"Because we could not stop them," said Yamamoto, somewhat impishly.

The cabinet room exploded at that, but he waited them out and eventually calm returned.

"The Americans have made a terrible mistake," he said quietly when he had everybody's attention. "They have expended most of their precious weapons rescuing skeletons and camp whores. This tactical victory has cost them an overwhelming strategic advantage, as they shall soon see. I have fashioned a blade to drive through the heart of their fleet as it returns to Pearl Harbor."

Prime Minister Tojo spoke into the silence that followed that revelation.

"And that is why the Sutanto left Hashirajima, Admiral?"

Yamamoto nodded, explaining himself to everyone in the room.

"It is why most of the fleet has left. They are to cover the withdrawal of our forces from China and the invasion of New Guinea and the Australian mainland. We will deny the Americans their base for a counterattack in the Pacific."

He did not react to the sharp intake of breath around the table. To this point only he and Tojo had known of the plan.

"And what of Hawaii?" asked the prime minister.

"I have plans for them, too."

"Even with these supercarriers and warships there?" barked an army general. The army had never been supporters of the thrust to expand the empire southward. To Yamamoto's way of thinking they were fixated on Manchuria and the Communists. He had to suppress a mischievous smirk at the prospect of dragging them out of China, kicking and screaming.

"The Sutanto will destroy the Kolhammer force," Yamamoto promised, raising his hand against the inevitable objections. "Yes, she is one small ship, but she will sweep them away like a Divine Wind, a kamikaze."

"And when will we know?" asked Tojo.

"We still have sources in Hawaii," Yamamoto explained. "They will send word."

He leaned forward and smacked the table with his injured hand, slowly growling out his next words.

"But even if by some chance the Sutanto fails, and this Kolhammer survives, we will still forge on with our new plan, because we have no choice. You have all read the reports I gave you. You know where fate will take us if we do not change our path. We have allowed ourselves to be blinded to the real danger. It does not lie in Russia or China. It lies across the Pacific in the United States, and south in Australia where they will first build up their forces. We must defeat them there before they are too strong. We must take their base at Hawaii from them. And on the last day of this war we must stand in the Oval Office and put their crippled president to the sword.

"Because we have no choice."

Complete silence greeted this uncompromising speech. A dozen men stared at him, some in awe, some in shock, and some without discernible emotion. The moment stretched uncomfortably until Yamamoto began to worry that one of them might actually laugh at him. Finally, a lone voice spoke up. The army officer who had questioned him before.

"But how?" he asked, genuinely perplexed.

Yamamoto smiled.

MOSCOW, 2215 HOURS, 25 JUNE 1942

He didn't think it was possible that a place even more fearful than the Gestapo headquarters at Prinz Albrechtstrasse might exist, but perhaps he had found it here in this surprisingly shabby waiting room. He knew that if the next hour didn't go well he would not live to see this room again. It was entirely possible he'd simply be shot dead behind the heavy oak doors that led into the inner sanctum of the Central Committee. Perhaps there would be a secret trapdoor through which they would spirit him away to the cells. He thought that was very much their style. There would doubtless be many cells in this building.

He did his best to appear relaxed despite the hard, uncomfortable chair on which he sat. Nobody had offered him even a simple refreshment or shaken his hand. The minor functionaries who staffed this chamber treated him with cold formality, for which he supposed he could not blame them. His country was still exterminating their people like millions of rats. Perhaps by morning that might be behind them. For the sake of the Fatherland he could only hope.

He still did not quite believe the case he would have to argue in there. If it had just been a suggestion from the Japanese alone he would have laughed it off, but the fuhrer himself was adamant that Yamamoto's plan was worth the risk. Of course it was not the fuhrer's risk to take. It was his.

It was all madness really. But the whole world was alive with talk of the insanity. The fuhrer was obsessed with reading translated stories from the Allied press about events in the Pacific. For once it had driven news of the war from the front pages around the globe. And now he was here, at the very center of the storm, on a mission that would assuredly make an irrelevance of these "time travelers." He was here and they were listening to him. That was enough to justify the risk.

German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop brushed a piece of lint from his sleeve as he waited for Joseph Stalin to admit him to the Soviet Politburo, to argue the case for a cease-fire and a new alliance with the Axis against the liberal democracies.