Ghost War Read Free Page B

sharp. For though the news he was bringing was good, what mattered most of all was the mood of the man to whom he was delivering it. So as Ikebani raised his hand to knock on the wooden door of the hut, he steeled himself by saying a small prayer to whatever gods were listening, beseeching them to allow him to live to see the sunset.
    “This is really unbelievable,” Soho mumbled. He took another long drag on his hashish pipe and patted the head of the beautiful island girl who was kneeling between his legs performing the best fellatio he had ever experienced.
    “Unbelievable,” he moaned again as he raced faster and faster to a glorious climax. “Just incredible …”
    But suddenly a sharp knocking on the door shattered his impending moment of bliss. His euphoria quickly disappeared. The island girl slowly raised her face up to Soho; it showed nothing but fear at what she thought was her failure to please her master.
    He lightly stroked her cheek. “Don’t worry, little one,” Soho said benignly. “There will be another time for you.”
    She smiled, gathered up her grass skirt, and hurriedly tiptoed out of the room—before he could change his mind.
    Soho leaned back and took another long drag on his pipe, causing the rock-sized chunk of hashish to glow brightly in the darkened room. Once again, he became lost in thought, pondering the events that had brought him to this moment in time. They seemed so far away and so long ago.
    Okinawa, where he was stationed, was under heavy attack by the United Americans. He was a pilot of a Sukki Me-262 jet, and like everyone else on the island fortress, he was ready to die to protect the Supreme Commander of the Asian Mercenary Cult, the beautiful young woman with red hair named Aja. At the height of the battle, he was summoned to Shuri Castle to appear before her in her private quarters. Fully prepared to receive his suicide mission orders, she instead ordered Soho to drop his pants. Then this great woman commanded him to enter her. An ever faithful and obedient soldier, Soho obeyed immediately.
    When he was done, she ordered him to fly to Island Facility Number Two. Then, to his utter astonishment, she plunged a sharp knife into her stomach, killing herself in the most horrible, ritualistic way.
    He was in his jet within minutes, streaking through a hail of deadly gunfire thrown up at him from the ground and from the American aircraft carrier floating offshore. He eventually made it here, as ordered, to Military Manufacturing Facility Number Two, which wasn’t a manufacturing facility at all. Rather, it was the tropical paradise of Fiji, a place devoid of the thick dense industrial smog that covered Okinawa; a place with very little military activity.
    But it was here where things began to get really strange for him.
    Upon his arrival, he was immediately treated by the island’s top Cult military brass as their Supreme Commander. His jet, the Me-262, was painted a sickly pink and mounted on stilts at the edge of the cliff overlooking the main beach. It was covered with fresh flower petals and multicolored blossoms. Six smoking urns were placed around it, their firepots constantly billowing cinnamon incense that mingled with the smoke from the five hundred candles that also surrounded the jet and which burned twenty-four hours a day.
    But that was not all.
    Hundreds of beautiful island women were instantly put at his disposal to do with as he pleased. Alcohol flowed like water; the drugs, the best in Asia, were plentiful. Incredible feasts of wild game, fruits, and vegetables were brought to him whenever he wanted. He lived like a king—in fact, he was their king. But despite the royal treatment and their attendant pleasures, many things still troubled him.
    One was the disturbing memory of Aja, who, right before she killed herself, seemed to transform from a bloodthirsty leader into a young innocent girl. From the moment he had landed on this island—an island where his