Later on, she could remember Snider asking her if she wanted to get a cup of joe before she drove back to Manhattan, but she couldn’t recall powering up the Ericsson and finding the message from Rosanna.
Except it wasn’t from Rosanna. It was from a well-spoken Japanese Navy officer who identified himself in perfect English as Commander Jisaku Hidaka, interim military governor of Hawaii.
He was standing in a bare room.
Rosanna was seated in front of him, sobbing.
“Miss Duffy,” he said. “You will relay this message to your leaders. Hawaii is under the control of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Your countrymen are being well treated. If there is any attempt to retake the island, however, every man and woman and child will be executed. This is not an empty threat.”
And with that he drew his pistol and shot her friend in the head.
For the first time in her life, Julia Duffy fainted.
34
ALRESFORD AERODROME, HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND
They hadn’t even finished transferring their kit to the jeep when the copilot broke in over tac net.
“Excuse me, gentlemen. German air assault, gliders and Junkers, twenty-one minutes out. CI had confirmed this field as the likely DZ.”
Harry told his men to finish up as quickly as they could. He climbed up into the jeep, standing in the rear with one boot on the spare tire. This airfield wasn’t a major facility. It was a dispersal point, a place to hide precious fighters to protect them from bombing raids on the main centers like Biggin Hill. Mostly it consisted of a small control tower, a couple of Nissan huts, and a grass runway. There were no serviceable aircraft on the ground at the moment. Almost all the RAF and its Allied Air Forces were aloft.
That was probably why the Jerries were planning to use it as a landing field. Nice location, no resistance to speak of.
The aerodrome was set amongst farmland just over a hundred miles to the southwest of London. The nearest settlement was a village, which had grown up around a Norman-era church. There were no major military bases nearby. The full complement of the airfield came to 129 ground crew, air defense guards, and administrative staff. Some two dozen of them had gathered a short distance away to watch the helicopter land and disembark its passengers.
Harry called over his two demolition specialists. Bolt and Akerman.
“Andy, Piers, you’ve got fifteen minutes to turn that runway into a serious hazard to human life. Go!”
The troopers snatched up a couple of backpacks and dashed away enthusiastically.
The base commander was a one-legged Australian named Fitzsimons. He’d played test rugby in the 1930s before volunteering for the Empire Air Training Scheme. He’d taken a desk job after losing his leg, and that had turned a lot of his muscle to fat. But he still looked like a powerful man.
“Anything I should know, Major Windsor?” Fitzsimons asked as Bolt and Akerman moved ominously toward his runway.
“Yes,” said Harry. “I’m afraid you’re about to have some unwanted visitors. Jerry has decided he wants your lovely little airfield for his own. I’d put away the good silver, if I were you, Mr. Fitzsimons. German gliders and Junkers—probably with paratroops are on their way. Enough of them so that it looks like a battalion to me. They will probably have some fighters escorting them, too.”
“Ah, I see. Well, then, what do you think we should do?”
“We shall tell them to keep their filthy fucking paws off the place, I imagine.”
The remainder of the SAS squad was standing ready next to the jeeps.
“Okay, lads,” he said, turning around to include them all. “Adolf wants this field as one end of an air bridge. That makes sense. There are no likely defenders around to see them off. It’s a handy distance from London. But then, he doesn’t know we’re here, does he? Fitzsimons, you need to get your people together. Arm all of them, women and cooks included. Can you do that?”
“I can.”
“Excellent. Did you play off the bench by the way, or did you run on for the Wallabies.”
The base commander stood about three inches taller. “I ran on. Every game. Seven test matches. Could have been more. Plenty more actually, but—”
“Excellent. You know your own people. Leave me your airfield defenders. You take your bench players, divide them into three fire teams and get them up into that little copse of trees on the hill just off the north end of the runway. I think the gliders are going to put down over that way. Don’t open fire until they’re on the ground. Have each team concentrate on one glider at a time. Try to kill them inside, while they’re all bunched up.”
He turned back to his own troopers, finding his sniper, Corporal Fontaine, sitting on the bonnet of one of the jeeps.
“Angus. You go with these guys. Take Austin as your spotter. Take out the NCOs first, then the officers. Then anybody looks like they might be setting up a crew-served weapon.”
“Come on, then, Stevo,” said Fontaine, and they immediately began to unpack some of the kit they’d just finished stowing in the jeeps.
Fitzsimons was already bellowing orders, hurrying away on his wooden leg.
Harry walked over to the chopper to speak to the pilot. “Lieutenant Hay?”
“Sir.”
“Ashley, wasn’t it? Listen Ash, you need to get clear for the next twenty minutes. These characters will come in with fighter cover, if they’re any good—”
“CI confirms that, Major.”
“I thought as much,” Harry said. “Do you have a full weapons load?”
“Autocannon is at a hundred percent. But only one rocket pod’s working. We haven’t had a chance to put the other into the shop.”
“One will have to do. Can you bring up a holomap for me? The threat bubble out to fifty thousand meters.”
He pulled his goggles down from where they’d been resting on his helmet. Flight Lieutenant Hay initiated a laser link to the
“Lieutenant, can you park yourself in that blind river valley, about fifteen klicks to the north? We may have to call on you if we need close air support.”
“Well, it’s not in my job description, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Best move out, then,” Harry said.
The massive drooping composite blades of the NH 91 began to turn as Hay fed power from the Alfa Romeo/GE turbocells into the titanium rotor hub.
“Right you are, guv,” St. Clair replied. “Trooper Pearson, you silly old poof, you heard the heir to the throne, didn’t you? Well, what are you fuckin’ waiting for, then? Trooper Devine, let’s go. Or should I get you a fucking walking frame, too?”
The towering Jamaican and his two off-siders quickly repacked one of the jeeps and lit out toward the sound of pealing church bells.
The Eurocopter lifted off and banked away to the north.
As the rotorwash died down, Harry found himself alone for a moment. Several soldiers dressed in khaki were double-timing his way. The airfield-defense unit. Men and a few women in RAF blue were emerging from the Nissan huts and control tower, under Fitzsimons’s supervision. All of them were carrying old-fashioned rifles.
Harry looked at his watch.
Fourteen minutes.
