The van sped away in one direction while the metal spheres went in the other, obviously unconcerned with the damage they’d already done, and clearly prepared to do more. Emmett’s mortified howling continued and Vera kept saying soothing words to make it clear to him that she really didn’t give a damn that he’d lost bladder control. Truth to tell, she’d almost done so herself. But she didn’t feel that this was the time to share that particular piece of information.
Meanwhile Walsh the imperturbable snored peacefully, dreaming about his recent visit with grandpa.
There was an old Hawaiian legend about an angry and frustrated woman who complained about the brutality of her husband, whose cruelty was—by her description—as sharp as the edge of cutting bamboo. The eventual fate of the husband and wife were unknown. Perhaps he had tossed her into a volcano; perhaps she had stabbed him to death in his sleep with a spear fashioned of bamboo. Either way, her unhappiness had achieved a sort of immortality in the naming of Kaneohe Bay, since Kaneohe (or Kane’ohe, as it was more properly spelled) meant “bamboo man.”
One of the more notable residents of Kaneohe Bay was the Marine Corps Base (MCB) Hawaii. MCB Hawaii maintained key operations, training, and support facilities and provided services that were essential for the readiness and global projection of ground combat forces and aviation units, and the well-being, morale, and safety of military personnel, their families, and the civilian workforce. They managed installations and natural resources situated on a total of forty-five hundred acres throughout the island of Oahu, including Camp Smith, Marine Corps Training Area Bellows, Manana Family Housing Area, Pearl City Warehouse Annex, Puuoloa Range Complex, and of course Kaneohe Bay.
The MCB was under high alert because of what was transpiring globally, but no one could have been prepared for what was about to happen.
Sirens sounded throughout the MCB as unknown, incoming objects showed up on the tracking instruments. Marines immediately scrambled, charging out of hangars, off drill fields, everywhere and anywhere, to defend the base.
Within seconds the twin metal spheres tore through MCB Hawaii. Initially they zeroed in on the airfield, ripping through helicopters and airplanes as if they were wet tissue paper. Huge pieces of metal were sent hurtling in all directions and the first thing the Marines needed to do was fall back, take shelter, lest they wind up being gutted or beheaded by flying shards. As soon as they managed to find cover, they then opened fire with their rifles and guns upon the spheres.
It proved to be ineffectual. For the most part the spheres were simply too fast. It would have been impossible to get a bead on them with anything short of computer tracking, and even then it would have been challenging. A few shots did strike them, more by luck than anything else, but all that happened was the bullets pinged off them without inflicting the slightest bit of damage.
Once every vehicle that could potentially have gone airborne was reduced to nothing but scraps of twisted metal, the spheres headed for the weapons depot. Seconds later the base was wracked with explosions. The air became thick with vast plumes of black smoke, and fire crackled through the MCB. And as the Marines struggled to find ways of containing it, the spheres—as if their assault had barely been worthy of their time—hurtled away, heading for Camp Smith and anywhere else that seemed as if it could provide even the slightest airborne military threat.
From the deck of the Missouri, populated mostly by tourists, old salts, and a grizzled gunner, they could see smoke rising in the distance from the MCB.
There had been no Japanese aircraft, no howling of bombs or staccato assault of bullets from diving Zeroes. Nevertheless the parallels to times long past were unmistakable. Men who were in their eighties now remembered being brand-spanking-new recruits, thrilled to be assigned to Pearl Harbor, only to wind up witnessing firsthand the assault that wound up waking the sleeping giant and sending the United States howling for payback into World War II.
They were seeing history repeating itself, and within their hearts, sleeping giants roared to life once more.
The wind was blowing steadily east. Sam and her client, Mick, were climbing up the hill, going west, and as a consequence didn’t see any of it. Sam did catch, briefly, the faint whiff of something burning. But she heard no trees crackling, no indication of anything on fire. And then, with a slight shift of the wind, the smell was gone, and she chalked it up to somebody barbequing around a campfire somewhere.
The shirt she was wearing under her light jacket was thick with sweat as she walked along a dirt road. It was an access road, probably to accommodate park rangers, and so wider and a bit easier to maneuver. She needed it since she was starting to have trouble keeping her footing on the uncertain side paths, plus she was still worried that Mick might stumble and fall. She was certain he could physically withstand any bumps and bruises he might incur, but she didn’t want his ego to take a battering.
She needn’t have worried, though. His confidence seemed to be growing with every step. Plus, she realized, he might actually be having an easier time of it in some respects because her heart had to push blood throughout her entire body. Since his legs were truncated, there could well be less strain on his system than there was on hers. “You sure can climb the hell out of a mountain,” she said.
“This is not a mountain,” he said disdainfully.
“It’s more of a mountain than that chair you had your ass parked in this morning when I found you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You got a little attitude on you there, Miss Admiral’s Daughter.”
“I don’t have an attitude.” She reached down, picked up a large rock that was in her path and tossed it to the side of the road. “I’m just not real big on strong, competent men not living up to their potential.”
Mick snorted at that. “You talking about me or the part-time fiancé that’s got that vein on the top of your forehead going like a freight train?”
His casual reply annoyed the hell out of her, mostly because she despised the notion that she was that easy to read. In point of fact she had indeed been concerned about, and fretting over, Hopper. She just hadn’t thought that it was so obvious.
Sam was about to tell him that her personal life was none of his damned business. Her job was to make sure he pulled his head out of his ass and made proper use of those extremely expensive legs taxpayer dollars had bought for him. Considering he’d spent the past months alternating between feeling sorry for himself and taking out his anger on physical therapists who were just trying to help him, he hardly had license to be judgmental about Hopper. It was high time he started getting his act together. She was prepared to unload this and more on him, but all of that vanished from her mind when something hurtled past just overhead, with an ear-splitting howl that reminded her of the old stories about banshees her grandmother used to tell her. When you hear the howl of the banshee, death is near. It froze her for a moment, and then the ground beneath her feet vibrated violently in response to whatever the hell it was that had shot past right over their heads, flying so low that it created a massive suction in its wake. Branches, stones, and dirt were all yanked into the air after it, and Sam and Mick—taking refuge behind some large trees—barely managed to avoid being hauled up along with all the detritus.
Seconds later the noise and jet wash subsided. Sam’s hair was completely askew and she made vague attempts to tamp it back into place, having little to no luck. “What the hell was that?” she said.