Daniel Wyatt - The Mary Jane Mission

“No, we don’t,” the general admitted.

“I thought that Fifi was the only flying B-29 in the world.”

“It is, captain. At least, we thought it was.”

“Then why this? The Mary Jane ? Obviously, there’s two B-29s now.” The captain frowned. “So, tell me, what’s so significant about the Mary Jane ?”

Robert and Cameron exchanged stares.

“All right,” Cameron said to his old friend. “I’ll tell them.”

The general got up from the seat and paced the room, then stopped. “OK,” he sighed. “The truth. Following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions, our government still weren’t certain that the Japanese would surrender. Therefore, conventional missions were still deployed. On August 14, a bomber force was sent out to destroy the Hikari Naval Arsenal. The Mary Jane and a dozen or so others from the 509th Composite joined a group from Tinian’s West Field.” Cameron sighed. “The Mary Jane and, I believe, one other bomber, were shot down before they reached the enemy’s coast. Both were never seen again. The next day, the Japs surrendered and all was forgotten about the Mary Jane . That is… until now.” Cameron’s finger pressed one of the pictures. “For some reason, somebody has made an exact duplicate of the machine.”

“Why would anybody do such a thing?” MacDonald asked.

“You got me there.”

“You sure this isn’t Fifi disguised?”

“Positive,” Cameron replied.

Les stirred in his chair. “I’d like to know one thing. Dad,” he said to his father, “the picture you have in your war album at home didn’t have a bathing beauty on it like it does on the picture, did it?”

“True,” Robert answered. “That’s because she was painted on the night before the mission. That’s why. And there’s something else. Fifi has most of the original gun positions still intact. Mary Jane was a stripped down bomber, as were all the other 509th B-29s. The armor was taken out. It had no blister windows, as you can see in the photo-recon shots. The only guns she was carrying were in the butt. In short, Fifi and this version of the Mary Jane are two completely different bombers.”

“Now, the positions of these targets,” Cameron said as he turned to the map on the wall. “I can see from these pinpoints, captain, that the course is working straight from Tinian towards Iwo Jima, the same approximate course that we used on our B-29 missions to Japan. Then, there’s the times. May I see your paperwork, captain?”

MacDonald handed him the file. “Certainly.”

“Thank you.” Cameron removed the reading glasses from his breast pocket. He paused to read. “From this sheet, where the times, dates, and positions were plotted, I would have to say that the Mary Jane was right on time with her flight as it was proposed in the briefing. Your first radar sighting of her occurred at oh-one-hundred near Tinian. That was the time she was scheduled to take off. At oh-one-ten you sighted her on radar over Saipan. That figures. Then again you caught her west of Agrihan at oh-two-hundred. And her last marked position was 200 miles south of Iwo Jima. Your radar recorded the altitude at 1,000 feet until Alamagen. Then she climbed to 3,000 feet. After Agrihan she climbed to 5,000 feet.” He sighed, eyes on the file. “Last sighting was 400 north of Guam. I see.”

“General Cameron?”

“Yes, captain.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re telling us that whoever’s in control of this exact replica of the Mary Jane is flying the exact flight path used during an actual World War Two B-29 bombing mission.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

“And you don’t know anything? How or why this is happening?”

“I do not. This is no publicity stunt on our part, I can assure you of that. We had enough trouble getting Fifi airworthy and off the ground.”

“Stunt or no stunt,” Les interrupted, “the tail gunner took a shot at Tiger’s fighter and he’s got the bullet hole to prove it. Fifty caliber.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s right, general,” Tiger said.

“I’d keep an eye on this thing,” Cameron said to the CO.

“We plan to.”

“Good. These guys could be some wacky joy riders, or something.”

MacDonald took the file from Cameron and said, “I have USS Midway available to me. I know the CO from the States. His ship has been training new F-18 pilots on carrier landings and he’s going to be out in the area for a while. Tiger and Hulk, here, used the carrier as their base to take these pictures. It’s not over. They will be on alert. We won’t involve anyone else, at least for the time being. In the meantime, general, I would appreciate if you and your friend, Mr. Shilling, would stick around for a while and not leave town.”

Cameron and Robert glanced at each other.

Cameron shrugged.

“Sure,” Robert said. “We’re retired. Nothing else to do.”

Outside the captain’s office, Robert cornered Cameron.

“That was clever, Phil. I hope the captain doesn’t check into the Mary Jane ’s real mission. That was quick thinking on your part.”

“Was it? I hope I was convincing enough.”

“You were.” Robert put his hands on his hips. “What’s your take on all this?”

The general folded his arms. “I think someone is playing a cruel joke on the 509th. I know I’ve made a few enemies over the years.”

“Who’d want to embarrass us? And who the hell would take the trouble of reconditioning a B-29 to do it?”

“I wish I knew, Bob. Nothing makes sense, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

They looked to Les down the hall on a wall telephone. They could hear him talking to his wife.

“So, your son’s going to put us up for awhile, is he? That’s pretty decent of him. But does he have the room?”

“No problem,” Robert confirmed. “Look, let’s go have a stiff one somewhere and sort this thing out.”

“I’m with you.” Cameron smirked. “It might take a few of them.”

“Yeah, for me, too.”

KYOTO

The mid-afternoon waters of Lake Biwa were a sparkling calm. One foot on his forty-foot cabin cruiser, the other on the dock, David Shilling helped his smiling Japanese girlfriend aboard.

“Toshika, I’m glad you made it.”

“Thanks for asking me.”

He kissed her lightly on the lips. “Yuh hungry?”

“I’m starved . Nice day, isn’t it?”

“You bet.”

David escorted her to the ship’s stern. On a built-in shelf were small trays of food that held rice, pickles, fish, eggs, cheese, and sliced meat. The two sat at a table and ate, enjoying the warm sunshine. This past week had been a little warmer than usual, and the forecast for today was temps in the low eighties. That in mind, both were dressed lightly in shorts, T-shirts and running shoes.

Toshika was a slim, pretty woman in her middle twenties who spoke English fluently. A local history teacher, she was good-natured most of the time, sometimes bold and high-spirited, with a quick sense of humor. Her hair was midnight black, smooth, straight, and long, her unblemished skin a golden hue from the sun. David had met her two months ago when he was in the fashion shop she owned in downtown Kyoto, where he had been looking for a traditional Japanese dress for his mother. He had asked Toshika, who had broken off a previous engagement only that week, out for dinner that evening. They’d been seeing each other steadily ever since.

“My compliments to your chef, David. This is excellent.”