Final impact

“Looking at the stats from the original time line, given numbers like that you’d expect about thirty-five of the kamikazes to get through a contemporary air defense net. We have no way of knowing what the AT mods will do to those numbers. But we do know that eighty percent of the ships struck by aircraft of this type were sunk. They generally load out with three hundred fifty kilos of high explosive for the one-way trip, so that’s not surprising.”

Kolhammer asked a sysop to pull the view in closer on the main island. The computer-generated image swelled to fill the entire block. It was much more rudimentary than he remembered from before the Transition, but that was to be expected, given the relative lack of imaging power they now had to call upon. It was less photo-realistic, too, and something more like a cut-scene illustration from an old Xbox game. The task group commander pointed at a couple of dark circles at the base of the major feature of the island, a two-hundred-meter-tall hill at the eastern end.

“How long till Denny can give us some of idea of what they’ve got stashed in there?” he asked.

Lieutenant Commander Montgomery didn’t need to check her own briefing notes. She nodded at a flashing blue triangle halfway up the elevation. “They’ve been trying to gain access for eight hours now, Admiral. But a frontal approach is a no-go. Drone surveillance indicates there are a couple of ventilation shafts that might work out, but the island is thick with enemy troops, sir, and there’s no way we can extract our guys if the brown stuff hits the fan. The Japanese make ’em, and they’re dead meat on a stick. Sir.”

Kolhammer folded his arms and let his chin sink onto his chest. He looked very unhappy.

Mike Judge spoke up from the other side of the bloc. “I’m guessing that great minds think alike, Admiral. To me, that looks like a hell of a lot of engineering work for something as lame as a Nakajima One-One-Five. Even a hundred and fifty of them. You want my five cents’ worth, Yamamoto’s got some evil jack-in-the-box just waiting to pop out of those holes and make us jump.”

“Uh-huh,” Kolhammer grunted. “Could be. Ms. Montgomery, what’s the latest vicious gossip on the Japanese, uh, tokkotai? Is that the right term?”

“Yes, sir. From tokubetsu kogeki tai, or special attack units. Captain Willet sent a burst from the Havoc a few hours ago, a report about a couple of midget submarines, probably Kairyu-class analogs, that blew themselves up under a Russian-sorry, a Soviet-troop carrier off Sakhalin Island. She’s also logged one large wave of Nakajima One-One-Fives, which flew up out of Hokkaido, probably from Hakodate, and threw themselves onto a couple of Soviet divisions. Caught them in a choke point. Damn near wiped them out, too. But that’s it, so far.”

“What about rocket bombs? Ohkas, or whatever they called them last time,” Kolhammer asked. “Any chatter about them yet?”

“No, sir,” Montgomery answered. “Quiet as a mouse. A bit like that Sherlock Holmes story. The one where the dog didn’t bark. Makes you wonder, if you’re so inclined.”

Captain Mike Judge leaned over the holobloc, examining the island like a three-dollar bill. “You could fit a lot more on that island than the Nakajimas Denny’s counted. And they’re all out in the open, well, sorta. They’re all under that netting in those sunken pits. Does make a man wonder, what’s the point of driving so many big goddamn holes into that mountain if you ain’t got jack worth hiding down there.”

Kolhammer nodded. “I agree. Brenna, I’d like to put a request through to Admiral Spruance to have Denny’s recon patrol penetrate the inner perimeter of that mountain facility, whatever the cost.”

“Sir,” she replied in a clipped voice. If so ordered, the men were almost certainly going to die.

Kolhammer looked even more unhappy than he had a few minutes earlier.

“I wish I had some of Lonesome’s guys in there,” he muttered.

D-DAY + 38. 10 JUNE 1944. 1136 HOURS.

USS KANDAHAR, PACIFIC AREA OF OPERATIONS.

The message-a simple e-mail-had been sent anonymously, and Jones hadn’t thought to look at it until it was too late.

Three months after the congressional hearings into the second sneak attack on Pearl Harbor had concluded that the Japanese had received some assistance from unknown members of the crew of the Dessaix, a ’bot cleaning out his message stacks found the unopened note from his brother-in-law, Sublieutenant Philippe Danton. Monique’s little brother, whom he’d met only once, at the wedding, had been named as a possible collaborator in the Japanese attack, and perhaps even a saboteur. A few fragmentary signals between the Dessaix and Yamamoto’s fleet, picked up before the Japanese had reestablished emission control, implied that one of the Frenchmen on board had turned on his erstwhile comrades after disrupting the missile strike, and Jones had known, down in his bones, that it had to be Philippe.