He could feel the cannon shells demolishing the floors beneath, and expected to die as the building simply fell in on itself.

Instead, he rolled over, ready to crawl downstairs and die with some honor among his comrades, only to find himself staring into the face of his assassin.

The man appeared in the doorway without warning. He looked huge, looming over Homma in his bulky armor. His was white, but most of his face was hidden behind goggles that were so perfectly mirrored, all the general could see in them was a distorted image of himself.

He clawed around for the pistol he'd dropped as the soldier raised one of the two weapons he was carrying. It was black, and oddly shaped, with two metal spikes poking-

He jumped as the spikes fizzed across the room and embedded themselves in his chest. He noticed wires leading back to the device.

And then the world turned black.

…

…

…

…

…

Homma came to in a different room. No. A tent.

He had no idea of how long he had remained unconscious. The tent was lit by glowing tubes, so perhaps night had fallen.

He lay on a cot. It was a simple structure of canvas and wood, but strange machines sat on a trestle table to his left. Somebody spoke in English. He tried to focus through the pain of a blinding headache and the sudden realization that he was a prisoner.

More shame. Unending, unutterable shame.

Hard, callused hands held him down. His head was clamped in a lock and wrenched backwards, exposing his neck. He felt a cool metallic object press against his jugular and then a sharp sting.

He passed into darkness again.

Battalion Intelligence Officer Major Annie Coulthard stepped back from the prisoner.

"Give him a minute or so, sir."

"Thank you, Major," said Colonel Jones.

While they waited, Brigadier Barnes and Colonel Toohey, the Australian commanders, countersigned the data scrip authorizing Homma's field punishment, and handed it to Jones. The Marine Corps officer added his own signature and passed the flexipad back to Corporal Britton.

The clerk saluted and left the five officers alone. Jones, Barnes, Toohey, Coulthard, and Lieutenant Stafford, who would act as interpreter.

"Your people did some good work, today, Mick," said Jones. "It was a hell of a thing, watching those old A-Ones go tear-assing through the brush again. I haven't seen anything like that since Iran. It really took me back."

The Australian brigadier nodded gruffly, but it was clear that he wasn't in the mood for banter. He had just come from the prison camp.

Combat medics had choppered in right behind the assault and set up triage on site. The worst cases were being treated by Marine Corps and 2 Cav medics at the local hospital, but it was unlikely that many of the original inhabitants would survive the ordeal. A couple of hundred at best, out of a town of thirteen thousand. WCIU investigators from the Clinton had already begun exhuming the bodies of hundreds of contemporary Allied servicemen and -women who had been exterminated after the fall of Bundaberg, and buried in a series of mass graves some distance outside of town.

Jones could see that Toohey was struggling with the urge to place his gun upside the general's head and just pull the trigger. But although they had already signed the warrant authorizing his execution, it would be some time before Masaharu Homma was taken to the edge of one of those mass graves. He was a high-value prisoner who would spend months being interrogated before meeting his ultimate fate.

"I think we should be okay to start the interrogation, now," announced Major Coulthard.

"Go ahead," Jones told her.

Coulthard turned on the two cameras. She spoke directly into one of them. "I am Major Annie Coulthard, battalion intelligence officer with the eighty-second MEU. With me are my commanding officer, Colonel J. 'Lonesome' Jones, Colonel Michael Toohey, and Brigadier Michael Barnes of the Australian Second Cavalry regiment, and an interpreter from the Southwest Pacific Headquarters, Lieutenant Andrew Stafford, USN, contemporary."

Coulthard moved aside and adjusted the focus to sharpen up the image of the prisoner.

"This is General Masaharu Homma, commander of the Imperial Japanese land forces in Australia. He was captured at the Battle of Bundaberg, on October tenth, nineteen forty-two, at roughly sixteen-thirty hours. Colonel Jones and Colonel Toohey have already authorized Sanction Four summary field punishment of General Homma for crimes against humanity. Execution of the sentence has been delayed to allow the prisoner to be interviewed.

"The prisoner is a Japanese male, age fifty-five, roughly seventy-six kilograms in weight. He was disabled for capture with a one-second minimal charge from a Texas Instruments Model Nine-forty-two taser. At twenty-forty-five hours, on October tenth, nineteen forty-two, I administered ten cc's of Trioxinol Five to the prisoner. It is now twenty-forty-seven hours. The interview has begun. Lieutenant Stafford is working from a list of questions prepared by me in consultation with General MacArthur's Intelligence Liaison at SWPA in Brisbane."

"You are General Masaharu Homma?" asked Lieutenant Stafford in Japanese.

"The black barbarian. The giant," replied Homma in a weak voice.

Stafford repeated the question twice. Homma agreed with him after the second try.

"And you are the officer responsible for the extra-judicial killing of contemporary Allied personnel, and the incarceration and killing of the population of this town?"

Homma shook his head. "I have not killed anyone."

Stafford rephrased the question. "Are you the commander of the Imperial Japanese forces in this town?"

"Yes."

"Did those forces, under your command, execute Allied officers and enlisted men when they took control of the town?"

"Yes."

"Did those forces incarcerate civilians?"

"Yes."

"Did those forces execute civilians?"

At that Homma seemed to lose focus. He closed his eyes and his head drooped to one side. A thin line of drool stretched from the corner of his mouth to the pillow.

Major Coulthard tapped him lightly on the cheek, pushing his face back toward the glo-sticks. "Did Japanese forces execute civilians in this town?"

"There was resistance," Homma whispered, his voice cracked. "Much resistance."

"Did Japanese forces execute civilians because of this resistance?"

"Yes."

The interview continued in this fashion for over an hour. Jones had seen plenty like it before. He knew that if it was him on the cot, with ten cc's of T5 in his bloodstream, he'd be giving up whatever was asked of him, too-state secrets or his wife's bra size, it wouldn't matter.

Just after midnight, Stafford asked Homma about the convoys. "Why did you bring Chinese soldiers to fight here?"

"We did not."

"There were Chinese soldiers on your troopships."

"Not soldiers," said Homma. "Prisoners."

"Why were there Chinese prisoners on your troopships?"

"They were targets," said Homma.

"Decoys?" asked Stafford.

"Targets, for your rockets and death beams."

Stafford translated the reply.

"Decoys," Jones muttered to Brigadier Barnes. "They were never meant to set foot on land."

The Australian just nodded.

Jones leaned over and whispered into Coulthard's ear. "See if you can get him to tell you what the fuck he was doing here, anyway. I think this whole invasion was a fucking sideshow."

Coulthard checked her watch. "I'll need to boost the dose in ten minutes, sir. We should wait until then. He's beginning to resist the drug."

Homma was shaking his head, refusing to talk about the Chinese anymore. Stafford switched the angle of his attack, asking the general why the army had let itself be duped into quitting China.