Chapter 8: Damage Control
Hawaii Incorporated ~ Paradise Gained
If you missed Chapter 1 (A Call to Arms), please click here.
If you missed Chapter 2 (Papa George), please click here.
If you missed Chapter 3 (Brothers in Arms), please click here.
If you missed Chapter 4 (East by West), please click here.
If you missed Chapter 5 (Sally), please click here.
If you missed Chapter 6 (The Scrimshaw Incident Part 1), please click here.
If you missed Chapter 6 (The Scrimshaw Incident Part 2), please click here.
If you missed Chapter 7 (Pilgrimage), please click here.
Hawaii Incorporated ~ Paradise Gained
For db
Our little systems have their day.
—from "In Memoriam A.H.H."
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Chapter 8 (Part 1): Damage Control
Created by AB Cooper
Narrated by Michael Smith
Michael Smith here.
On balance, Rob was pleased with how the pivot to Asia was shaping up. We were adopting new technologies and attracting foreign investment and partnerships.
At Aloha Cap, Sally had laid out a simple three-step plan for building key industries: partnership, profit, public.
Step one was partnering with a foreign company to form an industry-leading Hawaiian company. For example, she partnered with Mitsui OSK Lines to launch Aloha Pacific Carriers. Known as APC, it was a sixty-forty joint venture that kept Aloha Cap firmly in control.
Step two was to grow APC into a profitable shipping company.
Step three was to take it public on the Honolulu Stock Exchange.
After only a year of work, Sally had inked deals across every major sector.
Meanwhile, Keller was making headway on housing. Rob had named him Chief Executive of the Housing Development Board, tasking him with building enough units to house the new wave of immigrant workers. Keller took an annual salary of one Hawaiian dollar for his service to the Republic.
That did not stop opposition leader Damien Blackwood from accusing him of a conflict of interest in the Honolulu Gazette. Blackwood claimed Keller’s firm, KG Pacific Holdings Group, stood to benefit from public housing contracts.
At a press conference, Minister of Finance Stephen Goh dismissed Blackwood’s accusations, pointing out that Keller had no role in the tender process, which was open, transparent, and based on measurable criteria: technical capability, quality standards, financial strength, innovation potential, health and safety compliance, project methodology, delivery timelines, and past performance.
When Gazette reporter Leo Wong pressed him, Goh shot back, “As you know, Mr. Wong, we experience thousands of earthquakes each year from volcanic activity and structural shifts under the islands. I am sure you want the best builder constructing your home. KG Pacific Holdings Group is the best. That is why they are winning the most complex projects. The government will not compromise on public safety.”
And that was that. KG Pacific Equipment Capital cranes now dotted the skylines of all eight Islands of Profits and was building HDB housing, office towers, manufacturing plants, resorts, casinos, windmills, and nuclear reactors.
On the minus side of the ledger, we had become the Cold War’s newest hotspot. After Johnson’s two-hundred percent tariff on Hawaiian exports, Soviet warships started showing up off our islands, sometimes slipping into our waters. Admiral Sunao “Sunny” Wakisaka, Chief of the Self-Defense Force, deployed patrol boats to drive them back. It stretched our Maritime SDF thin, but Rob called it a good training exercise.
Despite the tariffs, LBJ sent U.S. destroyers from California to help keep the Soviets in check.
The Gazette tried to stir up panic, scaremongering that Rob’s standoff with LBJ would trigger World War Three.
0241 Hours, Monday, 19 September 1966
Sand Island, Honolulu, Oahu
The scene was straight out of Dante’s Seventh Circle, third ring, where fire rains down on a desert of burning sand.
The Republic’s experimental container port we had recently showcased to the world was now a hellscape of twisted metal and roaring flames. Fire crews battled multiple infernos, their hoses arcing streams of water that seemed pitiful against the conflagration. The night sky glowed an angry orange, black smoke billowing upward to obscure the stars.
The Mitsui-built container crane, that marvel of Japanese engineering we had proudly unveiled, lay collapsed across the pier like a fallen giant. Its steel skeleton glowed red-hot where flames still licked at the wreckage.
The office complex where we had housed the revolutionary software tracking systems was now a burning shell, flakes of fire rising from the crumbling fiberboard and paper-thin walls.
I found Jope directing a perimeter of his security team, their faces grim in the firelight. Before I could ask for details, a man in a rumpled suit approached with the purposeful stride of someone who had been called from his bed but was already several steps ahead of everyone else.
"Mike Smith?" he asked, extending his hand. "Bill Hegner, claims investigator for HIG. Jimbo Everton sent me."
"Yes, yes," I said, still stunned, my voice trailing off. "The PM said you’d be here.”
"This was no accident," he said without preamble. "See those blast patterns? Perfect sequential detonations. Someone knew exactly where to place the charges for maximum effect."
Hegner was in his late forties, balding, with a paunch that suggested one too many double martinis at lunch, a hazard of the Hawaiian insurance scene. His tie was askew, but his gaze was razor-sharp as he surveyed the destruction.
He pointed toward the crippled crane. "First explosion took out the hydraulic controls, forcing the boom to collapse onto the pier. Then they hit the power substations in perfect order, cascading the electrical failure."
A secondary explosion rocked the air. I instinctively ducked as a fresh plume of flame shot skyward from what had been the experimental port’s main warehouse. Fire crews scrambled backward as debris rained down.
"That will be the diesel storage tanks," Hegner continued, unfazed. "Timed to blow after first responders arrived. Classic military demolition sequence—create chaos, maximize damage, hamper recovery efforts."
"You sound like you’ve seen this before," I said.
"Saw plenty of sabotage during the war." He pulled out a notebook and began sketching the blast pattern. "Whoever did this had insider knowledge of the facility’s layout and vulnerabilities. They knew exactly which systems to hit and in what order."
We watched another section of the office complex collapse, sparks spinning like lost souls dragged deeper into the inferno. Six months of hard work, our bold step into containerization, our answer to LBJ’s tariffs, reduced to twisted metal and ash in a matter of minutes.
"The Nihon Maru?" I asked, remembering the prototype container vessel Mitsui had contributed to the APC joint venture.
Hegner nodded toward the harbor. Through the smoke, we could just make her out. She was listing dangerously to port.
"They hit her too. Shaped charges along the waterline. You can’t see it from here, but her starboard side is peppered with blast damage. She’ll need months in drydock, if she’s salvageable at all."
A harbor police boat chugged past, its spotlight playing across the damaged vessel. In its wake, oil slicks were on fire, creating streams of flame that danced across the water’s surface.
"Professional job," Hegner concluded, closing his notebook. "Military-grade explosives, expert placement, perfect timing. This was not some disgruntled dockworker with a grudge. This was a carefully planned operation, possibly state-sponsored."
I felt a chill despite the heat from the fires. Somewhere out there, someone had just declared war on the Republic of Hawaii’s economic future. And judging by the precision of the attack, they knew exactly what they were doing.
Jope approached, radio in hand, his voice low and urgent. "Boss, time to move. Big Boss wants a briefing before he pulls the security council together. You too, Mr. Hegner."
I nodded, taking one last look at the devastation. The future we had worked so hard to build was burning before my eyes. And somewhere in the smoke and flames lay the first clues to who had done this, and why.
ʻIolani Palace, Honolulu
0327 Hours, Same Day
The great koa-paneled chamber of ʻIolani Palace had never looked so bare. The throne was gone. The red velvet drapes were pinned back to keep the air moving. An industrial fan hummed in the corner, blowing smoke-tainted air through open louvered windows. Temporary lights had been rigged overhead, washing the room in harsh white glare. Folding tables had replaced the ceremonial koa furniture. Coffee burned in an oversized urn, its scent sharp and metallic. Maps, radios, notepads, and ashtrays filled the room.
This was Rob’s command-and-control center for the catastrophe. Around the table sat his wife Sally, head of Aloha Cap; his brother Keller, the richest property developer in Hawaii; Stephen Goh, Minister of Finance; Ben Tanaka, Minister of Trade as well as my hiking buddy; Jope, head of security at the Goddard Ranch and, lately, Rob’s go-to for complex security problems; Bill Hegner, the blunt and unflinching HIG claims investigator; and James “Jimbo” Everton, Rob’s war buddy and the Chairman and CEO of Hawaii International Group, the Republic’s largest multinational corporation, operating in over fifty countries and territories.
Noticeably absent were Alan, my counterpart at Trade, and Lin Mei, the purported honey trap at Finance. I must confess I felt my chest puff up just a bit to have a seat at the table when they didn’t.
Rob stood at the head of that table. He wore a white linen shirt and dark slacks, sleeves rolled to the elbows. His hair was slicked back, still damp from a cold shower, but his voice was firm.
“Ben, how bad is the damage?”
“Millions, Prime Minister.”
“Jimbo, can you cover the claims?”
Jimbo gave a wry grin and checked the dimple in his tie. His white shirt was freshly pressed and his khaki suit immaculate. I glanced under the table. Yes, his black shoes were polished to a gleam, as if he were still a Marine on the parade grounds.
“Technically, sabotage isn’t covered,” he said. “But I spoke with our reinsurers in Switzerland. They reached out to the Swiss Federal Council. The Council understands our position. We’re a young republic in a volatile region. They said they’d backstop their reinsurers. Bermuda is doing the same. And the Bank of England said they’d support Bermuda.”
“Good work,” Rob said. “What do they want in return, other than a chance to tweak LBJ’s nose?”
Jimbo laughed. “That’s plenty. But I’m sure they wouldn’t mind getting a slice of one of Sally’s companies.”
“Done,” said Sally. “I’ll make the arrangements.”
She flipped to a fresh page on her legal pad and wrote and underlined the words Damage Control in her perfect penmanship. She then proceeded to jot down company names as if she were calculating ROIs on acquisition targets rather than shoring up a burning republic. Sally never blinked, even when bullets were whistling past her. Chaos, for her, was just another input in Aloha Cap’s business model.
“Stephen, what are the economic ramifications?” Rob asked.
Minister Goh grimaced, lips tight, eyes grave. “I’m afraid it isn’t good,” he began.
Rob raised a hand. “Give it to me straight, Stephen.”
“Even before the attack, our position was tenuous. We were heading in the right direction, but the Islands of Profits strategy was just getting off the ground.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “This won’t just hit shipping. It could scare off capital and the short-term financing our companies need to compete. And public confidence, already shaky from the housing crunch, could collapse entirely. The whole economy might collapse.”
Keller leaned in, voice deep. “Give credit where it’s due. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing. It’s a perfect storm. Our job is to keep the boat from sinking.”
“Do you have something in mind, brother?” Rob asked. He had picked up on what we all saw in Keller’s eyes. There was a cocksure confidence about him, like a man reeling in a blue marlin from the stern of an old launch drifting through the island streams off Maui, the water deep, silent, and his.
“I do,” Keller said. “We need a Marshall Plan for Hawaii.”
“A Marshall Plan?” Stephen said, incredulous. “That’s not going to happen. Johnson just slapped a two-hundred-percent tariff on us. I’m practically dealing with the World Bank under the table just to stay off Washington’s radar. LBJ’s made it clear he doesn’t want the Bank helping Hawaii. So how are we supposed to convince the United States to pony up like they did for Western Europe?”
“We don’t ask them to,” Keller answered.
That didn’t sit well with Minister Goh. He was a finance guy, and he looked at the world strictly through balance sheets. Credit had to match debit. Liabilities and equity had to equal assets. Keller’s idea wasn’t adding up.
“Rob’s comment about tweaking LBJ’s nose triggered a thought,” Keller said. “LBJ’s a bully and he’s got all kinds of problems: Vietnam, race riots, the Soviets, Western Europe thumping its chest, Japan taking American manufacturing jobs…”
“I think I see where you’re going,” Sally said. “The Europeans and Japanese are allies of the United States, but it doesn’t mean they like being under Johnson’s thumb.”
“Exactly,” Keller said. “We go to Western Europe and Japan for the money. Collectively it won’t cost them much, yet it gives them a foothold not only in the Pacific but in America’s strategic backyard.”
“I like your thinking, Keller,” Rob said. “Ben, what do you think?”
“I’m confident the Japanese will go for it,” Ben said. “I’ll arrange a call with Prime Minister Satō. Do you want to join?”
“Of course,” said Rob. Then he turned to his finance minister. “Stephen, you take the lead on this plan. Call it the Friends of Hawaii Rescue Plan. Whenever you need me to step into a meeting or a call, give me a holler. I’m at your disposal.”
I was taken aback by the word rescue as I recorded it in my notebook.
“PM, are you sure we want to call it a rescue plan?” I asked. “It sounds so… desperate.”
Rob smiled. He was always tolerant of my questions, especially when it came to word choice.
“We could call it restructuring, I suppose,” he said, “but that wouldn’t be very dramatic. It’s going to be hard to rally Hawaiians behind a technocratic word like restructuring.”
“If I might add,” Ben said, waiting for Rob to give him the nod, “the Japanese are very receptive to people who are humble enough to ask for help. Rescue is not only truth in advertising, but it’s also something the Japanese—and I think the Western Europeans—will respond to in a positive way.”
“Good point,” Rob said, then turned to Sally. “What do you think?”
“Brilliant,” she said. “I’d like to partner with Stephen on this initiative. Aloha Cap and I can sweeten the pot by folding strategic commercial deals into the overall rescue plan.”
“Perfect,” said Rob, blowing her a kiss. Then he turned to me. “Michael, have President Pakele issue an emergency proclamation.”
Kaleo Pakele was president, but he wasn’t elected by the people. Rob had nominated him, and the LDP-controlled Parliament had confirmed him. The Republic’s Constitution relegated him to a ceremonial role, a vestige of the compromises made at independence. His powers were symbolic. On paper, he appointed judges and issued emergency proclamations, but only on the advice of Rob and with the ratification of Parliament, where every seat was held by Rob’s party, the Hawaii LDP.
In a one-party system like ours, President Pakele was told whom to appoint and where to sign. The Tripartite picked the judges, set the terms of any proclamation, and handed Pakele the pen. Once he signed, the full authority of the state passed to Rob. Executive and judicial powers alike became his to wield.
“The proclamation buys us time,” Rob said. “It lets us secure critical infrastructure, deploy fast, and respond decisively without parliamentary delay.”
“Yes sir,” I said. “I’ll have a proclamation drafted for your review within an hour of breaking from this meeting.”
“Good. Let’s turn our attention to the sabotage itself. What do we know?”
I rose from my seat and opened the door to the anteroom, where an ISA officer was waiting to brief us.
He wore his ceremonial uniform, the one reserved for important functions such as appearances before the prime minister. Minister Li had designed it himself, modeled loosely on the French Foreign Legion.
It wasn’t field gear. The tunic was high-collared and deep navy, trimmed with silver piping at the cuffs and epaulettes. Rows of brass buttons ran straight down the chest, polished to a gleam. A white Sam Browne belt crossed his torso, more decorative than practical. A bright yellow aiguillette looped over his right shoulder, its braided cord glinting under the overhead lights. On his head, he wore a navy beret pulled tight across the brow. The ISA insignia was stitched in gold: two crossed kukri blades beneath a stylized taro leaf. The kukri, a curved Nepalese fighting knife, was traditionally carried by elite units and meant to signal force without apology. His trousers were knife-creased, his boots spit-shined. There wasn’t a speck of ash on him.
It was the kind of uniform that photographed well, especially in government bulletins. But it didn’t belong anywhere near a fire.
The ISA officer marched forward and saluted. “Sir, Minister Li sends his regrets.”
“Yes, yes, I understand that he’s…tied up,” Rob replied coolly. “Proceed with your report.”
“Yes, sir. Preliminary field analysis confirms multiple charges placed with precision. Explosives were sequenced to target both control systems and fuel sources. We believe the perpetrators had intimate knowledge of the port’s layout.”
“And?” Rob asked.
“Minister Li believes this was the work of the longshoremen’s union, the ILWU. He’s preparing a report now that ties several radical elements to the attack.”
Bill Hegner interjected. “With respect, Prime Minister, that’s nonsense. This wasn’t a labor protest gone wrong. We’re looking at military-grade sequencing, perfectly timed. No way some longshoremen pulled that off.”
The ISA officer said, stiffly, “I’m just relaying what I was told, sir.”
Keller scoffed. “Then maybe Li should get off his arse and—”
Nervous laughter broke out around the table, and I missed the rest of what he said.
Rob raised a hand for quiet. “Let’s be methodical about this. Assume nothing. Walk me through the suspects. Motive, means, opportunity.”
“The ILWU radicals,” the ISA officer began again. “They had access, motive, and operational familiarity.”
“Access and motive, sure,” countered Hegner. “But not the skill. Not alone. That kind of sequencing takes a trained hand.”
“Help is easy to find,” Sally said, flipping another page on her legal pad. “If you’re already inside, all you need is the right partner. Expertise is just another commodity.”
“Just to be clear,” said Ben, turning toward the ISA officer, “what motives are you ascribing to the longshoremen?”
“Containerization is threatening their jobs,” the ISA officer answered, his tone implying the answer was obvious. “Shipping boxes will eliminate ninety percent of labor.”
“What the—.” I thought Ben was going to jump across the table and strangle him.
“Keep them on the list,” Rob said, saving the ISA man from Tanaka.
“Who else?”
“Worthington Shipping,” Keller offered. “They have the most to lose.”
“Yes,” I blurted, “and there’s the incident—”
Sally stopped me in mid-sentence, discreetly placing her hand on my wrist and giving it a firm squeeze, reminding me that the Scrimshaw Incident was confidential.
I received a few quizzical looks from around the table, but Rob stepped in before anyone could follow up.
“No doubt, Keller. We know Mitsui was eating their lunch.” He turned to his finance minister. “Stephen, have your guys check for unusual activities— irregular offshore transactions, wire transfers to suspicious accounts. Anything that looks like someone was hedging against chaos.”
Stephen nodded and jotted down the instruction.
“The Soviets are another possibility, PM,” said Ben, setting down his coffee. “I note that since we pivoted to Asia, there are several new attachés at the consulate. And it seems the entire Soviet Pacific Fleet is holding military exercises off our beaches.”
“Prime Minister,” the ISA man interjected, “we picked up radio jamming signals at Sand Island that match known Soviet signatures. Port Sudan. Murmansk.”
“Okay,” said Rob. “Thanks.” He turned to me. “Have Sunny—Admiral Wakisaka—brief me on what Maritime Intel knows. Coordinate his report with whatever ISA has.”
“Consider it done,” I said, already halfway to the comms shack in the Palace’s bunker basement, where we kept our encrypted messaging gear.
When I returned a few minutes later, the topic was still the Soviets. Hegner was mid-sentence.
“—and Pinkerton agrees,” he was saying.
“Bill,” Rob said, “repeat what you just said about the Pinkerton report, so Michael can get it in the minutes.”
“Yes, Prime Minister,” said Hegner, turning to me. “HIG’s underwriters use the Pinkerton Detective Agency for threat assessments. My office is sending over a report on Soviet efforts to destabilize the international merchant maritime transport system. Using the report as a yardstick, a rough estimate is this attack on our port could cost the industry over fifty billion U.S. dollars over the next ten years.”
“Why would they attack us and not a big port like Tokyo or Long Beach?” I asked, curious as well as trying to be thorough.
“Sand Island is a soft target. Easier to hit than Tokyo or Long Beach.”
“But we’re smaller.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Hegner replied. “It’s the knock-on effect. All the bad guys need to do is hit one port and it’s like a tsunami. An earthquake in Indonesia can cause a tsunami in Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, even Australia.”
“But fifty billion?”
“Estimated. But it could be much more, system wide. This attack will cause insurance premiums on shipping to skyrocket around the globe. That means investment in security will skyrocket. And forwarders and shippers will raise their prices. This hits the consumer in everyday things like groceries and fuel. Pinkerton thinks it all adds up to fifty billion.”
“That’s why you don’t think the longshoremen did it?” Ben asked.
“That’s where I’m leaning,” said Hegner. “Blowing up the port would be counterproductive for the industry, which means it would be counterproductive for the longshoremen.”
“Bill,” Sally interjected, “you know as well as I do that unions always cut off their nose to spite their face.”
“I agree with you, Mrs. Goddard. But when you factor in the expertise needed to pull off this sabotage, Russo’s loud, but he’s dumb as a doorknob. I just can’t see him—”
“Mr. Hegner,” the ISA man interrupted. “You’re underestimating him. We’ve been tracking Enzo Russo since he walked down the gangway from a freighter registered in Naples. The fellow’s not some local yokel from Kalihi Kai. He was trained by the best Communists in Italy and he’s a zealot. I’d bet a month’s paycheck he’s got the ILWU wrapped around his little finger. And with help from Moscow, he definitely pulled this off.”
Hegner’s entire head turned red. I could tell he wasn’t the type who liked being challenged in front of his CEO, let alone the Prime Minister.
“Nonsense. The ISA is full of crap. Jack Hall controls the union. He’s cooperating with management and the government. Isn’t that right, Minister Tanaka?”
“Gentlemen. Settle down,” Rob commanded. “You’re going round and round like two boxers about to go toe to toe. We’re on the same team here. Until we have all the facts, these are just theories.”
Both men backed down.
“I appreciate your spirit,” Rob continued, “but we need to put our heads together to get out of this mess.” He turned to me. “Michael, you’ve got the conn on this. All intelligence—ISA, police, foreign spies, trade, finance, military, the insurance investigation—routes through you. Coordinate everything. I don’t want any rivalry between ISA, HIG, SDF, MoF, or any of the other three-letter agencies. You answer to me. And if anyone gives you one iota of trouble, I will rain hell down.”
Everyone nodded.
“Then get to work.”
The meeting broke up on that note.
“One second, Michael,” Sally said, catching my arm before I could sprint out of the room to tackle my to-do list. She waited until everyone had left except for Rob, Jope, and me.
“What about the Americans?” she asked. “Let’s not be naïve, here. LBJ warned us. His people threatened capital flight. If this keeps us from shifting to containers and trading with Japan, they win.”
Rob nodded slowly. “The CIA stays on our suspect list.” He turned to me. “Speak with Jimbo. God knows he’s had more than his fair share of dealings with those bastards.”
The door opened. A young man from the Palace mailroom entered, clutching a stack of newspapers. He was pushing a cart, breathless from the climb.
“Sorry to disturb you, Prime Minister,” he said. “First copies of the morning Gazette. Mr. Henderson thought you should see it right away.”
Rob nodded and took the top paper. His expression darkened as he read the headline printed in bold black type across the front page:
ILWU PLANS MARCH ON PALACE: THOUSANDS TO PROTEST GODDARD GOVT “ATTACK ON LABOR"
“Christ,” Rob muttered, tossing the paper onto the table where we could all see it. The front-page photograph showed Jack Hall with a group of longshoremen on the docks. The caption read: Union Boss Hall to lead protest march today against ‘anti-worker government policies’ amid port sabotage investigation.
Sally picked up the paper and skimmed the article. “Thurston’s really fanning the flames, isn’t he? This headline makes it sound like we’ve declared war on the unions.”
“Exactly what he wants people to think,” Rob said, his voice tight with controlled anger.
Jope leaned forward to examine the paper. “Sir, this is deliberate provocation at exactly the wrong moment.”
Rob’s jaw clenched as he considered the implications. “We can’t afford labor unrest right now. Not with the port in ruins and international investors watching our every move.”
He turned to Sally. “What’s your read on Jack Hall? Is he really behind this, or is Thurston putting words in his mouth?”
“Hall’s a moderate,” Sally replied. “He’s always preferred negotiation to confrontation. This doesn’t sound like him at all. That said, he could be a fraud. We can’t rule that out. Or his tactics could be evolving. I guess I’m talking myself out of my original assumption. Sorry.”
Rob nodded. “No worries. I rely on you precisely because you can see things from all sides and change your assessment.”
He turned to Jope and me. “I want you two at that march. Observe only. No engagement unless absolutely necessary. I need to know if this is genuine worker discontent or something else.”
“Yes, sir,” Jope said.
“Michael,” Rob continued, “keep your ears open. I want to know who’s really driving this. Is it Hall? Russo? KGB? CIA?”
“Yes, Prime Minister,” I said. “We’ll be there.”
Rob stood and ran a hand through his hair, now dry but streaked with sweat. “Someone’s trying to destabilize us.”
As we filed out, I glanced back. Rob was still standing at the table, staring at the newspaper headline as if it were a declaration of war.
1130 Hours, Same Day,
En Route to 'A‘ala Park, Honolulu, Oahu
Jope steered his jeep through downtown Honolulu toward 'A‘ala Park, where the longshoremen were gathering for their march to the Palace. I held the Gazette open on my lap, reading aloud the details that had consumed the front page and much of the rest of the paper.
“More than five thousand dock workers and their families are expected to converge on ‘Iolani Palace today in what union officials describe as a peaceful march to protest the Goddard administration’s ‘war on organized labor,’” I read, raising my voice over the engine noise. “ILWU (Hawaii) President Jack Hall announced the march following this morning’s devastating attack on the Sand Island container terminal, which he claims is being used as a pretext to crush union influence on the waterfront.”
“Five thousand,” I said. “This is going to be a heck of a protest.”
Jope kept his eyes on the road, weaving through the already thickening traffic. “There’s a lot to unpack in that lead,” he said, his voice steady. “Who’s on the byline?”
“Leo Wong.”
“Figures.” He grimaced. “That alone tells me what I need to know. He’s no friend of the Goddard government.”
“That’s for sure,” I said.
Jope eased to a stop at a red light. “Read the first sentence again.”
“More than five thousand dock workers and their families—”
“Bull crap. There aren’t more than fifteen hundred workers in total. Tops.”
“But if you add in their families—”
“Nope,” Jope cut in. “He’s inflating the numbers by throwing in so-called family members, but no one’s going to allow women and children in a march like this. It’s too risky when a union is protesting the government. The organizers wouldn’t get the permits.”
“Then he’s lying?” I asked, not wanting it to be true. I still believed in the press. When I was a teenager, I helped my dad deliver the Detroit Free Press in our rural area. He drove while I rolled the papers and stuffed them into the roadside mailboxes from the flatbed of his pickup.
“It depends how you define lying. But I’ll tell you this. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book. Organizers inflate the numbers to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Leo were an honest reporter, he’d cite the size of the union and what percentage the organizers expect to turn out.”
The light turned green, and we began to move again, though at a snail’s pace. “Get to the quotes from Hall,” Jope said
I skimmed the page. “‘The timing of this sabotage is suspicious,’ Hall is quoted as saying during an emergency meeting of union officials. ‘Just as we were making progress in negotiations over containerization, someone attacked the very facility that would determine our future. Now government officials are pointing fingers at the workers who stand to lose the most from this technology, rather than looking at who truly benefits from derailing Japanese-Hawaiian cooperation.’”
“That doesn’t sound like what the President said in his emergency proclamation,” Jope noted.
“No, it doesn’t,” I replied. “Having drafted it, I can tell you the proclamation didn’t blame anyone. It called for calm in the days ahead.”
“Of course it did. What does the editorial page say?”
I flipped to the lead editorial. “This is interesting,” I said, skimming quickly. “The headline is Time for a Port Reset. The editors are calling for a pause not only on containerization, but on the entire Islands of Profits strategy.”
I looked over at him. “Jope, they’re using the sabotage to call for a halt to Islands of Profits.”
Jope kept his eyes on the road and said, “It’s almost like that editorial and Leo’s article were written before the explosion. What time did Hegner say the main blasts occurred?”
I pulled his report from my briefcase. “It says here sometime between two and two fifteen a.m.”
Jope slammed his fist against the dashboard. “I’ll be damned. They had this copy written before the explosion.”
“What?”
“You need to check this, but my understanding is reporters file their copy around seven in the evening. Night editors take a couple of hours to review and approve. Then another two hours for layout and typesetting. The first press run for early distribution goes off around midnight.”
He glanced at the newspaper in my lap.
“You’re holding the early edition.”
A chill ran through me despite the Hawaiian heat. “That means Langdon—and at least Leo and the night editor—knew the sabotage was coming. Do you think Langdon was behind the bombing?”
Jope slowed for a police checkpoint and reached for the glove compartment. “Hand me my license and registration.”
We pulled up to the makeshift roadblock. “License and registration,” said the officer.
Jope took them from my hand and passed them over. The officer studied them closely.
“Oh, sorry, sir,” he said. “Didn’t recognize you.”
Jope caught him before he could snap to attention. “We’re here undercover. Where’s the best place to park?”
“There’s an apartment building at the corner of A‘ala and A‘ala Place that’s out of the way. We’ve posted an officer there who’s only letting residents park. I’ll radio ahead and have you let through. It’s just a block or two from the park.”
“Thank you, Officer.”
“Yes, sir. Be careful. We’re expecting trouble.”
Jope nodded and pulled away slowly.
“I’m confused,” I said. “I get that Thurston wants things to stay the way they are—the Big Five in charge. But bombing a container port? That seems extreme.”
“I don’t get it either,” Jope said as he turned onto A‘ala Place. “But it’s easy enough to find out, starting with the copy and printing logs.”
A police officer waved us through, and we parked in guest parking. Jope reached behind the seat and retrieved our props. Hard hats and signs. He said they were handy for concealing our faces.
For this reconnaissance mission, we had dressed to blend in. Jope wore a faded blue work shirt with rolled sleeves, sturdy khaki pants stained with engine grease, and well-worn boots. I had chosen a similar but slightly cleaner look: a cotton button-up with the sleeves rolled against the heat, plain work pants, and boots that wouldn’t mark me immediately as government. Our credentials were tucked in inner pockets.
Leaving the parking lot, we slipped in behind a group of dockworkers. We had agreed beforehand that I would station myself a half-step behind his left shoulder. That gave him full range with his right arm, which was his stronger side, and me full range with my left, since I was left-handed. I was taller and could see over and around his head. We weren’t packing heat.
Jope kept us far enough behind this group to avoid notice but close enough to eavesdrop. They didn’t seem enthusiastic about being there. I heard them grumbling about someone named Tony, who I guessed was their foreman.
As we crossed the street into the park, I glanced at my watch. Five minutes to noon. Dockworkers milled about the park. I didn’t see any families and counted only a few hundred men. Certainly not five thousand.
“I’d be surprised if they got a third of the union,” I whispered.
We made our way toward the rallying point in the center of the triangular park. Though we could speak freely, we kept our voices down.
“Look for the signs,” Jope said. “Peaceful protests follow patterns. Organizers in armbands or safety vests. Designated marshals keeping order. Clear messaging on placards. Organized chants.”
I nodded, surveying the scene through his trained eyes. “I don’t see any.”
“Neither do I,” he said. “Not good. Things look thrown together.”
“Isn’t that to be expected?” I asked, “The bombing happened only this morning.”
“Jack Hall can organize a peaceful march on a dime. The fact that he hasn’t is worrying. This march could fall apart.”
“What do we do?”
“Nothing,” Jope said. “There’s nothing to do but wait. Be vigilant. Keep your eyes peeled.”
“For what?”
“Small clusters forming away from the main group once we begin marching. Individuals covering their faces. People moving against the flow of the crowd.” He paused and surveyed the park. “I don’t like this. This looks like an Alinsky protest.”
He turned to me. “I’m trained for this. You’re not. Might be a good idea to head back to the jeep.”
“Hell no. My job is to protect the PM. Besides, I’m twenty-nine, no girlfriend. This is the most action I’ll get all year.”
Jope grinned and slapped me on the back. “And I thought you football players were wusses, with all that gear you wear on your head and shoulders.”
We edged into the crowd gathering near the rallying point. There was a makeshift wooden platform where Jack Hall and his lieutenants stood. Hall held a pistol-grip megaphone and waved it wildly, motioning for us to move closer. I held my sign just high enough to conceal my face, my eyes peering over the top as we pressed in. I counted five rows of men between us and the stage.
The crowd quieted as Hall raised the electric bullhorn to his mouth. He wore a yellow vest and an ILWU armband, both bright against his work shirt. His lieutenants wore neither.
“Brothers!” His amplified voice echoed across the park. “Today we march for justice, for dignity, and for our right to fair treatment under the law. This is a peaceful demonstration to show the Republic that the working men of Hawaii will not be replaced by a steel box.”
The crowd erupted with raised fists.
“We are the backbone of Hawaii’s economy,” Hall continued. “Always have been, always will be.”
“Amen, brother!” a dockworker shouted not far from us.
“From the sugar docks to the pineapple wharves, from the fuel piers to the passenger terminals, our sweat and our muscle built this Republic.”
“Better believe, brother!” yelled another. The crowd picked up the chant, repeating it six times by my count before Hall could quiet them.
“Today we march in solidarity,” Hall shouted, linking his free arm with one of his lieutenants. “We will not be scapegoated.”
“No!” the crowd roared. They raised handmade signs. “Union Strong! No Boxes!” they shouted. “Union Strong! No Boxes!”
“Prime Minister Goddard is not our God!”
“No! No! Hell no!” chanted the crowd. For a few hundred men, they were loud.
“We will not be sacrificed on the altar of containerization.”
“Hell no! No! No! Hell no!”
I spotted the marshals in their orange vests, now clearly visible as they formed a corridor stretching from the rally point across the park to North King Street.
“No! No! Hell no!”
Hall screamed into his megaphone, “No! No! Hell no! Time to go!” Then he bellowed, “Brothers! Go! Go! Go!”
He leapt from the platform into the path cleared by the marshals. The crowd surged after him, sweeping Jope and me forward like a riptide.
We spilled out of ‘A‘ala Park onto North King Street and headed east across the bridge into Chinatown. As the march started to spread out, we fell in with a group of dockworkers grumbling about having to show up. They were protesting the protest.
Chinatown was usually vibrant and full of everyday life. Not today. The smoke from the container port attack hung over the streets like gauze, dimming the sun and cloaking Aloha Tower.
Normally, the narrow lanes would be packed with shoppers picking through piles of bitter melon, star fruit, and lychee stacked in tight pyramids. Vendors would be shouting fish prices, the trays still flapping with life, while the scent of incense drifted from nearby temples and mingled with the rich aroma of roast duck. The streets would be crowded with people ducking in and out of storefronts, their facades peeling, their signs bearing Chinese characters alongside faded English.
Today, metal gates covered most shopfronts. Restaurant owners watched from behind half-closed doors. The few pedestrians moved quickly, heads down, keeping to the edges. Even the pigeons had abandoned their telephone wires.
The only sounds were our footsteps tapping off the walls and the occasional whisper. The herb shops, usually scented with ginseng and dried mushrooms, were sealed tight. Smoke from the port hung in the air, acrid and sharp.
"Careful, Michael," Jope said. "Watch the marshals at the intersections, alleys, side streets. Vulnerable spots. If anything feels off, tell me."
We passed the shuttered Chinese Society halls where old men usually played mahjong, their clicking tiles loud enough to carry to the sidewalk. The blinds at the Overseas Chinese Bank of Hawaii were drawn. Even Wo Fat’s, Chinatown’s grand dame of restaurants, was closed. Its red and gold façade looked dull in the haze.
No aunties wheeled carts of greens. No fishermen lugged their morning catch. No tourists browsed for silk or jade. The market stalls were empty. It was as if Chinatown was holding its breath.
“Michael,” Jope whispered. “Two o’clock.”
Across the street, through a gap in the march, Russo stood half-hidden in the shadow of a Chinatown storefront. He was talking to a man in a sharp suit whose face was turned away from us.
“Move!” Jope shouted.
We broke from the procession. Russo froze the moment he saw us. The man in the suit said something low and slipped into a side entrance. Russo bolted around the corner and into an alley.
We chased him. Two marshals blocked the head of the alley, standing firm. Jope, a loosehead prop on the national rugby team, was compact and powerful. He split them like bowling pins. The hole he left was wide, and I exploded through it like Cleveland’s own Jim Brown.
The alley twisted sharply, strewn with empty crates, sour trash, and rusted fire escapes. Russo grabbed the lowest rung of the nearest ladder and hauled himself up.
We were seconds behind. Jope climbed like a machine. I followed, rust flaking down in sheets with every clank of the ladder under my weight. Russo was wiry, fast, and gaining distance. A woman shouted something in Cantonese and yanked her laundry inside.
By the time we reached the roof, he was already sprinting full tilt across the tar paper and gravel, dodging vent pipes and old tanks.
“Stop!” Jope yelled.
Russo didn’t.
At the far edge, he backed up a few steps and launched himself across the alley to a lower rooftop. He landed hard, stumbled, and scrambled upright.
I stepped forward, ready to follow. Jope slammed into me, arms wrapped tight like he was hugging a bear.
“No. Let him go. He’s not worth a broken neck.”
Across the gap, Russo turned. Chest heaving, sweat streaking his face, he grinned.
“Tell Goddard he’s done!” he shouted.
He flipped both middle fingers, gave a mocking salute, and slid down the fire escape like it was a playground pole.
I exhaled. “Damn it.”
Jope said, leaning on his knees to catch his breath, “Yup…but maybe…”
He walked to the edge of the rooftop and looked out over North King Street.
“We’ve got a bird’s-eye view,” he shouted.
I joined him and peered over. The whole march stretched before us. North King Street cut through Chinatown like a canyon. The procession moved below, a river of signs, dock helmets, and rising chants. Marshals in orange vests held the corners and controlled the crossings. The Palace loomed in the distance.
Then we saw them. Two marshals parted way at a side street and men in white t-shirts streamed out, moving with purpose toward the marchers. They were holding what looked like rolled newspapers
“Pipes!” Jope shouted, as the men flung the papers aside. But no one below heard him.
The white shirts raised their pipes and charged into the river of marchers, swinging hard at the workers’ helmets. Some dockworkers surged forward and fought back. Others ran. Helmets, fists, and pipes flew.
A man fell, clutching his bloodied head. An older longshoreman collapsed when a pipe cracked his shoulder. A young union man slammed one of the attackers to the pavement while his colleague kicked the downed man in the head with steel-tipped boots again and again.
Glass shattered as marchers and white shirts crashed into storefront windows.
“Jope, look!” I shouted, pointing to a white shirt lighting a rag stuffed into a bottle and hurling it toward a group of retreating marchers.
The bottle exploded in flames, cutting off their escape. A cluster of marshals tried to herd the frightened dockworkers back toward the center of North King Street and then toward the bridge. But it was exactly the wrong move.
From above, we saw what they couldn’t.
Men in dark T-shirts emerged from alleys and storefronts and formed a wall across the street. They stood shoulder to shoulder and closed in fast. The workers had nowhere to go. The dark shirts surged forward, engulfing the center group and beating them without restraint. Pipes, boots, fists. They struck whatever moved.
Some dockworkers fought back, swinging fists and grabbing pipes. Others broke through the flanks and ran for the bridge, every man for himself. A few rescued the wounded and searched for gaps in the dark-shirted line, dragging the injured to safety where they could. Behind them, more workers were already retreating from the front. Together they formed a chaotic stampede, surging back across the bridge toward Aʻala Park.
At the bridge, the retreat turned into a crush. Dockworkers and emergency vehicles met head-on in a tangle of bodies, sirens, and stalled engines.
The first fire engine braked hard behind a stranded delivery van. Firemen jumped out and began shouting orders, clearing a path the only way they could—by force. Riot officers, arriving just behind them, used shields and batons to wedge open space in the crowd. A few marchers screamed. Others ducked and shoved forward. The officers pressed on, forming a narrow corridor down the middle of the bridge.
One by one, the fire trucks inched through. Tires rolled over discarded placards and backpacks. Firemen stood on the running boards, waving marchers aside. When they cleared the worst of the jam, they swung the rigs into position and unfurled the hoses.
The hoses erupted in thick, high-pressure streams that hammered through the crowd. Columns of water crashed into clusters of white shirts and dark shirts, knocking them flat. The force scattered attackers and broke apart brawling knots of men. Protesters dropped pipes and shields as they scrambled to escape the spray.
With the crowd fractured, riot police pushed forward in waves. They moved block by block, methodical and grim. Some marched in formation. Others peeled off to make arrests, dragging suspects back through the gaps that the hoses had cleared. Baton strikes cracked against concrete and bone. Orders rang out in clipped, shouted bursts.
The police line prevailed.
Jope and I stood at the rooftop edge, watching the carnage below.
Smoke drifted from burned-out cars. Shopfronts sagged inward where men had crashed through windows. Blood smeared the pavement in long, broken arcs. Sirens wailed in the distance, growing fainter as emergency vehicles fanned outward across the district.
Then we saw them.
On one side of the street, medics and firemen were treating the injured. They sutured cuts and slices, wrapped sprained ankles and knees, and splinted broken legs and arms.
Across the way, bodies lay along the sidewalk, spaced apart, faces covered with whatever cloth the medics could find. Near one of them was a megaphone, cracked open like a melon, the battery case shattered.
“Is that—?” I pointed.
Jope nodded. “I think so.”
We ran to the stairwell and bounded down, two steps at a time. We pushed through the foyer and out onto the street.
It was soaked and stinking. Overturned crates. Smoldering signs. Broken helmets. An old man sat on the curb, sobbing into his hands. A dockworker limped past, blood running between his fingers. A pair of teenagers carried a third between them, his arm hanging limp, his eyes wide and empty.
We made our way to the body near the megaphone. Jope knelt and pulled the cloth back. The yellow vest was the first thing I saw.
It was Jack Hall.
Blood streaked his temple. His mouth was agape. His eyes were not.
Jope looked up at me.
I nodded once and stepped back.
Next on the docket: Damage Control, Part 2
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