The Samurai Inheritance

PROLOGUE

The plane had been in the air for almost two hours and would begin its descent to Buin airbase in a few minutes. Long experience had taught the man in the immaculate green uniform that he could allow himself to doze despite the all-pervasive drone of the twin engines and the constant vibrations running through the aluminium fuselage. He tried to relax. If the relentless metallic clamour meant nothing useful could be achieved, forty years of naval discipline and his Samurai blood dictated he should rest body and mind. But how could a man, even a man as inured to discomfort as he, ever become accustomed to this cramped steel bucket seat? The damned thing seemed to sink its claws into every piece of flesh it touched. He allowed himself an inner smile, though his lips didn’t twitch. Not even an admiral had the privilege of a cushioned seat in a converted Mitsubishi G4M, but that was no one’s fault but his own. After all, he’d personally approved the design of the swift and agile light bomber the crews called the Flying Cigar.

It occurred to him that the American enemy, five hundred miles south at Guadalcanal, called the plane a different name. For reasons that escaped him despite his familiarity with their ways, they’d nicknamed the G4M ‘the Betty’. He turned to stare out through the perspex blister over his right shoulder. A second, identical transport flew in formation five hundred feet away carrying the remainder of his staff for the long-delayed inspection tour of the Solomon Islands defences. He’d witnessed the scene a hundred times, but he was always oddly moved by the sight. The jungle green of the plane’s upper surfaces contrasted starkly with the hazy eggshell blue of the South Pacific sky, and the scarlet disc of the Rising Sun shone like a drop of fresh blood on its flank. A few thousand feet above, out of sight but a comforting presence, six Zero fighters supplied top cover in the unlikely event of a stray Allied pilot happening on the formation.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy grunted as he attempted to manoeuvre himself into a more comfortable position. The weight on his right arm came almost as a surprise. Nothing useful could be achieved? What was he thinking? He reached down to grasp the handle of the heavy buffalo-hide briefcase chained to his wrist and lifted it on to his lap. As he remembered the contents, Yamamoto’s eyes glowed with suppressed rage at his compatriots’ stupidity. How could they have kept it from him for so long? The information had only reached the fleet headquarters in Rabaul on New Britain the night before; a report from a well-connected agent in one of the Allied capitals. For the last twelve months specialist officers at the military intelligence HQ in Tokyo had been evaluating it. Evaluating. He knew exactly what that meant. Shunted on a conveyor belt of bureaucracy from one office to the next, and back again, and everyone with a different opinion. I think it is authentic. I’m not so sure. It’s a fake. Our man’s been turned, we know he was under suspicion. He has never let us down. Analysed, re-analysed and analysed again, until the actual significance of the message was lost. Only now they sent him one of the two existing copies.

Yamamoto had been presented with the briefcase by his American friends at the end of his second posting as naval attaché to Washington. He stroked the thick leather with a fondness alien to his martial nature. Unhampered by the two fingers missing from his right hand, he opened the straps and withdrew the file. A few paltry sheets, and of those only one truly mattered. A year ago this would have been a weapon as potent as the terror bombs the scientists of the Nishina programme claimed the enemy was incapable of producing. His eyes ran down the long columns of script, and he gritted his teeth against the frustration that was almost a physical pain. In the summer of 1942, at the high watermark of Japan’s victories, he could have used the information to tear the western Allies apart: bankrupted the one and isolated the other. The war would have ended with honour and Japan dominant in the Pacific. The destructive battle at Midway would never have been fought and his beloved Nippon would have been spared years of war and countless lost sons. But now? He studied the document intently, dark eyes roaming the script for inspiration, pausing only to flick an annoyed glance when he sensed the curious gaze of Fukusaki in the seat opposite. The young naval commander, a trusted aide for two years, looked away sharply. Ha! Yamamoto was disproportionately pleased his reputation as a disciplinarian still had the power to awe.

He returned to the typed sheet. It had a shiny surface caused by the new compound he’d been told made it impervious to damp, but would, conversely, incinerate at the touch of a naked flame.

Yamamoto’s studies at Harvard had inspired an affection and a respect for the Americans not shared by most of his countrymen. Likewise, familiarity ensured he understood and feared the strength of United States manufacturing. He’d argued against making war almost to a point that invited death at the hands of Prime Minister Tojo’s assassins. Only Imperial connections and the fact he could count on the loyalty of the navy saved him. But when the Emperor decided the only way to break America’s economic stranglehold on Japan was to fight, his duty was clear. Isoroku Yamamoto would become his nation’s shield and lead the battle line with knife, bullet and bomb; he would do whatever it took to bring eventual victory.

It had been he who planned the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, destroying or damaging eight of the enemy’s battleships and killing thousands of American sailors. Yet he felt a dull ache of disappointment at the memory. The action had been a stunning tactical victory, but not the overwhelming blow he’d intended because the enemy’s aircraft carriers had been at sea and escaped the bombs.

In the euphoria after the attack he’d warned that true victory would only be achieved when the first Japanese soldier marched into Washington. The message had been intended as a reminder to his people of the great sacrifices that would be required, but the Americans had interpreted it as a boast and a threat. In his heart of hearts he’d known then that little Japan could never destroy the mighty American industrial machine. Their only hope was to inflict casualties so terrible as to ensure the American public became sick of war. His face hardened and his thoughts turned to his children back in Tokyo. How many sacrifices would they have to make before the end? This document, which he believed was genuine, contained a single provable and undeniable fact. As the true implications of that fact dawned, his heart soared at the possibilities it created. He nodded slowly to himself. There was still time. He lay back against the angled metal and closed his eyes. Before he had the opportunity to expand on the thought a cry of alarm rang out from the rear of the plane.

‘Sentoki! Enemy fighter! On our tail.’

The tail gunner’s shout was followed instantly by the staccato rattle of his 20mm cannon and within seconds the acrid stench of burning cordite filled the aircraft. Yamamoto’s mind raced, calculating the odds against them. If it was only a single plane all they had to do was survive until the escorting fighters could intervene. As well as the tail cannon, the G4M also carried four light machine guns, but only the nose and top turrets were permanently manned. Whoever was attacking them would have vastly superior firepower. Everything depended on the skill of the pilots and the accuracy of the defence. Fukusaki had already snatched up the port blister weapon, while Commander Toibana, the admiral’s second aide, was firing at some unseen opponent with the starboard machine gun. Yamamoto’s stomach lurched as the pilot put the plane into an emergency dive for the cover of the trees below. In his seat behind the cockpit the radio operator screamed a panicked plea for help into his microphone.

‘This is impossible,’ Fukusaki shouted over the buzz-saw rasp of the machine guns. ‘Where have they come from?’

Yamamoto ignored the frantic cry and calmly replaced the papers in the briefcase. With only the slightest change of expression he strapped himself into his seat, closed his fingers over his ceremonial sword and shut his eyes.

Though he couldn’t know it, sixteen P-38 Lightnings of the 339th fighter squadron based on Guadalcanal made up the force that shouldn’t have been within a hundred miles of Admiral Yamamoto’s plane. They’d flown north to Bougainville using long-range drop tanks designed to allow them to make the two-hour flight with just enough fuel remaining to get home. The pilots of the ambush planes knew only that a high-ranking Japanese officer had been seen boarding a plane by a Coastwatcher on New Britain. The reality was that the Japanese naval code had been broken long ago. Yamamoto’s route and itinerary were known down to the minute.

By some miracle combination of expert navigation and downright luck, the P-38s had arrived at the interception point four minutes early, after a complicated dogleg journey of almost five hundred miles. The attacking Lightnings split into four flights. Three roared upwards to take on the escorting Zeros and one, led by Captain Tom Lanphier, closed in on the two Bettys. The flight’s second pair were forced to turn away because of problems with their drop tanks, but Lanphier and his wingman Lieutenant Rex Barber pressed on despite the drastic change in odds. Unique in the Second World War, the Lockheed P-38 Lightning was designed with twin booms and a central nacelle where the single pilot sat flanked by two Allison V12 engines. It had a speed advantage of almost 180 miles an hour over the fragile Japanese bomber.

‘Zeros at twelve o’clock.’ Barber heard Lanphier’s laconic voice in his headphones. ‘I’ll take them. You go after the bombers.’

The wingman was vaguely aware of his commander’s fighter peeling away, but he only had eyes for the green-painted plane ahead and a thousand feet below. Barber, a twenty-six-year-old engineer from Oregon, curved in, always turning right, so he was a little to the left of his target. He flinched at the familiar twinkle of gunfire from the Betty’s tail and the flash of tracer rounds, but he held the big twin-engined fighter steady and waited. When the plane’s airframe filled his reflector sight his fingers crept towards the firing buttons. He was hardly aware of touching them until the three Browning machine guns and single 20mm cannon in the nose opened up, making the whole plane judder. Rex Barber liked the P-38 because it had two engines. That was important when you were flying over impenetrable jungle and shark-infested seas, fighting an enemy more inclined to chop off your head than rescue you. But he also liked it because the guns were concentrated all together in a bunch. No need to wait for the bullet streams to converge like on the Thunderbolts he’d flown in training. You just hit the buttons and poured it on.

Tiny firefly sparks flickered on top of the enemy plane’s fuselage just in front of the tailplane. He allowed the big Lightning’s nose to drift slightly to the right so his cannon shells hammered into the wing roots and the starboard engine. A split second later the big bomber seemed to stop in mid-air and fell away to be lost in a pyre of smoke in the dense jungle below.

Without another thought Barber turned his attention to the second Betty.