Rising Sun (18 page)

Smoke clouds began to obscure the site. The boilers on the locomotives exploded, sending shock waves across the wreckage and white clouds of steam roaring upward.

Braun and Krause exulted as scores of freight cars kept falling to their destruction, screeching as more metal ripped apart, taking large sections of the track with them. When it seemed it couldn’t get any better, something in one of the cars exploded and started a chain reaction. Moments later, a score of freight cars was burning and others threatened to catch fire.

Curiously, they could hear no sounds of screams although a couple of figures could be seen running around in apparent shock and panic. Doubtless what was left of the crew, Braun thought. Too bad it wasn’t a passenger train. Perhaps the next one would be.

As he pulled the station wagon onto the road and drove away, he could see emergency vehicles heading toward the crash site. He turned to Krause and laughed. It was a good start.

* * *

Harry Hopkins was a confidante of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and had advised him on many important and delicate issues. He’d traveled on his president’s behalf to Moscow and London and was noted for his bluntness when dealing with foreign leaders. He was so valued by FDR that he now lived in the White House. However, the chain-smoking Harry Hopkins was dying of a stomach cancer, and he looked far older than his fifty-two years.

Hopkins looked at Admiral Nimitz and Lieutenant General John Lesesne DeWitt. Even though he was gaunt, disheveled, and dressed in an ill-fitting suit, Hopkins was clearly in charge. He was also a little annoyed that he’d been sent west to negotiate what amounted to a truce between the army and the navy and the nation’s overall war goals. At least, he thought wryly, he didn’t have to deal with the arrogant General Douglas MacArthur, who was busy trying desperately to hold onto Australia.

Hopkins coughed and began. “Gentlemen, enough is enough. We are now certain that the Japanese will not invade California or anyplace else on the West Coast. Therefore, we have to make some changes consistent with plans for coming events. In short, we now have more than a million American soldiers sitting on their thumbs, waiting in trenches and pillboxes along the Pacific coast for an enemy who isn’t going to come.”

“Is your intelligence that good?” DeWitt asked with a trace of sulkiness.

As a three-star, DeWitt was junior to Nimitz and strongly suspected that he wasn’t getting all the information the higher-ranking admiral was. He was also getting a lot of flack for interning Japanese civilians even though he was convinced that the actions were necessary and his efforts were supported by FDR. DeWitt was painfully conscious that most of his experience in the army was as a quartermaster and not as a combat officer. He now commanded the sprawling Fourth Army area, which also included Alaska, and was being heavily criticized for the ease with which the Japanese had taken Anchorage.

The internment of Japanese civilians and American citizens was another major problem. The short-tempered DeWitt had been infuriated by the lack of preparedness and common sense shown by civilian authorities. This included failure to black out cities and several absurd false alarms when people thought the Japanese fleet was approaching. The sixty-two-year-old DeWitt felt all of those years.

“Our intelligence is excellent,” answered Hopkins as Nimitz looked down at his hands. The admiral was among a chosen few who knew the United States had broken at least some of the Japanese codes. DeWitt was not.

Hopkins continued. “I assume everyone has heard the rumors that we are going to invade North Africa. Well, the rumors are true and, in order to do that, we are going to need an army. Specifically, General DeWitt, we are going to need many of those several hundreds of thousands of troops who were sent here after the Midway battle to protect against what we now know is a nonexistent invasion, and to forestall the hysteria among the civilian population that was assuming epic proportions. Gentlemen, there never was any threat of an invasion. The Japs can and will continue to raid, but they will not invade. Therefore, we need significant components of the Fourth Army sent back east pronto so they can be prepared to land in North Africa in November.”

DeWitt was angry. He’d been an officer in the army for more than forty years and didn’t like the bullshit that was being shoveled in his direction.

“And just how the hell am I supposed to forestall raids without an army? And how also am I supposed to recover Alaska, or do we let the Japs keep on beheading people?”

Hopkins glared at him. He wasn’t used to people arguing with him. “General, it has been noted over and over again that your Fourth Army cannot ever be large enough to defend literally thousands of miles of coastline. We have to depend on air and naval patrols along with coastal radar to identify the Jap fleet’s location and plan accordingly. Yes, I understand that the enemy can cruise up and down the coast causing the army to run up and down as well. Nor can we stop the Japs from shelling small towns like they’ve been doing with impunity since we don’t yet have enough ships to stop them. It can’t be helped. The president is under extreme pressure from the Russians to open up a second front against the Nazis and support Stalin.”

DeWitt was not impressed. “The Russians are a long ways away, while the Japs are here on our soil. Even worse, the shelling of small towns has resulted in hundreds of thousands of refugees heading inland. We can’t handle all that. We need more help here and to hell with the Russians.”

Hopkins seethed. He felt his stomach aching, but he chose to continue, ignoring DeWitt’s outburst. “It is also imperative that we prevent Rommel from defeating the British in North Africa. If that happens, fascist Spain is likely to decide that allying with Nazi Germany is the better good bet and scrap its neutrality. Don’t forget that Hitler supported Franco in Spain’s civil war and has been pushing for that debt to be repaid. We believe Spain is wavering and, if the British are defeated by Rommel, they will either attack Gibraltar directly or permit German troops to cross Spain and take it. If Gibraltar falls, the Mediterranean almost automatically becomes a German lake, which could cost us a fortune in blood to retrieve. Therefore, the forces arrayed against Japan must be reduced.”

“What do you suggest I do about the Japs?” DeWitt snarled.

“You can do whatever the hell you want, General,” Hopkins snapped back. “I’m not going to strip your cupboard bare. You’ll still have more than a half million soldiers and Marines along with more than a thousand planes. I expect you’ll move your troops in detachments large enough to defend the major cities from an attack that isn’t going to come in the first place. The Japs simply do not have an army tagging along with their fleet and they don’t have the ability to bring one across the Pacific and supply it. And as to the shelling of our cities, until and if we get radar all up and down the coast, they will have to be endured.”

“What do I tell Governor Olson?” DeWitt asked. Culbert Olson was the Democratic governor of California and a long time supporter of Franklin Roosevelt. It was a clear implication that Olson would complain to the president, who might then change his mind.

Hopkins smiled. “Tell Olson he’s fucked up so badly he’s going to lose to the Republican candidate, Earl Warren, in November. Olson once described hell as being governor of California. He’ll be glad to be able to blame someone else for his screwups.”

Nimitz leaned forward to Hopkins. “In all fairness to the general and me, we still don’t have a radar wall in place and the Japs will be able to strike heavily at certain points without our knowing it until the last minute. You’re right, though. We could have millions more men and there would still be gaps in the coverage. When will the North African invasion take place?”

“Mid-November is the target,” Hopkins said and fished in his jacket pocket for a cigarette. People with stomach cancer weren’t supposed to smoke, but he didn’t care.

“Which is why we have to move as many troops as we can back to the East Coast as soon as possible. And when we do win in Africa, don’t expect the troops to return. North Africa will be only the first step in the reconquest of Europe.”

“Do you have any good news for us poor souls in the Pacific?” Nimitz asked.

“Yes. The Panama Canal will be back in business very shortly and we’ll be sending some new submarines out to you.”

“What about carriers?” Nimitz asked, even though he was certain he knew the answer.

“None until we have enough on line to make a difference, and that includes the merchant ships we are converting to smaller carriers,” Hopkins responded. “The same holds with your getting new battleships, although additional cruisers and destroyers can be expected. Until then, the
Saratoga
will have to cruise alone. By the way, where the devil is the carrier?”

Nimitz smiled. “Truthfully, I don’t know.”

CHAPTER 10

DANE STEPPED OUT OF HIS STAFF CAR AND WALKED ACROSS THE field to the ruins of what had once been a very long freight train. Now it was little more then piles of charred wood and metal. Blackened train wheels stuck out of the debris, incongruous and looking totally and pathetically out of place. So too did a number of tanks, their guns pointing uselessly in all directions.

FBI agent Roy Harris waved him over to a section of track. Dane had to walk past a locomotive that lay on its side like some mortally wounded animal, an iron whale that had washed up on an unfriendly shore. He could see where the boiler had exploded, ripping the guts out of it.

“This is where it happened,” Harris said. “Right here is where the son of a bitch placed the charge that blew the track and sent the train down the hill. Along with destroying all that material and equipment, he also killed four people and injured two others. The engineer and fireman in that locomotive you walked by were killed, scalded to death when the boiler exploded. I hope to hell they died quickly because their bodies were pretty damn awful to look at. The other engineer and fireman got out although they were injured.”

Dane looked up and down the tracks which had been ripped up for quite a ways. “And you’re certain this is the place?”

“Never doubt the FBI, Dane, we know everything. Seriously, kindly note that while other rails are damaged, none are twisted quite as sharply as this one, and that none of the rails ahead of the train are in any way disturbed. Ergo, this is the spot. We also found dynamite traces and pieces of what he used as a detonator.”

Dane looked down the tracks at the chaos. A number of small fires continued to smolder and there was the smell of ash in the air. Four dead wasn’t a large number in the middle of a war, but they were civilians who were supposed to be alive, even protected by the military. It was like the execution of the customs agents.

“Well,” said Dane, “we were waiting for him or them to do something and now he has. You’re going to tell me this is only the beginning, aren’t you?”

“Yep. And it also means we’re going to have to expend manpower to try to prevent it from happening again. The army is going to start patrolling the train lines as well as looking under bridges and along roads. Sad part is, we have no idea who or what we’re looking for. Some people saw vehicles leaving the area, but nothing of note, just the usual litany of Fords and Chevrolets, with the odd Hudson or Packard thrown in. Assuming the obvious, that he or they drove here, and I think it’s likely more than one man, they’re using a nondescript vehicle.”

“Like a Ford or a Chevy.”

“Exactly, and that narrows the field down to a few hundred thousand cars.”

“Would they need a truck to carry the explosives?”

Harris smiled. “Good question, and the answer is no. It’s shockingly easy to derail a train, and only a little bit of dynamite would be needed to blow up a track and set the whole calamity in motion. It could all be carried in a suitcase with plenty of room left over to stuff in some underwear and socks.”

“So what now?”

“Since they’ve started up, we can assume two things. One, they’ll do it again, which means stepped-up security and patrols, and that means your navy as well as the army. We don’t know if these guys have access to any military bases or not, or whether they’ll strike closer to San Diego or farther away. In short, we don’t know much at all.”

Dane shrugged. “What else is new? Knowing little is standard with the navy.”

“Same goes where I work. However, Dane, we must also assume that someone’s in charge and has to report his successes back to the Reich so they can inform the Japanese, if he is indeed trying to help out the little sons of Nippon. In order to report, he must be using the mail, telephone, or telegraph, or shortwave radio. Mail’s too slow and telegrams can be monitored. International mail can be opened, too, but don’t tell anybody that. We can have operators listen in on international phone calls, although we haven’t been paying all that much attention to calls from the U.S. to other countries.”

“Obviously, that’s going to change.”

“Absolutely. Therefore, we think he will start to use shortwave. If he stays on the air long enough, we can locate him, but odds are he won’t. He could set up a transmitter, broadcast for a minute or two at a prearranged time, and shut down quickly without us being able to find him.”

“What if he uses messengers, couriers, to go back and forth across the border and send their reports from Mexico?”

Harris paused thoughtfully. “Another good question, but I don’t think so. My gut says that would take too long, and also leave him or his messenger open to getting caught.”

“You paint a depressing picture, Agent Harris.”

“Indeed I do, Commander Dane. So far, we’ve told the public that this was a tragic accident that we are routinely investigating because of interstate commerce implications and all that bull-crap. If he strikes again, like at a civilian installation, and if the public realizes it’s sabotage, we could have a genuine panic on our hands.”

Dane thought of Amanda and her friends coming down to San Diego from San Francisco. A well-placed bomb could destroy a passenger train and all its occupants as easily as a freight train. Where the hell was she, and why didn’t she make it down to him? And what was so important about her journey to California that she couldn’t tell him?

* * *

Lieutenant Commander Lou Torelli’s new sub was a
Salmon
-class boat built in 1939. Named the U.S.S.
Shark
after a sub of the same name that had been lost earlier in the year, she carried a crew of ninety, and was larger and faster than his previous sub. She carried twenty-four torpedoes, which could be fired from eight tubes, with four each located at the bow and stern. The
Shark
had a three-inch gun on her deck and four machine guns to fight off enemy aircraft. Torelli, however, had no intention of being on the surface long enough so that enemy planes could either find or attack him. He’d learned that lesson transporting people from Hawaii to San Diego. He’d been lucky once. He would not count on luck again.

Like most smaller warships, the
Shark
had no radar, which many still considered unreliable anyhow. Until radar was perfected, most sailors preferred a wide-open eyeball to unproven technology. Torelli was reasonably confident that no Japanese ships or planes carried radar either, although there were rumors that the Japs did have knowledge of it and were building sets. It was yet another blow to Anglo-American egos. The Japanese were too primitive to understand radar, it had been thought. Another stupid miscalculation, he thought ruefully.

Even though fairly new, the
Salmon
-class subs were already being outclassed by newer categories of subs that were being built by the dozen. Soon, it was joked, subs would have to be outfitted with old tires on their hulls because there would be so many of them they’d be bumping into each other while underwater.

He had the dismal feeling that this patrol was his punishment for complaining about the quality of U.S. torpedoes. The powers in the navy’s Bureau of Ordnance in Washington had accused him and other sub captains of incompetence or cowardice and insisted there was nothing wrong with their damn torpedoes. It was a debate that now raged far above his pay grade.

Perhaps in order to get him out of the sight of BuOrd, his patrol area included the waters off the Cook Inlet and the Gulf of Alaska to its south. Rear Admiral Charles Lockwood had recently arrived from Australia to head up the submarine force in place of the ailing Admiral Thomas England. Torelli and other submariners felt that Lockwood was a stern fire-breather, but a man who would be sympathetic to the needs of submariners and would fight hard for them.

The
Shark
was at periscope depth and creeping along to keep any wake from the periscope to a minimum. The day was gray and bleak with pockets of fog obscuring their view. Torelli wished he did have radar. In the lousy weather, the Japs could be a few hundred yards away and nobody’d know. Of course, the Japs wouldn’t either, but he was not going to risk running on the surface just so he might be able to see a little better.

Torelli had turned the periscope over to his XO, Lieutenant Crowley, who was peering intently through it. “What do you make, Ron?” Torelli asked genially.

“Visitors for Anchorage, Skipper. I make two Jap heavy cruisers and six destroyers all escorting at least half a dozen transports.”

They’d spotted the enemy force a half hour earlier as gray shapes moving through the intermittent fog. The Japanese ships were well out of range and Torelli was torn between the need to try an attack and his duty to inform the brass of his discovery. He decided to do both. Catching up to the convoy was out of the question. They had too much of a head start. He would wait until they were out of sight, surface, and send off a message. After that there might be the opportunity to seek out and hit the Japs where it hurt. Right now, the Japanese commander was skillfully keeping his convoy against the shore with the warships protecting their port flank.

Torelli did not entirely agree with Crowley. “Not only am I better looking than you, my eyes are sharper, young Lieutenant. I make two heavy cruisers and one light along with five destroyers. No, change that. I see another light cruiser. If my math is correct, that makes nine of the fuckers heading straight for Anchorage.”

Crowley whistled softly. According to his latest copy of
Jane’s
, a Japanese heavy cruiser generally carried eight-inch guns. “Lord, Skipper, one of them would look great on our trophy rack, although we’d need a helluva big trophy rack.”

Torelli didn’t respond. He had some decisions to make. If he decided that the transports were the more valuable targets; he’d have to shoot his way past the cruisers and destroyers to get at the transports. He wondered what important materiel the transports carried to make them worthy of such a strong convoy. Planes, artillery, more troops, supplies, and all of the above came to mind, and there was no way he could close the distance in time. He swore. So much materiel would soon be landed to reinforce the invasion of Alaska before he could do anything about it.

As soon as he could he surfaced and sent a detailed message. He stayed on the surface to recharge his batteries. Torelli had the nagging feeling he was going to need them fully charged soon. Bad torpedoes or not, he wanted to strike back at the Japs.

A couple of hours later, he got the response. The
Shark
was to stay and observe, but not attack, at least for the time being. The message didn’t quite say it, but Torelli felt that something nasty was being planned for the Japanese. He fervently hoped he could help out.

* * *

Japanese ships on patrol off the American coast could not see through the persistent fog, and they could not get too close to the hostile shoreline when the gray shapes of American ships slipped out of Puget Sound and headed north a week earlier. Hugging the shore, they’d made it to Yakutat Bay, south of Anchorage, where Alaska became a finger of land running alongside the border with Canada. The bay was dominated by Mount Hood and Mount Hubbard, and, if the weather was right, they could see the mountains and glaciers farther up where Yakutat Bay changed its name to what the sailors of the American force thought was the wonderfully appropriately named Disenchantment Bay.

There was a town called Yakutat, but none of the crew showed any inclination for shore leave in such a dismal-looking place, even if liberty would be permitted.

Admiral Jesse Oldendorf had recently arrived from a command in the Atlantic. It was rumored that he would take over from Admiral Pye, who was under severe criticism for his handling of his part of the fleet after Pearl Harbor. The criticism might not be deserved, but scapegoats were needed, and Pye had pulled his ships back from reinforcing Wake Island. Wake had subsequently fallen after heroic fighting and Pye had been blamed for not making a strong enough effort to help. Cooler heads said Pye’s efforts would have been doomed, but Pye would still be sacrificed.

Oldendorf’s command consisted of two of Pye’s old battleships, the
Mississippi
and the
Colorado
, along with four destroyers. The admiral flew his flag in the
Colorado
, in part because her eight sixteen-inch guns mounted in four turrets were larger than the
Mississippi
’s twelve fourteen-inch guns. Bigger is always better, the admiral had said with a smile.

Their presence in Yakutat Bay was in the hope that the Japanese would do exactly what the
Shark
had reported, make a reinforcement run to Anchorage, and they had been waiting anxiously for several days. The two battleships, however old, were much more powerful than three Japanese cruisers and a handful of destroyers. Better, both the
Colorado
and
Mississippi
had recently been equipped with radar. The Japanese were supposed to be superior at night fighting, but how well could they fight in a fog? Truth be told, Oldendorf wanted very much to see the enemy face to face, but it would be just as nice, he thought, to be able to sneak up on the sons of bitches before they had a chance to react. “Never give a sucker an even break” was his motto, adopted after hearing the line in a movie.