Still moving forward, the massive Boeing plowed through the parked planes, knocking several of them overboard like they were toys. The flying boat was slowed by the wreckage and finally stopped as its massive wing collided with the carrier’s superstructure. For a second, it sat there, a dead plane on the flight deck of a Japanese carrier. Then the fuel exploded, and, an instant later, that set off the bombs still in its hull. The crash landing on the Akagi had ruptured fuel tanks on the Japanese planes, and they too exploded almost immediately. In seconds, the carrier’s entire flight deck and superstructure were engulfed in a cloud of flames that was punctuated by explosions as Japanese bombs and shells were lit off.

The Akagi was now a moving torch, with torrents of flame dripping down her sides and crewmen hurling themselves off her and into the safety of the harbor. Without apparent guidance, she continued inexorably on in the last direction that had been ordered. There was no one alive on her decks or on the bridge to order a change of course as she headed toward the side of the channel.

The officers and men in the Monkfish had spent a restless night. The explosions in the harbor resonated through the water and caused the sub to vibrate. Despite the obvious danger, Lieutenant Commander Fargo had recognized the necessity to keep the air changed and the electric engines charged. Thus, they had spent a good deal of the night with the conning tower barely visible.

The sub’s crew were gaunt, unshaven, and filthy, and those not actually on duty were condemned to spend their time in their bunks as a means of conserving energy and oxygen.

While on the surface, they caught the tail end of the fireworks display that had marked Magruder’s attack on the fleet. By the time Doolittle’s planes had arrived, the sub was snugly back under the water. Fargo was confident that Japanese radar was crummy and their sonar even worse, but there was nothing wrong with their eyeballs.

Now, as gunfire reverberated for the second time, the men were at their battle stations, where they tried to pretend they weren’t scared to death.

“This is it,” Fargo proclaimed unnecessarily. Even the village idiot knew that tonight was the reason they’d waited so long in the Pearl Harbor channel.

His chief of boats announced that he thought he could hear screws approaching through the clutter. Fargo accepted the assessment. It was said that the chief could hear a mouse pissing ten miles away. If Flannery said a ship was coming, it was coming.

Fargo peered through the binoculars at where the channel turned slightly. At first there was nothing, and then the bulk of a large ship came into view.

“Carrier,” he said, and then incredulously, “and she’s burning. Oh my God.”

The ship that filled his view was aflame from bow to stern, and he saw people jumping off the crippled vessel from wherever they could. For a moment Fargo wondered, if this ship was already badly damaged, should he wait for another one?

Then he realized that the carrier was out of control. With a lurch, the ship ground into the side of the channel and began to swing away as her screws continued to churn up the water. In a few seconds, she would be broadside to him, and Fargo fully understood what he had to do.

“Fire one,” he ordered, and the sub vibrated as the torpedo sped on its way. It was virtually point-blank range. The enemy ship was so close, there had been only the need to point the sub and shoot. Nor had there been any thought of firing under the ship and using her magnetic field to detonate the torpedoes. These would be impact hits. “Fire two. Fire three. Fire four.”

The men of the Monkfish held their breath and waited for Fargo’s report. Seconds passed, and there was nothing. The first torpedo had been a dud.

“Damn it,” snarled Fargo. As he said it, the second torpedo struck the side of the carrier and exploded, sending a column of water high above the burning flight deck, but not as high as the flames that billowed from it.

Torpedoes three and four exploded seconds later, and the crew exulted. While the forward tubes were being reloaded, Fargo carefully turned the ship around so that the stern tubes faced the stricken carrier. These were fired, and both exploded against the hull of the dying carrier.

It was time to go. If the carrier survived five hits and the fire, she deserved to live. He ordered the Monkfish out into the open sea. Still at periscope depth, he searched for Japanese destroyers and saw a pair of them several miles to his port side. Incredibly, they were cruising away from him! He had no idea what had distracted them from the channel, but he didn’t care.

Swiveling the periscope back to the channel, Fargo saw a sight that stunned him. The carrier, torn apart by the five hits and other explosions, had taken on a definite and fatal list to port. Burning debris had begun to fall off the flight deck and into the sea as the ship slowly capsized.

“We got us a carrier,” he announced to his cheering crew. “And, if we’re damned lucky and the creek don’t rise, we got us a chance of getting the hell out of here.”

And maybe, he thought, just maybe, they had blocked the fucking channel.

Jake Novacek carefully and quietly aimed his Springfield. The Japanese scout was barely visible in the tree about two hundred yards away. Jake had a dilemma. To fire and shoot the scout would alert the other Japanese soldiers in the area, but it was highly likely that the soldier would see Hawkins and his companions as they moved to a new firing position. Damned if I do and damned if I don’t, Jake thought.

The Japanese response to the American attack on Pearl Harbor had been so immediate and so savage that the Americans had been thrown off balance. The Japanese at Hilo had become a whirlwind of brutal activity.

Jake estimated that three of the four companies of marine infantry stationed at Hilo had exploded out toward where they thought the Americans were hiding. He cursed himself for not anticipating the savagery of their response; as a result of his failure, his small force was reeling and disintegrating.

The Japanese had extracted information regarding the Americans from a civilian population that surrendered the knowledge as an alternative to seeing their loved ones raped, burned, mutilated, and chopped to living pieces before their eyes by Lieutenant Goto. In very short order, trucks full of Japanese soldiers had closed in on Jake’s sanctuary. The Japanese weren’t very good soldiers, which made it fairly easy for Lieutenant Brooks and his marines to ambush them and inflict a disproportionate number of casualties.

But the marines were only a handful, and the Japanese learned quickly. Brooks was dead and the other marines either dead or scattered after their last known position had been overrun. Brooks had bought them a little time, however. It had enabled Jake to dismantle the facilities and move Gustafson and some of the others by fishing boat to Maui, where Ernie Magruder and two of his companions had managed to land. A fourth plane was rumored to have landed on Molokai.

Alexa had gone with Gustafson, which took a big load off of Jake’s mind. Their parting embrace had been tearful, with her not wanting to leave, but Jake had been adamant. On Maui, she might just survive, while he would not have been able to think had she remained on Hawaii. On Hawaii, she and the others would have been hunted down like dogs. Survival, he reminded her, was their primary goal. If everyone couldn’t make it, that was too bad. Once again, she should do everything she had to in order to live.

In the long term, Jake thought that time was on his and Alexa’s side. Only thing, the Japanese soldiers were just a few hundred yards away. If the radio reports were to be believed, the Japanese at Pearl Harbor had been clobbered and were continuing to be pounded. This meant that liberation was imminent, possibly in only a few weeks.