She set the dictionary on the check-in counter as she left for the embassy. "I hope it was useful to you," the desk clerk said.

"It was. Danke schon," Peggy answered.

Jenkins certainly didn't treat her like a lover when she got there. She had to cool her heels for half an hour before she could see him. Again, he was closeted with the gray-haired naval attache. Well, that fellow probably had enough on his mind and then some. The whole business with the Admiral Scheer and the Royal Navy had played out right on the USA's front porch, so to speak.

"Let's see what you've got," the undersecretary said briskly when she made it into his office at last. She was just as happy to stay businesslike. She handed him the letter. He read it, then grinned at her. "Oh, this is fine, Peggy. Much better than I expected. You didn't give your German enough credit." She told him how she'd borrowed the dictionary. He clapped his hands. "Good for you, sweetheart!"

He didn't sound like a fairy being arch. He sounded like a lover praising his lover. Peggy wished he would have seemed more faggoty. At least he didn't say something like I'll show up at your hotel tonight so you can thank me the right way. Peggy asked, "How long do you think it will take before I know?"

"Hitler's staff will have the letter tonight," Jenkins said. "What they do with it, what he does with it-that's out of my hands."

"Okay," Peggy said. "Thanks again." She got out of there as fast as she could without being rude.

Three days later, the telephone in her room rang at a quarter to five in the morning. At first, muzzy with sleep, she thought it was the air-raid siren going off. When she realized it was the phone, she got good and pissed off. What asshole would call at this ungodly hour? It was getting light, but even so-! "Bitte?" she snarled.

"Sind Sie Frau Druce?" A man's voice.

"Yes, I'm Peggy Druce. Who the devil are you?"

"Adolf Hitler here," the voice answered. And it was. As soon as he said it, she knew it was. She'd heard him on the radio too often to have any doubt. "You are having trouble leaving my country?"

When Hitler said it was his country, he damn well meant it. "Uh, yes, sir," she managed.

"The trouble will end. Whatever neutral nation you wish to visit, you may. Never let it be said we keep anyone who does not wish to stay," the Fuhrer told her.

"Uh-" Peggy kept saying that. She'd never expected a call from one of the two or three most powerful men in the world. She'd never expected anything to come of her letter, truth to tell. "Thank you very much, sir!"

"You are welcome. Have you any questions?" He spoke slowly and clearly, to make sure she could follow. Even over the telephone, the weight of his personality made her sag.

"Uh-" There it was again! "Why are you up so early?" she blurted.

He actually chuckled. How many people could say they'd made Hitler laugh? "I am not up early. I am up late. The enemies of the Reich do not sleep, and neither do I. Good-bye, Mrs. Druce. Finding a problem so easy to solve is a pleasure, believe me."

"Thank you." Peggy finally managed not to say Uh, but she was talking to a dead line.

Chapter 11

Down screamed the Stuka. Vaclav Jezek had never yet met a man who'd lived through a dive-bomber attack and didn't hate the German warplane with a fierce and deadly passion. Outside of a few luckless people down in Spain, no one had hated the Stuka like that longer than he had. He'd been dive-bombed on the very day the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, and more often than he cared to remember since.

"Get down!" he yelled to Benjamin Halevy, who was working his way across the field with him.

"I am down," the Jewish sergeant answered. So was Jezek. He lay flat as a flapjack. The smells of grass and dirt filled his nostrils.

That Stuka screeched like a soul tormented in hell. The sirens built into the landing gear were one more piece of German Schrechlichkeit. Vaclav sneaked a glance at it. It looked funny. What were those pods under its wings? Not bombs, surely.

The dive bomber couldn't have been more than fifty meters off the ground when fire blasted from the ends of the gun barrels projecting from the pods. That was when Vaclav realized they were gun barrels. Till then, he'd hardly noticed them-no great surprise, not when the Stuka was hurtling down at several hundred kilometers an hour.

As it pulled out of the dive and roared away, answering fire spurted from the rear decking of a French tank. The tank started to burn. The crew bailed out and ran for cover.

"Bastard's got big guns under there!" Halevy exclaimed.

"Tell me about it!" Vaclav answered. "What can we do to stop him?"

"Shoot him down," Benjamin Halevy said. "If you've got any other bright ideas, I'd love to hear them."

Vaclav didn't, however much he wished he did. He watched the Stuka climb high into the sky again, then dive at another French tank. He and Halevy both fired at the ugly, predatory warplane. If they hit it, they didn't harm it. At least one of the rounds it fired at the tank struck home-the motorized fort slewed to a stop, flame and smoke rising from the engine compartment. Again, the Stuka flew off at treetop height, then started to climb once more.

Another screaming dive. Another stricken French tank. "Jesus Christ!" Jezek said. "He can do that all day long!"

"Oh, I don't know," Halevy said. "Sooner or later, he's bound to run out of gas or ammo-unless we run out of tanks first."

"Happy day!" Vaclav sent him a reproachful look. "You really know how to cheer me up, don't you?"

"It could be worse," the Jew said.

"Oh, yeah? How?" Vaclav demanded.

"The Nazis could have a dozen Stukas armed like that, not just one," Halevy answered. "Looks like they're trying this out to see if it works. If it does, they'll put guns on more planes."

"Well, they will, on account of it damn well does," Jezek said. "Does it ever!" Three smashed tanks-three tanks smashed from an unexpected direction-had shot the Allied advance in this sector right behind the ear. Everyone was staring wildly into the sky, wondering if that Stuka would come back again.

And it did. This time, it had to dive through a storm of small-arms fire. But a dive-bomber was armored against nuisance bullets. The designers must have realized it would run into some. Letting them disable it didn't seem such a good idea, so the engineers made sure they wouldn't. Germans, Vaclav thought glumly. They take care of those things.

"Sure they do," Benjamin Halevy agreed when he said that out loud. "They wouldn't be so dangerous if they fucked up all the time, like a bunch of Magyars or Romanians."

"Well, you didn't say 'like a bunch of Slovaks,' anyway," Vaclav said.

"Or them," Halevy replied. "They're so fucked up, they jumped into bed with the Nazis, right?"

"Afraid so. When the Germans invaded us, I had this one Slovak in my squad, and I wasn't sure whether he'd shoot at them or try to shoot me." Vaclav grimaced and spat, remembering.

"So what did he end up doing?" the Jew asked in tones of clinical interest.

"Well, he didn't try and plug me straight off-I will say that for him," Jezek answered. "After that, fuck me if I know. We were right at the point of the bayonet, if you know what I mean, and things fell apart pretty fast. Maybe a Stuka blew him to kingdom come. Or maybe he surrendered to the Nazis. If he did, he's likely a sergeant in the Slovak army by now."

"In the Slovak army." By the way Halevy said it, it tasted bad in his mouth. Well, it tasted bad in Vaclav's mouth, too. Czechs no more believed Slovaks had a right to their own country than Germans believed Czechs had a right to theirs. Slovaks were bumpkins, country cousins, hillbillies who talked funny and drank too much and beat their wives. Only country cousins could take the Hlinka Guard and a fat windbag like Father Tiso seriously.