“So what will I be doing when we get to wherever we are going?”

Tom said, “It’s called a Red Cell. You’ll help to plan out what they might do to us so that we can be ready. That’s really as much as I can tell you. Probably more than I should.”

David nodded. “I see.” He wasn’t totally sure that he did. But he was starting to.

Tom asked, “Dave, can I count on you? I know this sounds cheesy, but your country needs you. I mean it.”

He hated it when people called him Dave. “Yeah, Tom...of course.”

Tom looked at his watch. “I need to get some sleep. It’s been a long few days. You hungry?”

Tom motioned the big guy that he could come back and sit down near them. Big Guy brought a cooler over and passed out submarine sandwiches and sodas. David took a turkey and ham sub and a diet cola. He took one bite of the sandwich and left the rest. He wasn’t hungry. The bumpy plane didn’t help. This still didn’t feel right. But if all of this was true, then of course he was going to do everything he could to help his country.

China. More than a billion people. The only military in the world that compared to the United States. It was the doomsday scenario that his instructors talked about when he was back at the Naval Academy. David had once heard that if it ever came to war with China, every response plan that the United States had involved using tactical nuclear weapons. It was simple math. There were just too many Chinese.

If this were really happening, would the Navy call him back up? He was only an active duty officer for a few months. About as long as it took the medical staff at Navy flight school to figure out that his eyes had gone bad. However, once you are commissioned, you’re commissioned for life, right? So was he going to be sitting on a boat a year from now, facing an onslaught of Chinese anti-ship missiles racing toward him? It was too incredible to seem real, and too distant to inspire the fear that seemed appropriate. He was more concerned about his wife being worried about her husband’s disappearance.

David still didn’t fully trust Tom after the kidnapping. But if this were all true, then this time in history could be like the days before Pearl Harbor. Or perhaps like the days before Germany invaded Poland. Much of the world was just going about its everyday routine, unaware of the massive conflict that was about to erupt.

Over 60 million people died in World War Two, or over 3% of the world’s population. If a war of that scale were really on the horizon, David must do his part to prevent or win it.

David was exhausted from the earlier drama. He turned and looked at the other two men, both of whom were now sleeping in their fully reclined seats. Well, they likely wouldn’t be sleeping with him unrestrained if they meant to do him harm. He still wasn’t sure that he wanted to sleep himself. Or that he even could. But he sure was tired.