Tomorrow War (9 page)

“If you do, and you know exactly how it happened,” Y said, nudging the bag of gold coins their way, “then this is yours … maybe.”

The twins contemplated the bag of gold. It represented a lot of money in their world.

“OK,” one said finally. “Here’s what we know ….”

The tale the twins told soon had Y on the edge of his seat.

They were working a job up near Okinawa, raiding a Japanese fuel convoy at the behest of some Chinese warlords. It had been a risky operation because at the time the Japanese Imperial Forces were still extremely strong, and the AirCats were operating practically in their backyard. To be caught would have meant a very painful death for them.

The job went off without a hitch, though. There was no fighter escort for the Japanese fuel convoy, which was highly unusual. The twins said at the time they felt in their guts that something unusual was up.

Then after the raid was complete, the AirCats went back up to altitude for the trip back to Iwo Jima.

That’s when they saw a most startling sight.

The sky was filled with fighters. Japanese aircraft of all shapes and sizes were flying in groups all over the sky above southern Japan. The twins estimated there must have been more than one thousand planes in these pre-intercept formations. The sky was so filled with them, they blotted out the midday sun.

Fascinated and a bit curious, the twins sent all but one of their group back. The third pilot who stayed with them was named Vogel. The three AirCat fighters—one man in each—began orbiting at fifty thousand feet, all the while keeping an eye on the multitude of Japanese aircraft.

They were trying to follow the cacophony of radio calls going back and forth between the Japanese fighters when suddenly the twins said everything just went silent. The radio airwaves were suddenly empty. Then they saw “the sun on Earth” as they described it. There was a huge bright yellow ball rising up from the horizon. It covered their entire field of view for hundreds of miles around.

Both twins were blinded for more than a minute, forcing them to feel their way around their controls until their vision returned.

When they were finally able to see again, their first sight looked like something out of a horror movie. It was a huge airplane almost totally engulfed in flames flying at more than Mach 3, a legion of Japanese fighters trailing it, attacking it, pouring cannon fire and rockets into it, as it went by them at three times the speed of sound.

It was gone as soon as it came, and the twins were left in a minor state of shock. When they heard later that this was the airplane that had dropped the bomb that actually sank the main island of Japan, they put two and two together.

That was the day the mighty Japanese Empire ceased to exist.

Y listened to the story, wide-eyed and silent. There was no doubt in his mind these men were telling the truth. Though gruff, they seemed trustworthy, were obviously American in origin, plus the tale sounded so outlandish, Y believed no one could just make it up.

But it didn’t answer Y’s main question: What happened to the airplane and its crew?

The twins had a less direct answer for that. It lay with the other pilot, the third man, they said. The guy named Vogel.

When the twins finally regained their bearings, they searched the sky for their comrade. But his aircraft was nowhere to be seen. Quickly turning on their long-range TV monitors, they received only the faintest indication of his aircraft. It was heading due south, following the gigantic bomber and the last of the pursuing Japanese fighters.

They tried madly to radio Vogel, but he was long gone and never answered their repeated calls. They turned and pursued him, but he had switched on his double-reaction late-burners and shot so far ahead of them, catching him proved impossible.

The last they saw of him, he was passing over the island of Taiwan. He and the remaining Japanese fighters were still following the giant flaming airplane.

The twins returned to base and sent out a search and rescue squad. They found Vogel’s body floating near the wreckage of his plane close to a jetty off the southern coast of Taiwan.

Both twins became slightly emotional at this point.

“Vogel was a good guy,” one finally said. “And a fine pilot. When he died, our group lost more than just one pilot ….”

“Yeah, but the story he told after that,” the other twin said. “It’s really unbelievable.”

At that point Y stopped them.

“But I thought you said he died ….”

Both men nodded solemnly.

“That’s true,” one finally said. “But that doesn’t mean we haven’t talked to him since ….”

Y
WAS STAGGERING DRUNK AS
they started climbing the huge sand dune.

The night was brilliant with stars. To Y’s bleary eyes they seemed to fill the sky from one horizon to another.

This little expedition was taking longer than he thought. He, Zoltan, and Crabb were bringing up the rear; the twins and two of their mercs were leading them up and over the huge dune with the promise that the ocean—and a small shack—would be found on the other side.

Y trusted the AirCats. No names had been exchanged yet—and no real business transacted. But there was something no-nonsense about them, and he admired that.

But what they were going to do now was not something Y looked forward to. Zoltan also looked particularly concerned. He was closest to the psychic realm that enveloped this world. He knew just how weird it could be.

Crabb was a bit more subdued. He was a world-weary veteran, someone who had seen it all—twice. Still, Y could sense a bit of tension coming from him.

They finally topped the dune and, as promised, saw a small shack at the edge of the water about two hundred yards beyond. There was no light inside this hut. No signs of life at all.

But that was the whole point.

They went down the other side of the dune. Y had gulped a few more drinks inside the bar and now their full effect was hitting him. He was beginning to love the feeling of juice running through his veins—even the scotch crap he’d consumed. The stars seemed so fucking bright. And so close! Was it real? Or was it the booze coursing its way through his bloodstream?

He didn’t know, and at the moment he didn’t care.

They trooped down to the beach. The AirCats were carrying side arms and rifles but didn’t seem to be overly concerned about their security.

They made it down the beach to the small hut. One of the twins told two of the Cats to stand watch outside of the door. The pair did not seem unhappy with the assignment

One of the twins pushed the door open with his foot. The hut was dark within. Y could see the outline of a table and several chairs. It was very cold inside.

“What is this place?” Zoltan asked, his voice stuttering a bit.

“You’ll see,” was the only reply from the Cats.

The twins walked in cautiously, though Y wasn’t sure exactly what they were being so cautious about. Crabb stepped in next, then Zoltan. The psychic was positively shaking now.

Once the small group was inside, the twins kicked the chairs around the table and indicated they should all sit.

“You never know with the V-man,” one said. “You never know when he’ll show up.”

The twins leaned back on rickety chairs at one end of the long bamboo table, while Y, Zoltan, and Crabb sat across from them. Only one chair was unoccupied, the one at the far end. Y was waiting for some guy to come in through the door or the pane-less window, sit down, and start jabbering.

Crabb had the good sense to bring a bottle of brandy along with them; he took it from his fatigue-pants pocket and using plastic cups stolen from the bar, poured everyone a drink.

Y sipped his brandy like it was the nectar of the gods—it seemed important to him that he maintain his high, that he stay at this level of intoxication until … well, until he thought it was time to sober up again. It had been four days since he’d asked for that first drink after seeing the spot in the sea where Japan used to be. He’d been in some form of inebriation—awake or asleep—ever since.

The waves were crashing very loudly outside the hut now. The wind was picking up, too. The sound it made while blowing through the thatched hay-straw roof was almost melodic. Y sipped his drink again. In what key did Nature sing? he wondered drunkenly.

But then, quite suddenly, all noise stopped. The waves ceased crashing, the wind stopped blowing. The hay roof ceased singing.

Y looked up and saw that a man was now sitting in the previously unoccupied chair at the far end of the table. A large chunk of his skull was missing.

Zoltan fainted. He collapsed as soon as he saw this man, slumping first to the table and then off the chair and to the floor completely. No one moved to help him. No one could take their eyes off the man who so suddenly appeared at the end of the table.

“Jeesuz and Mary,” Y heard Crabb whisper. “A ghost ….”

Y looked over at his friend for a second, saw his face had drained of all color, and then looked back at the man at the end of the table. No brandy could fog this vision. The man was there, but he wasn’t. He was solid but Y could see clear through him. At least one quarter of his head was missing—blown away—and parts of a bloody brain mess were visible. Yet he was staring back at Y, with his eyes blinking, and his mouth was moving, though no words came out. His hands wrung themselves nervously on the table in front of him.

He looked …
uncomfortable.

“How … how are you, V-man?” one of the twins asked finally. Talking to a ghost would humble just about anyone’s words.

“How the hell do you think I am?” the ghost replied bitterly.
“I’m dead.”

The twins shifted uneasily in their seats. One glanced back at Y and made a face that said it all: Just because there were ghosts in this universe, and the living could see them and converse with them, that didn’t mean it was necessarily enjoyable to do it. Yet here they were.

The second twin’s expression was even more direct. Face hard, brow furrowed, mouth tight. Why are you putting us through this? his eyes asked.

“It’s business,” Y heard himself say out loud. “Don’t you remember?”

The twins stared back at him for a long second and then turned again to the ghost.

“Can you see these guys, V-man?” one asked.

The ghost shrugged and stared at his dirty hands. “I can see everything,” he replied simply, coldly.

“You know who these guys are?”

The ghost looked first at Y and then Crabb.

“The little guy is OSS,” he said in a mumble that strangely reverberated as a slight echo. “The big guy runs a bar. With music played by black men.”

The ghost unconsciously went to push back his hair, but wound up touching the gaping hole in his head.

“The guy on the floor … he’s a psychic,” the ghost murmured, adding, “He has his moments.”

“Do you know why these guys are here?”

The ghost shrugged again. Y stared even more intently at him. No, he wasn’t breathing.

“The big plane,” the ghost replied. “The thing I chased. The thing that got me killed. They want to know about it.”

“Why did you chase it?” Y heard himself ask.

The twins looked back harshly at him.

“If … if it’s OK for me to ask,” Y hastily added.

He took a deep gulp of his brandy and felt it burn his throat, his stomach, his intestines and travel as a stream of fire right through his toes and directly back into his brain.

“We’ll ask the questions,” one of the twins barked at him.

“I followed it,” the ghost said, still staring and examining his dirty hands, “because I thought they needed help. I knew it was an American airplane. I’m an American. Or at least I was. I wanted to help out one of our Joes. That’s all.”

One of the twins leaned a bit closer to the ghost.

“But you were almost out of fuel, V-man,” he said, dismissing for a moment that there was anyone else in the room. “Out of ammo, too. It was a crazy thing to do …”

The ghost looked up at the twin; his stare was like an acetylene torch. The hut suddenly smelled of something like burning metal.

“You think I don’t know that now, General?” he replied harshly. “You think I
like
being like this?”

The other twin went to touch the ghost, in an effort of sympathy and friendship—but stopped short of actually putting his hand right through the apparition. The act caused the ghost to well up and begin to weep.

Y took another huge gulp of his drink. Crabb did the same.

“Gosh, this is going well,” Crabb said dryly, under his breath.

Silence descended on the hut once more. Dead silence. The ghost was still weeping, but Y could see no tears.

Finally the ghost looked up at the twins and sadly nodded.

“How can I help you, sirs?” he asked in the best military crispness he could muster.

“These guys …,” one twin said with no small bitterness. “They want to know what happened to the big plane.”

The ghost looked up at them—first Y, then Crabb. The living stared back.

“Why?” he asked them directly.

Y began to open his mouth—he would tell this … this
thing
that they were on a mission. A search and rescue mission. That finding the airplane and learning the fate of the crew was an important thing to know in the opinion of the American government. But before his words came out, he felt Crabb’s elbow jab him in the ribs.

“We want to know because the men aboard that plane are our friends,” Crabb said suddenly.

The ghost just stared right through them.

“Yes, they are,” he said quietly. “I can see that.”

“That’s why it’s important to know what happened to them,” Crabb said. “Can you help us?”

The ghost went back to staring at his hands.

“I caught up with them,” he revealed, his voice, still echoing. “They still had a swarm of Jap planes buzzing them—but they were fighting back big time. That huge airplane—what a piece of work that was! There must have been a hundred triple fifties on that thing. They were firing and dipping and diving and climbing. If your friend was flying that beast, he must be the best pilot in the world—or any other. I’ve never seen anything like it.”