The pilots. David unbuckled his seat belt, made his way forward and knocked on the metal door separating the passengers from crew. He waited a few seconds, the moments weighing heavily on him, then knocked again, harder. Then he pounded, slamming his fists against the unyielding metal.

"Stop."

David said the word out loud to make it very clear to himself. He did as he ordered himself. He slowly turned, went to the nearest person and checked his pulse. Still breathing, albeit very slowly. He nodded. It made sense. They would be killed when the plane crashed. On the very slim chance that a body was recovered, cause of death would be crash trauma. A smart plan.

There was no retirement. There was only oblivion. He had suspected as much. In fact, he now realized he'd known this was coming. It was the logical solution. Everyone on this plane was a loose end. And the Organization had never tolerated loose ends. Something else also struck him with startling clarity. There was no way the Organization was going to put this many of its members together and allow them to swap their stories, even it was on some remote island in the far Pacific. Pieces could be put together that were never meant to be put together.

David slowly made his way down the passenger compartment, searching for a tool to use to try to breach the door to the pilot's compartment. Since 9/11, planes had been hardened to make getting into that compartment nearly impossible. He held on to the word "nearly" – there was always a way around things.

CHAPTER 11

"It was just five months after the American disaster at Pearl Harbor," Abayon said. He and Fatima were near the top of Hono Mountain, in the same place where Abayon had watched the failed American raid to rescue the hostages just days before.

"Smoke was still rising from some of the ships sunk in Pearl Harbor, and oil has been leaking out of some of the hulks to this very day.

"The Rising Sun of Japan seemed to be spreading without check throughout the western Pacific Rim. At least, so it appeared to all of us back then. The day after the assault on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese launched attacks on the Philippines in preparation for invasion. Despite having had over fourteen hours of warning about what had happened at Pearl Harbor, the great Douglas MacArthur, the overall commander here in the Philippines, did not have his forces on alert, and most of his planes were destroyed on the ground, lined up at the airfields around the islands.

"It got worse. On the tenth of December, 1941, the pride of the British Pacific fleet, the battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse, were sunk by Japanese torpedo planes. It was a stunning defeat for the British, who had always looked down on the Japanese as an inferior race and not a foe worthy of serious consideration. That loss would soon be followed by another even more devastating blow.

"Singapore was considered by the British to be their Gibraltar in the Far East. Unfortunately for the British, and fortunately for the inferior Japanese, most of the defenses were oriented toward the ocean, where the British naturally assumed the attack would come. They were shocked when the Japanese landed on the Malay peninsula and fought through swamp and jungle toward the city. Despite being outnumbered by the British almost two to one, the Japanese rapidly advanced. They were under the command of General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who, as you know, would later be in command of the occupation of the Philippines."

Abayon was looking out to sea. The lights of a few anchored fishing vessels were visible, but otherwise there was no sign of man. He continued his story.

"The Japanese advance was swift and brutal. No prisoners were taken. Wounded men were executed. Locals who assisted the British were also killed. On February the eighth, 1942, the Japanese captured Singapore, taking over 100,000 Allied troops prisoner. A tenth of those would later die building the Burma-Thailand railway, much as many of those captured here died.

"The beginning of 1942 was a dark time for the Allies in the Pacific. The Japanese seemed invincible. Hong Kong had fallen. Darwin was bombed. China, Burma, Borneo – the list of places the Japanese were advancing through was almost endless. And with those advancing troops came the Kempetai, the secret police, and within the Kempetai an even more secret unit that began the systematic looting of the conquered lands."

"Golden Lily," Fatima said.

"Yes," Abayon said.

"We will get back to that. But let me continue so you understand as much of the big picture as I do. In the United States, morale was at an all-time low. President Roosevelt ordered his Joint Chiefs of Staff to come up with something to hit back at the Japanese homeland. It was a daunting proposition, given the vast width of the Pacific Ocean. The plan that was developed was daring: launch medium bombers off an aircraft carrier.

"Sixteen B-25 Mitchell bombers were loaded on board the USS Hornet. The crews of the bombers, despite having spent weeks practicing short takeoffs, did not know their target or mission as they boarded the carrier. The Americans used to be very good at keeping secrets, a skill they've lost to a large degree since then. The ship set sail from California and headed west.

"Also on board the ship were three men who were neither part of the flight crew or the ship's complement. They had orders signed by General Marshall himself…very strange orders that simply directed any U.S. Military officer who was shown the orders to do as the bearer instructed."

Fatima stirred as if to say something, but Abayon continued without acknowledging her.

"I am sure Colonel Doolittle, the commander of the bomber group, was none too happy to have these orders shoved in his face shortly after the fleet took sail. But Doolittle was a good officer and he would do as ordered.

"The launch was set for April nineteenth, when the Hornet would be around five hundred miles from the Japanese islands. The planes would fly to their targets, drop their bombs, then continue onward to land in China. That plan, as with most military plans, went out the window on the eighteenth of April when one of the escort ships was spotted by a Japanese picket boat. The Japanese boat was sunk, but it was assumed it had gotten a warning message out.

"As dawn broke on the eighteenth, the public address system on the Hornet called the Army pilots to man their planes. For the first time since boarding the ship, the three men who had been snuck aboard in California during darkness came up onto the deck. They made their way to aircraft number sixteen, named Bat Out of Hell by its crew. Unlike the other fifteen bombers, this plane, as ordered by the man who carried the letter from Marshall, carried no bombs. Instead, the three men climbed into the bomb bay, where their equipment awaited them – parachutes, weapons, grenades, a wireless, and other equipment indicating they were going somewhere to do something dangerous."

Abayon was on a roll, telling the story almost as if he had experienced it firsthand, which surprised Fatima.

"The lead plane, piloted by Doolittle, lifted off the deck of the Hornet at 0820. The other planes followed as quickly as they could be moved into position. An hour after Doolittle had taken off, Bat Out of Hell roared down the wooden deck and into the sky. As soon as it was clear, the Hornet began a wide sweeping turn to head back east.

"Inside the last plane, the man with the letter made his way to the cockpit. The plane's original target was supposed to have been Kobe. The man's orders, backed up by his letter, changed that. Bat Out of Hell headed on an azimuth to make landfall just north of Tokyo.