the murder. He had been told that justice would be served and he couldn’t argue with the brutal fact. Also, he had to admit that faking the robbery might actually mask the fact that it had been an assassination by other members of the Mexican military.
He waited only a few seconds to gather his nerves and drove back to his office in the American Embassy. He didn’t want the Mexico City police wondering what an American FBI agent was doing so close to the killing of a respected Mexican Army colonel.
The somewhat grumpy woman assigned as his secretary had taken a message from someone who refused to give a name, only saying that Mexicans don’t like traitors either. Harris crumpled the paper and threw it in the wastebasket.
He thought he should talk to the ambassador before leaving to go back to the U.S., but just then someone loudly announced that the Japs were attacking California. The hell with the ambassador, Harris thought as he ran out of the embassy, he had to get a flight back to California as soon as possible.
Amanda had just arrived for her shift at the hospital when the sirens began to scream. Oh God, she thought. What should she do now? Patients were staring at her as if she knew what to do. Some could be moved, but many could not. But where to go? Was anyplace safe? Worse, there was an appalling lack of shelters.
The supervising nurse solved at least part of her problem. “Get as many as you can down to the basement and stay with them. I’ll take care of the ones who can’t move.”
Amanda and another nurse managed to get a good twenty men down from the second floor and to a room in the damp and claustrophobic basement. Another dozen wounded made it themselves, some even joking how Japanese bombs and shells motivated them to get their butts out of bed and made them forget their little aches and pains.
When everyone was pretty well settled on the floor of the basement, Amanda went back upstairs. The sirens were still wailing, but did that mean enemy shells or bombs? Or maybe—please—maybe it was a false alarm. She’d endured bombs, shells, and false alarms in Honolulu, what seemed an eternity ago. Just a couple of days earlier, she’d relished discovering so much about herself and Tim, and how much they enjoyed making love and thinking about the future. What the hell was happening to her little world? Tim was off to somewhere dangerous and she was under enemy fire in San Diego. Where was God in all this mess?
“Our ships are leaving,” someone yelled. She dashed to a window. Sure enough, the handful of American warships that had remained in San Diego Bay were steaming as rapidly as they could toward the open sea.
She asked a navy captain whether or not the departing ships were going to take on the Japanese, and got an answer that surprised her.
“Sure hope not. Two cruisers and half a dozen destroyers aren’t going to stop the Jap navy,” he said. “They’d get killed. The navy’s just trying to get those little ships out to safety. That is, if there is any place safe.”
Thunder boomed in the distance. “Our shore batteries,” the captain said. Amanda recalled that Tim had told her there were eight- and ten-inch guns in batteries on Point Lomas overlooking the entrance to the bay. More distant thunder told her that the Japs were within range. This was confirmed by giant splashes in the harbor, some frighteningly close to the fleeing warships.
“They must have spotter planes up,” the captain said.
“So why don’t we shoot them down?”
“Good question. I don’t know where the hell our planes are. It’s as if we don’t have any.”
A massive shell hit a destroyer. The explosion lifted it out of the water. It landed and capsized. Amanda watched in horror as men tumbled into the water. A new sound intruded. Planes, Jap planes. Antiaircraft guns began firing and adding to the din.
Amanda was no fool. Her place was with her patients, not where bombs and shells might be falling. She ran downstairs where most of them waited stolidly. She gave them all the information she had, which seemed to please them. Nobody liked to be kept in the dark.
“Thank you, Nurse Dane,” a sailor with his arm in a cast said, grinning. The announcement that she was married had caused great amusement. A couple said they were heartbroken and wondered why she’d dumped them, and she’d replied that she still loved them all.
Something exploded nearby, and the building shook. The lights went out, but they’d brought some flashlights. Another sailor laughed nervously. “This place wasn’t built on a low-bid contract, was it, ma’am?”
Another explosion and pieces of the false ceiling began to tumble down. “Get under something,” she hollered.
Half the men had done that already, but it did motivate the rest to take cover under anything they could find. Desks and tables were the favorites. She looked around for something to hide under.
She was already flying across the room when she realized that another explosion had occurred, and this one terribly close. She hit the wall with enough force to knock the wind from her. She gasped for breath and felt pain surging through her body. Debris was falling on her and she couldn’t move. As she felt consciousness ebb, she heard screams and realized at least one voice was hers. Then it became dusty and dark.
Farris and Nancy cowered in a long slit trench. It was filled with men and women, civilians and military, and even a few children. The Japanese were pounding the base. A shell landed nearby and showered them with dirt and debris. A child began to scream in stark terror.
Antiaircraft batteries nearby began to fire. Farris risked looking up and saw a pair of Japanese planes, the damned Zeroes, fly low overhead. It was obvious that Jap carriers as well as their warships were very close.
A Zero streaked across the bay, only a few feet above the water. The antiaircraft battery opened up with its twin 20mm guns. The plane flew through the shells and fired its machine guns, riddling the battery. Men staggered out and fell, some quivering.
“Where the hell are our planes?” a Marine sergeant asked. Then he saw Nancy. “Hey, she’s a fucking Jap.”
The enraged Marine threw a punch that Nancy ducked. Farris grabbed the man and pushed him against the wall of the trench. “Do that again and I’ll kill you.”
Nancy grabbed his arm and pointed to the destroyed antiaircraft guns. “Some of those men are still alive.”
Farris climbed out of the trench and ran to the ruined battery, with Nancy right behind him. While most of the gunners were shredded meat, two men were still alive. He grabbed one and she grabbed the other. The two men moaned at being roughly manhandled, but there wasn’t time to be gentle.
Farris pulled at his wounded man. He was too big to carry, so he dragged him. The pain to his damaged shoulder was excruciating, and he felt it pop. Incredulously, he saw Nancy managing to drag the other man the few dozen yards to safety. Halfway there, the Marine sergeant and another enlisted man arrived to help them with their burdens.
They managed to get the two wounded men into the trench. People moved away to give them room. “How’s your first aid?” Nancy asked. Farris and the Marine sergeant admitted theirs was okay but that was about it. Even in combat, Farris hadn’t had to treat wounds.
“Then my skills are better,” she said. “Living in a place like Bridger made us all very independent. Let’s get organized; start helping me.”
Steve’s left arm was again limp and useless. All he could do was watch while Nancy and another woman did what they could for the wounded men.
“Sorry about being such a jerk, sir,” the Marine sergeant said. “I didn’t realize she was an American.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I think your shoulder’s been dislocated.”
Farris agreed with the diagnosis. The Marine pushed him against the wall of the trench, grabbed his wrist, and jerked. The pain was excruciating and he nearly fainted, but the shoulder popped back in.
The Marine offered Steve a cigarette. “That woman is something else.”
“Yeah. She sure is.”
The explosions in and around the base represented both fear and an opportunity for Gunther Krause. For a while he had been having second thoughts as to whether the Americans would honor their agreement or, once he
