After much laughing and poking, the first executioner agreed to shoot the man in his abdomen. As his friends moved a few paces in back of him, the designated shooter turned his attention toward the first prisoner and then took careful aim.
His comrades laughingly began a countdown, shouting through their gas masks: “Four … three … two … one …”
But when they got to zero, the man with his rifle raised didn’t pull the trigger. Instead he just stood there for a moment, seemingly paralyzed. His friends looked at him blankly. What was wrong with him? He seemed to be gasping for breath. Was something wrong with his mask?
After a few long seconds, the man turned back toward them to reveal a long, steel-stemmed dart shot directly into his left eye socket, the wound bleeding so profusely it was filling up his gas mask’s goggles and snout.
The man finally let out a long, painful, muffled scream and toppled over, his throat already stiffening from acute curare poisoning. After ten excruciating seconds, his stomach and windpipe seized on him, causing him to throw up and choke to death on his own vomit.
His comrades instantly raised their weapons, but it was way too late. Each man received his own blow dart filled with curare: two to the eyes, the third, appropriately enough, in his groin. In less than twenty seconds the four-man execution squad was dead.
Only then did Hunter and the three Extras emerge from the underbrush.
Even before the lime-covered prisoners realized that their lives had been saved, Hunter and the Extras had dragged the soldiers’ bodies over to the edge of the pit and kicked them in. For the first time Hunter saw the pit was filled with the skeletons and rotting corpses of less fortunate prisoners.
“They throw lime on them so the animals won’t eat the bodies,” one of the Extras explained. “If they did, then the Cult couldn’t eat the animals.”
Hunter took one look at the lime barrel and then back down at the four Cult bodies.
“I don’t think we should do them the favor,” he said, disgusted. “Those guys deserve to be someone’s dinner.”
The Cult guards at the main gate to the Okinawa Underground Manufacturing Facility never knew what hit them.
In their last few moments of life, however, they had beheld a strange scene. The firing squad patrol that had been dispatched to eliminate four no-longer-productive slave laborers just thirty minutes before had come marching back down the trail, its four prisoners still alive, covered with lime, and, inexplicably, wearing gas masks.
The gate guards couldn’t fathom what had happened. The frequent executions usually went off without the slightest complication.
Two of the four gate guards walked out to meet the returning patrol, their weapons lowered and uncocked, the faces behind their gas masks etched with curiosity. Neither man got to say a word. Each quickly received a large knife in the throat, ensuring that he died without a scream. Before their two remaining comrades knew what was happening, they were cut down by a hail of bullets from a silencer-equipped 9mm pistol.
Leaving the bodies and their weapons in the care of the liberated prisoners, Hunter and the Extras boldly moved on. Once they were inside the perimeter of the facility’s large main entrance, it was easy to mix in with the hundreds of similarly clad gas-masked Cult soldiers, all of whom were either moving in or out of the facility’s entrance cave mouth, not speaking, not looking up, like hundreds of mindless drone ants.
It was that easy. Hunter and his companions simply walked in through the main entrance and down the large crowded man-made tunnel that ran straight into the mountain’s side. They walked along this passageway for nearly ten minutes, until they were literally on the other side of the mountain. It was here that they saw the secret airstrip that Hunter had theorized the last Zero had escaped into. He couldn’t help but admire the scale of the work done by the Cult soldiers. The airstrip was large enough to handle dozens if not hundreds of airplanes, yet with the covering over its huge entranceway, it was practically invisible from the outside.
They followed the sound of rhythmic pounding coming from the other end of the gradually sloping tunnel. Whatever the Cult was manufacturing here, the work was obviously being done deep in the bowels of the mountain.
It took another twenty minutes of walking down the crowded descending passageway before they saw the greenish reflection of halogen lights up ahead. Hunter tapped his breast pocket twice for good luck. He was about to accomplish the major part of this recon mission—to ascertain exactly what the Cult was building deep inside the vast underground chambers.
Whatever was ahead of them, it certainly sounded impressive; the constant mechanical pounding was almost ear-splitting by this time.
Still, Hunter was not quite prepared for what he saw.
For as they rounded the last bend in the tunnel they found themselves on a crowded metal walkway which looked out on the biggest aircraft hangar that Hunter had ever seen, underground or otherwise.
All four of them were simply astonished.
As far as they could see, thousands of airplanes—almost all of them Zeros—were parked wing-to-wing, all with either torpedoes or blockbuster bombs strapped under their wings.
Hunter swallowed hard.
“Holy canoli,” he muttered under his breath.
The lead Extra and his men were similarly amazed. Though they’d been on the island for almost two years, they’d never dreamed the underground facility which had been slowly killing off the island was so vast or elaborate.
And this was just the first level.
The chief Extra cocked his head to his left and Hunter turned to look. A large freight elevator had opened up and six more Zeros were pushed out on the floor. As that one closed and dropped down for more, another elevator next to it opened and six more planes were pulled out, like clockwork.
Hunter and his comrades boldly walked over to the elevator and stepped inside. The “hangar rats,” dressed in immaculate white smocks and pants, and wearing a fancier style of gas mask, paid little attention to these “killers” who were bumming a ride.
The elevator descended all the way to the lowest floor, the rhythmic pounding that Hunter and the Extras had first heard as they’d entered the facility growing ever louder and louder. The elevator stopped and the doors lifted open. Now the pounding was breaking the decibel barrier. Hunter stepped out and again was simply astounded by what he saw.
Before them lay a complete state-of-the-art aircraft factory, one that featured hundreds of computers, robots, and VDT screens, yet totally manned by native slaves, all of them either chained to their stations or shackled as they moved around the heaviest sections of aircraft from place to place. Hunter saw that anytime one of these slave laborers faltered, he was pulled off the line and consigned to a trio of soldiers dressed exactly like him, who put him in a holding pen. Then another healthier slave was in turn assigned to that position, knowing full well the fate if he failed to produce for these masters.
“This is sick,” Hunter whispered.
He’d seen enough. Signaling to the lead Extra, the three of them walked over to what was the holding pen for depleted slaves. They silently took charge of the latest ten unfortunates consigned to death and prodded them into the freight elevator. As they rode up to the main level, the elevator stopped at three different floors, each revealing a separate factory: one for torpedoes and blockbuster aerial bombs; another for the sole manufacture of small arms, heavy machine guns and their ammunition; and a third which appeared to be dedicated to the manufacture of uniforms. It was evident that this was in fact the busiest; racks upon racks of fatigues, boots, helmets, and webbing were being turned out by the minute.
Hunter was almost numb by this time. He felt like he was walking through a nightmare, a reprise of the heavy state of mind he carried leading up to his special targeting mission. The vast underground industrial sprawl was even more frightening, simply because it presented such a concrete example of just how strong the Cult was—even without Hashi
Pushi. There was no way Jones or any of them could have imagined something like this. It defied imagination. What chilled him most was that the facility was so large, he was sure it had been set up for more than just keeping the Cult’s occupying armies supplied. The place had obviously been built by people who had much bigger and grander expansionist ideas in mind.
The last of whatever exhilaration remained from the successful airstrike on Japan drained out of him at that moment. His hunch on the carrier had been sadly correct. The battle against the Cult was far from over.
They were out of the main gate and back up into the jungle within forty-five minutes, setting their “prisoners” free along the way. Then, after a hurried farewell and a promise to meet again, the Extras proceeded back up the mountain out of the smogged-in valley while Hunter rushed back through the bush to his Harrier’s hiding place.
He had much to tell them back at the Task Force.
Twenty-five
Aboard the Fitzgerald
THE YOUNG ENSIGN POURED out two cups of thick, black coffee and delivered one to the captain.
If there was one person on the bridge who looked like he needed some caffeine, it was the carrier’s extremely harried-looking commander.
“Sugar, sir?”
Ben Wa turned toward the ensign and shook his head no.
“Why start now?” he asked, accepting the enormous cup of joe.
Ben had been many things in his life: stunt pilot, a member of the Thunderbirds, mercenary fighter jockey. But never in his wildest dreams did he ever think that he’d be commanding a major fighting vessel like the Fitzgerald.
But here he was, sitting in the captain’s chair, pumping down the coffee, and counting the new gray hairs on his head. A lot of people were counting on him. The fifteen hundred men on the Fitz, the thousand or so other men aboard the New Jersey, the Tennyson, and the Cohen. The millions of people back in America.
“Things are in tough shape when they have to put an Air Force guy in charge of a carrier,” he said for the hundredth time. “No wonder Yaz is in such bad shape.”
The bridge door opened, and JT came in like a gust of wind. He helped himself to the coffeepot and then slumped into the seat next to Ben.
“What’s the latest situation?” Ben asked him.
“Fucked up on all points,” JT replied.
Ben just shook his head. “Okay, let’s have it.”
JT took a small notebook from his pocket. “Item one: we are low on all kinds of fuel. Same with the other three ships. Item two: we are low on food. Same with the other three ships. Item three: we are low on fresh water. Same with the others.
“Item four: there’s no word from Hawk. Nothing on the radio. Nothing on the long-range stuff.
“Item five: we’ve been so lucky no Cult ships or planes have seen us sitting out here that it’s just a matter of time before our luck runs out. If that happens, we can throw up about four of those very banged-up jets and start praying. If they can’t stop whatever’s coming at us—like submarines, for instance—and Wolf’s guns can’t do it, then we will be the deadest ducks in military history.”
“And Item seven … ?” Ben asked.
JT paused, then slumped further into his seat.
“Item seven is that Yaz is not doing so good. I was just down to see him in sick bay. I’m not a doctor, but he looks pretty bad to me.”
Of all the strangeness that was swirling around the Task Force, the sudden illness of Yaz seemed the most baffling. He’d been found shortly after Hunter took off, sitting in the conference room, watching the tape of Hunter’s harrowing return through the typhoon. He was as stiff as a board when they found him, barely breathing and with a pulse down near the low fifties. The carrier’s two doctors agreed that he had suffered some kind of seizure—they used the phrase “trauma shock”—but just what kind still remained a mystery. The closest guess was a form of shell shock, the kind soldiers got after hours or days in heavy battle. This is what had the doctors puzzled. Yaz had certainly been under enormous stress helming the Fitzgerald, and it possibly made him a candidate for battle fatigue syndrome. But shell shock? It didn’t make sense.
With Yaz out of the picture, the only logical choice as to who would take over running the ship was Ben, who had been serving as Yaz’s Executive Officer. Not a minute went by now that Ben didn’t think he’d wind up like his friend.
“The docs are doing everything they can for him,” JT went on. “Got him on fluids and intravenous feeding. And he’s still breathing on his own. But I’ll tell you, brother, I’ve seen dead guys in better shape.”
“And those sawbones got no idea how or why it happened?” Ben asked.
JT just shook his head. “They said the only way to find out is to ask him, and to do that they’ve got to get him conscious.”
They sat in silence for a long moment, suddenly realizing that their worried discussion had taken place within earshot of the eighteen crew members and officers standing on the bridge.
Ben leaned in closer to JT and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Okay, first thing we do is put the whole Task Force on some kind of rationing program. Essentials are to be used only for must-do stuff. All routine crap should cease immediately. No one’s going to care if we all have a fresh coat of paint when we’re sinking.
“Number Two: we’ve got to get as many airplanes working as possible. We shouldn’t worry about what to strap on them, or whether every little cockpit gizmo comes back green. If it can fly and shoot and drop ordnance, then it should be combat ready.
“Number Three: we send a message to Wolf, tell him to get his ship tucked in here with us. We’ll have to count on him for close-in protection. It’s not going to do us any good if he’s cruising way the hell out there.”
JT was writing it all down in his notebook. “You’re the Task Force commander, Ben; I think you should contact him directly. And you should do it before something else goes wrong.”
But as it turned out, JT had spoken too late. Bad news walked in the door in the form of a message from the New Jersey, carried by one of the carrier’s communications officers.
“Just in from Wolf’s Executive Officer,” the man told Ben, handing him the cable. “He’s requesting an immediate reply.”
Ben took the message, read it and then handed it to JT. “It just got worse …”
JT read the message and then read it again, making sure he got it right.
“‘Wolf is missing?’”
Twenty-six
Okinawa
MAJOR GENERAL NAUGA ZUZU was sweating so profusely his uniform jacket was almost soaked through.
He had reason to worry. He was the production manager for the vast underground industrial miracle beneath Okinawa, and as such, was responsible for everything that went on inside the strange subterranean world as well as above it. His position was one which gained him little praise when things went right and much criticism when things went wrong.
It was the first day after a full moon. In the past, this was the day the great Hashi Pushi himself would actually leave the safety of his palace and visit Okinawa to learn from Zuzu the factory output figures, production projections, estimated usage of raw materials, and slave labor depletion figures—subjects in which the Great Leader had unlimited interest and knowledge. During this review session, Zuzu would also be obligated to discuss overall strategy, defensive battle tactics, troop estimates, and general supply allocations for the island’s vast but almost secret garrison, though Zuzu felt Hashi Pushi never understood nor cared to understand the military half of his mission.
Although there was always an air of unpredictability whenever Zuzu made his monthly report to Hashi Pushi, the Great Leader would always impart a sense of fairness. Like any good CEO, Hashi Pushi would reward Zuzu if the numbers were good and chastise him if the numbers were bad. Then, after a short lecture on the Cult’s destiny in the world, the Great Leader would board his special transport plane and fly back to
Tokyo, and not return for exactly another month.
All in all, it had been extremely nerve-wracking anytime the big boss was on the island; Zuzu’s ever-increasing number of gray hairs served to prove this.
But never did he think that he would actually long for those days. But he did, now that the woman was in charge.
Just who this strange woman was, Zuzu didn’t know. She’d suddenly appeared several days before, announcing that she was Hashi Pushi’s hand-picked successor. Though it seemed to be a fantastic claim, there was no doubt that Hashi Pushi had indeed sent her. The Great Leader himself had cabled Zuzu a few days before, and in a rambling, disjointed message, informed him that a young girl would soon succeed him as head of the Asian Mercenary Cult. After that, all communications with Tokyo had mysteriously ceased.
The woman fit Hashi Pushi’s description exactly—right down to her bright red hair—and she had dominated practically every aspect of the Okinawa Manufacturing Facility since her arrival. She seemed to enjoy terrorizing just about all who had come in contact with her. Bad service, bad food, a bad mood were enough to send her into a blind rage. Anyone unlucky enough to be in her presence during these fits more often than not paid with his life.
Any hopes that the woman would not require him to report his “full moon” figures were dashed an hour before. That’s when Zuzu got the word to report, unarmed and alone, to the woman’s underground living chamber. He hastily reviewed his meticulously prepared information; the numbers he had to report to her were good. The problem was, they weren’t great. And that was the reason Zuzu was now bathed in flop sweat. Because the woman had already established the fact that she disliked getting even the smallest amount of bad news, he feared what was about to happen to him when she heard his numbers weren’t through-the-roof terrific.
The long walk down to her chamber seemed to take forever. In the background was the perpetual thump-thump-thump of the underground facility’s machinery working as always at a nonstop pace. Zuzu wondered if he would ever see the vast underground factory again.
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