It burst open, scattering fragments of wood everywhere, the car pitching and lurching as Soriva swerved out of the driveway onto the road. As he'd guessed, there were four cars parked just around the corner from his house. Estimate four attackers per car, that left ten more. A group were still standing beside the cars, Soriva guessed the rest had gone into the house to find what had happened. His window was down, as he swept past, he emptied the magazine from his Colt into the group. In the mirror he saw at least two were hit and on the ground. Almost without thinking, he thumbed the magazine release, then steered with the hand holding the gun while he fished another magazine out and reloaded.
As the car swerved down the road, he saw his wife rocking backwards and forwards and whimpering. Behind him, the children were on the floor between the seats. He hit a corner too fast, almost lost control as the car started to spin, but he pulled the
car out of it just in time, slamming a utility pole with the rear fender.
Just down the road was Admiral Iwate's home. It was burning and there was another group of cars outside. Poor Iwate. There was still time to give him a bodyguard on the way to the Yasukuni shrine where the souls of dead heroes rested. The men by the cars were scattering as Soriva's car roared up to them. One of them threw a sword at his car but it clattered and bounced off the hood, then the car swept past and Soriva emptied the magazine of his pistol again. "Sorry. Iwate, it’s the best I can do," he thought "we can't stay around to do more." He glanced in the mirror, it seemed three of the men by the cars were down.
There was an intersection ahead, blocked by some vehicles. Soriva swerved his vehicle onto the pavement, bounced off a wall and scraped through the gap on one side. He could hear a grinding noise on one side, a damaged bearing probably, and the car's controls didn't feel right any more but it was a straight run to the naval dockyard now. Only a couple of kilometers, the car would hold out until then. Rather to his surprise, Soriva noticed he'd reloaded his pistol again; he couldn't remember doing that. The Americans may be uncivilized barbarians but they made good handguns. If he'd had a Nambu, he'd still be struggling with the first magazine.
The dockyard gates were up ahead. Soriva started flashing the lights on his car - three short, three long, three short, SOS, over and over again. If the guards were really on edge, it wouldn't matter, they'd open up anyway. Come to that, he wasn't sure that the dockyard people weren't in on whatever it was that was happening. But, a Navy base was the only safe place he could think of. And, the gates were opening as he approached.
Once through, they closed behind him. There were armed Navy and Special Naval Landing Force troops all over the base. Those in the area were pointing their weapons at Soriva's car. Their commander saluted as Soriva got out of the beat-up wreck.
"Admiral Soriva sir, you're safe. Word was that you'd been killed. There are attacks going on all over the city. Its chaos nobody knows who is alive or who is doing the killing. What do we do?"
"Hold the line here. Get me to the dockyard office. The ships here are sitting ducks, we've got to get them to sea. Tell your men to hold the dockyard perimeter regardless of loss until we've got them out."
Prime Minister's Residence, Canberra, Australia
Sir Eric Haohoa rubbed sleep out of his eyes and tried to make sense of what was going on. He and Sir Martyn had been dragged out of bed early the previous morning when news of the events in Japan had started to come in. The Ambassador had been there when they arrived along with Prime Minister Joe Frye. They'd been in the emergency command center ever since. The whole Chipanese system was in turmoil, that much was clear but news of what had happened was spotty, erratic and of dubious reliability.
"Sir Eric, could you try and persuade Sir Martyn to get some rest? He does not look well and I fear for his health. 1 have to give a summary of what we know now, but after that, it will probably be many hours before the situation develops further. Please give him my word that I will call him personally if anything he needs to know breaks. Please tell him I seriously recommend that he take the chance to get some rest."
The Ambassador watched Sir Eric take her advice. Sir Martyn's face was greyish-white with fatigue and he was holding his left arm as if it was cramped or aching. Another problem to worry about.
She cleared her throat, catching the attention of everybody present. "Gentlemen, if I may have your attention? We have received some information over the last few hours that appears to put the developments in Chipan into better context. The trouble erupted about 2200 local time last night with a coordinated series of attacks on prominent military and political personnel. At first, it appeared that this a straightforward power-play between the Army and the Navy, such things are quite common and the number of killings was on a par with such events. Most of the early casualties
were senior naval officers which gave some credibility to this interpretation of events.
"However, fighting has continued between elements of the Japanese armed forces throughout the day and into the evening. Notice that I said Japanese; the situation appears to be confined to the Japanese islands and surrounding seas, it has not spread to the Chinese mainland to any great extent. Indeed, much of the fighting appears to be confined to units that remain largely Japanese in establishment; units that are mostly Chinese have, with some significant exceptions, remained uninvolved. Our sources in the Vietnamese People's Liberation Army indicate that most units on the mainland are at a heightened state of alert but remain at their posts.
"During the night, a number of warships sortied from ports and naval bases around Japan. By dawn, these came under attack from aircraft of the Chipanese Army and - it is very important to note - Chipanese Navy. Aircraft of both armed services have been engaged in combat, but again, there have been Army and Navy aircraft on both sides. Land fighting appears to be in progress between elements of the armed forces but there is no clear distinction as to who is on which side. In short, this is not an Army against Navy dominance struggle, nor is it a Chinese versus Japanese civil war. Until a few hours ago we did not understand what we were seeing.
"Things began to make sense when the first lists of those killed in the initial wave of assassinations became public. It appears that the majority, by a very high margin, were those who have been associated with the recent attempts to reform the Chipanese military and political structure.
"Over the last four years, the Chipanese have made extensive efforts to rationalize their military forces and to reduce the burden military expenditure has inflicted on their economy. This has resulted in a severe reduction in the numbers of troops in the land forces, matched by the mechanization of the remainder, substituting mobility for on-the-ground numbers. We have seen old ships retained from World War Two, and even, in one remarkable case, from World War One, withdrawn from service and scrapped.
"The money saved has been invested in new ships that are of modern design. The same process has affected aircraft production; older types have been withdrawn and the Army and Navy attempted to standardize, as far as they could, on both aircraft types and equipment for those aircraft.
"It therefore appeared that the events in Chipan could best be explained by a conflict between the new-style military leadership, the Reformers if you like, and the representatives of the older-style military philosophy. We can refer to them as the Traditionalists if you wish. We applied this model to the news of fighting and it appeared to hold. The initial wave of assassinations appears to have been an attempt by the Traditionalists to decapitate the Reformer's command structure. This appears to have been largely successful and the fighting today represents a dislocated and sporadic effort by the Reformers to hold on to their position.