Weapons of choice

Pound said he would, and they seated themselves as she hurried off.

"So, Admiral, what's this business in the Pacific? I've heard some wild rumors so far. I hope you're not here to add to them."

Pound took a breath and jumped in at the deep end.

"I'm afraid you're not going to believe me, Prime Minister, but I have to do this anyway."

He pulled out the dispatch from Rear Admiral Murray, and a copy of Ambassador Kennedy's report, which the American had helpfully given him, along with Roosevelt's handwritten cover note.

As quickly and with as little drama as possible, he informed Churchill of the events at Midway, as he had been told of them. The prime minister's expression grew more thunderous with each fantastic revelation. Finally, he exploded.

"Enough! Is this your idea of a joke, Admiral?"

Pound's voice showed not the slightest hint of amusement. "No, Prime Minister, it is my idea of a bad dream."

Churchill's head seemed to wobble on his bulbous, unshaven neck as though he were seeing the room in front of him for the first time. He pushed a piece of paper to one side, dragged it back, opened a drawer, presumably to put the paper away, and then simply crumpled it up and dropped it into a wastebasket. Pound half expected him to haul it out and start over again.

"Well, how on earth did this happen? If it did happen."

The first sea lord was at a loss. Neither Murray's report nor Ambassador Kennedy could provide him any information that made sense of the situation.

"It appears that even these chap's who've turned up don't know how it happened," said Pound.

"And they have Japanese ships and German soldiers sailing with them?" Churchill mused.

"And Russians and Italians and a couple of chaps from places I've never even heard of," Pound added.

"I see. And they've got them under guard?"

"Apparently not." Sir Dudley was just as perplexed by that as the PM.

Churchill sighed deeply. He rubbed his eyes and then his entire face. The rasping sound of his hand on unshaven bristles was the only noise in the room.

"I'm supposed to meet Roosevelt in Washington in a few weeks," he said. "I suppose we'd better bring forward the schedule."

"Yes, Prime Minister."

30

USS HILLARY CLINTON, 1939 HOURS, 9 JUNE 1942

It was quiet as Lieutenant Nguyen sat outside the Clinton's conference room, nervously holding the plastic folder that contained her briefing notes.

She was the last briefing officer of the day, and she had a tough act to follow: the poor bastards from physics, who were still riffing on old Star Trek episodes. She patted her breast pocket for maybe the tenth time to make sure the data stick was still there and tried to focus on her breathing in an effort to calm down. She wished she could take Julia and Rosanna into the meeting with her. Nothing seemed to freak them out. But they were ashore, having written her a three-page summary of U.S. antisubmarine operations in June 1942.

It was a left-handed gift. She was discovering that when you gave a bunch of admirals a golden egg, they invariably come back at you wanting a dozen more.

She could hear a man speaking with an English accent. He seemed to be saying that they should reprogram Metal Storm to prioritize kamikaze attacks and traditional iron bombs, rather than hypersonic, wave-skimming antiship missiles. It was off-topic, but he had a point, she thought. Resentfully aware that her bloody PhD had come back to haunt her, she quietly cursed her decision to enroll in postgraduate history. That's when an ensign called her in.

Her fatigue fell away as she entered the meeting room. She recognized most of the senior commanders from the Multinational Force, but it was the immediate familiarity of men like Nimitz and Spruance that gave her a start. She'd seen those faces countless times in books and on screen, but here they were, alive and looking to her for… what? Salvation? To their minds they were still in the first days of a war they could very well lose. A couple of the men who sat with them shook their heads at her arrival.

She took her place the lectern and fumbled in her pocket for the data stick, nearly dropping it as she tried to slot it home. She exhaled audibly to settle her nerves as the stick clicked into place and the massive wallscreen behind her winked from neutral blue to a map of the world.

"Good evening. This is a summary of the relevant disposition of forces across the global theaters as of June ninth, nineteen forty-two."