HMS TRIDENT, THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

"My God," said Halabi. "It's a slaughter. The purest sort of slaughter."

"Aye, ma'am," said McTeale, her XO, as they sped back toward the relative safety of the English coast.

It was impossible to make any sense of the main display in the CIC. There were thousands of individual contacts throughout the battlespace. The ship's Combat Intelligence was still tracking and analyzing every return. Her human operators were still assigning targets to the defenders forces' as quickly as they could. But to have any chance of understanding what was happening on a human scale, you had to turn away from the electronic version of the battle-a vast, hypercomplex simulacrum of cascading data tags-and attend to the simple things.

The drone footage of a Heinkel breaking up in midair, punched apart by a four-inch shell.

The vision of a parachute half-deployed, trailing fire behind a plummeting body, spearing down into the pebbles and limestone scree at the base of the White Cliffs of Dover.

The distant bump and thump of floating corpses as they struck the carbon composite sheath armor of the Trident at 120 knots.

"Metal Storm at one-point-three percent, Captain."

"Thank you, Mr. McTeale. Advise the Admiralty that we shall be withdrawing toward Plymouth and will need extra air cover, I think."

"Fighter Command has already assigned three USAAF squadrons to cover us, ma'am. They'll relieve the Canadians in eight minutes."

"Very good, then. I think we're past the worst of it, don't you?"

Halabi and her executive officer stared at the main display. The red icons denoting German surface units were beginning to pile up in the southern half of the Channel. More and more blue triangles, marking Allied air units were streaming down from the northern airfields.

"For now, Captain," said McTeale. "For now."

BERLIN

"Tell me, Brasch, would you have turned traitor if it were not for your son?"

"Ha! You're a fine one to talk, Muller. If I am a traitor, what are you? Skulking about in your stupid disguise. An assassin, that's all."

Muller sipped from the fine bone china cup. Coffee with real cream. Because of his trusted position, Brasch would enjoy many privileges denied to ordinary Germans. The full pound of Italian roasted coffee beans his wife had produced from a cupboard was undoubtedly one. The dollops of rich cream another. Manfred, the engineer's boy, was no longer with them. He'd been put to bed an hour earlier. The three adults-Muller, Brasch, and his plump, pretty hausfrau Willie-all hunkered over the kitchen table, like card players protecting a hand.

They heard the muffled crump of far-off bombs only as an echo of thunder.

"So, Brasch. What say you?"

Muller did not mean the question to be insulting. He was genuinely interested, and Brasch seemed to be genuinely sincere in trying to answer. The play of emotions across his haggard face gave away his conflicted feelings. "I don't know," he said. "I think so. Perhaps I would not have been so quick in my betrayal. Perhaps I was ready to throw it in after the Eastern Front. I don't know, Muller. I did not have the luxury of growing up in your world."

Willie patted his arm. "You were very sick, when you returned from Belgorod. That medal they pinned on you was supposed to make everything better. Men are full of such foolishness, Herr Muller. But not my Paul. He is a good man. We are good Germans."

Muller controlled the sick sneer that threatened to crawl across his lips at the old phrase. "You are." He nodded and waved his flexipad in their direction. "I have convinced my controllers of that. Although, it was the information you sent, Brasch, which has saved your hides."

The engineer flushed with anger. "That is not why I sent it, as you well know. I have saved the hides of my enemy, and condemned thousands of my comrades. I did so without knowing that you were coming for me. I did so knowing that it probably meant the deaths of my wife and child when-not if, but when I was found out. So you can cram your insinuations back into your arse, where they came from, Herr Kapitan."

"Paul, please," Willie pleaded.

Muller smiled and shook his head. "No, Frau Brasch, your husband is right. I should not pick at this scab. He has done a great service, not just for the world, but Germany herself."

"And so my reward is to be abandoned here," said Brasch.

"Left, not abandoned," Muller corrected. "Your wife and son will be smuggled out, and their disappearance covered up by the bombing raid in two days' time. You, however, must stay. Like me. There is more work to be done."

Brasch's wife gripped her husband's arm tightly. "But they will know, Paul. They will search the rubble and find we are not here, and they will think we have escaped."

"There will be bodies to find," said Muller, pushing on over the woman's objections. "Don't concern yourself with details. The Reich is full of bodies."

"But our neighbors. They will all be killed."

Muller shrugged. "This area of Berlin was taken by the Soviets at the end of my war. They are better off dead. And anyway, I have observed your neighbors these last few weeks. Some of them deserve everything they get."

Tears welled up in her eyes, and Muller regretted his harsh words, but he did not soften them. If this woman and her son were to survive, they would need to toughen up.

"So two days," said Brasch, bringing them back to business.

Muller scanned the latest data burst from Fleetnet. Sea Dragon was failing, the assault collapsing in on itself. Some German units had successfully landed on British soil, but the follow-on forces had been blocked. Raeder's most powerful ships were scrap metal. And the Luftwaffe was being pounded out of the sky.

"Two days will mark the point of maximum confusion," said Muller. "As the two army groups are forced to pull back from the French coast or be annihilated by the Allied air forces. In two days, a thousand British and American heavy bombers will strike at Berlin, to emphasize the scale of Hitler's failure. A few of them, specially adapted for the mission, will bomb this neighborhood into rubble, to cover your escape."

Muller let his eyes freeze on Willie Brasch.

"Do not warn anyone. You are already traitors to the Reich. Like me."

"But there are children…," cried Willie.

"I know," Muller shot back, suddenly giving vent to his own suppressed rage. "Some of them are my family."

HMS TRIDENT, ENGLISH CHANNEL

"Outstanding work, Captain Halabi."

"Thank you, Admiral. I'll make sure to pass your compliments on to my crew. What would really make them happy, though, are some more Metal Storm loads."

Kolhammer disappeared inside a cloud of white noise for a moment before his image winked back into clarity. The encrypted vidlink to Washington was very shaky.

"I'm sorry," Kolhammer said. "I think you were asking for MS reloads. There's a seaplane on its way now, should be there in seventeen hours. It's carrying a pallet of ammo from the Clinton. That should take you back to twelve percent. After that, I'm afraid we're tapped out. We're going to need everything we've got for Hawaii. But the first hand-tooled Vulcans should be ready for air shipment to you in a fortnight. It's not Metal Storm, but it's a hell of a lot better than a couple of goddamned pom-poms."

Halabi smiled. "It will be, sir. About Hawaii, sir-will you be needing me to prepare for redeployment? It's going to be a very unpleasant business taking those islands back. Especially with the Dessaix on the loose."

Kolhammer must have worked through his plans for the campaign already. He shook his head emphatically. "We'll deal with the Dessaix first," he said. "And we'll need to redouble our efforts to determine whether any Task Force assets have fallen into enemy hands. The Soviets, for instance. But for now, you're best off staying right where you are. The Hawaiian mission will be run by the locals, with input from us. But it's their show, and they've agreed to leave the Trident in place."