The admiral and Seito backed away in horror as the man started to come apart from the inside. Tarazawa watched in terrified fascination as the infected man fell to the hardened and rotted wood decking, coughed out another glob of blood, and then finally lay still in death.
“What have we uncovered?” the admiral asked aloud as he and Seito moved quickly to the makeshift ladder leading to the upper deck. They climbed as quickly as possible to safety.
Lieutenant Seito, his young face scrunched up in horror at what they had just witnessed on the old petrified vessel, hung his head. Then he looked up with hope in his young eyes. Seito was one of the Imperial Navy’s brightest. He had been drafted into the service just last year. He, like many in his class, was also a realist and knew no matter what the fanatical right wingers in the government said, Japan had lost the war. He only hoped there were still people around in his homeland after the shooting stopped. He was one whom those fools called defeatist, one who wished for an immediate cessation of hostilities no matter what the price might be, even to the point of the emperor having to abdicate and admit his false divinity.
“Surely this horrible plague, this substance, shouldn’t be potent after seven centuries? Well?” Tarazawa questioned the eldest of the Chinese who had only moments earlier escaped the fate of his countryman inside.
“As it is in a powder form, the Khan must have planned to disperse this substance on the winds if his invasion met with disaster.”
Above them, on the makeshift scaffolds extending from the deck that they sat on, they heard the return of Colonel Yashita and his men. Then the thud of block and tackle as it struck the scaffolding and strongest parts of the ancient deck.
“He’s come to take the cargo from the hold of the vessel,” Seito said, removing his cap and wiping the sweat from his brow. “Are you going to allow this?”
Tarazawa stood and picked up the lantern. “Colonel Yashita’s intention is the salvation of the war, and is dishonorable for the single fact he would only prolong this conflict for his own selfish reasons, and would possibly kill many hundreds of thousands of Americans, bringing on a retaliatory response that could possibly end the Japanese civilization. This must not be allowed to happen.”
“What are you saying, sir?”
Tarazawa didn’t answer. He just looked from the Chinese laborers to the lieutenant and then lowered the wick in the lantern until it dimmed and then died, casting them and the Japanese Empire into darkness.
OKINAWA, JAPAN PRESENT DAY
As the last of the rocks were moved away by Japanese contractors hired on the island, Professor Fallon called a halt. He asked the islanders and most of the Cal Riverside students to leave the cave for safety reasons. After hearing the story as told by the old soldier Seito the week before, the professor wasn’t taking any chances. The documents he had uncovered in Beijing twenty years ago with the aid of the Chinese government, during one of their more friendly and nonenlightened periods, had told him that beyond that wall could be found not only a great archaeological find with the Chinese junk, but also one of the most dangerous substances known to man.
Of the six people left to remove the last of the lava rock and stone, Sarah was out in front. A trained geologist, she would watch for instability in the rock fall when the opening was cleared. She was joined by Dr. Kowalski, who bore with her a device they called a “sniffer.” It would measure and analyze the air particles, and immediately alert her if any of the substance had become airborne after Tarazawa had sealed the excavation in ’45. Both women were now dressed in airtight chemical suits. Carl Everett wondered if their animosity was coming through their small speaker systems as they removed the last stone.
“Stand clear, Ms. McIntire, if you please. I must be able to get a solid reading,” Andréa Kowalski said.
Sarah was about to respond when she heard Carl clear his throat from about ten feet away. She instead backed away as ordered.
Andréa handled the microphone-shaped probe expertly as she eased it cautiously through the door-size opening, careful not to touch the stone itself. Once it was inside the opening, she placed a thin panel of steel over the hole and then thumbed a switch on the sniffer’s small control panel. Inside the darkness of the cave, the microphone-shaped device came apart with a small pop. The heavy springs inside engaged and sent two hundred small darts in all directions. Each dart was tungsten tipped and the small shaft was made of lypcochlorinide, which upon impact sent a burst of moisture into the air, activating any minute amounts of any substance that may be embedded in the lava rock. The tungsten heads were miniature radio units that would relay any findings to the device’s control panel. Of the two hundred darts, some found rock, others sand, and still others tumbled into the blackness. Andréa slowly brought up the particle gauge and read the virtual readout. The device was so sensitive it immediately broke down all the airborne elements in the old excavation.
The others watching Andréa’s progress could see the woman in her yellow chemical suit slowly relax her shoulders as the small darts sent back their vital information on the air quality in the cave. But none of them realized just how tense she had become.
Carl finally took a breath, not even knowing he had been holding it. He relaxed when he saw her remove the small steel plate from the hole.
Andréa removed a small round object from her belt, leaned into the opening, and tossed the small device as far as she could. The round object was a one-time-use portable analysis pod. Once thrown, it would separate into five different sections and its components would read the interior air of the confined space. It was so accurate that it picked up the traces of cordite and TNT that had been used in 1945, over sixty years before.
Andréa removed her hood. “All clear; only one strange reading I can’t figure out,” she said. “But it’s nontoxic.”
“What is it?” Professor Fallon asked, with concern.
“Trace amounts of blood.”
The others started to remove their own protective equipment.
“Don’t do that, please; just because there is nothing in the air doesn’t mean we won’t disturb trace amounts when we enter. The petrie darts only cover about ten percent of the cave; that leaves ninety percent capable of carrying something that could kill you all,” Andréa said blandly as she placed her own hood back in place.
As she turned and entered the cave, Professor Fallon and Carl and two other members of the dig team hefted the portable lighting they would use in the initial phase of the recovery. Sarah was the first to follow the CDC specialist into the opening. She switched on her flashlight once she was inside. At first, all she caught in the light was floating dust and the back of Andréa, who was waving another metal probe that was connected to her readout, this time making sure their footsteps weren’t bringing death with every movement they made. Then Sarah’s light caught the geometric shape of wooden scaffolding standing out through the dust swirls. Out of the darkness rose a black ship. Still legible on its side was what looked like a faded dragon carved into the dark wood. It ran the entire length of the ship and its tail wrapped around the stern. As she played her light around it, she could see that the bottom half of the vessel had deteriorated badly. The rotted planks that made up its hull were starting to collapse, causing the top deck to sag into the interior of the vessel.
“Director Compton would have loved to have seen this.”
Sarah jumped at the sound of Carl’s voice. “Jesus, don’t do that,” she admonished. “You scared the hell out of me.” But he was right, she thought, Niles Compton, the director of the Event Group, lived for discovery like this, and he also would have loved to get it into one of the Group’s vaults for further study. Sarah shook off the thought of Niles and brought her focus back to where it should have been; after all, they were here to make sure the old legends about this ship weren’t true. That was the whole reason for her and Carl’s infiltration of this college dig in the first place.
“We may have a dangerous s
ituation here,” Andréa said from the lower-most scaffolds.
“Danger?” Fallon asked as he looked at the ship, still giddy at proving his research right and vindicating Seito’s elaborate tall tale of an ancient vessel buried in a cave.
“The junk is collapsing in on itself. If that upper deck gives way, it will crush whatever cargo this vessel was once carrying, and if your theory and old Seito’s memory are correct, we could contaminate all of Okinawa.”
“Before we find out, doctors, I suggest you bring the old man in here and ask him a few more questions,” Carl said after he gained the top of the scaffold that looked down onto the main deck of the Chinese junk.
“He isn’t authorized, Mr. Everett,” Fallon said as he carefully eased his way to where Carl was standing.
“What have you got up there, Carl?” Sarah asked from below.
“The reason why Dr. Kowalski’s equipment was picking up trace amounts of dried blood,” Carl replied as the professor joined him.
“Good God, what in the hell is this?” Fallon exclaimed when he saw what Carl was looking at.
“Are you going to keep us in suspense up there or are you going to act like professionals?” Andréa said from the lower level.
“I think our old Lieutenant Seito needs to tell us why there are three skeletons in Japanese Army uniforms up here,” Carl said flatly.
They were all amazed an hour later when the old man, along with his interpreter, both now dressed in yellow chemical suits, bowed deeply at the waist at the remains of the three skeletons on the upper scaffold.
“Who is it?” Carl asked the old soldier.
The old man straightened with the aid of the interpreter. They could hear him breathing deeply of his oxygen, almost hyperventilating. Then he began to speak in his native Japanese.
“He said,” his interpreter translated, “that it is his great shame that this is Colonel Yashita and two of his army soldiers. Murdered, shot in the back by himself and Admiral Tarazawa.”
“He wanted to excavate the cargo, didn’t he?” Carl asked. “Yashita wanted to use it if it was still viable.”
The old man understood the question without need for the interpreter and nodded. Then he said something too low for the others to hear.
“Mr. Seito says it was a traitorous act on his and the admiral’s part, but that he would do it again. There had been enough death. They resealed the cave and in their report attributed the unfortunate loss of the colonel and his men in a cave-in.”
The group was silent. Carl just nodded his head at the old man and Sarah patted Seito on the back.
“Where is Dr. Kowalski?” Fallon asked suddenly.
Carl looked around; Andréa was nowhere to be seen. Then he heard the sound at the same time the others did. There was noise coming from inside the ancient cargo hold.
“Goddammit!” Carl exclaimed as he quickly stepped down onto the uppermost deck. His foot immediately crashed through the rotted wood as if he had stepped on a glass floor. As he gently tried to pull his booted foot free he saw the others rushing up the old wooden scaffolding. He held up his arm quickly. “Stay back! This damned thing is coming apart, I’ll—”
That was as far as Carl got, as his weight was enough to crack the rest of that section of deck. He felt weightlessness at first and then his stomach lurched up into his chest as he started to fall. There was a momentary darkness, then a bright flash of light. He felt something soft break his fall. He heard a loud grunt and then an expletive that sounded like French. Then he felt himself, and whatever it had been that broke his fall, strike the bottom of the hold.
“You clumsy oaf, you could have broken my equipment,” Andréa said from beneath him. “Or me! Now get off,” she ordered as she pushed at him.
As they both stood up, she silently held her light on something. The sight of it made her freeze instantly. She gestured for him not to move, by holding out her hand. Carl raised his light and in its beam he was amazed to see at least thirty large containers, yellowed with age and standing three feet in height, leaning against one another, still bound with the remains of old rotted restraining ropes used to keep them in place over seven hundred years before. The jars all had a red dragon, dimmed with age, painted on their sides.
“I’ll be damned,” Carl murmured under his breath.
“If whatever is in there is still viable, we all may be damned,” Andréa said as she stared at thirty-two containers of a mystery weapon Chinese legend said was the Breath of the Dragon.
Two hours later, after the dig team had assisted Andréa in setting up her equipment outside of the junk’s hull, they waited anxiously for her to confirm their worst fears. The grad students and Professor Fallon knew if the cargo was still an active powdered agent, they wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of examining the ancient junk.
Carl finally put all the puzzle pieces together. The previous year, a seven-hundred-year-old Chinese laboratory had been unearthed during an archeological dig outside Beijing. When it was discovered by an Event Group infiltration unit that students of Beijing University had found trace evidence of a biological facility that was hundreds of years ahead of its time, the news had shaken the virologists at the Event Group badly. Trace amounts of chemical agents had been discovered inside the remains of kilns. Rudimentary microscopes made up of eight or nine different lenses of glass, providing the magnification needed to study the spread of disease, were also unearthed at a nearby, separate excavation that was also tagged by the Group. Those two elements side by side painted a historical picture that would shake modern science to its foundations if word was let out. Then it was discovered in old marching orders uncovered by the Computer Sciences Department at the Event Group that a powdered compound had been intended to be released into the air over seven centuries earlier by Kublai Khan’s invading force. The findings were passed up the chain of command until the president gave reluctant permission for the Fallon dig to include Carl and Sarah for reasons of national security, after they found out that Dr. Fallon had discovered the site through an alternate means while researching survivor records in Shanghai that told of a mysterious shipwreck on the island of Okinawa.
Still in her chemical suit, Andréa set up a small worktable inside the cargo hold of the Chinese vessel. Carl strung some makeshift lighting inside and stood by as the doctor made her analysis. Carl was the only member of the dig team she allowed inside, and only then because he was already there. Thus far she had carefully used a special drill to penetrate the beeswax and porcelain. Without extracting the drill she carefully slid a rubber collar down the drill bit and made it secure to the outer wax sealant, then withdrew the drill bit from the container and rubber gasket. As she freed the tool she quickly capped the rubber gasket with a rubber stopper, then she took a deep breath and sat back. From the supplies she had assembled on her small table, she pulled out a small vile of a clear chemical and shook it up until it turned amber in color. She then placed the very tip of the probe into it.
“If you’re a religious man, Mr. Everett, now’s the time to pray whatever this stuff is has deteriorated over the centuries and has become inert; if not, I’m afraid there’s one hell of a cleanup ahead of us.”
Carl didn’t respond; he had been silent throughout the entire procedure. Ever since he had fallen through the rotted decking of the junk, he had been keeping his eyes open and thinking a few things over. He had studied Dr. Kowalski’s dossier that Niles Compton had forwarded from the Group in Nevada, and it had said nothing about the good doctor’s speaking French. The information didn’t seem critical, but the dossiers were made up by the National Security Agency and they left nothing out. Still, he would be on the alert now for other slips.
As Andréa slowly pulled the small rubber cork from the gasket, she quickly plugged it again with the telescopic probe, then began cautiously to inch it into the porcelain container. Carl could hear her short, controlled breaths as she held her arm steady. She inserted the probe into the co
ntainer until she met resistance and then she let go and shook her hands as if they had fallen asleep.
“Whatever is in there has hardened over the years. That’s good news; it means it may not be a powder any longer and easier to move if it proves active.”
“Makes me all giddy inside to know that, Doctor,” Carl said, keeping his eyes on Andréa and the container.
Andréa frowned behind her faceplate and then retrieved her portable analyzer from the table. She took two small electrical leads that protruded from the steel probe she had placed in the porcelain container and attached them to her laptop computer. Next, she took the 1/8-inch clear rubber tube on the probe and also inserted that into the side of her analyzer. Then she took a deep breath of her oxygen and started tapping commands on the keyboard. Suddenly the analyzer beeped three times in rapid succession. The indicator in the upper right corner of the analyzer flashed red.
“Well, that doesn’t look or sound too good,” Carl said.
Andréa didn’t respond. She laid the analyzer down slowly, leaving the probe in the container, and carefully stood. She backed away slowly and keyed her radio on the yellow sleeve of her chemical suit.
“Well, what is it?” Carl asked as Andréa backed away from the container.
“Professor Fallon? I don’t fully understand how the Chinese did it seven hundred years before they were supposed to be able to, but they managed to—”
“Dr. Kowalski, Mr. Everett, would you be so kind as to join us up on the scaffold please,” ordered a familiar voice. “I don’t wish to be unpleasant to your colleagues.”
Andréa looked at Carl.
“May I assume you have a weapon on you, Mr. Everett?” Andréa whispered as she reached into a small satchel attached to her side and brought out a Beretta nine-millimeter automatic pistol.
Under his faceplate Carl raised his eyebrows. “Is that standard CDC issue, Doctor?” he mouthed as he reached into his satchel and brought out a Colt .45 automatic.
Legend: An Event Group Thriller Page 8
