The Mary Jane Mission Read online

  “Two thousand miles away shouldn’t be that big of a deal, should it, Phil?”

  Cameron set his newspaper down on the stool. “It’s close enough.”

  “Really?”

  “Typhoons can actually be much more dangerous than Atlantic hurricanes. Storms spawned in this area of the Pacific have no large land masses to break them up and can reach quite an intensity by the time they hit the more populated Marianas.”

  “You think we may be in trouble?”

  “It’s possible. Typhoons can travel at three to four hundred miles a day. Which means it could–”

  “Be here in less than a week,” Robert finished the sentence.

  “Right. Providing it starts moving faster and builds strength over the open Pacific. So far, it hasn’t. Yet. But, if it does, we are in the line of fire,” Cameron concluded. “The Gilberts are southeast of here. The rotation of the earth causes spiraling storms to move northwest. Right smack where we are.”

  Robert looked gravely over at the former pilot, then fell back to his channel flicking. Cameron returned to his newspaper. Robert left the screen on the USA Network and rested his head on the back of the chair. Tired, he flicked the sound down and closed his eyes. Suddenly, for no reason, he thought of Tinian. He was half-dreaming, half-thinking. Many years ago. August, 1945. He was in the second row of a large tent, seated on a bench with his Mary Jane ground crew. In the front row were the aircrew. An expressionless army air force colonel in his forties walked into the room and stopped beside an easel covered by a black tarp. Those in the tent rose to their feet, then sat when he motioned them to do so.

  It was coming back to Robert now. The briefing. The only air force briefing he was ever involved in. But this was no regular briefing. Then... the colonel began to speak.

  “Good evening, men. My name is Colonel Mason. I’ve been sent here from Washington. The White House, to be exact. Tomorrow at oh-one-hundred hours, the crew of the MARY JANE” — his dark eyes set on Ian Clayton in the front row — “will take off on the most important mission of the war. Perhaps the most important ever. We still do not have any word from the Japanese following the first two atomic missions. Washington feels that they will not surrender. Therefore, the president himself has sent me here to advise you of one more strike with the most destructive atomic bomb of them all. The Manhattan Project scientists have assembled a plutonium bomb that we have named Fat Baby. When dropped, Fat Baby will kill close to a quarter of a million people.”

  The colonel then took a step back, grabbed a pointer, and pulled back the black tarp. It was a map. Five large letters stood out at the top of it.

  KYOTO.

  Mason leaned on his pointer as if it were a pool cue.

  “Yes, Kyoto. The shrine city of Japan. A million people. If we bomb Kyoto, then the Japs will know we mean business because this city is of little military importance. It will finally wake up the Jap hierarchy. Your aiming point will be the crossing of the” — his stick stabbed at two rivers in the north part of the city — “Kamo and Takano Rivers. Less than one mile southwest of this point is the Imperial Gardens. They will get a full blast of the bomb’s power. Your initial point will be a series of shrines on the very west end of Lake Biwa to the east of Kyoto where a peninsula juts out. Surrounding this peninsula is a small community of scattered buildings called Otsu City. Time over target will be oh-seven-thirty.”

  The colonel flipped over to another map.

  THE MARIANA ISLANDS.

  “You will maintain an altitude of 1,000 feet until Alamagen, then climb to 3,000 feet. At Agrihan, climb to 5,000 feet. Before you reach Iwo Jima, you will perform the first stage in arming the bomb. Over Iwo, you will climb to 9,500 and stay at that altitude until 400 miles from the Japanese coast, where the second and last stage in arming the bomb will be done. Your bombing altitude of 31,000 feet will then be reached. For this mission, you will go it alone. No spotters or weather aircraft. You’re solo. If you are socked in by weather, do not bomb on radar. Turn back, disarm the bomb in the air, and drop her in the ocean. Acceptable weather for this mission will be a maximum of three-tenths cloud cover and favorable winds.”

  Mason reached for a pair of goggles from a nearby stand. “As with the other atomic missions, you must make sure your tinted goggles are covering your eyes once you are on the bomb run.” He placed the pair over his eyes and demonstrated how, by turning a knob on the bridge of the nose, he could control the amount of light filtering through. “Before Fat Baby is dropped, adjust the setting to the lowest for maximum effect.”

  Mason removed the goggles. “There are a series of wires connected to the bomb. A steady tone will be heard in your earphones prior to the drop and will disappear once Fat Baby is gone. This is when the wires disconnect in the bomb bay. It’s very important to make an immediate 155-degree turn at full throttle to get as far away from the shock waves as you can. The bomb has a barometric setting and will go off at 1,800 feet.”

  Mason stopped and stared at the crew who were to carry out the world’s third atomic bombing mission. “Men, beware. If you have to bail out over Japan, you know the consequences. According to our intelligence sources, last month eight B-29 airmen were beheaded in Kobe before a large crowd of spectators. In flight, Captain Clayton will have in his possession nine cyanide capsules. One for each of you. It’s your choice. If you are captured, give only your name, rank, and serial number.”

  Mason cleared his throat. “May God be with you.”

  Robert woke with a start, rubbed his eyes, and glanced over at Cameron. Robert sighed. Geez, forty-five years later the Mary Jane was still haunting him.

  * * * *

  MARY JANE

  At 05:30 hours, the top portion of the sun began to glow brightly above the horizon line to the east. It would soon be light. Two hours till H-Hour.

  Staff Sergeant Nevin Brown set his book down on the table and ran through the radio frequencies until he heard some action. The signal was coming in strong through his headphones.

  “BULLDOG, ZULU-TWO-FOUR-THREE AIRBORNE.”

  “ROGER ZULU TWO-FOUR-THREE, SWITCH TO BUTTON TEN.”

  “WILCO BULLDOG, SWITCHING TO TEN.”

  Brown sat straight up in his chair. Under the dim light, he searched through the range to pick up the frequency. What the hell was button ten? And what was Zulu Two-Four-Three and Bulldog? He scanned the frequencies frantically. Then... he caught something.

  “RADIO OPERATOR TO COMMANDER,” he contacted his superior.

  “I HEAR YUH. WHAT’S UP?”

  “SIR, LISTEN TO THIS SIGNAL I’VE PICKED UP.”

  “PIPE IT THROUGH.”

  “YES, SIR.”

  Brown hit a switch, and soon Clayton heard the conversation.

  “BULLDOG TO ZULU TWO-FOUR-THREE. TARGET ON HEADING OF THREE-TWO-TWO. ANGELS NINE. ONE-NINETY KNOTS. RANGE, FOURTEEN MILES.”

  “ROGER BULLDOG. YOUR SIGNAL IS BREAKING UP.”

  “SWITCH TO BUTTON TWELVE, ZULU TWO-FOUR-THREE.”

  “ROGER.”

  Clayton let out a whistle. The heading of three-two-two was his heading. The speed and altitude were the same too.

  Loran looked over at Clayton. “That’s our Little Friend again. He must be based on Iwo.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Back in the radio room, Brown was playing through the dials. He stopped at another frequency, where he picked up a man’s voice on a Japanese radio station.

  “AND TO THOSE AMERICAN F-18 HORNET PILOTS AT THE MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IN IWAKUNI, WE HAVE BY REQUEST A REAL GOLDEN OLDIE OUT OF THE ARCHIVES. ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK BY BILL HALEY AND THE COMETS.”

  Stunned, Brown listened in his headset. What the hell! What American pilots on Iwakuni? F-18 Hornets! What were they? The announcer sounded American. Upstate New York or even Maine. Somewhere in New England for sure. Was he a prisoner of war? And that song. Rock around the clock. Never heard of it. Tokyo Rose wouldn’t play a song like that. Big band music wa
s her thing.

  The song came on... and finished.

  Brown continued to listen. The announcer came on again.

  “THE PAUL MCCARTNEY TOKYO CONCERT IS NOW A SELLOUT. FOUR MONTHS BEFORE THE SHOW!”

  Brown whipped his headset off. Had the guy gone screwy!

  * * * *

  Eight miles behind the bomber, Les Shilling watched the B-29 form onto the radar screen. Closing quickly at 500 knots, Tiger was keeping pace with Les’s Hornet off starboard.

  Les hit the radio switch. “ZULU TWO-FOUR-THREE TO HAWKEYE THREE-SIX. ZULU TWO-FOUR-THREE TO HAWKEYE THREE-SIX.”

  Les heard the now familiar Georgian drawl. “I READ YOU, ZULU TWO-FOUR-THREE. BACK AGAIN, ARE YOU?”

  “TURN BACK. YOUR MISSION IS AN ABORT. REPEAT, YOUR MISSION IS AN ABORT.”

  “THAT SO? WHO ARE YOU TO TELL US?”

  Les was in visual range now with the B-29. “I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR MISSION. WHERE YOU CAME FROM. WHERE YOU’RE GOING AND WHAT YOU’RE CARRYING. TAKE FAT BABY BACK TO NORTH FIELD.”

  “I WANT THE CODENAME, ZULU TWO-FOUR-THREE.”

  What codename, Les thought, staring out at the Mary Jane.

  Then the bomber disappeared.

  * * * *

  The B-29 was now back in its own time. August 11, 1945.

  Sergeant Mark Crosby chain-lit another cigarette and watched his radar screen, at the same time listening in on his special headset for the frequencies used by the enemy military controllers. Suddenly, he was startled to see the Japanese early-warning signal appear on the screen. It made three sweeps before locking onto the Mary Jane. In his headphones, Crosby heard the constant beep. That meant one thing. The Japs were tracking them. He heard a Jap controller talking down some fighters or bombers. He felt uneasy knowing that the enemy were on alert. But would they do anything about one lone target on their screens? He hoped not.

  He pressed his throat mike. “RADAR TO COMMANDER.”

  “GO AHEAD.”

  “WE’RE IN RANGE. THE NIPS GOT A RADAR LOCK ON US.”

  “THANKS.”

  * * * *

  Ainsworth stood up from his leaning position against the bulkhead inside the radio room and walked through the bomb bay hatch. He had gone there by himself this time. The unheated bomb bay was a pleasant seventeen degrees centigrade. He could do the last operation in comfort before the B-29 climbed to bombing altitude. Because he had only a small job to perform on the bomb this time, the flight engineer was not needed as an assistant.

  Ainsworth eased along the catwalk, so nervous that his hands were shaking. According to the mission plan, he was to replace the green plugs with the red ones that he was carrying. But he didn’t. He deliberately left the green plugs in the bomb. He waited for exactly four minutes, sweating all the more, then returned to the radio compartment.

  Ainsworth nodded at Brown, who hit the intercom. “RADIO TO COMMANDER. THAT’S IT, SIR. IT’S READY.”

  In the cockpit, Clayton smiled coldly at his pilot. “COMMANDER TO CREW. FAT BABY IS NOW FULLY ARMED. THE NIPS ARE TRACKING US. HOPEFULLY, THEY WON’T DO A THING. WE’RE ONLY ONE. WE ARE NOW NINETY MINUTES FROM THE ENEMY COAST. PREPARE FOR A CLIMB TO 31,000 FEET. OVER.”

  Chapter eleven

  GUAM

  Inside the “Storm Room” on Nimitz Hill, Chief Petty Officer Richard Beatty called his commanding officer — Captain Raymond Carruthers — on a local line.

  “Captain, it’s Beatty. I have the shots, sir.”

  “Stay there. I’ll be right over.”

  Over strong coffee, the two men studied recent satellite photos of the storm that was now reaching typhoon status and tagged Tropical Storm Matilda. The infra pictures showed a twisting mass of clouds over the Caroline Islands, almost 1,500 miles southeast of Guam. The two realized that although Matilda was still a long way off, typhoons had a nasty habit of fueling themselves over all that open water, building up a destructive path as they swung west.

  “It’s moving our way, captain.”

  “So it is,” Carruthers agreed.

  An ensign walked up and handed Carruthers a report just received by radio from a typhoon hunter aircraft that was at that moment in the eye of the storm. The aircraft was a flying laboratory, crammed with instruments that collected all forms of data related to the weather disturbance. The report gave vital information such as the storm’s size, location, temperature, moisture content, along with its speed, course, and maximum winds.

  “Winds eighty-five knots,” Carruthers observed. “We got ourselves a whopper. It’s official now. Typhoon Matilda. Issue the appropriate typhoon warnings and watches for the Caroline Islands.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  One piece of data, in particular, startled Captain Carruthers. It was the aneroid barometric pressure reading, which recorded atmospheric pressure. He knew that the lower the setting, the worse the storm. Normally, a sea-level reading should register somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-nine to thirty inches. The typhoon hunter registered a reading of 26.55, one of the lowest ever recorded in the Pacific.

  * * * *

  When Robert Shilling and Phil Cameron arrived at Agana Naval Air Station, Captain MacDonald was already waiting for them by a MH-53E Super Stallion helicopter on one of the dispersal tracks. The sun was setting. Over the loud whir of the blades, the captain shook hands with the two war vets, then motioned them to step through the sliding door on the side.

  Once inside the back of the empty cargo area, door closed, MacDonald filled the two in on the latest events as they sat inside the bulkhead that separated the cabin. They each put on a helmet and life vest and buckled up their seat belts.

  “We got some trouble. Big trouble. As I said over the phone, we’re going to Midway. I see you’re each wearing a windbreaker and that you brought along a night bag. Good.”

  “What are we up against now?” Cameron wanted to know.

  MacDonald held up his hand to Cameron to curtail further questions. “First things first. I owe you an apology, general.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I’m convinced now that time travel is no theory. Les and Tiger said they saw the Mary Jane vanish in mid-air, and I believe them. They were less than a mile behind her.”

  Cameron merely smiled.

  The captain rubbed his chin and continued. “Now, Mary Jane was last sighted 325 miles off the coast of Japan. Your son, Mr. Shilling, ordered the bomber to turn back. They refused. They — Clayton and his crew — insisted that they needed the codename for the mission to do that. Do either of you know it?”

  Cameron shrugged, followed by Robert.

  “Don’t you know it, general? You were the commanding officer of the 509th!”

  “I was never given it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was on Iwo Jima at the time with the scientists. Only the crew, the briefing officer, and a few selected others knew it. Seeing that it was a solo mission, the understanding was that the fewer who knew, the better. Security.”

  “Security, is right. I attended the briefing,” Robert confirmed.

  “That’s right. Your ground crew was there. Well?” Cameron asked, waiting for a reply.

  “We were ordered to leave at one part of the briefing. And you guessed it, when the codename was given out.”

  “Great!” Macdonald said. “One of our options now is to shoot it down.”

  Cameron didn’t like that. “With an armed nuclear bomb? Are you serious?”

  “It’s an option, general.”

  “Try another one?”

  The engine and rotor noise rose as the helicopter began to lift, making conversation difficult.

  “That’s why you two are here. On Midway, we will make radio contact with the Mary Jane. One of you or both may have to convince Captain Clayton to turn the bird around.”

  Cameron frowned. “Without the codename? I don’t think so.”

  “Try, please. You have to. Think hard and recall anything you can about these me
n, things that only they and you will know. Where they came from. Anything you know about them prior to joining the 509th. Anything! Everything!”

  “I see,” Cameron acknowledged. “For instance, Clayton and I flew B-17s with the same squadron based in England. I remember his machine. It too was the Mary Jane.”

  “By the way, who was Mary Jane, anyway?” Robert asked.

  Cameron thought for a moment. “His girl back in Georgia. He always said she was built like a brick shit house.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” MacDonald said, encouraged.

  “I have a question, captain,” Robert said.

  “Go ahead, Mr. Shilling.”

  “Don’t you think the brass aboard Midway will have to be filled in on this — the flight of the Mary Jane?”

  “I know, I know,” MacDonald replied.

  The helicopter pulled away from the base. The three men waited until the whirring machine was a thousand feet over the water and the engines were set at their cruising speed of 150 knots before anyone spoke again.

  “How long will we be in the air?” Robert asked.

  MacDonald checked his watch. “Let’s see. Midway is 1,100 nautical miles to the north. At cruising speed, we should be there in approximately seven hours, after allowing a brief stop on Iwo Jima to refuel.”

  Cameron and Robert exchanged curious glances. Neither felt comfortable being away at such a time.

  “We could be gone a few days?”

  “That’s right, general. But we’ll try to wrap this up as quickly as we can.”

  “I hope so. Our wives are back on Guam, and there’s a typhoon warning for the Carolines.”

  “I know,” MacDonald nodded. “I’ll keep in touch with the typhoon center for reports. The latest is that if it does hit Guam, it won’t be until the end of the week.”

  “If we can’t talk Clayton down, then we blow the Mary Jane out of the sky, that right? You don’t think nuclear explosion is kind of risky?”

  “Given the circumstances, general, we have no choice but to do it, after all else fails. We could get away with it over water before she reaches the coast. The F-18 Hornet is equipped with Sparrow AIM-7 radar-guided missiles with a range of thirty miles. That leaves plenty of room for Tiger and Hulk to stay clear of debris and any shock waves.”