They walked on the few hundred yards to the sand-stone chambers that housed the headquarters of all Allied forces in the South West Pacific Area. Judge was actually familiar with the building. In his time it had been converted into luxury apartments and an entertainment center with one of the best sports bars on the Pacific Rim. He’d visited it more than once while on shore leave. In comparison, it seemed somewhat crude here in its original form.

They’d seen increasing numbers of military personnel as they approached. The town’s civilian population tended not to notice them in the throng of uniforms, but they’d drawn some stares from the contemporary soldiers. The cut and style of their uniforms set them apart.

A surprising number of African American soldiers were on the streets. An engineering battalion, they’d learned. Judge found them to be deferential to a fault. He didn’t dwell on it. There were some older branches of his family tree that had laid claim to the sort of good old boys who’d thought regular lynchings and cross burnings were a pretty good idea. He wasn’t proud of it.

A double beep on the flexipad in his briefcase warned of an incoming transmission. Normally, live video from the far side of the world could have been instantly relayed via satellite, but of course the sky was empty, so he had to wait a few minutes while the single, highly compressed data burst bounced off the troposphere and down onto a “footprint” that covered more than a hundred square kilometers. His pad was currently located in the center of that area. It was considerably bulkier than a standard flexipad, packed tight with boosted comm circuitry and quantum processors, developed when military planners correctly surmised that their satellites might be among the first targets in any high-level military conflict. Even so, it was grossly inadequate and seemed to be nonfunctional most of the time. Judge really missed instant and reliable comms.

“News from fleet,” he told the others.

They hurried up the stairs of the headquarters building, flashing newly printed passes at the guards. Once off the street Judge hauled the pad out of the old leather bag.

He brought up the short, encrypted message. The pad decoded the burst and displayed the text.

“It’s from Flag Ops,” he told the others. “Operational concepts for the Pacific theater.”

“That should please MacArthur,” said Willet.

“Am I to be usurped?” roared General Douglas MacArthur.