“Suggestions?”
Krause grinned. “I suppose we could always rob a small bank in a small town.”
* * *
“Those are Japs,” yelled Stecher. Farris took half a second to confirm that the planes screaming only a few feet overhead were indeed Zeros before throwing himself prone and beginning to crawl to a culvert.
Machine guns chattered and bullets ripped into the American camp at Fairbanks. Men ran in all directions, stunned by the suddenness of the attack. Some were chewed by bullets and left sprawling. Farris could hear screaming.
“What happened to our radar?” yelled Stecher. “And where the hell are our planes?”
Farris saw that the handful of American fighters and transports lined up along the still inadequate airstrip were being shot to pieces. So too were fuel dumps and other storage facilities. He didn’t bother telling Stecher that radar was inadequate and maybe pointed in the wrong direction, but he did wonder just why no American planes or spotters had caught sight of the oncoming Japanese horde.
Plane after plane swept over the base, strafing and bombing without much in the way of resistance. A few antiaircraft guns opened up, but they didn’t stop the Japanese. A couple of enemy planes were hit and one crashed into a warehouse, resulting in an explosion and fire that quickly consumed the entire building. Farris wondered if the Japanese pilot, his plane damaged, had directed his plane there.
A pair of American P47s did make it into the air and a couple more Zeros were shot down before the American planes went down in flames too.
It was over as quickly as it had begun. Farris checked his watch. He thought the raid had lasted no more than fifteen minutes. A grim-faced Colonel Gavin began shouting orders and yelling at a major who looked like wanted to be anyplace else on the planet. Perhaps it was the major’s fault that the Japs had gotten so close, although overall responsibility for the base was Gavin’s.
Ambulances had begun to pick up the wounded and the dead, while shocked but unhurt GIs crawled out from where they’d been hiding. Stecher grabbed Farris’s arm and pulled him.
“Come this way.”
Farris did as directed. In a little while they stood with a bunch of others around the wreckage of an airplane, a Japanese Zero. The tail was burning brightly. The gas tank had exploded and fires were consuming it.
“Look in the cockpit,” Stecher said, laughing. “That’s a fucking Jap.”
Indeed it was, Farris thought. The man had been burned to a crisp and was little more than a charred and blackened skeleton. His white teeth seemed to be laughing at them. Should I feel sympathy for him, Farris wondered. After all, didn’t the pilot have a family? Or friends? Where there people who would mourn for him when they received word that he’d gone on a final mission?
So, should I feel sorry for him? Farris asked himself.
Fuck no.
CHAPTER 16
A TALL, RANGY MARINE LANCE CORPORAL WALKED INTO HARRIS’S office and almost saluted, stopping quickly when he remembered that he was seeing a civilian, and not an officer. His face was pale and there was a large white bandage on his head. He looked around curiously at the decrepit furniture that was clearly a bunch of castoffs.
The FBI, recognizing its lack of numbers and communications limitations in the San Diego area, had convinced the navy to give them a group of offices on base and, by design, these were down a drab hallway from where Dane worked. As usual, the last to show up got the crummiest in the way of chairs, tables, and desks. Harris did not complain. It was how the game was played and, besides, he didn’t anticipate spending a whole lot of time in the office. Once the problem of the saboteurs was solved, he would move on to other cases.
“What’s your name, son?” Harris asked softly to try and gain the Marine’s confidence. The young man had telephoned earlier and said he wanted to meet. Harris guessed him as in his early twenties.
“Eppler, sir, Lance Corporal Lee Eppler.”
“Great. Now close the door and sit down.” Eppler did as directed and Harris continued. “Now tell me what you have on your mind.”
Eppler took a deep breath as if what he was going to say was difficult to admit. “Sir, there are rumors all over the place, and me being here talking to you confirms one of them, and that’s that the FBI is actually here on base. The second rumor is that you’re chasing saboteurs like the ones who derailed those trains.”
“We haven’t announced that any saboteurs derailed anything.”
“You don’t have to, sir. A whole bunch of people were working on clearing wrecks, treating injured, and stuff like that. They could see things and they listened to you guys talk. The trains were sabotaged.”
Harris was intrigued. He was also a little pissed that there were no secrets on a naval base. Despite the war, San Diego was still a small town full of gossips.
“Okay, son, what do you know about sabotaging trains?”
“Seriously, sir, I don’t know anything specific. But something strange did happen to me. Last weekend, some guys I know slightly offered me twenty bucks if I’d be a doorman at some kind of big-money card game. I was to keep unwanted people out and give a warning if the cops were in the area.”
Harris smiled. “Does the military really give a shit about card games?”
“Generally no, sir, but there was going to be a ton of money in this one, maybe thousands of dollars, so nobody wanted to take chances. Since I send almost all my money home, I knew I could use the twenty bucks. At any rate, I didn’t do a very good job. While I thought I was keeping watch, somebody sneaked up on me and knocked me cold.” He fingered the bandage on his skull. “The medics said I was lucky to get away with a few stitches and a mild concussion. When I came to, I was tied up and gagged. There was yelling in the room where the action was. I couldn’t hardly believe it, but the bad guys were telling the gamblers to strip. Finally, two guys came out with a bag that I later learned contained the money. Like I said, maybe as much as several thousand dollars.”
Harris whistled. “That is a good-sized haul and one hell of a poker game for a bunch of swabbies and jarheads to be playing.”
Eppler laughed. “Yeah. My so-called friends must have been pros in real life. The bad guys also had the players’ clothes with them. They talked among themselves for a second, and that’s why I thought of calling you.”
Harris leaned forward. “Really?”
“Yes, sir, they were speaking German.”
A few moments later, both Dane and Merchant arrived. Harris had summoned them since Eppler was part of the military and, therefore, under their jurisdiction. Also, he was likely to be impressed with their rank. He was right. Eppler seemed momentarily nonplussed but quickly got over it.
“How did you know they were speaking German?” Merchant asked.
“Both my grandparents came from Germany and my mother speaks it fluently. After a number of years talking to the old people, a little of it rubbed off on me, so, yes, sir, I did recognize it as German.”
“What were they saying?” Dane inquired.
“I really couldn’t tell completely, sir. I picked up a lot of words, but I don’t know all that much. It did sound like one, the older of the two, was telling the other guy, who was a little younger but bigger, to hurry up.”
Dane smiled. “Did you see them?”
“I pretended I was unconscious. They had guns and had already hurt me. If they thought I was listening and watching I was afraid they’d kill me, so I played dead.”
“Good move,” said Harris.
“But I did sneak a look as they were leaving. They’d taken off their masks so they wouldn’t look weird on the outside, and I got a decent look at the bigger guy.”
Merchant smiled happily. “Could you pick him out?”
“Don’t know, sir, but I’d sure as hell be happy to try.”
Dane opened a folder filled with photographs which he then spread on the table. “Is he in this group?”
Lance Corporal Epp
ler looked over the array, staring intently. He fingered several photos, paused, and smiled. “This is the big guy.”
Harris, Merchant, and Dane grinned at each other. The young Marine had picked out Wilhelm Braun’s associate, Gunther Krause.
* * *
Now what? they thought. First, Harris asked if Eppler had gotten his twenty and was told, no. “Hell no, sir, and I have no problem with that. After all, I really didn’t do my job very well, did I? Actually, the guys in the game first thought I was in cahoots with the bad guys until they realized that I was actually hurt. Then they drove me on base and dumped me at the hospital, right by the emergency room. I managed to stagger in under my own power.”
“What did you tell the medics?” Harris asked.
“That I fell and hit my head on a curb.”
“They believe that?” he continued.
Eppler grinned. “Not for a moment, sir, but a lot of guys get drunk, fall down, and hurt themselves. Also, they had more important things on their minds. There had been a couple of stabbings, so they patched me up, gave me some aspirin, and put me on light duty for a couple of weeks. I kind of like light duty.”
Harris continued. “Okay, Lance Corporal Eppler, here’s what’s going to happen. You are not going to tell anyone about this conversation or what you saw at the card game, or you will spend the rest of your life in a desert counting scorpions. I don’t think your gambler friends are going to be talking to you about it, so don’t worry about that. If they do, we’ll take care of them. Same thing with anyone else in your outfit, particularly your officers and NCOs. If they get too nosy or don’t believe that you got hurt falling down, Captain Merchant is going to give you a note on Admiral Spruance’s stationery saying that they are to butt out, only a little more polite. Big thing, young man, is that you saw nothing, remember nothing, and this conversation never took place, got that?”
Eppler swallowed. “Got it, sir.”
“Good,” said Harris and slipped him a couple of twenties. “Maybe the night wasn’t a total loss.”
When the Marine left, they looked at each other. Dane started. “For supermen, those two Germans aren’t too fucking smart, are they? Jesus, if Eppler had been better at security, the krauts could have gotten hurt, if not killed. Maybe the gamblers would have fought back as well.”
Harris disagreed. “If security at the game had been better, they wouldn’t have tried. It does show, however, that the two Nazis are getting desperate. Jesus, from crashing trains to robbing gamblers? What a comedown.”
“I think we are genuinely closing in on them,” Merchant said, “and they are running out of time and options. Maybe we can get them and roll up the whole bunch, including the people in Mexico.”
Dane and Harris looked at each other. They had a preposterous idea they’d been discussing between the two of them. Since Harris was the civilian and couldn’t be chewed out by Merchant, he responded. “Y’know, Captain, just maybe we don’t want to do that, at least not right now.”
Farris’s small company was one of several ordered out on patrol. They were out doing recon work even though they still didn’t know all that much about it. Fortunately, they were assisted by a dozen Alaskan Volunteers led by the large man named Bear, and the Alaskans’ tracking skills were immensely better than theirs.
The Alaskans wore white cloths over their regular clothing, which annoyed Farris since his men hadn’t been issued any winter gear like that. When he asked Bear about it, the Alaskan had simply laughed. “We took the sheets off our beds and cut them up. Beats the hell out of waiting for the army to come through with the right kind of gear.”
A chagrined Farris decided he’d have his men do the same thing when they got back to base.
The Americans were helped by the fact that a couple of inches of wet snow had fallen, which meant that anyone travelling through the area would leave tracks. A light snow continued to fall, rendering visibility poor, but that worked both ways.
Colonel Gavin did not think there were large numbers of Japanese too close to Fairbanks just yet, but he was not going to take a chance. Along with Farris’s troops, several other company-strength patrols had been sent out to probe and upset any Japanese scouts who were trying to assess American numbers. Gavin had openly wondered why the Japanese hadn’t coordinated an attack on Fairbanks with the carrier raid that had caused so much damage to their meager resources. Had Japanese infantry attacked during the chaos, the American force could have been forced to give up the city and the base, or at best, suffered serious casualties. Farris could visualize hordes of screaming Japanese emerging from the forests and chopping American soldiers with their swords and overrunning them while they cowered in their foxholes.
Now, supplies to replace what was lost were arriving in a thin but steady flow, and these included a new squadron of P47 fighters. Because of the need to ship material to supply existing forces, additional manpower was given a lower priority. A trickle of reinforcements, including more men from the 36th Infantry Division and a handful of Marines, continued to arrive, taking the last miles on foot as the engineers attempted to lengthen the highway from the south.
The advance paused and a soldier near them lit up a Chesterfield. “Put it out,” snapped Bear. The soldier with the cigarette glared at him.
“What the fuck for?” the GI snarled. “You ain’t my mommy. Hell, you ain’t even in the real army. And besides, it ain’t nighttime so nobody can see the glow in the dark.”
Bear matched the soldier’s glare and the GI wilted. “Because you can smell cigarette smoke a mile away in the woods, that’s why, jerkoff, and that would alert the Japs that you’re coming so they can blow your worthless ass away.”
Farris was about to support Bear when the soldier simply nodded and put out the cigarette he’d been puffing on. “Pass it around,” Farris said, “no smoking.”
“But we’ll die,” lamented another soldier in a falsetto whine, bringing nervous laughter. Even Bear chuckled, while the GI who’d been scolded just turned away.
“The same thing with matches at night,” Farris added, “but you already know that. And keep the talking down, too.”
At Bear’s suggestion, they were formed up with two platoons in front and a third bringing up the rear. The understrength company still didn’t have enough men for a headquarters platoon. Stecher controlled a slightly overstrength squad that passed for one.
Even though there was no intelligence confirming that the main Japanese force was near, the patrol was a strong one because of a real concern that a decent number of Japanese might possibly be close by and could easily overwhelm a smaller patrol. At least that was the theory. Farris seemed to recall that Custer had more men than he at the Little Big Horn and a fat lot of good it had done him and the Seventh Cavalry. Of course, the Seventh didn’t have radios or air support, which might have proven useful.
One of the scouts emerged and gave the signal to halt. They froze. The scout had found footprints in the snow. “The Japs tried to cover their tracks,” the scout explained, “but they did a lousy job.”
Now moving with utmost caution and letting the scout and Bear lead, they followed the tracks. Both civilians estimated the Japanese force at maybe a dozen men, an augmented squad.
Again they called a halt. Bear pointed at a thicket about a hundred yards away. The dense forest and falling snow prevented them from seeing it sooner. “They’re in there and they can see us,” Bear said.
Just as Farris was about to ask what the Japanese were waiting for, rifle and machine-gun fire rippled from the thicket, crashing into trees and bushes, tearing off branches and bark. The Americans dropped to the ground. Farris grabbed his helmet and tried to melt into the earth. He got a mouthful of snow for his efforts. With macabre humor, he hoped it wasn’t yellow snow from where some Jap had pissed. He and his men started to recover from the shock of being fired on and began searching out targets. Close to seventy men soon responded with rifles, carbines, and light
machine guns and BARs. Farris, almost overcome with excitement and fear, managed to remember to order the rear guard to keep facing the rear. He wanted no surprises creeping up on them.
“Are they going to retreat from there?” Stecher asked.
Bear grinned. “Retreat to where? We’re between them and safety. If anything we’re pushing them back to Gavin.”
Someone screamed and the call went out for a medic. One of Farris’s men had been hit. The Japanese fire began to slacken under the intense American shooting, and then it stopped. American soldiers crawled closer, maintaining a high rate of fire, shredding the thicket.
Farris’s radio man said that Major Baylor wanted to know if they needed artillery support. Farris said it would be nice if they knew precisely where they were, but no thank you.
More soldiers crawled to the thicket and hurled in grenades, which exploded with loud crumps. Again, there was no response. The damn Japs were either dead or waiting for them to get closer.
“Now’s the hard part,” Bear said with a feral grin. “Somebody gets to go in there. Kind of like hunters in India I read about going into the jungle after a wounded tiger.”
Farris swallowed. “You coming with me?” he asked.
Bear grinned. He was openly pleased that Farris was going in himself instead of letting others take the risk. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Lieutenant.”
Cautiously, Farris led a line of soldiers the rest of the way across the small clearing and toward the thicket which now consisted of mangled trees. There was silence. Farris’s heart was pounding as he pushed his way through. He halted as he saw his first dead Jap a few yards in and a second one just a few feet farther away. They had been hit by multiple bullets and were now just bloody human wreckage.
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