Attack of the Koto Maru
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
CHAPTER FOUR
Susan jumped up in sheer fright as an unloading tackle hit the side of the container. Despite her groggy state, she dragged herself quickly to the opening she'd peered from earlier and took a slanted look below. The ship was not moving. In fact, it was moored solidly to strong pilings. Had she slept that soundly?
The vista beyond showed a promontory jutting out into the ocean with beautiful but tangled vegetation and lovely dark beaches. The sand ran all the way up to the raised parking lot and was drab brown, some of it black like volcanic sand. "Oh, God, what now?" she wondered with hazy focus. "It looks like morning." It was time to muster her resolve.
The work crew clambered all around her steel prison attaching various cables for off-loading and positioning via the enormous deck crane. Ranar bellowed, "That one, put it here, do it now!" His polished English struck her with mild surprise. The only plan she could think of came charging forward into desperate focus. Her mouth said quietly, "Man, I hope this works."
The crane whirred and clanked prior to hookup handily maneuvered by three hardworking men huffing and puffing and perspiring. Susan caught their heavy scent as their close proximity served to frighten her more. Someone yelled in thickly accented English.
"Okay, it is ready!"
In a moment she felt a jolt as the container's weight caused the lifting cables to hum tight. The deck crane labored hard to move the two-ton container slowly from its tie-downs to a height of about forty feet, a fact which shot a feeling of terror through Susan still observing from her only lookout point. Bad as it was, her view from the container was magnificent, showing a long coastline, a house of polished beauty and an interminable fortress-like wall jutting out from a grassy highland. The entire situation seemed unreal to a girl whose upbringing never prepared her for people of true evil. She positioned herself according to her plan and awaited with dread the opening of the container door.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
Meanwhile, the abduction of the Pentagon’s Susan Black right off the Washington beltway had complicated Lt. Mark Ingram’s problem of having to find certain atomic detonators stolen from a government repository. His "vacation" in the same island chain soon got him acquainted with Paul Stevens, an ex-Wall Street broker-now-beachcomber and Naoki Matsumoto of the Timano Island inhabitants. With the liberated Susan Black, the four prove too much for Prince Ranar’s dream of world conquest.
Residents of Tokyo awaken one morning to the biggest surprise they will ever have.
About the Author
Alan De Wolfe was raised in Corning, NY, near the beginning of World War II. After mastering Technical Illustration, he went "on the road" as a Contract Artist serving heavy industry in the U.S. and foreign countries for thirty years. A thorough memory served him well as people from all over the world recited tale after tale about the loves, lies, and conflicts in their varied international lives. His stories are fragments of their narratives glued together by the common bonds of desperation, joy, and love that make the human experience such an adventure. ATTACK OF THE KOTO MARU is his second novel with more to come.