War of the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page B

velocity. But they did not hit the city itself. Instead, the salvo impacted directly on the 200-foot tower housing Canal Control. The top of the needlelike structure was instantaneously smashed to dust and fire. In a matter of two seconds, the rest of the tower collapsed, leaving nothing more than a gigantic rubble-filled smoking crater.
    No sooner had the reverberation of the massive cannon shots dissipated when an alarm sounded from the control bunker on the far shore. Within seconds, the lock’s great gates began to swing open.
    Two minutes later, the New Jersey was once again on its way to the Pacific.

Five
    Tokyo
    T HE PALACE HAD THREE spires.
    In each of these towers were three antiaircraft guns, each manned by a crew of three. Three flags flew atop each tower. Each flag contained the symbol of three red balls.
    It was just midnight, yet the palace and its vast grounds were lit up almost as if it were daytime. There was a cacophony of sounds emanating from the flying-saucer-shaped main building. Loud music was blaring out of large speakers which seemed to be set up everywhere. Shrieks of laughter, drunkenness, and lust were falling in rhythm with the music’s pounding beat. Multicolored fireworks were being set off overhead. Larger explosions could be heard in the distance.
    Inside the main hall of the palace, the orgy was in full swing. The guests this evening were the top commanders of the Home Island’s Air Defense units. There were nine of them in all, representing eighteen air squadrons. Each in turn had been allowed to bring two guests; most had invited their two top staff officers.
    Each man now sat at the long low table which dominated the center of the great hall. Before him was a large jug of sake, a soupbowl full of cocaine, and a basket containing a pipe, some matches, and an ice-cube-sized piece of hashish. There were also dozens of small wooden barrels containing live fish, crabs, and squid.
    Every guest also had access to three females, each one with long black hair cut to the exact same length. Many of these were girls still in their teens. They were all naked, and many were bound by the hands and feet with silk ropes. Each had been injected with a long-lasting barbiturate which would render her accessible, yet virtually defenseless.
    The protocol of the party was lust fulfillment, the more decadent, the better. As all the guests had already ingested great quantities of liquor and drugs, they were trying to outdo one another as to who could come up with the most depraved act. Many of them had taken to eating their food off a girl’s naked body, some while having sex with another girl. Others had forced two or three girls to have sex with each other, choosing only to sit back and watch. Still others were mercilessly whipping their procured partners, some to the point of death. While this was going on, just about all the men were eating squirming live fish from the small wooden barrels.
    All in all, it was a typical night inside Hashi Pushi’s three-tiered palace.
    Yet the man who lay claim to all this madness was nowhere in sight. He was, in fact, in another part of the palace, in a grotto deep below the palace’s inner wall.
    Inside this place, it was cool and dark. The only light was a strange red glow emanating from the deep waters of the grotto’s pool. This red light cast eerie shadows on the dark stone walls of the place. The scent of incense filled the damp air.
    Hashi Pushi sat by the pool, staring into its bloodlike water. He was a grotesquely overweight man of undetermined middle age; his only garment was a long white robe. His fat face was partially covered with an unkempt, scraggly beard and a long, greasy mustache. His lips and nose were stained with the remains of his last few meals. His teeth were rotten, his ears perpetually infected. He hadn’t bathed in weeks.
    He was then, at that moment, a contented man.
    Earlier in the evening he had commanded his personal physician to concoct