Rising Sun (44 page)

“The damn thing won’t sink, won’t stop,” muttered Green.

Oldendorff heard and nodded. “We may be pumping shells into a corpse. If the torpedoes don’t kill her, we’ll just pull back and let her steam in circles for all eternity. For all we know, her engines are so well protected we haven’t done a thing to them.”

They moved closer, now only a couple of miles away. Through binoculars, Green and others could see the utter destruction on her deck.

Wait! Was that motion? Green stared at the sternmost turret on the ship, the “D” turret. Yes, it was slowly turning and her guns were rising. The sons of bitches had been lying low. The three guns pointed directly at the
Pennsylvania
like three massive eyes and then fired.

All three giant shells slammed into the
Pennsylvania
. The American battleship was well-armored but not against this. Two shells penetrated her hull and a third struck her superstructure. The ship reeled from the titanic shock. One, the shell that struck her superstructure, obliterated all traces of life there, while one of the shells that pierced her hull found one of her magazines. A few seconds later, the
Pennsylvania
exploded. She broke in half with the two pieces floating briefly before slipping beneath the waves and taking her entire crew with her.

In a vengeful fury, the crews of the two remaining American battleships ships first pounded the surviving turret into rubble and then fired every shell and torpedo they had, reducing the Yamato to a burning hulk. After an eternity, she rolled on her side and sank.

They had redeemed the
Pennsylvania
and sunk the mightiest battleship in the world. But at what cost?

CHAPTER 23

FARRIS FOUND IT DIFFICULT TO PUSH THE WHEELCHAIR WITH HIS left arm in a sling, so he let Nancy Sullivan help out, enjoying the slightly erotic feel of her body against his as they pushed along the long corridor.

Once again the hospitals were full. What the newspapers were calling the Battle of the Baja or the Miracle of the Baja had been a complete American victory, but there still had been many casualties. Farris pushed past wards full of heavily bandaged men, some of whom were terribly maimed. Farris could not help but think of his good fortune in surviving so much fighting with nothing more than a bum shoulder that was going to keep him out of combat. Instead, he would be assigned to a training command in the Fourth Army, an assignment that he’d requested instead of a discharge and was fine by him. He’d had enough combat for several lifetimes. Besides, he’d just found Nancy and didn’t want to leave her.

All of America was enjoying the incredible, almost miraculous victory. Five Japanese carriers were confirmed sunk and two more were badly damaged and probably out of the war for good. The battleships
Yamato
and
Kongo
had been found and sunk, at the cost of the
Pennsylvania
. A huge relief convoy was en route to Hawaii stuffed with supplies and medicine. Was the end of the war in sight? Based on his firsthand experiences with Japanese fanaticism, he thought it unlikely.

“Would you mind hurrying?” Dane asked.

Farris declined to answer. This had been a daily ritual for a couple of weeks now, complaints and all. Dane was still in a brace while his broken back and fractured ribs healed, but at least he was no longer in that massive and ugly-looking cast that had confined him to bed. He’d been informed that his war was over too, and that he would be given a medical discharge. Numerous doctors said he was damned lucky he wasn’t paralyzed. The debris that had hit him on the
Saratoga
had broken his back. Just as the army couldn’t take a chance on someone with a bad shoulder going into combat, the navy couldn’t do the same for a man whose back would take a very long time to return to normal.

“Are we there yet?” Dane mockingly whined in a kid’s voice.

Farris laughed. “Be still.”

“In a couple of weeks I’ll be able to walk and then I’m going to kick your ass.”

“I look forward to it,” Farris said, meaning it.

“I still outrank you.”

“Screw your rank,” Farris said genially while Nancy giggled.

They pushed open the double doors to the cafeteria. It was between meals and only a handful of people were present. Dane took control and pushed his wheelchair toward another one. He parked alongside, and he and Amanda embraced as best they could under the circumstances. Both her legs were in casts from foot to mid-thigh. They kissed and others in the cafeteria either watched approvingly or turned away to give them a semblance of privacy.

After a moment, Amanda completed the ritual by awkwardly hugging Nancy and again thanking her for finding her under the rubble and staying with her until she could be dug out. Both of Amanda’s legs had been badly broken but were healing, and she would be out of the casts in a couple of days. It would be a while before she and Tim could resume life together, but it was on the horizon. They’d already discussed just how they’d manage sex when they were released, and decided that, like porcupines, very carefully would be it for a long while. That was fine by them. They just wanted to be together.

“Guess what?” Amanda said, changing the subject. “Grace came back from San Francisco with everything we wanted to know about Mack’s safe deposit box.” She and Sandy had give Grace power of attorney and she’d gone north to meet with Zuckerman, Goldman, and a rep from the State of California.

Dane didn’t really care. That was part of her life, not his. Still, he was more than a little curious. “Are we rich?”

“I really don’t know. They found only thirty thousand dollars, which is below what the State of California said they’d tax, so it belongs to us. They also found some stock certificates, and Zuckerman suggested that I keep the stocks while Grace and Sandy split the cash. Apparently they really need the money while I don’t. He thought the company was a good one doing a lot of work for the government. He says International Business Machines should be worth quite a bit some day. He said that we should hold on to it and wait. Regardless, we now have a thousand shares of IBM.”

Tim thought he approved. “We’ll have plenty of time to think about it. First, we have to get out of these things, and then we have to learn how to walk again.”

Amanda nodded solemnly. “And we’d better figure out how to make love without breaking anything. At least we’ll have a place to live when that time comes.”

After Merchant had been killed, Farris had continued making rent payments on Merchant’s apartment, on Dane’s behalf. The landlord didn’t care who rented as long as someone paid, and Tim had the feeling that Steve and Nancy had spent some intimate time there as well, and why the hell not? Grace hadn’t wanted to live there. Too many memories, she’d said and, after a few drinks, wondered why the men she liked kept getting killed.

Nancy nudged Steve and they walked away to give the newlyweds some more privacy. “I think we have a couple of hours before the two lovebirds have to be back in their wards. Any idea how to spend that time?”

Steve almost leered, causing Nancy to blush and laugh. “I can think of a few,” she said.

* * *

The ride from Fairbanks to Anchorage was depressing. First, Ruby and Bear had to wait for a convoy to form up. Even though the army was reasonably confident that any remaining Japanese were either dead from wounds, starvation, or exposure, there was always the nagging possibility that one or two were lying in wait for an opportunity to kill themselves and anybody else in the name of the emperor.

When they finally got to the ruined little town, it was even more depressing. Even though the army was setting up shop and building an airbase, Anchorage itself was a burned and broken shell. Ruby had a difficult time convincing a couple of young MPs that she was the owner of the pile of charred rubble that had once been her restaurant, her one and only source of income. In the ruins, she found very little of worth to her.

While she was looking through the debris, she was approached by a man who said he was a real-estate speculator, and would she sell to him? They haggled right then and there and he ended up paying cash for the property, giving her what she felt was about a third of what it was worth. She didn’t care. It was time to move on with her life.

She did talk to the army and pointed out where she’d seen the Japanese shoot and kill the men they’d pushed into the water. She was somewhat gratified when her information resulted in divers finding several bodies. They would continue to search for others. The murdered young men would be going home, she thought with a good deal of satisfaction. And so would she, only it wouldn’t be Anchorage.

“We should live in Fairbanks,” Ruby announced.

“And do what?” Bear asked. His world was changing, too, and he wondered what the future would bring.

“Well, they’re building a new airbase up there as well, and the road to the south is now open. If we play it right, we might have enough money to open a bar and restaurant, and you can make some cash guiding officers out into the wilderness to do some big-game hunting, Alaska style.”

“That’ll do for the summertime,” Bear said, “but what will we do in the winter?”

Ruby smiled. “Why, we’ll do what everyone else does up here in the winter. We’ll drink ourselves silly and screw our brains out.”

He smacked her on the bottom. “Damnation, why didn’t I think of that? What the hell are we waiting for?”

* * *

Admirals Chester Nimitz and Ray Spruance were the toast of the nation, a fact which perplexed them because of their innately shy natures, and annoyed Admiral King, who rather relished publicity. Their pictures had graced the covers of
Time, Life
,
Collier’s
, and the
Saturday Evening Post
. Even Nimitz had to acknowledge that Yamamoto and what remained of his fleet were clearly on the ropes. The Japanese were pulling back and, from the intercepts they’d gotten, were going totally on the defensive.

The one-sidedness of the wide-ranging fighting still stunned Admiral Nimitz. The
Saratoga
was already back in action after some miracle-working by repair crews in San Diego and, in the next few months, would be joined by no fewer than three fleet carriers and nine escort carriers. Additional new battleships were on the way including one
Iowa
-class monster that might even be a match for the
Yamato
’s remaining sister ship, the
Musashi
. Most felt that the day of the battleship was over, but maybe the
Musashi
would fall prey to the guns of the
Iowa
and her sisters. The admirals thought that would be suitable justice for Pearl Harbor and the destruction of so much of San Diego and Los Angeles.

More than three hundred American planes had been shot down in the battle, but more than half of their pilots had been recovered and most of those rescued would return to service. Not so with the Japanese. Intercepts said they acknowledged four hundred and fifty planes and pilots lost. Even the Japanese admitted that they could not replace the quality of the men who’d died in the battle. In future plane-to-plane encounters, the edge would now belong to the United States. The American pilots had not died in vain.

Enough melancholy, Nimitz thought. There was a duty to perform. After a lot of investigating and haggling, it was finally determined that one torpedo from the
Shark
had damaged the
Yamato
sufficiently that she could not flee to safety, thus causing her destruction. Yes, planes and gunfire had ultimately sunk her, but it was Torelli’s torpedo that had slowed her down to the point where the planes and ships could catch and kill her.

All he had to do was remind Torelli that neither he nor his crew were to say anything about modifying their torpedoes. He still could not fathom why the brains at BuOrd in Washington couldn’t get it through their heads that something was wrong with their expensive toys.

* * *

Juan Camarena was one of a number of army officers who despised the incompetence, corruption, stupidity, and greed of so many of his fellow officers in the Mexican military. Ever since Mexico first won her independence from Spain in 1821, the nation had been wracked with revolutions, coups, and theft on a monumental scale that sometimes made his beloved country a joke. Now, just when it seemed like events were coming under control, his nation was forced to choose between the United States and Hitler’s Germany.

When pushed, Camarena would admit that he didn’t give a damn for either nation. The United States had stolen Mexico’s northern provinces a century before and turned them into the states of Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico, among others. Germany, under Hitler, had become a monster. So too had Japan, and the Land of the Rising Sun posed a greater threat to Mexico than did Germany.

Camarena and his associates hated the United States. However, his government had decided to side with the Americans against Germany. He thought he saw expediency in this decision as the U.S. was so close and Hitler so far, but he saw absolute evil in Hitler. Camarena almost couldn’t comprehend the reports of Nazi atrocities he was getting from diplomats and others in Europe. Nor could he abide the idea of a militant and expansionist Japan being victorious. If they defeated the United States, Japanese ships would then be able to cruise up and down the western Mexican coast without any interference from the joke that was the Mexican Navy. Mexico would be dominated by the yellow-skin savages even more than she was by the gringos north of the border. Therefore, backing the U.S. was the lesser of two evils and Camarena dedicated himself to that purpose.

Camarena and his allies had engineered the killing of the traitor, Juan Escobar. It pleased him that the American FBI agent, Harris, had been able to observe justice being served. Unlike so many Americans, Harris seemed to play fair. The police had closed the case. They’d quickly concluded that Escobar the traitor had been killed in a street robbery gone very badly awry.

That left the Germans who’d been left behind in Mexico and who had been directing Escobar’s moves on behalf of the Japanese. At first the Americans wanted them left alone, but now they gave the go-ahead to dispose of them. Camarena was glad. He would take care of the human garbage, not for the United States, but for Mexico.

First, Camarena had a series of notes sent to the remaining Germans from someone who identified himself as a friend of the late Escobar. The notes said that the Mexican police had found out about the Germans’ activities and would arrest them shortly if they didn’t flee. Since they weren’t in uniform, they would be shot or hanged as spies. The “friend” suggested that they move to a place in the country and suggested just such a place.

Thankful, the remaining Germans moved out to a small one-story house in the middle of a field about fifty miles from Mexico City. Camarena was a captain in the Mexican Army and his companions were all officers who felt like he did about the Nazi filth.