Robert Conroy - Rising Sun

After a moment, Amanda completed the ritual by awkwardly hugging Nancy and again thanking her for finding her under the rubble and staying with her until she could be dug out. Both of Amanda’s legs had been badly broken but were healing, and she would be out of the casts in a couple of days. It would be a while before she and Tim could resume life together, but it was on the horizon. They’d already discussed just how they’d manage sex when they were released, and decided that, like porcupines, very carefully would be it for a long while. That was fine by them. They just wanted to be together.

“Guess what?” Amanda said, changing the subject. “Grace came back from San Francisco with everything we wanted to know about Mack’s safe deposit box.” She and Sandy had give Grace power of attorney and she’d gone north to meet with Zuckerman, Goldman, and a rep from the State of California.

Dane didn’t really care. That was part of her life, not his. Still, he was more than a little curious. “Are we rich?”

“I really don’t know. They found only thirty thousand dollars, which is below what the State of California said they’d tax, so it belongs to us. They also found some stock certificates, and Zuckerman suggested that I keep the stocks while Grace and Sandy split the cash. Apparently they really need the money while I don’t. He thought the company was a good one doing a lot of work for the government. He says International Business Machines should be worth quite a bit some day. He said that we should hold on to it and wait. Regardless, we now have a thousand shares of IBM.”

Tim thought he approved. “We’ll have plenty of time to think about it. First, we have to get out of these things, and then we have to learn how to walk again.”

Amanda nodded solemnly. “And we’d better figure out how to make love without breaking anything. At least we’ll have a place to live when that time comes.”

After Merchant had been killed, Farris had continued making rent payments on Merchant’s apartment, on Dane’s behalf. The landlord didn’t care who rented as long as someone paid, and Tim had the feeling that Steve and Nancy had spent some intimate time there as well, and why the hell not? Grace hadn’t wanted to live there. Too many memories, she’d said and, after a few drinks, wondered why the men she liked kept getting killed.

Nancy nudged Steve and they walked away to give the newlyweds some more privacy. “I think we have a couple of hours before the two lovebirds have to be back in their wards. Any idea how to spend that time?”

Steve almost leered, causing Nancy to blush and laugh. “I can think of a few,” she said.

The ride from Fairbanks to Anchorage was depressing. First, Ruby and Bear had to wait for a convoy to form up. Even though the army was reasonably confident that any remaining Japanese were either dead from wounds, starvation, or exposure, there was always the nagging possibility that one or two were lying in wait for an opportunity to kill themselves and anybody else in the name of the emperor.

When they finally got to the ruined little town, it was even more depressing. Even though the army was setting up shop and building an airbase, Anchorage itself was a burned and broken shell. Ruby had a difficult time convincing a couple of young MPs that she was the owner of the pile of charred rubble that had once been her restaurant, her one and only source of income. In the ruins, she found very little of worth to her.

While she was looking through the debris, she was approached by a man who said he was a real-estate speculator, and would she sell to him? They haggled right then and there and he ended up paying cash for the property, giving her what she felt was about a third of what it was worth. She didn’t care. It was time to move on with her life.

She did talk to the army and pointed out where she’d seen the Japanese shoot and kill the men they’d pushed into the water. She was somewhat gratified when her information resulted in divers finding several bodies. They would continue to search for others. The murdered young men would be going home, she thought with a good deal of satisfaction. And so would she, only it wouldn’t be Anchorage.

“We should live in Fairbanks,” Ruby announced.

“And do what?” Bear asked. His world was changing, too, and he wondered what the future would bring.

“Well, they’re building a new airbase up there as well, and the road to the south is now open. If we play it right, we might have enough money to open a bar and restaurant, and you can make some cash guiding officers out into the wilderness to do some big-game hunting, Alaska style.”

“That’ll do for the summertime,” Bear said, “but what will we do in the winter?”

Ruby smiled. “Why, we’ll do what everyone else does up here in the winter. We’ll drink ourselves silly and screw our brains out.”

He smacked her on the bottom. “Damnation, why didn’t I think of that? What the hell are we waiting for?”

Admirals Chester Nimitz and Ray Spruance were the toast of the nation, a fact which perplexed them because of their innately shy natures, and annoyed Admiral King, who rather relished publicity. Their pictures had graced the covers of Time, Life , Collier’s , and the Saturday Evening Post . Even Nimitz had to acknowledge that Yamamoto and what remained of his fleet were clearly on the ropes. The Japanese were pulling back and, from the intercepts they’d gotten, were going totally on the defensive.

The one-sidedness of the wide-ranging fighting still stunned Admiral Nimitz. The Saratoga was already back in action after some miracle-working by repair crews in San Diego and, in the next few months, would be joined by no fewer than three fleet carriers and nine escort carriers. Additional new battleships were on the way including one Iowa -class monster that might even be a match for the Yamato ’s remaining sister ship, the Musashi . Most felt that the day of the battleship was over, but maybe the Musashi would fall prey to the guns of the Iowa and her sisters. The admirals thought that would be suitable justice for Pearl Harbor and the destruction of so much of San Diego and Los Angeles.

More than three hundred American planes had been shot down in the battle, but more than half of their pilots had been recovered and most of those rescued would return to service. Not so with the Japanese. Intercepts said they acknowledged four hundred and fifty planes and pilots lost. Even the Japanese admitted that they could not replace the quality of the men who’d died in the battle. In future plane-to-plane encounters, the edge would now belong to the United States. The American pilots had not died in vain.

Enough melancholy, Nimitz thought. There was a duty to perform. After a lot of investigating and haggling, it was finally determined that one torpedo from the Shark had damaged the Yamato sufficiently that she could not flee to safety, thus causing her destruction. Yes, planes and gunfire had ultimately sunk her, but it was Torelli’s torpedo that had slowed her down to the point where the planes and ships could catch and kill her.

All he had to do was remind Torelli that neither he nor his crew were to say anything about modifying their torpedoes. He still could not fathom why the brains at BuOrd in Washington couldn’t get it through their heads that something was wrong with their expensive toys.

Juan Camarena was one of a number of army officers who despised the incompetence, corruption, stupidity, and greed of so many of his fellow officers in the Mexican military. Ever since Mexico first won her independence from Spain in 1821, the nation had been wracked with revolutions, coups, and theft on a monumental scale that sometimes made his beloved country a joke. Now, just when it seemed like events were coming under control, his nation was forced to choose between the United States and Hitler’s Germany.