The Hawaiian Intervention

By Kelvin White

Spencer Marlowe's adventures continue in The Hawaiian Intervention when he time-travels back to Hawaii 1941. Life becomes interesting when Spencer investigates a local crime boss, becomes embroiled in a covert FBI operation, and uncovers plans for a Japanese invasion that could change the history of World War II.

 

Fan

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelvin White
• Release date: Sep 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9780648910947

Book preview

9780648910947.jpg

By the same author

Spencer Marlowe series:

Spencer’s War: The First Journey

Co-author of:

Oh How We Rocked

The Hawaiian Intervention

Kelvin White

Copyright © 2021 Kelvin White

First published in Australia in 2021

by Kelvin White

[e-mail]

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

Printed by:

IngramSpark

https://www.ingramspark.com/

(PB) ISBN: 978-0-6489109-3-0

(EB) ISBN: 978-0-6489109-4-7

Interior design by: Red Room Editing

Cover design by: Red Room Editing

This book is dedicated to Jenny, my extraordinarily patient wife, who has painstakingly spent countless hours supporting me in this project.

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

CHAPTER FIFTY

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

MANHATTAN STING

CHAPTER ONE

I see before me the gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand – his manly brow

Consents to death, but conquers agony…

Lord Byron, The Gladiator, from the Childe Harolde cantos (1820)

PROLOGUE

The two adversaries warily circled each other, looking for an opening, an opportunity to inflict a disabling or fatal blow. There was no verbal interaction, just intense concentration, each combatant acutely aware his opponent was a skilled practitioner capable of delivering that lightning-strike blow that could instantly end a life.

A sudden foot sweep put the older man down. With a grunt he bounded to his feet and administered a front roundhouse kick, catching the younger man by surprise. The younger man grinned, apparently unaffected, and then displaying extraordinary agility, he immediately connected with a front kick. Doubling over in pain, the older man stepped backwards holding a hand to his stomach, gasping for breath.

The room the warriors faced each other in was cavernous, with a floor of wide polished teak boards, aged by time, and white-washed plaster walls that soared to meet a ceiling of carved timber beams. Along one side, ceiling-to-floor windows (made from the same aged teak as the floorboards) opened onto a courtyard garden, the ripples in the old glass panes distorting the view of the grounds and the distant snow-capped Mount Fuji.

The older man grunted as he hit the floor yet again. He rolled and leapt to his feet. His breath came in short, sharp bursts as he again confronted his adversary. Their duel continued. Slowly, the younger man’s resilience and his ability to draw on untapped reserves became more evident. The older man was now breathing heavily, favouring one leg. It was a struggle to remain upright.

The contrast between the two men couldn’t have been starker. The younger man was tall, with Mediterranean good looks, whereas the older man was of indeterminate age and of slight build, lean and muscled, with weathered skin, and the agility of a black-necked crane. It was clear by the younger man’s intense concentration that even at this stage, his opponent was still a lethal force.

Suddenly the young man moved and his opponent was on the floor.

‘Hai!’ he yelled, raising his fist to inflict the death blow. Both knew this was the end of a contest that had lasted more than an hour.

The man drew back his fist.

The older man smiled. ‘Spencer-kun, you now have the skills to move on to the final stage. Tomorrow morning you will rise at four o’clock and you will begin to learn what few know. You will learn how to focus your inner strength; the power of your mind. When properly focussed, you will be able to achieve extraordinary feats of strength and control. Tomorrow you will learn, Kokoro.’

CHAPTER ONE

Kokoro: the Power of the Mind Unleashed

Spencer Marlowe handed his passport and travel documents to the Japan Airlines attendant. She was momentarily taken aback when he queried the departure time in Japanese.

‘Yes sir, your flight is on time. The business class lounge is––’

‘Thank you, I know it well.’

He smiled and she blushed, realising she’d been staring at the tall, handsome gaijin.

Spencer descended the escalator into the Sakura business-class lounge. He breathed a sigh of relief as he loosened his tie and glanced at his gold and stainless-steel Rolex. He had just enough time for an espresso and a quick bite. He headed to a cafe and ordered dorayaki, the Japanese pancake stuffed with anko, the fragrant bean paste that was his favourite snack.

Returning to the business lounge, he settled back with his coffee and gazed around at the ultra-modern and rather bland lounge, with its blonde timber furniture and its sweeping views of the busy runway.

His ability to speak Japanese and his understanding of Japanese culture meant he was frequently in Japan on business. He was now a partner in the Perth company Dynamic Marketing, and the business trips to Japan enabled him to take time out to visit his old sensei, Katashi. Spencer took another sip of his coffee. Katashi had been teaching him since his early teens. Spencer smiled at the memory of their first meeting. He’d been a thirteen-year-old accompanying his father, a newcomer to Japan and feeling out of place. His father had dragged him to the dojo. Trust me son, he’d said. This will be the making of you.

The discipline, meditation techniques, and inherent spirituality Spencer had absorbed through Katashi’s tough, but patient training, had transformed him from the directionless teenager he’d been all those years ago, into a man of extraordinary strengths, with the ability to face challenges, physical and mental, with calmness and precision. The bond between them now was as strong and meaningful as the bond between father and son.

He’d been working in Japan now for months and was looking forward to meeting up with the love of his life, Michiyo, in Singapore. God, how he’d missed her.

They’d met a little over two years ago, when he’d been in Japan on one of his business trips. Their immediate and overwhelming attraction had culminated in Michiyo applying for a visa, moving to Western Australia, and moving into Spencer’s rambling Mediterranean-style home in City Beach, a suburb of Perth. There was a tinge of sadness when he reflected that his father had died before Spencer had met Michiyo. You would have adored her, old man.

Spencer recalled the Latin phrase often quoted by his late father, a professor who’d specialised in dead languages: hominus est in domun suam arce (a man’s home is his castle).

Spencer remembered fondly the cold winter nights in their old, cramped, suburban bungalow where his father had endeavoured to instil in him a love of literature and language. It’d been so different from the spacious dwelling he and Michiyo now enjoyed.

Their home was a cross between Australian modern, traditional Mediterranean and a blend of Spanish, with its red terracotta roof and dark-coloured brick, and with natural stone detail around the broad windows and arches. It now included an eclectic blend of Japanese and European influence, a home both of them loved.

As a tribute to his late father, Spencer had commissioned a wrought iron relief with the words, Patria est, ubi cor est (Home is where the heart is). This message greeted visitors as they approached the front doors of the house.

He thought again of Michiyo. The two years she’d been living with him in Australia had been a time of learning and growth. She was intelligent, ambitious, with a mischievous sense of humour. The hard-nosed Japanese businessmen she dealt with in the Perth office of the Matsu Corporation quickly discovered Michiyo was no pushover.

This was the longest time they’d been apart since Michiyo had moved to Australia.

Their plan was to meet in Singapore and fly to Hawaii and the famed Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki. They’d organised an intimate celebrant wedding on a secluded Hawaiian beach, to be followed by a long, relaxed honeymoon afterwards.

Spencer reflected on this latest trip to Japan. It was the first since he’d been cast back in time to the early 1940s and found himself embroiled in the Second World War.

He’d given up hope of returning to his century, and to Michiyo, when he’d woken one morning to find himself back in his City Beach home. He’d been away for years but incredibly, he found he’d been gone only one night in his own time.

Michiyo had never been able to get her head around his story. As a consequence, it had become a source of tension between them, one they never talked about. At times, this left Spencer questioning his sanity, believing it was impossible to tell his story to doctors or psychiatrists.

A computerised voice interrupted his thoughts. Speaking first in Japanese, then in English, it announced his flight was boarding.

Twenty minutes later he gazed down at the glittering lights of the sprawling city of Tokyo lying thousands of feet below. A smiling attendant offered him a flute of French champagne. Spencer thanked her in Japanese and settled back into his seat. The flight to Singapore was a six-hour trip.

His body was still sore from his brutal Kokoro training, and Katashi’s kick to his midriff had hurt more than he cared to admit. It’s been a month now and I’m still sore, but for an old guy you’re still a bloody lethal weapon.

Spencer opened his book, a novel written in Japanese and in his favourite genre, a fast-paced action thriller about the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza. Feeling restless he soon put the book down and flicked through the in-flight entertainment before checking out the rest of the cabin. The business-class section had the expected complement of smartly attired executives. There was also a young couple who were having a great deal of difficulty keeping their fondling within legal limits.

On the other side of his aisle, a young man with headphones frenetically beat time with his hands, to a thankfully silent, probably heavy metal band. His heavily tattooed arms and expensive designer, hardcore street-cred-attire, suggested he could be a rock star en-route to his next gig. Spencer smiled to himself. Tattooed man might well be famous, but he wouldn’t know who he was.

After being drawn into the maelstrom of the wartime years of the 1940s, Spencer had become involved in operation Do Not Answer, code-named DNA, a perilous mission into Japanese-occupied Singapore. When he returned to his own time, he’d discovered the big band music of that era. As a consequence, contemporary music no longer appealed to him. Louis Armstrong’s cornet and Benny Goodman’s clarinet moved him more than the electric guitars and synthesised music of his own time.

He wondered what exactly had sparked his interest in the music of the last century. Was it perhaps the same hand of fate that had chosen him for his time travel jaunt? As always when he started to dwell on his experiences, his mind travelled in circles.

He ultimately arrived at the same conclusion. There was nobody he could discuss it with. Michiyo, he suspected, had long reached the end of her tether regarding his ‘episodes’ as she labelled them. Exhausted from the past week and Katashi’s exhausting training, Spencer drifted into a restless slumber. Dark disturbing images flitted through his subconscious, violent and bloody. He woke with a start.

‘Excuse me sir,’ said the flight attendant as she offered him a menu.

Since his time travel episodes, awakening suddenly from deep sleep was often a frightening experience. Always at the back of his mind he wondered––could it happen again?

CHAPTER TWO

Reflection

Spencer gratefully accepted the fragrant buri daikon , a simmered dish of wild yellowtail cooked with daikon radish, and matched with a glass of South African, Boschendale chardonnay.

But his mind strayed again to the past, the war, and the people he’d known. He remembered the volatile and psychopathic Albert Lambert, fearless to the point of lunacy, who’d possessed a deep and abiding hatred for the Japanese. Albert’s brother George had died in Changi prison at the hands of his guards. As far as Albert was concerned the entire Japanese race were accountable. Then there was Don Bidstrup, ruthless and mysterious. Bidstrup had overseen operation DNA.

Spencer’s thoughts slipped to the time he’d briefly been incarcerated in the brig at the Northam army camp. He vividly remembered the horror of seeing stencilled on the wall of his cell the words:

Wayne Kitchener

executed 18th December 1941

The reason for Kitchener’s death sentence remained a mystery to Spencer. What crime had he committed and exactly what part had Bidstrup played in the affair? There was no doubt in Spencer’s mind––Bidstrup had been instrumental in having Kitchener executed.

Spencer pulled himself out of the past. Instead, he concentrated on the previous week’s events and his intense, even brutal induction into the little-known martial arts discipline, Kokoro. Once again, he was on the mountain with Katashi who’d guided him through the labyrinth of tortuous physical and mental assaults that culminated in what amounted to a revelation. He’d struggled up a mountainside with a wicker pannier filled with rocks slung across his back. The pain had felt like red hot daggers being thrust into his muscles. The only thing that kept him going was Katashi. Once he’d passed the pain threshold, he continued on, knowing he was achieving something mystical.

He remembered thinking with a wry grin of the quote: if you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you’re probably right.

Wearing nothing but a fundoshi, he’d stood for hours under a waterfall in the mountains with the pristine water pouring over him. The feeling of tranquillity and peace as the icy water thundered down, was like nothing he’d ever experienced. Katashi’s method was a little of the carrot and stick. First the unimaginable pain of clambering up the mountain, followed by the relief of the waterfall … then the experience was repeated … again … and again.

The days he’d spent under Katashi’s watchful tutelage seemed like years. Another life within a life. The training had driven every thought and emotion from his mind, leaving a blank canvas for Katashi to imprint indelibly on Spencer’s subconscious. The opening of the mind that Katashi had relentlessly pushed and prodded him towards––until Spencer had literally and figuratively seen the light––the power of Kokoro.

Spencer contemplated the extraordinary power the mind was capable of developing and then bringing to bear. The physical strength of the Kokoro philosophy that had been bestowed upon him would forever be a part of him.

In his final test, Katashi had handed Spencer a brick, weathered and hardened by centuries of summer heat. ‘Take it between your thumb and four fingers and crush it as you would an over-ripe fruit,’ he’d commanded.

Spencer had taken the brick, focussing the way he had learned, driving every other thought and emotion from his mind.

‘I’m holding a piece of rotten fruit; I’m holding a piece of rotten fruit,’ he’d repeated to himself. It was if his soul had left his body. It wasn’t a trance-like state, it was as if some power of the universe was transmitted to his hand. The pressure he’d applied could best be described, as an irresistible force.

Crunch! The brick, rough-cast by a long dead artisan, aged by the wind and sun of centuries past, disintegrated into a pile of dust.

Spencer and Katashi had stood in silence. Finally, Katashi had spoken, quiet and unemotional as always. ‘Spencer-kun, always use the power of Kokoro for good.’

CHAPTER THREE

Singapore

Spencer arrived at Changi Airport an hour before Michiyo’s flight from Perth was due. It was early morning in Singapore, but at Changi the all-consuming pace of business never stopped, day or night.

Seven am and it’s already going full pelt. He collected his bags and waited impatiently in arrivals. Thanks, Michiyo for organising the early check in.

Checking his watch for the umpteenth time and winding it back an hour, Spencer paced past one of the many duty-free outlets.

‘At last!’ he said, as Michiyo burst through the arrival doors and waved to him.

She threw herself into his arms. ‘I’ve missed you so much, I’ve been counting the minutes.’

Spencer held her tight, laughing. ‘Hi gorgeous. This’s going to be amazing. It’s so good to see you––you look fantastic.’

After collecting her bags, they trundled through the impressive airport. Changi was a city within a city. The rhythmic beat of the airport that never slept was invigorating. Spencer was still fascinated by the hustle and bustle of thousands of people of all nationalities, wandering around or shopping to kill time, or waiting for flights to spirit them to all corners of the globe.

With their luggage in tow, they exited the terminal, immediately the humidity hit them like a physical blow. They made for a taxi at the head of the line, an immaculate white Chrysler 300 C.

Spencer stood momentarily as if in a trance. My God, this is Singapore. What if I’m summoned back again? To confront Harada.

He really had to get over things. This was Singapore now, not in the past. Harada was dead. Good God! They were probably all dead––everyone he’d known during the war.

Michiyo grabbed him by the arm and shook him. ‘Spencer, are you ok?’ she frowned, her face showing only care, tinged with the worry of their secret. The secret neither could share with the rest of the world.

Spencer snapped out of his thoughts and with a rueful chuckle, apologised. ‘Sorry, I just had a moment of déjà vu, but I’m over it now.’

‘Really … are you sure? It never really leaves you, does it?’ Michiyo’s brow puckered. Her concern over Spencer’s dreams once again bubbling to the surface.

Spencer held her hand, squeezing it to reassure her everything was ok. Forcing himself to shut out the demons, that threatened to overwhelm him, he bent and kissed her lightly on the lips.

‘You bet I’m fine. Never been better.’ He grimaced, feeling like an old war veteran with pieces of shrapnel still lodged in his body. Only Spencer’s shrapnel were the memories of the death and destruction he’d witnessed and the way that fate could, for no apparent reason, just throw him back to another century. He shuddered.

The smiling driver had placed their bags into the boot. With a bow he opened the rear passenger door, waving a white gloved hand at the interior of the spotless vehicle.

‘Where to sir?’

Spencer turned to Michiyo and shrugged.

‘The Raffles, where else! Excuse me driver, would you take us on a scenic route. We want to see the sights. There’s no hurry.’

Michiyo hadn’t been to Singapore before. They spent the journey to the Raffles Hotel wondering at the modern metropolis Singapore had evolved into. It was not as big and bustling as Tokyo, but nevertheless it was spectacular. People flowed like rivers: the crowds had a life of their own, moving like shoals of enchanted fish. On each side of the wide boulevards, gracious buildings towered.

They drove past the spectacular Marina Bay, along the famous shopping street Orchard Road, then through the Indian section of Serangoon Road. Spencer was silent as they drove down this busy road, which he and the other saboteurs had crept down when he was involved in operation DNA. Back then it had been dark and sinister, surrounded by bombed-out ruins.

His gut wrenched as he remembered the terror that had consumed him when the Japanese truck convoy had passed and they had hidden, not knowing if the brutal enemy would discover them. He remembered the beautiful Trilby Lim, and the fear she had overcome to see the mission through. His greatest fear had been getting killed in action in a foreign land and time and never seeing Michiyo again. Perhaps this particular journey down memory lane hadn’t been such a good idea.

Beside him, Michiyo was taking in the sights. She linked her arm through his, her fears cast aside.

‘I’m sorry we’ve so little time here,’ she said.

‘We’re only five hours from Perth. We’ll come again.’

Spencer had been feeling a little uneasy about this journey back to the scene of his wartime adventure, but Michiyo’s enthusiasm dispelled his maudlin thoughts.

‘Thanks for bringing me to see it all.’ She turned to Spencer, taking his hand. ‘Are you ok darling, you look like you’ve seen a ghost?’

Spencer was reluctant to talk about his experiences. ‘I’m fine, really … Driver would you mind taking us on to the Raffles now?’

Michiyo frowned. ‘I know that I’ve difficulty understanding all you say you went through … and try as I might it just seems …’ she squeezed his hand harder, ‘I