“No,” she sighed, “not if you’re any good at your job. Okay. Let me try this. If you are heading for Midway, you’re part of Task Group Seventeen-Two with the cruiser Portland, under the command of Rear Admiral William Smith, which in turn is part of Task Force Seventeen under Frank Fletcher on the Yorktown. Task Force Sixteen, built around the carriers Enterprise and Hornet, is steaming with you, and was supposed to be under Bull Halsey, but he’s got a case of the hives and is stuck back in Pearl. So Ray Spruance, a cruiser driver like you, has taken over. You think the Japs would know that? The Japanese think Yorktown was sunk in the Coral Sea. They have no idea she was repaired in three days at Pearl. They wouldn’t believe it possible.

“And do you think, even if they knew any of this, they’d be dumb enough to send me, a black woman, to claim to be a U.S. Navy captain, and to negotiate with you? You think they’d have the ability to screw around with your ship like this?”

Evans felt as though his stomach was going to do a full forward roll. He and Mohr stared at each other, exhausted, incredulous. His mind seemed to have locked up completely, refusing to process any more information.

“Commander Evans?” she prompted.

Moose Molloy interrupted before he could reply.

“Commander. This is pretty wacky, sir. I think you’d better see this.”

At that a light, even stronger than the green rod in Anderson’s hand, pushed back the gloom. Molloy was struggling around the door wedged into the desktop, and he was carrying another glowing object. It was the size of a small book, but it threw out a powerful light, reminding him of the moment in a movie theater when the dark screen suddenly lit up.

“What the hell is that?” asked Eddie Mohr.

“It’s a flexipad,” the Anderson woman answered from the far side of the gap.

A single shot rang out, somewhere in the distance. Before Evans could shout Mohr had cut him off, yelling at a full roar, “Knock it off, you blockheads! Cease fire! I’ll personally clobber the first man who does that again.”

“Thank you, Chief,” said Captain Anderson.

Mohr said nothing in return, just glared. Moose finally popped out of the constricted space and tumbled to the deck. He carried the “flexipad” over to Evans like it was a live shell. His CO took the object, smearing sticky half-dried blood over the screen.