As she walked into the BOI chamber the old rush returned. The prep for a case, the razor’s edge on which a favorable decision balanced, the satisfaction of diligent research and inspiration of a strategy that ultimately wins the day, recharged her jurisprudence battery! In a little more than an hour the proceeding would begin. She picked out in her mind her seat in the gallery, where she was sure to have a direct line of sight to Mush as he sat at the defense table. She took one last look and headed for the attorneys’ room.
She did a double-take as she entered the room, there he was, clean shaven in a service dress khaki uniform, hat on the table, trimmed beard, and eyes that actually seemed illuminated to her.
He smiled broadly when he turned and saw her. He stood and extended his hand. “Lieutenant Burrell, nice to see you again,” his voice said, while his eyes screamed, Girl, I’ve missed you.
The look in his eyes relieved Brooke’s apprehension about seeing him again and replaced it with the prickly energy of intense attraction, amplified by separation. In that one gesture, she knew her place with him was good. Now she could relax and really drill down into the case. The lead JAG officer for the defense was forty-two-year old Captain Lance Porter, who had intellectually gotten over the absurdity of a whale attack and now specifically concerned himself with preserving the career and reputation of the latest in a long line of naval heroes of the Morton clan.
Brooke broke into the conversation. “Captain Porter, I am here personally because I have a witness who could offer exculpatory evidence in Captain Morton’s defense.”
As expected, Porter bristled at the unexpected. “I wasn’t aware of any such witness and none has been listed with the prosecution.”
“I apologize for the lack of procedure, but the witness just became available and is testifying out of a top secret mission under the direct orders of the president.” Brooke said.
“I see. I’ll have my staff call in the prosecutor and the IG and we’ll get him to testify in closed session. When is he expected?”
“Right now; he’s outside.”
Mush was surprised to see a Japanese merchant captain enter the room with a U.S. Navy translator.
Brooke explained the circumstances under which Captain Kasogi Toshihira came to lose his ship to pirates, his whale story and subsequent rescue by special forces, which must never be named.
Porter was dubious. “What evidence of the whale does the captain present?”
Brooke opened her briefcase and removed the print of a picture taken from the iPhone the helicopter pilot had used to pop his good-luck-shot of the whale frolicking in the wake of the huge vehicle transport. “The JDF helicopter pilot assigned to Captain Toshihira’s ship took ball-camera shots of the whale, but those were lost when his aircraft was scuttled to avoid letting it fall into enemy hands. He did, however, manage to text this picture to his son, who is studying whales in school, before the ship was attacked.”
Mush looked at the photo, then spoke to Toshihira, then looked at the translator. “You were attacked in the Indian Ocean?”
Toshihira didn’t wait for translation, “Yes, south of Java.”
That being roughly the same area of both Brooke’s attack and the attack on the Nebraska, Mush looked to his lawyer, Porter. “That’s where the Pacific meets the Indian Ocean, Lance. And not too far from our encounter.”
The windfall of collaborating evidence was immediately apparent to Porter, who understood that suddenly the positive outcome of this board as it related to Mush was a certainty. More importantly, the information would quickly advance into a strategic initiative to ward off a new threat by a new weapon. “Excuse me, but I think I want the IG and prosecution in here now.”
It took an hour and essentially the whole BOI took place in the lawyers’ room. The IG made a pro tem decision that Mush be cleared of all charges and his record reflect that he had acted in the highest traditions of the US Navy. Then the IG called Naval Intelligence and asked them to debrief both Morton and Toshihira so that tactics and defenses might be established and communicated to all commands and ships at sea. There were handshakes all around, and soon only Mush and Kasogi were left in the room awaiting the Navy intelligence guys.
“Your English is very good!”
Kasogi nodded, “Thank you. I get most things, but certain phrases I don’t understand. That’s why the translator was here.”
“How long have you been at sea?”
“Twenty years. And you?”
“About the same.”
“Not the same. I am merchant, you are submarine!”
“True, but as merchant you are just as important to your country as I am to America.”
“You are very kind, but you command an SSBN. I simply pilot a floating parking garage.”
“And those missiles and boats cost my country trillions, but your boat makes money for Japan.”
“I was to be a warrior, not a truck driver.”
“How do you know that?”
“My grandfather; he was commander of the battleship Musashi during the war against the American and English Imperialists. He personally served with Yamamoto and on many occasions had the honor of bowing before the Emperor.”
“You are the grandson of Rear Admiral Inoguchi Toshihira! The Musashi was a noble ship of the Imperial Navy. I always liked her lines better than the Yamamoto.”
Kasogi was impressed. “You study the war? You know of my grandfather, and of the Musashi?”
“Yes, I did a paper on the War in the Pacific at Naval War College. I too had a grandfather who fought in World War Two.”
That caused a light bulb to go on in Kasogi’s head. “Morton — you are descended from Dudley Morton, the Commander of the Wahoo?”
It was now Mush’s turn to be impressed. “Yes. I never got to meet him, so studying sub tactics and the war was a way for me to understand him, and why and how he died.”
“As I remember, he was lost at sea?”
“He was on his nickel patrol, went out, just never came back.”
“I am sorry, nickel?” Kasogi said.
“I apologize; slang for his fifth war patrol. In the Sea of Japan he sank four enemy, uh, Japanese ships, before the Wahoo was sunk on October 11, 1943, in La Pérouse Strait; she went down with all hands. My granddad received his fourth Navy Cross, posthumously of course, for that patrol.”
“I am sorry. My grandfather died almost exactly a year later, when the Musashi was sunk by aircraft; over one thousand men died. They posthumously promoted him to vice admiral.”
“Many men, boys actually, from both our countries died. Many didn’t have the chance to have children or grandchildren,” Mush said as he looked down at the table.
“Yes, we owe much to our forefathers.”
“Amen, Captain Toshihira.”
Mush was well aware that he was sitting across from the grandson of a man who would not have hesitated to kill his grandfather, and he knew his granddad would have risked all to put two or three fish into the Jap battlewagon. Given the same situation, if he and Kasogi had met in battle, one of them would surely be dead. Yet here they were, speaking as brothers, in reverence of men whose blood and dedication they shared, understanding the ideals by which their antecedents gloriously lived and died, long before they were born. As Mush wiped the thought of Kasogi as a “Jap” captain from his mind, he could only conclude, War perverts humanity.
The moment hung almost as a silent prayer; then Kasogi the ‘truck driver’ noted, “Still I envy you to be the commander of a nuclear submarine.”
Mush finally relented. “Yeah, it’s a pretty sweet command.”