“A bad omen,” one said. Careful planning, dedicated men, and then this horrible slipup. “We’ll try to keep the public from learning that fact,” Abe said. He made a gesture of irritation. “We must move on. There is much to be done.”
The generals got to their feet, then bowed. “For Japan,” the chief of staff said softly.
When Masako awoke, she was in her bed in the royal residence, a Western-style home on the grounds of the Imperial Palace. A physician and nurse were in attendance. The nurse was taking her pulse; the doctor was writing something. She closed her eyes. The scene came back so vividly she opened them again, focused on the ceiling. The nurse whispered to the doctor; the doctor came to check her head. He pressed on her forehead, which was sore. Apparently, she had hit it when she had fallen. “Please leave me alone,” she asked. It took a while, with much bowing by the nurse, but eventually the professionals left the room and closed the door behind them. Masako kept her eyes open. She was afraid of what she might see if she closed them. They killed him. She wondered if she was going to cry. When it became apparent that she was not, she sat up in bed, examined her sore head in a mirror. Yes, she had fallen on her forehead, which sported a vicious bruise. She fingered the place, felt the pain as she pressed, savored it. They killed him! A shy, gentle man, a figurehead with no power. Murdered. For reasons that would be specious, ridiculous. For reasons that would interest only an insane fanatic, they killed him. She felt empty, as if all life had been taken from her. She was only an unfeeling shell, a mere observer of this horrible tragedy that this woman named Masako was living through. She sat upon the bed, unwilling to move. Scenes of her life with Naruhito flashed through her mind, raced along, but finally they were gone and the tree outside had thrown the room in shadow, and she was merely alone, in an empty room, with her husband dead.
In Washington, D.C., the president of the United States was getting ready for bed. He was going to bed alone, as usual, because his wife was at a soiree somewhere in Georgetown, playing the First Lady role to the hilt. The president was chewing two anti-acid tablets when he picked up the ringing telephone and mumbled, “Uumpf.”
“Mr. President, the emperor of Japan was assassinated in the Imperial Palace about two hours ago. The report is that he was beheaded.”
The voice was that of Jack Innes, national security adviser. He would have been called about this matter by the duty officers in the White House situation room. “Who did it?”
“Apparently a junior officer in the military and three enlisted men. They got into the palace by posing as telephone repairmen. Lopped off the emperor’s head with a four-hundred-year-old samurai sword. Then they committed suicide.”
“All of them?”
“All four. The officer stabbed himself in the gut; then someone shot him in the head. The three enlisted apparently shot themselves.”
“Jesus I”
“Yes, sir.”
“Right-wing group?”
“Apparently they were followers of some right-wing cult, Mishima something. They left a letter written in blood, full of bullshit about Japan’s destiny and national glory.”
“Have we received any answer from the emperor to my letter?” the president asked. “Not to my knowledge, sir. I’ll check with the Tokyo embassy and the State Department.”
“Do we even know if he received it?”
“It was delivered to the Japanese government by our ambassador. That is all we know for certain.”
“We are fast running out of options.”
“We should know more in the morning, Mr. President.”
“When you know more, wake me up.”
“Yes, sir.”
President David Herbert Hood cradled the instrument and lay down on his bed. He was very tired. It seemed that he was always in that condition these days. So Naruhito was dead. Murdered. And the letter had accomplished nothing. The president, Jack Innes, and the secretary of state had sweated for three days over the wording in that letter. After careful consideration, they had decided not to mention the fact that the United States had a secret military protocol with Russia promising military aid if Russia’s borders were ever violated. The protocol was three years old, negotiated and signed as an inducement to Russia’s fledgling democratic government to speed up the pace of nuclear disarmament. Even he, David Herbert Hood, had personally told the Russian president that the secret protocol was a solemn promise: “Russian territory is as sacred as the boundaries of the United States.”
Well, a promise is a promise, but whether the promise would be honored was a different matter entirely. The president got out of bed and went to the window. He stood there looking at the lights of Washington. After a bit, he sank into a chair and rubbed his head. He had spent the last twenty years in politics and he had seen his share of unexpected disasters. Most of the time, he had learned, the best thing to do was nothing at all. Yes, nothing was usually best. The Japanese had another crisis on their hands, and the Japanese were going to have to solve it. He should get some sleep. The news from the far side of the Pacific had been getting steadily worse for years. Democracy in Russia had been a mixed blessing. Freed at last from Communist tyranny and mismanagement, the Russians soon found they lacked the ability to create a stable government. Corruption and bribery were endemic everywhere, in every occupation and walk of life. A dying man couldn’t see a doctor without bribing the receptionist. Apparently, the only people doing well in the post-Communist era were the criminals. Ethnic minorities all over Russia had seized this moment to demand self-government, their own enclaves. If the Russian government didn’t get a grip soon, a new dictator was inevitable. In the United States, the public didn’t want to hear bad news from overseas. The recent crisis in the Mideast had doubled the price of oil, here and around the world, a harbinger of shortages to come. Still, America had oil, so it didn’t suffer as badly as Japan did. And the oil was flowing again. All in all, life in America was very, very good. And David Herbert Hood had the extreme good fortune to be riding the crest of the wave, presiding at the world’s greatest party. His popularity was at a historic high; the nation was prosperous and at peace … He would go into the history books with a smile on his face, children would read his biography in grade school for the next century, at least, and … Japan was about to invade Siberia. The president stared gloomily at the lights out there in the night. He had this feeling that, for some reason just beyond the edge of the light, mankind had been enjoying a rare interlude of prosperity and peace. They certainly hadn’t earned it. The emperor … murdered. My God! The man was the benign symbol of all that was best in the Japanese culture. And they cut off his head!
Captain Jiro Kimura sat on the small balcony of his flat, staring between apartment and office buildings at Mount Fuji and drinking a beer. Although he was looking at Fuji, in his mind’s eye he saw Pikes Peak, stark, craggy, looming high into the blue Colorado sky. “The Peak of Pike,” his fellow cadets had called it, back when they were students at the U.s. Air Force Academy. It was in his second or third year that three of his friends convinced themselves, and him, that they should run up the mountain. And back down. They tried it the second weekend in September, a Pikes Peak marathon, thirteen miles up and thirteen down. Jiro Kimura smiled at the memory. What studs they had been back then, whippet-lean, tough as sole leather, ready to conquer the world!
They actually made it to the top of the mountain and back down. Still, the last few miles going up, the pace was not what anyone would call a run. Not above twelve thousand feet!
Although that weekend had been almost twelve years ago, Jiro could recall the faces of those boys as if it were yesterday. He could see Frank Truax’s shy, toothy grin; Joe Layfield’s freckles and jug ears; Ben Franklin Garcia’s white teeth flashing in his handsome brown face. Garcia had died six years ago in an F-16 crash, somewhere in Nevada. They said his engine flamed out and, rather than ejecting, he tried to stretch a glide. That sure sounded like Ben Garcia, “the pride of Pecos, Texas,” as they called him back then. He had been tough and smart, with something to prove, something Jiro Kimura could never quite put a finger on. Well, Ben was gone now, gone to wherever it is God sends those driven men when they finally fall to earth. Truax was somewhere in the states flying C-141’s, and Layfield was getting a master’s degree in finance. And Jiro Kimura was flying Japan’s top-secret fighter plane, the new Zero. His wife, Shizuko, came out onto the balcony with another beer. “Colonel Cassidy will be here soon,” she said, a gentle reminder that he might wish to dress in something besides a T-shirt and shorts. Jiro smiled his thanks. Bob Cassidy. He had been a major back then, a young fighter pilot at the Academy for a tour. He had been commander of Giro’s cadet squadron. He took a liking to the Japanese youngster, who had nowhere to go for weekends or holidays, so he took him home. Cassidy was married then, to Sweet Sabrina, as he always called her.
