Blood Red Sun

by Mertz, Stephen

  MacArthur continued, “That special operations unit of yours was directly involved in more than a few highly classified operations, Sergeant, behind enemy lines, against incredible odds. Before Santo Tomas, your unit had a one hundred percent success record. Some of those missions will never see the light of day, even when this war is over. The Solomons, New Guinea … when standard military strategy wasn’t good enough, where a touch of finesse was needed, you and your commandos were called in to adapt and improvise and play as dirty as the enemy, and you always made it home.”

  “Until Santo Tomas. We’d been pushing the odds for a long time, sir. No one’s that good, or that lucky.”

  MacArthur rose from behind his desk and commenced pacing back and forth, across the office.

  “Your file tells us all about you, Sergeant, and that includes,” he paused significantly, “before the war. As I read through your file, as I read over what you and the men of that special unit accomplished, I sense that there is something more than courage behind the audacity with which you staged many of those operations, almost as if you were trying to,” another pause, “commit suicide by putting yourself in as much danger as humanly possible.”

  “I took what was handed me, sir.”

  “Indeed. You’re a damn good soldier, none better. You say you miss the fire from time to time. Well, mister, I’m about to hand you a ticket back into where the fires burn hottest, if you’re ready.”

  “I’ve been ready since they broke up the unit and stuck me behind that desk, General.”

  MacArthur snorted at that. “Know what you mean. Terrible things, desks.” He threw a contemptuous look at his own. “I do believe they breed at night when no one’s around to watch, and that bureaucrats are their spawn.” As he paced, he alternated between drawing on the cold pipe and gesturing with it often for emphasis when he spoke. “We have good reason to believe that there is a General Goro in the mountains to the north of us who is right now orchestrating a major counteroffensive.”

  “Word around my desk is that all that’s left of the Japs on Luzon are disorganized bands up in the mountains,” Ballard said.

  “Seventy thousand of them,” Eichelberger said glumly. “Determined to fight to the death.”

  Krueger spoke, addressing Ballard directly. “The Japs are vastly outnumbered, of course, but Bull Halsey learned from the kamikaze at Midway how much damage a handful of madmen can do. The Japs know those mountains and every inch of that jungle. My boys have been engaged in a sniper war for ten months, sometimes hand-to-hand. They’re worn out, and in some areas my forces are severely depleted. If there is an enemy counteroffensive coming, I’ll admit we could use some help.” He studied Ballard. “But with all due respect, Sergeant, I’m just not sure you’re it.”

  “You may be right, sir,” Ballard said from parade rest, eyes straight ahead. “I don’t know yet what the hell it is you gentlemen want me to do.”

  Krueger bristled visibly at that. Eichelberger chuckled.

  MacArthur spoke, “A Filipino guerrilla unit thinks they’ve located Goro’s base camp. It’s located in the jungle approximately five kilometers north of Malolos. We have formulated a plan which will short circuit General Goro, whatever his intentions. If Goro is at that base and we attack with an open show of force, he and every last man there will fight to the death and we’ll have learned nothing.”

  “What we need, Sergeant, is the big picture,” said Eichelberger, “and this Jap general can give it to us. When we know what Goro can tell us, then General Krueger’s forces can move in on that base.”

  “You want me to lead a team in and bring this Nip general out,” said Ballard. “You want Goro kidnapped from his own base camp.”

  “Very perceptive, Sergeant, not to mention correct, but first things first.” Krueger continued to measure Ballard with every word. “You may as well know that I’ve expressed reservations over this idea because I don’t cotton to letting so much ride on one such mission. I respect what you and your men were able to accomplish with missions such as this. General MacArthur thinks you’re the best special operations man we’ve got, and after sizing you up for myself, I’m inclined to agree. But the intelligence supplied by the Filipino guerrillas also says Goro has at least two hundred men with him at that base. I don’t care how good you are, you’ll have to admit those are mighty tall odds. If the Japs discover, kill, or capture you, then they’ll know we’re onto them and that won’t be any good for my boys.”

  “This is what it boils down to, Sergeant,” said MacArthur. “Do you think you can do it? Do you stand a chance of pulling off something like this? Can you somehow penetrate Goro’s perimeter under cover of darkness and whisk him away, back to us, without two hundred Japanese infantrymen knowing about it?”

  “I’ll want Mischkie and Hanklin with me.”

  “You shall have them. That unit of yours never should have been disbanded. The men you lost should have been replaced.” MacArthur glanced at Krueger. “Well, Walter, what do you think now?”

  “You’ve heard my reservations,” said Krueger, “and they stand, but I can’t argue that time is of the essence. Very well.”

  “Lieutenant Stilwell will see to providing you with all necessary support,” MacArthur told Ballard. “You’ll have transportation to within one kilometer of where the Filipinos say the camp is located.”

  “One kilometer,” repeated Eichelberger. “In that terrain, it will seem like twenty.”

  “I know the terrain,” said Ballard. “How many guerrillas will we be going in with?”

  “Five,” MacArthur said. “They’re all that remain of a larger group. They will be waiting for you at Malolos. Round up your two friends. Ordnance has been alerted to supply you with whatever you need. And remember, Sergeant, we want Goro alive.”

  “I’ll give it my best, General.”

  “I know you will, Sergeant. Good luck.”

  Ballard snapped to attention, threw a salute which MacArthur returned as before, and left the office.

  When the generals were alone, Eichelberger asked, “What made you change your mind, Walt?”

  Krueger stared at the office door Ballard had closed on his way out.

  “You saw him. What did you think?”

  Eichelberger grinned. “I know what you mean. That was just about the meanest-looking son of a bitch I ever saw, and this man’s army is full of mean looking sons of bitches.”

  “I don’t want to see a one of my men killed if there’s a chance in hell of it not happening,” said Krueger. “Sad fact of it is, though, I figure that’s about the only hope those men are going to have out in that jungle tonight. One chance in hell.”

  MacArthur returned to his desk. He set aside the file he had been perusing when Ballard reported and placed it with those already dealt with. He reached for the milkshake glass.

  “Gentlemen, it’s going to be a long day.” He finished the remains of the soda with a noisy, enthusiastic slurp, then he picked up a file from the first stack. “I suggest we move on to the next item on the agenda.”

  Marquis Kido was chauffeured along the new road linking the Gobunko with the Imperial Housekeeping Ministry, through the Momijiyama Tunnel, across the Imperial Palace Moat. He was quickly shown through to Grand Chamberlain Fujita, who led the way into the wing that had been converted into a temporary private residence for the Emperor and his family.

  The air attack of May 25 had destroyed the Imperial Palace, with a loss of forty lives, whereupon the Emperor had moved to the Imperial Library. The Gobunko was constructed of reinforced concrete and had withstood subsequent raids.

  The Emperor received Kido from behind a delicately carved, gilt-edged table in a small office. Hirohito, was short, bespectacled, forty-four years of age, a mild-mannered man, retiring and shy in the extreme. He wore a simple military uniform.

  Kido bowed from the waist.

  “Your Majesty.”

  “Marquis Kido.” The Emperor’s voice was thin,
reedy. “The Grand Chamberlain informs me that you are here on a matter of urgency.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. It’s the military again. Some of the young officers at the ministry may be preparing to cause trouble, as you know. The Americans are dropping leaflets across the city and across other cities in Japan, I’ve learned, making public the fact that we are negotiating for unconditional surrender. The extremists in the military ranks will surely try to exploit this to fan the flames.”

  “But I have made my wishes known.”

  “They are torn between equal, conflicting loyalties. The code of the samurai does not die easily, Your Highness.

  “Surely they can see the futility of continuing what has only led us to ruin. Continuation of the war, provoking an invasion of our homeland, will mean the death of hundreds of thousands of our people. All of Japan would be reduced to ashes. We must accept the allied terms forthwith.”

  “Your Majesty, I humbly submit that the War Minister and his Chiefs of Staff need to hear you restate your position. You are the personification and image of the sacred homeland they have sworn to protect until death. You are the living symbol of Japan’s immortality. General Anami and the others are cynical, hard-bitten, and proud, yes, but they will obey you, and they will see that the younger hotheaded zealots do not overstep their bounds.”

  “I will do anything that is necessary.” The Emperor’s bland expression revealed nothing. “I leave it to you to bring together the Cabinet and the Supreme War Council as before.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty. At your convenience.”

  “Let us say in sixty minutes. Is it not ironic, Marquis Kido, that Japan’s final struggle should not be against the enemy, but against herself?”

  The first part of the drive, south along the jagged coastline, passed in silence between Keiko and her uncle. At last she said, “The American bomber. It was a reconnaissance flight?”

  “They are dropping leaflets. I don’t know yet what the leaflets say. Perhaps when we reach home we will know.”

  “What could the Americans be telling the people of Japan that they have not said with their bombs? Leaflets! They do not even waste their bombs on us anymore. It is almost over then, isn’t it, Uncle?”

  “It can never be over, as long as there is a Japan.”

  “Never be over? I cannot believe that. We have just had a bird’s eye view of what has befallen Japan. Homeless families congregate to sleep at night in the railway stations.”

  “Do you suggest betrayal of the spirits of the heroic dead, a denial of our ancestors, a denial of our gods, with the eyes of the world upon us?” the Baron practically shouted. “The blood of the samurai flows in your veins, child. Do you not understand?”

  “The blood of Japan flows in my veins.”

  “There is no retreat. There is no surrender. That is what you are, Keiko. That is Japan. I forbid further discussion of the matter.”

  The silence between them was more oppressive than the heat.

  The castle occupied an expanse of rocky point that projected out into the sea from the rugged coastline. A three-hundred-foot sheer cliff rose from breaking waves to become part of a thick granite wall topped with a watchtower at each corner. Baron Tamura’s ancestral home, where Keiko had come to live when she was thirteen, was a sprawling four-level edifice of winged, tiled roofs, balconies, and turrets.

  The touring car turned onto the curved driveway leading to the front entrance. Keiko heard the metal gates clang into place behind them after the car passed. She did not feel a sense of security.

  She felt trapped.

  Chapter Four

  An Army half-ton transported Ballard, Mischkie and Hanklin north of Malolos that evening. Each man wore a shoulder-holstered M-1 assault rifle and wore combat webbing that supported clipped-on fragmentation grenades and bandoliers of M-1 clips. A combat knife was sheathed at the center of each man’s chest for quick, easy access. A .45-caliber, Army-issue automatic pistol rounded out each man’s personal arsenal.

  Malolos, seventy kilometers northwest of Manila, was swollen to five times its peacetime size by refugees and the American military.

  The jungle closed in around the deeply rutted dirt road as soon as the half-ton cleared the outskirts. The terrain became increasingly rugged. The road climbed.

  After a while, Hanklin drawled, “So the brass say these Filipinos we’re supposed to hook up with are all that’s left of a larger group. That’s not too damn encouraging, is it?”

  “Let’s hope their bad luck’s behind them,” said Mischkie. “Like ours is.”

  “If they don’t make the rendezvous,” said Ballard, “we go on without them.”

  “One small problem with that, Sarge,” Hanklin pointed out. “We won’t know where the hell this Goro has his camp without them to tell us.”

  “We’ll find it if we have to.”

  The truck slowed to a stop. Lieutenant Stilwell leaned out the passenger window of the cab and pip-squeaked back to them, “End of the line, gentlemen.”

  The trace of a narrow game trail cut into the jungle at the opposite side of the road. Fronds of thick-trunked trees met overhead. The heavy air was alive with the incessant chatter of birds and insects. The heat was stifling.

  Stilwell joined them while the driver backed the truck around.

  “The Filipinos are waiting for you at a clearing, the first one you’ll come to, one-half kilometer up that trail.”

  Hanklin spat upon the ground not far from the Lieutenant’s spit-polished boots.

  “Too bad that trail’s not a tad wider. We could drive on up in this truck of yours, couldn’t we, Lieutenant?”

  “We’re pushing it, taking you this far,” said Stilwell, his eyes nervously darting around them. “And watch where the hell you spit, soldier.”

  “You watch your mouth, bright eyes,” Mischkie said quietly. “Tex here is on a real short leash.”

  Stilwell addressed Ballard. “We’ll be here for pickup at midnight precisely. We’ll wait here exactly ten minutes, no more, no less.”

  “That’ll do, Lieutenant.”

  The kid took the hint and returned to the truck.

  “Don’t play so rough, boys,” Ballard told them as they watched the half-ton pull away.

  Hanklin snorted. “I hate green looies.”

  “Still, the Sarge has a point,” said Mischkie. “That green looie is our ticket out of here. We’ve got to learn how to behave, Tex.”

  “Tex, take point,” Ballard instructed. “Combat intervals.”

  They moved out along the trail at a clip, their boot falls muffled by the loam, traveling through the moonlight with the practiced precision of men who had done this sort of thing many times before, making good time with a minimum of sound.

  After a time, Hanklin slowed to a stop up ahead and lifted his right arm to motion for them to slow down and approach cautiously. They had reached the edge of the clearing.

  “No one in sight,” Mischkie noted.

  Hanklin said, “Ain’t that the way it’s supposed to be?”

  “That’s the way it’s supposed to be.” Ballard nodded. “Give the signal.”

  Hanklin set down his M-1, cupped both hands to his mouth and yodeled a bird call.

  There came an immediate, identical response from somewhere across the clearing.

  “Bingo,” Mischkie said under his breath.

  “Give the countersign,” said Ballard.

  Hanklin did so.

  A moment later, movement could be discerned at the tree line across the clearing. Four figures carrying rifles materialized to proceed warily into the moonlight.

  Ballard canted his M-1. “Let’s go.”

  They left their cover. Ballard walked forward to meet the guerrillas, Hanklin and Mischkie fanning out behind him.

  The guerrillas were clad in the standard uniform of the Filipino peasant: white cotton work shirt and trousers and wide-brimmed straw hats, with a wide-bladed bolo strapped to each man�
�s hip.

  “Which one of you is the leader?” Ballard asked.

  Two of the men were middle-aged, one was no more than fourteen or fifteen years of age, the fourth was in his early twenties.

  “I am Luis Ramone,” this one said. “I lead what remains of our group.”

  He and Ballard shook hands.

  Ballard introduced himself and said, “Luis, they tell me you know where General Goro has his base camp.”

  “Another twenty minutes, no more. We must be careful from here. The Japs have patrols everywhere. They think they’re safe because you Americans can’t find them but we know these jungles better than they do.”

  “We’d better get started, then. But before we do, Luis, maybe you’d better tell your man over in those trees to lower his sights and come join us. There were supposed to be five of you.”

  Luis chuckled. He motioned a signal with his arm at the tree line behind them.

  A figure emerged, carrying a rifle, and approached with a grace of movement and a suggestion of curves that denoted a difference.

  “Damn,” Hanklin muttered when he was certain. “A woman. Things just took a turn for the worse.”

  Mischkie smoothed back his hair with a free hand. “That’s what you think, cowboy.”

  “My sister, Evita,” Luis said.

  Major Kenji Hatanaka of the Military Affairs Section left the bomb shelter. He came up short when he recognized Major Okada leaning casually against one of the trees that surrounded the huge War Ministry Building.

  There was a breeze on Ichigaya Hill, but the air remained hot and humid.

  Okada commanded a unit of the Kempeitai, the military secret police. He was a compact bull of a man with eyes that were opaque chips of black ice behind his glasses.

  Hatanaka had been accosted only yesterday by Major Okada. His first concern, that he would be placed under arrest for his activities of the past four days, had proven unfounded. Okada had something quite different in mind.

  When they met beneath the tree, Okada said, “Let us take a stroll, Major. That will not draw attention.”

  “As you wish.”

  The war ministry was abuzz. Junior and senior officers, their arms loaded down with files, scurried about. A huge pile of documents had been doused with gasoline and set on fire behind the building.