engine and then restart. It was one of those things he’d never truly understand. Probably a piece of crud in the engine that had simply disappeared. It had been only a few minutes, but it had caused him to fall back, and now he couldn’t distinguish the other four planes in the sea of stars and blackness ahead of him. This was getting seriously like the last time he’d flown the 314 from Hawaii. That was many months ago, when he’d ferried a number of high-ranking brass out of Pearl and even dropped off some soldiers on the Big Island. He sometimes wondered what became of them.
Meagher toyed with the idea of speeding up, but that carried the probability of passing the others and arriving over Honolulu too early. The thought of crashing into them was discounted as just too improbable, considering the vastness of the ocean.
“Where are the others, sir?” Tomanelli asked.
“Out there,” Meagher said sharply, and Tomanelli shut up.
Meagher checked his fuel. By his calculations, they would arrive over Hawaii with more than half remaining. At least that part was going right. With his bombs gone, his return load would be much lighter.
Tomanelli had regained his courage. “What’re we going to do now?”
“Lieutenant, we are going to do what we’re supposed to. We’re gonna fly to Hah-vah-ee and see if we can find us some Japs to plaster with all this crap the government has assigned to us.”
Tomanelli gulped audibly. “Alone?”
Meagher looked at him in mock surprise. “Of course not, boy. We’ll have our guardian angels with us.”
Sergeant Charley Finch hated moving during the night through what he thought of as jungles. There was nothing to see, and, with his miserable tracking skills, he might turn around and be headed back to Hilo before he realized his mistake.
Something slapped at his leg, and he swore. It was only a branch, not a snake. He’d heard there were no snakes in Hawaii, but who the hell knew for certain? No, he could not return to Hilo, not after what he’d heard from Goto. He had to make peace with Novacek. Thank God the asshole colonel had no idea what he’d been up to.
Suddenly, Finch was flat on his face and spitting out dirt that had been forced into his mouth by the impact. Something heavy landed on his back, forcing his breath out in a whoosh while a sack was pulled over his head and tightened around his neck.
Hands and arms held him on the ground while his pack was taken from him. Finch’s panic grew as his wrists were tied behind him. In an instant, he was helpless and blind. Nearby, but muffled, he could hear voices, and they were Japanese.
“And what do we have here?” a voice queried in heavily accented English. “An American guerrilla who’s been visiting his friends? This is most fortunate.”
Finch thought it was time to change sides again. “I’m a friend,” he said through the thick cloth. “I’m on your side.” He realized how foolish it sounded as soon as he said it. “Colonel Omori can vouch for me. So can Lieutenant Goto.”
“Omori is gone,” said the voice. “He was removed because he could not catch you people. I am his replacement in the kempetei, Major Sendai. You are an American guerrilla, and, after I have questioned you thoroughly, I am going to let my men chop you into little pieces with their bayonets. Before you die, I will even make you eat your testicles so you do not go to hell on an empty stomach.”
Finch writhed against his bonds as fear overwhelmed him. If only he could see. “No. I helped Omori. I can prove it.”
The unseen Jap punched him hard, and he felt his nose crunch. Blood began to flow from his nostrils and into his mouth, sickening him.
“How?” asked the Jap. “And if I think you are lying, I will crush every bone in your body.”
Finch spat out the blood. “You read his files on those guys on Lanai, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
Finch saw a ray of hope in the darkness of the sack that covered his head. “I did that. I was sent in by Omori and got them to trust me. Then I led Goto to them and got them to surrender.”
“What else?”
“Uh, there were some guys in the prison camp who ran a radio. I got them for Omori.” He didn’t add that he hadn’t expected them to be executed. That would have made him sound soft. “Then I got the FBI agents Omori’d been looking for.”
“If all that is true,” Sendai said softly, “what were you doing here?”
More hope. Sendai was at least listening. “Omori sent me to work with Lieutenant Goto and get the American guerrillas. Look, I just warned him that there was going to be an attack on Hilo, and he’s making preparations for it now. Why don’t you take me to him and ask him?”
Finch was pushed to a sitting position and the sack pulled from his head. He blinked and found himself staring into the face of the devil incarnate, Lieutenant Sammy Brooks. The marine’s face was a mask of mud and grease war paint that helped him blend into the night. The eyes, however, glowed with hatred.
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Brooks said with a Japanese accent. He’d been Sendai.
“Oh, Jesus,” Finch moaned. He felt a wetness in his groin as his bladder emptied. “I can explain.”
“Don’t bother,” said Brooks.
A shadow came from behind a tree. It was Alexa Sanderson, and she was similarly disguised. “Tell us about Melissa Wilson,” she said. Finch was dimly aware of others with them.
“Who?”
“Melissa Wilson. The blond woman whose picture you’re carrying and who you tried to tell me was your girlfriend. She was my neighbor and my best friend. She would never be a friend of yours.”
Once again faint hope buoyed Finch. Maybe he had information he could bargain with. “Why should I tell you anything?”
Alexa knelt beside him, and Finch thought he’d never seen such feral hatred and contempt on a person’s face. She slapped him across his broken nose, and he saw flashes of light through the sudden pain. “Because you are a traitor and you are going to die right now. It’s your choice whether it’s quick and painless or whether I let Brooks skin you alive. Maybe he’ll even make you eat your balls, just like he said when he pretended to be a Jap.”
Finch began to cry. “I told Omori I wanted a white woman, and he got her for me. I don’t even think she ever told me her name. The picture was in her purse, and I found it on the floor after she left one time. She was drugged up all the time, and we just fucked. She was fucking Omori and all the Japanese officers. I don’t know anything more, I swear it.”
Alexa took a deep breath and tried to keep control of her emotions. What had happened to Melissa was what would have happened to her had she remained on Oahu. “What about her child?”
“What child? I don’t know.” Finch’s voice was almost a shriek. Brooks held a wide-bladed knife in his hand. It was a skinning knife. “Please, I don’t know anything about the woman or her child. Please don’t let him hurt me.”
Alexa acknowledged the sound of terrified honesty in his voice. If he’d had anything to tell, he would have. “Quickly,” she said to Brooks and strode away. “I don’t want it to be slow. That’d put us on the same level as him.”
“Sergeant Finch,” Brooks said, “Hawkins wanted to be here to do this because you disgraced the army you both serve in, and I’m a marine. But Novacek thought he was too important to come, so this is from him.”
Brooks wrapped a length of wire around Finch’s neck and paused.
“By the way, the info you gave Goto was all false. We planted it out there to tempt you, and you bit like the dumb fish you are. We’re actually doing you a favor. We could’ve let Goto finish you when his raid on a nonexistent airfield turned into shit.”
Finch could scarcely groan.
“You’re a lucky bastard, Finch,” Brooks said as he pulled on the wire with all his strength. “I really wanted to skin you and shove your balls down your cocksucking throat.”
Finch couldn’t answer. His neck was broken.
Colonel Omori heard the pounding through his sleep. When he was finally awake enough to think, the pounding continued, both on the door to his bedroom and in his tortured skull. He cursed himself for drinking as
