Final impact

It was a glorious day to have to contemplate such dark matters. A cool southerly breeze ruffled his shirt and dried the sweat on his exposed forearms. Thin strands of altocumulus clouds softened the hard blue sky. The mass graves, six of them combining to make one enormous burial ground between here and Pearl City, had been declared part of the national cemetery and were now tended by the Department of the Army with the same care it lavished on Arlington. Blinding white gravel paths meandered between lush green lawns, small stands of shade trees, and dozens of memorial sites devoted to honoring specific acts of sacrifice and resistance that were deemed especially notable. Other mourners moved slowly though the site, stopping here and there to pay their respects, to pray, and to grieve. Almost all of them were in uniform. Very few civilians remained on the island nowadays. A short distance from Kolhammer and Jones a contemporary marine kneeled in front of a small marble plinth commemorating five Boy Scouts who’d hidden out in the Ko‘olaus, reporting on Japanese ship and troop movements via a salvaged army radio until they were captured and beheaded. His shoulders hitched and shuddered violently as he wept. He might have been a father or uncle to one of the boys. He might have been a complete stranger. Even Jones had rubbed his eyes after reading their story on the little brass plaque at the base of the plinth. It was nearly buried in flowers and wreaths, and at some time in the past few months somebody had draped a military medal over it. A Silver Star. Hundreds more had joined it.

“So what are we gonna do about this fucker?” Jones rumbled. “I don’t think I can remember a man more in need of sanction than this evil little shit.”

Kolhammer watched the weeping man cross himself, climb to his feet, and walk away from the Boy Scout Memorial. High above them two contrails traced the flight of a couple of jet fighters. Skyhawks probably. He thought he could just make out the delta-winged silhouette.

“I don’t know, Lonesome. You’re right that hanging’s too good for this little bastard. He’s a living, breathing argument in favor of Sanction Five…”

“But?”

Kolhammer chewed his lip. “But, as much as we have a claim on him, the ’temps have a stronger one. Look at this place, would you. I don’t know that I’ve ever been anywhere sadder than this. Don’t know that I ever will. I passed sanction on Hidaka, but I’m thinking that for once, their way might be better than ours.”

The Eighty-second’s commander examined the tips of his polished shoes. An original Humvee and its driver waited for them back at the entrance to the cemetery. Jones lifted his head and stared out across manicured lawns, their gentle slopes covering a heinous crime.

“Do you even know how we would have sanctioned him?” he asked. “He’s not some raghead jihadi. If we stitched him up in a pig carcass before killing him, he’d just think we were weird.”

Kolhammer nodded. “I had some people working on it. Chances are, we’re going to be dealing with a few of Tojo’s finest at level five when we get back out there. It’s one of our little eccentricities the ’temps are happy to indulge for now. I think they believe it spreads an exemplary terror among the natives.”

“They weren’t always so happy about it,” said Jones.

“Not all of them, and not always,” Kolhammer conceded. “You’re right. I reckon they used to think we were monsters. But it’s amazing the difference a few years and a couple of standout atrocites can make, isn’t it? I don’t recall anyone bleating about Ono’s human rights when your boys put the blade on him for all this.” He swept one hand around to take in the cemetery and everything beyond it.

“But you think they’d want to deal with Hidaka themselves.”

Kolhammer didn’t answer for a while. Like Jones, he had been deeply affected by the cemetery. In a way, they were responsible for it. This had never happened in their world. From a distance, the two men probably looked like pallbearers contemplating the load they were about to lift.

“I promised Roosevelt we wouldn’t go off the reservation,” Kolhammer said.

“He knows about the Quiet Room?” The big marine’s eye’s widened in surprise.

“No. As far as I can tell, it’s never leaked. He didn’t mention it by name when we spoke about Ivanov. But there was no doubt that we were being put on some sort of notice.”

Jones folded his arms and pursed his lips as he took this in. Kolhammer recognized it as his Deep Thought routine. A couple of Jones’s best men and women had been drafted as Roomies, with his full knowledge and consent. If anything, he was more enthusiastic than Kolhammer about reshaping this world into something more amenable to their way of thinking. Given the shit he’d had to put up with, it was understandable. “Okay,” he said. “So, Hidaka? Do we take him into the Room, or not?”