The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3)

by Charles S. Jackson

  “And if Kurt Reuters were to fall out of favour…?” She asked pointedly, far too intelligent to be ignorant of the true nature of politics in Nazi Germany.

  “That would be very unlikely to happen any time soon,” he countered softly, unwilling to concede the point regardless of its validity.

  “And if he’s out of the country…? What do they say about the actions of mice, while the cat is away…?” She asked again, also unwilling to admit defeat. That he had married someone so beautiful and intelligent was a source of constant joy and wonder for Carl Ritter, but there were times when it also brought its own set of disadvantages, particularly during times of disagreement. It was no secret to him that Maria was probably more knowledgeable than he in many areas other than military matters, and her socialite upbringing had ensured she was at least as well informed with regard to politics.

  “You will teach me to shoot this… to shoot it properly…” she demanded simply, clearly unwilling to accept any argument on the subject. “If you are not here, I need to know how to defend our family from whatever danger comes for us. Anton also...”

  “They boy is just seven, Maria! You cannot expect a child of that age to act safety with firearms!”

  “He should at least know how they operate, if only so that there are no accidents,” she forged on, unrelenting or repentant. “The Jungvolk let them fire rifles at ten… he must at least know, in case anything happens to me.”

  “This is madness,” he declared, shaking his head and unwilling to accept what she was saying. “You can’t seriously believe us to be in so much danger!”

  “You pass secrets to the enemy!” She hissed in return, steel in her voice now. “I know you do this for honourable reasons, but if they find out they will kill you, and they will kill us too! You will do this for us, so that we can defend ourselves should the need ever arise.”

  Ritter had heard that tone before. The situations had been few and very far between, but he recognised it all the same and knew full well there would be no hope of victory in this; that his only recourse now was to concede defeat and acquiesce to her demands.

  “All right, my love… all right…” He agreed eventually, releasing a long sigh. “I will do as you ask. I believe Oliver’s sister works at the Wansee range, where they held the Olympic shooting. I’ll ask him on the way to the office this morning and organise a time to go down there on Sunday. He can take Kurt and your mother boating on the lake while we attend to business.” He laid a reassuring hand on her arm and forced a genuine smile. “Will that make you feel better…?”

  “Thank you, my love,” she answered honestly, taking his hand in hers, and he noticed for the first time that tears were trickling down her cheeks. “Thank you…!” They embraced tightly, comforting each other and remaining that way for some time. Ritter was late for work, something to which he didn’t give a moment’s thought.

  Port of Ensenada

  Baja California, Mexico

  Ortega stood on the dock in the lee of the SS Liberty Glo and watched as the last few pallets of cargo were loaded aboard. Dawn was breaking, the sun little more than a small, angry orb peering above the eastern horizon on a glorious morning completely devoid of cloud. The breeze was still chilly, but he suspected it would be a warm day. He was happy they’d soon be out on the open ocean where cool winds were more likely than the humidity of a tourist town.

  His employers were already aboard, settling themselves in for the two week journey that was the first leg of their voyage; one that would take them south to the Panama Canal, and then on up the east coast of Mexico and the United States to New York. It was only a few pieces of last minute paperwork that had kept him on the wharf, completing the final signatures for their manifest prior to departure.

  “That’s the last one, sir,” The ship’s loadmaster, Perry, advised happily as he too watched the last load disappear above, lowered into the hold by crane. “All done and ready to sail. Took a little time securing that big crate of theirs, but we’re all fine now.”

  “There was a problem…?” Ortega inquired immediately, remembering the dropping of the box the day before and concerned there might have been some permanent damage to the contents.

  “No problem, sir – just real big and heavy is all…” Perry replied with a faint shake of his head. Had to make sure it was tied down tight just in case we hit some bad weather: does a ship no good to have two or three tons of lead slidin’ about below decks.”

  “The thing is made of lead…?” Ortega queried, not having paid much attention before now.

  “Far as we can tell…” Perry shrugged. “You can see a bit of the corner where they broke the crate yesterday, and it sure looks like lead to me. ‘Course, it’s probably not all lead, or it’d damn sure weigh more than three tons, but whatever they got inside’s wrapped up tight: that lead looks pretty thick.”

  “Lead…” he mused out loud, intrigued as to what could possibly require such a strange outer casing.

  “If you could sign here please, senõr,” the harbourmaster asked loudly, stepping in between them and handing Perry a clipboard so that he could sign off on the loaded manifest.

  “No problem, Manny,” he replied, accepting the official documents and using the pencil attached by a string to scrawl his name at the bottom. “Huh…!” He added suddenly, surprised by something he’d read on the sheet.

  “What’s that, Lionel?” Ortega asked, moving around to peer over the man’s shoulder.

  “Oh, nothin’ really…” Perry answered with a shrug. “Just the names on here is all…”

  “What names…?”

  “Oh, their names… the owners…” he explained, frowning again as he thought more on the subject. “Ka’aihue, Kūkae and Pupuka…”

  “What’s wrong with them…?” Ortega asked, also frowning as he noted the way those names had been spoken. Although he was no expert, the confident tone and inflection that Perry had used suggested some experience in the correct pronunciation of Hawaiian words, if not a grasp of the language itself.

  “Oh, nothing wrong with them as such… just…”

  “…‘Just’…?”

  “Just that…” Perry paused, feeling a little silly now for even bringing it up, “…well, sir, I worked at Pearl Harbour for a few years before I signed on here, and my wife’s a native Hawaiian. I don’t speak much of the language, but we got a family, and I know a little about how they name their kids…” He shrugged, almost apologetic he’d turned something so insignificant into such a big deal. “Native Hawaiian names all pretty much mean somethin’, y’see… My wife’s brother’s name is Ka’aihue – it means ‘thief’ or somethin’ like that, but that one’s pretty common…” He shrugged again. “I never heard anyone usin’ Kūkae and Pupuka… ever… Not sure about what Pupuka translates as, but I’m pretty sure Kūkae means crap, or pretty close to it.”

  “‘Crap’…?” Ortega repeated in vague disbelief. “One of the owners of the farm we’re shipping this equipment to is called ‘mierda’ in his native language?”

  “Not an expert sir, like I said, but if my wife were here, I’d give you good odds she’d tell ya the same. They don’t really sound like normal Hawaiians neither…” he added, something else occurring to him as he thought more about it all. “I’ve spent a lot of time with my wife’s family, and when I they were helping me secure that load earlier, they sure didn’t sound at all like any Hawaiian I ever talked to. Since I signed on with the Glo, sir, I been to ports all over the Pacific and South-East Asia, and I’ve worked with an awful lot o’ different folks, but I’ve never heard any Hawaiian speak like that. I ain’t no professor – they got good English, that’s for sure, and there’s an accent there sure enough – but to me, it sounds more like Chinese…” He paused again as a sudden, darker thought appeared in his mind. “…or Japanese…”

  The sudden chill he’d felt immediately spread to Ortega’s heart as he heard those words. The Japanese invasions of Manchuria a
nd then China itself had resulted in a complete US embargo on the sale of any goods or raw materials whatsoever to Japan or any Japanese national. Japanese citizens had been banned from purchasing any strategic materials in the United States or its territories, and had also been excluded from the ownership of land or property, although this had been less of an issue within the Unites States itself.

  All these men’s credential had appeared legitimate when Ortega had accepted the position as their business manager, but this new information from Perry had now sown the dark seed of doubt in his mind. Could these men be attempting to circumvent American embargo laws by masquerading as US Citizens? What purpose could that possibly serve if any profits from their venture could never leave the country? Could there some other purpose, such as industrial or even military espionage?

  “Mister Ortega, sir…?” Perry asked with a frown, dragging him back to reality. “Have I said somethin’ wrong, sir…?”

  “What…? No… no…!” Ortega assured, gathering his thoughts once more. “Not at all.” He paused again for a moment as he again considered what the man had said, and also thought on what the next course of action should be. “You’re a patriot, yes…?”

  “Sure am, sir! Born and bred American, and proud of it…!” Perry answered without hesitation, thinking it a strange question.

  “Well appearances notwithstanding, Lionel, so am I…” Ortega confirmed with a nod of his own. He didn’t often speak openly about the difficulty he found in walking a fine line between his Mexican heritage and the pride he felt over his nation of birth, but ultimately he considered himself an American, even if many of his fellow citizens – predominantly the white ones – thought otherwise.

  “Don’t mention anything about this to anyone yet,” he continued. “The last thing I want to do is cause any unnecessary trouble, or lose my job over something that may turn out to be nothing at all. Just keep your eyes and ears open and let me know if you notice anything unusual… anything you think I might want to know about. We’ve got plenty of time between here and the canal for us to watch these guys, and see if there is anything suspicious about them, and I can inform the local authorities at the locks when we get there, if we decide there’s anything to report. There’s a long way to go before we get to New York. You think you can do that for me…?”

  “No problem, sir,” Perry nodded eagerly, a little excited by the idea they might be doing something for their country. Fit and weathered and in his late thirties, the loadmaster was experienced enough however to also understand the importance of discretion.

  “¡Muy bien…!” Ortega grinned, patting him on the shoulder. “…And Lionel… my name’s Miguel…”

  Akagi, IJN Combined Fleet

  Tsugaru Strait, Northern Japan

  November 21, 1942

  Saturday

  Three miles off to starboard, a few lights here and there were the only evidence of the small township of Oma, northernmost village of the island of Honshū’s Shimokita Peninsula. There was little else to see in the pre-dawn darkness of early morning as the aircraft carrier Akagi steamed westward at steady sixteen knots, heading out into the Pacific Ocean through the Tsugaru Strait, a body of water than separated the Japanese home islands of Honshū and Hokkaidō.

  Standing on an open balcony leading straight off his Admiral’s bridge and dressed in a thick, woollen sea coat in defence of the biting cold, Gensui-kaigun-taishō (Marshal Admiral) Yamamoto Isoroku stared out into the black nothingness of the night sky as his breath swirled about him in chilly clouds. He knew he should be resting, yet sleep would not come in the early hours of that morning and he’d instead spent the last hour staring out into the night, musing over the multitude of problems great and small that lay before him as commander-in-chief both of the Japanese Combined Fleet and of the special task force of which he was currently part.

  At fifty-eight years of age, the most well-known and popular man in the Imperial Japanese Navy had spent his entire adult life in military service, having graduated from the IJN Naval Academy in 1904. Posted to the armoured cruiser Nisshin during the Russo-Japanese war, he was injured at the Battle of Tsushima, losing two fingers from his left hand. His career had continued to advance between with wars, including study at Harvard during the 1920s and two postings as Japanese Naval Attaché to Washington. It was during this time that he toured America extensively and gained a deep insight into the mentality and the capabilities of the United States military and its industrial might.

  Born Takano Isoroku, son of a samurai of the Nagaoka Domain, at thirty-two he was officially adopted as the son of a high-ranking samurai of the Yamamoto clan, as was a common custom to preserve the family name in cases where a respected family had produced no children. For the adoptee in question, this also brought with it the benefits of status, rank and income that would otherwise have been accorded to any natural-born sons.

  An active exponent of naval power and aviation from quite early in his career, Yamamoto consistently advocated for a strong navy that could project power in its own right rather than acting simply as a transport service for land forces, which was the general view of the Japanese Army establishment, the navy’s primary rival within internal military circles. His outspoken objection to an alliance with Germany and opposition to Japan signing the Berlin Pact had also earned him many enemies within the army and with other militarist and ultra-nationalist groups, and had resulted in him receiving large volumes of hate mail that included regular threats against his life.

  A direct opponent of the current Prime Minister, Tōjō Hideki, it was surprising that Yamamoto hadn’t been retired or otherwise posted to some out-of-the-way command to see out the rest of his career, with no influence whatsoever on the direction of Japanese Military Forces. Afraid that a land-based assignment might make him too great a target for assassination however, particularly considering his close ties with the Imperial Family, a few remaining friends in high places managed to instead have him posted as commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, reasoning that spending the bulk of his time at sea dramatically reduced the likelihood of any assassin getting close enough to make an attempt on his life.

  Yamamoto turned and cast his gaze back toward the stern of the huge aircraft carrier, most of his view obscured by the dark bulk of its small island superstructure. Some distance behind he could pick out the faint flicker of navigation lights, and he knew well enough that they belonged to Kaga; a sister-ship to Akagi in spirit at least, if not in terms of actual ship class. There were more than thirty warships of varying types out there in the darkness, all steaming in formation as the main Kidō Butai (striking force) of the 1st Air Fleet put to sea at the beginning of the ‘grand adventure’ upon which they were about to embark.

  A screen of destroyers was already out ahead, although they all knew there was no danger of encountering any potential enemy so deep into Japanese home waters. His flagship was one of no less than nine fleet carriers, carrying almost seven hundred fighters and attack aircraft between them, supported by two battleships and a brace of cruisers, all configured for anti-aircraft defence. In terms of offensive capability, the fleet they had assembled was the greatest single naval force in living history, but as with many plans, secrecy and surprise would ultimately be their most potent weapons.

  “Yamamoto-sama,” Captain Genda Minoru called, snapping to attention as he stepped out onto the balcony behind his commanding officer. He used the honorific suffix of a junior addressing a far superior officer, as was appropriate, and also executed a short, regimental bow as the admiral turned to face him.

  “I see that you too suffer from insomnia, Genda-san,” he replied tiredly, not in the mood for formality. “What wakes you so early on such a cold morning?”

  “Latest intelligence reports, sir,” Genda explained, barely relaxing from his position at attention. “I’ve left them on the desk for you. Also, I have had your orderly bring up some tea…”

  “Arigato, Genda-san,” Yamamoto n
odded with a faint smile. “I will take a cup later, and you will join me, but tell me: what news of these reports? Anything that concerns us…?”

  “Little of interest from the Americans, sir… some minor ship movements and further confirmation that their main carrier force remains at Pearl Harbor – all of which we already knew,” the captain answered with a shrug, finally allowing himself to relax. “The only thing of note is from our own services… a confirmation that Ronin has departed Ensenada on schedule…”

  “Mmmh…” Yamamoto acknowledged with a faint nod, sounding not at all confident upon hearing that news. “The mission continues as planned, it seems.”

  ‘You’re not convinced, sir…?” Genda asked carefully, surprised at the lack of obvious pleasure upon receipt of that information.

  “I have concerns, Genda-san… I have lived this long by planning for failure, while continuing to aim for success. This war with the Americans will be nothing like we have ever experienced… like nothing our campaigns in China or Manchukuo could have prepared us for. Although we will have success for a year – perhaps two – I do not believe we can ultimately win any war against the United States.”

  “Our ships and our aircraft are superior, Yamamoto-sama,” Genda countered enthusiastically, surprised at hearing such defeatist talk from his superior officer. “We know this…”

  “This may be true, Genda,” Yamamoto nodded sagely, experience silently telling him otherwise. “This may indeed be true, but it is not their weapons that will be our undoing. They will defeat us with their manpower, their factories and their raw materials… three things we can never hope to equal. If we take our objectives in South-East Asia as quickly as we are able then there is hope – hope that the use of these devices the Nazis have given us will force the Americans to sue for peace.”