Tomorrow War (4 page)

West Falkland Island

South Atlantic Ocean

T
HE STORM HAD BEEN
raging for three days and nights.

It had blown in, as all the fiercest storms did, from the south, from the bottom of the world, and battered West Falkland with winds up to ninety-five miles per hour, and snow and rain mixed together so thickly, the combination created a wall of solid white ice.

The twenty-eight civilian residents of West Falkland had endured these ferocious storms before. They knew the drill well. Most would all gather at the small administration building near the small town of Port Summer Point and ride out the gale with a hot meal, a large beer, and a game of cards.

But this very isolated place was also the site of the most top secret research facility on Earth. Though its very isolation was its best means of security, there were 150 military personnel scattered throughout the island. It was one of their posts located on the northernmost tip of the island that picked up the Mayday call just before midnight. A ship passing nearby was in trouble. Its captain reported it was breaking up in high seas about four miles off of West Falkland. There were many children on board. After that, the radio went dead.

The British soldiers left their post and made their way down to the nearest beach, a cove known as Tenean. A massive battle had been fought there about a month before, and the remains of that conflict—sunken landing craft, downed Japanese airplanes, and even some bones—were still in evidence everywhere.

The soldiers had no boat—no means of getting out to the stricken ship. Even if they had, it would have been suicidal to try to reach the luckless vessel. The winds on Tenean were now blowing at more than one hundred miles per hour. The snow and rain felt like millions of tiny nails hitting the soldiers. All they could do was set up a large light beacon on the beach and shine it out into the stormy sea. If there were any survivors from the ill-fated ship, there was a chance they would follow the beacon to the relative safety of the cove.

The soldiers waited for about an hour, huddled inside their overlarge armored personnel carrier (APC), taking turns braving the howling wind to move the beacon back and forth. They continued to try to contact the stricken ship by radio but with no luck. Finally at 0130 hours, the APC commander announced that it was no use. No one could have survived such a gale. The unit began preparations to leave, when one of the men saw something way out in the approaches to the cove.

At first it was just a single lifeboat. It was floundering, obviously taking on water, obviously in the process of falling apart. It was coming out of the thick wind, riding on waves that were topping twenty feet high, disappearing from view for several chilling seconds only to miraculously reappear again, a bit closer to the shore.

As the amazed soldiers watched, they came to realize that there was actually a group of lifeboats out there. They were all lashed to one another, somehow being held together by thick coils of rope. As the lifeboats came more into view, the soldiers were astonished. There were more than twenty riding the raging seas, heading for the beach at Tenean.

The soldiers finally knocked themselves out of their stupor and went into action. One radioed back to their main base and reported the rather astonishing events. The APC commander ordered his crew to take the huge vehicle down to the waterline itself. Though not adapted at all for amphibious action, the drivers nevertheless plunged the huge vehicle into the surf. Now the waves were crashing against its hull, their power moving the fifty-ton behemoth like it was a toy.

Once in place about fifteen feet out, the crew set up a line of its own—a metal strand, thin but strong enough to tow a vehicle the size of the APC. They attached it to a powered flare and fired it out of one of their mortar tubes. The line sailed through the howling winds—and landed about fifty yards short of the lead lifeboat. This was too far from the lifeboat to do any good. The line was hastily reeled in and shot back out again. This time it landed within thirty yards of the lifeboat. Close, but still too far away to be helpful. The APC commander was about to order the line be reeled in again for one last desperate try—the lifeboats were now just a few seconds away from being dashed on the jagged rocks that formed the outer reaches of the cove. That’s when the soldiers saw another unbelievable sight. A man was standing on the bow of the lead lifeboat. He looked in at the beach and then at the rocks and then plunged into the hellish sea and began swimming for the line.

“He’s daft!” one of the troopers yelled into the gale.

“You mean he’s dead,” another said. “No one can survive that surf.”

But somehow the man did. They could see him swimming mightily against the tide, finally reaching the line with the help of an especially large wave. He wrapped the line around his waist and swam back to the lead boat. With admirable dexterity, he somehow tied the line to the front of the lifeboat and began yanking on it

“Jeesuz!
Start reeling!” the APC commander screamed. His men promptly obeyed.

The line began swaying with the raging winds. The APC drivers gunned their engine, which in turn supplied more power to the winch, and began yanking the metal strand with some authority.

It took ten terrifying minutes, but finally the first boat was pulled into the relatively calm waters of the Tenean Cove. The other nineteen followed behind.

The British soldiers just couldn’t believe it. Even over the wind, they could hear the wails of children.

Three troopers plunged into the water and literally yanked the first lifeboat by hand toward the beach. Once the first boat was up, it took brute manpower to pull in the other nineteen. But the waves were rising in such a perverse manner, they actually helped this effort. Several of the boats ran up on some smaller, nearby rocks, but none of the children on board were hurt too badly.

Finally, after yanking and pulling and swimming to the point of exhaustion, all twenty lifeboats were within the somewhat calmer waters of the cove.

Reinforcements from the Royal Army unit had arrived by this time and soon all of the lifeboats were being emptied of their passengers. They were all children. One hundred and thirteen of them.

Many had been saved because they were able to cling to the wreckage left over from the fierce battle between these very same soldiers and an invading force of Japanese. The wreckage of the landing craft provided places for those kids thrown overboard to keep their heads above water until they were rescued.

It took nearly a half hour, but finally all were safe onshore. Many of the children were in a state of shock, but most were in remarkably good shape.

But what had happened to the man who had so bravely jumped into the water to secure the APC line?

He was finally found on the beach on the other side of the rocks. He had somehow dragged himself up after pushing in the last lifeboat. The troopers surrounded him. He was spitting up water and looked like he was about to expire.

One of the troopers acted quickly and pulled out a flask of brandy. He opened the man’s mouth and poured it in. The man miraculously came back to life. His eyes opened, his nose was cleared, and he started breathing more regularly.

The troopers picked him up and carried him to the shelter of the nearest APC. Once inside, the shivering man began coughing again, but at least it appeared that he would live.

The APC commanding officer hunched beside him, wrapping him in a heavy wool blanket. He just looked at the man. He was thin of face and body, with jet-black hair and a longish, thin beard. His eyes were slanted a bit, giving him a slightly demonic look.

“You saved more than one hundred children, mate,” the British commander said.

The man just looked back at him numbly.

“And you almost got yourself drowned doing it,” the officer went on.

Again the man couldn’t respond.

Then the British commander looked deep into his eyes and saw something from another faraway world.

“Who
are
you?” the British officer finally asked him.

The man just shook his head. He was still confused, still disoriented. He could hardly speak.

But then some words came slowly.

“I’m not sure,” he replied. “The ship is gone—but on board I was known as Rower Number One-four-four-six-seven-nine-eight.”

The British officer pressed him. “But what is your name, man?” he asked. “Try to remember.”

The man just shook his head.

“I don’t know for sure,” he said. “But I think, at one time, my name might have been Viktor.”

South Pacific

Y
WAS DRUNK.

It was the first time for him, in a very long time. He never had the chance to drink to the end of the war against Japan. He’d had a small glass of champagne to mark the end of the war with Germany, but that was all. In fact, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d had more than two drinks in a row, never mind being this drunk. In reality, though, he couldn’t remember much of anything at the moment.

Y had been drinking since viewing what was now referred to as the Japan Sink, the hole in the sea where the island of Honshu and three million people used to be. It was Zoltan who poured that first drink for him as soon as they retreated from the cockpit to the Cloud Nine room. The psychic told the OSS agent that he was picking up some stress vibes from him. He convinced Y that he had to be in top shape for whatever lay ahead, so he suggested Y have a pop or two now and listen to Crabb’s pickup jazz band.

Relax, Zoltan had told him. Settle down. Get calm.

Y had decided to take the psychic’s advice. That had been three hours and six drinks ago.

The Bro-Bird was now cruising at twenty thousand feet somewhere over the bright blue Pacific. It was on a due southerly course, moving slowly down the Pacific Rim, following as best it could the B-2000’s projected flight path after dropping the superbomb. The huge seaplane’s long-range, radar-imaging TV cameras were scanning every part of the ocean and the few scattered islands below, looking for any telltale signs of wreckage.

So far, they had found nothing.

Now Y was stoned and looking out at the blue-pearl Pacific Ocean himself, the not-unpleasant sounds of the makeshift jazz band running in one ear and going out the other. What if they did spot the carcass of the massive B-2000 somewhere on the ocean’s floor? Then what? Take pictures of the wreck, he supposed. Then search the nearest islands for any survivors. And after that? Well, after that, they would have nothing but the long ride home to look forward to.

Y signaled for another drink, and one of Bro’s crew delivered it to him promptly. Just one sip into it, Y spotted Zoltan making his way across the dance floor to him. The psychic had retired to his berth for a “cosmic nap,” as he called it. Now he was wearing a slightly perplexed look that Y had come to interpret as a harbinger of not-so-good news.

Zoltan greeted him, produced a drink for himself, and set it down on the table in front of Y.

“Can we talk?” he asked the OSS agent.

“Sure,” Y said, sliding over in the small corner booth.

Zoltan sat down, noticed Y’s six empty glasses, and began yanking on his goatee.

“I just talked to Bro and he just received a rather odd report,” he began.

Y just groaned. He was becoming a bit psychic himself.

“Now what?”

Zoltan leaned in a bit closer.

“Well, it was sort of an SOS call,” he told Y. “A distress signal from an island close by.”

Y sat up a bit.

“What kind of SOS? Was it from Hawk?” Zoltan shook his head no.

Y slumped back down in his seat. “Who was it from, then?”

Zoltan seemed to pick his words carefully.

“I know it’s going to sound a bit crazy … ,” he began.

Y laughed. “I’m very used to crazy by this point.”

Zoltan swigged his own drink.

“Well, it seems that there is a type of hostage situation on this island,” he continued. “Some, well … uh … civilians are being held against their will by some pirate types. These hostages managed to send out a Mayday, and Bro’s long-range radio equipment picked it up.”

Y just stared back at him for a moment. “Can we alert someone for them?”

Zoltan shrugged. “That’s an option, I suppose,” he said. “But …”

“Well, what are you suggesting?” Y pressed him. “Surely not that we stop ourselves?”

Zoltan’s brow furrowed and he was positively yanking on his chin hairs now. Not good signs.

“Well, it might actually be the wise thing to do,” Zoltan replied. “You see I’m getting a very strange feeling about all this, and—”

Y held up his hand.

“We are on a very secret, very important, very
classified
mission here,” he told the psychic, slurring his words slightly. “It would compromise our goals if we stopped to help everyone who can type out SOS. I’m not being cruel here—but you know the score. This part of the world is in a major state of upheaval—especially after what has happened in Japan. I’m sure there’s a million places we could stop and lend a hand if we wanted to. But our mission has to come first.”

“I realize that,” Zoltan replied. “But the vibes I’m getting from this. I don’t know. They are usually not this strong. And Bro feels them, too.”

Y just shook his head and drained his drink.

“So now Bro is a psychic, too?”

Zoltan bit his lip. “He has intuitions,” he said slowly. “We all do.”

Y raised his hand, and one of Bro’s men came over with his eighth drink.

“Look, why make this any harder on us?” Y said, taking his first sip of bourbon and ginger juice. “We’re probably going to run into a pile of shit as it is? Why make the pile any higher?”

Zoltan finished his drink and signaled for another. This wasn’t going to be easy, what he had to tell Y. But he had to try.

“Can I ask you a very strange question?” he said to the OSS man after his glass of rye appeared.

Y laughed. “When have you
not
asked me anything but strange questions?”