He had no idea what he could do to save his family.

At some point he dozed off and slept fitfully for a few hours. He no longer suffered regular nightmares from the Eastern Front. Now his sleep was tormented by visions of Manny dying in an SS camp.

An Indonesian shook him awake sometime well before dawn. He’d been sobbing into his pillow.

He came to with a start and waved the concerned sailor away.

There was a bottle of pills by his bed. Happy pills, Moertopo called them.

He dry swallowed three and hauled himself up out of bed.

“At last,” said Hidaka.

He took a pair of Starlite night vision binoculars and moved from the bridge onto a gangway. The flying boat leapt into bright, emerald-green clarity as he put them to his eyes. The toys these little monkeys had to play with were forever amazing him. While he waited for the plane to pull alongside the Sutanto he occupied himself with the binoculars. Moertopo had told him that such things were standard issue to the marines in Kolhammer’s fleet. Indeed, he claimed their gear was much better than this. Some people in his own time, the Indonesian said, had even been “gene clipped” to see in the dark, like cats. Hidaka thought that patently ridiculous, but he would withhold judgment for now.

He was learning that it didn’t pay to be too skeptical of Moertopo’s fairy tales.

On the deck below, a party of Indonesians wore bulky night vision devices on their heads. The awkward-looking instruments didn’t seem to hamper them, though, as they scurried about in the dark. Their visitors climbed out of the plane and into a small motor launch that had puttered over from the docks.

“A fine night for it, Captain.”

Hidaka recognized Brasch’s voice. The German had come out of his cocoon again. He was a moody character. Hidaka had given up tracking the man’s intemperate emotional shifts. He hoped this positive frame of mind would last, but he held no great expectation. Major Brasch would probably swing through a few more highs and lows before they were done. At least his work ethic had improved.

“A beautiful night, Major,” said Hidaka. “And an important one, yes?”

“We’ll see,” said Brasch. “These SS types are prone to tunnel vision. They’ll love a lot of what they’ll see here—”

“But they’ll hate the message we’ve brought,” the Japanese finished for him. “I don’t envy you, Brasch. Your führer has never struck me as a reasonable man. He may have you shot, just on general principles.”

The prospect did not seem to bother him.

“I’m just the messenger. It’s Yamamoto he’ll curse. And the admiral is beyond even the führer’s reach.”