Read Online Ghost War by Mack Maloney - Free Book Online

rigged the power line from the battery to the generator and to the axle of a rusty, rear-wheel-less bicycle mounted on a stationary platform. For the next fifteen minutes, he sat on the tattered seat and pedaled furiously, building up electricity. After a quick voltage test, he set the transmitter to the frequency of the day, tapped out a short coded message on the sending key, and waited until he received the return verification signal from the place he knew only as “Clark Kent.” Then, as quickly as he had set up his gear, he broke it down, camouflaged it among the vegetation, and disappeared into the night.

Chapter Nine
    Dawn
    T HE LONE, GRAY BATTLESHIP sliced through the deep South Pacific waters, heading southwest. Its engines running at full steam, it was on its way to rendezvous with the remainder of the Asian Mercenary Cult fleet cruising off of Luzon. If all went well, they would join the fleet within forty-eight hours.
    The warship was two days out from its last port of call, a small South Pacific tropical island that was once a favorite tourist spot.
    Typically, the battleship had left the island in flames.
    Met at the dock by the beautiful women of the island, the crew had eagerly accepted the flower leis offered to them. Once ashore, the 1,242-man crew drank every drop of alcohol it could find. And then they went berserk.
    First, they looted everything that wasn’t tied down, and what they couldn’t carry, they simply destroyed. Then they embarked on a killing frenzy that went on all through the night and all the next day. They eventually hunted down and slaughtered every living soul on the island including the elderly, the young, and even infants. Only the beautiful women were spared, but just long enough to be gang-raped and then killed. By dusk that next night, when the crew had finally staggered back to the ship after twenty-four hours of uncontrollable blood lust, they’d murdered more than 10,000 people. Then, with the crew on board, the vessel’s nine massive 16-inch guns opened up, splitting the black night with their long, white-hot flames.
    Every square foot of the island was obliterated, the great explosions throwing tons of dirt and rubble hundreds of feet into the air and creating craters more than a half mile across. Fires erupted everywhere, and burned wildly out of control. The heat generated was so intense that even steel was vaporized. By the time the battleship sailed away, nothing was left standing on the island, nothing was left alive. For the next day at sea, the crew could admire their handiwork: a huge, thick column of black smoke could be clearly seen rising from below the horizon behind them.
    Junior Radio Officer Oka Ueno did not remember much of the raid. The booze and the drugs had flowed so freely through the entire rampage, he’d quickly lapsed into an alcoholic blackout. But he knew that if there was a hell, he surely had a place reserved. For when he finally woke up the morning after, he discovered that his uniform was encrusted with blood, caked brain matter and dried semen. His shipmates later told him that of them all, he’d done the most raping, the most killing. His officers went so far as to commend him for his actions.
    Now, this early morning, as one reward for his butchery, Ueno was given the honor of raising the ship’s colors and insignia of the Asian Mercenary fleet high up the battleship’s mast.
    But he would have much rather stayed in his bunk. Even two days later, he was still suffering from the worst hangover of his life.
    As he crawled into his dress whites, preparing for this honor, he had to suppress the urge to vomit. And he was not alone. Groping his way up from his quarters onto the deck, he passed the assembled ceremonial guard and saw that each sailor’s face was also a pale sea-green. Though they were doing their best to remain rigid and in close order, they too couldn’t wait for this ceremony to be over so they could suffer in peace.
    In