The Mary Jane Mission

by Daniel Wyatt

  The colonel folded his hands in his lap. Tears began to form in his eyes. He looked around the room. Then his lips quivered. Finally... he uttered... a breathy, “Electron.”

  * * * *

  MARY JANE

  “COMMANDER TO CREW IN THE FORWARD COMPARTMENT. WE ARE ON A NEW COURSE TO LAKE BIWA. GRAB YOUR FLYING SUITS AND AN OXYGEN PACK. IT’S GOING TO GET COLD IN HERE IN A FEW MINUTES. GO!”

  Emerson fitted his hands into a pair of thin, silk navigator gloves he had borrowed from Dwight Marshall. He shrugged on his flight jacket and strapped on his portable oxygen cylinder. He checked the pressure gauge, which read a healthy 450 pounds per square inch. The cylinder contained six to twelve minutes of oxygen, depending on the amount of activity. Then he bent under his flight engineer’s seat where the cabin pressure relief valve was located. He turned the valve slowly. This procedure was necessary to prevent the inside pressure rupturing the fuselage skin, as well as preventing loose material being sucked towards the bomb bay hatch.

  Clayton reached for his thick leather jacket and oxygen mask. “COMMANDER TO FORWARD CREW. GIVE ME A CALL-IN WHEN YOU’RE READY. NOSE TO TAIL. LET’S GO.”

  Lunsford waved from the nose, jacket and mask already in place. “BOMBARDIER HERE. I’M READY.”

  Loran nodded, thumbs up.

  “NAVIGATOR OK.”

  “RADIO A-OK.”

  Clayton turned to Emerson, flashlight in hand, who looked all set as he too gave the thumbs up. Emerson opened the hatch and climbed in the bomb bay. Immediately, he could feel the bitter cold air hit the exposed skin on his face. Shit, it was freezing. At this altitude of 31,000 feet, the temperature had to be in the fifty-below range. Carefully and methodically, he turned each of the three green plugs counterclockwise until they popped off. Then, one at a time, he injected the first two red plugs. With cold hands, he reached into his jacket for the third and final plug.

  “There you are,” he muttered to the third plug. But before he could screw it into place, he dropped it. Shit! Frantic, he ran the flashlight along the bottom of the bomb bay. “Clayton will kill me if I don’t find it,” he said to himself.

  He searched and searched... then found it... under the nose of the bomb. “Thank God,” he whispered, picking the plug up. “Come to papa.” He checked his oxygen pack. Only three minutes left.

  In the cockpit, Clayton was getting nervous. What was taking Emerson so long? He saw a large, long lake through the glass. Out the side, one of the crazy fighters was still with him. Where was the other?

  “NAVIGATOR TO COMMANDER. TURN FIVE DEGREES LEFT. TWO MINUTES TO LAKE BIWA.”

  “ROGER. TURNING FIVE LEFT.”

  On the navigator’s orders, Clayton banked slightly to the left. Five degrees. It was quickly becoming cold in the cockpit. He hadn’t worn an oxygen mask and flight jacket in more than a year, since his days with the Eighth Air Force in Britain. The rubber against his skin felt too tight. But only a few minutes more. Where the hell was Emerson?

  “NAVIGATOR TO COMMANDER. TURN TWO-TWO-SIX.”

  Clayton felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Emerson giving the OK sign with his thumb, under the silk navigator glove. Fat Baby was armed for good.

  Clayton smiled under his oxygen mask. “COMMANDER TO NAVIGATOR, TURNING TWO-TWO-SIX.”

  * * * *

  USS MIDWAY

  “ZULU TWO-FOUR-THREE, THIS IS SCOUT ONE. DO YOU READ?” Commodore Prentice said, hoping to catch up with Les Shilling. Where were they? “ZULU TWO-FOUR-THREE, THIS IS SCOUT ONE. DO YOU READ?”

  The answer finally came. “ROGER, SCOUT ONE. ZULU TWO-FOUR-THREE READING YOU. OVER.”

  “THANK GOD YOU’RE BACK WITH US. WHAT’S YOUR PRESENT POSITION?”

  “JUST PASSED NORTHERN EDGE OF LAKE BIWA. LINING UP FOR IP RUN. WE WENT OFF COURSE AND LOST SOME MINUTES. ANY NEWS FROM KYOTO?”

  “NEGATIVE. HOW WAS THE TRIP?”

  “SIX BOGIES TO ONE OF OURS. OVER.”

  “YOU MEAN TIGER BOUGHT IT?”

  “NEGATIVE. LOST IN TIME, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.”

  “AFFIRMATIVE. I GET THE PICTURE. WE’LL KEEP IN TOUCH. SCOUT ONE OUT.”

  Prentice spun around to face the others in the room. Tiger lost? They looked as astonished as Prentice.

  * * * *

  JAPAN

  Tiger searched the skies for several minutes over Lake Biwa.

  No Mary Jane.

  No Hulk.

  No high vapor trails.

  This was it. He was stuck in 1945.

  He checked his fuel. Down to one-third of his take-off load. The drop tanks were gone. Maybe 500 to 600 miles left, if he was lucky and conserved his fuel. One option was to fly to the Soviet Union. They were supposed to be allies during the war. What would they do with him? Probably keep his oddball fighter and, if he was fortunate, he might be sent back to the States after months of internment. From the stories he had heard, he knew it was more likely that starvation or execution faced him in a Soviet jail. Some ally.

  No, Tiger was going down a hero. And have some fun.

  * * * *

  MARY JANE

  She was nearing the far end of Lake Biwa, twenty-five miles — eight minutes — from the IP. The cabin temperature was back to a normal seventy degrees inside the forward compartment. Oxygen masks, electrically-heated suits, flight jackets, gloves were all discarded.

  Clayton glanced over at Loran. They nodded at each other.

  They flew on, the engines droning.

  “IP COMING UP IN TWO MINUTES, COMMANDER. ALTER COURSE TWO-SIX-FIVE ON MY SIGNAL.”

  “ROGER.”

  Clayton saw scattered cloud to the west of the lake, the direction of the target. He needed at most three-tenths cloud to bomb the target.

  One more minute...

  The strange fighter still stuck close by, Clayton picking out the needle nose through the port side of the Plexiglas. He checked his watch. The mission was fifteen minutes overdue. Damn that Four Eyes. Clayton looked down. He saw boats on the lake, six miles below. Ahead, off port, the peninsula — the IP — jutted into the water.

  In the tail, Gabriel Schwartz kept his eyes open for enemy aircraft. None. But he did think it strange that some contrails were above them. They had to be 40,000 feet. Could Zeros fly that high? In the radar room, Mark Crosby didn’t see anything out of the ordinary on his equipment, except for Lake Biwa below. There was no mistake about that. Nevin Brown was catching some crazy songs on his radio set. At the flight engineer’s position, Emerson studied his panel. There seemed to be enough fuel left to make Tinian.

  Dwight Marshall glanced out his navigator’s window. He recognized the Lake Biwa peninsula, which was the spot where a number of shrines stood. “NAVIGATOR TO COMMANDER, IN TEN SECONDS OUR NEW COMPASS HEADING SHOULD BE TWO-SIX-FIVE.”

  Lunsford peered into the Norden bomb sight. Dead ahead — Otsu City, the community that bordered Lake Biwa. He then recalled the aerial photos he had studied on the ground prior to the mission. Otsu City was spread out and had more buildings than he had remembered from the snapshots. Had it grown that much? But it had to be Kyoto ahead because beyond Otsu he saw the hills that separated the port city from Kyoto. Everything checked out.

  In the cockpit, Loran closed his eyes for a moment and said a quick, silent prayer to his maker that all would go well.

  “THIS IS IT, COMMANDER. TURN TWO-SIX-FIVE.”

  “ROGER. TURNING TWO-SIX-FIVE,” Clayton answered his navigator. He banked ever so slightly to starboard. They were now on their initial point. Six miles, two minutes to go. “COMMANDER TO CREW. PUT ON YOUR SAFETY GLASSES.”

  The crew obeyed, most of them adjusting the glasses so that they were blacked out completely. Loran, Clayton, and Lunsford left their glasses on their foreheads because they couldn’t perform their work otherwise.

  “COMMANDER TO BOMBARDIER. OPEN BOMB BAY.”

  “ROGER.” Lunsford slid his left hand down to a panel on his left and hit the toggle switch. He heard
and felt the vibrations when the mighty bomb bay doors creaked open.

  * * * *

  This is where I get lost, Les thought. He wasn’t going to stick around for the lethal explosion. He gave port rudder and stick, soaring away from the Mary Jane.

  Unless the bomber was stopped, his brother would die in the blast. Tears came to Les’s eyes. If he wanted, he could have blown the Mary Jane out of the sky at a safe distance of thirty miles. All on radar. No visual. But that would mean shooting the B-29 down without authorization. Despite the predicament, Les’s loyalty was to his country and the US Navy.

  And that’s what hurt.

  * * * *

  USS MIDWAY

  Lieutenant Commander Cross, the communications officer, buzzed the bridge.

  “COMMODORE?”

  “COMMODORE PRENTICE HERE.”

  “SIR, IT’S CROSS. THE CODENAME JUST CAME THROUGH FROM YOKOSUKA.”

  “WELL, WHAT IS IT?”

  “ELECTRON.”

  “THANKS, COMMANDER. GOOD WORK. OUT.”

  Prentice glared at Cameron. “You’re on, general.”

  * * * *

  MARY JANE

  In the viewfinder, Lunsford could see the eastern suburbs of Kyoto through a large gap in the clouds. He was astonished how clear it was. Cars, roads, rooftops, greenery. It was Kyoto, all right. The joining of the Kamo and the Takano rivers was unmistakable. A mile southwest stood the historical Imperial Gardens. The apex of the rivers was drifting into the bombsight’s cross hairs.

  “COMMANDER TO CREW. ARE WE IN AGREEMENT THIS IS KYOTO?”

  Lunsford answered first. “IT’S KYOTO, COMMANDER.”

  The other crew members followed in the same identification.

  The cross hairs were slowly lining up on the joint of the rivers. Lunsford made his final adjustments on the bomb sight. Seconds away now. He was just about to hit the tone signal that would give off a constant hum for the final seconds of the bomb run... when the commander hit the intercom.

  “HOLD ON, PAUL.”

  “WHAT! I GOT HER LINED UP!”

  “HOLD ON, I SAID!”

  * * * *

  USS MIDWAY

  Seated beside the bridge console, Cameron repeated the message.

  “HAWKEYE THREE-SIX, THIS IS DIMPLES ONE. ABORT MISSION. ELECTRON! REPEAT, ELECTRON! DO YOU READ, HAWKEYE THREE-SIX.”

  * * * *

  MARY JANE

  “He gave the codename, Ian. What do we do?” Loran said, excited.

  Clayton shrugged. “We have no choice but to turn back.”

  “After all we’ve been through, they’re going to cancel the mission! The city’s in our bombsight! Something’s fishy.”

  “Maybe the Japs did surrender like Dimples One said.”

  “HAWKEYE THREE-SIX, THIS IS DIMPLES ONE. PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE LAST MESSAGE. OVER.”

  Clayton pressed the radio button. “I HEARD YUH, DIMPLES ONE. WE’RE TURNING AROUND.”

  Loran shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

  “COMMANDER TO CREW. MISSION IS AN ABORT. REPEAT MISSION IS AN ABORT. CLOSE UP THE BOMB BAY, PAUL. WE’RE PACKING UP AND HEADING HOME.” He turned to Loran. “Geez, Carl, what a ride this has been!”

  * * * *

  USS MIDWAY

  The bridge cheered. Prentice shook hands with Cameron and Robert Shilling.

  Robert was elated. His son was safe. Actually, both sons were safe.

  Prentice buzzed the CIC. “STEDNER.”

  “YES, COMMANDER.”

  “LET HULK KNOW THE BOMBER’S RECEIVED THE CODENAME AND HAS TURNED OFF THE BOMB RUN.”

  “AYE, AYE, SIR. WITH PLEASURE!”

  MacDonald was delighted and went around shaking hands and patting men on the back. “There, it’s finally put to rest,” he said to Cameron.

  “Looks like it,” Cameron replied. But he wasn’t that convinced. He remembered the Mary Jane was found intact on Guam. How did that happen? Was something still missing? A scene left unplayed?

  “What were Clayton’s orders now?”

  “Disarm the bomb and drop it in the ocean,” Cameron answered MacDonald, the celebration around them.

  “That means the crew will go back to their own time. And goodbye Mary Jane. We have Typhoon Matilda to worry about now. We had better get back to Guam.”

  We’ll see if this is the end, Cameron thought. Suddenly, he realized that in 1945 dropping an A-bomb into the ocean wasn’t a problem. But in 1990, with greater awareness of environmental hazards, an atomic bomb on the ocean floor could be a great risk. If Fat Baby was dropped in the Pacific, the salt water would dissolve the metal casing causing the plutonium to eventually leak out. If dropped in 1990, however, then at least the US Navy might have time to take appropriate action.

  Should I say something?

  This wouldn’t be the first naval nuclear accident. He recalled an incident that had taken place twenty-five years earlier near the island of Okinawa, where a US Navy hydrogen-bomb-equipped A-4E Skyhawk strike aircraft had fallen off the flight deck of the carrier Ticonderoga and was never found. And what about the handful of nuclear Russian subs that were probably at the bottom of the Pacific and the Atlantic, including the one he had read about in The Devil Seas?

  Oh, what to do.

  “We’re forgetting something,” Cameron said out loud. The room grew quiet.

  “What’s that?” Prentice asked.

  “We lost a fighter pilot today. Tiger is gone.”

  Prentice sighed. “That’s right. Thanks for the jolt of reality, general. Lost in time. Imagine.”

  “Could we at least drink a toast to him?”

  Chapter fifteen

  JAPAN

  It didn’t take Tiger long to find a Japanese military air base. From 25,000 feet up, he saw runways crisscrossing north of Osaka. He performed a series of wide, slowly descending circles over the base, at the same time keeping his eyes open for enemy fighters on patrol. He made one low pass over the tower at 1,000 feet to have a look and turned away to come around again. This time, he screamed across one runway at 100 feet, hurtling towards the hangars at a speed of 500 knots. Up and down the hardstands were closely-parked, single-engine fighters that he recognized as Zeros. Fifteen of them at a guess. He was close enough to see their camouflage colors. Several people near the planes scrambled for cover. To the left, one of the fighters had just touched down and was about to hang a left onto the taxi strip. Tiger banked to starboard so that he could meet the fighter head-on for the next pass.

  For armament, Tiger was now down to the nose-mounted cannon, his four missiles used up. He flicked to GUN on the weapon-select switch. The HUD displayed the gun mode, complete with a reticle and gunfire impact point to aim for. The modern Hornet was full of wizardry, but Tiger wanted to operate the system manually, just like the good old strafing days of World War II.

  By the time Tiger banked and came around again, the anti-aircraft fire had opened up on him. But the gunners couldn’t find the range. Tiger was much too fast. At 400 knots, he brought the F-18 right down to the deck — 100 feet — and held his finger on the trigger. Two lines of 20mm cannon firing 100 rounds a second chewed a path towards the fighter until she exploded into a fierce fireball. Tiger pulled his F-18 straight up, over the explosion, giving full throttle. He heard small pieces of debris banging against the underbelly. He quickly checked the instruments for any damage. No change. Nothing.

  By now, more distant black puffs appeared in the sky, the closest explosion two or three hundred feet off his port wing. He outran the puffs as he poured on the afterburners and soared into the sky in a near-vertical climb. At 15,000, he looped the Hornet over and aimed for the base. Once again, he brought the fighter down to the deck, five hundred yards from the nearest target. Closing in, he aimed for the line of fighters on the dispersal track. He wanted as many as he could get in his final pass. Fifty yards away, at a height of eighty feet, he pressed the stick trigger and held it down until he passed the line of airpl
anes and he was out of ammo. All 570 rounds. He banked to port to look over his wing. Three fighters were in flames. Then a fourth exploded. Followed by a fifth. Suddenly, Tiger was rocked by a flak burst. The instruments to the port side told him the port engine was on fire. He quickly lit the extinguisher button to douse the flames. Then he shut down the engine, skimming the ground at 400 knots. His digital display told him he had a fuel leak. He turned the fighter away from Osaka, towards Osaka Bay, and brought the nose up until he reached 2,000 feet.

  Now what?

  Tiger was still finding it hard to believe where he actually was. He was stuck in August 1945, mere days before Japan surrendered. About three days. He could abort and send the fighter into the bay. Could he hide out for three days? What other choice did he have at the moment?

  Osaka Bay loomed dead ahead, a distance of two or three miles. Tiger determined that 200 miles of fuel remained in the tanks, which meant that if the fighter kept to its present course, it would run out of fuel over the ocean. By now, half the Japanese air force were probably looking for him and his aircraft. He quickly made up his mind that no one would find the F-18.

  Tiger glanced below. All the way out to the bay looked deserted, only a single road and a few odd buildings close together, others scattered. He flicked the stick-mounted autopilot on with his little finger. He disconnected the canopy and was immediately met by a stunning turbulence of air. He was ready for ejection.

  The F-18 Hornet was fitted with the Navy Common Ejection Seat, which contained a fully automatic step-by-step system of escape, controlled by an electronic sequencer. Tiger engaged it by pulling a loop — the seat firing handle — situated between his thighs on the front part of the pilot seat. A rocket exploded below him, sending him through the top of the aircraft, seat and all, his leg restraints keeping his legs together. Once Tiger was free of the fighter, a rocket motor beneath the seat fired the drogue deployment catapult as it reached the end of its stroke. Then a parachute deployment rocket fired. His leg restraint system freed his legs, and his seat fell to earth. In a short time, his parachute inflated and he was descending slowly. He glanced southward, at the last sight of his fighter. Only the starboard engine was belching red.