He wrote down the same words and started to take them to the sergeant in the radio room. Then he stopped. Let them wonder. Yes, let them guess at what he would do. It would last longer that way. For a moment he wondered if he only had five more days to live. It was possible. General Nishikawa shrugged.
The third message was from the Russians, “Our planes have flown over your complex by now. We know where you are, and our computers are plotting the flight of our missiles, which will hit you with pinpoint accuracy. There is no hope that you can win. Give up now, and retain your life and the lives of your men. You have made your statement. The Russian government has always been ready and willing to discuss the future of the Kuril Islands. That offer still stands.
“You still have your transport, the small boats you negotiated the channel in to arrive at Kunashir. Move to them now, within the hour, and you’ll be safe in Japan before sunset.
“If you do not comply within the seven-day deadline we gave you, the military headquarters there, and any of your troops we can find, will be blasted into eternity, and quicker than you ever thought you will be visiting with your ancestors.”
General Nishikawa looked up as someone knocked on his door.
“Come.”
The communications sergeant hurried in. He smiled.
“General, sir. We have figured out the Russian radios here. We now have a network of the handheld units in four outposts. The lookouts posted make a net call every hour on the hour, and anytime that they see anything suspicious.
“The first reports came in just now. They can see no planes or ships, and everything with the local population is calm. There are enough food stores in the kitchen area to feed our people for just over a week. Then we’ll need a new food source.”
“Thanks, Sergeant. There won’t be any need for any more food. A week should do us fine. You’ve read the radio messages. We’ll be lucky to still be eating anything after a week.”
The sergeant saluted, did a smart about-face, and left the room.
General Nishikawa stared at the three messages spread out on his desk. He didn’t trust the Japanese government.
The United States spoke softly, but carried a huge stick. The Russians spoke bluntly, but had given him a week.
He could not figure out why, but he was the most afraid of the United States’ message. The big battle force, with missiles, rockets, and eighty-five aircraft, would be offshore within a few hours. He had to decide how to deal with them. The Russians would wait. It would be the Americans who presented him with the immediate threat.
He took out the two swords of the samurai and held them, the long one and the deadly shorter blade. Yes, at least one of his ancestors had been a samurai. He had been a military retainer of a Japanese diamyo practicing the chivalric code of Bushido. Honor above all. He stared at the smaller blade, then gently put it in the wooden sheath, then the silk wrappings, and placed it in the bottom desk drawer. Soon he would carry it with him at all times. Soon, but not yet.
13
The sixteen SEALs sat near the bow of the big aircraft carrier near the starboard side, usually reserved for parked aircraft. The area had been cleared, and the SEALs were about to have a live firing drill.
Each man sat on the deck with six magazines for his particular weapon in front of him. Each magazine had only three rounds in it.
“You know the drill,” Murdock told them from where he sat in the middle of the line of SEALS. “As soon as you hear me fire, you fire your weapon, empty the magazine. Then eject the magazine, and load the next one. Fire and eject, load and fire, and eject until you are finished with the six magazines.
“Machine gunners, fire out the ten rounds on the end of one belt, load and charge the second belt, and fire ten rounds in two five-round bursts. Speed in reloading is the key here. Last man done gets thrown overboard.”
“You wish,” somebody cracked, and they all broke up.
Murdock went on. “You guys with the H&K G-11s. Fire two three-round bursts and reload. Do that three times. Everyone up to speed?”
He looked around, lifted his H&K MP-5SD, and fired over the raft into the Pacific Ocean. At once the fifteen other weapons roared, and the stuttering of the three-round bursts caught a lot of sailors on the deck of the big ship by surprise. After a moment’s hesitation, the work on the huge floating airfield went on as scheduled, with two Tomcat F-14’s launched off the deck by the catapults.
Murdock slammed the second magazine into his subgun and fired, punched out the empty, and loaded again.
Jaybird Sterling gave a rebel yell as he finished his sixth clip.
He was the first one done. The machine gunners and the caseless-round G-11s finished next, and then the rest of the submachine guns, the sniper rifles, and the Colt carbines in that order.
Murdock checked his wristwatch. “Yeah, okay, nothing spectacular.
Now clean up the brass and let’s do some double time up and back over here out of the way.”
They worked out for another hour; then Murdock sent them below for the evening meal. He found a note on his stateroom door that he was wanted in the admiral’s cabin. The door was open to a small outer office where a lieutenant commander sat behind a desk.
“Commander Murdock. Right this way. The admiral is interested in what you’ve come up with. He also wants to ground you on some other details.”
Inside the admiral’s cabin, it looked more like a luxury liner suite. A couch along one wall, a large desk and a swivel chair, even a bookcase along the other bulkhead.
Murdock came to attention in front of the desk. “Lieutenant Commander Murdock reporting as ordered, Sir.”
“At ease, Commander.” The admiral pointed to a chair. The rough command presence was gone for the moment. Small worry lines showed around the corners of the admiral’s eyes, and he seemed to have aged five years since Murdock had seen him.
“Damned touchy situation we’re heading into, Murdock. I want you to know that. Our battle fleet is going to be between that Japanese invader of part of Mother Russia and a Russian battle fleet. Things could get downright dicey.”
“When do we arrive off the island, Admiral?”
“Another three hours. Be dark by then. The seas have calmed, and we have constant surveillance over the little town, but that’s all we can do right now. I’m hoping you have a quick way to go in and get the general out of there before the Russian Navy pulls up just outside of our pickets.”
“Afraid not, Sir. Our best scenario is to go in silently in our inflatable boats. Get ashore without being seen, then try to take down the command headquarters with stun grenades and fancy footwork. If we have to treat these invaders as friendlies, it really ties our hands.
We’re usually more of a shoot-and-scoot kind of operation.”
“I was afraid of that, Commander. We’ve got one ELINT Viking up now. The Russians are less than two hundred miles away coming at flank speed. They’ve made four overflights of the island, just to let us know that they can do it. They’re coming in from the west, which means they have to go around Cape Shiretoko, then motor about fifty kilometers down Nemuro Strait between the cape and Kunashir Island. They would still have to go around the southern tip of the island to come up on the town of Golovnino, where the Japanese invaders are.
“My guess is they will bypass the cape, stay out another twenty kilometers or so, and come in on the east coast on the Pacific side.