Quarters were half a dozen military cots in a Quonset hut. The noisy air conditioner that tried to cool the inside was fighting out of its weight. Jerry claimed a cot by plopping the hydrophone and his suitcase down on top of it. The other men marked their territory the same way. Once they had, the officer led them to the building with the radar set.

There, he played travel agent. Jerry and Steve were fourth and fifth in line, so they had a while to wait. In due course, Jerry’s turn came. “You can probably take the two of us at once,” he said. “We’re both going to Los Angeles.”

“You would be…?”

“Jerry Steinberg and Steve Dahlgren.” By now, Jerry was easy with his alias.

“Right,” the lieutenant said after a glance down at his clipboard. “We’ll have a flight for Honolulu departing at oh six hundred tomorrow. It’s around eleven hundred miles—you should arrive before noon, Honolulu time. We’re an hour behind that here.”

“Five hours for eleven hundred miles?” Steve said plaintively. Jerry was thinking the same thing. Shouldn’t it be more like two?

But the lieutenant—his name badge said FISKE—answered, “I’m afraid so. Not jetliners here. We use our recon planes: prop jobs. Not fast, not fancy, but they’ll get you there. Los Angeles for the two of you…? Yes, we can do that. There’s a flight going out of Honolulu at sixteen thirty local time. Should get you there just before midnight Pacific time. Late, but not too late.”

Tomorrow would be … Jerry had to think about it. Thursday. Days at sea melted into one another. Anna wouldn’t be thrilled. She had to work Friday. So did Jerry’s father. Sometimes you got stuck.

“We can make calls, you said?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s right. We have a line to Hawaii that goes on through to the mainland. Connections are usually pretty good, but it isn’t cheap, which is why we want you to keep it short,” Fiske said.

“Gotcha.” Jerry looked at his watch. It was a quarter after eleven. “Los Angeles would be … three hours ahead of us?”

“No, four. Midway doesn’t use daylight savings time. Neither does Hawaii,” the Navy man said. Jerry nodded. Anna would be in the middle of her afternoon when he called. That was good.

He waited for the three people in front of him to finish their calls. Then it was his turn. He knew Anna’s work number as well as he knew the one for her apartment. Luckily, a card taped to the desk in front of the phone reminded him USE AREA CODE WHEN CALLING. So he dialed 213 first.