Fortunes of War (45 page)

Where, he wondered, was Bob Cassidy? Was he in one of the F-22s that had been shot down, or was he in one of the planes waiting ahead?

A warning light caught his eye. Athena! The super-cooled computer was overheating. He turned it off.

 

At that moment, Cassidy was fifty miles behind.

The last Zero was not on his tac display. The dust in the air must have screwed up the satellite's ability to see planes in the atmosphere, he reflected.

According to the White House, there had been four Zeros, each carrying a bomb. Three had gone down; the last had escaped. If the pilot abandoned his mission and returned to base, there was no problem. Knowing the professionalism and dedication of the Japanese pilots, Cassidy discounted that possibility.

If the pilot had gone on alone to bomb Chita, there was no one there to stop him. So Cassidy zoomed to forty thousand feet and lit his afterburners. Just now he was making Mach 2.2, maximum speed, toward Chita.

The blank tac display was a silent witness to the fact that the three F-22s he had taken off with were no longer in the air.

The radio was silent.

He had to find that enemy plane. Dixie Elitch was certainly dead, killed in the explosion of those two planes just a moment ago. Smith III and Paul Scheer…who knew? Maybe they managed to eject. Then again, maybe not.

He had to catch that Zero. He checked his fuel. If that plane reached Chita…

Cassidy reached for the radar switch, turned it on. It might not help, but it couldn't hurt.

He wondered which plane Jiro had been in.

Jiro was one of the best they had, so he was undoubtedly one of them. Even as Cassidy thought about it, the question answered itself. The best pilots always find a way to survive. One Zero was still in the air. With a growing sense of horror, the possibility that Jiro Kimura was in the cockpit of that plane congealed into a certainty.

Yes.
It must be Jiro!

 

The ECM indicated that an F-22 was behind him. Jiro watched the strobe of the direction indicator. Yep!

The American probably hadn't seen him yet, which gave him a few options. He could turn right or left, try to sneak out to the side. Or he could turn and engage. If he kept on this heading, the American would get within detection range before Jiro got to the drop point; then he would launch a missile.

Jiro turned hard left ninety degrees, as quickly as he could to minimize the time that the planform of his airplane was pointed toward the enemy reflecting radar energy.

 

Cassidy saw the blip appear. Forty-three miles. It was there for a few seconds; then it wasn't.

The enemy pilot turned.

Right or left? At least he had a 50 percent chance of getting this right.

Right. He turned twenty degrees right and stared at the radar. In a minute or so, he would know. Luckily, he was faster than the Zero, but only because he was high. The thinner air allowed him to go faster.

The seconds ticked by. He couldn't afford to wait too long for this guy to appear, or he would never catch him if he went the other way. But he had to wait long enough to be sure.

Cassidy swabbed the sweat from his eyes.

The enemy pilot must be Jiro.

If he turned left too soon, before he was certain that Jiro wasn't ahead of him, he was giving Jiro a free pass to kill everyone at Chita—all of them.

Dixie was already dead. Scheer. Foy Sauce. Hudek.

When the sixty seconds expired, Cassidy turned forty degrees left. He had made up his mind—one minute. Not a second less or a second more.

Steady on the new course, he wondered if he should have stayed on the other course longer.

Dear God, where is this Zero?

 

By the time Jiro realized the American had turned back toward him, it was too late. The American fighter was too close. If he turned now, the American pilot would pick him up for sure. Yet if he stayed on this heading—once again he was pointed straight for Chita—the American would see him before many miles passed.

Perhaps…

He applied left rudder and moved the stick right, cross-controlling. Perhaps he could make a flat turn.

 

Cassidy was beside himself. He couldn't think, couldn't decide on the best course of action. The Japanese fighter had escaped him.

Every decision he had made had turned out badly. His comrades were dead, a Zero had escaped…and a boy he loved like his own son was either dead or was flying that plane and going to kill everyone at Chita—with one bomb.

He swung the nose of the plane from side to side, S-turning, watch
ing the tactical display intently. If the radar picked up anything, it would appear there.

Nothing. Bob Cassidy came out of burner to save some gas and laid the F-22 over into a turn. He would do a 360-degree turn, see if he could see anything. If not, he would go to Chita and sit overhead, waiting for the Zero to show up. Of course, the Zero pilot would probably announce his presence by popping a large mushroom cloud.

There it is!
There!
A coded symbol appeared on the radar screen and on the tac display.

Cassidy slammed the throttles into maximum afterburner. The fighter seemed to leap forward.

 

Although Jiro Kimura didn't know it, the F-22 Raptor was so high, looking down, that its radar had picked up a return from the junction between his left vertical stabilizer and the fuselage.

He realized the enemy pilot had him when he saw the ECM strobe getting longer and broader. The F-22 was closing the distance between them, and that could only mean that he was tracking the Zero.

Jiro had no choice. He dropped a wing and turned to engage.

Since he had the nuclear weapon taking up a weapons station on his left wing, Jiro had had only two radar-guided missiles, and he had shot them both. He had also fired a Sidewinder, leaving him one.

As the two fighters raced for each other, he got a heat lock-on tone and squeezed it off.

Cassidy was already out of burner and popping flares. He didn't have the Zero visually, but this guy wouldn't wait. He would shoot as soon as possible, and Cassidy was betting that since he wasn't using his radar, he would shoot a Sidewinder.

When the missile came popping out of the yellow haze from almost dead ahead, Cassidy rolled hard right, then pulled the stick into the pit of his stomach.

Pull, pull, fight the unconsciousness trying to tug you under while the chaff dispenser pops out decoy flares…. And the missile went off behind the F-22.

The Zero was turning back toward Chita. Cassidy had him again on the tac display.

How far is Chita?

Holy…it's only thirty miles.

This guy is almost there!

With his nose stuffed down, Cassidy came down on the fleeing Zero like a hawk after a sparrow.

At six miles, he visually acquired the Zero, which appeared as a small dot against the pale, yellowish sky.

The speed he gained in the descent was the only edge Cassidy had or he would never have caught Jiro Kimura.

Perhaps he should have launched his last missiles at him, or closed to gun range and torn his plane apart with the cannon. He did neither.

Cassidy came down, down, down, closing the range relentlessly.

He knew Jiro was flying the Zero. He had to be.

He wanted it to be Jiro
.

 

Looking over his shoulder, holding his helmet and infrared goggles, Kimura saw the F-22 at about three miles. The pilot kept the closure rate high.

There is time, Jiro thought. If I yank this thing around, I can take a head-on shot with the cannon
.

But he didn't turn.

He was flying at four hundred feet above the ground. He put his plane in a gentle left turn, about a ten-degree angle of bank. He glanced over his shoulder repeatedly, waiting for the approaching pilot to pull lead for a gun shot.

And he waited.

It's Cassidy! He's going to kill me because I couldn't kill him
.

The distance was now about three hundred meters.

Two hundred…

One hundred meters, and the F-22 was making no attempt to pull lead. It was still closing, maybe thirty or forty knots.

Jiro realized with a jolt what was going to happen.

He grabbed a handful of stick, jerked it hard aft.

The damned helmet…He couldn't hold it up, so he lost sight of the incoming F-22.

 

Bob Cassidy's left wingtip sliced into the right vertical stabilizer of the Zero.

The planes were climbing at about fifty degrees nose-up when they came together.

Jiro felt the jolt and instinctively rolled left, away from the shadowy
presence above and behind him. This roll cost him the right horizontal stabilator, which was snapped off like a dead twig by the left wing of the F-22.

 

Two feet of the left wingtip broke off the F-22, which was in an uncontrolled roll to the right.

Bob Cassidy's eyes went straight to the airspeed indicator. He'd had enough time in fighters to have learned the lesson well—never eject supersonic.

Fortunately, the climb, the lack of burner, and the retarded throttles—he had pulled them to idle just as his wing sliced into the Zero—combined to slow the F-22. In seconds, it was slowing through five hundred knots.

Amazingly, Cassidy regained control. He automatically slammed the stick left to stop the roll, and the plane obeyed. He dipped the wing farther, looking for the Zero.

There! The enemy fighter was slowing and streaming fuel.

Get out, Jiro! Get out before it explodes!

 

Jiro Kimura fought against the aerodynamic forces tearing at the crippled fighter. He had no idea how much damage his plane had sustained in the collision, but at least it wasn't rolling or tumbling violently.

He glanced in the rearview mirror, then looked again. The right vertical stab was gone!

And the right horizontal stab!

Even as the damage registered on his mind, the plane began rolling. He saw the plume of fuel in his rearview mirror.

Jiro tried to stop the roll with the stick.

The roll continued, wrapping up.

Sky and earth changed places rapidly.

The airspeed read three hundred knots, so Jiro pulled the ejection handle.

 

When he saw the Japanese pilot riding his ejection seat from his rolling fighter, Bob Cassidy devoted his whole attention to flying his own plane.

With full left rudder and right stick, the thing was still going through the air.

Chita was fifteen miles northwest.

Bob Cassidy gently banked in that direction. He looked below, in time to see Jiro Kimura's parachute open.

He pulled the power back, let the badly wounded fighter slow toward 250 knots. As the speed dropped he fed in more and more rudder and stick.

He sensed that the airplane would not fly slowly enough for him to land it. Forget the gear and flaps—he would run out of control throw before he slowed to gear speed. He was going to have to eject. And he didn't care. A deep lethargy held Bob Cassidy in its grip.

Ten miles to Chita.

After all, in the grand scheme of things, the fate of individuals means very little. Nothing breaks the natural stride of the universe.

But he was still a man with responsibilities. “Taco, this is Hoppy.”

“Yo, Hoppy.”

“All four of the enemy strike planes are down. I am the last one of ours still airborne.”

“Copy that.”

“Relay it, please, on to Washington.”

“Roger that.”

“And tell the crash guys to look for me. I'm about to eject over the base.”

“Copy. Good luck, Hoppy.”

“Yeah.”

He kept the speed up around three hundred. The plane flew slightly sideways and warning lights flashed all over the instrument panel as the base runways came closer and closer.

When he was past the hanger area, with the plane pointed toward Moscow, Bob Cassidy pulled the ejection handle.

Two mechanics driving a Ford pickup found Jiro Kimura in an area of scrub trees on the side of a hill ten miles from the air base. Jiro had broken his right leg during the ejection. When found, he was still attached to his parachute, which was draped over a small tree.

After the mechanics got the Japanese pilot to the makeshift dispensary, Bob Cassidy went to see him. He just stood looking at him, trying to think of something to say.

“I figured it was you flying that plane, Jiro.”

“And I knew it was you behind me.”

Cassidy didn't know what to add.

“The doc is going to set your leg. They'll give you a sedative. We'll talk tomorrow.”

“You should have killed me, Bob.”

“Shizuko would have never forgiven me.”

Jiro didn't say anything.

“I would have never forgiven myself,” Bob Cassidy said to Jiro Kimura. Then he walked away.

Cassidy sat down on a rock outside the building and ran his fingers through his hair. He could hear a television that someone had turned up loud. The satellite dish was in the lawn in front of Cassidy.

President Hood was speaking. Cassidy could hear his voice.

The sun was warm on his skin.

He was sitting like that, half-listening to the television, imagining the faces of his dead pilots, when he realized Dick Guelich was squatting beside him.

“Hoppy, I was thinking perhaps we should send the Cessna to look for survivors. The others who went with you this morning? Did anyone…”

“They're dead.” His mouth was so dry, the words were almost impossible to understand. He cleared his throat and repeated them. “They're dead.”

“Dixie?”

“Midair with a Zero,” Cassidy whispered. “In a dogfight. Didn't see a chute.”

“Scheer and Smith?”

“Hit by missiles, I think. At those speeds…” He gestured to the east. “Send the Cessna. Let 'em look.”

“I'm sorry, Colonel.”

“Get those other two airplanes up. Have the pilots go out at least a hundred miles. Make sure they are no more than twenty miles apart, so one can help the other if he's jumped.”

“I've briefed them, sir.”

“When those planes from Germany land, fuel them and get them armed. Send the pilots to me for a brief. I don't think the Japs will try it again but they might.”

“Yes, sir,” Guelich said, and he was gone.

It felt good to sit. He had neither the energy nor desire to move.

Poor Dixie. Now, there was a woman.

The sun seemed to melt him, make him so tired that he couldn't sit up. He slid down to the grass, put his back against the rock.

“I did my best, Sabrina…. Honestly…”

When the tears came, there was no way to stop them. Bob Cassidy didn't try.

 

The bayonet was in excellent condition even though it was old. The army issued it to Atsuko Abe's father when he was inducted in 1944 at the age of sixteen. Of course, the elder Abe never saw combat. If he had, presumably the bayonet would now decorate the home of some American veteran's son. The boy soldier spent his military career guarding antiaircraft ammunition dumps in northern Japan. The army disintegrated after the war. Abandoning his Arisaka rifle, young Abe hitchhiked back to his home village. For reasons that he never explained, he kept the bayonet and the scabbard that housed it.

Almost a small sword, the bayonet was about eighteen inches long, with a straight, narrow blade. It had a wooden handle, which suited it admirably for military tasks like slashing brush and opening cans. Originally the blade was not very sharp, but as a youngster Atsuko had ground a keen edge on the steel, including the tip. In a nation with strict laws on the ownership of handguns, the old bayonet made a formidable weapon.

Abe always displayed it on a small wooden stand designed to hold a samurai sword, across the room from his shrine.

This evening Atsuko Abe sent the servants away. He ensured the doors to the prime minister's residence were locked, then retreated to his chamber, where he bathed and donned a silk kimono that his wife had given him years ago, before she died.

He spent some time sitting on a mat in front of his shrine writing letters. He wrote one to his sister, his only living relative, and one to the emperor, Hirohito, son of the late Emperor Naruhito. He apologized to them both.

He asked his sister's forgiveness for shaming the family. He begged forgiveness of the young emperor for failing Japan. The Japan of which Abe spoke was not the workaday nation of crowded cities, apartments, factories, and tiny farms where he had lived most of his life; it was an idealized Japan that probably only existed in his dreams.

The brush strokes on the white rice paper had a haunting beauty. Oh, what might have been! Abe finished the letter to the emperor and signed his name. He put each letter in an envelope, sealed it, wrote the name of the recipient, and placed the envelopes on the shrine.

The final letter was to his father, who had been dead for twenty years. He explained his dreams for Japan, his belief in her greatness, and bitterly told of the shipwreck of those dreams. He had misjudged the Japanese people, he said. They had betrayed him. And themselves. It was shameful, yet it was the truth, and future generations would have to face it.

That letter also went into an envelope, but after putting it on the shrine and praying, he dropped it into the incense burner, where it was consumed. Abe lit a stick of incense and watched the smoke rise toward heaven. He wafted some of the smoke toward him so he could get a sniff.

Finally Atsuko Abe realized he just wanted to get it over with. He was ready for the pain, ready for whatever comes after life.

He bared his belly, then drew the bayonet from its scabbard. The ancient and honorable way to commit the act of
seppuku
, or
hara-kiri
, is to stab deep into the belly, pull the blade across the stomach, severing the aorta, then turn the blade in the wound and pull it upward. The cuts lead to massive internal hemorrhaging, and death soon follows. The disadvantage is that few men have what it takes to inflict this kind of injury upon themselves. To preserve their honor, condemned samurai in olden days equipped themselves with an assistant, the
kaishaku
nin
, usually a close friend, who would decapitate the warrior after he had made the ritual cut, or before, if the assistant glimpsed the slightest indication of pain or irresolution.

Of course, Abe had no
kaishaku
, for his honor demanded that he suffer.

Atsuko Abe reached forward and grasped the handle of the bayonet with both hands. He took several deep breaths, readying himself. To fail here would dishonor him still further.

Sweat popped out on his brow. He said one last prayer and, using both hands, rammed the bayonet deep into his gut.

The pain about felled him.

With steadfast courage, he pulled the sharp blade across his belly. He got it about halfway when his strength failed him. The pain robbed him of his resolve. He summoned all his will and courage and twisted the blade.

The agony was astounding.

The final cut and it would be all over.

Moaning, gnashing his teeth, and trying to stifle a scream he felt welling up, he pulled the handle upward.

His hands slipped.

There was only a little blood seeping out of the wound. If he didn't get the blade out, he would suffer here for a week.

With one last mighty heave, he pulled the bayonet free of his flesh. The little sword got away from him, flew halfway across the room and landed with a clatter.

The blood came better now, although the pain was only a little less than with the blade in.

Try as he might, he could not remain sitting upright. He toppled slowly onto his side.

He bit his lip, then his tongue. Blood flowed from his mouth, mixed with the perspiration that covered his face.

He should have drunk more wine. That would have dulled the pain.

At least honor was satisfied. He had failed Japan, but not his honorable ancestors, whom he soon would join.

Time passed. How much, he didn't know. His mind wandered as he slipped in and out of consciousness.

Then he heard a man's voice. Doors opening. A questioning voice. His senses sharpened; the pain in his stomach threatened to overwhelm him.

The door to his room slid open. He tried to turn to see.

Abe caught a glimpse of the face. It was the chief of the domestic staff. A civil servant in his fifties, the man had risen through the ranks of the domestic staff since joining it as a young man. Now the staff chief stood wordlessly, taking it all in, then left, closing the door behind him.

Atsuko Abe moved, trying to ease the agony. Nothing seemed to work.

When he realized he was groaning, he began actively chewing on his lips and tongue. Anything to keep from shaming himself further.

Episodes of the past few months played over and over in his mind: the meetings with his ministers; General Yamashita; Emperor Naruhito; speaking before the Diet. The jumbled, mixed scenes ran through his mind over and over again.

Oh, if only he had it to do one more time.

A door opened below. The sound was unmistakable. What was the time? The small hours of the morning. The staff chief had been here—what? Two hours ago, at least.

Who could this be?

The door opened.

A woman was standing there. Abe tried to focus.

She came across the room, stood in front of him.

Masako. Empress Masako.

Shame flushed Atsuko Abe, then turned to outrage. That a woman should see him like this! The staff chief had dishonored him, the prime minister.

“Your Majesty,” he managed. Summoning every ounce of strength he possessed, he managed to lever himself into a sitting position. “Please leave me. You shame me with your presence.”

She stood before him, looking around, taking in the blood-soaked white mat, the bayonet, the shrine, saying nothing. She was wearing a simple Western two-piece wool suit, white gloves, sensible shoes, and a stylish matching hat. In her left hand she held a small white purse embroidered with pearls.

She looked down at the purse and opened it. Using her right hand, she extracted a pistol.

“Your Majesty, no. I beg—”

“This,” she said evenly, “is for my husband. And my son.”

With that, she leveled the pistol and shot Atsuko Abe in the center of his forehead. His corpse toppled forward.

Empress Masako put the pistol back in the purse, snapped the catch, and walked out of the room without a backward glance.

 

The two weeks after the untimely death of Aleksandr Kalugin were busy ones for Janos Ilin. He helped with the security at Marshal Stolypin's inauguration, and he assisted police in rounding up and disarming Kalugin's loyal ones. He whispered long and loudly to prosecutors about which loyal ones should be brought to trial. He argued that Kalugin's key lieutenants had to answer for their crimes. Private armies, he thought, were bad for democracy and bad for business. President Stolypin helped carry the day. He didn't think much of private armies, either.

One evening Janos Ilin sat in his office, trying to assess the pluses and minuses of the late Russo-Japanese War. Tomorrow Captain First Rank Pavel Saratov and the surviving crewmen of the submarine
Admiral Kolchak
were flying in from Tokyo. President Stolypin would meet them at the airport and decorate every man. Saratov would be declared a hero of the Russian Republic and be promoted to rear admiral. From the reports Ilin had seen, Saratov richly deserved the honor.

Today the American president had announced a new foreign-aid bill for Russia, the largest in American history, one that for the first time gave substantial tax credits to American firms that invested in Russia. And soon American firms would have money to invest. The last two weeks had been the biggest in the history of the American stock market. Everyone, it seemed, had suddenly decided that peace was wonderful.

Atsuko Abe's death led to a new government in Japan, one that Ilin thought might be more attuned to the future than the past. The inescapable fact was that Russia was rich in natural resources and Japan had capital and technical know-how. Put together in the right kind of partnerships, there should be something there for everyone.

Something for everyone was the way the world worked best, Janos Ilin thought. Soon it would be time for Agent Ju to send another message to Toshihiko Ayukawa. This time Ju would point out the best people in Russia to approach for Siberian joint ventures, people who could make things happen.

For a while there, Ilin thought Ju's message reporting the destruction of all of Russia's nuclear weapons had backfired. For months the out
come of that gambit had looked grim indeed. Still, looking back, he thought as he had thought when he drafted the message—that enormous risks were justified. Russia had little to lose and everything to gain if a foreign enemy forced her to fight.

The nuclear raids on Japan had been a close squeak. He had never suspected Kalugin would go over the edge, order the use of nuclear weapons. Fortunately, nothing had come of it, but Kalugin certainly had tried.

Yuri Esenin and the bombs on board a
Kilo
-class sub—that was an effort doomed from the beginning. Only the skill and courage of Pavel Saratov had allowed the sub to get as far as it did.

The air raids on Japan were another matter. When they were launched, the spymaster thought his worst nightmare had come true. Then the planes just disappeared.

Ilin, of course, set out to discover what had happened.

After reading the reports of the interrogations of the survivors of the Tokyo/Tateyama Peninsula raids, Ilin thought it likely that Yan Chernov had shot down the Russian tankers, dooming all the planes to crash landings. It was his voice, two survivors believed, that warned of airborne Zeros, yet not a single enemy fighter had been seen.

One of Ilin's agents in an American seismic exploration unit working in Siberia said that a man answering Chernov's description had shown up two days after the raid attempt with only a flight suit on his back, nothing else. The Americans fed him and gave him a job. He was still there, the informant said.