Hidden Sun

by John Campbell

  “All right. This is the main event,” said Hendrick grimly. “And the sailors have been knocked out. It’s up to us.”

  The distinct lack of gunfire from the sailors drove home Hendrick’s point. They all felt the ship begin to slowly accelerate.

  “We can’t stay here on the bridge,” said Maggie. “Too big a target. I don’t understand why they haven’t hit us already.”

  Takahata and Bakhtin suddenly thought of the location of their own men. There were four SVR agents scattered throughout the superstructure and an equal number of Naicho.

  “We will take the starboard side,” said Bakhtin as he cocked his Kedr submachine gun.

  “And we will take the port side,” said Takahata.

  “Good luck, Samurai,” said Bakhtin to the Naicho leader.

  “And luck to you, Cossack,” replied Takahata.

  Hendrick automatically moved to go with Bakhtin. He turned around to see if Maggie was following him, but she was on the port side of the bridge. Their eyes locked for a moment. The expression on Maggie’s face summed up all the anguish their relationship had experienced in the past few days but with an added component. Fear.

  Hendrick knew they were going into a battle against overwhelming odds. Would they see each other again? Would they be alive five minutes from now? Hendrick wanted to rush over and crush her body to his, unleashing all his pent up frustrations and passion. He wanted the world to go away and float in a utopia with Maggie. He wanted …

  Suddenly Maggie was gone, out the port door, out to fight their extremely capable enemy. Bakhtin went in front of Hendrick out the starboard door. Hendrick lingered for a moment, Maggie filling his mind. Then he ran after Bakhtin.

  They made their way down the superstructure, Bakhtin gathering his men to brief them. Bakhtin had decided to take up positions behind the starboard side deck crane to try to defend the superstructure and the bridge from assault by Konaka’s black-clad troopers. Hendrick could think of no better plan and made no objection. They exited a starboard door leading to the main deck and ran the few feet to the base of the large deck crane. Some M16s opened up on Konaka’s soldiers fired by the few brave Japanese sailors who were still alive. The attackers went after them with speed and efficiency silencing them forever in a few short minutes. Bakhtin and Takahata used the time to get set behind the cover of deck equipment.

  Hendrick looked about for a weapon and spotted an M16 next to a fallen sailor. He was halfway to it when Konaka’s commandoes opened fire on the SVR agents. Gunfire filled the air around the crane with lead, sending ricocheting bullets in every direction. Hendrick hit the deck and crawled the last few feet to the unused weapon. He wrestled a clip belt from around the waist of the dead sailor and fastened it around his own waist. He checked out the rifle then slid over next to Bakhtin.

  “So, Stephen, my American friend, you fight side by side with the Sluzhba,” said Bakhtin over the gunfire.

  “Yeah, let’s hope that I survive with the Sluzhba as well,” grunted Hendrick as bullet fragments sprayed about them.

  An explosion on the port side filled the air with a concussive blast.

  “I think half the Naicho were just wiped out,” said Bakhtin. “We’re really on our own now.”

  Hendrick instinctively looked for Maggie and saw her blond hair bobbing behind a control station for one of the deck cranes. She was crouched down with her eyes jammed shut to avoid being blinded by the debris that rained about her and the rest of the Naicho. A second later she half stood and fired her Uzi around the edge of the control station at their attackers.

  Guts, thought Hendrick. She has guts. He redirected his attention forward and saw two black-clad men proceeding slowly toward his position along the starboard gunwale. After double-checking that the safety was off, he flipped the weapon on full automatic. He swung around the base of the deck crane and rapidly got Konaka’s men in his sights. He squeezed the trigger and sent a half clip into the two men, leaving them dying on the deck.

  Another grenade went off, this time much closer than before. He could hear some of the SVR agents cry out with surprise and pain. A host of automatic weapons fired at their position, sending all of them scrambling to the deck. Hendrick looked about, trying to assess their situation. Two SVR agents were obviously dead, their twisted bodies uncaring at the latest barrage from Konaka’s men.

  A grenade skittered along the deck past the deck crane to stop ten feet away from both Hendrick and Bakhtin. They instantly knew what it was and both leaped for it, but the younger American got to it first. He scooped his hand under it and with one fluid motion lifted it into the air over the gunwale. The grenade dropped over the side, exploding before it hit the water.

  Hendrick turned to yell to Bakhtin, but a grenade explosion on the port side made him throw himself flat on the deck, shielding his face with his arm. He peered over his forearm and saw Maggie stagger away from their cover, helping Takahata who was obviously wounded. The rest of the Naicho littered the deck unmoving.

  “Bakhtin! Let’s go!” He waved frantically in the direction of the superstructure. The Russian SVR agent looked around and immediately saw that their position was untenable. He turned and yelled into the ear of the man next to him, then watched in horror as a blast from one of their attackers’ automatic weapons nearly decapitated him. Bakhtin cringed at the sight then grabbed the arm of his remaining man and ran for the open door in the side of the superstructure, the door they had left only minutes before.

  Hendrick crawled on all fours as fast as he could possibly travel. He reached the doorway, got behind the bulkhead, then peered around the doorway to cover Bakhtin’s retreat. The remaining two Russians scrambled along the deck amid a hail of gunfire a bare foot over their heads.

  Another grenade arched through the air over the base of the deck crane and landed a yard behind the two Russians. Hendrick shouted a warning, but it was lost among the rattle of gunfire. Three agonizing seconds later, the grenade exploded, sending the bulk of its shrapnel into the back of Bakhtin’s last man. Some large pieces of shrapnel struck Bakhtin in his right shoulder blade and legs, sending him to the deck.

  Hendrick stepped into the doorway and fired a long burst from his M16 emptying the clip. He could see Konaka’s men duck behind various pieces of deck equipment for cover. Hendrick threw the weapon to the deck and ran to Bakhtin. He grabbed him under his arms and dragged him furiously toward the door. He threw the heavy Russian through the door then leaped in on top of him. Seconds later Konaka’s stormtroopers filled the doorway with lead, sending bullet fragments ricocheting off the metal walls of the small room containing Hendrick and Bakhtin. Several hit both men causing them to cry out in pain.

  Hendrick grabbed Bakhtin’s submachine gun with its nearly full thirty round clip and slid along the bulkhead next to the open door. The gunfire let up for a few seconds as Konaka’s men reloaded. Hendrick leaned around the doorway edge, firing a long burst toward the men on the deck. He caught a glimpse of two of them falling and gritted his teeth in fierce satisfaction. You bastard, Konaka, we won’t go without a fight, he thought.

  The noise of the large hovering helicopter suddenly drew his attention. It still hung over the central hold, waiting for the men it dropped to the deck to have their final victory. He pointed the short muzzle of the Kedr skyward and emptied the rest of the clip at the aircraft. The bullets bounced harmlessly off the fuselage. Armored, thought Hendrick. Why not? Konaka had anticipated every move of the Japanese so far.

  Hendrick yanked his head back and slammed the watertight door. He spun the locking lever around to dog down the door. After looking around quickly, he took a fire ax from its cradle on the wall, then jammed it into the door locking mechanism. It might slow them down for a few minutes, he reasoned. Maybe time enough for me to get Bakhtin to safety. But where was safety? He could only think of the bridge. Hendrick pulled Bakhtin over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, causing the Russian to yell with pain, then took the stai
rs two at a time.

  Hendrick burst onto the bridge and quickly laid Bakhtin on the deck. The bridge crew was huddled behind the metal walls below the bridge windows. Hendrick spotted the nuclear engineer, Namiki among them. Seconds later Maggie came in the port side doorway and leaned Takahata against the bulkhead. The Naicho leader had taken three bullets in the legs. Hendrick took a long look at Maggie, seeing blood running down the left side of her face. Maggie glanced at him.

  “Steve, you’re hurt!” she exclaimed. Bullet fragments had left his face and neck bleeding in a dozen places. She left Takahata’s side and scrambled over next to Hendrick.

  “You’re bleeding!” said Hendrick. He reached up to wipe her face.

  She caught his hand and gave him a look of utter desperation. “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. Something exploded two decks below them, jarring them with the shock wave conducted through the metal superstructure. He could imagine the door that he had jammed shut being blown apart. They had only seconds left.

  “Keep fighting,” he said grimly. He picked up Bakhtin’s machine gun and put in a full clip. He cocked it and was ready.

  “Watch out for grenades,” shouted Maggie as she took up a position on the port side.

  Hendrick’s thoughts went to his last resort, his insurance policy to keep the nuclear weapons away from Konaka. He reached into his jacket pocket and felt the small radio he had kept there during his journey to Japan. But would he be there? Should I use it now? His eyes went to Maggie. What would happen to her? He had never expected Maggie to be here with him.

  Hendrick saw movement out of the corner of his eye. His eyes darted over to the port side windows and saw the white helicopter, that had first approached the ship, maneuver closer to land on the ship. Nothing was going right, he thought frantically. He had assumed that the Japanese sailors had shot down that helo with Stingers before the battle on the ship began. The white helo probably had Konaka himself aboard, and it didn’t look armored. If he had to die, then he’d rather take Konaka with him.

  Hendrick half stood and ran over to the port side next to Maggie. He opened the door to the port bridge wing and was about to step out to get a clear shot at Konaka’s helicopter when a voice from behind stopped him.

  “Drop your weapons,” came the clear command.

  Hendrick and Maggie turned their heads in astonishment. Ship’s captain, Fumio Ohsawa and the Japanese nuclear expert, Yasuo Namiki had machine guns pointed at them.

  CHAPTER 38

  The Flash of Lightning

  Steve Hendrick’s and Maggie Ramsey’s weapons clattered to the deck. Ohsawa and Namiki made them back up against the aft bulkhead and put their hands on their heads. Hendrick glanced about, looking for some way out of their desperate situation but could find none. The automatic weapons of their enemies never wavered. Ohsawa picked up the radiotelephone handset and spoke a short sentence into it then hung up. Maggie translated.

  “Clearance for Konaka to land,” she said in a disgusted voice. “Now we know why the bridge wasn’t attacked.”

  “Or why the destroyer never came up to defend us,” said Hendrick.

  “Yes,” confirmed Ohsawa as he eyed them with amusement. “The warship thinks that we are proceeding normally and rendering assistance to a stricken member of our merchant marine.”

  Konaka’s black-clad troopers entered the bridge from both sides simultaneously. They quickly saw who was in command and relaxed. They swiftly searched Hendrick and the others for more weapons. Bakhtin’s Makarov pistol and Maggie’s handgun disappeared into the pockets of Konaka’s men. The crimson characters for the word truth on the chests of Konaka’s men seemingly dripped with the blood of all they had killed. Hendrick exhaled in resignation. There was no hope now - they were surrounded by the enemy.

  Konaka’s helicopter landed aft of the bridge in a blast of noise. A few moments later, Konaka entered surrounded by his bodyguard.

  “You’ll never get away with this, Konaka,” said Hendrick. “The Japanese Defense Force will blow you out of the water when they find out about this. Not to mention the Russians, Americans, British, French and every other civilized country in the world. No one will let you get away with two nuclear weapons.”

  “Ah, but when will the rest of the world find out that the bombs are gone?” asked Konaka smugly. “This ship will continue on its journey followed dutifully by the destroyer assigned to protect it. And we will be on our way with the merchandise.”

  “Masaya Konaka,” gasped Takahata from the deck next to Maggie. They all looked at him. “Leader of Shinri no Kiro.”

  “Return to the Truth,” translated Maggie. “Konaka is one of Japan’s least known but most feared terrorists. Oh God, two nuclear weapons in the hands of -”

  “Yes, a terrible thought indeed,” said Konaka in a bored voice.

  “The plutonium, what will you do with it, Konaka?” asked Maggie. “Poison the water supply of Tokyo?”

  Konaka gave her a look of extreme amusement.

  “You’re going to nuke Tokyo!” gasped Maggie.

  Konaka’s near smile confirmed their fears.

  “How? The fuzes have been removed from the bombs,” said Hendrick. He looked at Namiki. “But, of course, you have other fuzes.”

  “Yes, my fuzes are much more accurate than the primitive ones provided by the Russians,” replied Namiki with pride. “The Russian fuzes were barometer type used for airbursts. The ones I have designed use a radar for an altimeter. Radar pulses are bounced off the ground, and the time of propagation measured. At precisely one thousand meters, the bomb will detonate, creating the maximum overpressure on the government buildings and the Emperor’s Palace, thus destroying the government that we all detest so much. Ground zero will be the Nippon TV Network building. A blast directly above there will provide a shock wave velocity of approximately eighteen hundred kilometers an hour - eleven hundred miles an hour for you Americans - at the Imperial Palace, likewise for the Diet Building, which holds our esteemed legislators. The Ground Self Defense Force Ichigaya Post and the Embassy of the United Kingdom will receive about a two thousand mile per hour shock wave. The American embassy will get slightly over a thousand mile an hour shock wave, and the Russian embassy will get off easily with only a nine hundred mile per hour shock wave. The Tokyo Stock Exchange will be hit by an eight hundred mile per hour shock wave. Total destruction for all of these places will be instantaneous. If the blast does not kill everyone, then the initial radiation dose of one thousand Rems will kill the survivors in two to fourteen days.”

  “How many will die?” asked Maggie in horror.

  “With the enhanced yield of one hundred fifty kilotons provided by our government’s nuclear engineers, we estimate approximately a half million people will be killed outright, and another half million will die during the next month from burns, being trapped in collapsed buildings and, of course, radiation,” explained Namiki in a cold, detached manner. “Total casualties: one million dead, two million injured.”

  “And the second bomb?” asked Hendrick.

  “Yokohama, of course,” said Namiki. “Six hundred thousand killed and over a million injured. Almost five million casualties for both cities.”

  “Why Yokohama?” asked Hendrick.

  “For maximum effect on the economy,” replied Namiki.

  “The Economic Summit,” said Bakhtin, the level of Konaka’s treachery suddenly becoming clear to him. “The leaders of all our countries will die in the blast.” The president of the United States, prime minister of the United Kingdom, and the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia were all in Tokyo at the moment, discussing international economics.

  “Yes, it was fortunate that the transfer of the bombs was simultaneous with the presence of the leaders of the top eight economic countries in the world,” said Konaka. “It fits in nicely with the overall plan.

  “The Japanese economy will collapse due t
o the complete and utter destruction of the stock market and its largest port, and the country will be thrown into chaos with the entire government annihilated.” Konaka had a glint to his eyes. “Because the Japanese economy is so irretrievably linked to the world economy, we will all be treated to the phenomenon of collapse of the international banking industry, and thus the default of the majority of banks around the world. An international monetary crisis of unimaginable proportions! Made worse by the loss of all the heads of the largest economic countries in the world along with their top economic advisers. Think of it! Whole countries defaulting on loans! Economic depressions that will make the one in the 1930s seem like a walk in a rose garden!”

  “And the Shinri no Kiro will take over the government,” said Bakhtin through a grimace.

  “I will create order from chaos, still the wind, smooth the waters. I will be the new emperor of Japan,” said Konaka with a short bow. His taut face turned fierce. “And I will end this system of dependence on the United States and return Japan to its former glory! The constitution forced on us by the Americans after the war will be destroyed, and Article Nine will be publicly burned.”

  “Yes, Article Nine, the clause in our constitution stating that we forever renounce war,” said Takahata. “And I suppose that you will restore the emperor to divine status as in prewar days? You will become divine.”

  Konaka’s fierce look dissolved, and he gave Takahata a slight nod of the head. The gesture was meant to be a show of modesty by the extremist leader, but the others knew it to be the gesture of a megalomaniac.

  “I have no strategy; I make the Right to Kill and the Right to Restore Life my Strategy,” replied Konaka with a wistful tone.

  “Ah yes,” said Takahata. “You are the one who thinks he’s a samurai. So you like to quote the samurai creed. How about this one: I have no armor; I make Benevolence my Armor.”