad parts."
     "What are the bad parts?"
     "Having to live in Finland," Shaftoe says. "So she has to marry someone
with a good  passport.  Which nowadays means American  or British. You might
have noticed that she didn't fuck G&uuml;nter."
     Root looks a little queasy.
     "Well, maybe she did then," Shaftoe  says, heaving a sigh. "Shit!" Root
has rooted an ammo clip out of another crate and figured out how to affix it
to the Suomi.  He says, "You  probably know that  the Germans  have a  tacit
arrangement with the Swedes."
     "What does 'tacit' mean?"
     "Let's just say they have an arrangement."
     "The Swedes are neutral, but they let the Krauts push them around."
     "Yes. Otto has to deal with Germans at each end of his smuggling route,
in Sweden  and in Finland, and he  has to deal with their navy when he's out
on the water."
     "I'm aware that the fucking Germans are all over Europe."
     "Well,  to make a long story  short, the local  Germans  have prevailed
upon Otto to betray you," Root says.
     "Did he?"
     "Yes. He did betray you."
     "Okay. Keep talking, I'm  listening to you," Shaftoe says. He begins to
mount a ladder up into the attic, but then he thought better of it.
     "I guess you could say he repented," Root says.
     "Spoken like a  true man of  the cloth," Shaftoe mutters. He's into the
attic now, crawling on hands and knees over the rafters. He stops and sparks
up  his Zippo. Most of its light  is absorbed by a dark green  slab: a crude
wooden crate with Cryllic letters stenciled on it.
     Root's voice  is  filtering  up from below: "He came  to, uh, the place
where Julieta and I, uh, were."
     <I>Were  fucking.</I> "Get me the  crowbar,"  Shaftoe shouts. "It's in  Otto's
toolbox, under the table."
     A minute later, the crowbar  rises up through  the hatch, like the head
of a  cobra emerging from a  basket. Shaftoe grabs it  and begins assaulting
the crate.
     "Otto was torn. He had to do what he did, or the German could have shut
down his livelihood. But  he respects you.  He couldn't bear it.  He  had to
talk  to  someone.  So  he came  to  us, and told Julieta what he had  done.
Julieta understood."
     "She understood!?"
     "But she also was horrified at the same time."
     "That is truly heartwarming."
     "Um, at that point, the Kivistiks broke  out the  schnapps and began to
discuss the situation. In Finnish."
     "I understand," Shaftoe says.  Give  those  Finns a grim,  stark, bleak
moral dilemma and  a bottle  of schnapps  and you  could pretty  much forget
about  them for forty eight hours. "Thanks for  having  the guts to come out
here."
     "Julieta will understand."
     "That's not what I mean."
     "Oh, I don't think Otto would hurt me.
     "No, I mean "
     "Oh!" Root exclaims. "No,  I  had to tell  you about Julieta  sooner or
later "
     "No, goddamn it, I mean the Germans."
     "Oh. Well,  I didn't even begin to  think about them until I was almost
here. It was not courage so much as a lack of foresight."
     Shaftoe's pretty good at  foresight. "Take this." He hands down a heavy
steel tube of coffee can diameter, a  few feet long. "It's heavy,"  he adds,
as Root's knees buckle.
     "What is it?"
     "A  Soviet hundred  and twenty millimeter  mortar," Shaftoe says. "Oh."
Root remains silent for a  while, as he lays the mortar  down  on the table.
When he speaks again, his voice sounds different. "I didn't realize Otto had
this kind of stuff."
     "The lethal radius of this bitch is a  good sixty feet,"  Shaftoe says.
He is hauling mortar bombs out  of the crate and stacking  them  next to the
hatch.  "Or  maybe  it's meters, I  can't remember." The bombs look like fat
footballs with tailfins on one end.
     "Feet, meters . . .  the  distinction is  important," Root says. "Maybe
it's  overkill.  But  we  have to get back to  Norrsbruck and take  care  of
Julieta."
     "What do you mean, take care of her?" Root says warily.
     "Marry her."
     "What?"
     "One of us has to marry her, and fast.  I don't know about you,  but  I
kind of  like her, and it'd be  a shame if she  spent the  rest of  her life
sucking  Russian  dick at gunpoint,"  Shaftoe  says. "Besides,  she might be
pregnant with one of our kids. Yours, mine, or G&uuml;nter's."
     "We, the conspiracy, have an obligation  to look after  our offspring,"
Root agrees. "We could establish a trust fund for them in London."
     "There should  be  plenty of money for that,"  Shaftoe  agrees.  "But I
can't marry her, because I have to be available to marry Glory when I get to
Manila."
     "Rudy can't do it," Root says.
     "Because he's a fag?"
     "No, they marry women all the time," Root says. "He can't do it because
he's German, and what's she going to do with a German passport?"
     "It would not be savvy exactly," Shaftoe agrees.
     "That leaves me," Root says. "I'll marry her, and she'll have a British
passport. Best in the world."
     "Huh," Shaftoe says,  "how does that square with your being  a celibate
monk or priest or whatever the fuck you supposedly are?"
     Root says, "I'm supposed to be celibate "
     "But you're not," Shaftoe reminds him.
     "But God's  forgiveness  is  infinite," Root fires  back,  winning  the
point. "So,  as I was saying, I'm supposed to  be celibate but  that doesn't
mean I can't get married. As long as I don't consummate the marriage."
     "But if you don't consummate it, it doesn't count!"
     "But  the  only  person,  besides  me, who  will  know that  we  didn't
consummate it, is Julieta."
     "God will know," Shaftoe says.
     "God doesn't issue passports," Root says.
     "What about the church? They'll kick you out."
     "Maybe I deserve to be kicked out."
     "So let me  get  this  straight," Shaftoe  says,  "when you really <I>were</I>
fucking  Julieta, you  said  you  <I>weren't</I> and so you were able  to remain  a
priest. Now you're going to marry her and <I>not</I> fuck her and say that you <I>are.</I>
"
     "If  you're trying to say  that my relationship with the Church is very
complicated, I already knew that, Bobby."
     "Let's go, then," Shaftoe says.
     Shaftoe and Root  haul the mortar and a  boxload of bombs down onto the
beach, where  they can take cover behind a  stone retaining wall a good five
feet high. But  the surf makes it impossible to hear anything, so Root  goes
up and hides in the trees along the  road, and leaves Shaftoe to fiddle with
the Soviet mortar.
     There turns out to be not much fiddling necessary. An unlettered tundra
farmer with bilateral frostbite  could  get this thing up and running in ten
minutes. If he'd stayed up late the night before celebrating the fulfillment
of the last five year plan with a jug of wood alcohol maybe fifteen minutes.
     Shaftoe  consults the  instructions. It does  not matter that these are
printed  in Russian, because they  are made for illiterates anyway. A series
of parabolas  is  plotted  out,  the mortar supporting one leg and exploding
Germans  supporting the opposite. Ask a Soviet engineer  to design a pair of
shoes and he'll come  up with  something that looks like the boxes that  the
shoes  came in; ask him to make something that will massacre Germans, and he
turns into Thomas Fucking Edison.  Shaftoe scans the terrain,  picks out his
killing zone, then climbs up and  paces off the distance, assuming one meter
per pace.
     He's back down on  the  beach, adjusting  the tube's angle,  when  he's
startled  by a bulky form vaulting over the  wall, so close it almost knocks
him down. Root's breathing  fast.  "Germans," he  says, "coming in  from the
main road."
     "How do you know they're Germans? Maybe it's Otto."
     "The engines sound like diesels. Huns love diesels."
     "How many engines?"
     "Probably two."
     Root turns out to be right on the money. Two large black Mercedes issue
from  the  forest,  like bad ideas emerging from  the dim  mind  of  a green
lieutenant. Their headlights  are not illuminated.  Each stops and then sits
there for a moment, then the doors open quietly, Germans climb out and stand
up.  Several of  them  are wearing  long black leather  coats.  Several  are
carrying  those  keen  submachine guns  that  are the trade  mark  of German
infantry,  and the envy of  Yanks  and Tommies,  who  must go  burdened with
primeval hunting rifles.
     This is  the moment, then. Nazis are right over there and it is the job
of Bobby Shaftoe,  and to a lesser degree Enoch Root, to kill them all.  Not
just a job but  a  moral requisite, because they are  the  living avatars of
Satan, who publicly acknowledge being just as bad and vicious as they really
are. It is a world,  and a situation,  to  which Shaftoe and  a lot of other
people are perfectly adapted. He heaves a bomb up out of the box, introduces
it to the muzzle of the fat tube, lets it go, and plugs his ears.
     The mortar coughs like a kettledrum. The Germans look  towards them. An
officer's monocle  glints in the moonlight.  A total of  eight Germans  have
gotten out of the cars.  Three of them must be combat veterans  because they
are  down on their  stomachs in a microsecond.  The  trench coated  officers
remain standing, as do a couple of civilian clad goons, who immediately open
fire in their general direction with their submachine guns. This makes a lot
of  noise but only  impresses Shaftoe insofar as it is an impressive display
of stupidity. The  bullets  sail far over their  heads. Before they have had
time to pepper the Gulf of Bothnia, the mortar bomb has exploded.
     Shaftoe peeks over the top of the seawall. As he more or less expected,
all  of the people  who  were  standing up are  now  draped over the nearest
Mercedes, having been bodily lifted off their feet  and flung  sideways by a
moving curtain of shrapnel. But two of the  survivors the veterans are belly
crawling  towards  Otto's  cabin,  whose  thick  log  walls  look  extremely
reassuring in these circumstances. The third  survivor is blasting away with
his submachine gun, but he has no idea where they are.
     The ground is convex in a way that makes  it  hard  to see  those belly
crawling Germans. Shaftoe  fires  a couple more  mortar rounds without  much
effect. He hears the two Germans kicking down the door to Otto's cabin.
     Since  it  is only a one room cabin, this would  be a fine moment to be
armed with grenades. But  Shaftoe has  none, and  he  doesn't really want to
blow the place up anyway.  "Why don't you kill the one  German up there," he
tells Root, and  then  heads down the beach, hugging the seawall in case the
Germans are looking out the windows.
     Indeed,  when he's almost  there  the Germans smash the windows out and
begin  firing in the direction of Enoch Root. Shaftoe  creeps underneath the
cabin,  opens  the  trap door, and emerges into  the center of the room. The
Germans are standing there with their backs to him. He fires his Suomi  into
their backs until they stop moving. Then  he drags them over to the trapdoor
and dumps them down onto  the beach so they won't  bleed all over the floor.
The  next high tide  will carry them away,  and  with any  luck they'll wash
ashore on the Fatherland in a couple weeks.
     It is  silent now, the way it's supposed to be at an  isolated cabin by
the sea. But that doesn't mean anything. Shaftoe makes his way carefully  up
into the trees and circles around  behind  the action, surveying the killing
zone  from above.  The one  German is still crawling around  on  his elbows,
trying to figure out what's going on.  Shaftoe  kills him. Then he makes his
way  down to the beach and  finds Enoch Root bleeding into the sand. He  has
taken  a bullet just under the collarbone  and there is a lot of blood, both
from the wound and from Root's mouth, when ever he exhales.
     "I feel like I'm going to die," he says.
     "Good," Shaftoe says, "that means you probably won't."
     One of the  Mercedes  automobiles is still functional,  though it has a
number of shrapnel holes and a flat tire. Shaftoe jacks it up and swaps in a
surviving tire from the  other Mercedes, then drags Root  over  and gets him
laid out in the backseat. He drives into Norrsbruck, fast. The Mercedes is a
really  great car and he wants  to drive  it all the way to Finland, Russia,
Siberia, down through China maybe stop  for a little  sushi in Shanghai then
on down through Siam and then Malaya, whence he could hop a sea gypsy's boat
to Manila, find Glory, and
     The ensuing  erotic reverie is cut short  by the  voice  of Enoch Root,
bubbling through blood, or something. "Go to the church."
     "Now padre, this is no time to be trying to convert me into a religious
nut. You take it easy."
     "No, go <I>now.</I> Take <I>me."</I>

     "What, so you can make  your peace with god? Hell, Rev, you ain't gonna
<I>die.</I> I'll take you to the doctor's. You can go to church later."
     Root drifts off into a coma, mumbling something about cigars.
     Shaftoe ignores these ravings, burns rubber into Norrsbruck,  and wakes
up the doctor. Then he goes and finds Otto and Julieta  and  takes them over
to  the doctor's office. Finally, he goes round to  the church and wakes  up
the minister.
     When  they get back to the clinic, Rudolf von Hacklheber's arguing with
the  doctor:  Rudy  (who's apparently  speaking on  behalf of Enoch, who can
hardly even talk) wants  Enoch's wedding to Julieta to  happen now, in  case
Enoch dies on the table. Shaftoe is startled by how bad the patient suddenly
looks. But remembering what he and Enoch talked about earlier,  he weighs in
on Rudy's side, and insists that marriage must come before surgery.
     Otto produces a  diamond  ring literally out of  his asshole he carries
valuables around in a polished metal tube shoved  up his rectum and  Shaftoe
serves  as best man, uneasily holding that ring, still hot from Otto. Root's
too weak to thread  it over Julieta's finger and so Rudy guides his hands. A
nurse serves as bridesmaid. Julieta and  Enoch are joined in holy matrimony.
Root utters the words of the oath one at a time,  pausing  after each one to
cough  blood into a stainless steel  bowl. Shaftoe gets all choked  up,  and
actually sniffles.
     The doctor etherizes  Root, opens  his chest, and goes in to repair the
damage. Combat surgery isn't his metier, and so  he makes a few mistakes and
generally does a  great job of keeping the tension level  high.  Some  major
artery gives way, and it's necessary for Shaftoe and the minister to  go out
and yank Swedes off the streets and  persuade them to  donate blood. Rudy is
nowhere to be found, and  Shaftoe suspects  for  a  few minutes that  he has
blown  town.  But  then suddenly he shows  up  at  Root's bedside holding an
ancient Cuban cigar box, Spanish words all over it.
     When Enoch Root dies, the only other people  in the room are Rudolf von
Hacklheber, Bobby Shaftoe, and the Swedish doctor.
     The doctor checks his watch, then steps out of the room.
     Rudy reaches out  and closes Enoch's eyes, then  stands there with  his
hand  on the late  padre's face, and looks at  Shaftoe. "Go," he says,  "and
make sure that the doctor files the death certificate."
     In war, it happens pretty frequently that one of your buddies dies, and
you have to go  right back into action, and save  the  waterworks for later.
"Right," Shaftoe says, and leaves the room.
     The doctor's sitting  in his little office, umlaut studded diplomas all
over the walls, filling out the death certificate. A skeleton dangles in one
corner. Bobby Shaftoe stands at attention on the opposite flank, he  and the
skeleton sort of triangulating on the doctor and watching him scrawl out the
date and time of Enoch Root's demise.
     When  the  doctor's finished, he leans back in his chair  and rubs  his
eyes.
     "Can I buy you a cup of coffee?" asks Bobby Shaftoe.
     "Thank you," says the doctor.
     The young bride  and her father are sprawled blearily  in the  doctor's
waiting room. Shaftoe offers to buy them coffee too. They leave Rudy to keep
watch over the  body of their  late friend and coconspirator, and  walk down
the high street of Norrsbruck. Swedish people  are beginning to  come out of
their houses. They look  <I>exactly</I> like American midwesterners, and  Shaftoe's
always startled when they fail to speak English.
     The  doctor  stops  in   at  the  courthouse  to  drop  off  the  death
certificate. Otto and Julieta go on ahead to the cafe. Bobby Shaftoe loiters
outside, staring back up the street. After a minute or two he sees Rudy poke
his head  out the  door of the doctor's office and  look one  way, then  the
other. He pulls his head  back inside for  a moment. Then he and another man
walk out of the  office. The other man  is wrapped in a blanket that  covers
even his  head. They  climb into the Mercedes, Blanket Man lies  down in the
back seat, and Rudy drives off in the direction of his cottage.
     Bobby Shaftoe sits down in the cafe with the Finns.
     "Later today  I'm gonna get into  that fucking Mercedes and  drive into
Stockholm  like a  fucking bat out of hell," Shaftoe  says. Though the Finns
will never appreciate it, he has chosen  the "bat out of hell" phrase for  a
good reason. He understands,  now, why he has thought of  himself as  a dead
man ever since Guadalcanal. "Anyway, I hope y'all have a nice boat ride."
     "Boat ride?" Otto says innocently.
     "I gave you up to the Germans, just like you did to me," Shaftoe lies.
     "You bastard!