Cryptonomicon

'Unfortunately, all of the really interesting ships are owned by major governments.'

Bischoff is getting a little spooky, so Shaftoe opts for a little change in the subject. 'Hey, speaking of really interesting things...' and he tells the story of the Heavenly Apparition that he saw while he was walking down here.

Bischoff is delighted by the story, which revives the hunger for excitement that he has kept pickled in salt and alcohol ever since reaching Norrsbruck. 'You are sure it was manmade?' he asks.

'It whined. Chunks of shit were falling out of it. But I've never seen a meteor so I don't know.'

'How far away?'

'It crashed seven kilometers from where I was standing. So, ten clicks from here.'

'But ten kilometers is nothing for an Eagle Scout and a Hitler Youth!'

'You weren't a Hitler Youth.'

Bischoff broods over this for a moment. 'Hitler-so embarrassing. I hoped that if I ignored him he would go away. Perhaps if I had joined the Hitler Youth, they would have given me a surface ship.'

'Then you'd be dead.'

'Right!' Bischoff's mood brightens considerably. 'Ten kilometers is still nothing. Let's go!'

'It's already dark.'

'We will follow the flames.'

'They will have gone out.'

'We will follow the trail of debris, like Hansel and Gretel.'

'It didn't work for Hansel and Gretel. Didn't you even read the fucking story?'

'Don't be such a defeatist, Bobby,' says Bischoff, diving into a hearty fisherman's sweater. 'Normally you are not like this. What is troubling you?'

Glory.It is October and the days are growing short. Shaftoe and Bischoff, both mired in the yet-to-be-discovered emotional dumps of Seasonal Affective Disorder, are like two brothers trapped in the same pit of quicksand, each keeping a sharp eye on the other.

'Eh? Was ist los,buddy?'

'Guess I'm just feeling at loose ends.'

'You need an adventure. Let's go!'

'I need an adventure like Hitler needs an ugly little toothbrush mustache,' says Bobby Shaftoe. But he drags himself up out of his chair and follows Bischoff out the door.

* * *

Shaftoe and Bischoff are trudging through the dark Swedish woods like a pair of lost souls trying to find the side entrance to Limbo. They take turns carrying the kerosene lantern, which has an effective range about as long as a grown man's arm. Sometimes they go for a whole hour without talking, each man alone with his own struggle against suicidal depression. Then one of them (usually Bischoff) will perk up and say something, like:

'Haven't seen Enoch Root recently. What has he been up to since he finished curing you of your morphine addiction?' Bischoff asks.

'Don't know. He was such a fucking pain in the ass during that project that I never wanted to see him again. But I think he got a Russian radio transmitter from Otto and took it into that church basement where he lives; he's been messing around with it ever since.'

'Yes. I remember. He was changing the frequencies. Did he ever get it to work?'

'Beats me,' Shaftoe says, 'but when big pieces of burning shit start falling out of the sky in my neighborhood, makes me wonder.'

'Yes. Also he goes to the post office quite frequently,' Bischoff says. 'I chatted with him there once. He is carrying on a heavy correspondence with others around the world.'

'Other what?'

'That is my question, too.'

Eventually they find the wreck only by following the sound of a hacksaw, which reverberates through the pines like the shriek of some extraordinarily stupid and horny bird. This enables them to home in on it in a general way. Final coordinates are provided by a sudden, strobelike flashing light, devastating noise, and a sap-scented rain of amputated foliage. Shaftoe and Bischoff both hit the dirt and lie there listening to fat pistol slugs ricocheting from tree trunk to tree trunk. The hacksawing noise continues with no break in rhythm.

Bischoff starts talking Swedish, but Shaftoe shushes him. 'That was a Suomi,' he says. 'Hey, Julieta! Knock it off! It's just me and Gunter.'

There is no answer. Then, Shaftoe remembers that he has recently fucked Julieta, and therefore needs to remember his manners. 'Excuse me, ma'am,' he says, 'but I gather from the sound of your weapon that you are of the Finnish nation, for which I have unbounded admiration, and I wanted to let you know that I, former Sergeant Robert Shaftoe, and my friend, former Kapitanleutnant Gunter Bischoff, mean you no harm.'

Julieta, homing in on the sound of his voice in the darkness, responds with a controlled burst of fire that passes about a foot over Bobby Shaftoe's head. 'Don't you belong in Manila?' she asks.

Shaftoe groans, and rolls over on his back as if he has been shot in the gut.

'What does she mean by this?' asks the bewildered Gunter Bischoff. Seeing that his friend has been (emotionally) incapacitated, he tries: 'This is Sweden, a peaceful and neutral country! Why are you trying to machine-gun us?'

'Go away!' Julieta must be with Otto, because they hear her talk to him before saying, 'We do not want representatives of the American Marines and the Wehrmacht here. You are not welcome.'

'Sounds like you are sawing away on something that is pretty damn heavy,' Shaftoe finally retorts. 'How you gonna haul it out of these woods?'

This leads to an animated conversation between Julieta and Otto. 'You may approach,' Julieta finally says.

They find the Kivistiks, Julieta and Otto, standing in a pool of lantern-light around the severed, charred wing of an airplane. Most Finns are hard to tell apart from Swedes, but Otto and Julieta both have black hair and black eyes, and could pass for Turks. The tip of the airplane wing is painted with the black-and-white cross of the Luftwaffe. An engine is mounted to that wing. If Otto's hacksaw has its way, it won't be for much longer. The engine has recently been set on fire and then used to knock down a large number of pine trees. But even so Shaftoe can see it's like no engine he has ever seen before. There is no propeller, but there are a lot of little fan blades.

'It looks like a turbine,' says Bischoff, 'but for air, rather than water.' Otto straightens up, squeezes his lower back theatrically, and hands Shaftoe the hacksaw. Then he hands him a bottle of benzedrine tablets for good measure. Shaftoe eats a few tablets, strips off his shirt to reveal splendid musculature, does a couple of USMC- approved stretching exercises, grabs the hacksaw, and sets to work. After a couple of minutes he looks up nonchalantly at Julieta, who is standing there holding the machine pistol and watching him with a look that is simultaneously frosty and smoldering, like baked Alaska. Bischoff stands off to the side, reveling in this.

Dawn is slapping her chapped and reddened fingers against a frostbitten sky, attempting to restore some circulation, when the remains of the turbine finally fall away from the wing. Pumped on benzedrine, Shaftoe has been operating the hacksaw for six hours; Otto has stepped in to change blades several times, a major capital investment on his part. Next, they devote half of the morning to dragging the engine through the woods and down a creek bed to the sea, where Otto's boat is waiting, and Otto and Julieta take their prize away. Bobby Shaftoe and Gunter Bischoff trudge back up to the site of the wreck. They have not discussed this openly yet-it would be unnecessary-but they intend to find the part of the airplane that contains the body of the pilot, and see to it that he gets a proper burial.

'What is in Manila, Bobby?' Bischoff asks.

'Something that morphine made me forget,' Shaftoe answers, 'and that Enoch Root, that fucking bastard, made me remember.'

Not fifteen minutes later they come to the gash in the woods that was carved by the plunging airplane, and hear a man's voice wailing and sobbing, completely out of his mind with grief. 'Angelo! Angelo! Angelo!