Admiral Nimitz arrived and took a seat at the head of the table. Admiral Spruance wasn’t there, which puzzled Jamie.

Nimitz went straight to the point. “What do you have for us, Joe?”

Rochefort grinned. “In summary, the date of the Japanese arrival at Pearl and the makeup of the Japanese force.”

Rochefort went on to say that the Japanese fleet under Yamamoto was scheduled to arrive at Pearl Harbor on July 20. It would stay for two weeks while the islands were formally declared to be Japanese territory.

“There are six carriers in the First Air Fleet under Nagumo,” Rochefort said. “The Akagi, Soryu, Hiryu, Kaga, Ryujo, and one other. We don’t have the name just yet. There are two battleship divisions. The first consists of the Yamato and the Musashi, both of their giants. The Musashi is a surprise. I didn’t think she was ready, and she might not totally be. This could easily be her shakedown cruise.”

Standing in the corner of the room behind Nimitz, Jamie shuddered. Two like the Yamato’! How would the navy handle them?

Rochefort continued. “The second division consists of the old battleships Kongo, Haruna, and Kirishima.”

“I thought we sank the Haruna in the Philippines,” Nimitz said with some surprise.

“Apparently not,” Rochefort responded. “I guess we gave the Medal of Honor to a pilot for sinking the wrong ship.”

An American airman named Colin Kelly had been awarded the medal for having sunk a Japanese battleship by ramming her with his crippled plane. Either he hadn’t sunk the Haruna or he’d hit a different ship. An air force pilot could easily have mistaken a Japanese cruiser for a battleship.

Or, Jamie thought with dismay, the whole incident had been fabricated to make something heroic out of the catastrophe that had befallen the American army in the Philippines. He decided he didn’t want to know.

“There will be a number of cruisers and destroyers as escorts, and a brigade of infantry on transports who will depart after the ceremonies,” Rochefort said. “Right now it looks like the Japs will land them in the Aleutians, and then the fleet will foray down the coasts of Oregon, Washington, and California. The only thing possibly holding them back is their fear that our navy really hasn’t vacated the Pacific.”

Which they hadn’t. Jamie now knew that the American carriers had returned to the Pacific, along with other carriers and battleships. They were waiting in silence off Samoa, twenty-six hundred miles south of Hawaii.

Rochefort put down his papers and smiled like a cat. “Yamamoto is bitching that he can’t get confirmation our carriers are actually in the Atlantic and not looking over his shoulder.”

Nimitz nodded. “He will get that confirmation fairly soon.” He paused and added, “We hope.”

Jamie felt like purring. It was his idea about deception that was going to be implemented. If it worked, he would have done his best to strike back at the sons of bitches who had sunk the Pennsylvania and massacred her crew. Even if it didn’t work, he’d given it a helluva shot.

Nimitz stood. “We’ll get this to Spruance as quickly as possible.”

“What about Halsey?” Rochefort asked in surprise.

Nimitz smiled gently. “For a man who deals in secrets, you don’t know everything, do you?” he teased. “Halsey is sick and Spruance is going out to replace him.”

Jamie had heard the rumor and was not as surprised as Rochefort. He was, however, not entirely comfortable with the decision, though it wasn’t his to question. Halsey was sick, and Fletcher was missing and presumed dead. That left Spruance to command the Samoan force.

But Jamie wondered if Spruance was the right man. He’d worked for him and knew him to be extremely intelligent, and considerate of his subordinates. But were these the attributes of a battle leader? Was he aggressive enough to lead an American attack force against superior odds? Halsey wouldn’t have flinched. But Spruance?

Alexa walked the dirt path to the radio hut. It was early night, and there was no trouble seeing by the light of the myriad of stars above her. She didn’t notice the glorious display, though; she was there for a purpose.

She reached the flimsy door and knocked. “Who’s there?” came Jake’s muffled reply. She smiled. He must have been sleeping already.

“I am,” she answered and stepped in. Jake sat up in the bed and scrambled to cover himself with a sheet. He was wearing an undershirt and shorts. Poor puppy, she thought. He looks so confused.

Jake smiled and yawned. “What’s up?”

Alexa pulled the stool from beside the radio and sat down by the bed. “I want to talk. All you have to do is stay there and listen.”

“Okay.”

“Jake, do you know how evil so much of the world is, and how much of it I’ve seen?”

He reached out and took her hand. “I know what you’ve told me. I can’t begin to imagine what your ordeal was like, though. As to the rest of the world, there’s a lot of good out there too, not just evil.”

Good answer, she thought. “You remind me of Tim. He was a good man and, despite being a professional naval officer, an innocent and naive man. He saw good in the world and thought there was more of it than there was bad. He thought his job was to protect the good. I see a lot of him in you. You’re a good man, Jake, a very good man.”

Jake flushed. “Hey, Alexa, I’m far from perfect. Don’t canonize me just yet, okay?”

She laughed. “I said good, not a saint. Also, you have a sense of honor, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You could have left the islands and returned to California a long time ago, couldn’t you?”

“Sure, but I thought I could do some good here, maybe even do something to defeat the Japs.”

“Honor,” Alexa repeated. “There are those who say that innocence and naiveté are essential for there to be honor. I don’t know if they’re right, but I’m glad your sense of honor required you to stay instead of taking the easy way out. If you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be sitting here alive today. If you hadn’t stayed, you wouldn’t be planning something big against the Japs, would you?”

“No secrets in this small town,” Jake said with a laugh.

“Honor,” she said again. “Will you do something for me, with me, but following my instructions to the absolute letter? It’s very important to me. Will you honor my request? Will you honor me?”

He squeezed her hand. “Of course.”

“Jake, do you love me?”

He took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said with a whisper. It was all he could manage.

She smiled gently, confidently. “Then help me. But don’t move unless I tell you to; don’t say a word unless I ask you to. I will do everything, understand? Everything.”

Jake nodded, and she pulled him to where he stood silently on the dirt floor. She looked at him for a moment, then pulled the undershirt over his head, paused, and slid his shorts off. She stared at his powerful body while his erection grew. He looked at her questioningly but made no move, no sound. Jake was a statue.

“You are going to purge me,” she finally said and touched him softly on his chest. Her fingers felt like fire to him. “You are going to remind me of how much I loved Tim, and you are going to help remove the stench of Omori from both my body and my mind. You are going to be my knight and rescue me from the dragon that eats at me. Help me, Jake.”

She undressed and stood naked in the starlight that came through the open window by the bed. Jake had never seen anyone or anything so beautiful. Her breasts were firm and full, and her belly flat. The legs that he’d admired the first time he’d seen her were as magnificent as he’d dreamed.

Jake longed to tell her, but she touched his lips with her finger and reminded him to be still and unmoving. She told him to lie down on his back in the bed. He grabbed the sides of the bed to stay in control. He understood that she needed it to happen this way, and he would not betray her.