He became conscious of his thirst. It seemed as though he’d had no water in days. His mouth was dry and his tongue felt swollen and numb. He fumbled at his unfamiliar webbing and managed to unclip a water bottle. As he tipped the sweet, cool liquid down his parched throat he saw movement, someone waving, in the corner of his eye.

Shapcott turned and saw a woman. She was thin, and filthy, and unkempt. He suddenly realized she was also in a cage. In his tunnel vision, he hadn’t noticed it before. There were others in there with her, all of them waving him over now. He held the muzzle of his gun toward the ground as he approached, but he didn’t safe the weapon.

“Over here!”

“We need help.”

“We need a doctor.”

He stepped up the pace. The sounds of battle seemed to be falling away. He wondered whether it was over for the moment.

“Who are you?” the woman cried. “Have you come to rescue us?”

They shrank back as he drew close. Some of them looked quite fearful of him. When he thought about it, he realized he would look pretty intimidating in the armor, and they would have seen the others sweep though, killing everyone who resisted them. He carefully unhooked the strap that held his helmet in place and took it off. He pushed the goggles back up in his forehead and was surprised to discover he could see quite well by moonlight.

“Captain Thomas Shapcott, ma’am,” he said. “United States Marine Corps.”

Chapter 41

41

USS HILLARY CLINTON, OFF LUZON, 0013 HOURS, 21 JUNE 1942

Dan Black couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

He was standing at the counter in the carrier’s main armory as his girlfriend—Julia let him call her that now—pulled on an outfit that made her look like some kind of character from a Johnny Weissmuller matinee.

“Got your paperwork all filled out, Ms. Duffy?” the chief asked.

“What the hell do you need that for,” Black snapped. “You don’t even have a job here.”

He was tired and irritable. They’d already fought twice over this. Julia gave him a stare that said he was pushing his luck.

“If I get waxed,” she said through thin, pressed lips, “I’ve signed a waiver giving them the right to harvest my organs for immediate transplant. If I get shot in the brain and go into a vegetative state, I’ve signed another waiver allowing them to take me off life support, and then to harvest my organs. If I just get stitched up and lose a kidney, or an eyeball, or a bit of my spinal cord, they need my certificates to access the stem cell deposit I made when I came on board at Darwin. They can force-breed me some new organs. So you see, Commander Black, the man needs my codes.”