An alarm went off in the helicopter pilot’s earphones.
“Missile launch!” he shouted. His hand reached over to arm the countermeasures.
Konaka’s head whirled around to look at the pursuing helicopter. He knew the helicopter had no missiles. His eyes grew wide as he stared at the Stinger that charged away from the side of the helicopter. The missile flew in a corkscrew pattern then wandered off on a course destined to miss them. Konaka gave the missile a last worried glance then turned to see how Namiki, his nuclear expert was coming with arming the bombs. On cue, Namiki looked up and nodded to confirm that he was ready to arm at any time.
Hendrick kept staring at the missile and the fragile smoke trail it left in the air. Miraculously the missile changed course and began to head straight for Konaka’s helicopter.
“It’s locked on!” said Hendrick excitedly. Maggie smiled through an anxious glance at him. Hendrick watched with mounting anticipation as the Stinger rapidly closed in on the heat radiated by the helicopter’s two powerful engines.
Suddenly a number of glowing objects flew from the rear of the helicopter fanning out in a semicircle. Hendrick watched in disbelief as the Stinger adjusted course again and went after the floating missile countermeasure flares. The missile flew swiftly into the middle of three white-hot flares and detonated harmlessly far behind the fleeing helicopter.
Konaka gasped at the close call. With a steel will he calmed himself and turned to face one of his followers.
“We should shoot them down, Konaka-san,” said one of his followers.
“The helicopter has no more armament. It poses no danger to us,” replied Konaka in measured tones. He eyed the helicopter in the distance. “I doubt if they could catch up to us now.” Konaka smiled, the hard lines cracking into unfamiliar shapes, to show his disdain for their pursuers. The startled follower stared at his idol - he had never seen him smile before.
“What happened?” asked Maggie who didn’t believe what she had just seen.
“The Stinger is a heat seeker. It went after the flares they ejected,” Hendrick explained.
Maggie looked at him in despair. She thought for a moment then picked up a microphone. “Maybe the Japanese Air Force can shoot them down. But I don’t know what frequencies they’re using.”
Maggie tried for several minutes switching frequencies and trying all sorts of Japanese phrases incomprehensible to Hendrick. On all but one channel she received only silence. On the one occupied channel she tried unsuccessfully to convince the man on the other end that Tokyo was in danger of annihilation.
“How much time have we got?” asked Hendrick.
Maggie shook her head to convey her uncertainty. “We’ll be over land in about fifteen minutes.”
Hendrick looked about for any other weapons and only came up with his and Maggie’s machine guns. “Can you get close enough for a shot at them with these?” He held up one of the weapons.
“The fuselage is armor plated as well as the rotors, and if we get in front of them they’ll just blow us out of the sky with their cannon,” replied Maggie. “I don’t understand why they haven’t shot us down already.”
“We’ve got to do something!” retorted Hendrick as panic gripped him once again. “Get up close to them, but underneath them. Maybe I can damage the bombs so they won’t detonate.”
“It’s worth a try,” said Maggie grimly. She adjusted the controls and tested the throttle to put all possible speed on the helo.
They slowly caught up to Konaka’s helicopter, which had increased speed after they had detected Hendrick’s missile launch. Maggie took up a station below and fifty yards behind Konaka’s helicopter. Hendrick leaned out the right side window with Maggie’s Mini-Uzi. Concentrating on one of the bombs, he fired a full clip in and around the bomb, seeing the bullets bounce off the hard steel casing.
Konaka’s helicopter suddenly made an evasive maneuver swinging hard to the right and gaining altitude. Maggie gamely went after them and Hendrick put another clip into the bomb and its mounting rack. If the rack is damaged so that the bombs won’t release, then they won’t arm them, thought Hendrick desperately, and they’ll have to abort the entire mission. He ran out of Uzi ammunition and switched to the AK47 he had picked up from the deck of the ill-fated Akita Maru.
After more evasive maneuvering by Konaka’s helicopter, Hendrick put his final burst into the bomb rack and watched closely as one of the bombs began to wobble in the air stream passing under the aircraft’s fuselage. The wobble increased in amplitude until it broke free of the bomb rack and began to fall away from the aircraft.
“What happened?!” thundered Konaka as he noticed a red light on Namiki’s control panel.
The nuclear expert looked up at his leader with a white face. “One of the bombs dropped!”
Konaka’s mouth fell open in undignified amazement. “How is it possible?” The fear of not completing his mission suddenly became real.
Namiki shook his head. “The gunfire. It must have destroyed the bomb rack.”
Konaka moved quickly forward to stand behind the pilot. “Turn around and blow that aircraft out of the sky!” he ordered at the top of his lungs.
“We cannot!” shouted Namiki. Konaka gave him a surprised and savage look. “The bomb is armed!” said Namiki in a loud voice.
“Oh, my God!” shouted Maggie as her eyes followed the bomb downward until it passed out of sight below them. She glanced ahead. The coastline of Japan was a thin line on the horizon.
“What’s our altitude?” asked Hendrick desperately.
“Seven thousand feet,” replied Maggie.
“It’s supposed to detonate at a thousand meters, about three thousand three hundred feet,” said Hendrick.
“If it detonates, at least it’ll be over the Pacific and not the city itself,” said Maggie.
“We had better put as much distance between us and the bomb as we can,” said Hendrick in a shaky voice. “Can this thing go any faster?” He gave Maggie a frantic look.
“I don’t think so,” replied Maggie in a voice filled with dread. “How much time have we got?”
“Don’t know,” said Hendrick in a quiet voice. A ball of ice seemed to form in his stomach. He turned to look back.
“Don’t look at it!” screamed Maggie.
The interior of the helicopter was suddenly filled with blinding light.
CHAPTER 40
Samurai Sun
OFF THE COAST OF JAPAN
The fierce light grew swiftly in intensity until Hendrick could barely look at the console in front of him. He closed his eyes and reached out to touch Maggie’s arm.
“Brace yourself!” he shouted. He gripped the armrest tightly with his other hand.
The glare from the nuclear blast hit its peak then dimmed slightly. Suddenly the helicopter felt as if a huge hand pounded it from the rear. The shock wave from the detonation forced the aircraft to fly forward at greatly increased speed for a few seconds, causing it to veer wildly out of control.
With the roaring of the nuclear burst in their ears, Maggie fought desperately with the controls trying to right the aircraft, which nearly somersaulted in the face of the shock wave and the following strong winds. They spent a harrowing few moments facing straight down as the helicopter was tossed before the blast. The wind at their back subsided quickly then reversed itself, turning into an incredibly strong headwind in a few seconds.
The wind finally decreased to near normal, leaving their aircraft spinning downward out of control. Maggie gritted her teeth and wrestled with the controls until she finally righted the aircraft just three hundred feet above the water. She let out an exhausted and relieved sigh, settling for flying straight and level for a moment.
Hendrick began to breathe again. He looked out the right side window, gaping at the startling mushroom cloud, the signature of a nuclear detonation.
Ken-Ichi Murata was pulled into the launch by three of the crewmembers of the Eastern C
onveyor. They struggled to get him aboard, and when they finally got him over the gunwale, they winced at the sight of his face. The bullet fired by Hendrick from Bakhtin’s firing knife had left Murata without part of his face. The left side of his jaw had been shattered. Murata held his face together in his hands.
Murata lay in the bilge with his mouth opening and closing, working to get as much air into his lungs as possible. He choked then vomited, then tried to compose himself and failed miserably. The crewmen pulled him upright and sat him on one of the seats on the boat. A sudden shudder went through him from the pain of his wound as well as the chill from the sea. One of them put a blanket around him, but it didn’t immediately diminish his shivering. The pain in his face had been severe, but was lessening as he lost blood. He thought that he was going into shock.
Murata turned and looked around at the mushroom cloud in the distance. He estimated that the blast was fifty miles away. What had happened to make Konaka drop a bomb early?
All the men that Konaka had sent on board the ill-fated Akita Maru were gone, one hundred of them, adding to the loss of eighty-five men in the battle on Tung-yin Tao. He still had a reserve force of fifty on the Eastern Conveyor, but his private army had taken a serious blow.
Most importantly, the gold Konaka had taken from the pirate Chang was still safely on board the Eastern Conveyor, all seven hundred million dollars of it. All was not lost, quite the contrary, he thought. Konaka will destroy the world’s economy, and the gold will be very useful for ruling Japan.
Murata’s shaking stopped as he thought of the Shinri no Kiro finally achieving its sacred mission. He would see the second huge blast to the east, and he would know that Konaka’s plan was complete. He had the thought that he better get on board before Konaka vaporized Tokyo. He had to get away from the area quickly. His boat was within five hundred yards of the ship and approaching it quickly. In a few minutes, I’ll be aboard safe and warm, and the medical staff will begin to put my face back together, he thought as a wave of dizziness passed over him.
There was no stopping any of them now.
“Fire Two,” said Golubev. The inside of the submarine was filled with the sounds of compressed air driving the weapon out of the torpedo tube. Golubev glanced at the fire control crewman who nodded to himself.
“Torpedo is operating normally,” he said to Golubev.
The old Russian looked through the periscope again and shook his head at the freighter that sat before them dead in the water. Like shooting chickens on the farm, he thought. Too easy. He squinted into the eyepiece and cranked up the magnification. A small motor launch was approaching the side of the ship.
“There goes our second and last torpedo,” said Ian Howard. “Bloody good that your people got both of them fixed in time.” He hesitated. “You don’t suppose Maggie and Steve could have survived the bomb blast.”
Golubev looked down at the deck, and just shook his head.
“Torpedo is in terminal mode,” said the fire control technician.
They all looked at Howard. He glanced at the stopwatch in his hand.
“Ten seconds to detonation,” said Howard.
Murata heard the whine coming from the sea around him. His blood turned to ice.
He pointed at the sea to ask a crewman what the sound was. The man had a perplexed look on his face and shook his head in consternation. Murata stood, leaning over the railing to stare at the water. The whine got louder and was joined by the sound of sonar pulses as the torpedo went into its terminal homing mode.
The torpedo ran by them at forty knots. Murata’s eyes followed the noise until he ended up staring at the side of his ship. Realization hit him all at once. He opened his mouth to shout, but his mangled face only produced a gurgling noise cut short by the torpedo detonating underneath the keel of the freighter.
The ship was torn in two by the upward blast of the torpedo’s four hundred kilogram warhead. The bow and stern collapsed back to the sea to quickly fall below the waves. A large wave radiated outward from the explosion, engulfing Murata’s small boat, capsizing it.
TEN THOUSAND FEET ABOVE TOKYO BAY
Below them the land turned back to sea as they swept over the narrow neck of the Chiba peninsula and beyond to Tokyo Bay. Konaka’s helicopter not only had survived the blast but had continued its advance on Tokyo. Konaka’s aircraft grew slowly closer as Steve and Maggie gradually caught up to the terrorists once again.
“Uh oh,” said Hendrick as he saw Konaka’s helicopter suddenly turn to point at them.
Maggie gave a shriek and jammed the collective forward and to the right, sending the aircraft into a downward spiral. Hendrick grabbed both arms of his seat and hung on. Seconds later they could hear the thumping of Konaka’s thirty-millimeter cannon. The pilot walked the stream closer to their aircraft in spite of the gyrations Maggie was putting on their helo to escape the deadly stream of shells.
A cannon shell suddenly struck the helo in the center of its fuselage exploding in the cargo bay behind them. Debris and pieces of hot metal rained over the two of them, causing minor wounds in their head, neck, and shoulders. Maggie gave a sharp yell of pain, and Hendrick groaned as he felt blood trickle from his scalp.
An electrical fire started, filling the cargo bay with smoke. Hendrick leaped out of his seat and ran back to fight the fire. Maggie struggled with the controls but managed to level off and keep the helo flying. Hendrick grabbed a fire extinguisher and had the fire out in minutes. He returned to his seat and searched skyward for Konaka’s helicopter.
“I can’t understand why they haven’t finished us off,” said Maggie nervously. Hendrick spotted Konaka’s aircraft far above them. It turned and headed once more for Tokyo.
Konaka’s helicopter began to gain altitude rapidly. Maggie was after them as fast as their aircraft would follow.
“How is this thing? Will it stay in the air a few more minutes?” asked Hendrick.
“It’s surprisingly pretty good,” said Maggie. “I guess they didn’t hit anything vital.”
“We’re still alive. Two miracles in one day. We escaped that first bomb, and they didn’t finish us with their cannon,” said Hendrick, his voice tight with fear.
“If we can sneak up on them again, maybe you can dislodge the second bomb,” said Maggie hopefully.
“We’re out of ammunition,” said Hendrick.
Maggie gave him a desperate, agonizing look.
“There’s only one thing left to do,” said Hendrick.
Maggie looked at him questioningly but with a horrified air. She knew the answer.
“We have to ram them,” said Hendrick slowly.
Konaka stared at Namiki who visibly shook as he looked over his control panel.
“Is the second bomb armed?” asked Konaka in a quiet voice.
Namiki’s shaking grew in amplitude as he answered his leader. “Yes, it is armed, Konaka-san.”
“The near miss has disturbed you?” Konaka asked in a voice bordering on compassion.
“It was unexpected,” explained Namiki.
Konaka’s gaze swept over his followers who sat on the bench seats lining either side of the helicopter. They hadn’t reacted to the nuclear blast in the distance behind them. They had the correct attitude. They were the new samurai.
“The way of the samurai is found in death,” intoned Konaka, quoting the Hagakure, the classic of the bushido philosophy, the Way of the Warrior. “To do what we know must be done, we must expect death. We are the allies of death. Death is our friend. Through death we will achieve our goals and allow Japan to achieve true greatness.”
“Let us hope that you are talking about the death of our enemies,” said Namiki in a low voice.
Konaka’s hard lines turned to granite. “In a few moments, we shall see whose death we are talking about.”
Maggie had the throttle wide open and the helicopter straining to catch up with the large military helicopter containing Konaka and the one remaining ato
mic bomb.
“We’re falling farther behind!” yelled Hendrick over the rotor noise.
Maggie shook her head in panic and tried to shove the throttle further open. “They’re gaining altitude! They have a higher ceiling than we do.”
They both watched in despair as the dark helicopter steadily pulled away from them.
“They’re gaining altitude to buy time to get away from the blast,” explained Hendrick. He quickly looked down at the city trying to assess how much time they had remaining. The Japanese Emperor’s Palace gardens were easy to find. It was the largest green area below them. Namiki had told them that ground zero was the Nippon TV Network building which Hendrick thought to be west of the Emperor’s Palace. A cold feeling ran over him. They were almost there.
Konaka looked out over the city and nearly smiled once again. Whoever was in the pursuing helicopter had probably crashed by now, he thought. The aircraft had been steadily losing altitude and had smoke issuing from a gaping hole in its side. They had made a valiant effort, and he respected them for it. But they had given their lives for a corrupt system, and they were fools for doing so.
Anticipation welled up in him, and he felt as if he was going to burst with satisfaction. The moment was upon him. They were seconds away from dropping their last bomb.
Thoughts of his grandfather filled his mind. The government, which had harassed him, made him lay down his sword, stripped him of his authority, and then had killed him for his act of ultimate defiance would soon be destroyed. He would show them the power of the samurai.
Hidden Sun Page 43