Blood Red Sun

by Mertz, Stephen

  He moved along swiftly, keeping the M-1 slung over his shoulder, preferring the .45 pistol as head weapon as he ran from door to door along the corridor. The doors along this stretch were all unlocked. He would throw a door open and step to one side to dodge possible fire from within, but the rooms were deserted.

  The castle was in an uproar. Somewhere outside a siren started wailing in the night.

  Ballard reached another bend off which a corridor ran. It had an ornately curved ceiling, sparse lighting, and a mood of medieval foreboding.

  The echoes of shouts and pounding feet drifted like ghosts through the spacious hallways. In a minute or less, they would find the bodies in the vestibule and shortly after that, this wing of the castle would be overrun.

  He began trying doors along this hallway. The first one he came to, indented slightly in the wall, was locked. He stepped back, about to launch a kick at the door, when he heard men tromping down a hallway behind him. Pressing himself in against the indention in the wall, his back scrunched against it, he held his breath and prepared himself mentally to kill.

  Four of Baron Tamura’s force charged past on their way somewhere else. They did not see him in the gloom as they rushed by.

  When they were gone, he stepped back, kicked the door off its hinges and dodged to the side, pistol up and ready. Nothing but an empty conference room.

  He started down toward the next door, conscious of time running out. He wondered how Wil and Tex were doing. His combat senses probed the semidarkness, sensing no other presence anywhere near him.

  He was reaching for the next door handle, coming at it along the wall, when something was thrust out at him from the darkness at ankle level, catching him totally unaware. His forward momentum sent him falling. He twisted his body to hit the floor with a shoulder, using his momentum to roll over onto his back and onto his feet, coming up in a combat crouch with the .45 held ready.

  Another blur from the shadows.

  A bamboo staff, about five feet long, whooshed quietly to crack the pistol out of his hand with a numbing burst of pain to his fingers.

  The man wielding the staff, his features totally indiscernible to Ballard, swirled away again.

  Ballard unslung his rifle and brought it around. The shadow fighter emerged from another direction, outflanking him. Another whispered whoosh and the rifle went spinning, clattering somewhere to the side.

  Ballard felt naked. He pawed for the combat knife. An impression of his opponent stepping back, then the other uttered a fierce cry, and the end of the staff came out at him from nowhere. He caught the blow in the stomach. He doubled over with enough force to fall off his feet to his knees. The whoosh again and the staff caught him squarely on the jaw, flipping him onto his back. His world became shooting pain and bleary images wavering in and out of view.

  The man appeared from the shadows, a lean, muscled man in his fifties with the reflexes and physique of a man half his age.

  Ballard looked up through his pain and loss of breath into an intelligent face tightened around eyes that smoldered with a fanatical light. He stood there with one foot pinning Ballard to the floor. With a quick flip of his wrist, a long knife inserted at one end of the staff flashed out. Ballard felt it prick his Adam’s apple.

  He winced and did not move. He looked beyond the staff to see Mischkie and Hanklin standing there with their hands raised, and men in uniforms behind them aiming their rifles at the Americans. One of them must have poked Hanklin a bit too hard because the Texan reached back and swatted the rifle barrel away irritably.

  “That’s a gun, boy, it ain’t the knife. If you’re going to shoot me, shoot me, damn ya. Don’t go to tickling me to death with the damn thing.”

  The man with the rifle stepped back a pace, intimidated by the raging behemoth whose tongue he did not understand. “Hey, there’s Sarge,” said Mischkie.

  “Silence,” the Baron commanded.

  “Well, now we’re cooking with gas!” Hanklin said. “One of these jokers speaks English!”

  Ballard felt the pressure of the foot on his chest increase, and the man above him applied more pressure to the point of the blade that felt hot and cold at the same time where it pricked his throat.

  “One more word, unless you are spoken to, and this man dies.”

  That quieted down Hanklin and Mischkie.

  The blade did not move from Ballard’s throat, nor the foot from his chest.

  “I am Baron Tamura. You are trespassers here. Which of you is the leader?”

  “That questionable privilege belongs to me,” Ballard said. “I suppose if you were going to kill us, we’d already be dead.”

  “Do not be too confident, American. You barbarians! All brawn with nothing of grace or discipline about you. I am fifty-six years of age. I bested you easily.”

  “I’ve got a hunch you’re no average guy, Baron.”

  “And I can see that you are average. Coarse, crude, foolish barbarians.”

  “I guess that is a fairly accurate assessment, at that.”

  “I know what has brought you here. You have come for my niece, Keiko, have you not? And you come for me. You have found me. And now, I shall take you to her.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  They paused before a heavy wooden door.

  “Hell,” Mischkie muttered. “I never made it this far. A half dozen of the little bastards came down on me from both sides.”

  “Same thing happened to me,” said Hanklin.

  Baron Tamura motioned to one of his men, who produced an old-fashioned key ring from his belt, opened, and held the door. Men standing behind Mischkie and Hanklin shoved them forward and the two stumbled into a dungeon.

  “Keep in touch, Sarge,” was Hanklin’s parting shot. “Yeah,” added Mischkie. “Don’t forget to write.”

  The man with the keys slammed the door shut and spun a key in the lock.

  Ballard was gripped by either elbow and propelled to the next door which the soldier unlocked, swinging the door open. Keiko stood against the far wall opposite the doorway, eyeing them apprehensively.

  In English, Baron Tamura said to her, “Since you are so fond of barbarians, my dear, perhaps you would care to share your final hours with one.”

  Another command in Japanese.

  Ballard was heaved bodily into the dungeon. The door slammed shut behind him, isolating the two of them.

  “Hello, Keiko.”

  “John, I have led you and your men to your deaths. I am sorry.”

  “Not yet you haven’t.”

  “That is a courageous thing to say. You are a courageous man. But how can we escape from here?”

  Looking around the cell for the first time, Ballard said, “That, as we say in America, is the hundred thousand dollar question.”

  The apartment Kentaro Nagano shared with his wife was a modest two rooms separated by a sliding partition. The sliding doors on the south side of the room were partially open. A sea breeze wafted the curtains.

  Miyuki Nagano had prepared a meal of a bowl of noodles and a pot of tea. Since setting down his chopsticks hours earlier, her husband had not spoken a word. While she sat reading the newspaper, he stretched out upon the futon, staring at the ceiling and listening to the thin and reedy singing of old folk songs on the radio. After awhile he closed his eyes, and though he lay thus for more than an hour, Miyuki could tell from his breathing that he was not asleep.

  “I know what troubles you,” she said at long last, setting aside the newspaper. “You have been expecting to hear from Baron Tamura and Colonel Hayashi. You have not left the apartment in more than twenty-four hours.”

  He always confided everything in her. She was truly his partner in life, and the passing years had only served to deepen his feelings for her. Shortly after their marriage, they had learned that Miyuki could not have children, but rather than drive a wedge between them as it might have done, especially with the extreme emphasis in Japan on large families, they had grown o
nly closer during their years of marriage.

  The general’s thin features were focused on the ceiling from where he lay as if he might find answers there.

  “I wonder if Baron Tamura knows that I conferred with Major Okada about throwing in with Kurita and those peasants.”

  “I could speak with my brother.”

  “No.” He sat up with an angry, dismissive gesture. “Colonel Hayashi is not my brother-in-law where this is concerned. This is man’s business. You will not interfere.”

  “It is strange you have not heard from the Kempeitai officer.”

  “Okada will be disappointed to learn that I have been excluded from Baron Tamura’s circle of trust.”

  “Will he believe you?”

  “I am still a general in the army. It does not matter what he thinks.”

  “And he is Kempeitai.”

  The telephone pealed. He answered.

  It was Okada.

  “General, I was wondering—”

  “My answer is no, Major.”

  Okada did not hesitate, as if expecting the rebuff.

  “There are those who will be disappointed, my dear General.”

  Nagano had the impression of being played with, of being mocked. He imagined the secret police officer’s gold tooth glinting in a sinister smile.

  “Extend my regrets to General Kurita. Goodbye, Major.” He replaced the telephone receiver with deliberate force. He turned to Miyuki.

  “There, wife. I have heard from Major Okada and he has heard from me. I will not work against the Baron or your brother.”

  She smiled. Something she did not often do these days. “I never doubted your loyalties, Kentaro.”

  She began to say something else. A knock at the door interrupted her. She sent him a worried glance.

  He frowned. “That did not take Major Okada very long.”

  “Don’t answer it,” she whispered. “Go out the back way!”

  “They will have the building surrounded. They had it surrounded before Okada made his telephone call.”

  “Kentaro, no—”

  He went to her, touched her on each arm and kissed her forehead lightly. Then he crossed to the front door.

  Three imperial soldiers stood there, a lieutenant and two troopers. Each wore the insignia of the Kempeitai.

  “General Nagano, you are under arrest,” the lieutenant announced crisply.

  “For what charge am I being arrested?”

  “You will come with us, General. I have orders to bring you in, alive or dead. The choice is yours.”

  Keiko squatted to keep from sitting on the hay and tattered blankets in one corner of the cell. She watched Ballard make a thorough inspection of the walls and ceiling.

  He brushed away at spots where the aged plaster exposed brick. He tried making voice contact, calling to the two in the next cell, but the only response was a sentry shoving his face against a barred window in the door, yelling at Ballard in Japanese.

  “It is of no use, John,” Keiko said after the sentry had gone.

  He stood in the center of the cell, hands on his hips, and slowly turned in a complete circle, studying walls and ceiling intently one more time, shaking his head with dissatisfaction.

  “A part of me hoped that you and your men would not come,” she said. “I knew it was your job. I feared the three of you would be killed.”

  “I wonder why we weren’t.”

  “Baron Tamura raised me from a child. I have known him longer than any other person in the world. But after these past days, I cannot say what he is capable of or what his reasoning may be.”

  “The boys and I have information he can use,” said Ballard. “That’s why he’s keeping us alive. He thinks he can torture us for information if he needs to. So what about you?”

  “You speak harshly.”

  “I’m in a harsh mood, kiddo. I didn’t come here to be thrown into a dungeon.”

  “I do not know what the Baron is capable of regarding me, either. I don’t think he knows, himself. I am his prisoner until he decides what he is capable of.”

  “This castle is an armed camp. Your uncle obviously intends to see something through.”

  “There, too, I do not know what he is capable of, believe me.”

  “I want to, Keiko. I also want to know what it is you haven’t told me. How did you know your uncle was sending ninja assassins after MacArthur?”

  “I overheard my uncle showing the ninja to the other conspirators.”

  “Do these other conspirators have names?”

  “There is General Nagano of the Eastern Army and a man named Okada, a major in the Kempeitai.”

  “Okada.” Ballard repeated the name.

  “You know him?”

  “We’ve met. Who else is in on this?”

  “The only other one I know of at the top level is Colonel Hayashi. He is with the Air Force.”

  “The Air Force base near here?”

  She nodded. “Tateyama, less than five kilometers to the north.”

  “There was a kamikaze detachment stationed there.”

  “Yes.,,

  “You said something funny this afternoon.”

  “Funny?”

  “Not that kind of funny. I asked you in the jeep if Japan was where you felt you belonged. You looked at a plane flying by overhead and said, ‘My heart is up there.’ “

  She permitted herself a small smile.

  “I am not a kamikaze pilot.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “I meant that my first love is flying.”

  “Is flying airplanes a usual pastime for Japanese women these days?”

  “My uncle taught me to fly. I am an expert pilot.” She glanced at the walls around them. The despair that felt as if it were smothering her soul could no longer be contained. She blurted out, “I wonder if I will ever fly again.”

  She immediately felt acute embarrassment as the anguish in her voice assaulted her own ears.

  “The Baron is a flyer,” he considered aloud. “A detachment of kamikaze is stationed just up the road.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking about a couple of Zeros hidden away with no one knowing where they are except your uncle and this Colonel Hayashi and some kamikaze he’s kept hidden since demobilization. If your uncle could dredge up ninja from four hundred years ago, a couple of disgruntled pilots should be a cinch. He sounds like quite a guy.”

  She grinned briefly at his choice of words.

  “He is quite a guy.” She chuckled at her use of his slang, then became serious again. “Yes, John, he could do all of those things.” The full awareness of what he had said began to dawn on her. “The signing of the peace treaty tomorrow morning in Tokyo Bay! Is that what you are thinking?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “My uncle … would do that,” she conceded haltingly. “He is the living spirit of the code of Bushido. To him, nothing is more sacred than the sanctity of Japan’s traditions, and these traditions decree that he never surrender to you.”

  “You feel differently about tradition?”

  “I betray tradition only because tradition has betrayed the people of Japan. My father was the Baron’s brother. He was a militarist, a colonel in the army. He died in Manchuria. Tradition stole him from me. Tradition has been an excuse for treating women in this country lower than animals. When I learned that my uncle and those men were plotting to kill MacArthur, I think I knew from the first what I must do, that I must disobey the man who raised me, the man who has been like a father to me, who has been nothing but generous and loving to me since the day he took me in and raised me.” She bit her tongue, feeling vulnerable, exposing her thoughts to him in this way. “Tradition must not always be allowed to dictate the future,” she said in a cooler, reasoning voice. “There must be hope for new beginnings between countries, between people, or there is no hope at all.”

  The words sounded hollow to her.
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  She sat down upon the grimy floor across from him and drew up her knees.

  “There is no hope,” she said.

  She rested her arms upon her knees, placed her forehead upon her arms, and began to cry very quietly.

  When Eichelberger checked in that evening to say good night, he found MacArthur exactly as he had first seen him that morning, at the same window, staring down into the street in front of the New Grand Hotel.

  MacArthur was in shirt sleeves, tieless, and with his collar open.

  “All the preparations are wrapped up for tomorrow morning, General. The procession to the quay will leave the hotel at 0600 hours.”

  “And by ten o’clock tomorrow morning,” MacArthur said, “this war will be over.”

  “Over.” Eichelberger nodded. “The word has a sweet ring to it. There’s been no word from Ballard, I take it.”

  “We tied up a lot of loose ends today, Bob, but no Ballard. He, those men of his, and that girl have been stuck in the back of my mind all day. I began the day watching them pull out. I’d like to see them back before I turn in.

  “If those guys are still out there fighting, then this war isn’t over no matter how many signatures are affixed to how many documents tomorrow morning on Bull Halsey’s ship.” He lifted his eyes to stare out over the vast sea of darkness that was the city. “There are forces out there we are not even aware of, plotting against us. The treaty signing tomorrow morning on that ship is their last chance.”

  “I’ve urged you to postpone the signing ceremony.”

  “The Japanese want peace, Bob, and I won’t let a pack of lunatic anarchists intimidate us.”

  “We’ve taken every possible precaution. I’d feel better, though, if we knew where Ballard was and what he’s up to.”

  “You weren’t very enthusiastic about me bringing Ballard along on this little expedition over here, as I recall.”

  “I was impressed with Ballard and his team from the start. I just wasn’t sure how effective three G.I.s could be inside a foreign land with no backup. Those guys are the wild cards in this mix. I don’t like wild cards.”

  “You’ve read their files. No one is better at what they do. I know they’re flesh and blood. Bullets will stop them. There’s been a lot of talk since Hiroshima and Nagasaki that this is the dawn of an atomic age that will make the conventional soldier obsolete. Well that might happen someday in the future and it might not, but right now the whole ball game depends on those three men and that woman with them.”