Rising Sun (33 page)

Wilhelm Braun parked his car in front of the building that housed Zuckerman’s offices. He got out, looked around, and saw nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to arouse his primal instincts. He was focused on the idea of killing Zuckerman the Jew. He knew his hatred was making him careless, but it didn’t bother him. He wanted to kill and Zuckerman the Jew would be an easy target. He looked forward to seeing the look of horror on Zuckerman’s face. Perhaps he would rape his secretary while the Jew watched before putting both of them out of their misery.

The Jew was the only one who knew he was here, and therefore, it must have been Zuckerman who turned him in to the police. He did wonder if it had been the supposedly highly vaunted FBI who’d been watching his building, since whoever it had been was so obvious. Perhaps the FBI had had to farm out the task to local police who were far less skilled than Hoover’s Bureau. It seemed likely but right now it was terribly irrelevant. He would be on his way out of San Diego in a very few minutes.

He shifted so the pistol in his belt was within easy reach. Once he’d sworn his life to his Fuehrer and, later in Mexico, had wondered if he had the courage to die for the Reich. Now he knew. He did have that strength. But he would not die alone and hopefully not today. Zuckerman and his whore of a secretary would die today and burn in the hell that all Jews deserved.

Braun despaired that he and Krause had done so little to help Hitler. A couple of trains wrecked meant nothing. They and their contents had doubtless been replaced in a matter of minutes by America’s incredible production capabilities. Nor had he had any success in finding out the location of the surviving American carrier. Should he make it back to Germany, he thought, he did not want to return knowing that he would be punished, not rewarded. Therefore, he would not ever return to Germany. He would disappear in the United States. Still, it behooved him to do as much damage as he could, for his own satisfaction if nothing else, before disappearing.

He entered Zuckerman’s outer office. Good, he thought, it was empty. No clients were waiting. A sign on the whore’s desk said she was out. If she stayed out she might be lucky and remain alive. No matter. He would not stick around and wait for her after killing the Jew. He heard sounds coming from the inner office indicating that Zuckerman was inside. Perhaps he was screwing the bitch? The thought made him smile as he pulled the Luger from his belt. Perhaps he would be able to kill them as they were fucking their little Jewish brains out.

He pushed the door open and stood in surprise. No one was behind the desk.

“Hands up,” came a shockingly stern voice from behind him. “FBI. You’re under arrest.”

Braun started to turn. “Don’t even think of it,” the voice said. “Now drop the gun.”

A side door leading to a bathroom opened and Braun was aware of another agent to his left and still others now to his rear. Braun didn’t move. He was frozen with indecision.

“Braun, my name is Harris and I’m willing to make a deal with you. Work with us and you won’t hang or be shot.”

Braun laughed harshly but didn’t lower his weapon. “No, all I’ll do is spend the rest of my life in a small cell while Jews like Zuckerman run the world. No thank you.”

Braun wheeled and fired. The shot went high, smashing into the wall. Harris was the first agent to shoot and his bullet took Braun in the chest, flinging him over the desk and onto the floor. The other agents shot quickly, riddling the German’s body. The gun fell from his hands and Harris kicked it away.

Harris walked over and stood over Braun. He was breathing shallowly. The others hurried in and began checking him over, but it looked like a useless gesture. Harris was shaking. It was one of only a few times he’d pulled his weapon and the first time in his career that he’d ever shot anyone. He felt nauseous but kept it down. His other agents were responding similarly. Thank God they’d been available instead of the local sheriff’s retired buffoons he’d had to use to stake out Swenson Engineering. Of course, he felt hugely disappointed that Braun was dying, which meant that he could not be turned or pumped for information.

“Braun, do you have anything to say before you die?”

The Nazi smiled grimly as the light faded from his eyes. His voice, however, was surprisingly strong. “Yes, Heil Hitler and fuck you.”

* * *

“Banzai!”

The shouted cry came from their front and chilled them even more than the cold, wet snow did. The Japanese were within shouting distance. Only thing was, Farris thought, they couldn’t see them in the woods. The Japs were hidden by the soggy wet snowflakes that would have been beautiful under other circumstances. Today, the lovely flakes were a deadly camouflage, hiding their fanatic and implacable enemy.

“Banzai!”

Farris was sweating in the cold and began to shiver. He wiped his forehead with his hand. The damn Japs were working themselves into a frenzy. They had come down all the way from Anchorage and now they were finally here, on the outskirts of Fairbanks and with the town behind them. Gavin had his small army arrayed so that multiple strongpoints would provide overlapping and concentrated fire. No one had any real idea how many Sons of Nippon were out there, but the consensus was at least as many as there were Americans.

Damn it to hell, Farris thought. Why wasn’t the road from the south open yet? The engineers only had a few miles to go and then troops and armor could come flooding down it, instead of arriving in little trickles like his company had. Soon, he thought, please God soon.

At least Stecher should be happy. He’d been looking for Japs to kill and now they were just a little ways away.

And why didn’t the defenders of Fairbanks have enough artillery to pound the enemy in the woods, and why didn’t they have enough planes to bomb and strafe the enemy? Because nobody thought this would happen and now good men were going to pay with their lives for somebody’s miscalculation.

“Banzai!” and this time a chorus of voices echoed the cry. How damn many of them were there? Farris had an almost overpowering urge to urinate. Or crap. Or hell, maybe both. This would be the first time he and the company had been even close to real combat. He couldn’t count shooting at that sub as combat, although the shells the sub fired at them had come disconcertingly close, and taking on that Japanese patrol had been laughingly one-sided. No, this would be personal.

Major Baylor walked by, calm and upright, just as if he was inspecting them on a Saturday morning before going on weekend pass. Farris knew that it was the major’s first time in combat, along with Gavin’s, but Baylor couldn’t show nerves to his men and be their leader. And I can’t either, Farris thought.

“Keep lots of ammo ready, make sure your grenades are easy to reach, and keep your bayonets fixed,” Baylor said. “Oh yeah, aim for the guys with the swords. Those are their officers.”

The thought of sticking someone with a bayonet or being hacked to pieces with a sword swung by a crazy Jap made Farris want to throw up. He patted the pocket of his field jacket. He’d just gotten a letter from Sandy down in San Diego. Yeah, he thought absurdly, Sandy San Diego. She’d been warm and polite, but noncommittal, which, he supposed, was the way it should be. They’d only gone out a couple of times and he hadn’t even made it to second base. Still, he was glad someone from the female side of the tracks was writing to him.

“Banzai!”

“Either attack or shut the fuck up,” someone yelled and Farris agreed. Do something!

They got their wish. “Oh Jesus, here they come!”

Shapes became dimly visible in the whipping snow. The enemy had gotten to within a hundred yards of them thanks to the crummy weather. Now they were so close he could see expressions on their faces. All hell broke loose as every American soldier opened fire with everything he had. There were a dozen men in Farris’s bunker, and along with their rifles, they had a pair of BARs and a .30-caliber Browning machine gun. They all opened up and chopped into the onrushing Japanese.

Farris worked his rifle as rapidly as he could. Aim, fire, work the bolt, aim, fire, work the bolt, and every five bullets, change the clip. He saw Japanese soldiers tumble and fall. Some got up and tried to continue and were shot again and again until they finally fell and stopped moving. Some ran past his little fortress, while others, many others, were headed straight toward him.

“Jesus, they got tanks!” someone yelled, and Farris thought it was Stecher in an adjacent bunker. Two awkward and ugly metal shapes noisily clambered into view. Their machine guns belched fire and their cannon boomed. Shells from the tanks hit near his bunker and raised clods of mud and debris. Somehow, Farris recalled that Japanese tanks were supposed to be miserable, but these looked like monsters to him.

One of his men started hurling grenades and the first wave of Japanese faltered. Still more grenades filled the air. The man who’d thrown the first grenade grabbed his face and fell backward, screaming. An American artillery shell landed in front of one of the tanks, showering it with dirt and making Farris fall back from the shock. Machine-gun bullets raked the tank, but did no harm. An American jumped out and ran through shocked Japanese and up to the tank. Jesus, Farris realized, it was Stecher. The sergeant pried open the driver’s hatch and dropped in a grenade. A moment later, the tank exploded, blowing Stecher aside like a leaf.

The second tank hit a rock and threw a tread. Instead of staying safe in their iron hull, the crew jumped out and began running insanely toward Farris.

An officer with a glistening curved sword waved it and urged his men on. Farris aimed and shot him in the chest.

“Good one, Lieutenant,” one of his men said.

But here were just too many Japanese. They swarmed on to Farris’s position. Some continued past, while others howled and attempted to jab and stab at the men in the trench. A couple of Farris’s men panicked and clambered out of the bunker and began running to the second line of defenses. Farris too thought it was time to leave but he couldn’t. A dying Japanese soldier had fallen on him and he was stuck under the body. Other Japanese jumped or fell among Farris and the remaining Americans and it became a killing fest, as men on both sides used fists, knives, and teeth. Farris grabbed one Japanese soldier by the throat and strangled him until something hit him on the top of his head and he fell to the muddy bottom of the trench. More bodies piled on him and he tried to claw his way up. There was an explosion and something slammed into his shoulder. He blacked out as excruciating pain overwhelmed him.

* * *

Gavin’s second defense line consisted of any soldier who could fire a weapon, along with the Alaskan Volunteers and a number of other local people who’d signed up for the duration. He watched in horror as the human wave of enemy soldiers ignored brutal casualties that would have stopped a normal army and overwhelmed much of the first line. Of course they would ignore their own casualties, he thought angrily. They came here to die.

Many of the forward bunkers held out, but others could not. Fleeing American soldiers ran toward him, comingled with charging Japanese.

Gavin’s people began firing as quickly as they could, even though they were aware that some of their shots might hit their own men. It was that or die themselves, he thought bitterly.

His artillery, mainly 105mm pack howitzers that had been carried to Fairbanks by mule the last few miles, fired as rapidly as they could, shooting over sights that were set as low as the gunners could make them. “Open sights” was the next order he heard and never thought he would hear in his lifetime. It meant the enemy was almost too close to shoot at.

Gavin was in an open bunker with Bear and Ruby, among others, and they kept shooting, mowing down the Japanese who wouldn’t, couldn’t, stop charging. Bodies piled up in front of them in a writhing mass. Ruby was beside him, blazing away. Gavin recalled telling her that women shouldn’t be on the firing line, and her telling him to go screw himself.

A screaming Japanese soldier stood directly in front of him, a grenade in his hand. Ruby shot him and he fell backward. The grenade exploded, shredding the Japanese soldier.

Both Americans and Japanese hurled grenades as if they were snowballs in a schoolyard fight. Yet another Japanese soldier appeared a few feet away and someone cut him down with a burst from a BAR.

“This can’t go on forever,” Bear said, gasping in pain. There was blood on his leg and he was having a hard time standing.

A Japanese soldier jumped the sandbags and stumbled forward. Gavin fired, but he clicked on an empty chamber. He was out of ammo. “Down,” Ruby ordered, and shot the Japanese in the head as Gavin ducked.

Gavin reloaded, wheeled, and looked for a new target. There weren’t any. The ground in front of the bunker was piled sometimes three deep with Japanese dead and dying. He looked at the other positions in the second line and saw much the same thing. The firing was dying out and all around an unnatural silence was beginning to fall. Two tanks were burning in front of his first line, and another had been destroyed to his right. The Japanese armored threat was over, but what about their infantry?

Gavin clambered to the top of the sandbags and looked farther. The few Japanese soldiers left were still screaming their fury, but running aimlessly and were cut down as he watched.

Bear climbed up and stood beside him despite the wound in his leg. “Fuck me, colonel, if we haven’t just run out of Japs.”

Gavin grunted and gave the order for his men to move out. It was time to retake what they had lost.

A thin wave of men and a handful of women moved slowly across the battlefield. A grenade exploded and a man screamed. A Japanese soldier had just killed himself and taken an American with him.

“Make sure they’re dead,” someone yelled. “Kill them. Kill the fuckers!”

Gavin wanted to stop it, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. His men had a right to protect themselves from Japanese lunacy.

As they moved to the original defense line, their walk was punctuated with sporadic gunfire as guaranteed death was delivered to the Japanese. Their wounded were put out of their misery before they could kill more Americans. Japanese prisoners, Gavin thought ruefully, would be few and far between. It might not be what the Geneva Convention said was correct, but blame belonged with the Japanese.