Read Online Return of Sky Ghost by Mack Maloney - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mack Maloney
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warfare and urban combat. They could kill a man with a twig; crush his skull with a pebble. They had made torture an art form. They sometimes ate babies.
The Japanese had been very concerned about dealing with the Night Brigade, that’s why the unit had been paid 2 million dollars in gold before the Japanese invasion even took place. Now they were beholden to the Nipponese High Command and especially to General Wakisaki. He’d called on them several times since the occupation to take care of particularly nasty holdouts in Colombia and the forests of Brazil. On all occasions, the Night Brigade resolved the problem quickly, if brutally.
Wakisaki was expecting no less from them this time.
The bombing raid on New Lima was now firmly implanted in the combined psyche of the Japanese occupation forces. The first six months of their invasion had gone so smoothly, the troops had begun to think of themselves as agents of destiny and of Wakisaki as being divine. Now the jewel city of the New Japan lay half in ruins. The other half was soaked in water and muddy ash. A foot thick in some places, it was the lasting result of fighting more than a thousand fires.
Wakisaki knew that whoever was responsible for the fire-bombing raid had to be found and had to be punished in a very public manner. That’s why he’d called on the Night Brigade. Being home troops, they would be able to handle any terrain on the continent to get at the perpetrators. This was something the imperial Japanese troops could not do as well. The Night Brigade also knew how to deal with native populations, something else the occupation troops weren’t too good at.
This is what Wakisaki knew had to be done. The mysterious bombers had to have come from within a 150-mile radius of New Lima—this figure from analysis of several insta-films that had been made during the raid. The huge bombers—definitely of North American design—had been so weighted down with bombs, Wakisaki’s aeronautics people told him the planes couldn’t have been carrying very much fuel, and thus a 300-mile round-trip would have been their limit. There were only three directions from which the bombers could have come: north, east, and south—west was simply the ocean, and the planes definitely did not come from an American megacarrier. There was only one left, the USS Chicago, and it was still in dry dock in San Diego.
Another clue: The raiders had come from the northeast and departed in that same direction. Japanese and Peruvian airplanes had been overflying the area northeast of New Lima for forty-eight hours straight, looking for any sign of a secret air base, but with no luck. This was not unexpected, though. The area the planes were canvassing was among the most rugged on the continent, all mountains and thick jungle and valleys so deep, reports persisted that dinosaurs still lived in some of them.
The suspected area was also sparsely populated, but some tribes still lived in the region, and again, that’s why the Night Brigade’s talents would be needed. It would be up to them to question the local tribesmen by any means necessary as to what they might have seen along the lines of a secret installation or airplanes flying overhead. Through these native peoples, Wakisaki was certain, the mysterious air raiders would be found.
A line of tracked vehicles rolled out onto the runway just as Wakisaki was reviewing the dastardly Argentine troops. There were no speeches, no ceremony. Wakisaki simply looked over the gigantic soldiers, nodded a little, and rubbed his bandaged nose. Then, with his vast entourage in tow, he jumped into his heavily armored limousine and left the air base.
Once he was gone, the Night Brigade climbed aboard their huge tracked vehicles—there were thirty of them in all—and their long column departed.
Across the airfield, toward a highway just recently built, they headed north.
Northeast Peru
The place was called Exuxuci.
Loosely translated in the
The Japanese had been very concerned about dealing with the Night Brigade, that’s why the unit had been paid 2 million dollars in gold before the Japanese invasion even took place. Now they were beholden to the Nipponese High Command and especially to General Wakisaki. He’d called on them several times since the occupation to take care of particularly nasty holdouts in Colombia and the forests of Brazil. On all occasions, the Night Brigade resolved the problem quickly, if brutally.
Wakisaki was expecting no less from them this time.
The bombing raid on New Lima was now firmly implanted in the combined psyche of the Japanese occupation forces. The first six months of their invasion had gone so smoothly, the troops had begun to think of themselves as agents of destiny and of Wakisaki as being divine. Now the jewel city of the New Japan lay half in ruins. The other half was soaked in water and muddy ash. A foot thick in some places, it was the lasting result of fighting more than a thousand fires.
Wakisaki knew that whoever was responsible for the fire-bombing raid had to be found and had to be punished in a very public manner. That’s why he’d called on the Night Brigade. Being home troops, they would be able to handle any terrain on the continent to get at the perpetrators. This was something the imperial Japanese troops could not do as well. The Night Brigade also knew how to deal with native populations, something else the occupation troops weren’t too good at.
This is what Wakisaki knew had to be done. The mysterious bombers had to have come from within a 150-mile radius of New Lima—this figure from analysis of several insta-films that had been made during the raid. The huge bombers—definitely of North American design—had been so weighted down with bombs, Wakisaki’s aeronautics people told him the planes couldn’t have been carrying very much fuel, and thus a 300-mile round-trip would have been their limit. There were only three directions from which the bombers could have come: north, east, and south—west was simply the ocean, and the planes definitely did not come from an American megacarrier. There was only one left, the USS Chicago, and it was still in dry dock in San Diego.
Another clue: The raiders had come from the northeast and departed in that same direction. Japanese and Peruvian airplanes had been overflying the area northeast of New Lima for forty-eight hours straight, looking for any sign of a secret air base, but with no luck. This was not unexpected, though. The area the planes were canvassing was among the most rugged on the continent, all mountains and thick jungle and valleys so deep, reports persisted that dinosaurs still lived in some of them.
The suspected area was also sparsely populated, but some tribes still lived in the region, and again, that’s why the Night Brigade’s talents would be needed. It would be up to them to question the local tribesmen by any means necessary as to what they might have seen along the lines of a secret installation or airplanes flying overhead. Through these native peoples, Wakisaki was certain, the mysterious air raiders would be found.
A line of tracked vehicles rolled out onto the runway just as Wakisaki was reviewing the dastardly Argentine troops. There were no speeches, no ceremony. Wakisaki simply looked over the gigantic soldiers, nodded a little, and rubbed his bandaged nose. Then, with his vast entourage in tow, he jumped into his heavily armored limousine and left the air base.
Once he was gone, the Night Brigade climbed aboard their huge tracked vehicles—there were thirty of them in all—and their long column departed.
Across the airfield, toward a highway just recently built, they headed north.
Northeast Peru
The place was called Exuxuci.
Loosely translated in the
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