Cryptonomicon

binoculars clamped over his face, scanning the lines of the invading ship.

The Swedes stand with arms folded for a minute or so, regarding this apparition. Then they make some kind of collective decision that it does not exist, that nothing has happened here. They turn their backs, pad grumpily into their houses, begin to boil coffee. Being neutral is no less strange, no less fraught with awkward compromises, than being a belligerent. Unlike most of Europe, they can rest assured that the Germans are not here to invade them or sink their ships. On the other hand, the vessel's presence is a violation of their sovereign territory and they ought to run down there with pitchforks and flintlocks and fight the Huns off. On the third hand, this boat was probably made out of Swedish iron.

Shaftoe fails, at first, to recognize the German vessel as a U-boat because it is shaped all wrong. A regular U-boat is shaped like a surface vessel, except longer and skinnier. Which is to say it has a sort of V shaped hull and a flat deck, studded with guns, from which rises a gigantic conning tower that is covered with junk: ack-ack guns, antennas, stanchions, safety lines, spray shields. The Krauts would put cuckoo clocks up there too if they had room. As a regular U-boat plunges through the waves, thick black smoke spews from its diesel engines.

This one is just a torpedo as long as a football field. Instead of a conning tower there's a streamlined bulge on the top, hardly noticeable.

No guns, no antennas, no cuckoo clocks; the whole thing's as smooth as a river rock. And it's not making smoke or noise, just venting a little bit of steam. The diesels don't rumble. The fucking thing doesn't even seem to havediesels. Instead there is a dim whine, like the sound that came out of Angelo's Messerschmidt.

Shaftoe intercepts Bischoff just as the latter is coming down the steps of the inn carrying a duffel bag the size of a dead sea lion. He's panting with exertion, or maybe excitement. 'That's the one,' he gasps. He sounds like he's talking to himself, but he's speaking English, so he must be addressing Shaftoe. 'That's the rocket.'

'Rocket?'

'Runs on rocket fuel-hydrogen peroxide, eighty-five percent. Never has to recharge its verdammt batteries! Clocks twenty-eight knots-submerged! That's my baby.' He's as fluttery as Julieta.

'Can I help you carry anything?'

'Footlocker-upstairs,' Bischoff says.

Shaftoe stomps up the narrow staircase to find Bischoff's room stripped to the bedsprings, and a pile of gold coins on the table, weighing down a thank-you note addressed to the owners. The black locker rests in the middle of the floor like a child's coffin. A wild hollering noise reaches his ears through the open window.

Bischoff is down there, heading for the pier beneath his duffel bag, and his men, up on the rocket, have caught sight of him. The U-boat has launched a dinghy, which is surging towards the pier like a racing scull.

Shaftoe heaves the locker up onto his shoulder and trudges down the stairs. It reminds him of shipping out, which is what Marines are supposed to do, and which he has not actually done in a long time. Vicarious excitement is not as good as the real thing, he finds.

He follows Bischoff's tracks through a film of snow, down the cobblestone street, and onto the pier. Three men in black scramble out of the launch, onto the ladder, up to the pier. They salute Bischoff and then two of them embrace him. Shaftoe's close enough and the salmon light is bright enough, that he can recognize these two: members of Bischoff's old crew. The third guy is taller, older, gaunter, grimmer, better-dressed, more highly decorated. All in all, more of a Nazi.

Shaftoe can't believe himself. When he picked up the locker he was just being considerate to his friend Gunter-an ink-stained retiree with pacifist leanings. Now, all of a sudden, he's aiding and abetting the enemy! What would his fellow Marines think of him if they knew?

Oh, yeah. Almost forgot. He is actually participating in the conspiracy that he, Bischoff, Rudy von Hacklheber, and Enoch Root created in the basement of that church. He comes to a dead stop and slams the locker down right there, in the middle of the pier. The Nazi is startled by the noise and raises his blue eyes in the direction of Shaftoe, who prepares to stare him down.

Bischoff notices this. He turns towards Shaftoe and shouts something cheerful in Swedish. Shaftoe has the presence of mind to break eye contact with the chilly German. He grins and nods back. This conspiracy thing is going to be a real pain in the ass if it means backing down from casual fistfights.

A couple of sailors have come up the ladder now to handle Bischoff's luggage. One of them strides down the pier to get the footlocker. Shaftoe recognizes him, and he recognizes Shaftoe, at the same moment. Damn! The guy's surprised, but not unpleasantly so, to see Shaftoe here. Then something occurs to him and his face freezes up in horror and his eyes dart sideways, back toward the tall Nazi. Shit! Shaftoe turns his back on all of this, makes like he's strolling back into town.

'Jens! Jens!' Bischoff hollers, and then says something else in Swedish. He's running after Shaftoe. Shaftoe keeps his back prudently turned until Bischoff throws one arm around him with a final 'JENS!' Then, sotto voce, in English: 'You have my family's address. If I don't see you in Manila, let's get in touch after the war.' He starts pounding Shaftoe on the back, pulls some paper money out of his pocket, stuffs it into Shaftoe's hand.

'Goddamn it, you'll see me there,' Shaftoe says. 'What is this shit for?'

'I am tipping the nice Swedish boy who carried my luggage,' Bischoff says.

Shaftoe sucks his teeth and grimaces. He can tell he is not cut out for this cloak-and-dagger nonsense. Questions come to his mind, among them How is that big torpedo full of rocket fuel safer than what you were riding around in before?but he just says, 'Good luck, I guess.'

'Godspeed, my friend,' Bischoff says. 'This will remind you to check your mail.' Then he punches Shaftoe in the shoulder hard enough to raise a three-day welt, turns around, and begins walking towards salt water. Shaftoe walks towards snow and trees, envying him. The next time he looks at the harbor, fifteen minutes later, the U-boat is gone. Suddenly this town feels just as cold, empty, and out in the middle of nowhere as it really is.

He's been getting his mail at the Norrsbruck post office, general delivery. When the place opens up a couple of hours later, Shaftoe's waiting by the door; venting steam from his nostrils, like he's rocket-fuel-powered. He receives a letter from his folks in Wisconsin, and one large envelope, posted yesterday from somewhere in Norrsbruck, Sweden, bearing no return address but inscribed in Gunter Bischoff's hand.

It is full of notes and documents concerning the new U-boat, including one or two letters personally signed by John Huncock himself. Shaftoe's German is slightly better than it was before he went on his own U-boat ride, but he still can't follow most of it. He sees a lot of numbers there, a lot of technical-looking stuff.

It is your basic priceless naval intelligence. Shaftoe wraps the papers up carefully, sticks them in his pants, begins walking up the beach towards the Kivistik residence.

It is a long, cold, wet trudge. He has plenty of time to assess his situation: stuck in a neutral country on the other side of the world from where he wants to be. Alienated from the Corps. Lumped in with a vague conspiracy.

Technically speaking, he has been AWOL for several months now. But if he suddenly turns up at the American Embassy in Stockholm, carrying these documents, all will be forgiven. So this is his ticket home. And 'home' is a very large country that includes places like Hawaii, which is closer to Manila than is Norrsbruck, Sweden.

Otto's boat is fresh in from Finland, bobbing on an incoming tide, tied up to his bird's nest of a jetty. The boat, he knows, is still loaded up with whatever Finns are exchanging for coffee and bullets at the moment. Otto himself is sitting in the cabin, drinking coffee naturally, red-eyed and plumb wrung out.

'Where's Julieta?' Shaftoe says. He's starting to worry that she moved back to Finland or something.

Otto turns a bit greyer every time he drives his tub across the Gulf of Bothnia. He looks especially grey today. 'Did you see that monster?' he says, then shakes his head in a combination of wonderment, disgust, and world-weariness that can only be attained by hardened Finns. 'Those German bastards!'

'I thought they were protecting you from the Russians.'

This elicits a long thunder-roll of dark, chortling laughter from Otto. 'Zdrastuytchye, tovarishch!'he finally says.

'Say what?'

'That means, 'Welcome, comrade' in Russian,' Otto says. 'I have been practicing it.'

'You should be practicing the Pledge of Allegiance,' Shaftoe says. 'Soon as we get done taking down the Germans, I figure we'll just kick her into high gear and beat the Russkies all the way back to Siberia.'

More laughter from Otto, who knows naivete when he sees it, but is not above finding it charming. 'I have