“Pleasant dreams?” Liz said, and he realized he was smiling, already there. Berlin. Not long now.

“We’re coming in,” Brian said, his face at the little window. “God. Come have a look.”

Jake opened his eyes and jumped up, a kid. They crowded around the window, the congressman at their side.

“My god,” Brian said again, almost in a hush, silenced by the view. “Bloody Carthage.”

Jake looked down at the ground, his stomach suddenly dropping, all his excitement draining away like blood. Why hadn’t anyone told him? He had seen bombed cities before-on the ground in London, ripped-up terrace houses and streets of glass, then Cologne and Frankfurt from the air, with their deep craters and damaged churches-but nothing on this scale. Carthage, a destruction out of the ancient world. Below them there seemed to be no movement. Shells of houses, empty as ransacked tombs, miles and miles of them, whole pulverized stretches where there were not even walls. They had come in from the west, over the lakes, so he knew it must be Lichterfelde, then Steglitz, the approach to Tempelhof, but landmarks had disappeared under shifting dunes of rubble. As they dropped lower, scattered buildings took shape, smashed but there, a few chimneys sticking up, even a steeple. Some kind of life must still be going on. A beige cloud hung over everything- not smoke, a thick haze of soot and plaster dust, as if the houses could not quite bring themselves to leave. But Berlin was gone. The Big Three were coming to divide up ruins.

“Well, they got what they deserved,” the congressman said suddenly, a jarring American voice. Jake looked at him. A politician at a wake. “Didn’t they?” he said, a little defiantly.