Hidden Sun Read online

  Hidden Sun

  By

  John T. Campbell

  Copyright © 2011 by John Campbell

  ISBN: 978-0-9832923-5-7 (digital)

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form.

  For information contact the author at: [email protected]

  To Christine, Ron, Amy, and Chase.

  Praise for John T. Campbell’s other novels

  “Campbell knows his stuff! He pulls the reader onto a North Korean roller coaster and it’s a wild ride!” Larry Bond, author of Day of Wrath on Raid On Truman.

  “Non stop action” Army Times on Raid On Truman.

  “Exciting … well executed” Publishers Weekly on Raid On Truman.

  “Entertaining, swashbuckling in the modern vein” Kirkus Reviews on Raid On Truman.

  “Exceptional … Complex intrigue … It excels in suspense and tension.” The Midwest Book Review on Raid On Truman.

  “Excellent technical detail and an eye for the personal dimension of modern warfare … Realism and excitement … Highly recommended” Library Journal on Raid On Truman

  “Action and intrigue abound in this fast paced story . . .” The Naval Institute Proceedings on Raid On Truman.

  “Rank this one pretty high on the thriller meter.” The Philadelphia Inquirer on Raid On Truman.

  Other novels by John Campbell:

  Raid On Truman

  COBRA DANE

  Vauclain’s Shield

  Sub Zero

  The Telekinetic Man

  These Final Hours

  Acknowledgments

  This novel was first suggested by Jerry Dietrich who told me the true story of the Awa Maru. To him, I am deeply grateful. A number of others helped me greatly in getting thousands of details into the work. Gary Reznikov and my brother, Chris Campbell, helped me with the Russian language, and Judy Wang helped me with Chinese names. Shoko Nogusa helped me with Japanese names. P.J. Waldron helped me with information gathered from the Internet. Rosanne Dietrich helped with research along with Bill Heintzelman, Carol Miner, Kok-Song Fong, Bruce Landis, Mark Gerner, Edith Chu, Shawn Malone, Manuel Abellanosa, Dave Lewandowski, and Hugh Brown of the International Registry of Sunken Ships. Details on the Soviet atomic bombs and their development were taken from Stalin and the Bomb by David Holloway. I also thank Ed Stackler for his excellent editorial comments and Elizabeth Pomada for her invaluable comments on earlier versions of this novel. To these friends, I give my heartfelt thanks.

  Author’s Note

  The Japanese freighter, Awa Maru, and the story of its mistaken sinking by the USS Queenfish as portrayed in this novel are true. Stories abound regarding the treasure that was on the Awa Maru when it sank in early 1945, with the amount of treasure ranging from practically nothing up to five billion dollars. Divers from the People’s Republic of China attempted to salvage treasure from the Awa Maru in the late ‘70s, but succeeded only in recovering some personal effects of the victims, which were then returned to Japan. If they salvaged anything else, then they’re not talking.

  The tragedy of the Awa Maru with 2009 lives lost remains one of the largest losses of life at sea in history, greater than the infinitely more famous Titanic and Lusitania.

  As far as the author can determine, the incidents with the largest loss of life at sea are as follows:

  World War II records of the number of lives lost at sea are incomplete and sketchy at best. The Japanese alone lost over 1600 ships, including 20 aircraft carriers. If the truth were completely known, many other ships might replace the ships on the above list.

  The remaining story of the salvage of the Awa Maru and of the secrets on board, as well as the Han Gao, are fiction.

  The Awa Maru remains to this day in the Taiwan Strait covered with mud and awaiting the next hearty souls who will attempt to recover its treasure and uncover its secrets.

  PROLOGUE

  Murder Below

  THE CHINA COAST

  TWENTY FATHOMS DOWN

  The steel spear ripped through the water straight at Steve Hendrick.

  Hendrick caught movement out of the corner of his eye and jerked his head to one side, exhaling noisily and sending a cloud of bubbles racing to the surface. The spear raced past, missing him by less than an inch. He glanced around quickly to find his attacker. Five divers were coming straight at him a hundred feet away in the murk, using powered minisubs.

  Hendrick hooted a warning into his mouthpiece and began swimming quickly toward his diving companion who was hovering over the seabed. His brother, Frank, had caught on immediately and had his spear gun ready. He aimed and fired, the propulsive gas rapidly rising away from them. The spear went into the crowd of attacking divers causing them to scatter, then fell harmlessly to the depths below.

  Steve Hendrick could see his brother look around in panic to find some cover. Steve knew there was only one place to go, the wreck that lay below them in pieces on the sea floor. He hooted again into his mouthpiece, pointed downward, and began to race for an open hatch in what was left of the superstructure.

  The whine of the minisubs filled the water around them as the brothers swam for the remains of what they had hoped was the Awa Maru, a Japanese freighter sunk near the end of World War II with billions of dollars in treasure aboard. Instead they had found the Han Gao, a Chinese ship, which had foundered and sunk in the 1920s taking over three hundred souls with her.

  They reached the hatch and swiftly got inside amid a hail of spears from their attackers. Frank Hendrick set up inside the hatch opening, daring anyone to come through. Steve Hendrick looked around anxiously - they were safe for the moment, but they were also trapped, with their only help, their partner Joe Malik, in the salvage ship one hundred and twenty feet above them. They had only one speargun between the two of them and only two spears left. Judging by the way they’re firing at us, the enemy has ten spears apiece, thought Steve.

  A hail of spears flew through the hatch opening, causing Steve to grab his brother and pull him back. The spears hit the inside metal bulkhead with resounding cracks, emphasizing the force and deadliness of the weapons arrayed against them. Steve backpedaled, pulling his brother through a corridor, which led downward at an awkward angle into the interior of the ship. The meager light filtering down from the surface faded into a sinister gloom as they went deeper inside the wreck. They approached a porthole, only a foot above the silt outside the ship. The window sent a shaft of murky light across their path.

  Steve gave a nervous glance through the porthole, then swiftly looked at the hatch as another volley of spears banged off the bulkheads. He suddenly felt his brother’s body jerk violently. He looked him over with dread and saw the spreading darkness in the water around him. The light from the porthole lit the steel shaft protruding from Frank’s midsection. They had shot through the porthole and had hit Frank in the stomach. The wounded man spit out his mouthpiece and gurgled in agony. Steve quickly replaced his brother’s mouthpiece and desperately pulled him away from the porthole. He shoved his brother into a dark corner and lingered a moment with his brother’s suffering, Frank’s body twitching and issuing low moans that were conducted through the water with horrifying clarity.

  Steve took the speargun from him and set up in the shadows near the outside bulkhead. Seconds later, a diver cautiously swam through the hatch and peered into the darkness that filled the ship. Hendrick fired, the speargun recoiling firmly against his shoulder as the gas canister drove the thin metal spear through the water.

  The spear shattered the diver’s facemask, driving through his left eye socket and into his brain. The diver put a feeble hand on the steel shaft, then fell convulsing to the bottom of the corridor. The light from the hatch played intermitte
ntly over the diver’s twitching body, slowly revealing a blood red mark on the diver’s wet suit. Hendrick stared at the crimson, dripping lines, the Japanese characters searing itself into his mind.

  Who are they? Why do they want to kill us?

  He had a quick thought that they were trying to protect what they thought was the Awa Maru and the supposed billions within. The joke’s on them, he thought grimly. Hendrick forced his mind back to their desperate situation and swam to his injured brother, pushing him deeper into the ship. One spear left, he thought grimly.

  He shoved his brother around a corner that came up from deep water at a strange angle, then quietly waited for them to come. Moments later the corridor was lit abruptly by a bright light. Hendrick waited until he could hear their exhaust bubbles, then rolled around the corner. He lined the gun up on a dark form and pulled the trigger. The spear slammed into the shoulder of one of the divers, penetrating completely through his body and exiting out his back under his shoulder blade. Hendrick could hear him groan in pain.

  The other three divers opened fire. Hendrick twisted to avoid the volley. One spear hit his tank and fell harmlessly away. Another grazed his leg, slicing his wet suit and shredding the skin underneath, and the third put a deep gash in his right arm, sending a spray of red into the water around him. Hendrick gave a powerful scissors kick and got around the corner next to his brother.

  Hendrick shoved him deeper into the interior of the ship to clear the area. He pulled his knife out of his ankle scabbard and turned to face his attackers in a desperate last stand. He waited for a moment, anticipating when they would come around the corner, then charged around the edge of the bulkhead as he saw their light increase in intensity. He met them going full speed, his knife out in front immediately sinking into a diver’s wet suit. A second later, the knife blade drove past the rubber skin and into flesh, the water filling with shadows as the diver’s life spilled into the sea.

  He grappled with another diver, trying to keep the diver between him and the third man so his enemy couldn’t use his speargun. He heard someone behind him and shoved his assailant away to protect his brother. He immediately noticed that Frank’s mouthpiece floated uselessly in front of him, leaking bubbles in a steady stream. A cloud of dark water flowed around his neck. Frank was dead. His throat had been cut by the diver who now raced toward him.

  Hendrick and his brother’s murderer slammed together in a fury, each swinging their knives at the other. They grappled, Hendrick driven by revenge, and his enemy driven by murderous intent. Hendrick briefly got his knife hand free and slashed the diver across the side of his face sending a thin spray of red into the water. His enemy ignored the wound and fought on, grabbing Hendrick’s knife hand once again.

  The struggle with the diver went on as the light bounced up and down over the bulkheads, now and then splashing over them revealing contorted faces intent upon murder. Hendrick grabbed the diver by the throat and tried to get his knife hand around to attack him. The light from the other diver swayed and wandered over the diver’s face, only inches from Hendrick’s, revealing strings of flesh stretched tight. The Oriental eyes were dead of all emotion except rage.

  Then the sharks came.

  They came down the pitch-black corridor, their tails slapping against the bulkheads in their haste to attack their prey. Hendrick and his attackers heard the noise but couldn’t guess the origin. The battleground suddenly turned into twisting, arching bodies, the water swiftly going black in spite of the powerful lights on the divers’ bodies. The lights wavered and flickered about panic-stricken, shedding light dimly through the red mist, illuminating the empty bulkhead one second and the pile of men and shark bodies the next. The crimson water blended with the blood red lines on the diver’s suits until the characters were indistinguishable in the stained sea.

  The light in its final moment caught a soulless eye above multiple rows of razor sharp teeth, then went out, plunging the underwater hell into total darkness. The divers died one by one, their screams distorted by the sea into sickening gurgles. Hendrick retreated until he had his back against the bulkhead. The water moved around him, the pressure coming at him in waves as the bodies in the space gave out their final death throes.

  Hendrick felt a huge presence near him. Wiggling, twitching, writhing.

  Eating.

  CHAPTER 1

  Pirates

  TAIWAN STRAIT

  FIVE YEARS LATER

  Steve Hendrick peered down the gun barrel of his AK47, lining up the sights on the rapidly approaching boat. His salvage vessel already had numerous bullet holes put there a week ago by the very same people who were now charging toward him.

  Hendrick took a quick look around and noted the position of each of the crew. They were all behind cover, and behind automatic weapons as well. He swept the sky with his eyes and noted that, except for an advancing bank of storm clouds from the west, the sky was clear of everything, including their air cover that was supposed to protect them from the swarming hordes of pirates that were about to attack them.

  From time to time they had gotten a glimpse of their enemies, their copper colored skin glistening in the strong tropical sunlight. Their clothes were a mixture of green and brown fatigues, sweatshirts and multicolored pants with almost all their heads covered with brightly colored, intricately woven bandanas. They were Indonesians, Filipinos, Chinese, with an occasional Vietnamese thrown in. Almost all had high cheekbones, hard eyes, and thin, untrimmed mustaches. Some were normal looking. Dress them up in three piece suits and drop them in a bank and no one would give them a second look. Others were filthy, scurvy looking men with ripped clothes, unshaven faces and rotten teeth. Major cleaning and plastic surgery would have to be performed to pass them off as bankers, or even as human beings.

  These weren’t the unsophisticated pirates of two hundred years ago. They had gone high tech and had some of the latest weapons available. They were totally amoral and killed at the slightest provocation. They had been known to hang their prisoners by their feet and burn them alive, then eat their ears as a final act of barbarism.

  Warnings from the International Maritime Bureau, which monitors pirate attacks worldwide, are issued to local law enforcement authorities when an attack report is received. Regional response to pirate attacks varied greatly from excellent response in the Malacca Straits to less than adequate in the Java Sea, South China Sea, and the Taiwan Strait.

  Hendrick could now see that there were three boats heading toward them. The pirates only had two boats the week before. They had brought up some reinforcements. During the night, they had hidden behind Niushan Dao, the island about eleven miles to the northwest. The island had shielded them from his boat’s radar and resulted in less warning time prior to their attack. Hendrick’s partner, Joe Malik slid up to him and gave the advancing boats a worried look.

  “What the hell good is the Chinese Navy if they’re never around when these guys show up?” asked Malik.

  “Yeah,” grunted Hendrick. He questioned Malik with his eyes.

  “The captain has been making the call ever since we spotted them,” answered Malik. They heard their boat’s engines increase in speed and their exhaust noise grow in volume. The stodgy salvage craft would try to maneuver, but the swift pirate boats would run circles around it.

  The salvage craft was one hundred feet long with a large superstructure rising high above the main deck. The superstructure included the ship’s cabin with the bridge above it and the flying bridge above that. The ship had a flat aft deck with a deck crane used for the salvage equipment and a small housing used to shelter the diving and other recovery equipment. Narrow decks, bounded on one side by the gunwales and on the other side by the superstructure itself, ran on either side of the boat from the aft deck to the smaller foredeck on the bow of the vessel. Hendrick and Malik huddled on the starboard side just aft of the foredeck.

  The first boat came straight at them and ran by close to port. The salvage cr
ew opened up almost as one and sent a hail of lead toward the attacking boat. The pirates responded in kind and pounded the port side with gunfire. In a flash they were by the salvage vessel and sliding over the surface of the water to make a quick turn to run by them again.

  The second boat flew by on the starboard side, causing Hendrick and Malik to scramble for cover. Hendrick emptied half a clip into the second boat, then ducked behind the starboard gunwale. He checked his crew’s status with a feverish glance and saw one man lying still on the bridge wing above him, a red stain down the front of his white shirt. One other man was holding his shattered arm, which was also running red with new blood. The bridge windows had so many holes in it that it was impossible to see through the cracked and delaminated plastic.

  Another of the crew had been on the flying bridge atop the ship’s superstructure and was now struggling to get down from his perch as quickly as possible. He was swiftly descending a ladder on the starboard side forward of the bridge with his legs and arms flying in panic stricken movement. As Hendrick watched, the man’s foot slipped off a ladder rung slick with sea mist and became wedged between the ladder and the side of the ship. The man slipped further down the ladder and began to dangle by his trapped leg. Hendrick whirled around and glanced at the rapidly approaching pirate boat. The pirate gunners were getting ready to open fire on his ship and the unfortunate man stuck in the ladder.

  “Joe, you’ve got to keep their heads down!” shouted Hendrick and gestured quickly toward the pirates.

  Malik looked at him as if he were crazy. Hendrick grabbed his arm and pointed at the man desperately trying to free himself from the ladder.