Shooting Schedule td-79

by Warren Murphy

  Chiun took in a deep breath that expanded his frail chest.

  "It was Kojong who provided the solution," he continued. "He announced that he was leaving the village to find a place in the outer world. He swore never to pass along the secrets of the sun source, but to pass along the spirit of Sinanju in case there would ever come a time that Sinanju would need it."

  Chiun looked at Sunny Joe Roam. Bill Roam spoke up slowly.

  "We have a legend too," he said. "Of Ko Jong Oh, who came from across the western sea. From the east. He was the first Sunny Joe, for he bore the spirit of Son On Jo. He taught the Indians the ways of peace, how to farm and not hunt the buffalo for meat. He showed the Indians another way, and in gratitude, they, our ancestors, took on the tribal name of Sun On Jo. Each generation, his eldest son would replace him as the guardian of the tribe. Only these sons, which we call Sunny Joes, were allowed to fight. And then only to protect the tribe. For the Sun On Jos believed that if they used their magic powers to kill, it would bring down upon the entire tribe the wrath of the Great Spirit Magician, Sun On Jo-He Who Breathes the Sun. "

  Chiun nodded. "Your words ring true. Kojong understood if he plied the art of Sinanju, the art of the assassin, he would be in competition with the true Master of Sinanju, and would have to be sought out and destroyed, for nothing must interfere with the work of the Master of Sinanju. Not even competition from blood."

  "You think we're kin?" Roam asked slowly.

  "Do you doubt it?"

  Bill Roam paused before answering.

  "When I was young," he said at last, "I believed in it all. A lot has happened to me since then. I'm not sure what I believe now. There are a lot of legends in the world, full of great warriors, civilizers, culture heroes. Just because your legend and mine have a few syllables in common, I don't see that that's any reason to get all worked up about it. Especially now."

  "What happened to you to crush your faith, you who are to your people what I am to mine?" Chiun inquired. Before Bill Roam could answer, a racket outside the meetinghouse caused the assembled Sun On Jos to jump to the windows.

  "Sounds like a tank," Sheryl breathed. Bill Roam pushed his way to the door.

  Outside, the Master of Sinanju joined him. They watched a sand-powdered tank rattle up the road, spinning a slow worm of dust in its wake. Its engine sputtered and missed like a recalcitrant lawn mower.

  "Think we've been double-crossed, chief?" Roam asked Chiun.

  "We are dealing with the Japanese," Chiun replied. "For them not to display treachery would be surprising, not the opposite."

  The tank suddenly stopped. Its engine died out.

  The driver's hatch popped up, and Bill Roam turned and shouted at the faces huddled in the doorway. "Everyone, back inside! I'll handle this!"

  Turning to Chiun, he said, "if I don't make it, I'm counting on you to protect my people. Savvy?"

  Chiun looked up curiously. "You believe?"

  "No. But you do. And I'm going to count on that."

  "Done," said Chiun. His smile was tight.

  A head poked up from the open hatch and a flat voice called out, "Sunny Joe! That you? Man, am I glad to see a friendly face."

  The voice belonged to Bartholomew Bronzini.

  Chapter 18

  On the morning of December 24, Radio Free Yuma went on the air.

  Radio Free Yuma was a lawyer named Lester Cole with a ham radio set in his den. He put out a call to all stations listening on his band. A dentist in Poway, California, acknowledged his QSL.

  "We've been invaded," Lester Cole said tightly. "Get word to Washington. We're cut off. It's the Japanese. They've pulled another Pearl Harbor on Yuma."

  The Poway dentist thanked Lester for his entertaining story and signed off with a curt "Out."

  Lawyer Cole-as he was known to friend and foe alike-had better luck with his second call. He happened to get an Associated Press stringer in Flagstaff. The stringer listened to his story without interruption.

  At the end, Lawyer Cole told the stringer, "You can check this out. We have no phones, no TV, no radio."

  "I'll get back to you. Out."

  The AP stringer confirmed that Yuma was incommunicado. He put in a series of calls to the state capital. No one in Phoenix could explain the problem. The stringer didn't repeat Lawyer Cole's wild invasion story. Instead, he returned to his ham set and tried to raise Cole.

  There was no answer.

  Clarence Giss didn't look at it as betraying his country. Yuma was under curfew. He dared not set foot outside his house because they were shooting anyone caught out-of-doors. Giss lived alone. The way he saw it, America hadn't done much for him. His social-security disability check wasn't even enough to stock his refrigerator properly. Giss had been on disability since a bad acid trip in 1970 made it impossible for him to hold a steady job. As he had explained it to his caseworker, "My foot flips out right regularly. I can't work."

  So when the Japanese rolled in and shut down Yuma, Clarence Giss just settled back to wait. Who knew, maybe things would improve. They couldn't get any worse on only $365 a month.

  He stopped thinking that when the APC rolled down the streets blaring a warning in Japanese.

  "A man is broadcasting his radio," the amplified voice thundered. "This man wirr surrender himserf or one house on every street wirr be set on fire."

  Clarence Giss didn't want to lose his house. He also knew that the man who owned the only ham set in the neighborhood had once beat him good on a vandalism charge. He also had a feeling the Japanese didn't intend to let anyone out before they set their fires.

  But most of all, Clarence Giss was out of beer.

  He stripped off his sweaty undershirt and attached it to a mop handle with a rubber band. Giss waved his makeshift white flag out a window and waited for a response.

  Presently an APC pulled up and two Japanese came to his door. They pounded on it with their rifle butts. "I know who's doing the broadcasting," he told them through the door.

  "Terr us name."

  "Sure thing, but I want something in return."

  "What do you want?"

  "A beer."

  "Terr us name and we wirr bring you biru," he was told.

  "His name's Lester Cole. He's a lawyer. Lives six or seven houses down, this side of the street."

  The soldiers humped down the street at top speed. Clarence could hear them break in Lawyer Cole's door all the way up the street. There came a pause. Then a shot. Two. Two more. Then silence.

  Clarence Giss was shaking when the soldiers returned to his door. He opened it a crack. One soldier shoved a can of Buckhorn through the crack.

  "Here," he said, "biru."

  "Much obliged," Clarence said hoarsely.

  "Maybe we can do business again sometime." The soldiers went away and he returned to his living room, where he popped the pull-tab. Clarence Giss took a short swig and started crying uncontrollably.

  The beer was warm.

  When the AP stringer finally gave up on reaching Lester Cole, he thought long and hard. He decided that the transmission was not a hoax. He called his boss.

  "I know it sounds insane," he said after he finished relating his story, "but there was something in the guy's voice. And I haven't been able to raise him since."

  "Did you say Yuma?"

  "Yeah. My atlas puts it near the border."

  "Something came over the wire about a funny TV transmission from Yuma," the AP desk man said slowly. "Sounded like filler-story material. Hold up. It's on my desk here somewhere. Here it is. Get this. Station KYMA went off the air yesterday, along with two other Yuma stations. Now KYMA is back, showing what looks like war footage. Executions. Hangings. Bizarre snuff-film kinda stuff. It's been going on all day. People have been watching it, thinking it's some kind of grisly movie, but there's no plot. It's just atrocities."

  "What do you think?"

  "I think I'd better boot this upstairs. Back to you later. "

 
The networks had the story of the weird TV transmission by noon, Pacific standard time. They broke into regular programming with footage videotaped off network affiliates in Phoenix. An entire nation watched in shock the sight of foreign troops occupying an American city. That it was a city hardly anyone outside of Arizona had heard of, or could place on a map, didn't matter. Most Americans couldn't find Rhode Island if it were outlined in red. They watched as fellow Americans were hunted through the streets and bayoneted to death. Footage of the Ziffel family gunned down as they were trimming their Christmas tree was seen in all fifty states. The capture of MCAS Yuma and Luke Air Force Range was shown in all its grisly spectacle.

  Among the viewers was the President of the United States. His face looked like dried white clay even though everyone else in the White House Situation Room was sweating. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were clustered behind him.

  "This is the worst thing that could happen, Mr. President," Admiral Blackbird said angrily. "Now the whole world will know."

  "What could they want?" the President said half to himself. "What do they hope to gain from this?"

  "If the world sees this," the admiral continued, "then we'll look weak. If we look weak, then some aggressor nation could see this as an opportune time to strike. For all we know, this could be a diversionary action."

  "I disagree," said the Secretary of Defense. "Every reconnaissance flight, every surveillance satellite shows the world situation to be quiescent. The Russians are on standdown. The Chinese are minding their own business. And our supposed allies, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, are not mobilized."

  "I've spoken with the Japanese ambassador," the President said, turning from the screen to face the Joint Chiefs. "He assures me that his government has nothing to do with this."

  "We can't exactly take an assurance like that on faith," Admiral Blackbird sputtered. "Remember Pearl Harbor."

  "Right now I'm thinking of the Alamo. We've got an American city held hostage. They're slaughtering people indiscriminately. But why? Why broadcast it?"

  Admiral Blackbird drew himself up stiffly. "Mr. President, we could debate the whys until the next century, but we've got to knock out those transmissions at their source. They're practically commercials for American military impotence. The loss of prestige will be incalculable. "

  "Am I hearing you right?" the President snapped. "Are you talking about prestige when we're helpless witnesses to a slaughter?"

  "You've got to understand the geopolitical reality of deterrence," the admiral insisted. "If we lose face in front of our competitors on the world stage, we might as well fall on our swords. They'll come after us like pit bulls. We must neutralize the situation."

  "How? We've already been over the military options. There's no way we can mount a full-scale assault without huge civilian casualties."

  "This is going to be hard for you to understand, but please try," said the admiral. "During the Vietnamese action, we regularly faced operational dilemmas such as Yuma. Sometimes we were forced to resort to extreme measures to prevent certain villages from being overrun by enemy forces. Regrettable as it was from the human-factor standpoint, we had to destroy certain villages in order to save them."

  The President of the United States took an involuntary step backward.

  "Are you suggesting that I order an air strike on an American city?" he asked coldly.

  "I see no other alternative. Better we show the world that we're not going to flinch from the tough decisions when it comes to protecting our borders. Do this and I guarantee there'll never be another Yuma."

  The President's mouth came open. The words on the tip of his tongue never came out because, behind him, the endlessly repeating images of slaughter and death were replaced by the benign face of an old Japanese man. He began speaking in a quavering voice.

  "My humble name is unimportant, but I am pleased to call myself Regent of Yuma," he said.

  Every man in the Situation Room watched him in silence. The old man was seated at a desk. The white flag of Japan was spread out on the wall behind him. The red rising sun precisely circled his old head like a bloody halo. He resumed speaking.

  "In my country we have a saying, 'Edo no kataki wo Nagasaki de utsu.' It means 'Take revenge at an unexpected place.' I have done this in the name of Showa, known to you as Emperor Hirohito. He was my emperor, whom I served with honor, and whom you humbled. Although he is with his ancestors, I now exalt him with this mighty deed."

  "Nagasaki?" said the Secretary of Defense. "Didn't we nuke that city once?"

  "If the American President is watching me," the old man continued, "I bring you greetings. I regret the loss of life, but it is necessary. I fear it will, and must, continue until the American government has surrendered itself to me. Sayonara."

  The picture went black. Then another film clip came on the screen. It showed a man being held down while a tank ran over his head. At the bottom of the screen a legend flashed. It read, "The Execution of the Mayor of Yuma by New Imperial Army Forces."

  "He's mad!" the President said. "Does he think we'll really surrender?"

  "I don't know what that old rice-gobbler thinks," Admiral Blackbird growled, "but I implore you to consider my advice before the Russians or Chinese decide to take advantage of this."

  "Hold on," the President said, leaping for the door.

  "Where are you going?" the Secretary of Defense demanded.

  "To the john," the President flung back. "I've been drinking coffee for nearly twenty-four hours straight. If I don't relieve my bladder, we're all going to be pushing mops."

  The President did go to the john this time. When he was finished, he slipped into the Lincoln Bedroom and got on the red telephone to Dr. Harold W. Smith. "Smith. Anything?"

  "No word from my people."

  "How do you interpret that?" the President asked anxiously.

  "Knowing them," Smith said tonelessly, "if they haven't intervened in the Yuma Emergency by now, I must conclude that they are either dead or incapacitated."

  "The chairman of the join Chiefs is pressuring me to take out Yuma," the President said after a pause.

  "I wish I could offer you some hope," said Smith, "but there is something to the admiral's argument. As a last resort, of course."

  The President was silent for a long time. Smith broke in reluctantly.

  "Mr. President, I saw the recent transmission. That man who called himself Regent of Yuma is the man I've been trying to locate for you, Nemuro Nishitsu, head of the Nishitsu Group."

  "How could a conglomerate mount an invasion?"

  "If you are asking me how in operational terms," Smith replied, "the answer to that is that they have the resources of a small country. In fact, it would not be far from the truth to categorize Nishitsu as a country without borders. Thanks to its many offices and factories, it has a presence in virtually every developed nation. I have been looking into the company's background. There is a disturbing pattern. Nemuro Nishitsu founded the firm shortly after World War II. At first, it was an electronics firm. It began expanding during the days of the transistor revolution. They made cheap radios, things of that sort. By the early seventies they had subsidiaries manufacturing cars, computers, VCR's and other highticket items. More recently they have branched out into global communications and military equipment. You might remember the attempt by one of their subsidiaries to buy out an American ceramics company last year. You yourself stopped it when it was brought to your attention that this company manufactured critical nuclear-weapons components."

  "I remember. There was no way I could allow that to happen. "

  "Unfortunately, this is also the company you permitted to manufacture the Japanese version of the F-16."

  "Oh, my God," the President gasped. "That explains how they were able to outfight us in our own fighters. Their pilots had trained in the Japanese version."

  "Regrettable, but true."

  "What about Nishitsu himself?"

  "He was,
by all accounts, a fanatic follower of the emperor during the war. He has become something of a recluse in recent years, with a history of psychiatric and medical problems dating from the time he was extracted from the Burma jungle. These were thought to have been temporary. Once he had been reassimilated in Japanese society, he was considered perfectly normal."

  "Does he have a wife, a family? Someone we could contact. Maybe he could be talked out of this."

  "No family. They died when the atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki. If you're looking for a motive for his actions, you might not go any further than that."

  "I see," the President said distantly. "Then there is nothing you can do for me. "

  "I am sorry, Mr. President."

  "Of course. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to make one of the most difficult decisions of my presidency." The President woodenly hung up the red telephone. He turned on his heel and walked in his tennis shoes to the Situation Room. He felt his gorge rise just thinking about the decision he faced. But he was the nation's commander in chief He would not shirk his responsibilities to America, or to the people of Yuma.

  Chapter 19

  Bartholomew Bronzini was adamant.

  "Absolutely, positively, no fucking way!" he bellowed. Then he screamed and fell to his knees. He clawed at the dirt outside the meetinghouse on the Sun On Jo reservation. His eyes were wide with pain but he couldn't see anything except a kind of visual white noise. "Arrgghh!" he cried.

  A stern voice intruded upon his agony. It was the voice of the tiny Oriental, Chiun.

  "Since you do not appear to understand the enormity of your position, Greekling, then I will repeat it," Chiun was saying. "The Japanese leader has offered the lives of the children of any school I choose in return for you. This tragedy is your doing. If you have any honor, you will agree to be handed over to this man."