Hawke's face scrunched in puzzlement. He tilted his head, unblinking eyes fixed on the old admiral. "Are you joking?"

"The Admiral does not joke!" the other old man practically flew out of his seat, waving his arms. "Mind your insolent tongue, Yankee!"

Admiral Fujita held up a hand at the old man, who bowed and sat back down.

"Why do you ask if this is a joke?" Fujita asked. "This had been a fact for four years. The Chinese laser satellite prevents anything with a jet engine, or in the case of helicopters, a turboshaft, from flying. So how is it your aircraft can travel without inviting destruction from the heavens?"

Hawke's expression grew more confused. He turned to Santini, who just shrugged. "Don't look at me. I don't know what this guy's talkin' about."

"Guy!" The old man sprang out of his seat again, his writing pad almost flying out of his hands. "This is Admiral Fujita you are talking to! Show the proper respect, fat one!"

"All right, all right." Santini held up both hands in a calming gesture. "Sorry. Admiral Fujita, I mean." He leaned closer to Hawke and whispered, "Boy, these guys are touchy."

Hawke nodded, then bit his lip as he tried to formulate a response that lacked any sarcasm or insults.

"Admiral, I apologize, but I honestly do not know what you're talking about. There's nothing preventing any jet aircraft or helicopter from flying, and we certainly don't know about any laser satellite launched by the Chinese."

The others at the conference table turned to each other and muttered. Hawke picked up a few incredulous remarks.

"How can they not know this?" said the Japanese pilot Matsuhara.

"Have these two been living under a rock?" asked the older US Navy officer.

"But how can they be flying a helicopter?" The portly, puffy man shook his head.

"That is the most important question, Mister King," Admiral Fujita said to the portly man. "How can these two have flown a helicopter to Yonaga? And for what purpose?"

"We didn't intend to fly to your ship," Hawke said. "We're trying to determine the cause of the interference that's knocked out most of the electronics in Southern California."

"Well we know all about that," said the older Navy officer. "We've been having trouble with our radar and our communications."

"This is true." Fujita nodded. "It has been this way since Yonaga and her escorts passed through that strange tunnel of light."

Hawke's brow furrowed. "Tunnel of light?"

"That's the best description any of us has for, well, whatever it was." Mr. King leaned forward in his chair. "It was like some kind of storm, like heat lightning that wouldn't go away. Then a few minutes later, it cleared up and we were sailing in calm seas and under blue skies. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to contact anyone to tell them about it."

Hawke contemplated King's words. Could they have witnessed the detonation of the EMP device? But something niggled the back of his mind, as it had since Archangel assigned them this mission. An EMP would have knocked out all unshielded electronics. Yet only certain electronic devices across the Pacific and California had been affected. And had this been a true EMP attack, and Yonaga and the rest of the museum piece fleet were at ground zero, they would be floating adrift right now.

"So where exactly is this tunnel of light?" he asked.

"We estimate it's a hundred-fifty miles southwest of us," Ross answered.

"But whatever this was appears to have vanished." Matsuhara's lips twisted as he continued. "We dispatched patrol planes over the area, but none of them reported any sign of the tunnel."

"That's gotta be what's screwing up all the electronic equipment," Santini noted. "I mean, what else can it be?"

Hawke nodded to his friend, then turned back to Admiral Fujita. "So where does your ship fit in? No one has ever heard of a carrier named Yonaga. How can you keep something like this a secret from the entire world?"

"Secret?" Matsuhara drew his head back in shock. "The Yonaga is known to everyone in the world."

A quizzical look spread over Hawke's face. None of this made any sense. "Look, I don't know what you people are playing at, but jet planes can fly, there is no Chinese laser satellite, and there should not be some Japanese carrier from World War Two sailing around the Pacific in the present day. Have all you people escaped from a loony bin?"

He noticed a sudden change in the demeanor of the people around the conference table, and regretted making that last comment. Ross and the older US Navy officer gave him and Dom suspicious looks. Anger lines marred Matsuhara's face. Admiral Fujita aimed a harsh gaze their way.

"How dare you!" The old Japanese screamed, raining spittle all over his pad. "How dare you question our sanity, our honor!"

The veins in Hawke's neck stuck out. He scanned the men at the table. Many had looks that seemed to question his sanity. He then glanced at the two marines. Both tensed, as if wanting to set upon them and drag them off to the brig.

Or skewer us up with those bayonets.

"If I could ask everyone to settle down for a minute," the man in khakis urged. "I think I may have an explanation for what's going on here. It may sound far-fetched, but given everything that's happened so far . . ." He didn't bother finishing the sentence.

Admiral Fujita switched his gaze from Hawke and Santini to the khaki-clad man. "Very well, Colonel Bernstein. Proceed."

Bernstein bowed slightly before speaking. "The fact of the matter is we have a helicopter sitting on Yonaga's deck when there should be no helicopter flying. We have two men here who claim to have no knowledge of Yonaga or the Chinese satellite."

"Liars!" blurted the old Japanese.

"I don't think so, Commander Katsube. I've seen in countless interrogations how people behave when they lie. Their body language, their eye contact. They all show confidence, not the look of people trying to lie. And the helicopter they flew here, well, that's a big reason why I think my theory has validity."

"And what theory is that?"

Bernstein turned to the older US Navy officer. "It's a theory that actually has a lot to do with your navy, Admiral Allen. You have, I'm sure, heard of The Philadelphia Experiment."

Admiral Allen grunted. "Yeah, I've heard of it. Making ships disappear, having them magically transported to Norfolk like something out of Star Trek. It's a bunch of crap."

"What if I were to tell you, Admiral, that it's not, as you say, a bunch of crap."

Allen gave Bernstein a skeptical look, as did Ross and Matsuhara. Hawke glanced at Admiral Fujita. The mummy-like flag officer stared at Bernstein, but kept his true feelings hidden behind that wrinkled mask.

Bernstein, whom Hawke pegged as an Israeli from his accent, continued. "In 1943, the United States Navy conducted an experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Yard to see if they could make their ships invisible to enemy radar. The system was set up on a destroyer called the Eldridge. The ship actually did disappear, but not the way the Navy intended. It was transported off the coast of Virginia for a short time, before it reappeared in Philadelphia."

"Fantasy." Katsube spat.

"On that we agree, Commander," said Admiral Allen. "All records show that the Eldridge was actually on a shakedown cruise in the Bahamas during the time this so-called experiment took place."

"You know as well as I do that records can be doctored. Anyway, the popular belief is that the project was cancelled. Not true. The Navy simply took it in a different direction. They wanted to find a way to instantly transport their ships across the world, envisioning whole fleets appearing out of the blue, say, in the Baltic Sea or Tokyo Bay."

Both Matsuhara and Katsube scowled at that last thought.

"So what happened then?" asked Hawke. He wasn't sure he one hundred percent believed Bernstein's tale. Then again, he had a hard time believing he and Santini were actually on a Japanese aircraft carrier forty-some years after World War Two.

Bernstein continued. "The US Navy converted an old Wickes-class destroyer, the Tasby, into a test bed. It was stationed off the coast of Florida in 1944, and was supposed to transport itself to the Pacific, off the coast of Mexico. And that's exactly what happened."

Hawke's jaw stiffed. He sensed a "but" coming from Bernstein.

"But something happened."

"What kind of something?" asked Allen.

"The crew reported seeing a large wooden sailing ship nearby. Straight out of a Horatio Hornblower adventure. Then apparently the Tasby vanished, reappeared, and for some unknown reason, exploded."

"Wait a minute." Santini screwed up his face. "If the ship blew up, how would you know this?"

"There were survivors. Six of them, picked up a couple days after the accident by a Catalina flying boat. Their report went directly to Albert Einstein himself, who surmised that the Tasby actually traveled to a parallel Earth."

"This is just unbelievable." Admiral Allen shook his head.

"It's all there in the CIA files."

"What!" King swung his head toward Bernstein. "How the hell did you people at Mossad get your hands on something like that?"

Hawke raised an eyebrow. He had a feeling Bernstein belonged to Israeli Intelligence. And King, no doubt, was CIA.

CIA, US Navy and Mossad all with a bunch of Japanese on a World War II carrier. If James Bond himself walked through the door right now, it wouldn't shock him.

"Mossad likes to know about things that are, er, out of the ordinary The day may come when something like that is needed to protect the Jewish State . . . or we must be prepared to defend against it if the Arabs decide to use it."

King scowled at the Israeli. Even Hawke found it disconcerting that Mossad could get CIA files on something that had to be classified Above Top Secret. Then again, Mossad spied on the US almost as much as the KGB.

"You seriously believe Yonaga has journeyed to some parallel Earth?" asked Admiral Fujita.

Bernstein nodded. "It looks to be the only explanation, as insane as it sounds."

"If that's true, how do we get back?" Ross asked.

The Israeli sighed and lowered his gaze to the table. "I wish I knew, Lieutenant."

Silence hung over the table. Hawke noticed many faces tightening, lost in their own thoughts. Katsube, however, looked like he was about to fall asleep, or maybe keel over dead. Admiral Fujita maintained his stoic visage.

Santini finally broke the heavy silence. "This is just . . . just . . . Holy Moley, String. I feel like we just landed in The Twilight Zone."

Hawke still had trouble wrapping his head around Bernstein's tale. For a moment, he thought this might be some elaborate set-up to seize Airwolf. He quickly dismissed that. Airwolf was parked on the carrier's deck, and there had to be several thousand sailors on this ship, including probably a couple hundred marines. If these people wanted his helicopter, they wouldn't have to come up with some crazy science fiction story to get it.

"So what about your ship?" Hawke asked. "What's going on on your Earth where Americans, Israelis and Japanese are on a World War Two carrier?"

Matsuhara answered him. "Yonaga was to be part of the strike force on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Because of her massive size, she could not stage out of Hitokappu Bay with the other six carriers. Instead, she was moved in secret to a cove called Sano-wan in Siberia's Chukchi Peninsula. Unfortunately, three months before the attack, an earthquake hit and dropped a glacier in front of the entrance. There we were trapped for forty-two years."

"Forty-two years!" Santini's eyes bulged. "How the heck did you guys survive for all those years?"

"We managed to dig a pair of tunnels large enough to send out fishing parties into the Bearing Sea. We also cultivated seaweed in the cove, and exercised daily and rigorously to maintain peak health. Then in 1983, the glacier melted enough for Yonaga to break free."

"So that was four years ago," Hawke said. "Why are you still on this ship? Why do you have Americans and Israelis as part of your crew?"

"As I mentioned before," Fujita picked up the story. "The Chinese satellite made it impossible for any jet engine to work . . . on our Earth." The old admiral winced after saying that. "As a result, the two superpowers, America and Russia, could not use their warplanes or missiles without them being targeted by the laser and destroyed. They became impotent. Now the madman in Tripoli seeks to dominate the world through his jihad."

Hawke cranked an eyebrow. "You mean Colonel Kadafi?"

"Ah, yes. So he is a threat on your world, too?"

"Not so much these days," Santini said. "After we sent some bombers over Tripoli last year, he's barely said a peep."

"Well he's much more of a threat on our world," Admiral Allen informed him. "Kadafi's gathered millions of fanatics and built up a huge navy and air force made up primarily of World War Two-era ships and planes. We've been fighting him for over three years."

"And we are about to fight him again," Matsuhara stated. "Before we went through that tunnel of light, we were in pursuit of an Arab carrier battle group sailing toward the Western United States."

Hawke slowly worked his jaw back and forth. "Is it possible that fleet could have gone through the same, um, tunnel of light you did?"

"We were following their exact course as determined by our scout planes," Fujita answered. "We must assume that the Arab fleet is now on your world as well."

A quiver went through Hawke's stomach. He didn't like the idea of a battle fleet of Colonel Kadafi lovers heading toward the US, no matter if they came from this Earth or Yonaga's. "How big a fleet are we talking about?"

"At least six ships." It was Brent Ross who answered. "The bulk of it is made up of ships Kadafi bought from the Soviet Union. Old ships from the fifties and sixties. A Kanin-class destroyer, a Skory-class destroyer, and a Sverdlov-class cruiser. Their main armament is guns, very few missiles, so the Arabs didn't have to modify them too much. They also have a pair of Gearing-class destroyers. The centerpiece of their fleet is the carrier Al Bayda, which is actually the Soviet carrier Kiev."

"Kiev?" Hawke tilted his head. "But that carrier can only handle jump jets and helicopters. Why would your world's Kadafi want it?"

"Kiev underwent major renovations in Tripoli over the past year-and-a-half," Allen pointed out. "They lengthened and widened the deck, removed all the missile launchers and anti-sub mortars, and added a ton of anti-aircraft guns. We estimate Kiev, or Al Bayda, can carry between eighty to eighty-five aircraft."

"What kind of aircraft?" Hawke asked.

"The usual air wing for an Arab carrier," said Matsuhara. "Me-109 fighters, Stuka dive bombers, and AT-6 Texans converted to torpedo planes."

"We also heard that they might have a couple old Gato-class submarines tagging along," Allen added. "Though that hasn't been confirmed."

Santini grimaced. "That's a lot of firepower headed our way. Any idea what their target is?"

Fujita nodded. "The Arabs plan to attack the Port of Los Angeles."

Hawke shuddered. The Port of Los Angeles was one of the busiest ports in the world. Given the capabilities of the Arab fleet, they could do some serious damage. Hell, a few sunken ships could block the harbor for months. The economic impact would be enormous, not to mention the loss of life.

"Most of the goods and supplies Japan imports from the US comes from the Port of Los Angeles," Ross said. "If the Arabs take it out, the economic consequences for Japan could be devastating."

"We flew over LA on our way here," Hawke told them. "The whole city is in chaos because of the electronic interference. With no radios or radar or missiles, the armed forces have no way of mounting an effective defense against thatbattle group."

"But would they still go through with the attack?" Santini wondered aloud. "I mean, this isn't their Earth."

"The Arabs may not realize that," Matsuhara stated. "Even if they do know, they will likely carry out their orders and attack the port. That is how much Kadafi's fanatics delight in death and destruction."

"Regardless of whatever Earth we are on . . ." Determination radiated from Admiral Fujita's wrinkled face. "We will still hunt down these cowardly dogs who would attack a defenseless target, and we will not rest until we have slain every last one of them!"

"Banzai!" Katsube hollered and threw up his arms.

More "Banzais" echoed through the room, from the mouths of Matsuhara, the two marines, and to Hawke's surprise, Lieutenant Ross.

"Now that I have made my intentions clear on what we shall do about the Arab fleet, there is another matter I must resolve." Fujita aimed a penetrating gaze at Hawke and Santini. "What shall I do with you two?"

TO BE CONTINUED