The Japanese legislature had a strong group who thought as he did.
That Russia should return the Kuril Islands to Japan, to their historic home. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of Japanese had ancestors still on the Kurils. Many of the tombs had been desecrated by the Russians.
There had to be an accounting.
Unfortunately, the Diet had talked and talked, and argued, and even become violent at one point, but nothing had been accomplished. He had hoped that the Diet would be a strong backer of his move to regain the ancestral home of his people.
He glanced outside. The darkness was his enemy now. He had long ago decided that if any attempt was made to retake the island, it would be done at night under the cover of darkness. Yes, it would be so.
The general couldn’t rest. He walked to the door, back to the window, and at last stepped outside. He dismissed his driver, and took the Russian jeep down the poorly paved street to the schoolhouse where the playground covered the remains of his ancestors. Silently he paced to the exact spot where the tombs had been for a hundred years before the Russians bulldozed them under and leveled off the hill into the ravine.
He knelt and prayed for an hour at the spot, then rose, marched back to the jeep, and drove away. He inspected two of his sentry posts, then heard the Russian handheld radio begin to chatter.
He returned the call, and the message was clear.
“General, this is the sentry at the main pier. We see something in the bay maybe a hundred yards off shore. They look black, and humped up. We think they could be frogmen coming in, or some such invader.”
“I’ll be right there.”
He drove fast through the streets the half mile to the pier, and ran out on the long wooden dock. His two sentries at the end were looking through binoculars.
They didn’t have night-vision goggles, but the binoculars would amplify the light to a degree just as it did the distance. He took one of the binoculars, and stared at where the men pointed.
He saw them, more than a dozen ominous black humps. Some of them moved slowly. A moment later he saw a flash of white and smiled. Yes, a tusk, he was certain of it. He lowered the glasses, and gave them back to the soldier.
“Good work spotting the creatures out there. Only they aren’t frogmen or invaders. They are walruses. Odobetius rosmarus, the common walrus that can grow to twelve feet long and weigh twenty-seven hundred pounds.
“They’re resting. I’ve seen them do it before. The storm at sea must have pushed them in here. In the morning when it’s light, they’ll pick out a handy beach and take a good long nap.”
The soldiers were embarrassed.
“No, you did the right thing. We have to be ready for any kind of invasion. I think if it comes, it will be in the dark. Stay vigilant.”
He got in the jeep, and drove back to his headquarters. He found the bottle of sake, and filled a small glass. Right now his spirits needed a lift as much as his body.
He wondered what the Americans would do. They would know precisely what weapons he had and how many men. The Defense Force could tell them that quickly. But what would they do?
He was well aware that either Russia or the Americans could blast him and his men into small incinerated pieces at the touch of a button.
The Russians had given him seven days. Two of those were almost gone.
He had sensed a moderate tone in the blustering of the Russians. They had been given a serious black eye militarily, and did not enjoy that at all. But how much of a spectacle would they make of their small problem?
At least he had brought the travesty of the Kuril Islands on the world stage better than anyone had done in the past twenty years. He could remember his father shouting on street corners about the desecration of the tombs. Nothing had been done.
Now three or four billion TV watchers must have seen, and heard, about the Kuril tragedy. But the news would fade fast unless something dramatic happened.
What could be more dramatic than the Russians blasting the building he sat in into kindling wood and gravel, killing him and half of his force? That would make the world news for another few days. Maybe then the Diet would act. Perhaps they would demand from Russia that a wrong done fifty years ago be righted.
Idly, General Nishikawa wondered how he would die. He had always envisioned a pitched battle with rifle and bayonet, perhaps pistols, in the final assault. Somehow he was always the defender.
He realized that he would not like to die in the dark. No, the sunshine of a bright day would be better. That way he could chose the time and the place. If, of course, he had to die. He was not ready yet.
However, events he had set in motion, and now was living through, might very well define the conditions of his death, and he would have no say in it. He hoped that it would not be at night.
For just a moment he thought about the two samurai swords in the bottom drawer of his desk. He gently lifted out the smaller of the two blades, and slid it into the wooden scabbard. He held it a moment, then pushed it into his belt. He would carry it now, something symbolic, something to remind himself of the strict code of the samurai.
General Raiden Nishikawa looked out the dark window again, and watched a pale moon rising. This would not be the night. Nothing would happen before dawn. Dawn was a Western time to begin a great battle.
This would not be a great battle. If the dogs of war were unleashed against him, it would be a massacre, not a battle. He set his jaw, and thought of his ancestors.
This samurai would not waver in his determination.
But what would the Americans do?
Admiral Vladimir Rostow settled back in the Combat Control Center of the Russian carrier Ataman and listened to the Mig pilots reporting in after their latest run over the occupied island of Kunashir.
The Ataman was ready to fight. It was an advanced version of the Kuznetsov Orel-class carrier, type II 43.5/6 CV. It was the only carrier in the Pacific Ocean Fleet commanded by Admiral A.A. Drogin.
The Ataman had completed sea trials and aircraft landing operations in July of 1998, and been sent immediately to the Pacific Ocean Fleet.
She carried the latest SU-33 Flankers, and the SU-25 Frogfoot fixed-wing aircraft. She’d originally had only twenty-two jet fighters and seventeen helicopters of the Ka-27 Helix models. But for an attack mission, her aircraft total had been increased, and now she had sixty operational planes on board.
She was different from the American carriers in that she had a fourteen-degree ski jump on the main takeoff deck and a second angled deck of seven degrees.
Admiral Rostow knew he had the firepower to take care of this mission with ease. He had the SSM missiles, twelve Chelomey SS-N-19 Shipwrecks with Granit launchers. The missiles had internal guidance with command update, active radar homing up to 450 kilometers at a speed of Mach 1.6. The warheads could be 500-kiloton nuclear or 750-kg high explosive.
He was ready. Usually he could make thirty knots, but the weather and high seas had cut his speed.
The admiral had been surprised when two American fighters met his Migs and followed them buzzing the island. The Russian pilots had acted on impulse. There was no time to ask for instructions from their commander. Yes, the pilots had made a good move. It would lull the Americans into thinking that all the Russians were soft and friendly — just before the Americans died.
Rostow had itched for some kind of confrontation such as this. He had been passed over once for the top Admiral of the Fleet rank.
Someone in the chain of command had called him indecisive and softhearted on an evaluation report. If Rostow ever found out who it was, he would kill the bastard.
Nothing could stop a career in the Russian Navy cold like those two criticisms. Indecisive? He would show them. He had quickly rejected the American admiral’s suggestion that he hold off his aircraft and not put an observation plane over the Russian island. The Americans had no right even to hint at such an arrangement.