“Vaya con Dios.”
“You, too.”
Jiro Kimura turned and walked out of the temple. He kept going without looking back. Bob Cassidy felt helpless. He was losing Jiro, too. Sabrina, little Robbie, now Jiro … “This life or the next, Jiro.” A tear trickled down his cheek. He wiped it away angrily. He was losing everything.
The next morning Jiro went straight to the office of his commanding officer and knocked. When he was admitted, he told the colonel that he had been followed the previous night. “I have no idea who that man was, sir, but I wish to make a report so that the incident may be investigated. I have never before been followed- that I know about anyway.”
The colonel was surprised. He apparently had not been told that Kimura was a suspicious character, Jiro concluded, or else he should be on the stage professionally. It was with a sense of relief that Jiro described the man in the train station.
“Perhaps this man wasn’t really following you, Captain. Perhaps you are too suspicious.”
“Sir, that is possible. But I wish you would report the incident so that the proper authorities may investigate. In light of what the wing commander said yesterday …”
“Yes. Indeed. I will make a report, Captain Kimura. This incident should be investigated. Japan is filled with foreigners who cannot be trusted.”
On that illogical note, Jiro was dismissed.
And he was right about the base closure. Just before noon, the colonel called an officers’ meeting and made the announcement that all officers and enlisted were confined to the base until further notice.
5
The first person in Russia to learn that Japan planned to invade Siberia was Janos Ilin, who heard the news an hour after the American national security adviser, Jack Innes, told the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Ilin got the news from a FIS officer in the Russian embassy in Washington. The FIS officer had dismuch less bureaucracy to work through, so his news arrived in Moscow first.
Ilin was at his desk in the Foreign Intelligence Service — which had replaced the old KGB— building in Dzerzhinsky Square. He read the translation of the encrypted message completely and carefully, laid it on his desk, cleaned his glasses, lit an American cigarette, then read it again.
Janos Ilin was not a Communist. He wasn’t anything. He was old enough and wise enough to know that the reason Russia was a sewer was because Russians lived there. In his fifty-five years on earth he had come to believe that in their heart of hearts, most Russians were selfish, lazy peasants who hated anyone with a ruble more than they had.
From Ilin’s office window, looking above the tops of the buildings across the square, he could see the onion spires of the Kremlin.
These were the days of Kalugin, who now ruled the tattered remnants of the czars’ empire. In truth, the empire that the Communists had inherited and held with grim determination for seventy-five years was now irretrievably gone; only Russia and Siberia remained. Still, Russia and Siberia were huge beyond imagination. In towns and villages and isolated cottages out in the va/s of the steppe, the long grass prairies, and the boreal and subarctic forests, Kalugin was just a name, a photo or flickering image on the television. Life went on pretty much as it had since the death of Stalin, when the secret police stopped dragging people away. The winters were still long and fierce, work hard, food scarce, vodka too plentiful.
Kalugin fought his way to the top, promising to restore Russia’s glory and build an economic system that worked. His plan was to legitimize the vast criminal enterprises that were actually feeding, clothing, and housing a significant percentage of the population, and making the people who ran them rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Kalugin was one of those rich ones. He could orate long and loudly on the glory of Mother Russia, and he had never paid a ruble in taxes. Now he was in the Kremlin, surrounded by men just like him. Janos Ilin took a deep breath and sighed. War again. Against Mother Russia. Now we find out what Kalugin is made of, he thought. He finished his cigarette before he went to see the minister.
Washington, D.C., was overcast and dreary in the rain. The soldier at the wheel of the government sedan had little to say, which was just as well because Bob Cassidy was whacked from jet lag. He felt as if he hadn’t slept in a week. His eyes burned, his skin itched, and he was desperate for a long, hot shower and a bed. Alas, it was six in the evening here and his orders were to proceed directly to the Pentagon. The driver had been waiting for him when he got off the plane at Dulles Airport. He rode along for a while watching traffic, then leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. He hadn’t slept a wink on the all-night flight from Tokyo to Seattle, nor on the cross-continent flight to Dulles. He hated airliners, hated the claustrophobia brought on by being shoehorned into too small a seat. But that was past. He felt himself relaxing as he enjoyed the motion of the car, the rhythm of the wipers. “We’re here, Colonel. Sir! We’re here.”
Cassidy levered himself erect and looked around. The soldier was parked outside the main entrance, and he was offering Cassidy a security badge. “You need to show this to the security guard inside, sir.”
“You’ll wait for me?”
“Yes, sir. I have your luggage. I’ll wait right here.”
Cassidy took the security badge and climbed from the car. He paused to straighten his tie — he was wearing a civilian suit — then marched for the main entrance. The rain was still falling, a medium drizzle. Inside, one of the security guards led him along endless gray corridors, up stairs, along more corridors. He was completely disoriented within two minutes. Once, through an open door, he saw a window that appeared to be on an outside wall, but he wasn’t sure. Finally, he arrived at a decorated corridor, one with blue paint and original artwork on the walls, carpet on the floor.
The security guard led him into a reception area, introduced him to a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, who asked him to take a seat for a minute. The marine disappeared into an office. In minutes, he was back. “It will be just a few minutes before the chairman can see you, Colonel. Could I offer you a soft drink or a cup of coffee?”
“Coffee would be perfect. Black, thank you.”
The headline in the newspaper on the table screamed at him: SECRET MILITARY PROTOCOL WITH RUSSIA REVEALED. Under the headline, smaller type said, “President committed U.s. to defense of Russia. Key congressional leaders approved secret pact.”
Tired as he was, Cassidy picked up the paper and read the story. When the marine returned with a paper cup full of steaming black fluid, Cassidy sipped gratefully as he finished the story. The marine waited patiently. “Do you have a room where I could wash my face and brush this suit?”
“The general will see you in just a few minutes, sir. Believe me, you don’t have to put on the dog for him. He knows you just got off the plane.”
They made small talk for several minutes; then the telephone buzzed. Thirty seconds later, Cassidy was shaking hands with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Stanford Tuck. The marine aide left the room and pulled the door closed behind him. They sat in leather chairs facing each other, on the same side of the large desk. “I’m sorry for the short notice, Colonel. Things are happening quickly, which is par for the course around here. I don’t know just what they told you at the embassy in Tokyo, so let me summarize. It appears that Japan will invade Siberia in the very near future.”
Cassidy just nodded. Apparently the bigwigs believed Jiro’s tale. Tuck continued: “We project that Japan’s new Zero fighter will destroy Russia’s air force within a week, if the Russians are willing to keep sending their planes up to get shot down. Due to the dearth of decent roads in Siberia and the vast distances involved, both sides are going to have to rely on air transport for all their food, fuel, and ammo. Baldly, the side with air superiority will win.”
Tuck’s gray eyes held Cassidy transfixed. “It is doubtful if the United States will take sides in this regional conflict,” the general continued. “I saw the story on the military protocol in the paper.”
Tuck gestured at the heavens. “We are toying with the idea of loaning Russia a dozen of our best fighters to take on the Zeros. That’s where you come in.”
