The Mary Jane Mission

by Daniel Wyatt

  “Where is your fighter now?”

  “The bottom of the ocean.”

  “Why are you so eager to answer my questions?”

  Tiger held his head up. “Because Japan has lost the war. Your government will surrender within seventy-two hours. So you had better be good to me, pal.”

  “Lies! All lies!” The officer brought the rod up to strike Tiger again, but didn’t.

  Tiger was trying to loosen the rope of his tied hands. “You must know by now that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed a few days ago by two powerful atomic bombs.”

  The officer pulled back. “How did you know?”

  “I know.”

  “What was your mission to our country?”

  “Escort the third atomic mission.”

  “Another one!”

  “Yes.”

  “The target. Give me the target!”

  “Kyoto.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “We didn’t think you’d bomb Pearl Harbor.”

  The officer spun around and said something to the guard at the door. The guard turned the handle and left.

  Tiger winced. “May I have a doctor now?”

  “Not until you answer more questions.”

  “Shoot. I mean... go ahead.”

  Tiger’s interrogation continued. All the answers he gave either puzzled or angered the officer. Then a doctor arrived and bandaged Tiger’s ankle. It was only a flesh wound — the bullet had grazed Tiger’s ankle — but he had lost a lot of blood. The officer left for five minutes, then returned with fire in his eyes. By that time, Tiger was nearly free of his rope.

  “You are a liar, Joe! There was no attack on Kyoto! It is still standing. Where was the real attack? Answer me, Joe.”

  Tiger realized now that the bomb didn’t go off. Thank God. Then something else occurred to him. Was it dropped in 1990?

  The officer struck Tiger twice more on the shoulder. Then he stepped back and stomped to the door. Before leaving the room, he nodded at the muscle man.

  * * * *

  GUAM

  Cameron and the Shillings cramped themselves into the Shilling’s basement. Outside, the typhoon raged, making its landfall in the afternoon. Winds of more than a hundred miles per hour and a wall of rain slammed the city and the island of Guam. Electricity went first. The winds howled on for a few hours. Then the wind and rain died off. Suddenly, the sun shone through a crack in one of the boarded-up basement windows.

  “It stopped,” Cameron noted with wonder. “And the sun’s shining.”

  “Let’s go topside,” Robert suggested.

  Les went outside with the men. They walked down the driveway and had a look at the neighborhood. Some trees had been uprooted, but the houses were generally intact, except for a few smashed windows, scattered debris in the yards, and a couple dented cars. Every roof had hung on. Les’s yard stood untouched. The air had a slight breeze to it, maybe five knots, and the temperature seemed warm.

  Les studied the sky. In every direction, he saw a barrier of ominous cloud. “We’re surrounded. We’re in the eye.”

  Robert and Cameron saw it too.

  “It’s not over yet,” Cameron said.

  “Not by a long shot,” Les replied. “We only got a few minutes, maybe an hour before the winds hit us from the opposite direction. The next time around it may be worse.”

  Chapter eighteen

  JAPAN

  As the thug stepped closer, Tiger sprang up and with all the strength he could muster in his good leg kicked the man in the testicles so hard that he buckled over in pain. Two more kicks to the face knocked him unconscious. Tiger wanted to strangle the man with the rope for good measure, but threw it on the floor instead.

  Tiger ran to the door and out towards the back of the building. He bolted for two sets of long hangars and slid down low to the ground once he was out in the open. The closest Japs, three mechanics four planes to his right, were busy working on a fighter. Tiger had only one hundred feet to crawl to the nearest Zero. He half-ran, half-crawled to it, making it there in seconds.

  Tiger jumped on the wing of the Zero and threw himself into the cockpit. He had never flown a Zero before in his life. Or any vintage World War Two plane, for that matter. But compared to an F-18, he didn’t figure he’d have a problem. He scanned the gauges. Yeah... no problem. His left hand went for the primer on the bottom left and then his right hand hit the ignition switch on the bottom right. The three-bladed prop begin to rotate, and smoke belched out the exhaust as the radial engine caught fire. He advanced the throttle and watched the gauges slowly spring to life. The fuselage, wing, and auxiliary tanks were topped to full. Perfect. He knew he couldn’t afford the luxury of waiting for the oil pressure and cylinder head temperature rise to the proper limits. He had to move out. Now.

  The three mechanics ran towards him. Tiger advanced the throttle and released the brakes, taking a sharp turn down the dispersal track. Two of the men scrambled out of the way of the spinning prop, but the third man jumped on the trailing edge of the port wing. He desperately hung on, as Tiger, trying to shake him, pressed his feet on the rudders, which cause the Zero to zigzag back and forth. It was no use. The Jap worked his way forward as Tiger picked up speed. He then gripped the edge of the windscreen, ready to punch Tiger in the open cockpit. Tiger slammed the Jap’s hand until it was a bloody piece of flesh. A quick turn at the edge of the runway managed to fling the Jap off. There he left him lying on the pavement. Out cold.

  Tiger didn’t notice what direction the wind was coming from and at this point couldn’t make any adjustments because there was no windsock. Whether he was about to take off downwind was only a technicality. At the other end of the runway, he saw some trucks and men working into position in an attempt to cut off his path of escape.

  The instrument temperatures were rising... finally. He dropped the flaps and flicked the ammo button on the stick. The machine gun was live. He pushed the throttle to maximum and let the brakes go. He was off. Across the base, men were running out of buildings. Down the far end of the runway, three trucks were coming towards him. Tiger raced at them head on. As he lifted the Zero’s tail, he squeezed off several rounds of 7.7mm shells at the trucks to scare them off. It worked. They all stopped.

  At less than 500 yards from the lead truck, Tiger still hadn’t the proper lift for takeoff. He saw a soldier jump from the third truck and squat down to aim his rifle. Tiger scrunched down behind the instrument panel. Luckily, the soldier was a bad shot. Nothing made contact. The gap was less than 200 yards by the time Tiger heaved back the column and lifted off the runway. Landing gear. He pressed a lever on his right and the undercarriage banged into the belly.

  Tiger flinched.

  Damn! He was going to hit the trucks. He closed his eyes... and flew so low over the trucks that the men were forced to duck.

  * * * *

  MARY JANE

  Gabriel Schwartz, in a dreamy state of half-consciousness, began to fall asleep in the tail section. He had felt the bomber descending for several minutes now. They were almost home. There... off to the side. He jolted awake. Did he really see it? A Japanese Zero fighter?

  He sat up and looked around. Nothing but clouds. Thick, heavy clouds. What would a Zero be doing out anyway? There were no enemy bases this close to the Marianas. Wait a minute. Clouds? Where did they come from?

  Then... he did see it. It was a Zero. Below to port. Flying meatball and all, bursting through the clouds. Schwartz quickly aimed his guns at the fighter and fired off a few rounds as the Zero whizzed past underneath.

  “TAIL GUNNER TO COMMANDER. A ZERO JUST FLEW UNDER US.”

  “A ZERO? WAY IN THE HELL OUT HERE?”

  “YES, SIR.”

  “YUH SURE IT WAS A ZERO?”

  “POSITIVE.”

  In the cockpit, Loran pointed down to his right, his face to the cockpit glass. “I see it. Banking into a cloud bank.”

  Ian kept looking straigh
t ahead. “This is screwy.”

  He observed the massive cloud formation a few miles above the bomber, cloud layers stacked tier upon tier in circular arrangements. This had to be the typhoon his radio operator warned him about. What a dumb time to hit... during their descent to Tinian. Soon, the Mary Jane was engulfed in cloud that faded from white to gray in seconds. The machine rocked and shook. Lightning flashed. Thunder exploded. Rain and hail pelted the metal skin.

  “COMMANDER TO RADIO OPERATOR.” Clayton’s voice vibrated with the constant jitter now pounding the bomber. “ANY RADIO CONTACT WITH TINIAN?”

  “NOTHING, COMMANDER. THE STORM MUST HAVE KNOCKED OUT ALL COMMUNICATION.”

  “TRY GUAM.”

  “I DID ALREADY. NOTHING THERE EITHER. WE’RE DEAD IN THE WATER.”

  “NAVIGATOR TO COMMANDER.”

  “I HEAR YUH. I HOPE YOU HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS.”

  “NOT REALLY. I DON’T KNOW WHERE WE ARE. NOTHING’S READING. MY COMPASS IS ALL HAYWIRE.”

  “Look, Ian!” Loran shouted, pointing at the cockpit instruments.

  Every dial and instrument was spinning madly, almost out of control. Clayton remembered the last altitude check showed 8,000 feet, and he knew he had descended even lower than that. What a ride! Zero visibility. Altimeter going nuts.

  “RADAR, CAN YOU GIVE US A BEARING?”

  “I’M KNOCKED OUT TOO, COMMANDER. SORRY.”

  Clayton turned and shouted to his flight engineer. “Butch!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How much fuel do we have left?”

  “Twenty-five minutes, if we’re lucky.”

  Paul Lunsford leaned forward from the nose. “Captain, I’ve got an idea?”

  “Let’s hear it,” Clayton answered, hanging on the controls.

  “Let’s climb out of this mess and look for the center. I once read somewhere that the eye is supposed to be the calmest part of any hurricane or typhoon. Let’s find the eye and see if she’s over land. If not, we’ll follow it until it is over land. And hopefully one of our bomber bases.”

  Loran shrugged. “Sounds OK by me.”

  “Let’s do it,” Clayton said, pulling up on the controls. The Mary Jane climbed skyward, the four radial engines straining. The dark-gray cloud turned to a lighter gray. Like magic, the instruments returned to normal. The sun burst through. Then, they were above the cloud. The altimeter read 32,000 feet.

  “RADAR OPERATOR TO COMMANDER. I GOT A READING OF A COASTLINE BELOW US THROUGH ALL THAT. BY THE SHAPE OF IT, THOUGH, SHE’S NOT TINIAN.”

  “There it is, captain!” Lunsford shouted. “Through some scattered cloud.”

  “Where?”

  “Off starboard.”

  “Yeah,” Clayton nodded. “Butch, how much fuel?”

  “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, tops.”

  The cloud below thinned out. The air was calm. It was an awesome sight. Any of the crew members who had a window watched in awe at the circular wall of cloud that surrounded them, three or four miles higher than their altitude.

  “Holy shit! That’s Guam!” Loran shouted. “The eye is over Guam. Hot damn! That looks like the navy base at Agana. Geez, those runways are too small, though. We have to make North Field where the B-29 base is.”

  “Too late,” Clayton said, pointing in the direction of the base. “Look, North Field is too close to the storm wall. It’s the navy base, short runways or no short runways.”

  “You’re right.”

  Clayton banked left and began to descend quickly. “COMMANDER TO RADIO OPERATOR. CAN YOU MAKE RADIO CONTACT?”

  “I’M RUNNING THROUGH THE FREQUENCIES NOW, SIR.”

  * * * *

  AGANA

  Captain MacDonald and a skeleton crew had kept the base open through the first stage of the typhoon, weathering it out in the administration building. Now, in the eye, MacDonald came out for air, standing on the steps of the building, scanning the base. Startled, he heard prop engines overhead and glanced up. What! Who the hell was out in this! At first the sight of a four-engined B-29 circling on final approach — gear down — didn’t register. As it kept banking, it was then that he clearly saw eight letters on the shiny metal surface below the port window.

  What the... Crap! It was the Mary Jane.

  * * * *

  Aboard the Mary Jane, Clayton aimed the nose for the very edge of the nearest runway so that he would have plenty of room to slow down at the other end. If he could.

  “Wing flaps, forty-five degrees.”

  Loran’s left hand went for the aisle stand where the switches for the landing sequence were situated. “Wing flaps, forty-five degrees.”

  “COMMANDER TO RADIO OPERATOR. RETRACT ANTENNA.”

  “ROGER, COMMANDER.”

  Clayton nodded. By experience, Loran knew what that nod meant, and his hand went again to the aisle stand, this time for the automatic flight control system. He flicked the switch to OFF.

  “COMMANDER TO ENGINEER. MIXTURE?”

  “AUTO-RICH.”

  “BOOSTER PUMPS?”

  “ON.”

  “FUEL PRESSURE?”

  “SIXTEEN INCHES, COMMANDER.”

  Loran moved the supercharger controls to ON and the propeller controls to a cruise speed of 2,000 RPM. At the same time, he carefully watched the speed as the ground and runway raced towards them.

  “Speed 130, Ian... 125...”

  * * * *

  MacDonald ran into the administration building and burst into his office.

  “Tower!” he belted into the telephone receiver. “This is Captain MacDonald.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s the B-29 doing out there?”

  “He said it’s an emergency, sir. He said he has to land. He only has ten minutes or less of fuel.”

  “What was his callsign?”

  “Hawkeye three-six.”

  “Oh, no! Stop him!” MacDonald demanded.

  “I can’t, sir. It just landed.”

  MacDonald slammed the receiver down, then picked it up again and tapped out another number. It rang twice before someone answered.

  “Security.”

  “This is Captain MacDonald. I want two of your men to meet me in front of the runway side of the administration building in one minute, with a jeep and guns loaded. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  * * * *

  Clayton feathered the brakes, pressing harder each time, as the end of the runway loomed closer. Finally, he was forced to press all the way.

  “Come on, Mary Jane, stop. STOP!”

  * * * *

  MacDonald sprinted down the hall, and by the time he flew out the door the jeep was waiting for him.

  “Follow that bomber!” he yelled, out of breath, at the driver.

  “Aye, aye, captain.”

  * * * *

  At the end of the runway, the tired crew tramped down the nose hatch and walked free of the bomber. They had come to a stop only fifteen feet short of the runway’s edge.

  “Where are we, Ian?” Loran asked. “I thought this was Guam.”

  “Look over there,” Clayton said, pointing across the runway. “More of those strange fighters with no props.”

  Schwartz felt for the film he had removed from the camera. It was still inside his breast pocket. His eyes went to the black skid marks down the runway. “What a ride that was!”

  “Hey,” Marshall called out, “here comes a jeep.”

  * * * *

  “Man alive, that’s a Superfortress,” the jeep driver commented, as he drove closer.

  “Stop right here, now!” MacDonald said.

  The driver slammed on the brakes sixty feet short of the bomber. MacDonald jumped out, ten feet from the aircrew and pulled a gun on them. Behind him, the two security men held their guns high while they jumped from the jeep. MacDonald stared at the bomber and saw the letters Mary Jane below the pilot window and the painting of the busty girl in a green bathing suit. This wasn’t possibl
e. It just wasn’t. “Who’s Captain Clayton?” he wanted to know.

  “Right here.” Clayton stepped forward. “How’d yuh know my name?”

  “Never mind that. I know a lot of things about you.”

  “What is this place? I thought we were landing at Agana.”

  “Get out of here. Get back in your bomber and GO! Now!”

  “Are you kidding?” Clayton shouted back. “Our tanks are nearly bone dry. Where are we supposed to go in this storm? We don’t have enough fuel for a proper takeoff!”

  “I don’t care! Get out of here, or we’ll shoot you on the spot.” MacDonald couldn’t think of what to say next. Then... “This is... this is a restricted US Navy area. You have no business being here.”

  The guards pointed their guns at Schwartz and Marshall.

  Clayton glanced over his shoulder at his crew. “I think they mean it, boys. Let’s go.”

  “Why did you let us land in the first place?” Loran asked MacDonald.

  Chapter nineteen

  GUAM

  Les heard the rustle of the palm tree leaves across the street. The wind was coming from the opposite direction and the sky was growing darker by the minute. “We better get back in the house,” he said to his father and Cameron. “The calm is over. Here comes the second blast.”

  No sooner had they returned to the house than the typhoon roared through the neighborhood again, only stronger this time. The house shook and banged from the gusting rain-swept winds. For hours the wind gusts didn’t let up. In the evening, the gusts stopped. The wind still howled, but it soon subsided to a strong breeze.

  * * * *

  Thirty minutes before nightfall, the Shilling family and Cameron emerged in the drizzling rain to check the damage. Two windows of the house were shattered, the front screen was nowhere to be seen, a backyard palm tree was uprooted and lying against the side of the house, and most of the eaves trough was torn away. They were the lucky ones on the block, though. The street resembled a disaster area. Several houses were demolished. Debris littered the sidewalks and the grass. One car was crushed by the weight of a palm. A few neighbors who had braved the storm were outside in the warm, drizzling rain. Some were crying, most were too shocked to shed tears.