Chameleons (Commander Christopher Pastwa Book 1)

Description

The Japanese midget submarine I-16-tou is hiding on the muddy bottom of Pearl Harbor, waiting to release its deadly twin-warheads against the battleships of the U. S. Pacific Fleet.

Awakened by the shock waves of aerial bomb and torpedo strikes, the sub’s commander and engineer jump to the controls and begin final maneuvers as they target the battleships U. S. S. West Virginia and Oklahoma. The second torpedo the sub fires dramatically explodes and tears a thirty-eight-foot-wide hole in the Oklahoma’s already damaged port side, causing her to immediately roll over.

In present-day Kailua, Oahu, a mysterious skeleton is discovered while excavating a residential pool. A team of United States Navy investigators spearheaded by Lt. Commander Christopher Pastwa and Lt. Karen Yamura are under a mandate to quickly solve the mystery.

Much to their chagrin, they soon discover the skeleton belongs to the engineer of the I-16-tou. The midget sub’s logbook is recovered from the grave and indicates the commander of the sub was still alive days after the Pearl Harbor attack and living amongst the Japanese-American population, contrary to navy dogma.

As the team begins what will prove to be a difficult and frenetic search, Lani Gale, a Honolulu newspaper reporter, learns of the grave’s contents. Using unscrupulous methods, she uncovers information that her newspaper begins publishing in the form of a series of explosive front page stories, and she offers a $100,000 reward for anyone with information leading either to a still-alive midget sub commander or his death certificate. A race is on between the navy team and an unscrupulous Gale to learn what became of the commander.

Ken Kida, the commander of the midget submarine who is living under an assumed name, is now an elderly retiree. He and his Korean wife are anxiously reading the front page story when their grandson drives up. Suspecting he may soon be arrested, Ken Kida relates his life story to Gary through a series of flash-backs and narratives which are interspersed with the present-day progress of the Navy and Lani Gale, who are steadily hunting him down.