Cryptonomicon

"Get the calamansis," Bischoff says to one of his mates. "Rudy, for you we have the Filipino miniature limes, great piles of them, with more vitamin C than you could ever want."

"I doubt that," Rudy says.

Otto just looks at Bischoff reproachfully, holding him personally responsible for having been thrown together with these four other men for all of 1944 and the first four months of 1945. Finally he speaks: "Is that son of a bitch Shaftoe here?"

"That son of a bitch Shaftoe is dead," Bischoff says.

Otto averts his glare and nods his head.

"I take it you received my letter from Buenos Aires?" asks Rudy von Hacklheber.

"Mr. G. Bishop, General Delivery, Manila, the Philippines," Bischoff recites. "Of course I did, my friend, or else we would not have known where to meet you. I picked it up when I went into town to renew my acquaintance with Enoch Root."

"He made it?"

"He made it."

"How did Shaftoe die?"

"Gloriously, of course," Bischoff says. "And there is other news from Julieta: the conspiracy has a son! Congratulations, Otto, you are a grand-uncle."

This actually elicits a smile, albeit black and gappy, from Otto. "What's his name?"

"Günter Enoch Bobby Kivistik. Eight pounds, three ounces--superb for a wartime baby."

There is hand-shaking all around. Rudy, ever debonair, produces some Honduran cigars to mark the occasion. He and Otto stand in the sun and smoke cigars and drink calamansi juice.

"We have been waiting here for three weeks," Bischoff says. "What kept you?"

Otto spits out something that is pretty bad-looking. "I am sorry that you have had to spend three weeks tanning yourselves on the beach while we have been sailing this tub of shit across the Pacific!"

"We were dismasted, and lost three men, and my left eye, and two of Otto's fingers, and a few other items, going around Cape Horn," Rudy says apologetically. "Our cigars got a little wet. It played havoc with our schedule."

"No matter," Bischoff says. "The gold isn't going anywhere."

"Do we know where it is?"

"Not exactly. But we have found one who does."

"Clearly, we have much to discuss," Rudy says, "but I have to die first. Preferably on a soft bed."

"Fine," Bischoff says. "Is there anything that needs to be removed from Gertrudebefore we cut her throat, and let her barnacles pull her to the bottom?"

"Sink the bitch now, please," Otto says. "I will even stay up here and watch."

"First you must remove five crates marked Property of the Reichsmarschall," Rudy says. "They are down in the bilge. We used them as ballast."

Otto looks startled, and scratches his beard in wonderment. "I forgot those were down there." The year-and-a-half-old memory is slowly resolving in his mind's eye. "It took a whole day to load them in. I wanted to kill you. My back still aches from it."

Bischoff says, "Rudy--you made off with Göring's pornography collection?"

"I wouldn't like hiskind of pornography," Rudy answers evenly. "These are cultural treasures. Loot."

"They will have been ruined by bilge water!"

"It's all gold. Sheets of gold foil with holes in it. Impervious."

"Rudy, we are supposed to be exportinggold from the Philippines, not importingit."

"Don't worry. I shall export it again one day."

"By that time, we'll have money to hire stevedores, so poor Otto won't have to put his back out again."

"We won't need stevedores," Rudy says. "When I export what is on those sheets, I'll do it on wires."

They all stand there on the deck of V-Millionin the tropical cove watching the sun set and the flying fish leap and hearing birds and insects cry and buzz from the flowering jungle all around. Bischoff's trying to imagine wires strung from here to Los Angeles, and sheets of gold foil sliding down them. It doesn't really work. "Come below, Rudy," he says, "we need to get some vitamin C into you."

Chapter 95 GOTO-SAMA