War of the Sun (20 page)

“And Item seven … ?” Ben asked.

JT paused, then slumped further into his seat.

“Item seven is that Yaz is not doing so good. I was just down to see him in sick bay. I’m not a doctor, but he looks pretty bad to me.”

Of all the strangeness that was swirling around the Task Force, the sudden illness of Yaz seemed the most baffling. He’d been found shortly after Hunter took off, sitting in the conference room, watching the tape of Hunter’s harrowing return through the typhoon. He was as stiff as a board when they found him, barely breathing and with a pulse down near the low fifties. The carrier’s two doctors agreed that he had suffered some kind of seizure—they used the phrase “trauma shock”—but just what kind still remained a mystery. The closest guess was a form of shell shock, the kind soldiers got after hours or days in heavy battle. This is what had the doctors puzzled. Yaz had certainly been under enormous stress helming the
Fitzgerald,
and it possibly made him a candidate for battle fatigue syndrome. But shell shock? It didn’t make sense.

With Yaz out of the picture, the only logical choice as to who would take over running the ship was Ben, who had been serving as Yaz’s Executive Officer. Not a minute went by now that Ben didn’t think he’d wind up like his friend.

“The docs are doing everything they can for him,” JT went on. “Got him on fluids and intravenous feeding. And he’s still breathing on his own. But I’ll tell you, brother, I’ve seen dead guys in better shape.”

“And those sawbones got no idea how or why it happened?” Ben asked.

JT just shook his head. “They said the only way to find out is to ask him, and to do that they’ve got to get him conscious.”

They sat in silence for a long moment, suddenly realizing that their worried discussion had taken place within earshot of the eighteen crew members and officers standing on the bridge.

Ben leaned in closer to JT and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Okay, first thing we do is put the whole Task Force on some kind of rationing program. Essentials are to be used only for must-do stuff. All routine crap should cease immediately. No one’s going to care if we all have a fresh coat of paint when we’re sinking.

“Number Two: we’ve got to get as many airplanes working as possible. We shouldn’t worry about what to strap on them, or whether every little cockpit gizmo comes back green. If it can fly and shoot and drop ordnance, then it should be combat ready.

“Number Three: we send a message to Wolf, tell him to get his ship tucked in here with us. We’ll have to count on him for close-in protection. It’s not going to do us any good if he’s cruising way the hell out there.”

JT was writing it all down in his notebook. “You’re the Task Force commander, Ben; I think you should contact him directly. And you should do it before something else goes wrong.”

But as it turned out, JT had spoken too late. Bad news walked in the door in the form of a message from the
New Jersey,
carried by one of the carrier’s communications officers.

“Just in from Wolf’s Executive Officer,” the man told Ben, handing him the cable. “He’s requesting an immediate reply.”

Ben took the message, read it and then handed it to JT. “It just got worse …”

JT read the message and then read it again, making sure he got it right.

“‘Wolf is missing?’”

Okinawa

M
AJOR GENERAL NAUGA ZUZU
was sweating so profusely his uniform jacket was almost soaked through.

He had reason to worry. He was the production manager for the vast underground industrial miracle beneath Okinawa, and as such, was responsible for everything that went on inside the strange subterranean world as well as above it. His position was one which gained him little praise when things went right and much criticism when things went wrong.

It was the first day after a full moon. In the past, this was the day the great Hashi Pushi himself would actually leave the safety of his palace and visit Okinawa to learn from Zuzu the factory output figures, production projections, estimated usage of raw materials, and slave labor depletion figures—subjects in which the Great Leader had unlimited interest and knowledge. During this review session, Zuzu would also be obligated to discuss overall strategy, defensive battle tactics, troop estimates, and general supply allocations for the island’s vast but almost secret garrison, though Zuzu felt Hashi Pushi never understood nor cared to understand the military half of his mission.

Although there was always an air of unpredictability whenever Zuzu made his monthly report to Hashi Pushi, the Great Leader would always impart a sense of fairness. Like any good CEO, Hashi Pushi would reward Zuzu if the numbers were good and chastise him if the numbers were bad. Then, after a short lecture on the Cult’s destiny in the world, the Great Leader would board his special transport plane and fly back to Tokyo, and not return for exactly another month.

All in all, it had been extremely nerve-wracking anytime the big boss was on the island; Zuzu’s ever-increasing number of gray hairs served to prove this.

But never did he think that he would actually long for those days. But he did, now that the woman was in charge.

Just who this strange woman was, Zuzu didn’t know. She’d suddenly appeared several days before, announcing that she was Hashi Pushi’s hand-picked successor. Though it seemed to be a fantastic claim, there was no doubt that Hashi Pushi had indeed sent her. The Great Leader himself had cabled Zuzu a few days before, and in a rambling, disjointed message, informed him that a young girl would soon succeed him as head of the Asian Mercenary Cult. After that, all communications with Tokyo had mysteriously ceased.

The woman fit Hashi Pushi’s description exactly—right down to her bright red hair—and she had dominated practically every aspect of the Okinawa Manufacturing Facility since her arrival. She seemed to enjoy terrorizing just about all who had come in contact with her. Bad service, bad food, a bad mood were enough to send her into a blind rage. Anyone unlucky enough to be in her presence during these fits more often than not paid with his life.

Any hopes that the woman would not require him to report his “full moon” figures were dashed an hour before. That’s when Zuzu got the word to report, unarmed and alone, to the woman’s underground living chamber. He hastily reviewed his meticulously prepared information; the numbers he had to report to her were good. The problem was, they weren’t great. And that was the reason Zuzu was now bathed in flop sweat. Because the woman had already established the fact that she disliked getting even the smallest amount of bad news, he feared what was about to happen to him when she heard his numbers weren’t through-the-roof terrific.

The long walk down to her chamber seemed to take forever. In the background was the perpetual
thump-thump-thump
of the underground facility’s machinery working as always at a nonstop pace. Zuzu wondered if he would ever see the vast underground factory again.

Finally he reached the end of the long, deep tunnel. Pausing before the door to her place, he took a deep breath and then knocked twice.

She opened the door a second later.

Zuzu had seen her up close only once before and now he was struck by just how young she was.

“You are late,” she said in an odd, lilting voice, one that suggested she wasn’t entirely in control of her faculties.

Zuzu bowed deeply and attempted to babble an apology.

“Please, none of that,” she said, her sinisterly subdued voice cutting him off. “Time is of the essence. Please begin.”

Zuzu took another deep breath; he’d spent the entire night before memorizing the report. Now he would have to repeat it verbatim.

He began slowly, moving carefully from point to point, boasting of the accomplishments that his men and machines had squeezed out of the thousands of slave laborers who toiled deep within the bowels of the island, and passing quickly over the small tidbits of bad news.

“In less than three weeks,” he said, getting to the heart of the matter, “we will have manufactured, fueled, and armed a total of two thousand, five hundred A6M Zeros—this number, as you know, was our Great Leader’s goal.

“I might add that Hashi Pushi’s masterful plan of manufacturing the planes of the 1940s continues to be brilliant. The marriage of these simple designs to our super-efficient technology has enabled us to mass-produce on a scale that would have been unthinkable if we had only undertaken the production of jet fighters.”

As Zuzu was giving his report, he was aware that the woman was slowly circling him. She was now halfway around the room and directly in back of Zuzu. This made him even more nervous.

“I am also pleased to note,” he continued, hoping his voice would not betray his concern, “that our experimental division has reported success in remanufacturing an Me 262 jet fighter, a Luftwaffe design. We call it a
Sukki—
we would be honored to give it to you as our gift.”

The woman was now standing directly behind him.

“Gifts do not impress me,” she whispered from behind his left ear. “I am concerned only with progress. You say
all
our airplanes will be ready in three weeks?”

“That is correct,” Zuzu answered. “We are currently working at all-out capacity.”

At that moment he felt something small and cold against the skin of the soft spot behind his left ear.

The woman firmly gripped the pearl bead at the end of an eight-inch hatpin that she had taken from a fold in her gown, a hatpin whose point was what Major General Zuzu now felt.

“Three weeks is too long,” she whispered in his ear,
“Two
weeks is too long. What is the problem? Why are there delays? Are your workers lazy?”

Before Zuzu could answer, she calmly forced the hatpin about an inch deep into the base of his skull, thoughtfully wiggling the end as she did so.

“Two centimeters more and I will pierce your brain,” she continued whispering to him. “An additional inch further and you’ll be brain damaged for life. Two inches and you will die. Can you understand all this?”

Zuzu was twitching almost uncontrollably by this time, his underpants instantly becoming soiled. The pain at the base of his skull was unbearable, yet he dared not move. He tried to speak, but all he could manage was a series of high-pitched squawking sounds. The woman thought this was funny. She began to laugh, a deep, throaty masculine laugh that made Zuzu tremble even more.

“Shall I put you out of your misery, Major General?” she asked Zuzu in a hushed tone more suitable for lovers about to co-mingle.

Zuzu managed to shake his head no.

“Then I ask you again,” she said, still whispering. “How soon will you be ready?”

“We … can be … ready in … forty-eight hours,” Zuzu managed to gasp, his mouth quickly filling with blood. “Even sooner on your orders.”

The woman withdrew the bloody pin, licked it clean, and then smiled.

“Forty-eight hours will be fine,” she cooed.

Over the Pacific

J
T TOOMEY WAS AT
the wheel of the creaking airplane. Beside him, serving as co-pilot and navigator, was a Free Canadian officer named Kenny Hodge.

Their airplane was ancient by any measurement. It was officially called an ASR Mk 1 “Seagull.” The ASR was for air-sea-rescue—in other words, it was a seaplane. Its single engine was placed atop the wing, which was elevated six feet above the long thin boatlike fuselage on a heavy-duty pylon. The wing itself was thin and flappy, with a stabilizing float strut at each end. The tailplane rose up at a 45-degree angle, with tailfins that looked like Mickey Mouse ears.

Over all, the airplane was the ugliest contraption Toomey had ever laid eyes on.

Just where it came from, he had no idea. It was found stored away in the bottom of the
Fitzgerald,
significantly in crates marked “ballast.” The crew of the
Fitz
had put it together just prior to the mission, but had never test-flown it because of higher priorities. Now it was up to Toomey and Hodge not only to give the plane its first test flight in almost five decades, but also to perform a very important mission with it.

That mission was to find Wolf.

The last anyone had seen of the mysterious ship captain, he was lowering himself in one of the
New Jersey’s
high-speed recon boats. He left no word as to where he was going, or why, or whether he was ever coming back. He simply wrote a message to his executive officer, telling him in effect to carry on. Then he disappeared into the wide-open Pacific.

Though this had happened around 1900 hours, the xenophobic
New Jersey
officers waited more than three hours before contacting the
Fitzgerald.
Only then, when Wolf did not return, did they inform the Task Force command with a request to launch a search plane.

With the strike jets on board the
Fitz
in such sorry shape, the old Seagull was the only aircraft that could do the job. It could stay airborne for nearly seven hours on relatively little fuel and thus could cover large sections of ocean. The only trouble was that no one was certain the Seagull was put together correctly. In the rush to commence the search, there hadn’t been time to make sure every screw was tightened and every wire properly attached.

Launching the fifty-year-old seaplane also became an iffy situation. Having no wheels or surface landing gear, the service crew had little choice but to lower the thing off the side-flight elevator, and then hold it steady while Toomey and Hodge clamored down the auxiliary walkway and climbed into it. Takeoff had been tricky in the still-turbulent seas, but once they were airborne, the Seagull behaved as well as could be expected.

Now Toomey was bored out of his mind.

They’d been flying for four hours over the dark expanse of the Pacific Ocean and had seen not a single sign of Wolf.

“How far could he have gone?” Hodge asked Toomey about once every half hour.

As with most things, it came down to numbers. The boat Wolf had taken boasted a top speed of 34 knots and a high fuel capacity. He’d been missing almost five hours before they got word on the
Fitzgerald
and organized the search. Toomey and Hodge had been looking for him for another four hours. That meant he should be within a three-hundred-mile radius or so.