They waited while the mighty engines snarled their way eastward dragging the last of the train's rumbling cars.
The sergeant had Fort Bliss Calvary written all over him.
Do Something, the killer thought. "He'll be fine. Puked like a waterfall. Must be that damned Mexican beer." He said in a loud voice. The killer broke out in laughter and his lookout had the good sense to join in.
Finally, the sergeant chuckled with them as the train faded in the distance. The sergeant said, "Better use the side door. MPs are out on the platform."
"Thanks," said the killer.
"Wheooow." The sergeant held his nose as he eased past the threesome and stepped to the urinal.
Hauling their victim outside, it took five precious minutes to drag the dead man to a Ford pickup truck parked on Overland between Durango and Leon streets. Looking both ways, they stuffed the body under empty tomato crates. Their excess gear followed. The lookout climbed in and slammed the door. He turned the key, shoved in the clutch, and jammed his foot on the starter pedal, giving the killer an odd look while the engine cranked. The four banger caught, the lookout jammed it into gear, and the Ford waddled off to Stanton Street, turning right to cross over the Rio Grande into Juárez, Mexico, where the body would be disposed of.
The killer looked at his watch.
Three and a half minutes before the train pulls out.
He ran, making it to the station in two minutes and twenty seconds. A conductor stood outside car four three six one checking his timepiece. The killer stepped aboard, finding the car almost empty: three civilians and two army enlisted. All were asleep. No Navy. He walked past 14A, eased the duffle from 14B, noting the stenciling on the thick, olive-drab canvas:
RADTKE, W. A., BU3, USN, 1187526
Hoisting Bugler Third Class Walter A. Radtke's duffle over his shoulder, he quietly walked forward two cars, found an empty seat, 12A, dumped the duffle in 12B, and sat.
The killer looked out at Union Station thinking about how the sailor had obliged them by jumping off the train just as it pulled in for a twenty-minute layover. Their plan was to have the lookout, in his MP uniform, pull him off the train and lure him to a dark corner. But their target made a beeline for the men's room, the killer followed, and that was that. On reflection, the killer remembered he'd waited forty-five seconds for the sailor to empty his bladder meaning the toilet in car four three six one was stopped up. He was glad he'd moved forward two cars.
HECKLE had entered the United States yesterday via the El Paso bridge and had registered in a cheap hotel near the rail yards wanting a good night's rest. But next door was a Cantina with a glowing red-neon blinking sign: Preston's. Sleep was impossible with those insane mariachis, or whatever they called themselves. They played endless music with brass, violin, and guitar haphazardly coordinated. But the more HECKLE listened he realized the music had wonderful character, even though the violin player sometimes did a terrible job. He mused; was it the rhythm or was it what the musicians were trying to say that made some of their material so haunting?
Especially that one trumpet solo. The man played it two or three times during the night. He couldn't get to sleep even after Preston's closed at four. Now HECKLE thought about it as he slumped in his seat and nestled his head next to the open window. It reminded him of another trumpet solo: "Parsifal", slow, deliberate and pure; Wagner's bold arrogance was absent in "Parsifal." And yet, if one listened carefully, the passage offered something new each time one heard it. Messages, imbued with filigreed secrets, drifted from each beautifully crafted phrase.
Something rustled across the aisle and he looked up seeing a corporal unload a duffle in the seat opposite. Pretending to ignore the soldier, he dropped his hat over his eyes and looked at his watch: 0325.
The soldier studied the man in the white uniform for a minute then tipped two fingers to his brow and said, "Where ya'll from, swabbie?" The corporal, another Fort Bliss Cavalryman, had one of those interesting Texas dialects.
"Minneapolis," the killer mumbled, and casually spun his duffle turning the stenciled name and serial number away from the corporal. Then he rested his head against it, keeping his face in shadows and making sure his left hand, with its gnarled ring finger, didn't show.
"What ship ya on?"
He scrunched further. "North Carolina." Even as he said it, he knew he'd made a mistake.
"Hot damn! Another guy on the train's off the North Carolina. You must know him. "
"She's a big ship." the killer feigned a snooze.
The engine gave two short toots and the conductor's voice wafted to them, "...board."
"Ya like poker, swabbie?" the corporal asked gently.
The train jerked backwards then, with couplings clanking, started ahead with the Mountain, MT-4 locomotive's great eighty inch driving wheels spinning on the rails as the engineer fed in too much steam. At last the drivers found traction and the "4-8-2" type engine rolled smoothly out of Union Station, resuming its journey to Los Angeles. From there HECKLE would transfer to a train for San Diego where, for the next six weeks, he would take his victim's place in the U.S. Navy's cryptography class 41-B-276 at the U.S. Naval Station.
"I said, 'do you like poker?' Your buddy back there cleaned me out. So how 'bout a chance to get even?"
That's where all the money in the sailor's wallet came from, thought the killer. He wondered how well the corporal had become acquainted with the sailor. They passed within fifty feet of the cantina which had denied him so much sleep last night. There it was again. That mournful strain from a solo trumpet.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you," the corporal said.
HECKLE snapped from his reverie. "Poker? Sure. Look, soldier, do you know what they call that music?"
"What?"
"Listen." HECKLE nodded to Preston's. The glow of the cantina's red neon sign flicked across his face as the train labored by. And they heard the lone trumpeter: His notes were full and pure and triumphant. This trumpeter, his instrument and his music were as good as anything he'd heard his father play.
The corporal slumped back. "Shit, man."
"Yes?"
"Damned Mexicans love pissin' off gringos now and then."
"I don't understand."
"That's the 'Deguello.' Ain't you ever heard the 'Deguello'?"
"Guess not."
"Shit. Santa Ana played it at the Alamo. Where you from, anyway?"
HECKLE felt a rush of blood to his head. He had no idea about Santa Ana and the Alamo. "Uh, Minnesota."
The corporal folded his arms over his chest and yawned. "Ah'm tired. I'll take a raincheck on the poker. Wake me when we get to Deming."
Deming, New Mexico, was their next stop. Afraid he would lose his chance, HECKLE said, "you getting off there?"
"No," the soldier mumbled. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "Damned toilet's stopped up."
The killer thought that one over then said, "You going all the way to Los Angeles?"
"Yup."
Realizing he had plenty of time, HECKLE relaxed. The wheels clicked on the rails and the coach car wobbled a somnolent rhythm, easing him off to a welcomed sleep; yet, even as he drifted, the "Deguello" played again and again in his mind.
PART ONE
And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it, set the camp also against it, and set battering rams ...
Ezekiel 4:2
* * * * *
I cannot stand this constant reference to England, to Europe ...how typically American to writhe in anguish at the fate of a distant cousin while a daughter is being raped in the back room ...
Manuel L. Quezon
President Of The Philippine Republic
January 26, 1942
CHAPTER ONE
19 April, 1942
Naval Radio Intercept Tunnel, Lateral Four
Corregidor Island, Manila Bay, Philippines
The radioman's foghorn voice rattled through the door, "Hey,
rat-man! Front and center. Hawaii calls. Hubba, hubba."
The cryptographer second class wiped the last of the shaving cream from his face, slapped on some Bay Rum after shave, and stepped into the radioroom, just as Portman finished tapping his key acknowledging the message's receipt. "Almost done, rat-turd."
"It's Radtke," the cryptographer said, tucking his left hand in his back pocket.
Portman, clad in shorts and filthy tank T-shirt, was a first class radioman, who somehow managed to look fat in spite of his half-starved condition. He ripped the flimsy out of his typewriter and handed it over his shoulder without looking.
"Gotcha rat-brain. Now, hurry up and decode it. Maybe it says when the fleet's coming."
"You'll be the last to know."
"Guess what?" Looking both ways, Portman leaned toward Skinner, a parrot-beaked third class radioman. Motioning them closer, Portman cleared tunnel dust from his throat and, turning down his resonant bombast said, "One of the guy's in Army intelligence told me they raised the Oklahoma."
Skinner whistled, "No shit?"
"But she won't be fixed in time to relieve us." Portman said.
"So who's gonna relieve us?" asked Skinner.
"All the rest of them battleships, dope! They raised 'em all. Like the Nevada and the Pennsylvania. He even said my old lady, the Arizona is all set to go."
"Army BS," spouted Skinner.
"Skinner, you stupid jerk!" Portman roared. "This is straight from Watkins. Don't you know that..."
Radtke walked in the crypto room and shut the door. He took another step when everything shook. Thunder raged overhead and he instinctively eyed the reinforced concrete ceiling and reached to a cabinet for support, hearing Skinner yelp next door.
With the fall of Bataan two weeks ago, Corregidor staggered under a twenty-four hour artillery and aerial barrage. This felt like a stick of Jap 250-kilogram bombs. Chips fell, dust swept through the room, and the single forty-watt lamp swayed, casting a pool of itinerant, stygian light. Dust caught in his throat and, while he coughed, he picked up a towel and covered Lulu, his sensitive crypto machine. He would have to wait a minute or two before he decrypted the message.
Dust. Always the dust. Still, this wasn't as bad as two days ago when a Jap artillery shell exploded smack at the entrance to the tunnel. Dust, trash, even tin cans blew over wounded and dying all the way through the tunnel's length and out the other side, belching a large cloud of black, pungent detritus.
Sweat ran in his eyes and he blinked. The dust had settled. Pushing aside the towel, he flipped on Lulu's power switch and placed the message in a holder. It read:
TOP SECRET
04192015Z
FM COM OP-20-G HYPO
TO COM OP-20-G CAST
BT
28876 89761 53086 67443 89130 86531 76124 22317 77312 67321
78226 23078 66731 93220 71532 97013 29641 55066 71322 15266
67132 87331 85162 39253 56618 27828 87661 87395 34116 75041
76552 98776 13023 86297 97746 98736 85512 71324 25553 87351
85673 73619 73669 84612 17429 28619 33672 33265 61543 83266
33527 18854 94529
BT
Radtke was thirty-one and had matted blond hair that once proudly stood in a crew cut. Wearing only T-shirt, shorts, and boots, he licked his lips and pecked at the keyboard. He had just decrypted the message's protective buffer when an enormous explosion shook the room. That one landed directly overhead. Gripping the desk, he figured it for one of the huge 240 millimeter howitzers the Japanese were sighting in from Bataan. A strange noise, like a steam locomotive chuffing around a bend from two miles away, reached him. It was the wounded and dying in the main tunnel, and offshoots called laterals. They didn't have the strength to scream or moan or even wail like Skinner was doing out there.
Dust swirled in the crypto room. The man covered Lulu and sat back hearing Mr. Epperson walk in the radio room behind him.
"...hey Portman. This says sixteen B-25s bombed Tokyo yesterday. I thought you said twelve." Epperson's voice carried the scratched record sound from dust-shrouded vocal chords. They called it the tunnel voice.
Portman rasped back, "That's what the Fox broadcast said, Sir."
"Well, which is it?" Epperson asked.
"This one amends this morning's message, Sir. I'd say sixteen is the--"
"Damnit, you better be sure..." Epperson's fist slammed in the next room.
While Epperson chewed on Portman, Radtke pulled the towel off Lulu and methodically crunched the keys. He stripped the code's protective padding and started on the text. Hair stood on the back of his neck as the five-digit groups arranged themselves into:
TOP SECRET
04192015Z
FM COM OP-20-G HYPO
TO COM OP-20-G CAST
BT
1. EPPERSON, D. J., LT. USN, 476225; RADTKE, W. A., CT2 USN, 1187526 DETACHED CAST.
2. REPORT SOONEST TO HYPO AVAILABLE XPORT VIA DARWIN.
3. SEA CONDOR ETA 04202100H, SW CRNR YY2. EPPERSON/RADTKE MANIFESTED HIGHEST PRIORITY.
4. CAST ENSURE COMPLETE DESTRUCTION REMAINING EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS.
5. ACKNOWLEDGE.
BT
"Jeepers!" Radtke jumped up. "Mr. Epperson!"
The small shuttered door opened just as three enemy shells landed on Water Tank Hill, barely six hundred yards away. Krumpf, krumpf and WHOOM! It was the third one; it sounded like it got something, maybe an ammo dump. He knew people had died when that third shell hit. And soon, more maimed Americans and Filipinos would be stacked among those already gasping in the tunnels.
Epperson's skeletous five-foot-five-inch frame walked in the crypto room. Like Radtke, the lieutenant was clad in only boots and shorts. He had deep sunk eyes and his ribs and clavicles protruded, making his head look much too big for his body. All of his black hair had been shaved off and abscessed heat sores on his head were painted with methylate. Oddly, a hopeless case of pimples he'd sported until last December were gone.
Radtke knew that, except for his own six feet four inches, he looked as emaciated. In fact, he was afraid to look in a mirror. They had started with one-half rations last January; now they were down to three-eighths. Invariably, it consisted of hotcakes made without eggs for breakfast; no lunch; rice, tinned salmon, and murky water for dinner.
Epperson's peripatetic eyes darted about the room and Radtke, knowing it was better not to interrupt, waited patiently. The radio squealed next door; Portman fine-tuned the receiver and Glen Miller's rich, syncopated tones saturated Lateral Four.
After Tuxedo Junction, the voice of Tokyo Rose echoed before Portman could turn down the volume. "...nations of Nippon. Honored members of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere bordering the Western Pacific and Indian oceans. You have well benefitted from the noble sacrifices of divine Japanese liberators--"
"Portman! Turn that shit off," someone yelled outside.
"Hold on, Chief. Benny Goodman's up next," Portman yelled back.
"...as proof," Rose went on, "I offer our stunning victories in Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea and, two weeks ago, Bataan. And now tonight I'm proud to announce the Kido Butai has swept the--"
"What's the Kido Butai?" moaned Skinner.
"Jap attack carriers. Now, shuddup," hissed Portman
"...and other sections of the Indian Ocean as far west as Ceylon where, outside Trincomalee Harbor, our glorious naval-dive bombers sank the British aircraft carrier Hermes."
Rose paused. Explosions rumbled from Corregidor's western end and someone wailed "...shiiiit."
"You on Corregidor!" Rose's tone was sharper than usual. For once, she forgot to lilt her inflection in a beckoning timbre. "Hasn't General Wainwright told you that eleven thousand are there with you. Soon, you will have no food nor water. Time runs out. General Masaharu Homma, Commander of the Imperial Fourteenth Japanese Army, has set up a land, sea, and air blockade from which no one can e
scape.
"You're trapped. Why resist?" Adding a coquettish curl to her syllables, Rose said, "The Rising Sun flies proudly over Manila. And with our glorious victory on the Bataan Peninsula, the entire Philippine Archipelago will soon be free from American oppression. Further resistance is useless. Surrender now and you'll receive preferential treatment--"
"Where the hell's Benny Goodman?" someone yelled.
The radio squealed again as Portman tuned it, "In a minute, damnit." The rig still screeched.
"Turn it up!" another voice screamed.
Portman said, "Okay, okay, Chief."
Rose's moon-pearl voice drifted back, "...for your wives and sweethearts. When was the last time you saw them? And when was the last time you had fried ten ounce steaks topped with onions and mushrooms? Baked potatoes dripping with butter? Corn on the cob and mounds of chilled salad all chased with frosted pitchers of cold beer..."
"...Rrradtke, damnit!"
The cryptographer blinked. He'd fallen asleep standing up. It happened to everyone. With Corregidor's siege, nobody had had uninterrupted sleep for over three months.
Dumbly, he handed over the message making sure his left hand was tucked in his belt. Epperson's gold U.S. Naval Academy class ring flashed as he snatched it and held it under the swaying lamp.
Epperson whistled. "That's it then. CinCPac wants us out. You can play your trumpet again. How about that?"
"Yessir."
"Send an acknowledgement; then let's get things ready for the incinerator. Any ideas on how to destroy Lulu and the rest of this stuff?" Epperson's hand swept toward an IBM tabulating machine.
"Yessir. I know a shipfitter. Big sledgehammers."
"Okay, but just you in here, Radtke. Nobody else. And it has to be dumped in the bay. Deep water. Understand?
"Yessir."
THE LAST LIEUTENANT: A Todd Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 1) Page 2