When the three of them were at a safe distance, Harris asked if anybody had seen anything and was told about the dark-colored Ford wagon. Harris nodded. “One of the witnesses at the first explosion said he thought he saw a black Ford station wagon along with a small group of other vehicles, but that doesn’t prove a damn thing. One sighting means nothing, two could be a coincidence, but three or more is a pattern. I just hope we end this before there are many more sightings.”
“All clear,” yelled one of the ordnance men, who put an object down and stepped away. He’d been told to leave any evidence as close as possible to where it had originally been.
Another car with two more FBI agents arrived and began interviewing Farris’s soldiers. Farris, Dane, and Harris walked over to the dismembered bomb.
“Nothing much at all,” Harris said on examining the device. “A couple of sticks of TNT and an impact detonator. It’s just like the last time. We’ll check for prints, but I’ll bet you a dollar, gentlemen, that we won’t find a thing. Even if we did it’s a snowball’s chance in hell that we’d be able to connect them with anyone.”
“Can we trace the dynamite?” Dane asked. “At least this time the sticks are intact.”
Harris shook his head. “No unique markings on the sticks, and there’s got to be a couple of hundred construction companies, mining enterprises and such around here who are supplied by a score of businesses legitimately selling explosives. They could have been bought anywhere, or even stolen.”
“At least he didn’t cause any damage,” Farris said hopefully.
Dane laughed. “Didn’t he? This is a single line track, which means trains come and go both ways all according to an elaborate dance so nobody runs into someone else. Now that schedule is all fucked up and it’ll be some time before it gets straightened out. Yeah, you’re right in that nobody got killed or injured, but the saboteur is still messing with the war effort. And who knows what might happen the next time. We got lucky that your man spotted it. If the saboteur had put it down at night, who knows what might have happened.”
“Worse,” Harris added, “there’s no way we can keep this quiet. Just too many people know about it now. We can and will try to keep it out of the newspapers, but rumors will be all over Southern California and people are going to think twice before they go on a train or drive over a bridge.”
“What do we do now?” Farris asked.
Dane smiled and slapped his nephew on the shoulder. “Well, you get to keep walking up and down train tracks while Agent Harris and I get a bite to eat.”
* * *
Wilhelm Braun was even more frustrated than usual. Another attempt to derail a train had gone awry. Even with the help of the skilled and physically powerful Gunther Krause he was accomplishing nothing. He’d tried to blow up a couple of vehicle bridges and underestimated the amount of dynamite it would take. He had a goodly supply of explosives, but it would not last forever. Braun was not confident he would be able to buy any more locally. Logic told him that merchants had been warned to be on the lookout for anyone buying dynamite, especially someone with an accent, and to report it to the police or FBI. He would live with what he had.
So far, the best that had happened after destroying that first freight train was that he’d caused some traffic tie-ups and delayed a few other trains.
It was not what he or Berlin had in mind. To complicate matters, he had just received a coded message that he was to concentrate on finding out the location of the American naval squadron that included the carrier Saratoga. He snorted and took a swallow of his beer. The Americans made miserable beer. The only thing this bottle of something brewed in California had going for it was the fact that it was cold. Mexican beer was even worse. A friend in the Mexico City embassy had described it as cold horse piss and, even though he had never tried horse piss, he thought the description was likely apt. To make matters even worse, the alcohol content was low.
“What now?” asked Krause.
“Where would you look for an aircraft carrier?”
“Why, in the ocean, sir,” he said cheekily, forgetting the fact that they were to use first names.
“Krause, when we get back to Germany I will have you broken to the rank of private.”
The sergeant took his own beer from the old refrigerator, popped the bottle top, and took a swallow. He shook his head and grimaced. “At least it’s cold,” he said, and Braun chuckled.
“Seriously,” Krause continued, “do you think we will ever get back to the Reich? There’s a huge ocean between us and Europe and a number of belligerent nations who’d like nothing better than to kill us. And what the devil are we doing playing at helping the fucking slanty-eyed Japs? They should be waiting on tables for us at best, or even going to camps like we are sending the fucking Jews.”
Braun couldn’t argue with him. He’d tried so many times to rationalize the point that helping the Japs helped Germany, but he had done so little to help the Japs it was sad.
“What are you suggesting?” Braun asked.
“I suggest we lie low for a while, unless some target of opportunity pops up and is irresistibly tempting. The Americans are doubtless checking mail and monitoring phone calls, so that leaves our radio, which, if we use it too often, will enable the enemy to triangulate and find us.”
“We could, of course, move the radio,” Braun said thoughtfully.
“Excellent to a point, but every time we’d dismantle it we’d be running the risk of damaging it, or, worse, being stopped by the police for any reason. A simple speeding ticket or a small accident and we would be found out. How would we explain the existence of a shortwave radio in our truck?”
Krause was right, of course. He was smart and more than a thug, which was why Braun had wanted him as the second man on his two-man team. Despite the disparity in their ranks, their long relationship went beyond simple respect.
“Krause, have you heard anything about the Saratoga in your wanderings through San Diego’s bars?”
Krause laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of bringing up the topic, but every now and then somebody wonders where she is and when she’ll be coming back, but nobody seems to know.”
In his own wanderings and listenings, Braun had picked up pretty much the same thing. One rumor that kept repeating itself was that the top brass had told the admiral in charge of the Saratoga and her escorts to get lost and not tell anyone in the Pacific Fleet where they were or what their plans were. That, of course, killed any idea of ferreting out the carrier’s location.
Nor could he and Krause get any help locally. They were swimming alone in a hostile sea. They had to maintain the facade of Swenson Engineering, which meant they periodically had to drive the truck or station wagon to fictitious work sites, lest the neighbors get suspicious and call the police.
Braun took a long swallow of the cold horse piss and weak beer. “What we will do is quite simple. We will continue to send reports saying how hard we are working and what difficulties we are encountering. In the meantime, we will continue to look for targets to destroy, along with anything new that comes up. I am not quite ready to write this off as a useless venture, no matter how frustrating it might be.”
* * *
Ruby Oliver thought that Colonel James Gavin was the handsomest man she’d ever seen. The rugged-looking thirty-five-year-old commander of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment had arrived at Fairbanks a couple of days earlier along with the leading elements of his regiment and immediately made his presence known.
The first units of the 505th had parachuted in, which was dramatic and joyous to the Americans in Fairbanks. They’d waved and cheered as the paratroops floated down from the sky. Ruby and her group had arrived the day before by truck. She would not admit that they’d stolen it from an abandoned farm.
On first meeting her, Gavin had laughed and stripped her of her own little detachment of soldiers, but not until commending all of them for jobs well done. They had been interrogated by both
Gavin and other officers. They told all they knew about the Japanese force that even now might be heading toward them. Ruby was able to confirm that the Japanese had no armor, little artillery, and few vehicles. They were not going to come up the road at thirty miles an hour like she had. Ten miles a day was more like it and she assured Gavin that the weather would begin to get truly shitty before long.
Now she was part of a volunteer group led by a big professional hunter and trapper named Bear Foley. Bear was well named. Although he was only a little over six feet tall, he weighed more than two hundred and forty pounds and he was indeed hairy. Foley now had close to four hundred men and fifty women in his volunteer brigade that Gavin chose to use as scouts. They’d already picked up on the fact that the Japanese were beginning to probe up the road to Fairbanks, which was why Gavin was there with his new command.
The lead elements of the 505th quickly improved the small and primitive airstrip to where C47s could land with their cargo of either twenty-plus troops or three tons of supplies. Both men and supplies were kept below maximum load weight because of the need to conserve fuel. Ruby and her cohorts noted with amusement that many of the military planes were painted over civilian DC-3s, and some still had passenger seating.
What was maddening was the time it took to develop a base so far away from the forty-eight states. The first planes unloaded fuel, much of which they promptly consumed for the trip back. After that, planes alternated between men, fuel, and supplies. Now, after a couple of hectic days and nights, more than two thousand men of the 505th were on the ground along with several hundred support personnel and a working supply of fuel and food. Talking to the troops, Ruby found that the regiment was someday going to be part of the newly forming 82nd Airborne Division and be entirely made up of paratroops.
Gavin was openly concerned about their lack of ammunition and artillery. The Alaskan Volunteer Scouts and other sources estimated the Japanese force at close to six thousand men now that it had been “reinforced” by the few survivors of the naval force the battleships had sunk.
Ruby sat on her sleeping bag in the tent she shared with Foley. He was a couple of years older than she and they’d hit it off immediately. He was a skilled hunter, something she admired since she thought she was pretty good herself. She was dressed in bra and panties and was intent on sewing a tear in her blouse.
“Looking good, Ruby,” Bear said with a grin as he stepped in.
She returned the smile. She’d lost twenty pounds and firmed up dramatically since the first Japanese attack. One thing good about war—it kept the weight down. Her dyed red hair was returning to its normal reddish-brown with disconcerting hints of gray that Bear didn’t seem to mind.
War also heightened the senses. She hadn’t slept with a man in more than a year, but now the urge was imperative.
“Join me,” she said. He laughed again and stripped down to his shorts after first closing the tent flap. He reached for her and she held up her hand.
“First tell me what Jim said.”
Bear laughed. “Jim? Damn it to hell, Ruby, he makes me call him Colonel. Anyhow, he said that the Japs will be heading for us because they have no place else to go. He says they’re starving since their support ships were sunk and they see Fairbanks as a way of staying alive. He says they’ll attack us with unbelievable ferocity because getting our supplies is their only hope of not starving to death. He says they would rather die in a suicide attack, not starve, which they feel would be cowardly. Gavin said he was stationed in the Philippines and helped them prepare for war with the Japs, so he’s studied them extensively. So, yeah, he sees a suicide attack by the Nips if things get real bad for them.”
Wonderful, she thought. She slipped out of her bra and panties and he got out of his shorts. She smiled when she saw he was more than ready. We could all be dead very, very shortly. Live and love while we can.
* * *
Beer runs qualified as emergencies, or so Stecher happily thought. Using rank for the privilege, he commandeered a jeep and drove the few miles to the hamlet of Bridger. Neither he nor Lieutenant Farris thought much of anything was likely to happen at nine o’clock this sunny Tuesday morning. As to their beloved company commander, it was highly improbable that Lytle was even awake, much less likely to stop by on an unannounced inspection. And who gave a shit if he did, he thought happily.
There had been a euchre tournament last night, and the men off duty had managed to wipe out their supply of suds; thus, the beer run to Sullivan’s small store in Bridger. Usually the lieutenant did it, but he was off someplace.
Stecher thought that life was not bad at all. He’d begun to get control over his fury regarding the loss of his brother. He recognized the helplessness of his situation. Until and if something changed dramatically, he would continue to spend World War II in southern California. And after talking to some navy pilots, he’d grudgingly come to accept the fact that soldiers on the ground were fair targets for pilots in planes. The enemy you spared today could come back and kill you tomorrow. What had happened to his brother was war, not murder.
He’d talked with a number of others who’d lost loved ones in the all too numerous defeats suffered by the United States. They’d commiserated, had a beer or six, and told how they controlled their anguish and sealed off their hate. If they didn’t it would consume them. Stecher would never get over the loss of his brother and would never want to, but he was beginning to understand what older people had said about life moving on after the death of someone dear. Someday, though, he would like his chance to personally kill at least one fucking Jap.
He pulled up in front of the single-story white frame store owned by Sullivan. He’d recently found out that Sullivan’s first name was Patrick. What else, he thought.
Stecher entered the store. No one was behind the counter, which was unusual. There was no way he could have sneaked up on Sullivan. There wasn’t that much else around in Bridger and anyone in the store had a clear view down the road, so somebody should have been there to greet him. Maybe Sullivan was in the can? He waited a few moments but heard nothing. He tapped on the wall by the door to announce himself, but still no one came. Should he help himself? Sullivan’s was an old-fashioned store where you told the clerk what you wanted and he got it for you. None of that supermarket stuff where you wandered around with a cart and filled it. Sullivan said there was too much opportunity to steal in such a situation.
So where was everybody? What the hell’s going on, Stecher thought. He heard the sound of something scurrying in the storage room in the back of the building. An animal? His rifle was in jeep only a few feet away. Should he get it? Hell, would he need it?
He heard a groan. He stepped around the counter and pushed open the door to the back room. There were no windows and it was illuminated only by the shaft of light from the open door. He heard more sounds.
Stecher fumbled by the doorway until he found a light switch and flipped it on. Two women were on the floor. They were bound hand and foot and there were rags stuffed in their mouths. They were Japanese.
One was older and her face was bruised. There was blood on her torn blouse. The younger one stared at him in primal fear. She did not appear be hurt and she looked very young, maybe fourteen.
Japs or not, they were suffering. He took the gags out of their mouths and gave them some water. He was not quite ready to untie them before he found out why they had been bound in the first place, although he didn’t think they were spies or saboteurs.
Stecher heard a metallic click behind him. “Stand and turn slowly.”
He did as told and found himself looking down the barrels of a shotgun held by Patrick Sullivan, the store owner.
The older woman jabbered something in what Stecher presumed was Japanese and Sullivan lowered his weapon. “Miko just told me you had nothing to do with this and were freeing them.”
Sullivan pulled a knife and deftly slashed the ropes holding them. Both women hugged each other and then Su
llivan. The older woman, Miko, managed a smile for Stecher, while the younger one looked away. She seemed more embarrassed than hurt.
“It was two very young men who looked like Mexicans,” Miko said in unaccented English. “They came in and overpowered us before we could do anything. Thank you for helping,” she added to Stecher, who nodded.
She turned to Sullivan. “And just so you know, they did nothing other than take the few dollars in the register.”
Miko gathered up the younger woman. “Sergeant, this is my daughter, Nancy. Until the war started, she was a sophomore in college in San Francisco. We decided she was safer here.”
So much for being only fourteen, Stecher thought. Maybe Asian women matured differently. She also didn’t look totally Japanese. With a jolt, he realized that Sullivan was her father.
“So what are you going to do now?” Sullivan asked. “You going to turn them in and send them to a concentration camp?”
“I don’t know what the hell do to, Mr. Sullivan. Hey, they are your family, aren’t they? If so, they won’t be sent to a camp. Isn’t that the rule?”
Sullivan shrugged. “Nancy is my daughter and Miko is my wife. One problem, though, we never managed to get married formally. This is California, you know, and some of the traditional rules don’t always apply here. Both of these ladies were born here in California, which makes them citizens, and Nancy is only half-Japanese, so I guess only half of her will go to a camp.”
Stecher was at a loss. Technically, maybe the mother should be interned since she was hiding, which was against the law, and Sullivan was doing the hiding, which was also illegal. Damn. He hated the Japanese, but the rational part of him said that neither this woman nor her skinny daughter posed a threat to the United States. And would turning them in to the authorities do anything to help America win the war?
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