Zero. Part 10

Zen G.o.do had read about the death of Arisawa Yamamoto, and it disturbed him.

Though the newspapers reported Yamamoto's death as an accident, something about its timing did not sit well with G.o.do. He had been a friend and close business a.s.sociate of Yamamoto's since the old days. Ya-mamoto had been the director of the aircraft company that bore his name. It, along with Nakajima Aircraft, was the manufacturer of the Zero airplane engines. The company had made a fortune for Yamamoto during the war. But he, like Zen G.o.do, held no animosity toward the Americans. They- among the few-had seen the ultimate folly of their country's entering the war. On the surface, they did their duty to their emperor because for men such as they, there was no other course of action. But in their hidden hearts they secretly welcomed an end to the conflict. Now all they wanted was to get on with the rebuilding of j.a.pan.

As recently as a week ago, Yamamoto had met with G.o.do and told him of his plan to turn over to the Americans the technology for a new type of jet engine his engineers had been working on during the last months of the war.

Now Yamamoto was dead. Run over by a truck, the newspapers reported. Zen G.o.do did not believe the newspapers. The timing was too fortuitous for Yamamoto's enemies. Yamamoto's enemies were also Zen G.o.do's enemies. They were in many quarters, they were superbly organized and they were industrious in their malevolent plotting. Thus, it paid Zen G.o.do to be cautious. And to seek out the real cause of his friend's death.

Accordingly, Zen G.o.do sent for his daughter.

Michiko was newly married to Arisawa Yamamoto's eldest son, n.o.buo. It was a marriage arranged by the two fathers. Zen G.o.do thought of this marriage as his future. n.o.buo was bright, presentable and reasonably handsome. And far more important, he was the firstborn and would therefore inherit the company on the death of his father.

G.o.do thought n.o.buo a perfect match for Michiko, who, while beautiful enough, was possessed of a vile and fiery nature, which G.o.do privately considered to be irredeemable. n.o.buo was older than she, more mature. With a personalitysuch as hers, G.o.do often found himself thinking, what young man in his right mind would chance wooing her for long?

The two men had talked of the physical bonding of their families much as two brokers will discuss an important business merger. Eventually they had agreed on the terms, and the marriage was consummated. This was six months ago. Now Michiko and n.o.buo were together, although with what degree of success G.o.do had no idea. The couple had moved to Kobe soon after the wedding, as there were family-run factories near there that n.o.buo had been a.s.signed to oversee. The company was in the process of changing over to heavy-industry-machinery manufacture. The family intended to be at the forefront of the rebuilding of j.a.pan. To that end, they formed a partnership with Kanagawa Heavy Industries.

It all seemed to be going smoothly. Until Arisawa Ya-mamoto died. Run over by a runaway truck.

"Michiko," Zen G.o.do told his daughter, "I suspect that we are under attack by our enemies. Accordingly, I must know the real circ.u.mstances of your father-in-law's death."

Michiko, kneeling in filial piety in front of her father, bowed her head.

"You have always been my strong right arm. Many of my business successes I attribute to your ingenuity. You have sought out the secrets of this city for me in ways only a woman could achieve. Now I fear that our enemies have begun to move against us. I am too much in the public eye to make any overt countermeasures. I cannot afford to bring the attention of either our enemies or the Americans to myself. I have only you to turn to."

Zen G.o.do could not bear to mention the name of his daughter Okichi, now gone from them forever.

"If Arisawa Yamamoto was murdered," Michiko said, "I will find those who killed him. What do you wish me to do when I discover their ident.i.ties?"

For a long time Zen G.o.do did not answer her. He was contemplating the nature of revenge.

The night Philip proposed to Lillian, she was singing. Flooded in light, she worked the audience-boys, mostly, not more than eighteen years old-into a kind of ecstacy. What she gave them was more than s.e.x appeal. It was entirely natural, and therefore highly potent. They watched her, rapt, without any real understanding of what they were hearing. That didn't matter. She reminded the boys of home. And she wasn't afraid to reach out to them.

With Philip it was another story entirely. Several times he had tried to make love to her. Always she demurred, though he was gentle, attentive and loving.

Though they spent hours kissing and caressing, whispering endearments and holding each other close.

"I've never been with a man," she said, "in . . . that way." She put her head against his chest. "I want it to be special. Very special."

"Aren't our feelings for each other special?"

"Oh yes," she said. "Yes. It's just that I always dreamed . . . When I was a little girl, I dreamed of how it would be. None of my other dreams have come true, Phil. This is my last chance. I want it to be as I imagined it would be." Her eyelashes were wet. "You're the first man who ... I think you could make me give up the dream. If you insisted." She held him tight. It was not her voice but something far more elemental that spoke to him, saying, But I'm asking you not to. Please.

He didn't.

But he did ask her to marry him. Which was, of course, what she had wanted all along.

Zen G.o.do had had three children by his now dead wife. Now only one, Michiko, was alive. He could not bear to think of his other daughter, Okichi. Tetsu, his lone son, had fervently believed in the war. He had seen it as a divine wind from which his homeland would emerge in powerful splendor.

To this end he had devoted himself in patriotic and most unselfish fashion forthree years as a kamikazi pilot. Zen G.o.do carried within him the boy's death poem: The wild cherry blossoms of Yamato When they fall May dazzle even Heaven Yamato was an old, poetic name for j.a.pan. It was also the name of the unit of the Tokkotai, Special Attack Force, to which Tetsu had been a.s.signed. He was twenty-two when he died.

Tetsu had believed in the shokok.u.min, the children of the rising generation.

Had he not quoted to Zen G.o.do what the war hero Vice-Admiral Onishi had written, that "the purity of youth will usher in the divine wind"? Tetsu had been infused with yamato-dama-shii, the intense j.a.panese spirit. In the last days of the war, when desperation filled the air almost as thickly as the American bombs, it was a.s.sumed that yamato-dama-shii would bring victory where superior arms and manpower could not.

At the graves of his family, Zen G.o.do lit the joss sticks and dutifully said the prayers for the dead, knowing the agony of false beliefs.

When Zen G.o.do remembered the ultimate futility and obsessive behavior that defined yamato-dama-shii, he automatically thought of Kozo Shiina. Shiina was currently the most powerful minister in MCI, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which, through his maneuverings, had emerged as j.a.pan's most influential postwar bureaucracy. Shiina was also at the heart of a dark and deadly clique of ministers.

Shiina worked diligently-almost, one could say, megalo-maniacally-on polishing the image of the new MCI. He had calculatingly surrounded himself with ministers of the wartime ministry of munitions. These men, like him, were all former high-ranking military officers. However, Shiina himself had seen that his and their dossiers were altered during the first week of the occupation, when chaos reigned in Tokyo. Now these men were beyond reproach by the war-crimes tribunal or by anyone else. They were also forever in Shiina's debt.

The j.a.panese had learned from their terrible loss of face at the hands of occupation forces. Particularly Shiina, who so resented the MacArthur const.i.tution being shoved down his throat that he resolved to make the Americans pay.

At MCI, it had been Shiina's idea to begin employing principle and practice.

Tatemae and honne. This meant that within the j.a.panese bureaucracy, two courses would run simultaneously. Tatemae, principle, would be used when discussing policy with the occupation forces. Honne, the practice-that is, the implementation-of those policies, agreed upon among the j.a.panese ministers themselves, would be something else again.

The success of tatemae and honne was incalculable. It bestowed upon Shiina a kind of stature he had not had even during the height of the war. Yet because of j.a.pan's humiliating defeat, because of Shiina's abhorrence of the occupation, this victory provided only a modic.u.m of emotional satisfaction.

Philip worked only at night. By now it had become something of a trademark.

Anyway, it was how he had been trained, how he worked best.

Jonas was the planner, the spider manufacturing intricately plotted webs.

Philip refined the plans, taking them out of the realm of the theoretical, making them workable on a physical level, then carrying them out. Together, they made a formidable team.

Jonas had chosen a night before the new moon was set to rise. But that night turned out to be too clear, so Philip waited for the atmosphere to turn thick and misty. Two nights later, even car headlights seemed inadequate to the task of cutting through the blackness.

There were still many lights out in Tokyo, even on blocks where houses stood whole and undamaged by bombs. The parks, of course, were pockets of Stygian blackness.Shigeo Nakajima was the second target singled out in their directive. Arisawa Yamamoto had been the first. Philip had driven the truck that had run him over. According to the intelligence Silvers had provided Philip and Jonas, Yamamoto had run a prisoner-of-war camp in Mindanao that had had an extraordinarily high death rate among its inmates. Yamamoto had been in the habit of physically taunting the POW's. Those who could not take it were shot.

Those who could were tortured.

Shigeo Nakajima was accused of leading a battalion of soldiers into battle on Okinawa, of defeating the enemy and of exhorting those under his command to defile the bodies of the enemy. The wounded were summarily executed. The corpses were stripped of all armament and valuables and, as an example to those who would find them, were then castrated.

The dossiers on both these men were d.a.m.ning, piling on fact after stomach-turning fact. "These aren't men," Jonas had said to Philip at one point. "They're monsters."

But the evidence was so abundant and extraordinarily detailed that privately, Philip had trouble believing all of this intelligence could have been covered up so completely. He had carried out the first termination with doubts nagging at him. Something did not feel right. Now, as he began the second mission, he felt those doubts surfacing again, more persistent now.

The house was in Matsugaya, near Ueno Park, north of Tokyo's downtown hub. It loomed up, invisible until Philip was very close to the outer gardens. He had left the car half a mile away, walking the rest of the way.

Breaking in was no problem. He left his wet shoes on the porch outside. An ironically polite gesture. Tatami mats were for bare or tabled feet only.

Philip was wearing tabi, these functional j.a.panese socks that divided the big toe from the others for ease of movement. It was conceivable that oils from the sole of the foot could leave a trace on the reed mats.

Philip slid open the rice-paper door into Nakajima's bedroom. He placed one foot carefully in front of the other. The tabi allowed him to feel with his toes, as well as to grip when the need arose. The darkness in the room was mitigated somewhat by the shoji screens out onto one of the gardens. There, Nakajima habitually left small votive candles burning so that the spirits of his family might not lose their way should they come to visit him during the night.

But it was another spirit who had come.

The small flames' illumination was dispersed by the rice-paper screens. Philip saw Nakajima asleep beneath the coverlet. He crept across the tatami until he was behind the man's head. He knelt down.

Nakajima was lying on his back. Philip leaned over and folded the cotton coverlet until he had tripled its thickness. Then he carefully lifted it until the tripled section was directly over Nakajima's upturned face.

Now all at once he rose up and jammed the coverlet down across Nakajima's face. Quickly, he used his knees to anchor it on either side of the j.a.panese's head. Kept his hands free as Nakajima gave a m.u.f.fled cry. His torso began to arch upward. Stopped by the swath of the coverlet.

Philip leaned into his task as Nakajima's motions became more animated. The j.a.panese's hands scrabbled along the tatami as if searching for something precious. A weapon, perhaps? Philip glanced down. No. A slip of paper. He returned his attention to his task.

Nakajima's legs were thrashing now, the heels drumming against the resilient straw mats. He jerked and strained, his body's twitchings becoming desperate now. Nakajima was not easily relinquishing his hold on life.

Philip applied the final amount of pressure. Nakajima's fingers crackled the paper they were gripping. Then slowly, the arm fell. Philip removed the folded coverlet, stared down into the blank eyes.

Carefully, he unfolded the coverlet, placing it back precisely as he had found it. He was turning to leave when his gaze was caught again by the paper clutched in Nakajima's hand. Why had that paper seemed so vital at the momentof death? It was as if he was trying to protect it-or to destroy it.

Philip bent, took the paper out of the stiffening fingers. He went to the screens, used the candlelight to read the calligraphy.

It was a letter. Philip read it twice without pause. Ice water spread through his belly. All the incipient doubts about the directive he and Jonas had been given came racing to the foreground. And he thought, G.o.d in heaven, what have I done?

With a mounting sense of urgency, he pocketed the letter and, as a whippoorwill sounded its nocturnal call, disappeared from the house.

Only the votive candles remained, their flames flickering, casting numinous shadows upon the rice-paper screens.

Philip and Lillian were married the next day. It was crisp and clear, the heaviness of the previous night's weather cleaned out by a strong north wind.

The breeze off the Sumida smelled of pine and ash-like j.a.pan, a symbol of the new and the old.

Lillian was dressed in a plum-colored suit. A true wedding dress was out of the question; lace and taffeta were impossible to come by. But she had a hat with a veil that covered the top half of her face as she walked down the aisle arm in arm with her father.

General Hadley, a large, handsome man with a silver moustache and pink cheeks, was as dapper as could be in his dress uniform. His shoes were so highly polished Philip was quite certain he could have used them as a mirror to knot his tie.

The general's wife, a small, neat woman with a retiring temperament, cried when Lillian said, "I do." The general sat beside his wife in the first row, gloved hands in his lap, as still as a statue. If the ceremony affected him in any way, he failed to show it.

But at the reception afterward, he pumped Philip's hand energetically and said, "Congratulations, son. You're a fine addition to the family." The expression on Philip's face made him laugh. "Don't you think I had you checked out when I found out you were seeing my little girl? h.e.l.l, I had you so scrutinized I can tell you how often you wash your Jockey shorts."

He steered Philip into a corner, lowered his voice. "You and your friend Jonas Sammartin have done a d.a.m.n fine job for us in the Pacific. And you're continuing to perform a much-needed service for your country here in j.a.pan.

Sure I know what you're up to now. Won't get much public recognition out of it, so I want you to know that your work is appreciated."

"Thank you, sir," Philip said. He could see Lillian, her mother at her side, amid a swirl of well-wishers. For hours after he had returned home from Nakajima's house, he could not sleep. He had debated with himself whether to show the letter to Jonas. Twice had picked up the phone to call his friend.

Both times he decided against it. Jonas was clever in ways Philip could never hope to be. But he was a West Point man through and through. He followed orders to the letter. How many times had he railed at Philip for bending-or breaking-the rules by which he lived his life.

"Dammit, Phil, the world can't run without order," Jonas had said many times.

"Rules are meant to be obeyed no matter what. Sometimes I think you're a G.o.dd.a.m.n menace to the armed services." Then he'd grin and say, "I don't think you'll ever learn."

But those episodes of rule breaking had been minor infractions. As far as Philip was concerned, they were the harmless result of his being a free spirit. This was totally different. If what Philip suspected was true, then everything he and Jonas had done in j.a.pan was a complete lie. And taking it a step further, it was impossible to say whether Colonel Silvers himself, their commanding officer, was being duped or whether he was in on the falsification of intelligence.

Much as he loved and trusted Jonas, Philip knew that he could not take the chance that Jonas would pa.s.s on this information to Silvers. Not until Philip could ascertain which side of the fence Silvers was on. So Philip had decided to keep the information in Nakajima's letter to himself.But how to act on it on his own? That was the question that plagued him. Now he had a thought. And, perhaps, the answer. "If you don't mind, General, I'd like to ask a favor of you."

"Call me Sam in private, son. You're part of the family now."

"Yes sir. Well, I was wondering. Regarding my current directive. I'm curious as to the origin of the intelligence on my targets. Do you think you could find out for me?"

Hadley snagged a couple of gla.s.ses of champagne from a pa.s.sing waiter, handed one to Philip. "Why not ask your commanding officer? Silvers is a good man."

"I've tried, sir," Philip said. "But I've run up against a stone wall."

"Well now, Phil. You've been in the CIG long enough to understand the procedures. Information's extended on a strictly need-to-know basis. I guess Silvers has made that decision."

"But what," Philip said, "if the intelligence Silvers is pa.s.sing down to me is false?"

General Hadley's eyes narrowed. "You got any proof to back up that allegation, son?"

Philip handed him the letter he had found in Shigeo Nakajima's hand.

"I don't read j.a.p," Hadley said, looking at it upside down.

"It's a letter," Philip said, turning it right side up. "From Nakajima to Arisawa Yamamoto. It talks about a radical-design jet engine that Yamamoto was about to hand over to us. That doesn't sound like the action of a war criminal hiding from American justice."

General Hadley sipped at his champagne, shrugged. "Maybe Nakajima was going to use it as barter."

"I don't think so," Philip said. "First, there's no mention of that in the letter." He pointed to the vertical lines of calligraphy. "Second, and more important, Nakajima mentions Zen G.o.do, a business partner of his and Yamamoto's. He says that the three of them have been made the targets of something called the Jiban."

Hadley frowned. "What is that?"

"I don't know," Philip confessed. "Jiban is the j.a.panese word for a local political machine. I'd say it's a group of some kind."

"And you suspect that this group, this Jiban, may have leaked the intelligence d.a.m.ning Yamamoto and Nakajima?"

Philip nodded. "What I now believe is that Yamamoto, Nakajima and G.o.do are not the war criminals the intelligence Silvers gave us would have us believe.

Rather, it is beginning to seem as if those three men are political enemies of this Jiban. The Jiban wants them destroyed, and they have found the perfect way to effect that destruction: use the services of the CIG, which is h.e.l.l-bent to ferret out j.a.panese war criminals who are beyond the reach of the war-crimes tribunal. It's the perfect crime: Hire people to kill for you by making them believe that they are meting out justice."

Hadley considered the ramifications of what Philip was saying. "Yamamoto and Nakajima have already been terminated," he said after a time. "What about Zen G.o.do?"

"He's next on our list," Philip said. "Sir, I've already got two murders on my conscience. I cannot tolerate a third."

"Put that away," General Hadley said, indicating Nakaji-ma's letter. He eyed Philip. "Tell me, why didn't you go to anyone at CIG with this information?"

"I don't know that either, really," Philip said. He had been thinking about that all night. "Instinct, maybe."

Hadley nodded. "Trust is the most hard-won commodity in life, eh?" As a former field commander, he had a healthy respect for a soldier's instinct. "All right," he said. "I'll see if I can find out the source of Colonel Silvers's intelligence. But until I do, you are honor-bound to carry out any directive your CO gives you. I want you to understand that." Then he smiled, clapped Philip on the back, raised his gla.s.s in toast. "But right now, let's both enjoy ourselves. Here's to you and my daughter. May you both be blessed with a lifetime of happiness!"If Zen G.o.do believed in one thing, it was in standing in the sun. That is, in business as well as in battle, always stand with the sun behind you. This was a figurative as well as a literal philosophy. Watch your enemies well, but do not allow them to see you with any clarity. If your enemies cannot see you well, they cannot attack, or at least attack with any degree of success.

This philosophy was taught to Zen G.o.do by his father, a man who outwardly never lost his temper or said a harsh word against anyone. Yet he was a ruthless businessman who would stop at nothing to achieve the goals he had set for himself. Many had died broken men in the wake of his mergers and lightning buy-outs, but none living would speak ill of him.

Zen G.o.do, a man of extreme filial piety, spoke to his father every week. His duty to his father's spirit would not end until Zen G.o.do's life itself was over.

At the graves of his family, G.o.do lit the joss sticks, bowed his head, said the Buddhist prayers for the dead. After waiting the proper interval, he spoke to his father. Perhaps it was only the tranquility of the spot that provided him with inspiration. G.o.do did not believe it so. Here, he felt the presence of his father's spirit floating, observing, commenting.