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