gaping windows he could see that the sky was completely covered with swirling masses of dark clouds and dust.
He was confused. There’d only been the one flash. One bomb. But how could it have done so much damage?
Much of what he could see of the city was gone; either flattened by the blast or burning furiously. There seemed to be fires everywhere. And the street directly in front of the hospital was choked with debris. He’d been saved because he’d moved away from the open doorway at the last moment. He’d been lucky. Those caught outside would not have fared so well.
For the first time he remembered that he had a car waiting for him. Kiyoshi Fukai, his driver, was downstairs with Myeko. He had sent her back outside just before the bomb. They were both outside, exposed.
Nakamura was suddenly angry and frightened. He did not want to be stuck in Hiroshima.
And without a car and driver it would take them days to make it home to his wife and children and business. There was too much to be done, too many records to be destroyed before the enemy landed, too much to be dismantled and hidden, for him to be delayed.
Sprinting down the corridor, he scrambled over piles of debris and beds and bodies, mindless of the cries for help, panic suddenly rising inside him. The Americans had targeted Hiroshima for some reason. They had bombed it once, they would almost certainly bomb it again. He had to get away before the bombers returned.
At the far end of the corridor the stairway was surprisingly undamaged and free of debris, though the smoke became heavier as he raced down from the third floor.
At street level the pharmacy was burning furiously, but no one was doing anything to put out the flames. A few nurses were helping patients escape from the hospital, but there appeared to be no organized efforts at rescue yet. Everyone seemed to be in varying states of shock.
Outside, directly in front of the hospital, a dozen people sat or lay on the grass, the clothes scorched off their bodies, their skin flash-burned and blistering.
The only thing that Nakamura could think was that the American bomb had touched off an ammunition dump nearby, or perhaps ignited a gas works. But there seemed to be no fire concentrated in one area.
An ambulance was overturned in the middle of the driveway, on fire as was a big, black car behind it. An American car, Nakamura realized, his stomach clutching as he pulled up short.
His car. A Chrysler.
“No,” he shouted, leaping forward.
He had to swing wide of the ambulance, the heat was so intense, and on the other side he had to pull up short again. There was no possibility of getting close to the Chrysler. Its gas tank had evidently ignited, spewing the synthetic fuel in the tank forward into the passenger compartment. Black, greasy smoke rose up into the dust-filled sky, and flames completely engulfed the big car.
Suddenly enraged, Nakamura stood ten yards away from the 8
burning car, and began hopping from one foot to the other. Burned and wounded passersby paid him absolutely no attention. People were crying for help, or for mizu-water, and others were screaming, Itai! Itai! It hurts! It hurts! It was a scene from hell.
Gradually a familiar voice began to separate itself from the others in Nakamura’s ears. A man crying “Tasukete! Tasukete, kure!” Help,if you please!
Nakamura turned in time to catch his driver Kiyoshi stumbling from behind the overturned ambulance. The back of his jacket and trousers had been completely burned away, as had some of his flesh. Part of his spine and a few ribs were exposed, obscenely white in contrast with his beet-red skin.
Kiyoshi fell backwards onto the pavement, and immediately lurched onto his side, a high-pitched inhuman keening coming from the back of his throat, his burned hands outstretched as if in supplication.
Nakamura reached him. “What happened, Kiyoshi? Where is Myeko?”
Kiyoshi’s eyes focused on Nakamura. “Nakamura-san, what has happened?”
“Where is Myeko?” Nakamura shouted, grabbing Kiyoshi by the shoulders and shaking him. “Myeko?”
“In the car,” Kiyoshi cried. “She is dead. I could not save her. She is dead. Help me, Nakamura-san. Please help me.”
Nakamura sat back on his haunches and looked down in contempt at his driver. There was absolutely no hope for the man. No medical science in the world could help him.
Life was for the living.
He looked up at the destruction all around him, then back at the ravaged body of his chauffeur, who had served him well for nearly ten years.
Life was for the living, and Nakamura knew that he would be one of the survivors.
At all costs.
Somehow he would return to Nagasaki to his wife and children and to his factory and laboratory to do what had to be done before the enemy arrived.
BOOK ONE
Chapter 1
Police Sergeants Pierre Capretz and Eugene Gallimard watched as the Air Service panel truck bumped toward them along the dusty ILS access road. In the distance to the east, runway 08 was flattened in perspective because of a slight rise in the ground level, and because of the thin haze that had hung over Paris and her environs for the past two days. Farther in the distance, windows in the Orly Airport terminal building glinted and sparkled in the morning sun.
The stink of burned Kerojet was on the breeze because an Air Inter L-1011 had just taken off for Montpellier with a tremendous roar that rattled the windows of the maintenance gate guard hut. The silence in the aftermath was so deafening that Capretz had to shout.
“He’s not on the schedule.”
Gallimard shrugged, but as he watched the van through narrowed eyes his left hand went to the strap of the Uzi slung over his shoulder. A driver, but no one else so far as he could see. The van was familiar, or at least the logo on its side was, but they’d been warned about a possible terrorist attack on a European airport within the next ten to twelve days, and he was nervous.
“Call Central,” he said.
“Right,” Capretz replied, but for a moment he stood where he was watching the approaching van.
“Pierre,” Gallimard prompted.
“Mais out,”
Capretz said. He turned and went into the hut, where he laid his submachine gun down on the desk. He picked up the phone and dialed 0113 as the van pulled up to the gate and stopped.
Gallimard stepped around the barrier and approached the driver’s side of the van.
The driver seemed young, probably in his mid-to late-twenties. He had thick blond hair, high cheekbones, and a pleasant, almost innocent smile. His white coveralls were immaculate. He was practically un enfant, and Gallimard began to relax.
“Bonjour. Salut,” the young man said, grinning. There was something wrong with his accent. He was definitely not a Frenchman, though the nametag on his coveralls read: Leon.
“Let me see your security pass.”
“Yes, of course,” Leon said pleasantly. He reached up and unclipped his badge from the sun visor and handed it out. “You need to see the work order?”
“Yes,” Gallimard said, studying the plastic security badge. It seemed authentic, and the photograph was good, yet something bothered him. He glanced back at the hut.
