LONDON ALERT

by Christopher Bartlett

  They all laughed, dissipating the tension that had built up.

  ‘I’d heard about Japan’s kamikaze taxis, but not that,’ commented Holt.

  ‘According to my dad, Japan’s reputation for kamikaze taxis came about because a foreign journalist, having found nothing to write about, described a slightly scary ride to the airport in the hope his editor would sympathise. His editor published the article under the title “Japan’s Kamikaze Taxis”, and the myth of Japan’s terrifying taxis was born. The article went all round the world.’

  ‘We had heard about them and were a bit nervous,’ commented Celia.

  ‘In fact, Japanese taxi drivers would usually never even think of breaking the speed limit. Part of the reason may be that in Japan it is not the custom to give tips, though during the bubble, when the economy was booming, businessmen on expenses getting a taxi home late on a rainy Friday night from the Ginza would put up two or three fingers to show they would pay double or triple fare!’

  ‘Point taken,’ replied Holt. ‘Sorry to have changed the subject. It must be the jet lag.’

  ‘The fault is on my side. I am behaving like a tour guide when we have more important things to talk about.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We need to relax and have a bit of fun. Would be different if we were on a real honeymoon, wouldn’t it, Celia?’

  An awkward silence followed, before Sachiko continued.

  ‘My dad…told me to show you some of the places he will be talking about when he sees you. The first is a toilet in an underground walkway not far from here. We have thousands such walkways here in Tokyo and other cities to avoid the heat, cold, and rain, and to make the most of the little space we have in Japan. Much of our country is mountainous, so the actual space where people can live is limited.’

  ‘Why do you say “our” when you’re half-English?’

  ‘It’s just that I was brought up here and got used to saying “our” and “we” when showing visitors from abroad around. I thought it sounded friendlier than saying “Japan” all the time.’

  ‘I agree,’ Celia said helpfully.

  ‘Anyway, my dad’s the one who knows the details. He said that apart from showing you one or two special places, I should just let you get the feel of the country. You and Dad will be able to talk at length. Reporting on the Red Army and terrorist incidents was once his speciality. I only hope he doesn’t bore you. I have heard the same stories hundreds of times.’

  ‘He sounds very interesting. I’m sure I won’t be bored.’

  With that, they went back to the Keio Plaza Hotel, and after dinner at the Nan-Yen Chinese restaurant in the basement, they said goodbye to Sachiko and returned to their room. The experience of the night at The Loughty and their proximity during the flight meant there was no sense of awkwardness as they prepared for bed, though aesthetically speaking, Holt would have appreciated another show. The time difference with the UK meant they did not feel sleepy, and they watched some local programmes on their TV, which seemed very strange, very different from those in the UK.

  Again, because of the time difference, getting up the next morning was not so easy, but luckily they had arranged to meet Sachiko after lunch. She had suggested they go for a walk round on their own, saying too much hand holding would not be good for them. Despite being brought up in Japan, she was a very forthright young woman. So they lingered over breakfast, buffet-style, involving a lot of getting up and sitting down. There was a wide choice, both Western and Japanese.

  The rest of the morning was spent wandering around. The first place they came across was a shop, or rather a complex of shops, called Yodobashi Camera, selling cameras and every imaginable item of electrical equipment, from computers to washing machines, at a discount. The choice was unbelievable. They then visited a department store, with the basement taken up with counters selling an enormous range of different foods, much of them destined to be gifts. The Japanese seemed obsessed with gift giving. They returned to the hotel quite shattered. How nice to have a room in which to recover.

  Sachiko rejoined them as they were having a snack in the hotel coffee shop and said the first place they would be visiting would be the underground walkway where members of the Aum Cult had left a poison gas-generating device following their relatively unsuccessful sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995.

  Holt signed for their food and coffees, and they set off, with Sachiko leading the way, down into the labyrinth of underground walkways that she had been talking about, many of them with shops and restaurants on either side. As they passed under the Shinjuku National Railway station, they noticed the Marunouchi Line subway station on a lower level, with exits to their passageway at either end of the platform.

  Sachiko stopped near the far exit before speaking. She explained that the police, fearing another nerve gas attack, had saturated the nation’s railway stations and tourist spots, particularly Shinjuku, one of the busiest. A member of the public reported that something was burning in a bag in a toilet located off one of the walkways above the Shinjuku subway station. Staff quickly doused it with water, only to find that resulted in it beginning to emit acrid fumes. Finally, a specialized team from the fire brigade rendered it harmless.

  On closer examination, it was found to be a crude device consisting of two condoms, the outside one containing sodium cyanide, and the inside one filled with concentrated sulphuric acid. It had been the concentrated sulphuric acid emitting the acrid fumes, giving the impression something was burning, which of course had given off even more fumes on coming into contact with the water sprayed on it. The intention had been that the sulphuric acid would eventually eat through the inner condom and react with the contents of the outer one to generate hydrogen cyanide gas, once used in death chambers in the US.

  Placing the device in a location somewhat away from the subway station, where the police would be concentrating their efforts, was a clever move, as even there the gas could have killed over a thousand people once sucked into the ventilation system in the normal course of events.

  ‘The layout,’ said Sachiko, ‘is now somewhat different from what it was then in that the location of the toilet has been changed, but that does not alter the fact that with it just here, many people could have been killed or injured. So many people, including myself, used to pass through this passage every day. It made me feel bad every time I walked along here.’

  ‘Seems a very busy place,’ said Holt.

  ‘I used to come through here regularly to visit the Kinokuniya bookshop to read the English magazines for free. Did you know the Japanese have a special word for that? It’s tachi‑yomi. Literally translated it means “standing reading”. Some people spend hours reading without buying anything. Some company people or academics note the details and buy the book through their organization or through Amazon. In no other country would shops allow people to do that. I think some people abuse it. I always try and buy something.’

  They then went down onto the subway platform and took an underground train to Yotsuya station so that she could show them the Geihinkan, the State Guest House, where foreign dignitaries stay. Set in spacious grounds well back from the public thoroughfares, it seemed a safe enough place.

  She then took them to a street a little back from the main road and pointed to a fairly low apartment building with balconies facing the guest house grounds.

  ‘It was from there that they intended to launch the rockets from the drainpipes using timers. They were just primitive mortars, according to my dad.’

  The following day they visited several other places mentioned by Sachiko in the New York Bar and went on to the Ginza to have a tempura dinner at Tenichi. Though pricey, it was well worth it as everything was so light and the materials so fresh. Sachiko then went home, as they had to be up fairly early the following morning to take the train to her home.

  A true Japanese, she was there right on time, and she took them to Shinjuku Station to board the so-called Odakyu Ro
mance Car to Fujisawa.

  ‘It’s called the Romance Car, but that simply means it is a more luxurious train going to tourist places, such as Hakone, near Mount Fuji. The great thing is that you can reserve seats and not have to stand up, as on most commuter trains.’

  ‘Call me Jim,’ said her father on picking them up at Fujisawa Station. To Holt he seemed a delightful man and not the chinless wonder his name might suggest. No wonder he preferred to be called SH.

  On the way to his house, they passed the giant Buddha statue at Kamakura. Truly impressive.

  Her Japanese mother, Midori, was at the door to welcome them and ensure they removed their shoes before entering. She took Holt to his room, while Sachiko took Celia in hand to show her to hers.

  ‘It used to be mine when I was at university.’

  After sprucing up, Holt and Celia came down to join the others on the terrace.

  They started talking about the old days in Japan when foreigners were a rarity. A time when the TV journalist Alan Wicker started out reporting on the Korean War, before working on his famous TV programme Wicker’s World; a time when only the rich could travel afar, and flights from Europe took the southern route, stopping off in places like Karachi, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

  SH explained that years later, with the introduction of longer-range jet aircraft, the route via the North Pole with a stopover at Anchorage opened up and much reduced the journey time, to something like eighteen hours. And then when the Cold War tensions eased, the much shorter trans-Siberian route opened up. At first, there were stopovers in Moscow, and then with the introduction of nonstop flights, there was always the possibility of diversion to an alternate airport in Russia because of technical trouble, with some at MI6 concerned that the KGB might pick them up en route. However, with the only alternative being the much longer southern route via the Middle East, many took the view ‘If they nick me, we’ll nick one of them.’ Of course, those working on the Russian desk still would not risk it.

  The return of the women cut short any further business talk, and they had less serious talk over drinks on the terrace, followed by a Japanese-style dinner. It was a family gathering with friends, and the primary object of the trip was far from Holt’s mind.

  ‘I read about Japan before coming,’ said Holt, ‘but it’s still quite a surprise. Everything is different. Of course the people, but there is a different feel. I don’t know what it is. I must say that Sachiko has looked after us so well we do not feel out of our element. We were, though, expecting kamikaze taxis, but she said you had told her it was only a rumour started by some journalist trying to think up some copy on the way to the airport.’

  ‘There are a number of stories like that,’ said Jim. ‘I don’t suppose she told you the one about why Japanese women came to wear knickers—’

  ‘We’re tired of hearing that old story,’ interjected Midori.

  ‘Dad, now you’ve started you might as well go on. It’s funny really. I’m not sure it’s true, though. It’s something men like bringing up.’

  ‘Well,’ continued Jim, ‘the story goes that Japanese women only started wearing knickers after Japan’s first department store caught fire in the 1920s, and a number of employees preferred to die rather than shame themselves jumping from the windows with their kimonos billowing up.’

  ‘They might have served as parachutes,’ interjected Holt, adding to Sachiko’s mother’s displeasure, at which the conversation promptly changed to less sensitive topics.

  Just before bed, Holt and Celia enjoyed – separately – a great feature of the house, a bathroom that was akin to a spa, before going to their separate rooms, much to Celia’s delight, which was evident when Sachiko joined her for some more chat.

  The next day, after a leisurely breakfast the women went out sightseeing and shopping, leaving Holt and Jim alone.

  Jim ushered Holt into his study, its walls almost hidden by books, many of them about Japan, and some written by him.

  He went straight to the point.

  ‘I know you want to hear about terrorist incidents here in Japan. There have been quite a number over the years, but in general the home-grown terrorist phenomenon has wound down. Fifty years ago, students were demonstrating against the security treaty with the United States and the presence of many American troops here, notably in Okinawa. Now people see the presence of the Americans as a counterbalance to an increasingly assertive China.

  ‘Problems related to the US presence do flare up, especially in Okinawa, say when one or two American servicemen raped a twelve-year-old schoolgirl, but things have calmed down now.’

  ‘Funny,’ said Holt, ‘to think there are so many US military personnel around. I believe there are quite a number at Yokosuka naval base, not far from here.’

  ‘Yes, years ago, apart from demonstrations against the Japan–US security treaty, the big news was the Red Army hijacking aircraft and seeking refuge in North Korea.’

  ‘I read about that. Didn’t one of them come back to Japan recently? He was homesick or something.’

  ‘Yes, a year ago.’

  ‘Hijacking,’ said Holt, ‘is not really my remit. Many people are covering that side. My job is to think up dramatic things opportunists or terrorists might do, other than 9/11-type hijackings.’

  ‘Then the incidents like those that I told Sachiko to tell you about will interest you. Some are relatively low-tech. One group was able to discover where the cables linking the various radar installations used by air-traffic control in the Tokyo area passed and cut them. The ensuing flight delays left many red faces, as the backup had not been properly thought out or tested.’

  ‘That’s the type of thing I am interested in – simple yet dramatic in its way.’

  ‘Perhaps most dramatic was the veranda-drainpipe incident that again I think Sachiko told you about and showed you where it was done. A group rented an apartment near the official guest house, which had a veranda facing it. They placed a number of drainpipes so that rockets fired from them using a timer would strike the guest house while world leaders were staying there. They were like mortars, with no need for a direct line of sight to the target.

  ‘The rockets landed right in the grounds. Fortunately, no one was hurt. Again, there were a number of red faces in the police and the security agencies.’

  ‘Anyone could set that up.’

  ‘Yes, but they could not get away with it now. Prior to the arrival of any important personage, police and security people triple-check out residences and offices within range – first by the local plod, next the more-sophisticated police, and finally the security service. Furthermore, even the manholes for the drains are welded shut at sensitive locations.’

  ‘Sachiko showed us the actual balconies – she said virtually all apartments have them for drying washing. We do not have those, or so many, in the UK. However, dissidents in Northern Ireland came up with a clever variation. In order to attack the central police station in Belfast, they took a van, removed the roof, and set up mortars on the floor inside it. As it would not have been easy to aim from within the van, the projectiles could well have landed in public areas, killing innocent civilians. Fortunately, police stopped the van en route. I think it was a random check, though it might have been reported as stolen, or there were other grounds for them to be suspicious.’

  Jim went on to mention other attempts at disruption, and then their discussion was interrupted by Midori and Sachiko bringing coffee out to the terrace.

  ‘Let’s talk about the big one later,’ said Jim.

  Holt knew what ‘the big one’ was – the sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo Metro – but was glad to have a break before discussing something potentially so horrible. In one respect, the nerve gas attack was not so special or original, and not the creative thing he was meant to forestall. However, he had to learn about it if only to hold his own in meetings back in the UK.

  Coffee was accompanied by some biscuits called RaisinWich, a Japanese abbrev
iation of Raisin Sandwich. These consisted of two biscuits with raisins, cream, and something alcoholic sandwiched between them, and were quite addictive.

  ‘The man,’ said Sachiko, ‘who invented these not only had a clever idea for the name and the product but sold more by requiring that they be ordered in advance and making it appear they were in short supply. Consequently, people would order double the quantity they would have ordered otherwise.’

  For the first time in what seemed a long time, Holt felt totally relaxed, and he noticed that Celia looked at ease too. Even though Blackwell had programmed him not to see Celia as a sexual object, there was always an underlying tension when they were alone together.

  ‘The telling thing,’ said Jim when the ladies departed, ‘about the nerve gas attack was not the technique, which is really now widely known, but the way a sect can build itself up, exploit and control its members using very clever psychological means, and sometimes threaten society at large rather than simply exploit members for financial and often sexual reward.’

  ‘Yes,’ commented Holt, ‘it is pretty scary, especially in the US, where it is not only sects but also extreme right‑wing groups that see the US government as the enemy. They showed their teeth after Waco, and now, after Obama tried to introduce gun laws, they have increased tenfold.’

  ‘At first sight, one could assume that Japan does not have a group of angry people, like in England, going abroad to learn how to make bombs and so on. However, there are many Koreans, some whose parents and grandparents were brought over as workers during the war, who owe their allegiance to North Korea. Also, there are many Chinese here officially and unofficially. These two groups blend into Japanese society, and it is not obvious from their appearance that they might have sympathies lying elsewhere.’

  ‘In my briefings in London, I learnt that a number of the top people in the Aum Sect were highly educated, went to the best universities.’