Jones didn’t insult her with any platitudes about trying harder. He knew her well. She’d give it everything she had.

Francois just hoped it would be enough.

Chapter 14

14

HIJMS YAMATO, 0146 HOURS, 3 JUNE 1942

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was incandescent with rage. A lesser man might have howled like a dog and hammered at the bare bulkhead until his fists were mashed into a bloody pulp. He had not wanted this war! He had not wanted the glorious baubles and empty honors that had poured on his head after the victory at Pearl Harbor. He had not wanted them, because he suspected they would lead to utter ruin.

The United States of America was a colossus that he had little chance of besting in a fair fight. He knew in his heart that the only hope was one decisive engagement, the Kessen Kantai, which would leave the Americans so stunned, naked, and bleeding that they would have to sue for peace.

But it was a tremendous gamble. The life of a nation bet on the turn of a card. And now this oaf, this fool, this butcher’s bastard son Kakuta had lost his mind and upturned the entire card table.

He examined the lengthy radio transcript. The radio! He cursed volubly and at great length. Eavesdroppers be damned! How many times had he stressed the importance of maintaining absolute radio silence, lest the Americans unravel his plot before it ensnared them. His thick, calloused hands, the left one missing two fingers, were shaking with fury as he reread the message.

Kakuta had turned the entire Second Carrier Striking Force around and was heading back toward the Home Islands. Admiral Hosogaya’s Northern Force was following, in great confusion. Kakuta was demanding—demanding!—that Yamamoto order his own Main Force and Nagumo’s First Carrier Striking Force to turn tail and make for Hashirajima with all dispatch. And he was flying—flying!—back to the battleship Yamato to personally brief the commander of the Combined Fleet on some supposedly momentous development that had necessitated all of this.

The only momentous development Yamamoto could see in Admiral Kakuta’s future was his inescapable beheading when they fished him from the sea beside the Yamato. Or had he forgotten, in his derangement, that the Yamato was a battleship, not an aircraft carrier.