My Kind of Town
>> Arizona Memorial The Honolulu Soap Co.:
Sunday digestMuhammed Resurreccion's plan was simple. Wait until boat No. 13 reached the Memorial, which he could see clearly from behind a monkeypod tree outside the Visitor Center. Then he would hail a cab. That would give Elizabeth, Rosalita and Wilhemina time to lay the bouquet in front of the marble wall that named the USS Arizona's dead.
Not until he was in the taxi would he unlock the safety on what appeared to be a normal radio-control car door locking device and push the button that would initiate the second attack on Pearl Harbor.
Commander Chuck Ryan had been in the spy biz longer than Muhammed. The Navy intelligence officer waited just outside the security checkglancing at his watch.
After a couple of minutes, he had a reason to pull on his cell phone's hands-free set and buzz Lt. Martin Luther Washington, who was aboard the boat -- and to walk out toward the water behind Muhammed. The boat was just pulling out of the dock when Muhammed tensed. Beyond, Ryan could see a woman stand up waving a bouquet of flowers. Muhammed reached in his trouser pocket.
>> Make it look normal, Ryan had told him. Don't do anything to set off Muhammed. Literally. So the moment his gal Sandy jumped up with the flowers and started to cock her arm, Marty was trying to shield her from where he knew Muhammed watched.
Sandy tripped, stumbled, dropped the bouquet.
Marty picked the bouquet out of the air and threw it as hard and far as he could away from the boat.
As the flowers flew through the air, half the passengers leaned forward to see what the fuss was all about, half leaned away apprehensively. The exception was 6-year-old Elizabeth Resurreccion, who had been so honored that her Uncle Muhammed asked her to lay the bouquet at the Memorial and was now running to the rail crying for her flowers.
Marty sensed what was coming and spun around, his back to the coming blast. He saw the girl in his path, gathered her into his arms, shouted "Down!" and fell to the deck cradling the child as the sound of Armageddon rang once again across the peaceful waters of Pearl Harbor.
The blasting mechanism in the TATP plastique explosive in the flowers was designed to blow downward through the floor of the Memorial, and so it blew a hole the size of a small shopping center in the water, showering everyone aboard with flying seawater. But the hull held, and the worst injuries were cuts, bruises, a broken wrist and a few conked heads caused by the rocking of the boat.
>> Out on the lawn, Muhammed was transfixed by the blast, which did not seem enough to bring the boat down. He couldn't tell through all the smoke and sea spray, but hopefully there would be casualties. In any event he had made his statement for the Muslims of Mindanao. His goal of sinking the Arizona Memorial had not been realized, but Pearl Harbor had once again been attacked. America was on notice. He turned to catch a cab and came face to face with Commander Chuck Ryan's Sig Sauer P228.
>> Three video cameras caught the explosion that lifted boat No. 13 out of the water. Two were on the boat, one was on the lawn outside the Visitor Center. One of Honolulu's four TV stations would lose out on the biggest story since Dec. 7, 1941.
The camera out on the lawn -- operated by Elmar Oliveras, a retiree who was shooting for his class project at 'Olelo -- also captured a tall haole, graying at the temples, out by the water's edge putting a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol to the temple of a well-dressed Filipino, forcing him to the ground, cuffing his hands behind his back.
Elmar zoomed in on the man lying on the ground. He looked directly into the camera and said "America, this is from the people of Mindanao -- give us our independence or the attacks will continue."
"Shut up, Muhammed," Graying-at-the-temples said."And you, with the camera, point it somewhere else."
Ryan turned to watch boat No. 13 dock, looking for signs of his partner. Above the sirens, Ryan could hear the pandemonium aboard the boat -- people crying, sobbing, moaning, a woman shouting "Oh my God, he's having a heart attack!"
>> Sirens wailing, vans of MPs unloaded out. Within seconds Muhammed Resurreccion was in leg shackles and being escorted to one of the vans, which would take him to the Pearl Harbor brig. There, under intense questioning, he would share the secrets of how Infitada Inc. finances and promotes international terror.
Muhammed sang to save his butt, prompted entirely by the damning statements of his driver Wilhemina, the woman Ryan and Marty called Sandy. Thanks also to Sandy, her cousin Rey Orlando was arrested. A search of his home revealed TATP plastique explosives.
Muhammed's attack had caused one death -- an elderly visitor suffered a heart attack. All in all, Ryan knew, things could have turned out a lot worse. He also knew there would be a next time. There always is for the enemies of America.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com