INCEPTION (Projekt Saucer, Book 1)

by W. A. Harbinson

  ‘It sure as hell isn’t New York,’ Bradley said, turning back to face Joan across the glass-topped wickerwork table and appreciating the warmth of her girlish smile, the sunlit sheen of her auburn hair.

  ‘Don’t even think about New York,’ she said. ‘We’ll be back there soon enough. Let’s enjoy what we’ve got while we’ve got it. I’m blossoming just sitting here.’

  ‘You look it. Making love must be therapy.’

  ‘All men are disgustingly vain,’ she said, ‘and you’re just praising yourself.’

  He had to smile at that. ‘Touché, my sweet. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see you smile. I thought I’d lost that forever. I nearly did, didn’t I?’

  ‘I’ll admit, I was worried.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry anymore. I’ve put it all firmly behind me. Not meaning to discuss New York, but I’m satisfied to be back in Manhattan, doing what I’m supposed to do.’

  ‘You’re such a good lawyer,’ she told him. ‘I hate to see that talent wasted. I really didn’t mind you doing that unofficial snooping for General Taylor during your trips overseas, but the thought of you becoming involved in official intelligence gathering made me real scared.’

  ‘You’ve read too many novels, Joan.’

  She smiled at that. ‘Yes, I suppose so... But I also know how involved you can become – and were becoming over Wilson – so I’m glad you changed your mind and went back to legal work.’

  ‘I’ll now settle into my respectable middle age and watch my married kids make mistakes with their kids.’

  ‘There are worse ways of growing old.’

  It was a wise remark that made him appreciate her all the more and count his lucky stars that their marriage hadn’t been destroyed by that Wilson business.

  Unfortunately, once he thought of Wilson, he also thought of Gladys Kinder, whose letters from London were still arriving at his Manhattan office, bringing him news of the war in Great Britain, along with plenty of teasing, oddly disconcerting sexual comments.

  No longer could he doubt that he had been instantly attracted to the woman, maybe dangerously so. If that feeling normally would have faded with the passing years, her letters were resolutely keeping the memory of her alive. Now, though he certainly enjoyed reading the letters, his rapprochement with Joan made him wish that Gladys Kinder would stop writing and let him forget her. He hadn’t laid a hand on her, nor even made a move toward her, but her letters, piling up over the years, made him feel that he had.

  Suddenly realizing just how treacherous emotions could be, and frightened by how close he had come to hurting and losing Joan, he reached across the table to squeeze her hand.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘There are worse ways of growing old. And we have such good kids to be concerned with. I want to thank you for that. It was your doing. I love you all the more for it.’

  ‘Oh, God, Mike, shut up. You’re making me blush. Finish your drink and let’s go.

  He grinned. ‘Yep, let’s do that.’

  They drove down the steep, winding road, through lush tropical greenery, past pineapple plantations and rickety, makeshift stores run by Chinese, Japanese, and Hawaiian families, to the road that ran along the seafront of Honolulu, past the Pearl Harbour naval base and adjacent Hickam Field, home of the 17th Army Air Corps. Having decided to eat alone, before meeting Admiral Paris and his wife for drinks in Waikiki, they drove into the centre of Honolulu, through narrow streets filled with bars, pawnshops, Chinese grocery shops, tattoo parlours, and photo galleries, parking near the corner of Maunakea and Hotel Street, outside a window filled with the carcasses of smoked pigs and ducks hung on meat hooks.

  ‘If what we eat looks like what’s in that window,’ Joan said, ‘I don’t think I’ll get through my meal.’

  ‘You’re going to love it,’ Bradley replied. ‘You’ll probably eat like a pig!’

  ‘It’s always so noisy here!’ Joan exclaimed good-humouredly.

  ‘That’s why I love it, dear.’

  They had dinner upstairs in Wu Fat’s Chinese Restaurant, surrounded by gilded decorations and walls painted a garish red, under a high ceiling and rotating fans. The food was delicious, the atmosphere exotic, and Joan, as if to prove Bradley right, ate like a pig.

  ‘So many men in here!' she whispered, wiping sweet-and-sour sauce from her lips.

  Bradley glanced around him and realized that she was right: The place was filled with sailors, marines, and soldiers, some with Chinese, Japanese, or Hawaiian girlfriends, most on their own. Right now they were happy, eating and drinking, having a good time, but he knew that before the night was out there would be lots of fighting. Saturday night in Honolulu was never without its fair share of action, which is why he enjoyed it.

  ‘God help them,’ he said. ‘They’re the social pariahs of Hawaii. Serving your country doesn’t exactly make you popular. Come on, luscious, let’s go.’

  ‘You just want to take me down there to sell me,’ Joan said – in this area of Honolulu, close to the docks, servicemen actually queued up in the streets to get into the brothels located above the shops – ‘but I don’t think I’m worth that much.’

  ‘It’s a fluctuating market,’ Bradley replied, ‘so you might be surprised.’

  Joan’s laugh was surprisingly raucous, making Bradley feel terrific, and he put his arm around as they walked back down the stairs, joined the noisy throng in the street, and eventually drove to Waikiki, four miles farther on.

  ‘We should retire here,’ Joan said, as the taxi cruised along the palm-lined road and she studied the large houses in expansive gardens. ‘For what we pay, you could buy a mansion here and have a really great life: lovely weather, golden beaches, beautiful people. Why are we still in New York?’

  ‘We’re not in New York; we’re in Connecticut.’

  ‘Same difference,’ Joan said.

  Surrounded by the pink walls and Moorish tiles of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, they had cocktails with Admiral Paris and his wife, Marisa, the former a silvery-haired, pink-faced, world-weary handsome man, the latter a raven-haired, good-humoured woman whose features, though formed over fifty years, were those of a carefree woman ten years younger.

  ‘I hope you like that villa we found for you,’ Marisa Paris said as she stirred her exotic cocktail with a straw. ‘Are you happy up there?’

  ‘Blissful,’ Joan replied. ‘The villa’s lovely and the view is stupendous.’

  Marisa sighed melodramatically. ‘Gee,’ she said, ‘I’m glad. I get so nervous finding places for friends of friends. You just never know, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Bradley said. ‘But you picked right, so stop worrying.’

  ‘Taylor told us to take care of you,’ Admiral Paris said. ‘He described you as two very rare birds – friends worth any effort. You’ve obviously warmed his cold heart.’

  Bradley chuckled at that. ‘I’ve never seen his cold heart.’

  ‘Taylor isn’t cold, but he’s tough – and a good judge of people. A man like that I can trust.’

  ‘You’ve known him a long time?’

  ‘Yep. We’ve conducted a friendly rivalry for years: Army against Navy. I claim to sail the high seas, where the air is fresh and healthy, and I tell him he’s just a dog-soldier, a kind of policeman, his nose rubbed in intelligence muck.’

  ‘It’s necessary,’ Bradley said with a nervous glance at Joan.

  ‘Sure it is,’ Paris replied. ‘I know that. I just josh him to score the odd point. He isn’t bothered at all. In fact, right now he’s setting up a kind of centralized intelligence bureau. I’m not sure exactly what kind, but that’s his latest obsession.’

  ‘Marisa,’ Joan said to Paris’s wife, ‘are you going to sit here and let them both talk about their work?’

  ‘No way,’ Marisa said, placing her empty glass on the table and looking melodramatically determined. ‘I’m going to insist we leave right this minute and have us some fun.’

  ‘Right!’ Joan said. />
  ‘Right!’ Bradley added.

  Yet when they left the hotel and drove back to Honolulu, he could not help but feel bitter disappointment at learning that a centralized intelligence agency was being set up and he, who had pushed so strongly for its formation, had not been called. Of course he understood why – he’d told Taylor that he wanted out – but he still felt obscurely betrayed, as if, in some part of his subconscious, he had wanted Taylor to insist that he come in.

  Dammit, he thought, I’m such a hypocrite. I should learn to grow up...

  And yet, as they entered the Naval Officers Club in Pearl Harbour, he looked at Joan’s flushed face, saw the radiance of her smile, and realized that in every possible way he had done the right thing.

  ‘Let’s have the time of our lives,’ he said.

  The dance began late in the evening and went on until the early hours of the morning when the white-jacketed officers and women in flowing ballgowns, most more flushed than they had been six hours before, started drifting away, either back to their quarters on the base or, as the cacophony of revving cars indicated, to their homes in the lushly tropical hills above Waikiki and Diamond Head.

  Because they had been drinking, Bradley and Joan, at the invitation of Admiral Paris, returned to their home in the officers’ quarters, where they had a few hours’ sleep. The next morning, after showering and changing into the less formal clothes they had brought with them, they joined Paris and Marisa for breakfast in their modest kitchen. Outside, in the base and in Honolulu, the church bells were ringing.

  ‘I still feel drunk,’ Marisa said.

  ‘Go to church and confess,’ her husband said.

  ‘You look surprisingly fresh,’ Bradley complimented her. ‘It must

  all be in the mind.’

  ‘It’s in my mind,’ Joan retorted. ‘Or at least in my head. My head

  feels like it’s stuffed in cotton wool. What on earth did we drink last

  night?’

  Admiral Paris laughed and placed his coffee cup back on its saucer. ‘Just a few little cocktails,’ he said. ‘The ones with flags sticking out of

  them.’

  Then his cup rattled in its saucer and the coffee slopped out. ‘What the hell... ?’

  The table shook again as Paris stared down at his cup. The other

  cups and saucers also rattled, then, even as Bradley heard a distant

  explosion, the floor beneath him shook more violently and the

  telephone rang shrilly on a table that was bouncing on the tiled floor. Paris kicked his chair back, picked the telephone up, and was

  listening with widening eyes when the anti-aircraft batteries outside

  started firing. ‘Goddamn!’ Paris exclaimed. ‘Right.’ Then he slammed

  the phone back down and stared at the three of them. ‘We’re being

  attacked by the goddamned Japanese,’ he said. ‘They’ve already

  attacked Wheeler Field and Schofield Barracks. Dammit, those sons of

  bitches caught us napping. Their planes are bombing us right now.’ Even as he spoke, a plane roared low overhead and away again,

  making the house shake. Bradley glanced at Joan, saw her wide,

  confused gaze, then he followed Paris out of the house, to stand on the

  porch.

  A black pall of smoke was already billowing over Pearl Harbour

  and a frightening number of Japanese dive bombers, fighters, and

  torpedo planes were flying in from the sea, their wings glinting in

  brilliant sunlight, to swoop down in waves and bomb and strafe Ford

  Island and the harbour.

  Bradley saw the bombs dropping, tumbling over like black birds,

  and heard the awesome blast of the explosions even as fierce balls of

  fire were lifted up on clouds of billowing, oily black smoke over what

  he knew were the battleships near Ford Island and the defenceless,

  parked planes on the airfield nearby.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Joan exclaimed softly behind Bradley. He felt her

  fingers tugging at his shirt, as if to pull him back into her.

  ‘Dammit!’ Paris exclaimed. ‘I’ve got to get back to my ship!’ He

  glanced at his wife. ‘You better get the hell off the base, Marisa. Go

  with Bradley and Joan. Go back to their place up in the hills and I’ll

  call you later. Okay?’

  However, even as he spoke, some Japanese Zeros roared in low

  overhead, through the black puffs of smoke from the American antiaircraft batteries, to pass on and strafe downtown Honolulu and the

  lush hills beyond. A series of explosions tore through the greenery,

  blowing palm trees apart, setting fire to the foliage, filling the air with flames and smoke between the houses dotting the hills, as the planes, their machine guns still chattering viciously, ascended gracefully and

  circled back toward the sea.

  ‘No,’ Marisa said. ‘I’m staying right here.’

  ‘And so am I,’ Joan said.

  ‘Then stay indoors,’ Admiral Paris said. ‘And you better stay with

  them, Mike.’

  ‘I’ll drive you down to the fleet landing,’ Bradley said, ‘then come

  straight back. Marisa might need your car.’

  ‘Right,’ Paris replied. He hurried into the house and came back out

  with his naval jacket, still buttoning it even as he kissed his wife’s

  cheek and slipped into the car. Bradley also kissed Joan, then got into

  the driver’s seat, turned on the ignition, and screeched away from the

  house.

  The Japanese planes were still attacking, whining above the

  explosions and gunfire. Bradley drove past men and women,

  sometimes even children, who were standing on their lawns or porches,

  wearing only pyjamas, dressing gowns, or even underwear, gazing up

  in disbelief at the boiling, black, flame-filled smoke and diving

  Japanese aircraft.

  ‘Christ!’ Paris exclaimed. ‘They even caught us with our aircraft on

  the ground. Ford Island must be a scrapyard!’

  Certainly the fleet landing was a nightmare.

  Even before he had braked to a squealing halt, Bradley saw the

  columns of water spewing up between the boats and ships of the fleet,

  many of which were on fire, pouring black oily smoke, breaking apart

  and sinking, while the barrels of the guns of the anti-aircraft batteries

  and surviving ships spat yellow flames. Balls of fire ballooned

  brilliantly over sinking ships. Sailors in flames were jumping

  overboard. Japanese Zeroes were bursting into flames and falling into

  the sea between the ships and boats, where in a haze of gray, black and

  crimson-tinged smoke more sailors were trying to clamber into

  lifeboats or swimming or drowning.

  Admiral Paris jumped out of the car as it shuddered to a stop,

  slammed the door behind him, looked, appalled, at what was

  happening, then leaned back down to the window and said, ‘Thanks,

  Mike. Now get the hell back to the house and look after our women.’ ‘Will do,’ Bradley said.

  As the admiral hurried off to find a boat to take him to Ford Island

  and Bradley reversed the car, sailors with blistered faces and limbs, their scorched, blackened flesh hanging in strips from blood-smeared bone, were being helped out of whaleboats and carried away on stretchers to the waiting ambulances and hospital trucks. Bradley drove off to a concerto of wailing sirens, blasting ships’ horns, whining planes, dementedly chattering machine guns, pounding anti-aircraft batteries, exploding bombs, and bawling or screaming men. Japanese Zeroes were still winging in low overhead, strafing the base, as he

  drove through the streets of the off
icers’ quarters.

  Hardly believing what was happening, Bradley was further shocked

  when he stopped in the driveway of Admiral Paris’s house. Bullets had

  smashed the concrete paving and stitched a line up the front wall,

  broken the windows, and peppered the roof.

  Mesmerized for a moment by the sight of the broken windows,

  Bradley finally raced into the house. Then stopped in his tracks when,

  just inside the living room, he saw Marisa rocking Joan in her arms and

  trying to wipe the blood from her soaked clothing as she wept over her. ‘Oh, God!’ Marisa choked out between her sobs. ‘Oh, God, please!

  Oh, God, Please!’

  In one hideous second Bradley took in the bullet-stitched walls,

  smashed picture frames and furniture, glass-strewn floor, and Joan in

  Marisa’s arms, both covered in blood. Going down on one knee, he

  saw that the blood was Joan’s, heard an anguished groan, realized it

  was his own, then reached out to touch Joan’s forehead. It was icy

  cold.

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’ he said.

  Her breast and stomach were covered in blood and her breathing

  was harsh.

  ‘Call an ambulance!’ he heard a woman screaming hysterically –

  then realized it was actually his own voice and shuddered convulsively. ‘I’ve already called for an ambulance, Marisa said, sobbing, ‘but

  they’re all so damned busy. But they’re coming. They’re coming!’ ‘Joan!’ Bradley hissed despairingly. ‘

  Joan !’

  She opened her eyes. ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered, ‘it hurts.’ Her eyes

  were dazed, but she gradually recognized him and gave him a weak

  smile. ‘My man,’ she said. ‘My ever-loving, handsome husband. What

  a fine face you have.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Bradley said.

  ‘I’m all right,’ Joan said. ‘Aren't I?’