“One minute,” warned Hayes, who was keeping a close eye on the combined feed of the navigation radar and SINS, the chopper’s self-enclosed inertial navigation system. Not a patch on the third-generation NAVSTAR GPS system, but it would have to do.

It was cold in the back of the chopper. The SEAL team donned their helmets and night vision combat goggles. Ivanov leaned forward to peer around CPO Vincente Rogas and into the darkness. He switched from the luminescent lime green of low-light amplification to infrared. Immediately the heat leaking from the chopper’s engine cowling shimmered in front of him like a curtain. He adjusted the optimum range and it fell away appreciably. A cluster of buildings, blacked out, but still bleeding cherry-pink warmth into the night, appeared to the south. Flight Lieutenant Hayes’s lilting voice sounded crisply inside his helmet.

“As we are preparing to land the captain asks that you return your tray tables to the upright position, unfasten your seat belts, and jump out of the helicopter. We’d like to thank you for flying with the U.S. Navy, and hope you will choose to travel with us again in the future.”

“The far fucking future,” added Harford.

“Amen,” said Ivanov.

As the Seahawk swooped down on the compound, a platoon of the marine fire team opened up. They had been lying concealed in the elephant grass outside the barbed wire. Twelve Japanese guards perished instantly, shredded by the concentrated volley of caseless ceramic projectiles. A couple of Hellfire missiles reached through the darkness to obliterate the single guard tower.

In the back of the big chopper, Airman Toby La Salle checked the fast rope connections as the men prepared to drop the last twenty meters to the ground. The two parties wished each other good luck, and then the small special ops team was gone. Into the black.

The small compound housing civilian prisoners underwent what was technically referred to as vertical and horizontal envelopment. In lay terms the Japanese defenders were swarmed from all sides and above in one mad minute of psychotically violent but finely controlled gunfire and high-explosive bombardment.

The SEAL team signaled to the marines to cease fire and dropped into the compound. First squad assaulted the main gates, now protected only by dead men, and the rest of their unit poured through the breach. Ivanov and Rogas were already moving, running toward the first of the flimsy huts housing the prisoners. The chief grunted as a Japanese slug spun him around, but his body armor saved him and he was up again in a second. The sentry was dead before Rogas regained his feet, drilled with a three-round burst fired from the hip by Ivanov.

A Japanese officer wielding a sword charged at them from the side of the hut. But his pants were undone, ruining the effect. The Spetsnaz officer took his head off with another three-round burst.