Cryptonomicon

Bischoff tries to recognize them as they row closer. It takes a while. There are five in all. Otto has lost his pot-belly and gone much greyer. Rudy is a completely different man: he has long flowing hair ponytailed down his back, and a surprisingly thick, Viking-like beard, and he appears to have lost his left eye somewhere along the way, because he's got an actual black patch over it!

"My god," Bischoff says, "pirates!"

The other three men he has never seen before: a Negro with dread-locks; a brown-skinned, Indian-looking fellow; and a red-headed European.

Rudy is watching a stingray furling and unfurling its meaty wings ten meters straight down.

"The clarity of the water is exquisite," he remarks.

"When the Catalinas come for us, Rudy, then you will long for the old northern murk," Bischoff says.

Rudolf von Hacklheber swings his one eye around to bear on Bischoff, and allows just a trace of amusement to show on his face. "Permission to come aboard, Captain?" Rudy asks.

"Granted with pleasure," Bischoff says. The dinghy has come alongside the round hull of the submarine, and Bischoff's crew unrolls a rope ladder to them. "Welcome to the V-Million!"

"I have heard of the V-1 and the V-2, but . .

"We could not guess how many other V-weapons Hitler might have invented, and so we chose a very, very large number," Bischoff says proudly.

"But Günter, you know what the V stands for?"

"Vergeltungswaffen," Bischoff says. "You're not thinking about it hard enough, Rudy."

Otto's puzzled, and being puzzled makes him angry. " Vergeltung means revenge, doesn't it?"

"But it can also mean to pay someone back, to compensate them, to reward them," says Rudy, "even to bless them. I like it very much, Günter."

"Admiral Bischoff to you," Günter returns.

"You are the supreme commander of the V-Million–-there is no one above you?"

Bischoff clicks his heels together sharply and holds out his right arm. "Heil Dönitz!" he shouts.

"What the hell are you talking about?" asks Otto.

"Haven't you been reading the papers? Hitler killed himself yesterday. In Berlin. The new Führer is my personal friend Karl Dönitz."

"Is hepart of the conspiracy too?" Otto mutters.

"I thought my dear mentor and protector Hermann Göring was going to be Hitler's successor," Rudy says, sounding almost crestfallen.

"He is down in the south somewhere," Bischoff says, "on a diet. Just before Hitler took cyanide, he ordered the SS to arrest that fat bastard."

"But in all seriousness, Günter--when you boarded this U-boat in Sweden, it was called something else, and there were some Nazis on board, yes?" asks Rudy.

"I had completely forgotten about them." Bischoff cups his hands around his mouth and shouts down the hatch in the top of the sleek rounded-off conning tower. "Has anyone seen our Nazis?"

The command echoes down the length of the U-boat from sailor to sailor: Nazis? Nazis? Nazis?but somewhere it turns into Nein! Nein! Nein!and echoes back up the conning tower and out the hatch.

Rudy climbs up V-Million'ssmooth hull on bare feet. "Do you have any citrus fruit?" He smiles, showing magenta craters in his gums where teeth might be expected.