She watched without registering any emotion as the smoke cleared from the rear deck of the Leyte Gulf. Or what was left of it.

HMAS HAVOC, 2245 HOURS, 2 JUNE 1942

He found Captain Willet hovering over the holobloc, chewing on her bottom lip, which Harry recognized as a definite warning sign. In fact, the submarine captain looked ill. Her features were taut. Dark smudges stood out under her eyes, and her face had an unhealthy, malarial, tint. He knew he didn’t look much better. Nobody he’d passed on his way up from the mess did.

Willet was deeply engaged in a conversation with the boat’s chief petty officer, an Old Navy man with faded tattoos covering most of his forearms and the backs of both hands. The Havoc’s CO waved the English warrior prince over to the impromptu O Group. Harry caught the last part of a question Willet had directed to her intel boss, Lieutenant Amanda Lohrey.

“What have we got then, Amanda? Lost Chinese. Javanese pirates?”

But there was only an embarrassed silence to answer her. Nobody seemed able to find the words to explain what the holobloc—and their own eyes—were telling them.

“Well?” pressed the Havoc’s captain, who could see the display as well as anyone. She looked from one person to the next.

Her chief petty officer coughed, almost apologetically, but still said nothing.

“C’mon, Chief,” she coaxed. “Give it up for your old lady.”

CPO Roy Flemming blew out his cheeks and showed Willet his open palms. “Well, skipper, I’m only saying what I see, is all, and that doesn’t mean anything. It’s just what I see, okay. But that? That looks like a New Orleans–class heavy cruiser, U.S. Navy, vintage nineteen thirty-four. Three eight-inch turrets, two up front, or there would be, and one at the rear, two funnels, eight boilers—very environmentally unfriendly by the way, Greenpeace would have a fucking cow. Just under six hundred feet in length. Thirteen thousand tons in the old scale. Carried a crew of between eleven and twelve hundred . . . I only know because of my models.”

Willet returned the chief’s slightly belligerent look with a level gaze. Everybody knew of Flemming’s unfortunate obsession with model building. Of the thirty-nine souls on board, only the newest arrivals and the fleetest of foot had avoided becoming trapped in a long and involved lecture on the subject. Even sitting third in line to the throne had provided no protection, as Harry had discovered at great length. Willet, however, who could and would pull rank to avoid such an entanglement, smiled, just a little, and nodded at the strange image of the conjoined ships. “Thanks, Chief. That’s what I see, too. Right off a history stick. Except for that Nemesis cruiser poking out of it.”