Third A. D. Harachi Seiko ordered the tank to back up so the cameraman could come in for a close-up of the mayor's head. Then the tank rolled forward again. It went back and forth until the mayor's head was nothing more than a meaty stain.
Linda Best was only dimly aware that there was a film being shot in Yuma. It was the day before Christmas vacation and that meant there was a lot of homework to collect and tests to give to her third-grade class in the Ronald Reagan Elementary School.
So when the Asian soldier entered the class as she was passing out a grammar test, the last thing that Linda Best thought of was a movie.
She saw the AK-47 in the Asian soldier's hands and all she could think of was the incident in California, where a maniac in fatigues and carrying an automatic weapon had killed or maimed nearly thirty children.
She cried "No!" and flung the papers in his face. The man flinched. Linda Best leapt at the man in the desert camouflage fatigues before he could recover. Her hands clawed for the gun. She never felt the sharp edge of the bayonet as it sliced one grasping hand. The other got the barrel. Linda pulled. The Asian man fought back. He was small. Linda was not. They struggled as the children began ducking under the desks.
"Give me that thing!" she sobbed rackingly.
The man grunted inarticulately. Somewhere, through a rushing in her ears, Linda heard commotion elsewhere in the corridors of the school. A popping like firecrackers. She was barely aware of it. All her thoughts, all her strength, were focused on the sweating face that grimaced only inches in front of her.
Linda Best knew she couldn't hope to overpower him by sheer strength. Surprise had carried her this far. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw some of the children crawl out the open door. Good children, she thought. Run, run. Get help.
Then she felt the strength begin to leave one arm. No, not now, not yet. She moaned silently. Lord give me strength. And she saw why. The blood had practically painted her bare forearm. She had been unwittingly clutching a bayonet.
Linda released the rifle. The Japanese scrambled to bring the weapon to bear. In that instant, Linda Best kicked him in the crotch. The Japanese doubled over. His weapon fell into Linda's waiting arms.
Linda Best had never held a rifle in her life. She had never fired a shot. She had never struck a blow in anger. She never wanted to.
But on that day in December, with the children scrambling between her legs to safety, she found the strength to place the muzzle of the unfamiliar weapon to the face of the man who had had the temerity to enter her classroom with murderous intent, and gave him the contents of its clip in one pull of the trigger.
"Everyone, hurry," Linda called, looking away from the result of her courage. "Follow me!"
The children came, some of them. Others huddled and cried. Swiftly, gently, Linda Best went among them, prying fingers from desk legs. She pushed them to the safety of the door, admonishing them not to look at the man who lay with agitated limbs across the doorway.
She carried the last two in her arms. They were crying for their mothers.
It was too much to hope that in their panic the children would all reach the fire exits. Linda stumbled out into the corridor hoping for best, fearing the worst. She did not expect the sight that awaited her.
The corridor swarmed with students. And among them were armed soldiers, men with hard foreign faces and merciless weapons. A fellow teacher bumped into Linda. It was Miss Head, who had the fifth grade.
"What is it? What's happening?" Linda asked breathlessly.
"We don't know," Miss Head hissed. "They want us to assemble outside."
"But why? Who are they?"
"The assistant principal thinks they're with the movie. But look at how they're behaving. I think it's real."
"I know it is," Linda said, holding up her hand. It was stiffening. Miss Head saw the already-browning blood and put her hand in front of her mouth.
Then they were both prodded toward the front doors by insistent bayonets. There, the children were being forced to sit on the grass, their hands clasped behind their heads like POW's in a war movie. It would have been cute had it not been so grotesque.
Rough hands segregated Linda and her colleague from the milling children. They were made to stand with a growing knot of teachers.
Linda found herself shoved next to the principal, Mr. Mulroy. "Can this be for real?" she asked.
"They're serious. Rothman and Skindarian are dead."
"Oh, no!"
"No talking!" a voice barked.
When the last of the children were forced onto the ground, the soldiers turned to the teachers. One wearing captain's bars directed the others. The faculty was forced to stand in a line as a camera was set up.
"Look, they're filming this," Miss Head whispered. "Maybe it is a movie, after all."
That happy thought lived only as long as it took for several soldiers to drag the blood-spattered corpses of three fallen teachers out into the sunlight.
No one believed it was only a movie after that.
The Japanese captain waited tensely for the cameraman to signal him. He nodded back. Then the captain called, "Rorring. Fire!"
The camera hummed. And AK-47's slapped to uniformed shoulders. The gunfire came in single shots, execution-style.
The entire teaching staff of the Ronald Reagan Elementary School were executed without benefit of blindfolds or final words. The captain went among the dead and delivered a vicious kick to each body. Those who groaned had a bayonet plunged into their throats.
The children watched this in silence.
All over Yuma, the schools were cleared and the staffs put to death. Every food outlet was placed under armed guard. The gun shops were quarantined. All roads were closed and the Amtrak rail beds were dynamited.
Three hours into the Battle of Yuma, the electricity went out. The Yuma reservoir was placed under occupation control and water supplies shut off. Telephone lines to the outside world were severed. All television and radio stations were seized and taken off the air.
The police station was surrounded by T-62 tanks, which opened up with their .125-millimeter smoothbore cannon until the one-story stucco building was a shattered tumble. Individual police units were hunted down and crushed. The National Guard headquarters was seized and its weapons stores confiscated.
By noon, the tanks and the bodies had convinced the majority of the population that this was no film. Those with firearms took to the streets. For two more hours, pockets of resistance, snipers and roving groups of citizens, fought back with hunting rifles and handguns.
Then, at 2:06 in the afternoon, tanks blocking the runway of Yuma International Airport rolled aside to allow a squadron of five propeller-driven planes to take off. They lined up and crossed the sky under the high cirrus clouds. Simultaneously, each plane emitted a puff of white vapor. Then another puff.
Across the sky, in fluffy dot-matrix-style letters, the skywriting planes spelled out a message: RESISTANCE WILL END OR YOUR CHILDREN WILL DIE!
All over the city, sporadic gunfire began to die down. Not all citizens threw down their weapons at first. A few-those without families-kept on fighting. Those who weren't hunted down by Japanese troops were quelled by Yuma citizens with children at risk.
By six P. M. the city was quiet. The chill of afternoon deepened into a still cold. Fires burned at scattered locations, sending smoke into the air. Tanks prowled the streets with impunity. The sun fell behind the mountains, casting long, forlorn purple shadows on the surrounding sea of sand. It was magic hour.
Yuma, Arizona, had fallen to the Nishitsu Corporation.
Chapter 16
The closer she got to the Yuma city limits, the more afraid Sheryl Rose became. Yuma was her home. She had been born in Yuma, gone to school there, and after graduation from nearby Arizona Western College, got a job at a local television station. A scary day was when she got the cue cards out of order.
Sheryl fiddled with the radio. Stations as far away as Phoenix came in clearly. But none of the hometown stations were on the air.
If Sheryl hadn't been in broadcasting, it might not have hit her as hard. But the dead air was like a knife in her stomach.