Kolhammer observed the interchange in silence. He knew Jones well enough, he thought. The Eighty-second had been attached to the Clinton’s battle group for two years. The colonel’s reputation had preceded him, but Kolhammer was experienced enough to know that the few minutes of a man’s life wherein he earned a Medal of Honor didn’t necessarily tell you anything about his soul. Or even his character—the everyday manifestation of that deeper, immaterial essence. Awards for uncommon valor are, by definition, won under extreme circumstances, which might call forth behavior completely out of character for the individual concerned. The exchange with the belligerent noncom, however, confirmed what Kolhammer had always suspected.

Nobody fucks with J. Lonesome Jones.

Standing next to him, Captain Halabi couldn’t help but be affected, as well, a wave of gooseflesh running up her arms. Curiously, the magic seemed to fade with distance. Over beside the Seahawk pilot Chris Harford, Flight Lieutenant Amanda Hayes affected a faux southern accent: “Mah word, Jasper, we seem to have stumbled into a teste fest.”

Harford flashed a small but genuine smile for the first time that day. It froze on his face when he recognized the man approaching from the carrier’s island structure. Admiral Raymond Ames Spruance.

Halabi thought he looked more like a banker than an admiral, perhaps a Rothschild or Rockefeller, with short, straight hair, graying over the ears, a rather Roman nose, and deep lines at the corner of his mouth emphasizing the funereal set of his jaw. He fairly stalked over to the commander of the Multinational Force, fixing their CO with a frigid glare.

“You Kolhammer?”

“I am.”

That neither man had made to salute spoke eloquently of their uncertainty. Nobody was sure of what rules applied here, of whose turf they were treading on. Spruance turned to take in the stony visage of Colonel Jones and the bewildering Karen Halabi. Jones ripped out a parade-ground-perfect salute, to which Spruance merely sketched a return, somewhat grudgingly and after a noticeable pause.

“You people have killed thousands of my men tonight,” he said. “You’ve probably lost us this war in the space of less than an hour.”

“And you’ve killed plenty of mine,” Kolhammer replied equably. “Tried to kill thousands more. We’re both at war, Admiral. People die. Sometimes for the worst of reasons. I’m sorry for your losses and if you’ll allow us, we’ll do what we can for the survivors.”

“And what about the Japs?” Spruance said in a cold, level voice. “What do you intend to do for them, since I notice you seem to be running with them?”

The Siranui. Kolhammer knew it had been spotted. It could hardly have been missed, emerging as it did so close to the Enterprise. He wondered whether Spruance had laid eyes on her himself. Probably.