Hunter climbed out of the jeep and approached him. He was precariously balanced on an old chair leaning against a small guardhouse.
"Excuse me, sailor," Hunter said in a voice that was half a shout.
The man didn't stir.
"Hey, Navy!" Hunter said, a little louder.
Still asleep, the man brushed an imaginary bug from his nose.
Hunter leaned down, cupped his hands and yelled into the sailor's ear. "Hey! Swabbie!"
The man went over like a capsized ship. He was quickly to his feet, his hand wrestling with the .45 automatic he wore on his belt. When retrieving it failed, he foolishly took a swing at Hunter. The punch wasn't even close.
Hunter's Uzi was out and against the man's nose in a split second. "Take it easy, Popeye," Hunter said, his other hand seizing the sailor's .45.
"Who the fuck are you!" the man screamed.
Hunter looked at him. He was unkempt, unshaven and, judging from the downwind, unbathed. The sailor was a disgrace to his uniform.
"Where's your CO?" Hunter asked sternly.
"Where he always is," the sailor said, trying to upright his fallen chair.
"Shitfaced."
"Where?"
The sailor pointed over his shoulder to a white two-story structure. "Up in his office," he said. "Over there."
Hunter snapped out the .45s magazine. It was empty. He shook his head and returned the useless gun to the sailor.
"You know something, I always bet on you guys in the Army-Navy game," Hunter said angrily. "No wonder 1 always lost."
For the first time the man looked embarrassed.
"Hey, listen flyboy, it ain't always been like this." It didn't matter what he said; Hunter was already hurrying toward the dirty white building.
He entered the unguarded structure and double-timed it up the stairs. He found an entire row of offices unoccupied. Then he came to a corner room and saw a man sitting with his back to him. He was turned around in a chair behind a desk, reading what looked to be a skin magazine. As far as Hunter could tell, the man was the only person in the building. He walked in. "I'm Major Hunter, Pacific American Armed Forces. From back on the mainland." Startled, the man took one look at Hunter and instantly sprang to his feet.
"Commander… Josh… McDermott," he said, his voice trembling as if from lack of use. "United Sta… I mean, United Hawaiian… National…
Royal Naval Defense… ah, Forces." The man's hand was shaking as he tried a salute. While the sleepy guard was a wise-ass slob, this man was pitiful wreck. He wasn't old. Hunter figured 43, maybe 45. Yet his face, his skin and his white hair were those of a man twenty years his age.
"Good to meet you, Commander," Hunter said, reaching over the desk and surprising the man with a handshake.
The man calmed down a little. He was dressed in a tattered U.S. Naval dress white uniform that looked like he had worn it, unpressed, every day for the past five years. The office itself was shabby. Files long gathering dust cluttered the place. Paperwork lay discarded on the floor. The windows were so dirty, it was hard to see the water of Pearl Harbor that lay just a short distance from the building. Through the grime, Hunter spotted the white shape of the USS Arizona Memorial.
"What brings you our way, Major?"
"I'm looking for something, Commander," Hunter said, reaching into his pocket for a photo of the Ghost Rider black box. "This box is very important to me," he said, handing the picture to the man. "It's hidden on the Arizona."
"The Arizona!" the threadbare officer asked as he took the photo and studied it. "What is it, Major? A guidance system or something?"
Hunter looked at the man. He could tell that at one time, the guy must have been a savvy officer.
Hunter shook his head. He couldn't hold it back any longer. "What's happened here, Commander?" he asked looking around the disheveled office, a trace of sadness in his voice. "This is Pearl Harbor, for God's sake…"
The man turned away and shook his head. A whiskey bottle stood on a windowsill nearby. He reached over and grabbed it, scooping up two glasses in the process. When he turned around the pitiful look had added the new dimension of apathy.
"Have a drink, Major?"
For the first time in as long as he could remember, Hunter declined.
The man poured himself a healthy one anyway.
"We were left behind, Major," he said, bitterness evident in his voice. "Left behind after the armistice with no ship big enough to get back to the mainland."
The explanation hit Hunter like a punch in the gut. In an instant, he realized the man's tragic plight. "How about airplanes? Some must have come through," he said.
"Sure," McDermott said, downing his drink. "Plenty of them in the first few weeks following the end of the war. All unauthorized. I was the fool. I decided to be all-Navy. I didn't believe for a minute that the country — that our armed forces would go along with the New Order double-cross. I was sure the fleet… the real Navy… would come steaming over the horizon at any minute.
"Well, they didn't. And those assholes in the Hawaiian National Guard went on a rampage and destroyed every workable piece of military equipment on the islands. Sank all the ships in port. Pranged all the airplanes. Busted up all the radios. I've been stuck inside here ever since."
"You mean you never leave the base?" Hunter asked.
"I mean I never leave the building," McDermott answered. "The Tribes — the Tau Fin — rule this island, and me and the twenty-five guys I got left are all mainlanders. We're lucky they don't burn the place to the ground."
"Where are you from, Commander?" Hunter asked.
"Rhode Island," McDermott said, pouring another drink. Then he looked up at Hunter and asked, "Is it still there?"
Hunter slowly shook his head. The man laughed bitterly. "Then why should I complain? I'm better off in the sun and fun of Hawaii."
Hunter wanted to get out of the place. He started to get back to business and ask the officer if he'd mind helping him search the Arizona, when he felt a very familiar feeling.
"Commander, are you sure you don't have any aircraft operating here?" he asked.
"Are you kidding?" McDermott laughed. "There hasn't been an airplane on any of these islands in three years."
Hunter's senses were tingling. "Well, there is now," he said, concentrating. "Heading this way. A lot of them."
"Ah, forget it," McDermott said, pouring his third drink. "No one within a thousand miles of here can fly a kite, never mind an airplane. Besides, it's Sunday…"
Hunter walked to the window and rubbed off some of the grime. He looked out to the northwest. Twenty, thirty of them, he thought. Slow. Low. Carrying something. Bombs, maybe.
He turned and looked McDermott. "Got any enemies, Commander?"
The officer pondered the question. But Hunter didn't have time to waste. "Get the hell of of here," he yelled to the man. Then he was out the door, down the stairs and running toward the Arizona Memorial. As he ran he could see the faint outline of a chevron of tiny dots approaching the island from out over the ocean. They were old airplanes, he knew. Prop jets.
He bounded down the pier next to the sunken battleship and up the gangplank.
If the airplanes were coming to attack, he couldn't take the chance of the black box being destroyed. The message that Josephs left behind said the box was stashed in the base of the flag pole that sat at the very top of the partially-submerged ship's conning tower.
Hunter scrambled up the ladder to the conning tower and was next to the flagpole just as the airplanes were turning toward the harbor. Two by two, the airplanes broke off and raced in low. They were old, but powerful A-1 Skyraiders, similar to the ones back at PAAC-Oregon. The airplanes were dangerous. They were known for being able to carry more ordnance than B-17 bomber, yet were only slightly larger than the big fighters of World War II.