Honorable Enemies (1994)

by Joe Weber

  Granville "Big G" Penner figured that shooting a few rounds at a plane wasn't any crazier than some of the other things the Japanese did, like the guy who converted a lime-green eighteen-wheeler into a plush motor home, complete with sunken spa in the roof of the trailer.

  Besides, Penner reasoned, he hadn't fired a machine gun since his days in the Army. He had always liked the feeling of power that a weapon gave him, and this would be a piece of cake since it was only two blocks to the warehouse where they would dismantle the van and bury the weapon. Easy money.

  Parked next to a vacant storage facility, east of the San Diego Freeway, Penner was in an excellent position between the two sets of runways at Los Angeles International. He had recounted his money and was daydreaming about the new Caddy when he heard JAL Flight 62 check in with the control tower. Startled into action, Penner turned up the volume control on the transceiver and prepared to swing the doors open and slide the tripod-mounted machine gun outside.

  "Japan Air Sixty-Two," the clear voice replied in a routine, businesslike manner, "two-four right, cleared to land, wind two-two-zero at eleven."

  "Japan Air Sixty-Two cleared for the right."

  Penner crushed his cigarette on the floor and started scanning the sky for the big Boeing with the JAL logo. He rechecked the machine gun and the short belt of ammunition. He didn't have many rounds, so he had to make each one count.

  The 747 was descending and slowing to the final approach speed as it passed near the Hollywood Park Race Track.

  Mrs. Fujitake nudged her sleeping husband, then nudged him again when he didn't respond.

  "Shozo, wake up. We're about to land."

  "What?"

  "We're landing," she said excitedly.

  The retired chemical engineer grunted and slowly opened his puffy eyes. The sour taste in his mouth was a disgusting reminder of the raw sashimi and hot sake he had consumed during the long flight from Tokyo.

  "Look at the ocean," she said with a rush of enthusiasm and pressed her face to the window. "We have to go to the beach!"

  Shozo yawned and stretched his arms over his head. "After we get some sleep."

  "Is that all you can think about when--"

  Her response was cut short when she saw the streaks of reddish-orange tracer rounds curve upward and strike the left wing. The pyrotechnic bullets, combined with the incendiary rounds interspersed in Penner's ammunition belt, ripped into the fuel cells and ignited the raw fuel.

  Penner was initially shocked when he saw the bright tracer rounds move steadily upward and strike the wing. A second later he was paralyzed when he saw a flash of yellow flames, followed by a steady stream of fire along the side of the aircraft. He had planned to put a few holes in the plane, not set it on fire.

  "Shit!" Penner muttered when he realized that he'd been set up. Instead of scaring someone, the Japanese businessman wanted the airliner to crash.

  Panic overcame him and he shoved the machine gun into the van and hurriedly slammed the door. He could hear the aircraft radio as he scrambled into the driver's seat and quickly started the engine.

  "Japan Air Sixty-Two, you're on fire! Repeat! Japan Air Sixty-Two is on fire! Do you copy?"

  Penner recognized the tower controller's voice.

  "Sixty-Two copies!"

  "We have the equipment rolling!" the controller exclaimed as he saw the first truck leave the fire station.

  Penner yanked the transmission into drive, floored the accelerator, and screeched around the side of the building, then stomped on the brakes and came to a grinding halt.

  Mesmerized, he watched the nose of the 747 dip lower as flames engulfed the fuselage and tail of the stricken airliner. Penner took one last look and jammed the accelerator down, hoping that the plane wouldn't crash.

  Ashen-faced, Mayumi and Shozo Fujitake held each other close and tried to be brave. Chaos had erupted throughout the cabin, and the flight attendants were yelling for everyone to brace themselves for a crash landing.

  Dutifully, the Fujitakes quietly followed the instructions and listened to the shrieks and cries from the other passengers. They momentarily grasped hands and then resumed the emergency position.

  Seconds later, while traveling much faster than the usual landing speed, the Boeing jumbo jet slammed onto the runway and collapsed the left main landing gear. The engines on the left wing dug in, slewing the aircraft toward the edge of the runway before they were ripped from their mounts.

  Trailing a long streak of fire, the JAL 747 skidded and bounced across a taxiway and runway 24 Left before bursting into a huge fireball. With the tail consumed by the billowing conflagration, the airplane shuddered to a halt as the forward evacuation slides began to pop out and inflate.

  Of the 281 people on board, 67 died from burns and smoke inhalation, including the Fujitakes.

  When he returned to the warehouse, Granville Penner was shot to death by his gap-toothed Japanese employer. After the small man recovered the $20,000 from the drug addict, an accomplice tossed Penner and the machine gun into a three-foot grave inside the building, then filled the hole with cement. When the man with the disfigured ear was finished, the final resting place of "Big G" Penner looked like the rest of the floor.

  Chapter 8.

  HONOLULU

  A refreshing breeze drifted through the rear windows as the well-worn taxi approached Aloha Tower, the famous landmark near Honolulu Harbor. Marcus Callaway cast a look at the sun-drenched blue skies and turned to the friendly man behind the wheel. "You said you're from Samoa ?"

  "That's right," the beefy cabdriver replied with a cheerful smile. "I'm third generation in Hawaii. Got three kids--two of 'em got their degrees from the University of Hawaii, 'an my third kid is gonna be a freshman this year."

  Wickham looked at the jovial face that kept darting glances at him in the rearview mirror. "Does your wife work?"

  "Yeah, she works," he laughed good-naturedly while he deftly eased his way through the afternoon traffic. "She has her degree, too." His pride in his family was evident. "She works as an accountant during the day and takes care of the house at night. Everybody helps out, so it ain't too bad."

  Without missing a beat, he swerved to avoid colliding with a lost tourist in a rental car, then continued his story. "Me, I drive a cab from seven to five, then load air freight from six to midnight." He laughed aloud and honked at another taxi.

  "I figure this way, man." He looked at Wickham's reflection in the rearview mirror. "We ain't got time to have no more kids." He belly-laughed.

  Steve was still curious. "Where are your kids now--the ones who graduated?"

  "They're all living at home." His voice was suddenly serious. "They can't afford to buy a house, not even a little one. The Japs have taken over the real-estate market again, like they did back in the mid-to-late eighties. They come in, buy millions of dollars of property in a few weeks, real estate people jack up the prices, they buy more, and so on. The locals, we ain't got a chance, man."

  His eyes focused on the rearview mirror. "They're turning the islands into suburbs of Tokyo."

  Marcus turned and looked at the lush scenery and then shared a glance with Steve. Everything was not so wonderful in paradise.

  "People like us--the ones who work and live here," the driver said glumly and poked his chest, "we can't afford to buy even a good, small house. The one we got--man, it's falling apart, I tell you--but we're damn lucky to have it."

  Steve remained quiet. There had been major changes in Honolulu since he first vacationed in the islands as a newly minted lieutenant of Marines. The peaceful serenity and natural civility of years past had been replaced by jammed sidewalks, crowded streets, honking horns, rude people, cramped accommodations, and soaring housing costs.

  He thought for a brief moment about his ex-wife, Becky. They had spent their honeymoon island-hopping from Oahu to Maui to Kauai. It seemed like only yesterday when he and Becky went snorkeling at Kaanapali Beach.

  Stev
e's recollections came to an abrupt halt when the taxi slowed and stopped in front of the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  Bryce Mellongard was a straitlaced, no-nonsense reformed smoker who was known for his leadership abilities and attention to detail. Tall and reed-thin, he always wore a dark-gray suit and white shirt with a narrow, conservative tie.

  Mellongard had made a career of positioning himself to fill the next-higher vacancy. He was a master of the game, a master who had a seemingly supernatural instinct for knowing exactly when the opportunity was ripe to move up a notch.

  From the ranks of a midlevel civilian manager in the Pentagon, he steadily climbed the ladder. Always managing to showcase himself, then switch boats before the previous one began leaking, Mellongard carefully and skillfully worked his way through the treacherous rapids.

  Now the wily, silver-haired veteran of the bureaucratic wars had reached his zenith: Secretary of Defense. Mellongard knew that being SECDEF could be a springboard to much bigger things. He just needed to slide through this obligation without committing any major blunders.

  His biggest fear was that the unstable geopolitical situation would force the U. S. military into a position that could lead to catastrophic consequences. Even though Mellongard was a savvy political climber, he was honest with himself and knew his own limitations.

  The chauffeur was just pulling away from the White House when Mellongard spotted Senator Frank Brazzell, the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. The trim, stylishly dressed senator was motioning for Mellongard's driver to stop.

  Mellongard swore under his breath before he told the chauffeur to pull Over. Brazzell walked up to the Continental and Mellongard lowered the window.

  "Bryce, I'm glad I caught you," the Senator said hastily. "I need to discuss an urgent matter with you, if you've got a couple of minutes."

  Mellongard knew that in Brazzell's time frame, a couple of minutes meant at least an hour of lobbying for his latest crusade. "Frank, I've got an appointment at the Pentagon," he said hastily and glanced at his watch. "Let's set up something for the first of next week, okay ?"

  Brazzell was not one to be placed on hold. "It'll only take a few minutes--I promise." He didn't give the Secretary a chance to answer. "In fact I'll ride over with you and then grab a cab back."

  "Okay," Mellongard replied stiffly and reluctantly slid across the seat while Brazzell stepped into the car and quickly shut the door.

  "Thanks."

  "What's on your mind, Frank?"

  "I'll get right to the point," Brazzell answered while the driver edged into the flow of traffic. "I've got all the ducks in order up on the hill, but I need you to apply some leverage on the President."

  "You're talking about the carrier?"

  They had had previous conversations about giving the Japanese the next U. S. aircraft carrier that was scheduled for decommissioning. The Japanese had asked for a large-deck carrier, ostensibly to be used as an antisubmarine warfare ship, but the last Administration had quietly rebuffed them.

  "Absolutely," Brazzell shot back in his boldly confident manner. "Politically, the time is ripe for us to calm the waters and show some real confidence in the Japanese government. At the same time we can smooth some of the ruffled feathers about all this terrorist crap.

  "I'm telling you," Brazzell went on without missing a beat, "that we're going to blow a major opportunity if we don't make the announcement now and follow through with our promise.

  Let's give them the next carrier on the list instead of turning it into a floating museum or cutting it up for the scrap dealers."

  Mellongard let his head rest on the back of the seat. "Frank,"

  he sighed heavily, "they've laid the keel for their second carrier.

  You know that's in violation of Article Nine of the constitution they are supposed to enforce. I think we should forget the idea."

  The Secretary was referring to Article 9 of the post-World War II Japanese constitution that had been developed by General Douglas MacArthur and accepted and promulgated by the first postwar Diet.

  The constitution included a thirty-one-article bill of rights, and Article 9 was the key to the foundation of the new Japanese government. Article 9 renounced war as a "sovereign right of the nation" and pledged that "land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained."

  "Bryce," the Senator said patiently, "come on. We're well past that stage of the game. Besides, we've been encouraging them to provide their own defense for a long time, so why not help them?"

  Brazzell waited for a response, but Mellongard remained silent. It was an old argument and the Secretary didn't want to discuss Japan and her burgeoning military power.

  "Bryce, hear me out on this," Brazzell persisted. "You guys in the Puzzle Palace can't have it both ways. You tell the Japanese government to develop a stronger Self-Defense Force because we don't want to spend the money and use our assets to defend them."

  Mellongard gave a warning look and Brazzell shifted to a softer approach. "Then, after conditioning them to that spiel, you question whether we should give them an old, worn-out carrier?"

  "Senator," SECDEF countered and stared him down, "you know that's an oversimplification of the situation. Any of our carriers--even an older one--has the capability to project power anywhere around the globe."

  Mellongard paused to gather his thoughts. "Frank, a seventythousand-ton carrier isn't what I would classify as self-defense technology."

  "Sure it is," Brazzell shot back, remembering his discussion with the Japanese multibillionaire. The businessman had explained that Japan wanted to use the retired U. S. carriers for antisubmarine-warfare patrols. "They can use it for ASW work, and it's a great platform for rescue helos and reconnaissance aircraft."

  The Secretary remained quiet and looked out the window.

  "Bryce," the Senator gently prodded, "the Japanese are building their own blue-water carriers. China and North Korea scare the hell out of them, and they aren't going to sit around and twiddle their thumbs while they wait to get nuked again."

  Mellongard bristled and turned to face Brazzell. "That's the goddamn point, Frank. They've gone from a total armed force of a quarter million men in '93 to well over one million in uniform today. They're building their own heavy battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, and artillery pieces."

  Observing the restlessness in Brazzell's eyes, Mellongard carefully measured his words. "They've rapidly amassed a navy of over two hundred ships, including eighteen Aegis-equipped destroyers that are clones of our Arleigh Burke--class, and they've got a half-dozen new 767 AWACs, all while their economic and political upheavals are supposedly having a devastating effect on the country. Does that sound like a Self-Defense Force to you?"

  Mellongard didn't wait for a response. "Frank, the Joint Chiefs are concerned. These Aegis ships are designed to provide protection for a carrier battle group, and they're building carriers that are designed for vertical takeoff and landing aircraft."

  Both men shifted their eyes away from each other for a brief moment before the Defense Secretary turned to Brazzell.

  "If they decide to preempt North Korea," Mellongard continued in a softer tone, "we don't want them to do it with one of our carriers."

  "But I suppose we wouldn't mind if they clobbered North Korea with their own ships?" Brazzell countered while he planned his next avenue of strategy. He had to convince SECDEF to lobby for him, or the entire project would collapse, including his generous commission.

  "You combine those ships," Mellongard observed, "with their twenty-eight submarines and support ships and you've got a world-class blue-water navy, not a coastal patrol. Add to that one of the largest ASW capabilities in the world, combined with an air force that has over seven hundred Japanese-made fighter planes, and we're talking about a major military power.

  Mellongard looked straight ahead and took a deep breath. "Do you really think it's in our b
est interest to give them a carrier--even with the catapults removed--when our military is bare bones and getting smaller every day?"

  "Yes. I honestly believe we should give them a carrier for ASW protection." Brazzell closely watched SECDEF for his reaction. "Especially for political reasons."

  They remained quiet, each thinking about his own political interests.

  "They'll have their own carrier soon enough," Mellongard finally said, "but they won't be launching the first one for another year or so." He didn't want to confront the issue on his watch.

  "Don't bet on it," Brazzell calmly replied and shifted his gaze to the passing scenery. "The little shits are very industrious and motivated. Bryce, this is one hell of an opportunity to mend some fences."

  "Let me think about it awhile," Mellongard answered with one of his classic maneuvers to consume time and obstruct issues, "and I'll get back to you."

  Brazzell decided to use one of his hidden aces. "Bryce, we've been friends for a long time, and I'm telling you, for your own good, this is going to be a political coup."

  Mellongard studied Brazzell's deeply set eyes. "There's more to this than politics, isn't there?"

  "That's right," Brazzell admitted dryly and rubbed his thumb back and forth against his fingers. "Better than a gold mine."

  SECDEF leaned forward and told the driver to pull over and stop near the Department of Interior. When the car came to a smooth stop, the two men got out and walked fifty feet away.

  "Frank, you better level with me," Mellongard cautioned with his face set in a frown. "You owe me a big one, and don't forget it."

  "I haven't forgotten." Brazzell smiled his thin smile. "I've got the votes lined up, and everyone cashes in if I have your support." He lowered his voice. "But you have to convince your man to go along with this."