The German, who looked like he was chewing on something sour, barked out, “This is a lot of bullshit for nothing, Herr Admiral.”

Miyazaki looked as if he was grateful for the distraction. Kolhammer chose to ignore the lack of deference.

“No, it is not bullshit, Captain. We’ve killed a lot of men tonight. Widowed thousands of women. Taken fathers and sons and brothers from Christ only knows how many people. And we’ve done Yamamoto’s work for him, destroying the American Pacific Fleet. We arrived in company with a Japanese warship, and we have dozens of enemy aliens serving on our own ships. It won’t matter a damn that we lost a lot of good men and women, too. There’s going to be some very powerful people demanding that we all be locked up. And you men are the first ones they’ll come for.”

Ivanov smiled frostily. “And what will you do about this Hoover, some kind of secret policeman, yes? Will you turn him away when he comes?”

Kolhammer put down his coffee and regarded all three of them with a level gaze.

“You’re part of my command and I won’t have you treated with anything but respect. I do need to know, however, what sort of role you’ll be comfortable with, should we have to stay here and fight.”

Captain Müller’s lips were compressed into a thin white line. When he spoke, it was to spit each word like a bullet.

“Admiral Kolhammer, my great-grandfather commanded a company in the Gross Deutschland Division. He was killed in Russia—but not by the Red Army or partisans,” he said, nodding toward Ivanov. “He died after holding a river crossing for three days against waves of tanks and infantry. He held fast with the remnants of his company, about seventy men, while two thousand comrades escaped across the water. When he reached the other side, the last German to do so, he was arrested and shot for desertion in the face of the enemy.

“His wife, my great-grandmother, was interned in a camp with her children, six of them. Only one survived, my grandfather. He carried the scars of the beatings by the camp guards all his life. He told me many times of his brothers and sisters. He retained a perfect memory of each and he wanted me to remember them to my children. His oldest brother Hans was beaten to death while protecting his younger brother Erwin from a homosexual rapist. Erwin was later shot for no apparent reason by a visiting SS officer. Their sister Lotti froze to death. Sister Ingrid, twelve years old, died of syphilis. And baby sister Greta was murdered by a guard, who crushed her head with the heel of his boot, when she refused to suck his penis.

“You ask me how I feel, Admiral?” he said softly. “I feel sick with the possibilities.”