Moon Above, Moon Below
Page 30
Tommy was already standing on unsteady legs when Sean returned to the table. “I got to stop by the hotel,” he said, “and leave a note for Sylvie.”
“I’m real sorry this little rendezvous is all going to shit for you, brother.”
“Not as sorry as I am, Sean.”
They tried to shake hands, but halfway through that awkward gesture, it collapsed into a long hug as they sought refuge—even just for a moment—from the torrent of emotions neither of them could verbally express.
As they broke apart, Tommy offered the words that had always been Sean’s to say, at first as a somber fait accompli and later as a triumphant certainty. Now those words would be only a wish for a brighter tomorrow, where joyful plans could be made and kept, where the odds this wasn’t your last goodbye would be a bet anyone would take:
“Just a matter of time, Sean,” Tommy said. “Just a matter of time.”
* * *
About The Author
History is a parade of chance outcomes, influenced by any number of natural forces and human whims. As a lifelong student of history and lover of alternative historical fiction, William Peter Grasso’s novels explore the concept change one thing…and watch what happens. The results are works of fiction in which the actual people and historical events are weaved into a seamless and entertaining narrative with the imagined.
Focusing on the WW2 era, Grasso’s novels have spent several years in the Amazon Top 100 for Alternative History and War.
Retired from the aircraft maintenance industry, Grasso is a veteran of the US Army and served in Operation Desert Storm as a flight crew member with the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF). These days, he confines his aviation activities to building and flying radio-controlled model aircraft.
Contact the Author Online:
Email: William Peter Grasso
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https://www.facebook.com/AuthorWilliamPeterGrasso
More Novels by William Peter Grasso
Operation Fishwrapper
Book 5
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
June 1944: A recon flight is shot down over the Japanese-held island of Biak, soon to be the next jump in MacArthur’s leapfrogging across New Guinea. Major Jock Miles, US Army—the crashed plane’s intelligence officer—must lead the handful of survivors to safety. It’s a tall order for a man barely recovered from a near-crippling leg wound. Gaining the grudging help of a Dutch planter who has evaded the Japanese since the war began, Jock discovers just how little MacArthur’s staff knows about the terrain and defenses of the island they’re about to invade.
The American invasion of Biak promptly bogs down, and the GIs rename the debacle Operation Fishwrapper, a joking reference to their worthless maps. The infantry battalion Jock once led quickly suffers the back-to-back deaths of two commanders, so he steps into the job once again, ignoring the growing difficulties with his leg. When his Aussie wife Jillian tracks down the refugee mapmaker who can refine those fishwrappers into something of military value, the tide of battle finally turns in favor of the Americans. But for Jock, the victory imparts a life-changing blow.
Operation Blind Spot
Book 4
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
After surviving a deadly plane crash, Jock Miles is handed a new mission: neutralize a mountaintop observation post on Japanese-held Manus Island so MacArthur’s invasion fleet en route to Hollandia, New Guinea, can arrive undetected. Jock’s team seizes and holds the observation post with the help of a clever deception. But when they learn of a POW camp deep in the island’s treacherous jungle, it opens old wounds for Jock and his men: the disappearance—and presumed death—of Jillian Forbes at Buna a year before. There’s only one risky way to find out if she’s a prisoner there…and doing so puts their entire mission in serious jeopardy.
Operation Easy Street
Book 3
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
Port Moresby was bad. Buna was worse.
The WW2 alternative history adventure of Jock Miles continues as MacArthur orders American and Australian forces to seize Buna in Papua New Guinea. Once again, the Allied high command underestimates the Japanese defenders, plunging Jock and his men into a battle they’re not equipped to win. Worse, jungle diseases, treacherous terrain, and the tactical fantasies of deluded generals become adversaries every bit as deadly as the Japanese. Sick, exhausted, and outgunned, Jock’s battalion is ordered to spearhead an amphibious assault against the well-entrenched enemy. It’s a suicide mission—but with ingenious help from an unexpected source, there might be a way to avoid the certain slaughter and take Buna. For Jock, though, victory comes at a dreadful price.
Operation Long Jump
Book 2
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
Alternative history takes center stage as Operation Long Jump, the second book in the Jock Miles World War 2 adventure series, plunges us into the horrors of combat in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea. As a prelude to the Allied invasion, Jock Miles and his men seize the Japanese observation post on the mountain overlooking Port Moresby. The main invasion that follows quickly degenerates to a bloody stalemate, as the inexperienced, demoralized, and poorly led GIs struggle against the stubborn enemy.
Seeking a way to crack the impenetrable Japanese defenses, infantry officer Jock finds himself in a new role—aerial observer. He’s teamed with rookie pilot John Worth, in a prequel to his role as hero of Grasso’s East Wind Returns. Together, they struggle to expose the Japanese defenses—while highly exposed themselves—in their slow and vulnerable spotter plane. The enemy is not the only thing troubling Jock: his Australian lover, Jillian Forbes, has found a new and dangerous way to contribute to the war effort.
Long Walk to the Sun
Book 1
Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series
In this alternate history adventure set in WW2’s early days, a crippled US military struggles to defend vulnerable Australia against the unstoppable Japanese forces. When a Japanese regiment lands on Australia’s desolate and undefended Cape York Peninsula, Jock Miles, a US Army captain disgraced despite heroic actions at Pearl Harbor, is ordered to locate the enemy’s elusive command post.
Conceived in politics rather than sound tactics, the futile mission is a “show of faith” by the American war leaders meant to do little more than bolster their flagging Australian ally. For Jock Miles and the men of his patrol, it’s a death sentence: their enemy is superior in men, material, firepower, and combat experience. Even if the Japanese don’t kill them, the vast distances they must cover on foot in the treacherous natural realm of Cape York just might. When Jock joins forces with Jillian Forbes, an indomitable woman with her own checkered past who refused to evacuate in the face of the Japanese threat, the dim prospects of the Allied war effort begin to brighten in surprising ways.
Unpunished
Congressman. Presidental candidate. Murderer. Leonard Pilcher is all of these things.
As an American pilot interned in Sweden during WWII, he kills one of his own crewmen and gets away with it. Two people have witnessed the murder—American airman Joe Gelardi and his secret Swedish lover, Pola Nilsson-MacLeish—but they cannot speak out without paying a devastating price. Tormented by their guilt and separated by a vast ocean after the war, Joe and Pola maintain the silence that haunts them both...until 1960, when Congressman Pilcher’s campaign for his party’s nomination for president gains momentum. As he dons the guise of war hero, one female reporter, anxious to break into the “boy’s club” of TV news, fights to uncover the truth against the far-reaching power of the Pilcher family’s wealth, power that can do any wrong it chooses—even kill—and remain unpunished. Just as the nomination seems within Pilcher’s grasp, Pola reappears to enlist Joe’s help in finally exposing Pilcher for the criminal he really is. As the passion of their wartime romance rekindles, they must struggle to bring Pilcher down before becoming his next v
ictims.
East Wind Returns
A young but veteran photo recon pilot in WWII finds the fate of the greatest invasion in history--and the life of the nurse he loves--resting perilously on his shoulders.
“East Wind Returns” is a story of World War II set in July-November 1945 which explores a very different road to that conflict's historic conclusion. The American war leaders grapple with a crippling setback: Their secret atomic bomb does not work. The invasion of Japan seems the only option to bring the war to a close. When those leaders suppress intelligence of a Japanese atomic weapon poised against the invasion forces, it falls to photo reconnaissance pilot John Worth to find the Japanese device. Political intrigue is mixed with passionate romance and exciting aerial action--the terror of enemy fighters, anti-aircraft fire, mechanical malfunctions, deadly weather, and the Kamikaze. When shot down by friendly fire over southern Japan during the American invasion, Worth leads the desperate mission that seeks to deactivate the device.