Black Wind

by F. Paul Wilson

  Matsuo spun and ran for the house.

  * * *

  Night had fallen. It was time.

  Meiko wasn't afraid. Normally, the darkness and the rolling swells of the ocean would have combined to terrify her. Now they only served her purpose. Even the dark leviathan shadows of the freighters that bounced her like a piece of cork in their wakes as they glided past on the crest of high tide could not faze her.

  She turned the boat into the gentle breeze, then knelt and said a prayer to the sea to take her quickly. She stood and began to undress, then stopped. The clothes would weigh her down. Good.

  As she refastened her obi, she took one last look at the lights that rimmed Sagami Bay and the Izu Peninsula—a brief look, for she knew if she hesitated too long, she would lose her courage.

  She dove overboard. The water was cold. She broke surface and began to swim further out to sea.

  * * *

  She could be anywhere.

  Matsuo stood in the cockpit of the borrowed inboard runabout, keeping its engine at full throttle, steering with one hand while he worked the spotlight with the other. His arms and legs were lead weights, the muscles at the back of his neck knotted with tension. But he could not allow himself a moment's rest.

  He knew it would be sheer luck if he found her. Had she run before the wind, straight out to the Pacific, or had she aimed for Oshima? Had she tacked south along the shore of the peninsula, or was she somewhere among the Izu-Sichito—the Seven Izu Islands? Even in full daylight it would be a difficult search. But at night...

  If only he had some inkling of the direction she had chosen.

  He searched on, calling her name, sweeping the dark water with his light, vowing to continue until he was out of gas, and then return at first light.

  He fought back the choking fear that he would never find her. No. He would find her. No matter how long it took.

  * * *

  So cold. So tired. So weak.

  Meiko didn't know how long she had been swimming. It seemed like an eternity. Her arms were so heavy she could barely lift them and her legs dragged her down, kicking fitfully. Her lungs ached and her eyes burned from the salt. Time had lost all meaning. There was only the night and the ocean. For a while the boat had followed her, a vague white form flowing with the current and the easterly breeze. Then she had lost sight of it. How long ago had that been?

  From somewhere behind her she heard a crash of splintering wood, but was too weak to turn and look. Not that she would have been able to see anything in the darkness anyway.

  She slipped beneath a swell and swallowed some water. With her last strength she fought to the surface and managed to cough it out. She took a final breath before she went under again. No strength left. Her arms floated still and useless above her head, her legs hung below.

  Panic stabbed her as she realized she didn't really want to die, that she was afraid to die. She wanted air!

  She tried to regain the surface but was too weak to do anything to save herself. Her last air bubbled out through her lips and she gulped water.

  Air!

  But it was too far away.

  A roaring filled her ears and the water began to glow around her. She waited for the gods of the sea to take her.

  * * *

  Matsuo sat on the beach just south of Atami looking at the remains of the sailboat. A pair of fishermen had found it at dawn and had sculled into shore with what was left of it in tow. The port side was stove in, the sail torn, the mast broken like a chopstick.

  Grief constricted his throat as he visualized the scene in his mind's eye: Meiko aboard the tiny boat, a giant freighter looming out of the dark, its prow catching the boat, cutting it nearly in two, throwing her overboard to drown while the freighter sailed onward, completely oblivious to the death of the person who most brightened Matsuo's world.

  He lowered his head into his hands and wept.

  TOKYO

  "You didn't hurt him?" Shimazu had never been so frightened. "Tell me he's still alive!"

  "Of course he's alive," Hiroki said, obviously offended. "Why is Matsuo's welfare so important, especially after what he has done?"

  Shimazu sagged back on his cushion, weak with relief. "I feared you might have done something rash."

  "And if I had?" Hiroki's abandonment of his characteristic respectful tone demonstrated the depth of his wounds.

  "There must be no bloodshed between you and your brother, is that clear? Never."

  Hiroki stiffened. "Why do you say that?"

  "Because the future of Japan may well rest on both your shoulders. The Emperor needs you both."

  Hiroki lowered his head and said nothing.

  Shimazu longed to tell him of the day thirty years ago when a Seer performed the ancient motsu rite on the children brought to the temple. He held them in his arms and foretold their future as it related to the Order. There had been little of interest until he had cradled Baron Okumo's firstborn son, Hiroki, and pronounced the words that had electrified all present:

  "I see this one and another, a brother. Rejoice! One will raise the Order to the greatest glory of all its days. But beware. One bears the seeds of the Order's destruction. And beware. Should one spill the lifeblood of the other, the Order will be no more."

  Many of the Order present that day had wanted to slay Hiroki and the mother of the unborn child as well, but Shimazu, then but a young monk in the Outer Circles, had spoken out. He had called upon the Order to take up the challenge of the vision, to reach for the greatness it offered. If both children were killed, the threat to the Order would be eliminated, but the Order would also lose its chance to rise "to the greatest glory of all its days." Why couldn't the Order educate both brothers in the temple where they could be closely observed? When one developed signs of being dangerous, he would be eliminated before he could cause any harm.

  After much debate among the Elders, the majority sided with the spirit of Shimazu's call to greatness. It was decided to approach Baron Okumo.

  The baron had bargained hard. In return for his firstborn he wanted promises of support for his plans to make Japan a world power. Since the baron's ideas were perfectly aligned with the Order's, a deal had been struck. But when the subject of his second son was brought up, the baron became extremely wary. The Elders had been too precipitous—the child had not yet been conceived! The baron gave Hiroki to the Order for education but refused to make any promises regarding his next child.

  Shimazu was given the task of overseeing Hiroki's training and all went well until 1910 when the baron's second son was born. Instead of giving the younger brother over to the Order, Baron Okumo had sent him off to America. The Elders had taken this as a sure sign that the younger brother was the dangerous one. Shimazu was not so sure.

  One brother must be killed, but which one?

  The question had haunted Shimazu since the day he had been given charge of the Okumo matter. Did one brother carry the seeds of glory and the other the seeds of destruction, or were they both contained in one? Spill the lifeblood—what did that mean? A mere wound, or fratricide? If only the Seers' visions were more precise.

  Whatever the true meaning, he knew that to be safe there must be no violence between the Okumo brothers.

  Yesterday's incident on Sagami Bay had been a close call, yet everything had worked out to perfection. He had long felt the interests of the Order and the Empire were best served by preventing Hiroki from marrying, and to cause a rift between him and his brother. And yesterday, in a matter of hours, the Okumo brothers had become permanently estranged while Hiroki's bride-to-be had become food for the fish of Sagami Bay. Surely the Infinite Face was watching over him.

  But did too much animosity remain between the brothers?

  He said, "Do you feel you must still satisfy your giri with your brother?"

  "My father has forbidden it, but—"

  "Before you answer fully, consider this: The woman who betrayed you is dead; the servant who fou
nd them out is dead. Your brother must bear the weight of those two lost lives and endure the shame of his deed whenever he enters his home. Do you not think the scales are balanced?"

  Shimazu waited for an answer but Hiroki said nothing.

  "I am not asking you to forgive your brother; I ask only that you consider the two lives already spent as payment enough for the face you have lost. Hate your brother, but still find a way to work with him."

  Hiroki sighed. "My giri is satisfied. I will not pursue Matsuo any further."

  "Excellent. Rejoice! Today is a wonderful day. We move upon China!"

  Hiroki smiled, but it was a wan smile, without heart. That would change. Shimazu was sure of it.

  PART FOUR

  1940-1941

  1940

  THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON

  JUNE

  HONOLULU

  I decided to take the long way out to Pearl.

  I had to drive out to the base a few times a week. My office in downtown Honolulu was eight miles to the harbor by the usual route, but if I had the time, I liked to stretch the miles out to ten. On especially beautiful days I could stretch to an even dozen. And this was one hell of a beautiful day: soft blue sky above, the trades blowing just enough to rustle the algaroba and monkeypod trees and keep you cool. Definitely a day for the twelve-mile route.

  I left my cubicle in the District Intelligence Office and headed for my car. I had two jobs for Naval Intelligence these days. Mornings I translated Japanese intercepts for the DIO, and afternoons I did administrative work for ONI out at Pearl. I got into my navy car and followed King Street west—or "ewa" as the natives say. I turned on the car radio and KGBM was playing, appropriately enough, the song everyone was singing, "You Are My Sunshine."

  Hard to believe most of Europe was in chains. Czechoslovakia, Albania, Poland, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, and Belgium—all fallen. And only yesterday the Germans had marched into Paris. To the west the Japanese were pushing deeper and deeper into China, and had taken over Hainan and the Spratly Islands. I was glad America was staying out of it. I didn't want to go to war; didn't know anybody who did. All I wanted was to stay right here on the islands.

  I drove past the Punchbowl, the extinct volcanic crater that looms over downtown Honolulu, and continued on out of town to where King joined Moanalua Road, then followed that north of the salt lake and into Halewa Heights. When I reached the top of my favorite rise, I pulled over, stepped out of the car, lit a cigarette, and gloried in the scenery.

  Clouds jammed the peaks of the Koolau Mountains behind me; ahead, the long slope down to the deep blue water of Pearl Harbor was broken by the stacks of the Aiea sugar mill, and out on the green Ewa Plain, stretching beyond Pearl to the Waianae Mountains, white smoke rose from a square of land where a section of sugarcane was being burned prior to harvest.

  Two years here and still I felt like a malihini. I couldn't get enough of the islands. I’d been transferred from the Eleventh Naval District in San Diego in January of 1938, just a few weeks after the Japs sank the USS Panay on the Yangtze River off Nanking. Even though all sorts of official apologies were made and accepted by the diplomats, the Office of Naval Intelligence decided then it was time to beef up its Japan-watching force in the Pacific. Because I could speak Japanese, I was transferred to Honolulu ONI.

  I loved these islands. It wasn't always that way. I hadn't wanted to be two thousand miles from Frisco, but the Depression had been getting worse instead of better, so when the Navy told me to get out here, I didn't see any choice. I got. And I’ve never regretted it. I caught the rhythm of the islands immediately, found myself moving to it naturally, as if I'd been born for it. I sensed it faintly on the day I stepped off the transport in Pearl Harbor's east loch, and knew within a week that I didn’t wanted to leave here. And as time went on, I became determined never to leave.

  What was there to go back for? Mom was remarried and happy in her new life. We exchanged an occasional letter and presents at Christmas and on birthdays, but she didn't need me and I didn't need her. California—all of North America, in fact—held nothing for me. Besides, I was in paradise. I loved everything about the islands—the people, the terrain, the trade winds, the special ambiance they called the Aloha Spirit, I loved them all. Even loved the fruit. Frank Slater, the world's greatest melon-hater, loved papaya. I spent my time off at Waikiki where I paid one of the beach boys to teach this haole to ride the surf, and in a week I was holding my own with the waves off the Kuhio sea wall.

  I even picked up a working knowledge of island patois, something

  like pidgin but distinct in its own way. It wasn't easy. With only a

  dozen or so letters in their alphabet, everything tends to sound alike.

  The islands worked a gradual magic on me. Just as my days on the

  beach burned my skin and caused it to peel away, leaving a new tanned

  layer beneath, so my time on Oahu caused the old Frank Slater from California to peel away and be left behind on the sand like so much useless baggage.

  I finished my cigarette and drove slowly downhill to Pearl. At the main gate the marine on duty knew me on sight and waved me past with just a glance at my windshield sticker. I drove up to the intelligence office, a low, white, flat-roofed building just a stone's throw away from CINCPAC HQ. I glanced out at the new battleship moorings along Ford Island, a splotch of green in the middle of Pearl's east loch that sported an airfield and a few hangars; the harbor was quiet today. Few ships in port. I watched the big hammerhead crane by the dry docks swing a refitted tug into the water, then I went inside.

  Captain Harrison Thornton was grumbling and muttering when I reached the office. I had made lieutenant junior grade, and Harry was my senior officer. He’d been assigned to the Fourteenth Naval District last year and seemed deliriously happy with everything about his Hawaiian post except the paperwork. He was an "old boy" who knew nothing of Naval Intelligence. From what I gathered, almost no one assigned to command the Fourteenth DIO ever did.

  Hawaii was a special post, considered a preretirement plum for favored senior officers who’d kept in touch with friends from their Academy days who were now in High Places. I was sure Harry had thought he’d landed a cushy job—until last month. That was when Pearl Harbor had replaced San Diego as the official base of the Pacific Fleet. And that meant a lot more work for the Fourteenth District Intelligence Office. And for Harry Thornton.

  "Damn Roosevelt and damn Stark!" he was saying as he rummaged through the pile of papers on his desk.

  He had a round face and a receding hairline that made his forehead seem to go on forever; thick, bushy eyebrows and thin, almost nonexistent lips. And he was sweating, always sweating. No matter the temperature—and admittedly it was hot today—or the time of day. Even in the early morning when he had just come from home in a fresh uniform, Harry's forehead was always beaded with sweat, his shirt always wet in the underarms and down the middle of his back. And that ceiling fan was always going round.

  "What's the matter?" I asked.

  "Aaah!" He grimaced with disgust. "We need more help. We can't even keep up with the movements of the ships in and out of the harbor. How are we supposed to coordinate any intelligence?"

  "Look at it this way," I told him. "If we can't keep it straight, how can the Japs?"

  He flashed me a smile with no humor in it. "They've probably got plenty of help. There's a hundred and fifty thou of them on these islands."

  "There! That should make you feel lucky. You've only got, what, a hundred ships in the entire fleet, and—"

  "One hundred and two, if you please."

  "Okay. A hundred and two ships to keep track of. I've got ten times that many Jap agents on Oahu alone."

  "Want to trade?"

  I shook my head. I had a lot of drudge work on my end—mainly the translating I had to do every day—but all in all I had it pretty good. I had my own little cubicle in the Honolulu DIO office where, as long as I got
my translating done, I could come and go pretty much as I pleased. Then I had my paper shuffling out here, limited mostly to Navy Personnel and contractors who did work for the Navy. Occasionally I did surveillance work, which had its drudge aspects, but at least I was up and moving about. I worked along with the FBI field office over in the Federal Building to keep tabs on the comings and goings at the Japanese Consulate; I also investigated any Japanese locals whose wires home sounded suspicious. I was to report directly to Harry anything that even remotely related to Pearl Harbor and the Pacific Fleet.

  "Anything of interest?" Harry asked, shaking out a Camel and offering me one. I took it and lit both with my Zippo, then dropped into a chair.

  "You know all the good stuff's Purple."

  Harry's thick eyebrows oscillated like Groucho Marx's. "Word has it that Purple is just about broken."

  I was out of the chair and leaning over his desk so fast that I startled him.

  "Purple? Broken?" I was whispering, even though no one else was around to hear me.

  "They say Friedman's on the brink."

  I sat down again, my mind buzzing. Purple was the most complicated Japanese cipher, used on all the high-level diplomatic dispatches. God, if we could break Purple…

  "We'll know everything they're telling each other," Harry said. "Won't that be nice."

  I saw something malicious in his smile.

  "What are you getting at?"

  "Think of all the extra translating to be done."

  I laughed. "But at least I'll be translating something worthwhile. Most of what I hear now is empty conversation."

  Cracking Purple… the possibilities spun through my head for the rest of the day.

  * * *

  When I finished my paper shuffling, I took the shorter, more southerly route back. I listened to Burns and Allen on KGU as I followed the narrow road past Hickam Field, Rogers Airport, and the marshes along Keehi Lagoon. Further toward town, the huge Dole pineapple stood high on its steel legs, challenging the Aloha Tower as tallest structure in Honolulu.