CHAMELEONS, the Ultimate Illegal Aliens

CAREFREE, Ariz. - March 9, 2017 - PRLog -- Chameleons opens by placing the reader inside of the steaming hot and poorly lighted control room of a Japanese midget submarine as it lies in wait on the muddy bottom of Pearl Harbor. The date is December 7, 1941. The commander and his engineer, both covered in sweat, sleep restlessly as they await the commencement of the surprise Japanese air raid to come that morning.

Awakened by the shock waves of aerial torpedo strikes and bomb blasts the two men jump into action. In a matter of moments the commander of the midget sub lines up the battleships USS West Virginia and Oklahoma, intending to strike each of them with one of his two, one thousand pound torpedoes. He gives the command to "Fire one!" Shortly thereafter he orders, "Fire two!" His deadly venom is in the water and he has nothing more to do except wait for the results.

Fortunately for the crew of the West Virginia, his torpedo bounces off her iron hull and sinks to the harbor floor without exploding. However, the Oklahoma is not as fortunate for torpedo number two tears a thirty eight foot wide chasm right through the proud battleship's armored torpedo belt. Until that moment the battleship was sinking from aerial torpedo hits with a slight list to port. However, thousands of gallons of water begin pouring into her port side causing her to roll over before anyone can even think about counter-flooding. Sailors crawl over the side and onto the bottom of the hull as one of the ship's propellers pokes through the water's surface, glistening in the bright Hawaiian sun.

After suffering irreparable damage from a depth-charging destroyer, the midget sub's commander decides to seek refuge in an out-of-the-way part of the harbor known as West Loch. It is there they scuttle their sub and swim ashore to seek out pre-arranged safe contacts among the Japanese/Hawaiian population.

The midget sub's engineer dies from a bullet wound and is quietly and very discreetly buried in the back yard of an oceanfront home. The Commander buries his ship's log, sidearm and sword with his engineer, assuming they would never be discovered. He is subsequently provided an entirely new identity, assumes the name Ken Kida, and is provided a job on a pineapple plantation with the belief it would be temporary. When he is rounded up with the other Japanese/Americans on the plantation and sent to California for internment, he begins to see the United States in a different light while also realizing the dictum he was taught when growing up in Japan was not true.

As any good Samurai would, when the opportunity to join the U.S. Army Nisei Brigade arises, he literally adopts a different battle on behalf of a new master, the United States. His service will take him deep into Burma where he is seriously wounded and sent back to a hospital in Honolulu. Upon discharge he purchases a small air conditioning company, but is interrupted when he is activated from the reserves and sent to Korea. While in a field hospital after being seriously wounded he meets the woman he would marry, Nurse-Lieutenant Sun Jin-Ho. He eventually takes her back to Honolulu where they wed and start a family.

More than seventy years pass when a pair of Hawaiian excavators uncover the grave of Kida's engineer. The local police quickly recognize there is something different about the grave's contents which leads to calling in a special investigative team from the U.S. Navy.

Lt. Commander Christopher Pastwa and Lt. Karen Yamura spearhead the Navy's efforts to translate the long-buried ship's log. Once learning Kida survived and likely melded into the local population as if a human chameleon, their admiral, Roman Reardon, gives them a clear mandate to determine what became of the midget submarine's commander. The navy is intent on bringing him in, if he is alive, or, in the alternative, retrieving his death certificate.

Before they can make much headway a local and very unscrupulous newspaper reporter, Lani Gale, obtains a copy of the ship's log. Though illegally sourced, her newspaper begins to run a series of Front Page headlines dramatizing the story and offering a $100,000 reward for information leading them to Ken Kida. A race is on between the navy team and Gale to discover what became of the midget sub's commander.

Kida and his Korean wife are anxiously reading the front page story when their grandson, Gary, drives up. Suspecting he may soon be arrested, Ken 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, as they relentlessly hunt him down.

When Pastwa and Yamura turn up at Ken's front door, he, Sun and Gary believe their world is about to be shattered. A series of events rapidly unfold over the following twenty four hours which create a surprise ending as myriad loose ends fall into place. The two primary antagonists featured in the subsequent novels in the series, Geographic Treachery and Vigorous Brutality, are also introduced late in Chameleons, alerting the reader there is more to come.

Be sure to look for Marcus Nannini's WW II non-fiction book: Dinner with Himmler, and his WW II nonfiction stories in World at War and Strategy and Tactics magazines.

You can buy your copy at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Chameleons-Actual-Events-Commander-Pastwa/dp/0692814353/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488051049&sr=1-1&keywords=chameleons+by+marcus+nannini