He was manhandled straight out of his cabin between the pair, forced awkwardly along the corridor as Sakamoto brought up the rear, submachine gun now raised and at the ready. They burst out onto the deck a moment later and were all struck by the coldness of the early morning, breath curling about their faces in clouds as they approached a suspended lifeboat not five metres away. Dressed only in a singlet and boxers, Miguel felt chilled to the bone almost immediately.
They threw him down onto the deck, although not too roughly for all that, and the pair that had carried him now set about removing the boat’s canvas cover. It was a larger one capable of carrying perhaps twenty people, but Ortega was one of only two intended passengers that night as they hoisted him in over the gunwales. He collapsed into the bottom of the lifeboat to find himself face to face with a similarly bound-and-gagged and equally-terrified Lionel Perry.
“Hey…! What the hell are you guys doin’…?”
The surprised, accusing cry came from one of the men on watch, an engineer who’d drawn short-straw for a midnight-to-four shift. Sakamoto didn’t even hesitate for a second as he raised the MP2SD3 to his shoulder and fired a three-round burst straight into the man’s chest at a range of just fifty feet. There was no roar of gunfire – no raucous volley of shots… the thick, integral silencer fitted to the weapon’s muzzle ensured that there was not a sound above the usual night time hoots and calls of the local jungle wildlife on the nearby bank. The man stared down for a moment, stunned by the spreading crimson stain across his chest before his eyes rolled back and he toppled over the railing, splashing into the freezing water of the Chagres River and floating slowly away into the darkness without another sound.
“You two risked your lives to save one of my men,” Sakamoto explained briefly as he leaned in over the side of the boat. “This showed courage and honour, and it for this reason only that I spare your lives tonight. This is the reward I spoke of, Miguel,” he added with a sad, knowing smile. “Gamboa is not far that way along the bank,” he added, pointing back toward the way they’d already come. It will take you some hours to reach there however. They told us the flash can blind you at night,” he continued, almost sounding as if he was rambling. “When it happens, you’ll know, and when you know, do not look.
“Some clothes,” Isaki advised, having returned quickly to the men’s cabins and grabbed the first things he could find. “You will need these,” he pointed out, tossing in a pair of pants and a heavy jacket for each.
“You can free yourselves from those bonds easily, I think, but do not try to reboard this ship or warn the rest of crew or we will kill you both. You have our thanks, for what it is worth,” Sakamoto began again, thinking for a moment before taking his omamori once more from his pocket and again bringing it quickly to his forehead in prayer before leaning in and placing it on Ortega’s chest. “This is a talisman of good fortune,” he explained. “I need it no longer where I am going, but perhaps you shall…”
And with that, the boat was swung out over the water beneath two winches and lowered carefully down to the river’s surface. It was immediately carried away by the slow current, sliding ahead past the bow of the ship, but for all that it was short work indeed to make use the oars and make for the river bank, the moment they were free of their restraints. The ship wasn’t well lit, other than by its navigating lights, but it was clear enough that night to see the three Japanese watching them the entire way in to shore. Neither Ortega nor Perry had any doubt they could be hit from that distance by the evil-looking, black submachine guns that two of them held.
Aboard Liberty Glo, Sakamoto continued to watch the progress of the faint, white shape of the lifeboat just long enough to be certain both men had reached the river bank safely and that neither had attempted to signal the ship. The moment that was done, he gave a single nod to each of his colleagues and all three instantly separated, making their separate ways through the vessel as they began to cold-bloodedly and silent murder every single crewman inside not necessary for the immediate running of the ship.
Sodden from the waist down as they’d splashed out of the river, Ortega and Perry clambered to shore at a relatively clear point on the bank, both sensible enough to wait until they were on land to dress in the pants and jackets that had been provided them. As luck would have it, they’d made landfall quite close to a dirt track running back toward Gamboa, perhaps four miles away at that point.
It would be a long, arduous walk that would at least have the small benefit of warming them up, Ortega thought as they set out, shaking as much from the aftermath of what had happened to them as from any lack of temperature that morning. In spite of Sakamoto’s warning, he couldn’t help but continue to glance nervously back over his shoulder, wondering what the man could possibly have meant.
He’d kept the strange omamori Sakamoto had given him, although he couldn’t have given any clear reason as to why he hadn’t thrown it into the river at the first opportunity. His fingers curled about it now inside his pocket as the trudged on in the starlit darkness, and somehow there was a certainty in his heart that whatever it was that was about to happen would be worse than anything he could possibly imagine.
Twelve miles south, the night staff at the control office of the Miraflores Locks, on the Pacific Ocean side of the canal, were hard at it doing nothing at all as they waited patiently for the priority shipping coming through from the other end that had warranted the cessation of all other commercial activities. The waiting ships’ captains had lodged their complaints of course, but that had been hours ago now and none had bothered to hang about to maintain their rage.
The night officer in charge had generally been passing the time working on crosswords from American newspapers that were at least three months old, while his offsider worked his way through the latest in a long line of drug store mystery novels, each one as clichéd and predictable as the last. Neither man expected any excitement at that time of the morning, nor for some hours to come.
“Ten gets you twenty it’s a navy convoy,” Buddy Anderson ventured lazily, not even bothering to look up from his book.
“Tell us sumthin’ we don’t know,” Ernie Di Salvo replied with mild sarcasm. “I’m bettin’ on battleships…”
“Nahhh… aircraft carrier,” Buddy shook his head, as if suddenly the supreme font of all knowledge on the subject. “Freddy over at Gatun said yesterday they got somethin’ huge coming through… I say, it’s an aircraft carrier.”
“Ten bucks…”
“Deal…!”
Both men were roused from their relaxation in that moment however as a US navy jeep skidded to a halt directly outside the entrance, two MPs and an officer immediately piling out and heading straight for their door.
“You the guy in charge here…?” The officer demanded sharply the moment he burst through the door.
“Y-yes, sir,” Di Salvo stammered, suddenly very alert and very worried about something he might have done wrong without knowing.
“I’m from Naval Intelligence,” the men growled curtly, as if that was all the explanation that was needed. “I need to see the records of all the shipping you’ve had through here in the last ten days! We’re looking for a vessel called the Liberty Glo: it was bound for New York and should have been coming through the canal any day now.”
“Liberty Glo…?” Di Salvo repeated nervously, throwing a pointed glance at his partner. “Yeah, we seen her: she went through a few hours before midnight, but she’s been ordered to anchor for the night, same as everyone else: we got a big convoy comin’ through from the other end.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Well,” Di Salvo ventured, suddenly feeling inexplicably scared about the situation, “this Mexican guy had all the paperwork for the manifest. Everything checked out OK, but he also had a letter he gave us: asked us to put it into the first mail run in the morning... It’s over here…”
He rose from his chair for the first time and wandered over to a des
k to one side of the office, quickly sorting through a pile of papers to produce a small, crinkled envelope that he immediately handed over to the intelligence officer. He tore it open, unfolding the letter within and quickly scanning through the contents.
“Holy Christ…!” He breathed softly, and Di Salvo could have sworn his face blanched a little. “How long ago was this? Where is she?”
“Spoke to the pilot myself a few hours ago. They’re anchored off the Mamei Turn; maybe ten… twelve miles upriver past The Cut. You want I should call them?”
“No!” The reply came, sharp and immediate. “We’ll handle it from here.” He turned to one of the MPs standing behind him. “Get on the radio to Coco Solo: we need to find and stop that ship ASAP - sink it if they have to!”
The crew of PT-101 had pulled their own short straw with regard to the night shift. While they’d normally have been tucked away, snug in their barracks so early in the morning, the arrival of the troop convoy Lieutenant-Commander Robson had mentioned the evening before had required at least one boat on patrol through the reaches of the Gatun Lake to ensure that all other vessels were following orders and remaining safely at anchor. The last thing anyone wanted was to have some unsuspecting merchantman cut in half in the darkness by a forty thousand ton battleship.
Kennedy stood at the open wheelhouse that morning with the duty watch officer, a senior NCO who’d spent many years working at Coco Solo and was an accomplished canal pilot in his own right. Both wore jackets against the cold as the boat cruised slowly northward from the Trinidad Turn, heading back toward the locks with the Gatun Dam to their left, where the mouth of the Chagres River had been blocked to form the huge expanse of the lake itself.
Following the red and green lights of the channel buoys as they drew near the locks, PT-101 came about slowly to starboard and cruised away eastward, preparing to come about again. It was at that point that a navy Seahawk helicopter from Coco Solo thundered past overhead, searchlights blazing from beneath its nose. The sudden illumination and roar of its passing caught those on deck by surprised and caused them to duck instinctively as it powered away heading south across the water.
“Assholes,” Chief Petty Officer Myers breathed softly under his breath, having been startled by the chopper’s passing.
“Seems to be in a helluva hurry there, Myers,” Kennedy grinned broadly, noting the man’s embarrassment.
“Base to duty boat… base to duty boat… come in, please…” Their radio blared loudly at that point, causing both men to immediately forget the passing aircraft.
“This is the officer on watch, base, reading you loud and clear,” Kennedy answered quickly, raising the microphone of the wheelhouse radio to his lips. “What have you got for us?”
“Urgent flash message from Washington, sir,” the ensign at the other end advised, the nervousness in his voice clear as day as both Kennedy and Myers stared pointedly at each other. “Urgent orders: immediate locate and intercept on merchant vessel Liberty Glo: last known position anchored off the Mamei Turn…”
“That’s north of Gamboa – Chagres River,” Myers advised quickly, noting Kennedy’s questioning glance. “About fifteen miles away… maybe twenty minutes at full throttle…”
“Message received, base,” Kennedy acknowledged, nodding silently at his colleague. “Enroute to locate and intercept now… requesting confirmation of purpose, over…”
“Orders are to locate and sink Liberty Glo at earliest opportunity,” the reply came through without hesitation, causing both men’s eyes to go wide. “All other considerations are secondary, duty boat: destruction of Liberty Glo is top priority, direct from Washington itself.”
“Understood, base… on our way… duty boat out…”
“What the hell, sir?” Myers frowned as the pair stared at each other with clear concern. “They want us to sink a ship in the canal…?”
“Orders are orders, Chief,” Kennedy observed solemnly, glancing around for a moment to stare at the nearby Gatun Locks and noting that the huge bulks of a battleship and possibly an ocean liner rising side by side at the upper level of the nearest pair. “Not our job to question… just to get it done…” He pointed out, a shudder suddenly rippling through him. “Guess we know where that helicopter was goin’. Sound battle stations and get us over there, Chief: best possible speed…”
As a claxon howled, bring every man aboard to a sudden state of battle readiness, CPO Myers gunned the craft’s three powerful diesels and pushed his throttles to full power. PT-101 immediately surged away, coming hard about and streaking across the dark water of the lake, threading its way between moored merchant ships as its speed increased quickly to over forty knots. Out on the forward deck, the crew of the 25mm rotary cannon primed its breeches and prepared for action while others armed the four huge torpedoes in the single tubes on either side of its hull.
Liberty Glo had reached the Bohío Turn – the second last in the approach to the Gatun Locks – within about half an hour of their departure from the anchorage in the upstream mouth of the Chagres River. Sakamoto stood on the bridge, submachine-gun ready beneath one shoulder as the canal pilot stood at the wheel, tired and terrified but nevertheless too smart to make any attempt to protest or escape. He’d seen what the Jap officer had done to the captain and the rest of the crew on watch that morning, and the blood stains that lay all over the deck were a remaining testament to the brutality with which the men had died.
A forty-year old Panamanian national who’d worked the canal his entire life, Rodolfo Sandoval had never seen anything so cold and calculating as the manner in which Sakamoto had stepped onto the bridge and quickly and methodically shot dead every single man present, excepting himself. Sandoval knew he’d only been spared so that he might be put to the task he was now carrying out – that of navigating the canal through to the Gatun Locks – and the terrible knowledge remained that he too would almost certainly be executed in similar fashion the moment they’d reached the end of their transit, the horror of it weighing heavily on his soul as he clutched at the wheel and whispered a silent prayer to the Virgin Mary for guidance and protection.
Down in the engine room, Isaki prowled back and forth as he carefully watched over the handful of crewmen they’d left alive to man the vessel’s oil-fired boilers. Those boilers were straining now at full power, pushing Liberty Glo onward at her top speed of fifteen knots as she cut through the waters of Gatun Lake, gliding easily past dozens of silent, anchored merchantmen all waiting their turn to complete a transit of the canal. They all ran navigation lights for safety, making them clearly visible against the backdrop of a dark and featureless lake dotted with equally dark and featureless islands, and Liberty Glo coasted through with no lights of her own operating, passing like a ghost in the mists of early morning.
There would be no moored vessels in the actual shipping channel itself, marked out by a series of red buoys to port and green to starboard as the ship ran on, heading for the last turn before the locks. They were unnecessary in any case: Sandoval was a twenty-year master of the canal voyage and could navigate any part of the lakes in nothing but starlight, should the need arise. Even now, with fear clouding his mind, his instincts and reflexes held their course true as they approached the last formation of islands to starboard that signalled the Trinidad Turn and the run home to the locks.
As the other two watched over what was left of the crew, Abukara patrolled the very bow of the ship, keeping watch for any danger or threat of attack. They had just a short journey left before they arrived at their destination, and he had been given the honour of ensuring no enemy got in the way or prevented them reaching that objective. Similarly dressed as the others in pristine uniform and hachimaki, it was in terms of armament where Abukara came into his own.
Where the others had been supplied with German-made, silenced submachine guns intended for use in clandestine operations, he had instead been provided a paratroopers variant of the Japanese Army’s standard T
ype-99 light machine gun. It was a later model firing the more powerful 7.7mm rimless cartridge that had been adopted as standard throughout the Japanese military in the last year or so; one that in terms of power was basically identical to the old British .303.
The paratrooper variant came with a removable barrel and stock, along with folding bipod and pistol grip, all packed into a large, canvas carry bag for ease of transportation. He too carried a pair of heavy ammo pouches, each filled with five curved, 30-round magazines identical to the one already fitted to the top of the weapon’s receiver. Light, versatile and one of the more reliable in Japanese service, it was a potent weapon that added significant firepower to the average infantry squad.
Abukara hefted it on both hands now as he stood at the bow railing, carefully watching the approach of bright lights in the sky. It was clearly an aircraft, probably a helicopter judging by the way if jinked this way and that, beams illuminating each sleeping freighter as it passed, and as far as he could tell, it was coming on fast. Abukara didn’t need to guess what they were looking for, and he immediately laid the Type-99’s barrel across the metal railing for support as he reached down and racked the first of thirty rounds into its chamber.
The SH-9B came in low over the water, almost missing the Liberty Glo entirely in the darkness as it gave attention to another nearby vessel at anchorage. The ship’s wake gave her away however, its phosphorescence glowing in the beams of the choppers searchlights and alerting the crew as the Seahawk turned back into the shipping channel. The ship was completely dark as they came up on it from the rear, and that fact combined with the realisation that it was moving against the express orders of the Canal Authority was enough to tell the pilot they’d found their target.
He brought the Seahawk quickly around to the other side of the ship, lining up with the bridge as the gunner on his port side aimed his door-mounted, 30-calibre machine gun and tried to spot any activity through the mostly-dark windows.
The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3) Page 55