Hardlandings part one

Prelude and Dateline: 2010- Valetta, Malta

“The next time al Qaeda strikes, we intend to use technical intelligence. Not fanatics”, laughs the Maltese to his new financial and logistics prospect. 

“In 2001, a dozen equipped vans could have altered the IFR approach patterns in a dozen American cities. We could have created their domestic holocaust and slipped away into the night” Both the ILS and MLS landing systems were not ‘hardened’.

I had an entire electronics laboratory and training campus in place, training in Upstate New York, and assembling the signal capture and ILS beam landing beam modifiers. We had actually assembled an MLS shadow array. Our systems could duplicate any end of runway scenario, and send an airliner crashing into high rise towers, five hundred feet high and two miles away.”



Holding court on mass murder animates Bennie. In his rise to the inner circles, he has had to contend with the eager but technically illiterate audiences that he could safely plan with. Bennie has masked his frustration at suppressing a story that would have targeted him for assassination.

.  “The Disruptors of Destiny we called ourselves.  We were within months, only months, waiting for the winter fog and snow blizzards to produce zero /zero landing conditions from Montreal to San Francisco. Then- the when the fanatics with box knives went in.

We won’t make that mistake again. It cost me a fortune in private couriers evacuating to Quebec. No I can’t move a container into the United States without full scan.”

Benjamin Matau the third laughs, at ease with his world. The hotel room buzzer sounds and he stops his dialogue. Tea, coffee, and a breakfast tray have arrived.  He offers the tray to his guest, Keichi Nisame, who has traveled across Eurasia to join forces in the next attack on America.

“First, we want to know what draws you to us. Take your time, Keichi. ``

My story`s very long`, and spans five generations. Where do I begin…``

``Where ever you want to. It’s taken a year to arrange this meeting .I am in no great hurry``



``My Grandfather’s ‘letters to family are really are all that I have- no pictures, no medals...

MY father was five years old when Okinawa fell and the terrible events blocked his memories of the wars and of his father –. Father never spoke of what surfaced out of his lost and battered child hood-. No memories ever passed to me to match the packets of letters form a dead man. Twenty-seven Okinawan men survived the defense of Attu Island. I eventually tracked down three. They remained on the main - under false names. The stigma of surrender dies hard in us Okinawans. God knows why. The Japanese owe us nothing.

                                       

Like the few memories we take what we have and we hold it deep. Official records, regimental logs, movements, assignments, orders and locations. Almost everything was lost in Tokyo’s firebombing. Naha’s levelling. Ghosts and traces.”

When I  travelled  to Attu Island. and helped to place the Peace memorial over the mass graves that, I assume, holds my grandfather’s bones, I hoped for - closure... A strange but beautiful Arctic place to die, especially for an Okinawan. Wildly beautiful in the short summer. Deserted tundra, tussock grass, clear peaks. No trees. Wild winds , storms  rise from nowhere..

Is his spirit at rest? Mine never has been …”

Keichi Nishime stretches and strolls to the harbour window. A subtropical coast night blazes with light.  This unlikely meeting, Self-made, an Okinawan wealthy construction magnate on a mission. 

The  Maltese waits. Layers of security, private couriers, and messengers have finally created a meeting between two empires, two men, with an unlikely common agenda.  Finally he speaks.

“So can you believe in greater causes, then, or - are you just seeking revenge for wrongs from two generation past, From what we have tapped, , the Americans are finally considering leaving Okinawa for Guam and the Philippines. You appear to have gotten rich enough on your local construction contracts for American bases.”



“Some- revenge- some want to right wrongs. I want to see a Kingdom, restored “says the  Okinawan



“Do you mean the Empire of Japan? It seems to be doing all right...”



“No!  I want our Ryukyus Kingdom born again. I want independence for- the arc of Islands north and south of Okinawa’s homeland. From Japan as well as from America. I want a new start for my bloodline and for my people.”



The Maltese smiles.  He walks over to the morning beverage service, pours a cup of piping hot.



"Are you ready for a tour of my island?”



“And will I get to hear your story? You just got mine…”



“You’ll get more of a story that you imagined. Perhaps more than you can imagine

Two men, middle aged, mingling with the spring tourists, the night crowd, the early dawn city crews.  Bennie’s BMW, darkened windows. Discrete lettering, driven carefully across the ancient cobble. Below the speed limits on the winding stone faced roads. The early morning traffic, vans, delivery trucks, flashes lights, honks, passes. Sea mist begins to dissipate, and the first warm sun rays in the Mediterranean dawn lighten the wine dark early sea. 



                                                 (3).

`I always assume a hotel room can be tapped, says Bennie, weaving through the traffic.  I trust the sea air it keeps its secrets..



I`m in no hurry. The roads, the limestone walls, I`m reminded of Okinawa- except for your dry wind`. `



It blows across from Africa, and for the next five months we see almost no rain. The island runs on stored water.  In underground caverns, caves, the floating lenses above the limestone. We desalinate and clean up our wastewater. More and more greenhouses.  Is a good island to be a greenhouse farmer or a beekeeper? It’s a secret island. Caves go deep underground. We draw our water, hide our secrets, it’s the Malta way. We transport, store, keep.  We work through alliances."

The roadway skirts the Malta runway.  Jets throttle back, backs arced, landing gear down; searching for earth.  Luqa airport eddies forming in the heat, fowler flaps extended.

Welcome to old Har Far. I bring in my equipment here. Old hangers, lots of space- for Malta. Few questions asked.. Sea runs to Europe- Lydia, Tunisia, Algeria. Malta is the crossroads of the world`. It’s where my grandfather hid his share of siphoned ‘Austrian gold.’



‘You mean – stolen?’



No –diverted. He was a buccaneer at heart. So was William Patrick Hitler. Werner Raeder, twelve other most promising apostles of grand thievery.  Eleven of which my grandfather never knew. They buried  at least six caches- precious metals, gems, - the private wealth of prewar Europe, and probably more.  A couple billion dollars, and gold, platinum and diamonds get more valuable every day. Small change, eh?



“Starting the Kingdom will take huge reserves…”



The Maltese parks at the far south east end of Hal Far. The scrubby, partially abandoned walkways to the sea are deserted. The working drone of equipment, the sound of construction, drowns out the seaside splash and murmur.  Container boats round the headland, slow speed, waiting of the harbour pilot to Bruzbugga .The cliff walk is shelter, private, from wind and prying ears.



‘And if you are not all you have papered out to be, Okinawan, you will have wasted your time. Like you, I hide the compromising material, and the merits of my Grandfather’s legacy, on a different isle. One with a private grotto. One with deep underground abandoned galleries. You can thank the British, I suppose, for their ‘dig deep for Malta’ projects. Or just the flow of Grand History. .

You can also thank the Germans for the years of poverty, the years when my grandfather and my father were on the run. The quick and hidden visits home.  The years before we could recover his treasures. The years before we could quietly hedge it away from the prying eyes of Malta.

The years when I discovered my Islamic roots.’ and my desire to start Grand History flowing again.



                                                 “The value of a surgical strike against America, properly delivered, is the rapid spike in the value of both gems and precious metals. This time, we are prepared to take hedge positions before we strike. No more Bedouin bands, no more Bin Laden’s. This time the strike goes deep into the infrastructure.”



‘This is the proposition al Qaeda has in mind for you ..”