War of the Sun

by Maloney, Mack;

  “You didn’t bring coffee?” one of the half dozen men sitting around the large table yelled out. “No doughnuts? No booze? No nothing?”

  Hunter pretended to slap his forehead, as if he had truly forgotten something. This act was greeted with a chorus of fake booing.

  Seated around the table were Hunter’s brothers in war, the leadership of the United American Armed Forces. General Jones himself was at the head of the table. He quickly rose and came around the table to greet the Wingman.

  “This looks just like the old days, General,” Hunter told him, sweeping his hand around the room.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Jones replied.

  Hunter went on to greet the rest of the men. He had fought beside them all at one time or another. Ben Wa and JT “Socket” Toomey, two of the best fighter pilots he’d ever known, had been with him since the very beginning. They had all flown together in the Air Force’s Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team. They had also fought together in the same fighter squadron during the Big War.

  The years since that nightmarish conflagration had been a constant struggle to free America from the various and varied tyrannies and dictatorships that arose from the ashes of the postwar United States. He had come to know the other men in the room during these conflicts.

  Major Pietr Frost, the Free Canadian pilot who served as the military liaison officer between United American Armed Forces and the democratic Canadian government. Major “Catfish” Johnson, the African-American officer who was de facto commander of the United American ground forces. Bobby Crockett and Jesse Tyler, better known as the Cobra Brothers, the fierce two-man Texan attack helicopter team who were not really brothers, but brothers-in-law.

  There was one particular face missing, though.

  Mike Fitzgerald, a longtime member of this inner circle, was dead—heroically killed in the last minutes of the Battle of Fuhrerstadt. Hunter missed the crazy but dignified Irishman terribly. Of them all, Fitz might have been his best friend. Now he was gone.

  Another part of the team was also not there, but for happier circumstances. Captain “Crunch” O’Malley, the F-4X Phantom jet jockey who at one time led a team of freelance fighter-bombers known as the Ace Wrecking Crew, was currently back on the East Coast, reorganizing what was left of the United American Air Force.

  Finally the reunion was complete and Hunter took his seat next to Jones. The room got very quiet. Almost everyone around the big table had arrived just hours before Hunter, so they, too, were unaware of why the emergency conference had been called.

  In fact, only Jones knew the full reason for the hastily-called meeting.

  The general let a few moments of tense silence pass before he spoke.

  “The reason we are here,” he began starkly, yet matter-of-factly, “is that there’s been a new development regarding the Fire Bats subs the Cult have operating in the Pacific.”

  The Cult. Just the words themselves were enough to make Hunter’s fists ball up in anger. Known officially as the “Combined Greater East Asian Warrior Society,” the quasireligious, completely-fanatical, more-aptly-nicknamed “Asian Mercenary Cult” was one half of the Second Axis, the notorious alliance which had invaded the American continent nearly a year before. And although the other half of the Second Axis, the Fourth Reich Super-Nazis, had been defeated by the United Americans at the pivotal battle of Fuhrerstadt, the Cult still held most of the American territory west of the Rockies.

  Though smaller, the Asian Mercenary Cult was in many ways an adversary more dangerous than the defeated Super-Nazis. Not only did they have nearly fifty divisions occupying the American West Coast, the Cult also had nuclear missiles aboard two high-tech Fire Bats submarines which were sailing somewhere deep in the Pacific. Because of these missiles, a kind of enforced standoff had come about. The United Americans couldn’t readily attack the Cult forces as long as the Asian’s “doomsday weapons” remained operational. If backed into a corner by the resurging Americans, the Cult would, no doubt, make good on their oft-made threat to immediately launch their nukes at the West Coast in a sort of ultimate kamikaze attack.

  At the same time, the Cult was nowhere powerful enough to expand their ill-gotten occupied territory eastward. With the fascist European allies routed, they had no choice but to keep their forces in place and bide their time enslaving millions of Americans.

  It was a tense situation, perhaps best compared to the “phony war” between Nazi Germany and France and England in early months of what would become World War Two.

  It was also a very unpredictable situation for one large reason: the man in charge of the Cult.

  His name was Hashi Pushi, and he was a very strange character indeed. Considered a “living god” to the Cult members, he was also widely rumored to be psychologically unstable in the extreme. Mysterious and elusive, Hashi Pushi was believed never in his life to have left Japan. Indeed, some intelligence reports said he never left his headquarters, which were located in the heart of Tokyo itself. Yet his far-flung mercenary armies had taken control of most of the Pacific rim, as well as the American West Coast.

  By just about all reports, Hashi Pushi was quite literally insane. Reportedly a heavy drug user, he believed himself to be no less than a reincarnated samurai warrior. It was well known that he frequently issued bizarre orders based on “visions” which came to him almost daily. Some could be judged as pieces of sound military doctrine. Others were as crazy as their creator. One story had it that Hashi Pushi once commanded one hundred of his top military aides to commit ritual suicide simply because he supposedly had learned in a vision that they had entertained disloyal thoughts. An enormous and elaborate ceremony was arranged, and at its height, the hundred officers performed a mass seppuku, disemboweling themselves with their own swords. A huge dinner was then served, followed by a two-day orgy.

  This was typical of the Cult’s fanatical devotion to Hashi Pushi.

  The American plan, up until now, had been to gradually rebuild the United American Army, while painstakingly trying to track the pair of Fire Bats subs. When the time was right, the UA would launch a massive air and land attack against the occupying Cult forces, at the same time ambushing both enemy subs at the precise moment. It was an operation that everyone knew would take time, patience, and extensive planning. It would also result in many, many casualties.

  Now it appeared that that plan had gone awry.

  “We’ve received information that the Cult is preparing to launch a first strike,” Jones continued slowly and carefully, his tone grim.

  Another somber silence descended on the room as the weight of Jones’s words sank in.

  “We know this because one of the POWs captured in Fuhrerstadt turned out to be a liaison officer with the Cult,” Jones continued. “Under interrogation, he told us that just before the Reich was defeated, word had come from Tokyo that Hashi Pushi had ordered his occupying troops to prepare for a ‘nuclear action,’ as he put it. Specifically, the orders dealt with plans to have the target city looted before it was destroyed.”

  “What is the target?” Ben Wa asked.

  “We don’t know,” Jones replied. “It could be any one of ten places, from San Diego up to Seattle. And that’s the problem. Even the high Cult officers probably don’t know. The real target will supposedly come in another of Pushi’s visions.”

  “This is not good,” Frost said with classic understatement. “He could secretly give the order at any time. It would take only a few hours for his whacked-out troops to strip the target city clean of anything of value. And then …”

  “That’s the problem in a nutshell,” Jones said. “That’s why we had to get together earlier than we anticipated.”

  The grim silence never left the room completely.

  “Does this mean we have to take out those subs much sooner than we expected?” Toomey asked.

  “Too risky,” Jones replied, shaking his head. “Those two subs are constantly on the move. They are
always hundreds of miles from each other, sailing in completely random patterns. It would take us at least several days to pinpoint just one of them. And attempt a successful attack. And when we did, that would give the second one plenty of time to launch.”

  It was a well-studied catch-22.

  “We simply can’t take the chance of forcing their hand,” Jones continued soberly. “With all the civilians on the coast in jeopardy, if we gamble and lose, they’re the ones who’ll go up in smoke.”

  Toomey gripped the table tightly, his voice rising. “But General, some of them are definitely gonna fry for sure if we don’t take the chance.”

  Jones held up his hand and said, “There’s another way.”

  All eyes were on him.

  “We know that Hashi Pushi doesn’t allow his officers any initiative or real authority,” he went on. “He is, in effect, their entire command and control. His boys can’t make a move without his okay, but they must think he is as unstable as we do.

  “Now, if we were able to disrupt that situation, maybe his armies would be thrown into confusion. Maybe his officers would lose some of their willingness to jump on their swords at his every whim. Or launch a nuke.”

  Another silence enveloped the room.

  “We also know that he never leaves his palace, never leaves Tokyo,” Jones continued. “He’s obviously well guarded, and our intelligence tells us the Japanese Home Islands themselves are heavily defended, with better equipment and men than they have running around half the world raping and pillaging.

  “But Hashi Pushi is so well insulated from what is happening, it’s like he has a big balloon around him. He’s always drugged up, he’s into everything from screwing little girls to ordering mass suicides. I’m sure he considers himself invulnerable.”

  Jones took another deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “Now, if we were able to prick that balloon …” he said, his voice trailing off.

  The comment was met with somewhat confused stares.

  Toomey tried to say something, “Are you suggesting General, that we …”

  Jones nodded. “I’m suggesting that we go after Hashi Pushi right where he lives.”

  Jones straightened in his chair slightly, and cleared his throat.

  “I’m suggesting that we bring the battle right to him,” he went on. “I’m suggesting we launch a surgical air strike on Japan itself.”

  Now a shocked murmur went around the room.

  “But General, you’re talking about committing our forces thousands of miles away,” Jesse Tyler said in a thick Texas drawl. “I mean, we don’t have the transport. We don’t have the supply or the backup. And even if we did, we can’t afford to dilute our strength here, on this continent.”

  Jones held up his hand and gently interrupted Tyler. “We have enough transport for a small force,” he said. “And we’ve rounded up a small but capable unit of aircraft. And, we’ve organized a crew of volunteers to go on the mission.”

  The general stopped speaking for a moment, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the ceiling.

  “But, as you may have noticed,” he said soberly, “this operation is shaping up a little, well … differently.”

  Everyone around the table had noticed. In the past, whenever danger aroused to threaten America, this group of advisers was called together to plan the response. Now, for the first time, the plans were already done. But why? Only Jones knew.

  “My thinking is that we run a kind of Jimmy Doolittle raid,” he began again, slowly. “Remember? Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo … ?”

  He was referring to the American bomber attack on Japan in the early days of World War Two. Led by Colonel James Doolittle, the raid launched a unit of B-25 medium bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet and attacked Tokyo. Though not very militarily significant, the Doolittle raid sent a powerful psychological message to the Japanese, demonstrating to them that their Home Islands weren’t invulnerable, and for Americans, it was a gigantic morale-booster.

  At that point, Jones handed a thick envelope to each man. The packets were black with red tape running along the edge. Each was stamped “TOP SECRET.”

  Hunter and the others quickly scanned the four-page directive. They detailed a highly-ambitious mission calling for four ships—the Enterprise, two supply ships, and a “covering fire” vessel—to proceed to the east coast of Japan, where a small group of jet airplanes would launch, hit key targets, recover, and leave the area.

  “I suggest we break up and study this and meet again in an hour,” Jones said.

  Immediately everyone stood, saluted and left—everyone except Hunter.

  Without a word, Jones handed him another TOP SECRET document. Hunter opened it and quickly read it.

  The one-page paper was titled “Special Targeting Mission.” Hunter was not familiar with the term. But after he’d read just the first paragraph, the meaning became quite clear.

  He felt a chill run through him.

  Throughout all the years of war and violence, Hunter had always thought of himself simply as a soldier, a patriot, someone forced to become a warrior to defend his homeland. He’d led many major campaigns and planned many more.

  Yet, the idea laid out in this paper was different. It did not inhabit the usual realm of war. Worse yet, the person slated to perform the mission was identified as Operative Blue One. That had been Hunter’s code name in the past.

  Jones sensed his misgivings right away.

  “This kind of thing is a first for us,” he said, his voice still stone-cold serious. “And, believe me, I regret having to come up with such a plan. It’s caused me many a sleepless night already—and I expect many more. That’s why I decided to keep the planning of this one under wraps until everything was in place.”

  There was a long tense silence between the two men.

  “Let’s face it, Hawk,” Jones said to his old friend, “things are desperate. If we can pull this off while the bombing raid is going on, we’ll go a long way to solving this very big problem. And maybe save millions of lives in the process.

  “And you’re the only one who can do it.”

  The meeting resumed one hour later.

  Jones started off by explaining the “special targeting mission” to the rest of the group. Upon hearing the news, each man had the same reaction as Hunter: shock, followed by a grim realization that desperate times require desperate measures.

  Jones smartly moved the discussion along to the specifics of the air-raid portion of the secret mission: sailing dates, tide levels, aircraft available, recon photos of the target, psy-ops, SigInt and air-strike particulars.

  As far as the purely military end of the operation, Jones’s plan was as innovative as it was daring. The stakes, however, were very high. The air strike on the selected Japanese targets would have to be hit-and-run; any delay could prove disastrous. Yet the targets were so heavily defended by the Cult, the American strike craft would have to perform all kinds of aerial tricks in order to get in on their targets, hit them, and get the hell out.

  Still, the whole operation was so intensely dangerous, the casualty rate among the attacking pilots could be expected to be as high as fifty percent—or even higher.

  There were other risks, and not just in human terms. It was obvious that it had taken a major concentrated effort to get the Enterprise operational again. It was once more a fairly formidable weapon. Though nowhere near the power projector it had been in its heyday, it was still not an entity that the general would put at risk lightly. Yet if something went disastrously wrong, the carrier could be sunk, or even worse, captured intact.

  Over all, the most important element of the operation would be its timing. The four ships of the newly-created Task Force would have to sail to their attack coordinates very quickly and under the cover of absolute radio silence for secrecy. They would have to launch the airplanes with just the precise amount of fuel to carry a precise number of bombs. The air strikes would have to be pi
npoint and accurate, yet done without much air cover. The strike craft would have to return to the carrier as soon as possible so the Task Force could exit the area just as quickly.

  Getting the timing right also meant dealing with supplies. Since the mission wasn’t an invasion or an attack in force, they could cut the risk factor down by taking only the minimum necessary. But this also meant there could be no room for error, waste, or delays.

  Then there was the problem of Task Force security, specifically, the ship that Jones’s directive identified as the “covering fire vessel.”

  As Yaz put it, “We’re going to need something packing a lot of firepower. Who’s it going to be?”

  Hunter had been silent all during this second meeting, the words “Special Targeting Mission” still burning into his brain. But now, after hearing Yaz’s question, he spoke up for the first time.

  “I think we all have just the ship in mind,” he said.

  Four

  THE BATTLESHIP USS New Jersey lay in the dark, still waters of the Panama Canal. Above it glowed a full moon.

  It was nearly midnight. Inside the bridge of the ship’s immense superstructure, its captain sat alone, brooding, as usual.

  The enormous ship had been waiting to pass through the canal since noon that day. Repeated attempts to strike a deal with the people who controlled operation of the canal locks—they were ensconced in a gaudy, heavily-guarded 200-foot tower which looked out over the canal and the seedy city nearby—had proved frustrating. Some radio replies from shore claimed the main set of locks were not working. Others said the technicians needed to operate the locks were unavailable. Still others claimed the locks could operate only at unpredictable hours or by an ever-changing schedule.

  The captain of the New Jersey knew this odd behavior was actually a not-too-clever means of keeping him and his crew captive in the locks. One message, received shortly before sunset, said it all: LET YOUR CREW COME ASHORE AND ENJOY THE PLEASURES OF OUR CITY WHILE WE SORT OUT THE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES WHICH DELAY YOUR PASSAGE.