Rising Sun

CHAPTER 17

AT FIRST, NEITHER SANDY NOR GRACE COULD IDENTIFY THE MAN in the photo either, although they too were certain they’d seen him somewhere. All three agreed that they’d never seen the second man. But where had they seen the first man, was the maddening question.

Dane had quickly contacted Harris and they all met in the FBI office close to Tim’s. The photos were on the table, staring back at them. Both Tim and Harris were stunned that the women might have been close to the German, and the women were frustrated that they couldn’t recall when, where, or why. Harris was pacing and it was clear that his frustration was growing as well.

Finally, it was Grace who broke the spell, clapping her hands and laughing. “Oh shit. Now it’s coming to me. He was the creep in Zuckerman’s office who looked so angry and like he wanted to undress us right then and there.”

“Yes!” exclaimed Amanda, and Sandy chimed in as well.

This required a quick explanation of why they were in Zuckerman’s office in the first place, and Harris took notes. He was mildly curious about this Mack character and what might be in the safe deposit box, but that was a job for the state of California, which seemed to have it covered.

First thing the next morning Harris, Dane, and a couple of other agents went to Zuckerman’s office. The additional firepower was present on the off chance that they might run into Braun just as Amanda and the others had. If so, Dane had specific orders to stand back and he pledged to obey.

Dane was mildly amused when the lawyer and his secretary, Judith, arrived together, and were conversing with a degree of intimacy that went beyond a working relationship. He wondered if there was a Mrs. Zuckerman or if the secretary had a husband, and decided it was none of his business.

Inside his office, Zuckerman looked at the picture and nodded. He handed it to Judith who agreed. “His name is Olaf Swenson and he rents some property from me,” Zuckerman said.

“What do you know about him?” Harris asked.

“Not all that much. I know that he’s a Swedish engineer who started up a small business and is working doing something for the navy. He works with another foreigner who might be Swedish as well. Swenson is the one who pays the rent, and his money’s always been good. He pays on time and in cash.”

“He’s a jerk.” Judith glared. “He’s rude and obnoxious. It’s obvious he dislikes Jews. He probably can’t stand the thought of having to pay money to one.”

Harris nodded grimly. “That’s because he’s German and a Nazi and SS to boot.”

Zuckerman recoiled as if he’d been struck. “A Nazi? Here? That can’t be. I would never do business with a Nazi. What is your proof?”

Harris was about to respond that the FBI didn’t need proof in wartime to arrest someone, but thought better of it. “It’s true, Mr. Zuckerman. These photos are those of a part of a group of Nazis left behind in Mexico when the war started. These two have come north to commit as much sabotage as they can. I normally wouldn’t give you all that information, but I want you to understand what we’re all up against.”

The lawyer shook his head as if to clear his mind of the shock. “I believe. How do I evict the sons of bitches?”

“Hopefully, we can do it for you,” Harris said. “Now, please give me the address of the property.”

After the agents left with the address and all other information they possessed, Judith hugged a disconsolate and sobbing Zuckerman. “I can’t believe I rented to Nazis. I can’t believe I had anything to do with the filthy swine. After what’s happening to my family in Europe, it’s almost impossible to comprehend.”

Zuckerman’s last letter from his Aunt Hilda in Austria had been smuggled out and informed him that several of his family had been ordered to report to a new work camp in Poland. His aunt added that she hadn’t yet been swept up, and said she’d received a postcard saying their relatives had arrived at a place near the town of Auschwitz and were doing well. Aunt Hilda used subtle phrasing in her letter to fool anyone reading it. It was clear that she didn’t believe it at all, and that their relatives were likely doomed. As was she, Zuckerman thought.

Judith sat beside him on the office couch. She cradled his head to her bosom and rocked him and kissed his forehead. She too had relatives back in Europe, although in France where she hoped they were safe. That is, if there was any place in the world where a Jew could be safe.

“Look on the bright side, dear,” Judith said as tears ran down her cheek. “Now you have the chance to destroy him.” She stood up and straightened her dress. “And we are going to do exactly what that nice FBI man said we should do, aren’t we?”

Zuckerman managed a smile. “You’re right. A little vacation is more than in order.”

Caution, patience, and a strong sense of paranoia were vital assets for any agent working behind enemy lines, and both Braun and Krause possessed all three in abundance. They had spent much time observing the goings on in the neighborhood near Swenson Engineering. They observed the actions and routines of the area regulars and quietly memorized them. They knew who their neighbors were and who their friends and customers were. This, of course, meant that they too were known quantities to those same neighbors, and they went out of their way to maintain friendly, even cordial, relations, even cheering American victories when they were announced. We’re all in this war together, aren’t we?

Like any neighborhood or cluster of businesses, there was a pattern to life and any deviation from that pattern attracted attention.

Thus, the presence of the two unmarked cars with two men in each was immediately noted by the two Germans. One car was in front and down the street and the other in the rear of the building and down a ways. The occupants of both vehicles appeared to be interested in Swenson Engineering, and were quickly identified by the two Germans as a menace.

Instead of driving onto their property, Braun and Krause drove past and around, parked a little distance away, and observed. They were quietly thankful that the Ford didn’t have the Swenson Engineering sign attached at the moment. After a while, the two men in one of the cars were spelled by two more men in another car. It confirmed to the two Germans that they’d been discovered.

Braun sighed. “They are not very good at their jobs. They are either FBI or local police and it doesn’t matter. We’ve been betrayed and now we have to run.”

“Where to?” asked Krause.

“Wherever you want,” Braun said. “As we previously discussed, we are going to split up and go our own ways. Our part in this war is over. We have no way of notifying the people in Mexico who will doubtless soon be arrested if it hasn’t happened already. We have phony identification that should enable each of us to fashion a life. When Germany is victorious, we can each, separately, find our way back to the Reich for whatever is due us. Since we failed, I doubt it will be much of a reward,” he added bitterly, thinking that their reward could be years in a prison camp as the Reich didn’t tolerate failures.

Krause was silent. He’d been listening to the radio and reading the newspapers and if they were only half correct, the Third Reich was in grave danger. The offensives in Russia had stalled and a second Russian winter was upon the German army. Also, the Americans were in North Africa helping the British and there was a massive buildup of American forces that the German navy was unable to stop. No, German victory in his opinion was far from a foregone conclusion, and Braun’s dreams of returning to Germany might never come true. Defeat seemed far more likely. He also felt that Japan would sooner or later feel the wrath of the Americans.

Nor did Krause think it would be all that easy to disappear, even in the vastness of the United States. If the American government had their names, they likely had their pictures, and he’d seen photos of wanted men on the walls of post offices and in the newspapers. He could envision some small child telling his mommy that the man in line to buy stamps looked just like the man glowering from the wanted poster, the man accused of espionage. Oh, that would be wonderful, he thought.

“We will need money,” Krause said.

“Fortunately, we have some. There’s almost seven thousand dollars in the safe deposit box at the bank. Since it’s in another name, I doubt that the police are watching it yet. I suggest we get the money, split it up, and disappear. You will leave first, as I have a job to do.”

Krause nodded slowly. He knew he was being cheated. He’d counted the money when Braun wasn’t looking and knew there was more than twelve thousand dollars, not seven. He didn’t like the thought of Braun screwing him and leaving him on the run for the rest of his life. Krause thought he understood what job Braun was going to do. But what could he do about it and how could it work to his benefit?

“All is quiet on the Pacific Front,” joked Captain Merchant. “And I like it that way.”

Dane couldn’t complain either. Work, if you could call it that, was falling into a routine. He now had a staff of two and they did much of the initial work, leaving him to analyze what they had written down. One of his staff was Nancy Sullivan, the half-Japanese daughter of the store owner in Bridger. She’d been raised by a Japanese mother, and both spoke and read the language far better than he. She could also write it, which he couldn’t at all. Going to work for the navy had transformed what Dane thought was a shy young girl into a bright and cheerful young woman who exuded considerable confidence. This further confounded those who thought all Japanese women were shy and submissive.

Getting Nancy onto the base had taken a little help from Merchant and Spruance, but she had proven invaluable, even if she did draw some strange glances from others. She puzzled them. Was she Japanese or not? As long as they left her alone, she was content and safe, while her mother prudently remained in hiding somewhere near Bridger.

The second staffer was a different story. He was a recently commissioned ensign who had majored in Japanese and Asian studies at Harvard and, in Dane’s opinion, might be able to write poetry in Japanese but couldn’t order food in a Japanese restaurant. The ensign was clearly frustrated that a young college student was so much more knowledgeable than he. It also meant he was relegated to routine clerical tasks, which thoroughly annoyed him.

Nor was Amanda all that busy either. There had been no major fighting in some months, and that meant empty beds in the hospital, while those that were occupied contained patients who were either mending or were stabilized. As a result, they had plenty of time to be together, but no opportunity to be intimate. Their time at the beach had not occurred again. Amanda had hinted that she might be willing to go away with him for a few days, but where? Only Merchant had his own place off base and Grace now spent a lot of time there. He and Amanda joked that they did not want to share the place, even if Merchant would agree to it. They supposed they could go farther away, perhaps to Arizona, but both were essentially on call and neither wanted to take the chance of being absent if something important occurred.

Dane was staring at a wall when the phone rang. He answered and a deep voice responded. “Commander Dane?”

“Speaking.”

“I wish to make a bargain with you.”

“Do I know you?”

“In a way. My name is Gunther Krause and my companion is Wilhelm Braun.”

The information took Tim’s breath away. “How did you get this number?”

Krause chuckled. “It was easy. I asked the base information for the name of the navy person who was working with the FBI. I didn’t know you by name, but I assumed there had to be someone working as liaison with them. They gave me your name and number right away. You really ought to be more careful with your secrets. After all, there is a war on.”

“What do you want, Mr. Krause?”

“I wish to go free. In return for information of tremendous value to you, you will have me pardoned of all crimes I might have committed, and you will permit me to live the rest of my life in the United States.”

“I don’t think I can do that.”

“Of course you can’t. However, you can send the request to your government and they can do it. In return for that and as a good-faith down payment, I will now tell you what Herr Braun is planning to do.”

Wilhelm Braun parked his car in front of the building that housed Zuckerman’s offices. He got out, looked around, and saw nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to arouse his primal instincts. He was focused on the idea of killing Zuckerman the Jew. He knew his hatred was making him careless, but it didn’t bother him. He wanted to kill and Zuckerman the Jew would be an easy target. He looked forward to seeing the look of horror on Zuckerman’s face. Perhaps he would rape his secretary while the Jew watched before putting both of them out of their misery.

The Jew was the only one who knew he was here, and therefore, it must have been Zuckerman who turned him in to the police. He did wonder if it had been the supposedly highly vaunted FBI who’d been watching his building, since whoever it had been was so obvious. Perhaps the FBI had had to farm out the task to local police who were far less skilled than Hoover’s Bureau. It seemed likely but right now it was terribly irrelevant. He would be on his way out of San Diego in a very few minutes.

He shifted so the pistol in his belt was within easy reach. Once he’d sworn his life to his Fuehrer and, later in Mexico, had wondered if he had the courage to die for the Reich. Now he knew. He did have that strength. But he would not die alone and hopefully not today. Zuckerman and his whore of a secretary would die today and burn in the hell that all Jews deserved.

Braun despaired that he and Krause had done so little to help Hitler. A couple of trains wrecked meant nothing. They and their contents had doubtless been replaced in a matter of minutes by America’s incredible production capabilities. Nor had he had any success in finding out the location of the surviving American carrier. Should he make it back to Germany, he thought, he did not want to return knowing that he would be punished, not rewarded. Therefore, he would not ever return to Germany. He would disappear in the United States. Still, it behooved him to do as much damage as he could, for his own satisfaction if nothing else, before disappearing.

He entered Zuckerman’s outer office. Good, he thought, it was empty. No clients were waiting. A sign on the whore’s desk said she was out. If she stayed out she might be lucky and remain alive. No matter. He would not stick around and wait for her after killing the Jew. He heard sounds coming from the inner office indicating that Zuckerman was inside. Perhaps he was screwing the bitch? The thought made him smile as he pulled the Luger from his belt. Perhaps he would be able to kill them as they were fucking their little Jewish brains out.

He pushed the door open and stood in surprise. No one was behind the desk.

“Hands up,” came a shockingly stern voice from behind him. “FBI. You’re under arrest.”

Braun started to turn. “Don’t even think of it,” the voice said. “Now drop the gun.”

A side door leading to a bathroom opened and Braun was aware of another agent to his left and still others now to his rear. Braun didn’t move. He was frozen with indecision.

“Braun, my name is Harris and I’m willing to make a deal with you. Work with us and you won’t hang or be shot.”

Braun laughed harshly but didn’t lower his weapon. “No, all I’ll do is spend the rest of my life in a small cell while Jews like Zuckerman run the world. No thank you.”

Braun wheeled and fired. The shot went high, smashing into the wall. Harris was the first agent to shoot and his bullet took Braun in the chest, flinging him over the desk and onto the floor. The other agents shot quickly, riddling the German’s body. The gun fell from his hands and Harris kicked it away.

Harris walked over and stood over Braun. He was breathing shallowly. The others hurried in and began checking him over, but it looked like a useless gesture. Harris was shaking. It was one of only a few times he’d pulled his weapon and the first time in his career that he’d ever shot anyone. He felt nauseous but kept it down. His other agents were responding similarly. Thank God they’d been available instead of the local sheriff’s retired buffoons he’d had to use to stake out Swenson Engineering. Of course, he felt hugely disappointed that Braun was dying, which meant that he could not be turned or pumped for information.

“Braun, do you have anything to say before you die?”

The Nazi smiled grimly as the light faded from his eyes. His voice, however, was surprisingly strong. “Yes, Heil Hitler and fuck you.”

“Banzai!”

The shouted cry came from their front and chilled them even more than the cold, wet snow did. The Japanese were within shouting distance. Only thing was, Farris thought, they couldn’t see them in the woods. The Japs were hidden by the soggy wet snowflakes that would have been beautiful under other circumstances. Today, the lovely flakes were a deadly camouflage, hiding their fanatic and implacable enemy.

“Banzai!”

Farris was sweating in the cold and began to shiver. He wiped his forehead with his hand. The damn Japs were working themselves into a frenzy. They had come down all the way from Anchorage and now they were finally here, on the outskirts of Fairbanks and with the town behind them. Gavin had his small army arrayed so that multiple strongpoints would provide overlapping and concentrated fire. No one had any real idea how many Sons of Nippon were out there, but the consensus was at least as many as there were Americans.

Damn it to hell, Farris thought. Why wasn’t the road from the south open yet? The engineers only had a few miles to go and then troops and armor could come flooding down it, instead of arriving in little trickles like his company had. Soon, he thought, please God soon.

At least Stecher should be happy. He’d been looking for Japs to kill and now they were just a little ways away.

And why didn’t the defenders of Fairbanks have enough artillery to pound the enemy in the woods, and why didn’t they have enough planes to bomb and strafe the enemy? Because nobody thought this would happen and now good men were going to pay with their lives for somebody’s miscalculation.

“Banzai!” and this time a chorus of voices echoed the cry. How damn many of them were there? Farris had an almost overpowering urge to urinate. Or crap. Or hell, maybe both. This would be the first time he and the company had been even close to real combat. He couldn’t count shooting at that sub as combat, although the shells the sub fired at them had come disconcertingly close, and taking on that Japanese patrol had been laughingly one-sided. No, this would be personal.

Major Baylor walked by, calm and upright, just as if he was inspecting them on a Saturday morning before going on weekend pass. Farris knew that it was the major’s first time in combat, along with Gavin’s, but Baylor couldn’t show nerves to his men and be their leader. And I can’t either, Farris thought.

“Keep lots of ammo ready, make sure your grenades are easy to reach, and keep your bayonets fixed,” Baylor said. “Oh yeah, aim for the guys with the swords. Those are their officers.”

The thought of sticking someone with a bayonet or being hacked to pieces with a sword swung by a crazy Jap made Farris want to throw up. He patted the pocket of his field jacket. He’d just gotten a letter from Sandy down in San Diego. Yeah, he thought absurdly, Sandy San Diego. She’d been warm and polite, but noncommittal, which, he supposed, was the way it should be. They’d only gone out a couple of times and he hadn’t even made it to second base. Still, he was glad someone from the female side of the tracks was writing to him.

“Banzai!”

“Either attack or shut the fuck up,” someone yelled and Farris agreed. Do something!

They got their wish. “Oh Jesus, here they come!”

Shapes became dimly visible in the whipping snow. The enemy had gotten to within a hundred yards of them thanks to the crummy weather. Now they were so close he could see expressions on their faces. All hell broke loose as every American soldier opened fire with everything he had. There were a dozen men in Farris’s bunker, and along with their rifles, they had a pair of BARs and a .30-caliber Browning machine gun. They all opened up and chopped into the onrushing Japanese.

Farris worked his rifle as rapidly as he could. Aim, fire, work the bolt, aim, fire, work the bolt, and every five bullets, change the clip. He saw Japanese soldiers tumble and fall. Some got up and tried to continue and were shot again and again until they finally fell and stopped moving. Some ran past his little fortress, while others, many others, were headed straight toward him.

“Jesus, they got tanks!” someone yelled, and Farris thought it was Stecher in an adjacent bunker. Two awkward and ugly metal shapes noisily clambered into view. Their machine guns belched fire and their cannon boomed. Shells from the tanks hit near his bunker and raised clods of mud and debris. Somehow, Farris recalled that Japanese tanks were supposed to be miserable, but these looked like monsters to him.

One of his men started hurling grenades and the first wave of Japanese faltered. Still more grenades filled the air. The man who’d thrown the first grenade grabbed his face and fell backward, screaming. An American artillery shell landed in front of one of the tanks, showering it with dirt and making Farris fall back from the shock. Machine-gun bullets raked the tank, but did no harm. An American jumped out and ran through shocked Japanese and up to the tank. Jesus, Farris realized, it was Stecher. The sergeant pried open the driver’s hatch and dropped in a grenade. A moment later, the tank exploded, blowing Stecher aside like a leaf.

The second tank hit a rock and threw a tread. Instead of staying safe in their iron hull, the crew jumped out and began running insanely toward Farris.

An officer with a glistening curved sword waved it and urged his men on. Farris aimed and shot him in the chest.

“Good one, Lieutenant,” one of his men said.

But here were just too many Japanese. They swarmed on to Farris’s position. Some continued past, while others howled and attempted to jab and stab at the men in the trench. A couple of Farris’s men panicked and clambered out of the bunker and began running to the second line of defenses. Farris too thought it was time to leave but he couldn’t. A dying Japanese soldier had fallen on him and he was stuck under the body. Other Japanese jumped or fell among Farris and the remaining Americans and it became a killing fest, as men on both sides used fists, knives, and teeth. Farris grabbed one Japanese soldier by the throat and strangled him until something hit him on the top of his head and he fell to the muddy bottom of the trench. More bodies piled on him and he tried to claw his way up. There was an explosion and something slammed into his shoulder. He blacked out as excruciating pain overwhelmed him.

Gavin’s second defense line consisted of any soldier who could fire a weapon, along with the Alaskan Volunteers and a number of other local people who’d signed up for the duration. He watched in horror as the human wave of enemy soldiers ignored brutal casualties that would have stopped a normal army and overwhelmed much of the first line. Of course they would ignore their own casualties, he thought angrily. They came here to die.

Many of the forward bunkers held out, but others could not. Fleeing American soldiers ran toward him, comingled with charging Japanese.

Gavin’s people began firing as quickly as they could, even though they were aware that some of their shots might hit their own men. It was that or die themselves, he thought bitterly.

His artillery, mainly 105mm pack howitzers that had been carried to Fairbanks by mule the last few miles, fired as rapidly as they could, shooting over sights that were set as low as the gunners could make them. “Open sights” was the next order he heard and never thought he would hear in his lifetime. It meant the enemy was almost too close to shoot at.

Gavin was in an open bunker with Bear and Ruby, among others, and they kept shooting, mowing down the Japanese who wouldn’t, couldn’t, stop charging. Bodies piled up in front of them in a writhing mass. Ruby was beside him, blazing away. Gavin recalled telling her that women shouldn’t be on the firing line, and her telling him to go screw himself.

A screaming Japanese soldier stood directly in front of him, a grenade in his hand. Ruby shot him and he fell backward. The grenade exploded, shredding the Japanese soldier.

Both Americans and Japanese hurled grenades as if they were snowballs in a schoolyard fight. Yet another Japanese soldier appeared a few feet away and someone cut him down with a burst from a BAR.

“This can’t go on forever,” Bear said, gasping in pain. There was blood on his leg and he was having a hard time standing.

A Japanese soldier jumped the sandbags and stumbled forward. Gavin fired, but he clicked on an empty chamber. He was out of ammo. “Down,” Ruby ordered, and shot the Japanese in the head as Gavin ducked.

Gavin reloaded, wheeled, and looked for a new target. There weren’t any. The ground in front of the bunker was piled sometimes three deep with Japanese dead and dying. He looked at the other positions in the second line and saw much the same thing. The firing was dying out and all around an unnatural silence was beginning to fall. Two tanks were burning in front of his first line, and another had been destroyed to his right. The Japanese armored threat was over, but what about their infantry?

Gavin clambered to the top of the sandbags and looked farther. The few Japanese soldiers left were still screaming their fury, but running aimlessly and were cut down as he watched.

Bear climbed up and stood beside him despite the wound in his leg. “Fuck me, colonel, if we haven’t just run out of Japs.”

Gavin grunted and gave the order for his men to move out. It was time to retake what they had lost.

A thin wave of men and a handful of women moved slowly across the battlefield. A grenade exploded and a man screamed. A Japanese soldier had just killed himself and taken an American with him.

“Make sure they’re dead,” someone yelled. “Kill them. Kill the fuckers!”

Gavin wanted to stop it, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. His men had a right to protect themselves from Japanese lunacy.

As they moved to the original defense line, their walk was punctuated with sporadic gunfire as guaranteed death was delivered to the Japanese. Their wounded were put out of their misery before they could kill more Americans. Japanese prisoners, Gavin thought ruefully, would be few and far between. It might not be what the Geneva Convention said was correct, but blame belonged with the Japanese.

As they reached the outer line of bunkers, American bodies began to be found among the Japanese. Some had tried to retreat and been shot and hacked for their efforts, while others were clearly facing toward the enemy. Gavin seethed. He wondered what else he could have done to save his men. He had little artillery, no armor, and the weather had stripped him of any air cover, or even the ability to shoot the Japs at long range. The sight of so many American dead would haunt him for the rest of his days.

A number of bunkers had been bypassed by the Japanese human wave, and the Americans inside them were too shocked to do anything but wave feebly in relief.

A few yards in front of the first defense line, a dead American sergeant lay sprawled and mangled in front of a charred Japanese tank. He looked vaguely familiar. What had happened? Had the American killed the tank? He hoped they would somehow find out. The dead American might just deserve a medal.

They came to a trench filled with Japanese bodies. The arm of an American soldier, recognizable thanks to his skin color and his uniform, pointed to the sky.

“Poor bastard,” Gavin muttered and looked away.

“Hey, the guy’s hand just moved!”

Gavin and other soldiers moved quickly and feverishly to pull Japanese bodies from the trench. Several American bodies were removed, but they were clearly dead. Finally, they came to the man who owned the arm. He was breathing but covered with blood. A medic jumped into the hole and started to treat him. Like the sergeant by the tank, the GI looked familiar. Gavin finally put a name to this face—Farris. He’d been one of the first to make it through from the south.

The medic looked up in dismay. “Jesus, Colonel, I sure as hell hope not all of this blood belongs to this poor guy.”