“First, we go for broke. Eh, gyrene?”

“Yep. We bust ’em up.”

“Ho, not bad for a haole. You’re gung-ho.”

“Mahalo.” Jock pushed his coffee over to her.

“Why are you doing this with me?” she said.

Jock smiled. He shook his head. He eyed her and the grayest slivers of his irises shined like metal. “What the brass and the con men and the rich suits never will get is that we don’t do it because they order us to. We do what we do for each other. And that’s that.”

37.

Lett lay in the dark, so pitch-black he could hold his hand before his face and see nothing. In one respect, it was as if he didn’t exist anymore. He couldn’t see himself. At times he couldn’t feel himself, so he would pinch his ribs or unwrap the greasy blanket to feel the brunt of the cold on his skin like a dunk in a winter stream. It was getting colder. His light bulb had gone out so long ago. He had screamed for a guard then, but no one came.

Sometimes he would wake and panic that he wasn’t even in the cell anymore, that he was down inside an abyss they’d dumped him in. Other times he was underwater, a casualty from a ship torpedoed, or he was floating beyond the earth in a black space, like man would someday but in control of it, unlike he. Not like this. Not held in suspension. This must’ve been what it was like for the commando deep in that lava tube, with nothing, no one, only the beating of his heart and gasps choking his throat. Giving up all hope. To quell the panic, he clawed at his blanket and felt the concrete to confirm that he was still in the cell. Then, through the cold, he could smell his shit bucket. It was half full now.

He craved light more than warmth. He had to see something. He would stare and stare, hoping his eyes would adjust, but they never did. Such was the seal on that cell door. The Seabees or whoever built this had done a hell of a job, for the war effort. To contain the Japanese. To preserve democracy. Good for them.

Death for him.