Rogas kicked in the door of the hut and spun to his left, shooting another Jap who was coming at him from the darkened corner. Women began screaming.

“Americans! We’re Americans” Rogas yelled in English. “Get down on the floor. Get down now! Anybody left standing gets shot.”

The infrared night vision lent a nightmarish atmosphere to a scene that already recalled one of the lower levels of Hell. The women were naked, or clothed in scraps at best. They were underweight, covered in bruises, sores, and their own filth. Alternately moaning and screaming, they writhed and groped in the dark, unable to see what was happening, unlike Ivanov and Rogas. They could see at least eight Japs in the room, some of them naked, too.

The SEALs hunted them down one after another. Shooting each man in the back of the head as he tried to crawl along the floor. When only three were left, they jumped to their feet with both hands in the air.

“No shoot. No shoot!” one yelled.

Rogas shot him anyway.

Duffy had visited some stinking Third World cesspools in her time, but this place took the prize. She tried hard to keep the disgust from showing on her face. It wouldn’t be fair to the prisoners, especially not these ones.

The reporter moved among the women of Camp 5 and let her minicam run, but they were in no state to be interviewed. She’d just bummed another stick of Zoloft from Bukowski when her flexipad signaled a message. She still had the theme from The Simpsons as her ringer.

Snatching the pad from her arm, she turned away from the marines and walked a short distance toward the camp gates. The signal was strong, which made sense. She was patched into a military-grade comm net. The caller appeared on the screen.

It was Rosanna, back on the Clinton. She’d preferred to not jump into a hot LZ, and Duffy respected the choice.

“How you doing, sweetie?” Natoli asked.

“Fucked my shoulder again, but otherwise I’m fine,” said Duffy, her voice shaking a little. “This place sucks, by the way.”

“Hot?”

“Not so much. We got pretty busy coming into Manila, but nothing to brag about. The shooting was mostly done within two hours. But I hopped over here to one of the women’s camps after the SEALs took it. Jesus, you wouldn’t believe this fucking place, Rosanna. It’s like a Taliban rape camp for Americans. How’s Dan, you seen him? I think I might have been a little harsh with him before I left.”

Rosanna chuckled.

“He’s fine. I told him you were premenstrual.”

“Actually, I am, on top of everything else.”

A dull thudding noise told her a chopper was approaching.