Blood Red Sun

by Mertz, Stephen

  He glimpsed the Zero lifting off, climbing away toward the east, toward Tokyo Bay, into the sun. Then they hit a hole in the ground well short of the runway.

  Keiko fought for and lost control of the wildly yawing vehicle.

  Hanklin cursed. Keiko screamed. The vehicle went into a crazy, end-over-end, forward flip.

  During his long tenure as chief advisor to the Emperor, Marquis Kido could not recall ever having seen His Majesty look more wane, more distant.

  Seated as was his custom upon his throne atop a dais draped in gold brocade, His Majesty impressed Marquis Kido as a pitiable figure.

  Marquis Kido was instantly shocked and ashamed of himself for the thought.

  The Emperor was normally a man of exceedingly few words. He looked up as Kido was shown in and said nothing, waiting for his advisor to speak.

  Kido could not recall his own spirit ever being lower. “It is time, Your Majesty.”

  “Thank you, Marquis Kido. The radio, please.”

  Marquis Kido crossed to a walnut table and switched on the radio. The low hum of warming tubes filled the silence. The Emperor spoke.

  “My sorrow is great, Marquis Kido, but far greater is my hope for a brighter future.”

  “I share your optimism, Majesty.”

  “It is a piece of rare good fortune that a man the caliber of Douglas MacArthur has been designated as the Supreme Commander to shape the destiny of Japan. In this dark hour of despair and distress, a bright light is ushered in. I would listen to the broadcast in solitude.”

  “Of course, Majesty. I will be close at hand.”

  Marquis Kido bowed out from the imperial presence.

  The Missouri, slate-gray, at forty-five thousand tons one of the four largest battleships in the world, dominated the Allied armada anchored across Tokyo Bay.

  MacArthur waited in the captain’s cabin with Nimitz and Halsey, whose flagship it was. They had watched the destroyer Lansdowne pull alongside with the Nipponese delegation aboard.

  MacArthur’s gaze left the Lansdowne and settled on the horizon like a farmer watching for an expected change in the weather.

  “Why is it, I wonder,” he said to no one in particular, “that the largest armada ever assembled is around me, and I feel like a sitting duck in the middle of a pond?”

  There came a discreet knock at the door. A junior officer informed them that the Japanese delegates were in place on the quarterdeck. The ceremony was ready to begin.

  After the cool dawn, the quarterdeck felt uncomfortably hot beneath the gray, moody sky.

  Near a microphone stood a mess table covered with green baize, with chairs set on both sides of the table. To either side of this was lined the full array of Allied generals and admirals; the English, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders, the Russians, the Chinese, the Dutch, and of course endless rows of Americans in khaki.

  War correspondents and cameramen crowded the scaffolding provided for them, giving them a clear angle of the eleven members of the Japanese delegation. Sailors in immaculate white, many of them holding cameras, everyone craning their necks for a better view, crowded every available inch of the ship.

  MacArthur, flanked by Halsey and Nimitz, strode briskly toward the admirals, who stepped to their positions.

  MacArthur assumed a rigid military stance at the microphone and read aloud from a piece of paper held in his hand.

  “We are gathered here, representatives of the major warring powers, to conclude a solemn agreement whereby peace may be restored.”

  Ballard landed in a loose-limbed roll, grabbing the ground and shaking his head to clear it. The Nambu opened up again, peppering close by overhead.

  He twisted around and saw the Zero continuing its climb, soaring away from the airfield. Their vehicle had landed right side up and still shimmied on its shocks from the roll. Keiko was a hundred feet away. She seemed to be okay. Hanklin was another couple of hundred feet downrange from her.

  Geysers of dirt zipped in a steady line just short of Keiko and Hanklin, the gunner behind the Nambu triggering off hurried bursts, tracking the weapon too low. The remaining sentries had grabbed cover in and around the hangar, content to pop occasional but ineffectual fire and leave the fight to the machine gunners. It would not remain that way for long.

  The human tide of uniforms and weapons from across the airfield poured closer by the minute, less than two minutes away from overrunning his position, at Ballard’s estimation. He caught a movement from Hanklin and looked just in time to see Tex pull back down to a crouch after having thrown something.

  Those behind the Nambu had time for startled shouts, then the thrown grenade detonated with no more than a flat blam! of sound. Men were hurled across sandbags where they did not move, the sandbags beneath them splattered with blood.

  Ballard and Hanklin ran over to rendezvous with Keiko. “Where’d you get that pineapple, Tex?”

  “Rolled over next to me pretty as you please with the pin still in her. Musta fallen outta that rig we over ended.”

  Ballard’s eyes sought the black dot of the Baron’s plane rapidly dwindling in the sky. His eyes moved to the biplane parked alongside the hangar. Keiko followed his gaze.

  “We would never catch him in that!” she said.

  “Let’s try. We don’t have a choice. He’s got to be stopped!”

  The handful of soldiers by the hangar were content to fire sporadically and wait for the fifty or more soldiers charging in this direction across the runways.

  Hanklin looked over at the vehicle fifty yards away. The machine gun mounts were bent. The .50-caliber was knocked loose on the ground, a belt of ammunition coiled around it like a brass snake.

  “I’ll give you cover.”

  “We’ll pick you up on our way past,” Ballard promised. “If you can.”

  Hanklin broke away.

  Ballard triggered rounds in the direction of the hangar. He motioned to Keiko, and they ran toward the old World War I-era biplane.

  Keiko’s dusky face gleamed with excitement and fear. Ballard thought that without a doubt she was one hell of a beautiful woman.

  Hanklin yanked up the .50-caliber machine gun from the ground. The oncoming horde would be in range soon, but not yet. He held the big machine gun effortlessly, the ammo belt trailing down to the ground.

  Turning toward the hangar, he tugged off an extended burst from a spread-legged stance, the recoil convulsing his body like a cottonwood shuddering against a norther. The spray of bullets cut with deadly accuracy, toppling figures, puncturing the cover behind which men sought safety.

  Ballard and Keiko broke past the remains of the machine gun placement and headed at a run toward the Spad.

  Hayashi lifted his face from the dirt. Blood dripped into his eyes. He thought to brush it away with his left hand, but the hand was too heavy to move. He tried again and weakly brushed his fingers across his eyes, smearing the blood, stinging his eyes. At least he could see.

  He saw the American and the one with him. A woman. He recognized her. Keiko.

  They reached the old biplane. He saw this and at first he could not move, could utter no sound. All about him, he could hear the moaning and screaming of the wounded. He could feel nothing but a sting where pebbles had scratched his face when he fell. Everything else was a numb coldness he knew would pass soon enough, when the pain of those screaming would consume him, if he lived that long.

  His right hand grasped his service revolver and he willed the muscles in his arm to respond.

  He had failed Baron Tamura.

  The edges of his vision began to shimmer darkly, and he knew he would die before the pain got to him. He must not fail now. Somehow he managed to raise the pistol.

  The American soldier leaped onto the wing of the Spad and reached down, extending a hand to the woman.

  Hayashi squeezed the trigger.

  He saw the man lurch and start to fall from the wing. Keiko cried out and he started to smile. Then a stab of
pain pierced his body and he shrieked once where he lay. Darkness consumed him and he died.

  Ballard hit the tarmac with a jolt he barely felt, Keiko’s cry filling his disintegrating senses. In that fading moment of awareness, he knew everything had turned to shit.

  He’d been shot and he was dying and he thought, Perfect. Goddamn perfect. You get this close and you fumble and lose it and that’s the thought you die with.

  He sensed Keiko kneeling beside him, touching him. He felt the touch clearly enough, the woman’s touch he had not felt in so long, the touch of a woman who cared. There was nothing like it in the world.

  It could have been mine again, but it’s too late, it’s too goddamn late!

  He heard the alarm in her words but he could not hear what she said because a fog of pain washed through him.

  Like Mischkie. You fought and you died and if you had someone who cared, maybe you were remembered for a while before the world forgot.

  He thought, Keiko.

  And the black fog swallowed him.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Hanklin threw the Nambu into the armored vehicle and climbed behind the steering wheel when he saw Ballard go down. As he expected, the vehicle’s connecting wires had not survived the rollover intact. The engine failed to start. He hopped from the vehicle, toting the machine gun over his shoulder, and hurtled across the distance to where Keiko knelt beside Ballard, holding one of Ballard’s hands in both of hers.

  “He’s alive!”

  Hanklin took her word for it.

  Ballard did not look good. Blood oozed from a bullet hole high in the left side of his chest, near the shoulder.

  Hanklin took a quick look around. The Jap survivors at this end weren’t even pegging shots anymore, as if loathe to further arouse the Texan’s wrath. The swarm of uniforms pouring across the airfield was crossing the next runway down. Some carried rifles, others wielded clubs and sabers.

  Hanklin tossed aside the Nambu and looped his arms through Ballard’s. Together he and Keiko got Ballard onto the wing and into the rear seat of the Spad.

  Keiko leaned across to fasten Ballard’s seat belt. She pulled a leather flight cap across his head, leaving the chin flap with the small radio microphone attachment hanging loose. His eyes fluttered once. He did not regain consciousness. She straightened from fastening the belt, and Hanklin saw the fingertips of one hand flit ever so lightly across the scratches on Ballard’s face. Her lips brushed Ballard’s for just a second. Then she hopped down to the ground and together they made quick work of rolling the Spad onto the tarmac and firing it up, with Keiko grabbing the controls and Hanklin working the propeller.

  He ran over to her side of the plane.

  “Good luck!” he said through cupped hands above the noise of the Spad.

  “What are you doing, Tex? Quickly! There is room for you with Ballard. We must stop my uncle if we can!”

  Hanklin scooped up the machine gun from the ground.

  “You’ll have a tough enough time doing that without me weighing you down. Keiko, you’re a good woman,” he nodded at Ballard, “and that there’s a good man. You’ve got a chance. Take it, don’t stand here jawin’. Git!”

  He turned his back to her.

  “Thank you, Tex,” she said, knowing he could not hear her.

  She taxied the Spad away, ramming the throttle forward to gain full power.

  She heard the clatter of the .50-caliber machine gun opening fire behind her, then it was lost beneath the increasing engine drone as she powered into the takeoff.

  When the last belt of ammo ran out and the loud stammering and the red-hot flame spitting from the Nambu’s muzzle ceased, Hanklin stopped trying to match it with his rebel yelling rage, and for a moment there in the sun the only sound was the clunk of the last brass bullet falling upon the ground.

  They were standing, the ones he’d left to stand, and they were starting to close in from three sides in slow, even strides, shoulder to shoulder, those with the rifles in front, bayonets fixed, followed by the ones carrying clubs and swords. Some were firing at the Spad accelerating along the runway, soaring into the air with a burst of engine power, but mostly they closed in on him in an inexorable, tightening circle.

  Bayonets glinted in the sun, lunging.

  For Hanklin, dying became part of a dream about the night with Bobbi Sue Matson back home on the banks of the Sabine and the way her tanned wet body had glistened in the moonlight that night they made love.

  Something was wrong with the Baron’s plane, some malfunction (just now making itself known) no doubt caused by damage during the attack on the ground. Keiko could see a thin stream of black smoke trailing from the Zero flown by her uncle.

  Despite the relative slowness of the Spad, Keiko had no trouble catching up with the Zero within minutes after takeoff. The Zero made terrible speed but continued on nonetheless. She drew in behind it and slackened her speed to maintain that position at a hundred yards, her right index finger curled to trigger the 7mm machine guns aimed at the Zero in the scope mounted before her.

  She knew she must lose herself in the drone of the plane’s engine, must become one with this hurtling piece of machinery soaring through space. She must become like a machine herself. She must not think. Not of the man in the plane with her. Ballard. Bleeding, unconscious. Dying? She must not think. So much death.

  The end so near, and who knew what could have happened between her and this man when it was over? Something, nothing? She would never know because instead of flying him directly to a medical facility, she was chasing after the plane ahead of her, and she hated her uncle for that.

  I must not think, she told herself.

  Not of her last sight of Tex Hanklin as the Spad had taken wing away from Tateyama. She had seen the bayonets glint in the sun, the moment seared into her memory forever.

  It should have made it easier to trigger the machine guns at the Zero flown by her uncle. It did not. It did not.

  The Baron had taught her to fly in the early days of the war, had taught her what he could of the ways of aerial combat, and his tutoring, combined with her own natural skills, had produced a pilot he had been proud of.

  He had taught her to fly. To fight. To think. To live. He had taught her everything.

  His voice in the radio headset startled her, his voice as she rarely heard it, clipped, authoritative, emotionless.

  “Who is behind me?”

  “It is I, Uncle.”

  His voice changed.

  “Keiko!”

  The crackle of static. The drone of the engine. The whip of the wind. Her finger remained on the trigger, but she could not fire.

  “Uncle, you must turn back.”

  “I cannot.”

  “And neither can I. It has come to this between us. I must stop you or die trying. Uncle, turn back! They will stop you if I do not.”

  No reply. He heard, but chose not to respond.

  They were over the Bay now, and in the distance ahead she saw the Allied armada, less than two minutes flying time away.

  I must not think.

  She shouted his name into her radio. No response.

  The Zero knifed to the side, surging with renewed speed, drawing away.

  She saw her uncle in her mind’s eye as she had so often seen him seated at the controls: back erect, eyes steely with concentration.

  She dived the Spad after the streaming black cloud. The Spad would normally have been no match for the Zero, but the other plane showed signs of slowing again, its mechanical problems growing worse. She closed the gap between them.

  Two American fighter planes—she recognized them as Hellcats—stormed in at them.

  Her attention had been focused on staying on the tail of the Baron’s plane.

  She saw the wings of her uncle’s plane wink sparkling flames as he opened fire on the American fighters. The Hellcats broke formation, one snapping into a tight loop, rolling out to tail the Zero, its twin swinging around t
o similarly line up behind the Spad.

  Her sights were still on the Zero flown by Baron Tamura, directly ahead of her.

  Don’t think! her mind screamed. Do it!

  She screamed her anguish and pressed the trigger. The machine guns stuttered their staccato chatter.

  The Baron was taking no evasive action. A tongue of slashing tracers ate up the fuselage of the Baron’s plane. The stream of black smoke swelled like a fattening snake in the sky amid an eye-searing, blossoming fireball, and the Zero went whining down into a wild, uncontrolled dive.

  The high keening whine of the Spad’s tortured engine filled Keiko’s head.

  Meanwhile, one Hellcat had locked onto the Spad’s tail. Instinct made Keiko pull into a roll away from the Hellcat trying to get a fix on her an instant before he fired. The American fighter plane sailed past her. The Hellcat so outclassed the ancient Spad that it had been moving too fast to catch the biplane’s sharp evasive dive.

  “Friendly!” Keiko shouted into her radio. “Don’t shoot! Friendly!”

  The Hellcat closed the gap from behind to one hundred yards, and her instincts took over again. She worked the control stick, soaring upwards.

  The pilot of the Hellcat squeezed off a burst of gunfire. A shuddering row of ragged holes stitched away bits of the Spad that tore loose and went shredding away in the slipstream.

  The control stick wobbled roughly in her grasp. She fought the plane back onto an even keel. The other Hellcat was sweeping around to join the first.

  “Goodbye, John,” Keiko said into her radio, to the unconscious man seated behind her. “I think I loved you.”

  “I think I love you too, kid.” Ballard’s voice was weak, gritty, in her headset. “Just don’t give up so goddamn easy.”

  In the first instant of barely regained consciousness, he thought he was dead before he identified the tumult of sensations. The turbulence and the nearly lulling throb, were really the air whipping through the open cockpit and the scream of the old biplane’s motor. The gray blur that had seemed to envelope him for that first instant became the gray cloud ceiling.