Designated targets

PT 59 was surrounded by a flashing blue box as it described a long elliptical course around the nearest FLOATING DATUM POINT. Ke

"You may find it easier to leave them up," said Lohrey. "Havoc is sending a burst downline now, nav data to grab us up some prisoners."

As the words left her mouth, the skipper's slate reformatted into another top-down perspective, with an inset window magnifying a small group of survivors swimming away from one of the sinking troopships. A red line plotted the suggested course to pick them up. It avoided the danger of sailing too close to the crippled vessels, which might yet explode, but seemed to run right through masses of struggling swimmers.

"Can that be right?" he asked.

Lohrey considered the image for a second, before nodding. "You'll think me unladylike, Lieutenant, but you should just get on with it. We want to clear this area as quickly as possible. Havoc says there are hostile aircraft within the threat bubble. They'll see the fires."

Jack Ke

"Can you patch me through to Barney Ross on this thing? It's secure, right?" he asked, tapping the headset.

She played with the flexipad and nodded.

"Barney, you there? It's Jack."

"I can hear you, buddy. That was great driving before. And good shooting, too."

His friend's voice was so clear, he might as well have been standing right next to him in a quiet bar.

"Barney, I've got to pick up the prisoners now. You want to get going, and we'll catch up. There's bogeys about."

A short, hard laugh told him that PT 59 wouldn't be going anywhere until her sister ship was ready to cut out, as well.

Ke

"What the hell's he doing?"

"He's threading his way through the survivors," said Willet, watching the minor drama on the Intelligence Division's monitor. "Mr. Grey, bring all of the Nemesis arrays online, and keep Lieutenant Lohrey updated on the threat boards via the live link."

"Aye, ma'am," replied her exec.

Willet had been crouching over the display for the last twenty minutes, and now she stood up. She stretched her back muscles but never once took her eyes off the feed from the Big Eye drone.

She'd wondered whether Ke

She envied him, in a way. She'd lost almost any feeling she might have had for her enemies when her sister was beheaded on camera by Moro Front guerrillas in the Philippines, ten of her years ago. Corina had been a field-worker with the Save the Children Fund when she was kidnapped from a village she was assessing for a new water treatment program and a microcredit loan scheme. The guerrillas had murdered her and two doctors from Medecins Sans Frontieres, doing so "live" on the Web.

When Filipino and U.S. Special Forces arrived at the village, they discovered another atrocity that hadn't been broadcast. Everyone in the hamlet who'd been tended to by the "infidels" had been executed, including children who had been treated for cataracts. They'd had their eyes put out with burning sticks. It was the only time in her life that Willet regretted joining the submarine service. For weeks, she'd been tortured by a violent desire to sink her fingers into the throat of the man who'd killed her baby sister. "Captain?"

The Havoc's commander drove away the haunted memories. It'd been a long time since she'd thought of her sister in anything but the most positive terms. Years of therapy had taught her how, but now the defenses she'd erected seemed to be creaking-and threatening to collapse.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Grey. Go on," she said.

Her exec didn't embarrass her by asking if she was all right. He simply relayed the update. "Lieutenant Lohrey reports that they're picking up the prisoners now, Captain. There are two aircraft, probably Japanese flying boats, inbound for their position. ETA nineteen minutes."

Willet nodded, an old melancholy pain settling around her heart. "Tell them to get a move on."

It was just about the worst thing Moose had seen since that night on the Astoria, when the other ship had suddenly "appeared" right inside his own.

Lieutenant Ke

These other guys though, Chinese and Koreans according to the lady officer, they were a mystery to everyone. They couldn't swim over to the boat fast enough, and now there was maybe a hundred or more of them jammed up against the hull, all thrashing and yelling and carrying on like Charlie Chan gone loco.

Lieutenant Ke

Chief Rollins was yelling at him to get the prisoners' hands tied up. Mr. Ke

And Moose looked over and saw Miss Lohrey standing at the edge of the boat with one arm in a sling. In the other, she had an old tommy gun, with a drum mag just like the ones his dad said Capone's men used to have, and goddamn if she hadn't just emptied the whole fucking thing over the edge of the boat and into the guys swimming below. Well, maybe she hadn't. Maybe she'd shot it into the air or something. But then maybe not, because the Chinese were swimming away from the boat now, 'cept for a whole bunch of bodies that just bobbed up and down on the water leaking blood everywhere in the warm orange light of the oil fires.