The Oriana B stopped almost dead in the water. Suddenly the air around them was filled with the buzzing of a hundred wasps as the pilot opened fire. Black dropped to the deck, curled into a ball and wrapped his hands over his head. A ratcheting sound like an enormous zipper being jerked down was followed by the thudding of a hundred six-inch spikes being hammered into the deck and the wheelhouse cabin. Splinters and pieces of metal flew in the air like a small tornado. A few seconds later there was the crackling sound of flames and, at last, the receding thunder of the fighter as it passed over them and rose back up into the sky to join its formation.
Black waited until he was sure the fighter was gone, then rose up off the deck and surveyed the damage. Machine-gun holes had raked the deck, the gunwales and the fishbox, with more across the top of the cabin. The glass had been blown out of the little forward steering station nest that poked up out of the cabin forward and smoke was pouring out of it. He listened hard but the engine sounded all right, which meant it was probably the bottled gas for the stove that was on fire.
Jane helped Zarubin up and sat him back down on the little bench, the padding now ripped by several bullet holes. The Russian looked up, keeping a wary eye on the passing hordes of aircraft overhead. Jane looked forward, knowing where the planes were headed.
‘Pity the poor bastards over there,’ she whispered.
‘Pity us if we do not reach land before we are all burned to death,’ said Zarubin.
‘A few more minutes,’ said Black. ‘We should make it in time.’
Jane picked up the fire axe she had carried with her from the Southern Cross. ‘Maybe we should start talking about where this guy Levitsky is.’
Zarubin winced and shifted his leg. ‘When the time comes you will be told.’
‘This is the fucking time, you Red bastard!’ She swung the axe and it crashed down into the deckhouse a few inches from the surprised Russian’s head, three inches of blade digging deeply into the wood. ‘I don’t have time for any shit! Not now! Not today!’
Zarubin held up his hands, palms out. ‘We are allies, remember!’ He stared up at her, wide-eyed. ‘I am a wounded man!’
‘Ask me if I give a shit!’ roared Jane. She pulled the axe out of the cabin roof and held it over her head again. ‘All I know is you’ve been following us around and people have been dying. The professor, the Harte kid, some woman from the bank in Ventura and easy money says you were behind our little Mexican driver getting killed.’
‘I am no different from you,’ the Russian answered weakly. ‘I have a job to do.’
‘Blowing the heart out of a fourteen-year-old boy?’ said Jane. ‘That’s part of your job?’
‘I did not do that.’
‘No, but you almost certainly hired the person who did,’ put in Black. ‘I sincerely suggest you tell her where we can find Levitsky.’ The Scotland Yard detective nodded towards the axe in her hands. ‘She’ll have no hesitation in burying that thing in the top of your head and spilling your brains out all over the deck and into the scuppers.’
‘You would not,’ said Zarubin.
‘Spread your legs a little,’ Jane answered. ‘Maybe we’ll start a little lower.’
Zarubin stared up at her and she stared back.
‘Make up your mind, sap. This axe is getting heavy.’
‘She really would,’ Black said quietly. He looked around. ‘And it’s not as though we have many witnesses.’
‘All right. I’ll tell you,’ Zarubin grumbled. ‘Just get us to shore.’
* * *
Emil Haas had been moving slowly along the midships corridor on his way to the drawing room when he first heard the droning roar of the fighter plane. He had spent time in Spain during the civil war as an observer and the sound had the same familiar, terrifying throb as the dive-bombing Stukas Goring’s Luftwaffe had tested in the skies over Madrid. He managed to use a bulkhead door to get himself out on deck just as the first shells struck the Southern Cross and for a split second he was covered by the cape-like shadow as the Japanese fighter passed directly over his head, no more than thirty feet above him, almost close enough for him to count the rivets in the Mitsubishi’s aluminium belly. Then the shells exploded deep within the superstructure of the yacht.
The concussion threw Haas over the rail. He slammed into the fouled and oily water beside the Southern Cross, his head narrowly missing a large floating piece of debris that might have been part of the bridge housing. He sank beneath the water, barely conscious, the visibility in the enclosed space around the pier almost down to nothing. Feeling his lungs half filled with water, Haas managed to summon up enough of himself to push hard towards the surface, eventually reaching it, his ears still ringing from the concussion of the explosions, his eyes stinging from the oil and the brine as he watched the panic-stricken crew desperately trying to put out half a dozen fires with the small soda extinguishers that had been strategically placed around the boat. He caught a brief glimpse of the duchess, her hair singed and one almost boyish breast revealed by a rip in her nightdress. Then she disappeared into the smoke. No one was paying the slightest attention to him.
Looking blearily around him, the German agent saw the broken remains of a life ring, hooked his arm around it and paddled towards the pier but away from the boat. Scores of other planes roared overhead, too high for him to see their markings, but there had been no doubt of the bright red circle on each wing of the one that attacked the Southern Cross; the continuing thunder of explosions in the distance confirmed it. Germany’s Japanese allies had just made a decisive and violent declaration of war on the United States.
Haas reached the pier and clambered up a metal ladder bolted to one of the pilings. Climbing, he knew that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor meant that Hitler would be forced to declare war and, with the Americans in the war, for all intents and purposes that would be the end of the Third Reich. He reached the top of the ladder and climbed out onto dry land, his clothes dripping. He paused for a few seconds, bent slightly, hands on knees, catching his breath. Third Reich. It was strange but no one simply called it Germany any more.
He looked briefly back at the Southern Cross. There were still a few fires burning here and there but there seemed to be more smoke than anything else, members of the crew and passengers appearing and disappearing in the fog.
Haas spotted the station wagon parked at the foot of the steep track leading down to the pier and trotted across to it. There was a rifle case and a pair of binoculars in the backseat. The keys were dangling from the ignition. He climbed in behind the wheel, switched on the engine and wheeled the car around. One last errand to run and then he’d see about getting out of Hawaii and down to Mexico. From there, if he was lucky, he’d find a way to get back home. To his beloved Germany.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sunday, December 7, 1941
Honolulu
The front cabin of the Oriana B was smoking heavily by the time they reached Honolulu Harbor. There were several freighters and a Dutch cargo liner named the Jagersfontein in port but nothing else; it was, after all, a Sunday. There seemed to be some activity aboard the Dutch liner but other than that the port seemed strangely empty, almost abandoned.
Black found a mooring at Pier Eight, just to the right of a tower with huge clocks and the single word ‘Aloha’ on all four sides. The only other vessel, on the other side of the dock, was a small, scruffy-looking Soviet freighter with an unintelligible Cyrillic name on the bow and a yellow hammer and sickle on its single red-and-black funnel. The mooring for the Oriana B was at the base of a set of metal steps that climbed at a steep angle up to the wharf and it took some time for Zarubin to make his way to the top.
According to the Russian their destination was next to a Chinese restaurant on Hotel Street, not far from the Chinatown Canal. They reached the wharf and saw that it was deserted – not a stevedore or mechanic or seaman anywhere. They reached the end of the long, low warehouse building that stood bes
ide the pier and came out on the corner of Bishop Street and Ala Moana. There was no traffic at all, although a number of cars were parked at the curb. Spotting a small corner restaurant, Black crossed the road to ask the owner or the patrons a few questions but halfway across the street he saw that the place was closed, dark and empty. A sign in the window, already cracked and broken, read MORI MURA ALL DAY BREAKFAST – AMERICAN FOOD. By now a place like that would have been opened for at least a couple of hours to catch the shift change but not today. Mr Morimura had other problems to deal with.
The three of them kept on going up Bishop Street under the palm trees but the bandages around Zarubin’s leg were soaked in blood and he was slowing with every step. Every now and again they could hear explosions from not too far away and clearly there had been damage inside the city. They passed another restaurant that looked as though it had taken direct impact from a bomb. Shards of glass and brick and stone were strewn all over the streets.
A Ford stood in the middle of the street, torn to shreds, its tyres flat, the body of the car ripped with odd-shaped holes. Four people were slumped inside the car, all of them killed by shrapnel from exploding anti-aircraft shells from Pearl Harbor. The radio in the car was still playing, set to KGMB. The song it was playing was number one on the charts and called ‘Three Little Fishies’:
Down in the meadow in the iddy biddy poo
thwee little fishies and a mamma fishie too.
‘Jesus,’ said Jane as she regarded the two dead men in the front and two dead women in the back. Off to work and never got there.
Jane found a Rexall drugstore at Bishop and Queen Street, which was also closed. Black put the elbow of his jacket through the glass of the door and let Jane and Zarubin inside. She found a pair of shears, cut the leg off Zarubin’s trousers entirely and changed the dressing, this time covering the wound with penicillin powder. She convinced the Russian to lie down on the soda fountain counter and proceeded to stitch the wound closed with a needle and some Coates and Clark waxed thread from a sewing kit she found.
‘You have medical training?’ asked Zarubin, gritting his teeth.
‘I have sock-darning training. Same thing,’ she answered, continuing to stitch. ‘It should hold you until we can get you to a hospital.’
‘You mean an interrogation room with that skinny fellow I saw with you yesterday.’
‘You saw us?’ said Black, surprised.
‘Of course I saw you. Elephants in a china shop.’
‘Bulls in a china shop, actually.’
‘Who fucking cares?’ grunted Zarubin. At that moment, Jane tugged particularly hard as she tied off the last piece of thread. She wrapped the wound site in yards of gauze, stuck on a pair of temporary splints and then wrapped it all up in three or four Ace bandages. ‘That should hold you,’ she said. ‘Fix you a milkshake?’
‘Shtoi!’ Zarubin climbed down off the counter and Jane went to the fountain and pulled herself a glass of Coke with lots of ice. She drained it then had another. She hadn’t eaten anything since the night before but her thirst was even stronger than her hunger. She finished the second glass, pushed open the counter flap and did a little shopping of her own. By the time she joined Black, who was waiting by the door, she was carrying a drawstring canvas beach bag and had sunglasses perched on her forehead. Zarubin was foraging through the pharmacy, looking for a display of work clothes he’d seen. ‘What’s in the bag?’ asked Black.
‘Sandwiches for later, in case we get hungry.’
‘Good idea.’
‘How are we going to do this?’ Jane asked, keeping her voice low.
‘Zarubin, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘We could let him find Levitsky and the film, then turn them both over to the police.’
‘I think the cops have got other things to worry about right now,’ said Jane. ‘And I still think I’ve seen Zarubin before. It’s starting to bother me a lot.’
‘If Levitsky had the film it’s the only copy left,’ said Black. ‘The others were destroyed on the Southern Cross.’ He paused. ‘We have to stick with Zarubin, at least for the time being.’
‘And if we get the film, what then?’
‘I haven’t thought that far,’ Black admitted.
Zarubin came out of the back of the Rexall, struggling to button up a pair of whipcord work pants that were at least a size too large for him. When he had the fly buttoned, he cinched his own belt through the loops, grimacing with pain from the wound in his thigh.
‘Shall we go?’ he said.
‘How do you want to approach this, Vassili?’ Black asked.
‘Simple. We go to the address, you give me your gun and I go in and kill him, destroy the film.’
‘Destroy it?’ Jane asked.
‘Of course destroy it,’ said the Russian. He limped behind the front counter and chose a package of Camels as well as a Ronson lighter from the display case under the counter. He spent a few moments putting the flint and fluid in the lighter then lit a cigarette for himself. He offered the pack to Jane and Morris Black, who took one each. ‘Destroying the film is best for us all. To have it around makes us all look bad: your government, my government, the lady’s government. Destroy it forever and we can all forget about the damn Romanovs, yes?’
‘And about giving back their money.’
‘That too. In time of wars like this governments need all the money they can get.’
‘True.’
‘So Levitsky dies. The film is gone.’ He grinned broadly. ‘I even rid you of a traitor in Donovan’s organisation. A happy ending, like a fairy tale.’ He paused again. ‘I think we should be on our way, though. Comrade Levitsky will not wait forever and my leg is hurting quite badly despite the kind lady’s ministrations.’
Morris Black and Jane Todd stepped out through the open doorway. Parked directly in front of the Rexall was a brand-new fawn-coloured two-door Lincoln Continental Cabriolet with the top down, complete with wheel covers in the rear, whitewalls all around and the spare in its own casing tucked into a little niche behind the rear bumper.
The top down made Jane’s job all the easier. She hopped in behind the steering wheel, pulled out the ignition and the starter wires then stripped an inch or two of each with a nail file she took from her newly acquired beach bag. The car started instantly. She and Black shared a smile as she opened the passenger-side door and pushed back the seat, letting Zarubin climb into the back.
‘Where to?’ asked Jane.
‘Up the hill,’ Zarubin instructed. ‘Three blocks. Take first left past King Street.’
Jane did as she was told, driving the big car slowly, weaving around debris that littered the road. Windows had been blasted out everywhere and once or twice she saw that large chunks of masonry had been blown off buildings.
Reaching the corner of Bishop Street and Hotel Street, she saw that she was in the middle of the worst of the bombing. A trolley had gone off the rails and several fires were burning. The people in the streets were looking west towards Pearl Harbor but there wasn’t much to see except the giant cloud of oily smoke.
Several men in their undershirts were wandering around with rifles from the last war but no one was trying to play either hero or self-appointed commander in chief. The look on most people’s faces was a combination of fear and confusion. Jane noticed that there didn’t seem to be a single Asian face in the crowd. It occurred to her that to be Japanese today was to be a target and at the very least an enemy.
She remembered the newsreels she’d seen from Germany about what they’d called Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, and hoped Americans would never really turn on their own like that. In her heart she knew that they could and probably would in the coming days and weeks.
She turned the big Lincoln left, heading down towards the old Iwilei red-light district and Chinatown. On both sides of Hotel Street it was wall-to-wall Wiki-Wiki clubs, barn-like Taxi Dance halls where you paid a dime for five minute
s of dancing with a Filipino girl who usually couldn’t speak any English. There were fifty bars to a block and twenty brothels large and small to go with them. Everything was closed, the doors and windows of the upper floors tightly shuttered. Twice along the way they passed smoking, gutted holes where buildings had once been. More cars, all of them empty that Jane could see, had been hit by the shrapnel from the anti-aircraft fire as well but there was no sign that any of the dive-bombers or high-altitude aircraft had wasted anything on the city.
The view as they drove was dominated by the big Dole Pineapple water tower sticking up over everything. The air was heavy with the sweet-sick stink of the pineapple canneries.
‘Where is it?’ said Black, turning in his seat.
‘There,’ said Zarubin, pointing. The building in question was located beside a low, faceless warehouse that sagged in the middle and was covered with dark green clapboard siding. The building Zarubin was pointing at was also wood, three storeys high and at one time painted red. Now it was the colour of dust and dirt. On the main floor was a Chinese restaurant named the White Orchid. The curtains were drawn over the front window and the only sign of life was a gigantic marmalade cat curled up in one corner by a tall, fat Chinese vase half filled with orchids. A rickety staircase on the side of the restaurant building led to the upper floors. At the foot of the stairs was a row of garbage cans in the alley that separated the White Orchid from the warehouse.
‘He owns both buildings except the restaurant. He lives on the second floor and does his filming in the warehouse next door.’
The House of Special Purpose Page 37