Rising Sun (6 page)

Shouting and screams distracted them. Scores of people were headed toward a grocery store. The plate glass windows were broken and a small elderly Japanese man was futilely waving a broom at the mob pouring in while others left with armloads of bread, beer, canned goods, and anything else that struck their fancy.

The owner grabbed a looter’s arm and was knocked down. The looter and a couple of his companions kicked and stomped the poor man until he lay bloody and still. A woman, probably the grocer’s wife, emerged screaming. Her face was bloodied and bruised. She fell down beside the injured man and continued to scream. A police siren wailed and the crowd vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

Amanda and the others ran to the fallen man and began to check him over. “He’s breathing,” she said. The woman’s howls diminished into sobbing. Grace tried to comfort her while Sandy and Amanda helped the man, who was having trouble breathing.

“Maybe broken ribs,” Sandy said, and Amanda concurred. “And perhaps a heart attack, too.”

An ambulance arrived and they helped put him inside along with the woman who was indeed his wife. Some neighbors tried to board up the store even though it had been pretty well stripped of anything valuable. The cops took their statement although they could add nothing to the obvious. Nor did anyone recognize any of the looters.

“I wonder if the stupid bastards in Washington can see this,” Grace said as she looked at the desolation that had once been a family’s livelihood. That it had been caused by Americans and not the enemy made it even more difficult to swallow. “I voted for Roosevelt and look what he’s gone and caused.”

“I don’t think the politicians in Washington can see much of anything,” Amanda said. She too had voted for FDR over the Republican Wendell Wilkie, as had most of America. “But I do think this shows just how helpless our situation is. Are we all agreed that we have to do something?” They were. “Good, now let’s go see Mack.”

* * *

The Japanese Marines were formally called “Special Naval Landing Forces,” and were proud of their training, their skills, and their ferocity in combat. They were well led, and always fought efficiently and bravely. And they never surrendered. Like their elite counterparts in the U.S. Marine Corps, they were the ones who would land on hostile beaches and fight their way to victory. A number of them had even been trained as paratroopers and they rightfully thought of themselves as a truly elite force.

There were those who thought this was a suicide mission, but Captain Seizo Arao dismissed such complaints. He had a hundred men on the tramp steamer. Her counterfeit markings said she was Spanish, a neutral, which meant that she was safe from undue notice as she approached the Pacific coast of Panama.

A clumsily applied paint job proclaimed her as the
Santa Anna Maria.
She was tawdry and harmless looking, which offended Arao’s sense of military professionalism, even though he recognized the necessity for such a slovenly disguise. Soon the time for skulking would be over and his men would commence attacking, bringing the war to one of America’s economic and military treasures, the Panama Canal.

In the ship’s hull, the hundred men of the Special Landing Force detachment waited eagerly and stoically, shrugging off their discomfort as a temporary and trivial inconvenience. They were honored to have had been chosen to attack the Panama Canal, which they all knew was a vital means of moving American ships from the Atlantic into the Pacific where they would confront the Japanese Navy.

Not only would the hundred men fight as soldiers, but they would also be mules, carrying large amounts of explosives. The normally stern and stoic Captain Arao had joined in the laughter when he heard his men joking that one accident with the dynamite and they’d all be back in Tokyo in time for dinner. It was good to have men like that.

They anchored a few miles north of the Pacific terminus of the canal and waited for darkness. They were not alone. A number of other ships were waiting for their turn to cross to the Atlantic. The Americans who ran the canal had stepped up their security, especially before ships could enter the canal, but they could not closely watch so many ships still at sea. Perhaps they’d ultimately get curious and check the hold of the
Santa Anna Maria
, but the men should be gone before the Americans even began to wonder about the Spanish-flagged tramp. With only a little luck, she would journey safely back to a Japanese base.

The Americans had a small army base at Fort Clayton, close to the Miraflores Lock, but it was on the other side of the canal. National Guard soldiers were supposed to be garrisoned there, but Japanese intelligence could not tell how many men were in the fort, or their state of preparedness. It probably wouldn’t matter. National Guard troops were known to be poorly trained and would be not present much of a problem. No matter, Arao thought, they would be through with the Miraflores Locks before the bumbling Americans could react.

Shortly after midnight, the Japanese Marines departed the freighter by lifeboat and landed on a sandy beach south of the canal. The
Santa Anna Maria
would wait for two weeks in case there were survivors from the attack on America’s military strength. Arao’s wish was for complete success and many survivors, but he would gladly settle for success and a glorious death.

The Panama Canal was only fifty miles long, a short distance for Arao’s men; especially since they were only going a few miles inland to the first series of locks at Miraflores. However, they soon found themselves exhausted and confused as they traveled through the steamy heat and the dense jungle foliage, which they had to do to stay hidden. The Americans doubtless had soldiers near the canal and, no matter how poor they were, Arao’s men didn’t want to meet them, at least not yet. Prudently, Arao decided to wait and let his men rest. They were tough and hardened as only a Japanese soldier can be, but a well-rested soldier was a much better fighter than a fatigued one, and the next several days promised to be exhausting enough.

Thus, it was after midnight of the third night when they finally made their move. Their entry was laughably easy. Barbed wire surrounding the locks was cut and half of Arao’s men poured through. These had the job of neutralizing American security while the rest carried double loads of explosives and detonators.

They had no idea how well the locks were protected, so they simply swarmed out, looking for the enemy. Their instructions were to use their rifles only as a last resort. Bayonets and officers’ swords would be best.

Arao led his men around a corner of a building that looked like a maintenance shack. Two men in overalls looked up in disbelief at the apparitions racing toward them. Arao’s sword whipped the air. The first man was beheaded in an instant, and a Japanese Marine rammed a bayonet into the chest of the second. Arao laughed and wondered if it would it all be this simple?

It wouldn’t be. Screams and gunshots split the air. Damn, he thought, somebody was awake. He laughed and howled with pleasure. Let the fight begin. Sirens wailed and lights came on. Rifle fire increased in volume and a machine gun opened up, chattering insanely and shooting wildly. It looked like some American soldiers were on duty and willing to fight.

Arao exhorted his men to move more quickly and place their charges, while his lieutenants established an effective perimeter to keep the Americans from interfering with them. His plan was uncomplicated—he would blow the gates closest to the ocean and move inland in the direction of Gatun Lake, destroying as he went. Both Miraflores Lake and Gatun Lake were artificial, created by the construction of the canal itself. The lakes not only served as a highway for ships, but as reservoirs for the canal area. They were well above sea level, and a few well placed charges would drain the entire complex. He laughed as the first charge went off, blowing a set of gates to smithereens and sending a torrent of water gushing down to the ocean. Wouldn’t it be marvelous, he thought, if any ships attempting to use the canal had to slither through the mud of what used to be Gatun and Miraflores Lakes?

Hours later, Arao realized his error. He should have begun his destruction of the locks farther up at Pedro Miguel where the water from the Calebra Cut waited to flow to the Pacific and not so close to the ocean itself. Still, success was within reach. The Americans had been slow to realize the threat, but when they did, they’d attacked with a vengeance. He’d lost nearly half his men, many of them to low flying and obsolete American biplanes who’d caught them out in the open and cut them down with machine guns. His men had shot down one plane that had flown too low. They’d ambushed Americans who were slow to recognize the artfully placed traps he’d set for them. Americans were brave, he concluded, just not very smart. Now he was at the last of the locks he needed to destroy.

Rifle and machine-gun fire ripped through the air and mortars exploded around him. All the charges were placed. He gave the signal and drew his sword, then dashed up the wall of the cut to where the rushing water wouldn’t reach him. He would die with his sword in his hand and not beneath a wave of scummy water rushing from the lake like a Pacific tsunami. The explosion ripped the final gates and water from a few miles above him began to flow freely to the sea. Arao laughed harshly. It had taken the Americans many years to dig the Canal. How long would it take them to fix it?

Bullets ripped into his body and he fell to the ground, gasping in pain and shock. His sword flew out of his hand and, before he could reach it, an American soldier picked it up and shot him again.

“Leave him be,” yelled an American officer. “We want a prisoner, not another dead Jap.”

Arao didn’t understand the words, but their intent was plain. The Americans wanted to take him prisoner. He would not let that happen. He had succeeded, but his men were all dead and soon he would be as well. He was lying on his stomach and he managed to take a grenade from his belt. He pulled the pin but kept the trigger down. He groaned piteously to gain sympathy. It was easy, and it was the truth. He was in agony from his wounds and death would be welcome.

The officer who wanted him alive and a medic rolled him over. The last thing Arao saw in this world was the look of horror on the Americans’ faces when they realized he was holding a live grenade.

* * *

The women had earlier guessed that Mack was somewhere between fifty and eighty. He was small, wizened, and withered. His skin was baked brown by the sun, and covered by a multitude of tattoos. He never said where he came from and no one knew if Mack was his first or last name or none of the above. He lived in a shack on the beach near the small town of Nanakuli, a few miles west of Honolulu. Mack was one of the few residents of the area not of Hawaiian ancestry. Nobody minded. He was friendly, spent his money locally, and sometimes brought business to the area’s poor restaurants and bars.

He greeted the three women with a smile and threw his cigarette into the ocean. The nurses had been customers, good customers who’d enjoyed both his tours and his company. Mack owned a forty-foot twin-hulled sailboat of a type called a catamaran, and he made a living of sorts taking tourists and locals sailing in the clear waters around Oahu. He especially liked taking scantily clad young and not-so-young ladies out on his boat. As he told his few friends, he was old, not dead, and, besides, every now and then one of the vacationing old maid school teachers from New Jersey or some other dull place felt liberated enough by being in paradise to get herself laid by a genuine tattooed Hawaiian who owned a sailboat.

These three nurses had been fairly frequent visitors and, while not raving beauties, were pleasant enough in the two-piece bathing suits many young women liked to wear, or with their regular clothing wet and plastered against their young bodies. He hadn’t screwed either of them yet, but that was correctable. In his opinion, Amanda was too thin and Sandy too plump, but either would do in a pinch. Grace, however, was a little older and shapelier, and seemed more worldly. In Mack’s opinion she was prime for the plucking.

The women were skilled enough sailors that he didn’t have to hire others to crew his cat when they were on board, which saved him money, and they got free rides. He smiled and thought he’d really like to give Grace a free ride.

It was not a bad life, but war clouds had gathered and he was afraid his pleasant and near-idyllic life was coming to an end. Fuck.

“Ladies, how can I help you?”

“How far can you sail this thing?” Amanda asked with a smile.

Mack shrugged. It was a most intriguing question. “How far do you want to go?”

“California,” Grace said.

If Mack was surprised, he didn’t show it. “Kinda been thinking along those lines myself. I think paradise is about to get damn near ugly, hellish, if you will.”

“Will you take us?” Amanda asked.

Mack paused before answering. He hadn’t anticipated the question. “Do you know what you’d be getting into? I’d rather have three men than three women. Men are stronger.”

Amanda smiled tightly. “But no men are lining up to go with you, are they? And besides, we asked first. And since we’re smaller than the average male, we won’t take up as much room or eat as much, now will we? And don’t forget, we do know how to sail the cat.”

“Like I said, do you have any idea what you’d be getting into? It’s maybe two thousand miles or more to California and even if we got lucky, it’d likely take us a month or two. For us to make it, we’d need a lot of food and water so we don’t die. There’d be no privacy whatsoever. There’s a cabin on the cat and a one-holer inside leading to the ocean, but that’s for tourists. If we sailed, the cabin and everyplace else would be full of supplies. Any of you genteel ladies want to pee or poop, you’d have to hang your butts off the boat and solve your problem that way.”

“Or we could jump into the ocean to relieve ourselves and scare all the little fishies away,” Amanda said sweetly. “Don’t worry, we can do it. Besides, we’ve done it before.”