Then it was time to leave. The attack had been broken, but a few hundred crazed survivors might yet emerge from the killing field and overrun their little outpost.

“Let’s go,” he said to the old sergeant, turning his back to the carnage.

But some new horror paralyzed the man. His jaw hung slack and his eyes bulged. The truck driver simply howled and ran like a dog, stumbling over the corpse of the dead boy.

Twisting slowly back toward the open steppe, so slowly that it seemed as if he were forever turning, Brasch stared into the abyss. A million Russians appeared from within the boiling shroud of black smoke and blasts of flashing light.

OOOOOOOOOOoooouuuuurrraAAAaaahhhhh . . .

“Manfred,” whispered Brasch as the barbarian horde came upon them.

A single man, a Siberian or a Mongol by his features, accelerated from the foremost rank, heading straight for their dugout. He launched himself into the air, clearing the windbreak of dead Communists, slamming into Brasch, his hands closing around the engineer’s neck, his teeth finding purchase in the unshaven bristles of his throat.

KRI SUTANTO, HASHIRAJIMA ANCHORAGE, 0438 HOURS, 6 JUNE 1942

“Herr Major, Herr Major, wake up sir, wake up. You are disturbing the others.”

The Siberian’s rough, choking grasp became a lighter, more considerate touch, shaking his shoulders, dragging him up out of the nightmare that had haunted him for weeks.

“Willie?” Brasch was disoriented. His heart still raced, almost as it had that day outside Belgorod. “Willie, is that you?”

“No, sir. It is I, Herr Steckel. From the embassy.”

Brasch came upright and instantly a sharp, nearly blinding pain bit into his scalp. He cursed.

“Careful sir, there’s not much headroom in here.”

Brasch rubbed his head and blinked the crust of sleep from his eyes. The first thing he noticed, as always, was the warmth. He’d never expected to be warm again. Then he became conscious of his freedom of movement. He wore only a light vest and undershorts. Finally, he remembered. He was no longer at the Eastern Front. He was in the Far East, on the ship of wonders. A rush of half-formed thoughts and feelings blew through his sleep-disordered mind. Dominating them all, however, was a profound blankness and disbelief in the simple fact that he was still alive. He had numbered himself among the dead for so long, he felt ill at ease to be among the living once more.

“I am sorry, Herr Steckel. Please excuse me,” he rasped. “My throat is dry. Some water, if you have it.”

Steckel passed across a glass of chilled water. They had been through this ritual every night since the engineer’s arrival. At first the diplomat had been awed and humbled just to draw breath in the same room as the legend of Belgorod. But two weeks of tending to this shattered husk of a man had obviously drained him of any such respect.