Black Wind

by F. Paul Wilson

  His eyes flashed as he looked up at Matsuo. "It was a land grab. California farmers have been trying to get us out of farming since the turn of the century and this was their big chance. They gobbled up our farmlands as leases and mortgages expired or went past due because the people who had tilled them for years were locked away in concentration camps."

  "How did you manage to stay free?"

  "I allowed myself to be rounded up just like everybody else. We figured it had to be a mistake. Our country, our President wouldn't do this to us. But after two months it finally got through my thick skull that this was the way it was going to be. It didn't matter that I was born here, that this was my country just as much as it was Hearst's or Lippmann's or FDR's!"

  Tears started in Sachi's eyes but he quickly wiped them away and took a deep breath.

  "My country thought I was shit, to be scooped up and thrown in a garbage can. If that was the way they wanted it, that was the way it would be. I decided to escape. Nobody else would come with me—they all thought their dear President Roosevelt would change his mind any day. I tunneled out and became Koe."

  He looked away. "I would have fought for America, Matsuo. Died for her. I loved her. I always thought of her as my country. But she told me in no uncertain terms that she wasn't."

  Matsuo didn't know what to do or say. Sachi was a grown man in his mid-thirties but at this moment he looked like a broken-hearted little boy. He tried to lighten the mood.

  "Well, at least now I know why all your messages were in English."

  "Yeah," Sachi said with a hint of a smile. "I never did learn Japanese." He shrugged and seemed to compose himself. "Anyway, FDR's executive order was rescinded back in January. Issei and nisei are free to leave the camps. But a lot of them have no place to go. And many of the ones who did leave have been harassed and brutalized. My mother's still there. She's afraid to come back. So save your disguise, my friend. It's not healthy to be a Jap in San Francisco."

  Sachi made coffee for both of them on his hot plate—Matsuo would have preferred tea but Sachi hated it and didn't have any—then very briefly transmitted the prearranged code word to signal that contact had been established. After that, they began taking turns manning the headphones to monitor the short-wave receiver for radio instructions from Panama on whom Matsuo was to contact for information from Los Alamos.

  "How have you survived?" Matsuo asked, wincing at the bitterness of the thick, black, unsweetened coffee.

  "Begging mostly. I play my old blind man role and pick up loose change that way. It's a good disguise. I've found that healthy people don't really look at you if they think you're damaged in some way, or not entirely whole. Kids will stare but adults allow themselves only a quick glance and then look away."

  He pointed to a puckered scar on his cheek. "I do this with model airplane glue. I'll show you how later. Anyway, when I can't beg enough, sometimes I steal—like the hot plate, clothes off a line. One way or another, I get enough to get by. My rent is cheap and I've learned to tolerate hunger."

  "I brought American money," Matsuo said, glad to know he wouldn't have to go out on the city streets with a tin cup. "But I meant how you've managed to avoid capture."

  Sachi smiled. "Almost didn't a few times. I've got a portable transmitter in a beat-up old suitcase I carry around to different parts of the city to make my broadcasts—rooftops, church steeples, graveyards, Telegraph Hill, even the Praesidio wall—you name it, I've transmitted from it. Never stayed in one place very long, and I never went to the same place twice in the same year."

  "You're a brave man," Matsuo said, meaning it.

  Sachi shook his head. "Uh-uh. I'm an angry man. Hell hath no fury like a man betrayed by his country."

  * * *

  Matsuo dozed, then took a turn on the receiver. When his shift was up, he handed the headphones to Sachi. It was morning and he wanted to stretch his legs. He had crossed the Pacific in a cabin on a submarine and this tiny furnished room seemed hardly bigger.

  "Just be careful," Sachi said. "Since you won't be begging, leave the white cane here and use the hickory one by the door. Just remember to move slowly but keep moving. You don't want any attention from the cops."

  Matsuo reveled in the air and light as he made his way down to the docks. When had he last seen the sun? As he crossed Jefferson Street, he glanced up to his left and stopped dead in his tracks.

  He had seen drawings of it before leaving San Francisco in 1932, and grainy black and white photos of it in newspapers since its completion, but nothing had prepared him for the sight of those monolithic red-orange towers and the ribbon of roadway gracefully spanning the gap between. The Golden Gate Bridge had been lost in the fog last night, but now it held him spellbound until a horn blast and a hoarse "Trying to get killed?" from a passing Ford alerted him to the fact that he was standing in the middle of the street. He hurried over to the wharf and leaned against a wooden rail, staring in mindless wonder at the bridge's audacious beauty.

  When he finally had his fill, he looked to his far right and saw another new bridge, this one going to Oakland. It looked longer than the Golden Gate, but somehow it was just a bridge. The red-orange one here was a work of art as well as an engineering marvel. He turned and nearly cried out as he saw a white tower jutting up from the top of Telegraph Hill like a gun barrel. That hadn't been there before.

  In a state of mild shock, Matsuo wandered along the Embarcadero. San Francisco had changed so drastically. It hadn't been apparent last night in the dark, but there was no hiding it now. So much busier. Before he left, it had been a collection of neighborhoods where everybody seemed to know everybody else. Now it was truly a city. Had the war or the bridges done that?

  He came to the Ferry Building. At least that hadn't changed, although he doubted it was one-tenth as busy now as it had been before completion of the Bay Bridge that loomed over it. He set his watch to San Francisco time by the tower clock and headed for Chinatown. That hadn't changed. He passed through Nob Hill again, and began a tentative journey down the slope toward the Western Addition, afraid of what he would find there—or rather, what he wouldn't find.

  To all outward appearances, perhaps to someone speeding through in a car, Japantown was unchanged. People were shopping and walking and lingering in doorways, and the Victorian houses still hung their turrets out over the sidewalks. But even a cursory inspection revealed no Japanese faces along Geary and Octavia and Post streets where in the past Caucasians had been rare. All the signs over the shop doors and in the windows were now in English, but here and there an old painted-over ideogram had bled through. What had been Japantown was still full of the living, but to him it was a ghost town.

  Matsuo wandered through the different neighborhoods, seeing change everywhere. Eventually, he found himself in the Tenderloin. On a whim, he found Mrs. Worth's apartment and knocked on her door. He was sure she wouldn't recognize him—after all, thirteen years had passed since she had taken him in and stitched up the wound from Mick McGarrigle's bullet—but he wanted to see her face once more and know she was all right, or find out if she needed anything.

  No answer, so he knocked again. A man stuck his head out a window on the floor above. "Can I help you, mister?" His tone was anything but solicitous.

  "Yes," Matsuo said. "I believe I know this tenant. Is she in?"

  The man's face softened. "Betsy? Gee, fella, I'm sorry—she died last month. Heart, they say. You an old friend of hers?"

  Matsuo bit his lip, afraid to trust his voice. One month. He had missed her by one month. He could only shake his head as he hurried away.

  He walked with his head down, not caring where he was going as long as it was away from that empty apartment. When he looked up, he noticed a familiar facade across the street. The sign on the window glass said "O'Boyle's." He crossed over and glanced in the window. It looked pretty much the same, even to the pool tables at the rear of the main room where he had crushed Mick McGarrigle's throat.


  Why was it that the good things had changed for the worse and the bad things remained the same?

  The change in time zones was playing tricks on him. He was tired and depressed. He felt alone and vulnerable here. This whole mission seemed like a fool's errand. What did the Supreme Command expect him to accomplish? One man against the mightiest war machine in history. It was utterly hopeless.

  He pulled himself together and started the steep climb toward Nob Hill.

  But he had to try.

  TOKYO

  "We have found new housing for the Order until the war is over," Shimazu said.

  Hiroki bowed. "Where, sensei?"

  "Hiroshima. It appears to be a favored city. Very few bombing attacks. The American incendiary raids are coming so frequently here, even in broad daylight, that it is only a matter of time before this structure burns to the ground. Besides, the scrolls remained safe in Hiroshima for four hundred years. The Elders have taken that as a good sign."

  "What of the ekisu for the Kuroikaze?” Hiroki said. “I have everything assembled."

  The final ingredient, a rare alkaloid from the root of a plant found only on the Chinese mainland, had come in. All was ready.

  "We will begin mixing and distilling the ekisu when we resettle in Hiroshima. The Order will move within the week. You should take the American zasshu from the woman before then."

  Hiroki felt a ripple of disquiet. "Matsuo—"

  "—will not be a factor," Shimazu said. "I have communicated with the Navy Chief of Service. It is unfortunate, but the Navy cannot spare a submarine to pick up your brother from America."

  That was all there was to it: We're moving. Get the child. Your brother is to be stranded in America.

  Hiroki bowed again, unsure for an instant how he felt about that last part. He no longer loved Matsuo, and knew that he had gone to America on a fool's mission that could be used as tinder for the defeatists in the diet. But he was still, after all, his brother.

  He straightened. What did Matsuo matter? The war was all that counted.

  Hiroki turned his thoughts away from Matsuo to Meiko's mongrel. He knew that on this particular mission he could not sit here and wait for the temple guards to return with the child. He would have to lead them personally to the Mazaki house and oversee their every move.

  A thrill of anticipation coursed through him as he pictured the guards sneaking through the house like shadows and spiriting the child off. But somehow that didn't satisfy him. Better to see them breaking through the walls and tearing the little mongrel from Meiko's arms. She would scream in terror at first and wail in grief at her loss later, and in her soul she would know that it was her own fault for mating with a white.

  The vision of such a union flashed before him and he thrust it away, repulsed.

  He went to choose the men who would accompany him. He would select them for skill at stealth, but that was not an absolute criterion.

  * * *

  Meiko adjusted a light quilt over Naka as he lay sleeping on the futon. The days were warming with the approach of summer, but the nights were still cool. She sat back on her heels and watched him for a moment as she did almost every night. He lay spread-eagle on his back in an open, all-embracing posture that perfectly expressed his innocent acceptance of the world around him. Living with her parents these past few months had not been easy. They knew of Naka's American father and their coolness at first toward the child had not helped. But if Naka noticed their aloof attitude, he had not shown it. He would climb on Mother's lap and hug her and follow Father out into the garden and try to help him dig and weed. Soon they were looking for Naka, taking him everywhere, and now they openly adored him. If only the problems of the world could be solved so easily.

  Naka, she thought. In two months you will be three years old. It seems impossible. Where has the time gone?

  She left him in his peaceful slumber and went to her own futon in her old room. And there her thoughts drifted toward Matsuo and she wondered how he was faring in America. Was he safe? Was he hurt? Was he still free or had he been captured? Would she ever see him again? She had no way of knowing. She hoped he was sleeping as peacefully as Naka. Strange to think that here it was nearing midnight, the day almost done, and over there it was nearing dawn on a new day in San Francisco.

  She felt herself slip toward sleep and welcomed it. One more day gone, one less day before Matsuo returned.

  * * *

  Hiroki felt something almost nostalgic about returning here to this house in Akasaka. How many times had he come here with his father during the years he and Meiko had been pledged to each other? How many hours had he sat within, how many meals had he shared here?

  He pushed those thoughts from his mind. This was not a social call.

  He directed the driver along the willow-lined streets. Akasaka was uphill and west from the Imperial Palace, one of the few areas of Tokyo that had not been extensively damaged by the bombers. The Imperial Palace was another. On a quiet night, when the bombs weren't falling and the smoke from whichever part of the city currently aflame was blowing the other way, one might almost forget the war here.

  Hiroki waited while the two guards, Masashige and Tsuneo, adjusted black stocking masks over their already masked faces, then donned his own mask: two openings for the eyes, all else covered by long-sleeved sweaters and loose-fitting pants. Anyone in the household who saw them would be unable to provide a single detail linking them to the Order.

  The car was left idling at the curb while he led them around to the east side of the house. He had had the count's residence under surveillance and knew where the child slept. He let Masashige assist Tsuneo and him through the window, then left him stationed outside.

  Inside the room, was enough light from outside revealed the small form of the child sleeping soundly on his futon. All was silent in the house. So far, so good.

  Hiroki found himself trembling with tension. Until now, he had kept his distance in these matters, never actually going into a home for a child, preferring to let the guards do that sort of thing while he waited outside. He now fully appreciated the wisdom of that course. He was convinced he had been foolish to give in to the compulsion to come along this time. What if the child woke up and started screaming? So many things could go wrong. What if they were caught? The disgrace, the ignominy…

  Considering this little adventure from the distance and safety of the temple, he had almost wished for a confrontation. Now all he wanted was to be done with the task and out of here.

  He calmed himself. The worst thing now would be undue haste, especially with everything going so smoothly. All they had to do was gag the child, wrap him tightly in his quilt, and hand him out the window. The only sound so far had been the slight rattling of the shrubbery as they had climbed in, but that had drawn no attention. The shoji over the window had slid open with barely a whisper. Their bare feet drew only the faintest rustle from the tatami. But as Tsuneo drew the gag from his pocket, his elbow brushed against the shoji next to him.

  They both froze.

  * * *

  She was awake in the dark and didn't know what time it was, how long she had been sleeping, or even if she had been sleeping. But she was awake and alert and strangely tense.

  Had something roused her? She lay still and listened.

  Nothing. All quiet. She closed her eyes and looked for sleep again. As she drifted back down, she heard a scrape. She drew herself up to a sitting position and listened. It had come from where Naka was sleeping, just on the other side of the shoji. Was he up? Maybe his bladder was full.

  She spotted the shadow as she rose to her feet.

  Meiko paused and squinted through the dark. Just enough moonlight filtered through the trees and into the house to cast faint patterns on the floor and walls. But there, on the shoji that separated her quarters from Naka's, was a very solid-looking shadow. A chill spread over her skin, slowly, like a breeze across pond water. Were her eyes playing tricks or was
that the silhouette of a man?

  Meiko blinked. No, just a—

  The shadow moved. And another joined it. She screamed and leaped to her feet. As she ran for Naka's room, she heard an answering wail of alarm and fear from her child. She rounded the fusama on the fly and confronted a dark looming form that blocked her path. Behind it she saw a squirming shape being lifted out the window. She screamed.

  "No!"

  She ducked under the arm that tried to grab and hold her and lunged toward the window. The dark figure there turned and swung a fist at her. The side of her head exploded with pain. Her knees buckled but still she moved toward the moonlight, toward the window, toward her son. Another blow to the back of her neck drove her to the ground. She tried to rise but all the strength seemed to have gone out of her. She began to cry with what little breath she had left, not with grief but with frustration, because she wanted to get up, wanted to get Naka back, but her limbs would not obey her.

  Suddenly, her body was rising, but not of its own power. The dark figure was lifting her by the front of her sleeping kimono, holding her up in the moonlight. She could see no expression on the formless black shadow of the face, only two glittering points where the eyes would be. But she could sense the fury radiating from the body.

  Why does this stranger hate me?

  And then his right arm rose, paused, then flashed down. Another explosion of pain, then blackness.

  But before the blackness, she saw a mark above her assailant's right wrist: a hollow hexagon with a meshwork center. She knew that sign.

  The mark of the Kakureta Kao.

  * * *

  Meiko had vague memories of the rest of the night, of her parents rousing her and raising the alarm that brought the police, of describing the kidnappers and the events of the night over and over, of seeing the growing opacity of the officers' faces as she described the tattoo on her assailant's wrist, of being left alone in the cold gray light of dawn in the empty room with only Naka's rumpled futon for company, of sobbing uncontrollably and asking, Why? Why?