by Bob Mayer
“As dawn broke on the eighteenth, the public address system on the Hornet called the Army pilots to man their planes. For the first time since boarding the ship, the three men who had been snuck aboard in California during darkness came up onto the deck. They made their way to aircraft number sixteen, named Bat Out of Hell by its crew. Unlike the other fifteen bombers, this plane, as ordered by the man who carried the letter from Marshall, carried no bombs. Instead, the three men climbed into the bomb bay, where their equipment awaited them—parachutes, weapons, grenades, a wireless, and other equipment indicating they were going somewhere to do something dangerous.”
Abayon was on a roll, telling the story almost as if he had experienced it firsthand, which surprised Fatima.
“The lead plane, piloted by Doolittle, lifted off the deck of the Hornet at 0820. The other planes followed as quickly as they could be moved into position. An hour after Doolittle had taken off, Bat Out of Hell roared down the wooden deck and into the sky. As soon as it was clear, the Hornet began a wide sweeping turn to head back east.
“Inside the last plane, the man with the letter made his way to the cockpit. The plane’s original target was supposed to have been Kobe. The man’s orders, backed up by his letter, changed that. Bat Out of Hell headed on an azimuth to make landfall just north of Tokyo.
“When the navigator estimated the plane was an hour from the Japanese coast, the three men rigged their parachutes and gear. At the designated location, the bombardier opened the doors on the bottom of the aircraft and the three men threw themselves out, their parachutes quickly deploying.”
Abayon paused, and this time Fatima was able to get some words in.
“How do you know all this?” she asked.
“Afterward I met one of the members of that plane’s crew,” Abayon said. “They managed to make it to China, but ran out of fuel and had to bail out. They suffered the misfortune of being captured by the Japanese. I had suffered the same misfortune almost two months before and was shipped to China en route to Unit 731 in Manchuria.”
Fatima frowned. “But I don’t understand why this is important. Three men parachuted out of one of those planes. And? Do you know who they were? What they were going to do? It sounds as if the crew of the plane certainly didn’t.”
“No, the crew had no clue who the men were or why they were parachuting into Japan,” Abayon said. “But I discovered more.”
“How?’
He held up a hand. “First, let me tell you a little more about what happened after the Doolitde raid so you get a sense of perspective. History, particularly American history, paints the raid as a great success and a turning point in the war. The Americans, as is their way, made a movie about it in 1944, even before the war was over. The commander, Doolittle, was given their Medal of Honor.
“Militarily, the raid accomplished very little. Each plane—other than number sixteen—carried only four five-hundred-pound bombs because of weight restrictions. The damage done was negligible. And all sixteen planes were lost when they crash-landed after running out of fuel.
“The Japanese, as they did here in the Philippines against the guerrillas, responded to this gnat’s strike with fury. Since the planes all went on to China, and most of the crews were saved by Chinese partisans, the Japanese vented their rage on the Chinese people. First, they conducted more than six hundred air raids of their own on Chinese villages and towns. Any village where an American airman passed through was burned to the ground and the people murdered. No one knows the exact number, but the American moral victory cost almost one-hundred-thousand Chinese their lives.”
“And the Americans did not care.” Fatima said it as a statement.
Abayon nodded. “Most Americans care nothing for people killed as long as it is not their own people. A hundred-thousand Chinese dead so that there can be exciting headlines in their newspapers and newsreel was fine for them. It is why, regrettable as it always is when civilians die in our attacks, it is nothing compared to what has been done in the name of wealth.
“Some Americans did suffer. The Japanese captured eight of the men who were on the planes, including the crew of the Bat Out of Hell. The eight were first taken to Tokyo by the Kempetai, where they were interrogated.”
“But you said you talked to one of these men in China,” Fatima noted.
“Yes,” Abayon said. “That was later. The Americans were kept in Tokyo for about two months, where they were tortured until they agreed to sign documents admitting they were war criminals. Then they were shipped back to China. I ran into them there in a prison camp. Surprisingly, though, the crew of the sixteenth plane was never interrogated about the three men, even though, under torture, they told of the jump.”
Fatima was now intrigued with this story of events so many ago. “You’re saying the crew told the Kempetai that three Americans parachuted into Japan during the raid, but the Kempetai never pursued that line of questioning?”
“Yes. Strange, isn’t it? And the secret should have died with them. The Japanese held a trial of the crew. It took them all of twenty minutes. The Americans couldn’t understand anything, since it was all done in Japanese. There was no defense counsel, and it wasn’t until after they were taken out of the courtroom that they discovered they had been condemned to death.
“The sentence was to be carried out several weeks later, but it wasn’t until the day before they were to be killed that the Americans were informed of their sentence. They wrote letters to their families—which were never sent. Then, the next day, the Japanese took them into a cemetery. There were three small wooden crosses stuck in the ground, and the men were made to kneel with their backs against the crosses. Their hands were tied to the cross pieces. White cloth was wrapped around their faces—not as blindfolds, but with a large X marked on it just above the nose as a target point. It only took one volley from the firing squad.”
Abayon paused. Fatima had seen death in her work for the Abu Sayef, but the horrors of World War II were on a scale that her generation could not visualize.
She waited a few moments, then asked, “But what does any of that have to do with the Golden Lily? And with what is in this complex?”
Abayon ran his hands along the worn arms of his wheelchair. It had been years since he’d been able to walk. Years since he’d left the complex. He knew his present condition was a direct result of what had been done to him by the Japanese so many years ago. He was lucky to have survived when so many others had not, but revisiting that place, even in conversation, was painful. Still, Fatima had to know what he knew and what he suspected.
“The men who jumped out of that bomber into Japan are the connection,” he finally said. “After we were captured, my wife and I were taken from the Philippines to China for a while and then eventually to Manchuria, to a place called Pingfan, about twenty- five kilometers southeast of Harbin.
“At first we thought it was just a concentration camp. But the collection of prisoners was strange. There were Chinese, of course, but there were two-dozen Filipinos; some Europeans who had been captured; a handful of Australians; many nationalities were represented for some reason. And there was one American.”
“One of the jumpers,” Fatima said.
Abayon smiled despite the terrible memories bubbling in his mind. She was indeed the right one. “Yes. One of the jumpers. I talked to him. His name was Martin. Kevin Martin. At first he said nothing of his past or how he had been captured or even who he was. But when I told him of the American aircrew from Doolittle’s raid and that I had seen that they were prisoners of the Japanese, it was the key to opening him up. Martin wanted to know what had happened to the men. He was quite upset when I told him they were executed, even though we were in a place where it was obvious we would not live long either.”
Abayon paused, gnarled hands moving back and forth on the arms of his wheelchair in agitation. “What do you know of Unit 731?”
“What you have told me,” Fatima said. “It was
the biological warfare experimental laboratory for the Japanese.”
“I have studied the unit and its history as much as any person since the end of the war,” he said. “The Japanese made no secret of their interest in developing biological and chemical weapons. Early on, they knew they were at a technical disadvantage to the West, but in this field they felt they might be able to gain the upper hand.
“In 1925 the Japanese made this clear when they refused to sign the Geneva Convention ban on biological weapons. In fact, I believe, given information I have examined over the years, that in a perverse way the fact that there was a ban on these weapons is what made the Japanese more interested in them. High-ranking Japanese officers figured that if something was so terrible it was outlawed, then it must be an effective weapon.
“They weren’t stupid, though. They knew better than to build such dangerous facilities in their own country. When they invaded Manchuria in 1932, accompanying the troops was an army officer who was also a physician, Dr. Ishii. He began the preliminary work that would lead four years later to Unit 731 being established. Besides the remoteness of the site, it also allowed them access to numerous test subjects: namely, Chinese soldiers and citizens, whom they considered less than human.
“It was a large compound,” Abayon said, remembering. “Around 150 buildings covering several square kilometers. The Japanese used bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax, and other diseases in controlled tests on humans. They decided they also needed to make sure that the diseases worked the same on different races, so they began importing prisoners from other theaters of the war. That is how I ended up there.
“They did more than experiment—they also used the weapons. In their war against China, the Japanese used poison gas over one thousand times. They dropped bacteria from planes numerous times, starting plagues among not only enemy troops, but the civilian population. The estimates of how many died run into the hundreds of thousands.”
“But...”
Abayon paused. “Yes?”
“Biological warfare has never been considered particularly effective for the battlefield. That is why it has so rarely been used.”
Abayon nodded. “True. And it wasn’t particularly effective then either. Even though they killed many, the Japanese couldn’t control what they had unleashed. Japanese troops also died. But still, the experiments at 731 went on.”
Abayon fell silent, and Fatima did not disturb him as his mind wandered down the dark alleys of his past. Finally he stirred. “My wife. They took her before they took me. They called us meruta—logs. That’s what they thought of us.”
“Why logs?” Fatima asked.
“Because that’s what we looked like when they stacked the bodies,” Abayon said. “Seventeen days after we arrived at Unit 731—shipped there packed in trains like cattle—they took my love along with several dozen others. Out to the testing range. They tied them to stakes. A plane flew by overhead, spraying whatever latest germ the scientists had come up with.
“The lucky ones died quickly and on the stake. My wife wasn’t one of the lucky ones. The Japanese doctors wanted to see how quickly the disease progressed and what it did to the victim. So at a certain schedule, soldiers garbed in protective gear would go out to the field of death and take a harvest. They would bring several living prisoners back to the doctors. Then ...”
Abayon fell silent.
“Your wife was one of these chosen?” Fatima asked.
“Yes. I was in my barracks. Locked in. I could look through a split in the wood. I saw them drive the truck in, the bodies in the back, sealed in a protective tent. Still alive. The doctors wanted them alive. So they could cut them open and see what their diseases were doing to a living person.
“I heard my wife’s screams. They went on and on. I had seen the bodies of others who had been taken into the operating lab before, so I had a good idea—too good—of what they were doing to her. Vivisection. Cutting her open without anesthesia. The screams became so horrible, they couldn’t even be recognized as coming from a human being anymore. It was like an animal that had been trapped and was being tormented.”
Abayon spit. “Doctor Ishii. Whatever oaths he had sworn in medical school were long forgotten. One hears so much about the Nazis and their death camps, but no one talks about 731. Everyone acts like it didn’t exist. The Japanese premier and emperor both denied ever hearing of it at the end of the war. But Tojo personally gave Ishii a medal for his work there.
“And it was the Americans who would have paid the price if the Japanese had managed to make their weapons program effective. They planned to use balloon bombs to carry diseases to America. In 1945 they made a plan to use kamikaze pilots to dump plague-infected fleas on San Diego. There was another plan to send cattle plague in grain to affect the American economy. As the war wound down, Ishii came up with his most daring plan, which he named ‘Cherry Blossoms at Night’: use kamikaze pilots to hit the entire coast of California with plague. A sort of reverse of the Doolittle raid.
“Submarines were to take pilots and planes off the western coast of the United States. The submarines would surface and the planes would be launched. The date scheduled for this attack was September twenty-second, 1945. Fortunately for the Americans, the Japanese high command interceded and the submarines were diverted to be used against a closer threat: the American fleet at Ulith. All the Japanese managed to do was launch nine thousand incendiary bombs attached to balloons in the hopes that the jet stream would carry them across the ocean to America. They hoped to cause forest fires and terror. Several bombs made it, and one unfortunate woman was killed, but that was it.”
“So 731 was a failure,” Fatima said.
“For the Japanese,” Abayon said.
“What do you mean?”
Abayon sighed. “Let me finish my story and you judge for yourself. The war was coming to a close, but still Ishii ran his experiments. Then came my day. I was taken out to the field. Tied to a stake. To my right was the American, Martin. We waited, and then the plane came flying by, releasing something from the tanks under its wings. We knew we were dead men. And only then, knowing he was doomed and I was also, did Martin told me his story.
“He had been recruited into the OSS—Office of Strategic Services—the American precursor to the CIA. He had been briefed that his team’s mission was to parachute into Japan and make their way to a university where Japan’s only cyclotron was located and destroy iy. It’s a device that is needed to develop atomic weapons.”
“But that wasn’t their real mission,” Fatima said, once more jumping a step ahead of the story.
Abayon nodded. “Correct, it wasn’t, as Martin found out, to his shock. They were picked up by the Kempetai on the drop zone, as if the Japanese were waiting for them and knew exactly when and where they would be jumping.” Abayon paused, then gestured. “Could you get me some water?”
“That will take a while,” Fatima said, knowing how far away the nearest room where she could fulfill his request was.
“We have time,” Abayon said. “Talking has made me parched. And I need a little time to collect my thoughts before I continue.”
When Fatima left the observation point, Abayon checked his watch. It would begin soon. Very soon.
Over the Philippines
“Six minutes,” the crew chief warned Vaughn.
Vaughn repeated the warning to Tai. They were standing next to the oxygen console. Vaughn made a twisting motion as he gave the next command. “Go on personal oxygen.”
They both unscrewed their oxygen hoses from the console and connected them to the small tanks strapped to their chests. Vaughn took a few breaths to make sure the tank was feeding properly. Everything was working perfectly so far.
“Depressurizing begun,” the crew chief announced.
Both Vaughn and Tai swallowed as air began to leak out of the cargo bay so they could equalize with thin air outside at 25,000 feet.
Hong Kong
The room
was on the top floor of one of the tallest buildings in Hong Kong. To be allowed access, the half-dozen occupants had to suffer through a tedious two-hour security check. And these were not people who submitted easily to such checks. But the lure that had been dangled in front of them about what was to occur in this room at this late hour was more than enough to convince them to put aside their pride.
The half dozen were seated in comfortable chairs arranged in a semicircle facing a small stage with a podium on the right side. A curtain hid whatever was on the stage.
Ruiz stepped from behind the curtain and walked to the podium with a black three-ring binder in his hands. He set the binder down, then checked his watch.
“Gentlemen, and lady,” he added, acknowledging the jewel-bedecked older woman seated in one of the chairs, “the first item will be up for bid in five minutes.”
Australia
“The recon team is just about on target for drop.”
The man who announced this wore black combat fatigues, unmarked by any rank, insignia, or patch. He sported a pistol in a quick draw holster on his right hip. A fighting knife hung in a sheath on his left hip. He was addressing three other men, all dressed in black fatigues, all armed in one form or another. He had a satellite phone pressed to one ear.
“A fucking chick on a bloody mission,” one of the men said with disgust.
The man who had made the announcement turned to the board near his right rear. Pictures of all six members of Section 8 were tacked there. He reached out with his free hand and ran his fingers over Tai’s image, almost a caress. “She’s supposed to be a badass,” he noted. “That’s what her file says.”
“File,” the second man snorted. “I’ll show her a fucking file.”
The team leader gave a cold smile. “I don’t think she’s going to be around for our reckoning with these fellows.” He was a tall man, head shaved completely bald. A jagged scar ran across his forehead. On top of the scar a barbed-wire tattoo had been laid, making it seem part of the artwork. His accent indicated he was from South Africa, with the trace of Afrikaaner showing through.
