Initiative (The Red Gambit Series Book 6) (13 page)

“Sergeant?”

“Orders were quite clear, Lootenant.”

The young man hesitated.

“Don’t look like they’re doing a banzai to me, Sergeant.”

The NCO looked at the new officer and spat demonstrably, a jet of tobacco juice clipping the top of the .50cal pulpit.

“How many banzai charges you seen, Lootenant Capaldi?”

The officer coloured up.

“None, as you well know… but they…”

“But fuck all, Lootenant. They wounded my brother and his mates on the canal with the games they play. Can’t trust the bastards.”

“But th…”

“And the orders were very clear, Lootenant.”

Vincent Capalde, only a week with the armored infantry unit as a replacement for a well-respected officer on his way stateside with severe injuries, was out of his depth.

He looked at the small group of enemy soldiers, their leader holding a sword in his left hand as he led his men forward.

‘Oh fuck it.’

“Fire!”

Captain, the Marquis, Ito Hirohata, could not feel his left arm, which, given its condition, was just as well.

When he was blasted out of the Panther’s turret, he had broken it in three places as it connected with the inside of the cupola.

A fourth break occurred when he came down in soft vegetation, the mangled limb flapping across of bridge of wood, snapping noisily at the wrist.

His pain had increased and increased, amplified by the destruction of ‘Masami’, the loss of Hamuda’s tank crew, and the obvious destruction being wrought around him by the terror fliers of the enemy.

His pain had disappeared in an instant as, above his head, an enemy aircraft was destroyed, causing the pilot to bail out.

The US Marine Corps’ pilot landed heavily less than twenty feet away, and was immediately consumed by white silk as the parachute came to earth.

Curses and yelps of pain marked the man’s efforts to free himself from the grip of the vegetation and the stifling presence of the deflated canopy.

Hirohata switched between watching the American lump struggling under a white screen, and the actions of his friend and commander, Major Nomori Hamuda.

He watched as Hamuda paraded his men, as they discarded their weapons, and as they gave three Banzai salutes.

He watched as they marched forward to observe the Emperor’s wishes, and to surrender themselves to the unthinkable for the sake of the future of the Empire.

Cowpens struggled free, partially so, brandishing his Colt automatic in response to the howling that sprang from Hirohata’s throat as the survivors of the Rainbow Brigade were machine-gunned to death.

A bullet flew past his ear, the pistol report lost in the heavy rattle of .50cals from the valley below, Cowpens’ aerial prowess not matched by his handgun skills.

Hirohata’s anguish turned to rage and he grabbed for his own pistol.

Cowpens had managed to jam his Colt, the mechanism snatching at the silk of his chute, jamming the slide half returned.

“Banzai!”

The Marine only had a moment’s fear before the Japanese officer jammed the Nambu pistol in his face and pulled the trigger, blowing the side of the pilot’s head off.

This shot was also lost in the echoes of the slaughter near the bridge, echoes that drew Hirohata back to examine the scene from his vantage point, his thoughts now changed from those of glorious death to feral ones of renewed hatred for all things Yankee, and of revenge.

As the marching soldiers were cut down, Kagamutsu slowly cranked the Panther’s turret round, the blood of the dead gunner making his hands slip as he tried to point the 75mm at the lead halftrack.

Around him, the crew were out of the fight. As well as the gunner, the loader had also perished messily when whatever it was transited the tank, rising up from the front plate and bursting open the rear turret hatch, taking considerable portions of the gunner and loader with it. The two men in the hull were incapacitated and groaning with pain from their wounds.

It did not matter to Sergeant Major Kagamutsu.

All he wanted was revenge.

He manoeuvred the weapon slowly, laying it on the target he had selected, the one that had opened fire first.

The young armored-infantry lieutenant dropped over the side of the half-track, leaving behind the sounds of the heavy machine-gun being reloaded, and the self-satisfied drawling of his sergeant.

Regardless of what the orders had said, Capalde felt that he had just done murder.

The whoosh and explosion joined together in an instant, which immediately turned back and silent.

The half-track burst into flames as the 75mm shell struck home. The five dazed survivors, aided by other nearby soldiers, did their best to drag their comrades clear.

The dead sergeant was consumed by the increasing flames.

Across the river, angry American tankers turned their weapons on the smoking Panther and finished the job.

With the death of Kagamutsu and his men, the last resistance of the 3rd Special Obligation Brigade ‘Rainbow’ ended.

Capalde’s Sergeant, and the other four men who died in the halftrack, were the last known ground force casualties in the war against Japan.

Lieutenant Commander Nanbu Nobukiyo bowed deeply to his commander, Rear-Admiral Sasaki Hankyu, OC Japanese Sixth Fleet.

“I envy you the opportunity these orders represent, Nobukiyo.”

The Admiral nodded to his aide, who proffered the thick sealed file.

Nobukiyo took the file in both hands, repeating his stiff bow to the Naval Commander, and then to the 1st Submarine Division commander, Captain Ariizumi Tatsunosuke.

The formal party was there to see the two Sen-Toku class submarines depart on the last mission of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Or, at least, the first stage of it.

The Sen-Tokus were the largest submarines in the world, built to launch an air attack on the Panama Canal, in times before the imminent demise of the Empire.

Inside the two submarines, other architects and key players in the grand plan were already concealed, their goodbyes having been exchanged in an innocuous building near to the dock at Kannonzaki.

On board I-401, Yoshio Nishina, the director of the Riken Institute and head of His Imperial Majesty’s Nuclear Weapon research programme and Major General Michitake Yamaoka, overseer of the ‘Imperial Institute of Sacred Knowledge’, were safely stowed away, complete with numerous crates whose paper contents represented years of important research.

Lieutenant General Takeo Yasuda, Director of the Imperial Japanese Air Force’s Scientific and Technological Team, and Professor Bunsaku Arakatsu, head of a special research team at Kyoto Imperial University, were similarly quartered aboard I-402.

Both were accompanied by numerous senior research staff from their own bailiwicks, as well as some important members of the Institute for Chemical and Physical Research who had been unable to return to the Institute’s base in Hungnam, Korea.

Now they, the two huge submarines, and a number of lesser vessels, all had a crucial part to play in a secret mission to carry the battle into the heart of the enemy.

The mission had been planned sometime beforehand, but only Hankyu, Tatsunosuke, and the admiral’s aide, Commander Iura, knew what horrors were about to spring from the Emperor’s lips.

Which was why I-401 and her sister ship, I-402, were to be set loose, under strict radio silence, with orders to ignore all communications sent from any source unlisted on their secret orders, or any contact without the specific code exchanges.

Apart from their size and unusual carrying capacity, the two I-400 series had another singular quality, which set them aside from other undersea craft.

They carried enough fuel to sail nearly seventy thousand kilometres before needing replenishment.

This key fact brought them into Operation Raduga and delivered a key role for the Japanese Navy, one that the diehards in high places were determined to discharge, surrender or no surrender.

I-401 also carried three Aichi Seiran aircraft in her huge hangar, planes she could launch and recover whilst at sea.

I-402, outwardly identical, save for the forward catapult, carried no aircraft, having been fitted out as a supply submarine.

She had slid away from their base at Kannonzaki three days previously, and was nearly lost immediately.

The secrecy required for the mission meant that the local naval guard force was not informed, and the destroyer Hibiki attacked a submerged contact, only stopping when depth charges ran out.

I-402 was lucky to escape with a few damaged seals and shattered nerves, and made her way to her first rendezvous.

That took place in a covered inlet on the innocuous island of Okunoshima, where Japan had secretly constructed a poison gas manufacturing facility.

I-402’s hangar contained a deadly mixed cargo of Lewisite and Mustard gas, but enough space remained for the next port of call, where the awful products of Units 731 and 516 could be loaded aboard, albeit with the utmost care and respect.

The fanatics intended to bring death and horror to their enemies, regardless of the surrender of their nation.

Continuing with the joint Japanese-Soviet plan seemed to be their best way of achieving their ends.

Revenge for their nation.

Salutes and bows exchanged, the crews of the two Sen-Tokus ran to their stations, readying the vessels for immediate departure.

As the sun rose into the morning sky, 401 and 402 slipped out of the hidden dock and descended into the cool waters, intent on making land in Manchuria.

Project Raduga moved forward.

No combat-ready unit can withstand the rigours of inspection.

No inspection-ready unit can withstand the rigours of combat.

John Joseph Pershing, General, USA.

In many ways, 2nd Special Platoon, 16th Armored Military Police Battalion was a victim of its own success.

That success brought about a temporary detachment out from the US Third Army area, and temporary assignment to US Fifteenth Army, to assist with the increasing problem of Soviet stragglers.

Even then, Hanebury and his men had licence to roam as they needed to, which had brought them even further south, in pursuit of a small band of Soviet soldiery causing problems with the supply line.

None the less, whilst they enjoyed the freedom of operation, the assignment was no bed of roses.

Lucifer was fuming… no actually… worse than fuming.

Respect for rank had stayed his tongue as the new Lieutenant Colonel of the 7th’s MP Battalion, fresh in from serving with a stateside training division, had inspected his special unit, and found it wanting.

Wanting in having the tyres blacked…

Wanting in having the paintwork immaculate and polished…

Wanting in everything pretty much…

The man even issued Hanebury with an ultimatum on the excessive weaponry carried by his vehicles, quoting regulations to justify his insistence at removing the additional means of waging war, in favour of the standard allocation of both weapons and ammunition.

Hanebury decided that he would do nothing in response to the written order that had been turned to ash in the brazier heating the unit’s coffee; just ignore the man, and go straight over his head to 7th Armored’s headquarters. He had a lot of stock there, given recent events, particularly as his boys had earned a bucket full of medals and praise for their work against the Soviet recon unit.

The unit had been assigned to the 7th US Armored Division purely administratively, but the bird colonel had decided that meant they were under his purview, and had hunted them down for inspection.

When the man had gone, Jim Hanebury withdrew to his tent, reading the letter from his Air Force cousin for the third time, using Arthur’s words to calm himself down sufficiently to appear approachable to his men.

Part of him envied the older man, roaming the skies and carrying the fight to the Japanese enemy.

But only for a moment.

Top Sergeant James Hanebury loved his boys, and his job, and besides, stooging around in the atmosphere was dangerous.

He smiled as he recalled the banter the two had exchanged the last time they had met, over two years previously.

Arthur was the man with the medals at that time, earned in the dangerous skies over Europe.

Since then, Jim Hanebury had acquired his own, with the 3rd Infantry and subsequently the 16th US Armored.

He looked forward to discussing the family bragging rights the next time he and Arthur shared a cold one down at Ellie’s Bar.

Folding up the letter, he slid it back into his pocket, silently wishing his cousin well, and calling upon God to keep him safe and away from danger, not knowing the danger was closer at hand for him than it was for Arthur.