dozen feet away became a pleasant blur. She wished she was naked and could let the sun play over her entire body as she liked to do on some of the more private beaches in the area. She wondered what Jamie’s reaction would be. Shock? Dismay? Delight? Maybe someday she’d find out.
“Not much to say. He was a good man, a good father, and a good sailor, and I loved him very much. He encouraged me to get an education, which I did. He served with Spruance, which is how I got this job as his clerk at the tender age of twenty-four. Being a sailor, Dad was gone for long stretches of time, so I got used to him not being there. My mother lives in Oakland. They got divorced a few years ago, and she remarried some guy who works in a factory. The guy’s a jerk, and I’m really disappointed in Mom, but I guess she needed the security.”
Suzy took another beer for herself and snapped off the top with more force than was necessary. She’s hiding her anger too, Jamie thought, but not very well.
“Dad died on his battleship,” she went on. “Now they’re saying the Arizona will be a permanent tomb or memorial when we retake Hawaii. I’d like that, and I know he’d like that. I could visit there and know where he is and that he’s finally safe.”
“In the meantime, we do what we can,” Jamie said.
He was proud of his work. Already a partial solution had been found for the problem of the torpedoes running deeper than set. The weight difference between the test warheads and a real warhead was significant enough to cause a torpedo to run ten feet deeper than expected. Adjusting the settings was all that was needed, although there was concern that the earth’s magnetic field was producing variances that also affected the settings.
The situation with the impact detonators was still not totally resolved. It was now a given that they were too sensitive, and there was talk of copying a more reliable British design. In the meantime, mechanics onboard submarines tinkered with each torpedo to make them all more effective.
“When you write your book, put me in it,” Suzy said with a grin.
“My what?”
“You heard me. After the war, you will write a book about your experiences, and I want to be in it. As the heroine, of course.”
Write a book? Funny, but the thought intrigued him. “Okay, I’ll write a book. And I’ll put those four admirals in it in all their glory.”
Perhaps a book would be a way of telling the world about the quiet courage of people like Seaman Fiorini, and about his photos, which might have influenced the course of the war.
They finished their beers, and Suzy broke out sandwiches. As they ate, she couldn’t help but think that her father would have liked Lieutenant Jamie Priest.
Charley Finch had never intended to be a traitor. All he ever wanted was a little peace and comfort for himself and a way out of the prison camp. If it meant ratting on a couple of his buddies, well, so what? He’d done it before, and he’d do it again if the situation was right.
All he thought the Japs would do about the POWs’ command situation in the camp was to smack the guys involved around a few times, maybe put them in solitary for a while, and everything would get back to business as usual. Hell, everything had been fine so far. His “duty” outside the compound was now considered normal by his fellow prisoners, who actually awaited his returns with eagerness. Along with the others who worked outside the barbed wire, he had become a font of information regarding the outside world and even “smuggled” in excess food. His buddies in no way begrudged him the fact that he ate his fill from Jap leftovers and brought only what he could hide and carry. What the hell was he to do-they’d all laughed-push a handcart or wheelbarrow full of Jap goodies in each day? Only Jake knew that Colonel Omori made Charley take the food. It made him more valuable and trusted by his fellow prisoners.
All this was now threatened, even destroyed, by the punishment Omori was inflicting on the four American prisoners, which Finch was forced to watch. He was behind a screen and the POWs were blindfolded, but he had the nagging, crawling feeling they knew he was there.
Goto was clad in only a loincloth, and his short, muscular body glistened with sweat and the prisoners’ blood. He had worked the men over with his pliers as they hung from the rafters by ropes tied under their armpits. All their fingers and toes had been smashed, as had their noses and teeth. Now Goto was finishing the job by battering each man’s chest and back with a baseball bat. As another blow landed, a soldier groaned and Charley heard the nauseating sound of a rib snapping.
Goto laughed and pounded the kidney area of another man. Blood had begun to ooze from their bowels. At least they were through screaming. The first few hours had been terrible with their howls of agony.
Goto shifted and began a series of savage uppercuts with the bat on the prisoners’ testicles. He had done this earlier, and their balls were swollen like purple grapefruits that looked like they would burst.
“Enough,” Omori said, and his lieutenant looked disappointed. “Cut them down and have the other prisoners retrieve them.”
Charley was surprised. Earlier, Omori had said he would have them executed. The colonel looked fatigued. Charley had picked up enough Japanese to overhear that the colonel had spent the night drinking and fucking some white woman. Lucky bastard. It also looked like the colonel had been using drugs, and Charley found that intriguing.
The soldiers whispered that Goto had been dipping his wick in some local pussy all night as well.
“Don’t worry, Sergeant Finch,” Omori said, “they will die. Only it will be in full view of their comrades and over a great period of agonizing time as the prisoner medics try to save them. Since they don’t have the resources to do any such thing, their efforts will simply prolong the men’s death agonies.”
Charley shuddered. Jesus, what a sadistic bastard.
“You have kept your bargain,” Omori said. “And I will keep mine. We have captured two FBI agents and now have the two men who commanded the prisoners. You will not return to the camp. You will be reported as killed for insolence. Instead, you will be installed in a cottage just off the base and out of sight of the other prisoners. You will be fed and have liquor and the services of one of the Korean whores.”
Charley thought he’d been promised a white woman like the one Omori was screwing, but he didn’t press it. “Thank you, sir.”
“When the time comes, I will have other duties for you.”
Charley was again surprised. He had thought this was a one-shot deal. Of course, he realized ruefully, he’d also thought the four men would be relatively unharmed.
“There are Americans loose on several islands,” Omori continued, “and I believe you would be perfect in flushing them out.”
“What will you do with them, sir?”
Omori glared at him angrily. The question was impertinent. “They are outlaws, Sergeant; what do you think we do with outlaws?”
Charley Finch bowed deeply in apology. “I understand fully, Colonel Omori.” And he did understand. If a few more died so he could stay alive and well, that was just tough shit. It would be years at the earliest before the United States returned, and Charley Finch had best look out for Charley Finch. He knew it would be difficult to explain his prosperous survival when so many others were dead and dying, but that was something he would resolve when the time came. Maybe he would move to Japan? Hell, after he’d helped them, the Japs would welcome him with open arms, wouldn’t they?
CHAPTER 14
It was time to do something constructive, Jake thought, long past time. He and his men had spent more than enough days hiding and organizing, and now they had to show the people of the big island of Hawaii that there was an American presence nearby, and that it was capable of hurting the Japanese.
This wasn’t something he’d decided on lightly. His mission was to stay hidden and await orders. However, he had to live in the area, and that required the assistance of the handful of people on the farms and in the villages outside Hilo. Many of them were wavering in their support of America, and others felt that the Japanese
