As Kegel trudged to Gebäude Vier in the moonlight, he cursed the jungle for the thousandth time. It wasn't the temperature that was so enervating--tonight it was but 70 degrees Fahrenheit--it was that 85-percent relative humidity. What price glory, Kegel thought, what a test of one's will. He could sure use a glass of cold blood.

Entering Gebäude Vier, Kegel headed down the central corridor, lit only by kerosene wall lamps. On the right were doors leading to the Wasserkontrollzimmer and the deadly indoor Pfuhl. Kegel continued to a door on the left, which took him into the blood extraction unit: a stark, smelly chamber that bore no resemblance to a Weinberg (Vineyard), which is what the unit was officially called.

Sturmbannführer (Lieutenant-Colonel) Frankel, seated at his desk, quickly rose as Kegel entered the dimly lit unit. Dorsch had voiced suspicion that Frankel was pilfering blood, and tonight, Kegel noted, the Sturmbannführer looked as well-fed as ever. But if Frankel was pilfering, he never left any bloodstains, nor drank enough to make a measurable difference. At most he was just wetting his palate.

"Sturmbannführer, how is production?" Kegel asked.

"Very good, Obergruppenführer. All except for . . . " Frankel looked quickly at a document on his desk. "Number three. A bad case of anemia."

"Another stingy one, eh?" Kegel said with ironic pleasure. "Mark him down for conversion. Who is on tap for tonight?"

"The American Bates, sir."

"Oh, good." Turning toward the row of cells, Kegel glanced back at a paper-littered desk behind Frankel's. "Where is Oberschütze Spitz?"

"Gone for more syringes," Frankel said, taking a flashlight from his desk. "We just had to quiet one down."

Kegel and Frankel began moving along the dark row of cells that housed the raw blood supply, Frankel shining the flashlight. An assortment of captives--explorers, tourists, Amazon natives--occupied primitive individual cells. Some were at that very moment having blood extracted, by a remotely controlled system of needles, tubes, and pipes, while others, the needles never leaving their arms, languished on bunks between their regularly scheduled donations. They languished in darkness, for the Nazis were not about to expend gasoline, kerosene, or candles to give these poor souls some light. The remote control was a perverse innovation that sharply contrasted with the otherwise Stone Age nature of the Weinberg.

Explorer Crowley, as the Nazis came by his cell, looked up weakly from his bunk. "Hey, what's happening to my partner Bates?" he asked. "I saw 'em taking him out."

Kegel smiled through the bars at Crowley. "He is about to be converted. How is my English?"

"It stinks," Crowley said, squinting in the beam of the flashlight. " 'Converted'?"

"Yes. And what about you?" Kegel asked, ignoring Crowley's insult. "Would you like to join him?"

Crowley didn't know what "converted" meant, coming from Kegel, since it sounded more terminal than ideological. "Doesn't sound too inviting," Crowley muttered.

"Then you have to keep giving," Kegel urged. "You must keep eating well."

"Eating well?" Crowley asked, almost laughing.

"Keep that blood pressure up. Keep producing fresh blood. See you later."

Next door to the Weinberg was the blood storage unit, or Weinkellar. The blood extracted in the Weinberg cells was piped directly into this unit, to be bottled and refrigerated till consumed. In the Weinkellar also was the cubby-hole office of Obersturmbannführer (Colonel) Müller, whom Kegel stopped by to see--though Müller never had much to say. The Weinberg and Weinkellar comprised, under Müller, the mystically named Ministerium von Elixir von der Ewiger Rebstock ("Ministry of Elixir from the Eternal Vine") or MEER ("sea" in German). In short, Müller was in charge of all blood. After Kegel he was the leanest, and after the Führer and Kegel the meanest, man on the compound. Frankel or anyone else would think twice before pilfering blood from Obersturmbannführer Müller.

Leaving the building, Kegel stood outside, waiting till time for the water show. He again cursed the jungle. Dorsch was right, he concluded. He must speak with the Führer. The rest of Hitler's memoirs could wait. Did not the Führer's best years lie ahead? Time was indeed of the essence, though they had all the time in the world. For any day now the world might discover them. And surely it would seek their destruction.