"Welcome to Malta," someone says. Shaftoe looks around and sees that he is surrounded by men in British and American uniforms. The Americans are familiar—it’s the Marine Raider squad from Algiers, flown in on that other Dakota. The Brits are unfamiliar, and Shaftoe pegs them as the SAS men that those fellows in Washington were telling him about. The only thing they all have in common is that each man, somewhere on his uniform, is wearing the number 2702.