Rising Sun by Robert Conroy Read Free Book Online Page B

Depression is going to cause a real-estate explosion in the United States when the war ends, so he’s buying up vacant properties in areas around major cities. If he’s right and the war doesn’t last beyond 1950 or so, he’ll probably be rich. I’ll be his heir, of course.”
    There was a sudden commotion on deck and the conversation was over. Torelli shouted orders as men tumbled down from the conning tower in a well choreographed dance that only looked like chaos. Ships had been spotted on the horizon, and the submarine quickly and quietly slipped under the sea. Ships meant the enemy. There were no American warships in this area of the Pacific. With luck, their low silhouette had not been spotted.
    Back in their bunks, they waited, helpless to do anything about the peril they were in. Dane wondered if the air had just gotten staler and hotter, or was it just his imagination. He’d never been claustrophobic, but being prone and helpless in a too-small cot in a sub maybe hundreds of feet under the ocean was a truly frightening experience.
    An explosion shook them, rattling everything in the sub. They were being depth charged. Dane wanted to run and ask Torelli what was happening, but that was painfully obvious. The Japanese had somehow spotted them and were attacking.
    Another explosion, this one much closer—it almost threw him out of his bunk. He held on tight and the lights went off. For an utterly horrible instant, they were plunged into total darkness. Dane thought they would plunge to the bottom of the Pacific and be there forever, dying slowly, gasping like fish on the floor until the air finally ran out.
    After an eternity, the lights flickered and came back on. Someone in the group was screaming and sailors pounced on him, stuffing a rag in his mouth. Dane was shocked to realize that cold water was dripping on him. Were they sinking? His heart began to pound as if it wanted to explode from his chest.
    He smelled urine and wondered who’d pissed himself. He checked, and thankfully, it wasn’t him.
    Another set of explosions shook them, but these were farther away. Even better, the leak had stopped. After what seemed an eternity, Torelli approached them.
    “I think we got away. One of their floatplanes saw us and we were damned lucky. Maybe they thought they got us or maybe they just don’t give a damn. From now on we’ll travel submerged during the day and on the surface only at night. In the meantime, we’ll stay submerged for a couple of hours to make sure the Japs have cleared the area. It may take us a little longer to get to San Diego, but I’d rather be safe than sunk.”
    Only Torelli’s eyes betrayed the fact that he was as frightened as they were. He took an obvious deep breath and the fear disappeared. “We identified two Kongo -class battleships and two aircraft carriers. We were too far away to get a specific make on them, although one carrier might have been the Akagi , but their course said they were headed toward Hawaii. We got off a radio signal, fat lot of good that will do. Hawaii’s got nothing to fight with, at least nothing that flies or floats, and the army in Hawaii will just be a sitting duck. I hate to think what those carrier planes and the battlewagons’ fourteen-inch guns could do to a defenseless city like Honolulu.”
    Dane sagged back on his too-small bunk and thought about the Japanese flotilla headed toward Hawaii. What would happen to the people in paradise, he wondered? What would happen to Amanda Mallard?
    * * *
    Amanda and her roommates cowered amid other tenants and passersby in the basement of their two-story frame apartment building while waves of Japanese planes flew over Honolulu and Pearl Harbor.
    “There can’t be much left to bomb,” said Grace Renkowski. At thirty-five, she was the oldest of the three roommates. The Japanese planes had been overhead almost constantly since morning. Hawaii was almost defenseless, little more than a punching bag. When