He put his rapidly fading strength into one last thrust for the clouds. Pulling Plunkett’s dead weight, he kicked furiously and stroked with his free hand like a madman. He could see the mirrorlike reflection of the swells. They looked tantalizingly near, and yet they seemed to keep moving away from him.
He heard a heavy thumping sound as if something was pounding the water. Then suddenly, four figures in black materialized in the water on both sides of him. Two snatched Plunkett and carried him away. One of the others pushed the mouthpiece of a breathing regulator into Pitt’s mouth.
He sucked in one great gasping breath of air, one after another until the diver gently removed the mouthpiece for a few breaths of his own. It was plain old air, the usual mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and a dozen other gases, but to Pitt it tasted like the sparkling dry air of the Colorado Rockies and a forest of pine after a rain.
Pitt’s head broke water and he stared and stared at the sun as if he’d never seen it before. The sky never looked bluer or the clouds whiter. The sea was calm, the swells no more than half a meter at their crests.
His rescuers tried to support him, but he shrugged them off. He rolled over and floated on his back and looked up at the huge sail tower of a nuclear submarine that towered above him. Then he spotted the junk. Where on earth did that come from? he wondered. The sub explained the Navy divers, but a Chinese junk?
There was a crowd of people lining the railings of the junk, most he recognized as his mining crew, cheering and waving like crazy people. He spotted Stacy Fox and waved back.
His concern swiftly returned to Plunkett, but he need not have worried. The big Britisher was already lying on the hull deck of the submarine, surrounded by U.S. Navy crewmen. They quickly brought him around, and he began gagging and retching over the side.
The NUMA submersible broke the surface almost an arm’s length away. Giordino popped from the hatch through the sail tower, looking for all the world like a man who had just won the jackpot of a lottery. He was so close he could talk to Pitt in a conversational tone.
“See the havoc you’ve caused?” He laughed. “This is going to cost us.”
Happy and glad as he was to be among the living, Pitt’s face was suddenly filled with wrath. Too much had been destroyed, and as yet unknown to him, too many had died. When he replied, it was in a tense, unnatural voice.
“Not me, not you. But whoever is responsible has run up against the wrong bill collector.”
Part 2
The Kaiten Menace
18
THE FINAL FAREWELL that kamikaze pilots shouted to each other before scrambling to their aircraft was “See you at Yasukuni.”
Though they never expected to meet again in the flesh, they did intend to be reunited in spirit at Yasukuni, the revered memorial in honor of those who died fighting for the Emperor’s cause since the revolutionary war of 1868. The compound of the shrine sits on a rise known as Kudan Hill in the middle of Tokyo. Also known as Shokonsha, or “Spirit Invoking Shrine,” the central ceremonial area was erected under the strict rules of Shinto architecture and is quite bare of furnishings.
A cultural religion based on ancient tradition, Shinto has evolved through the years into numerous rites of passage and sects cored around kami, or “the way of divine power through various gods.” By World War II it had evolved into a state cult and ethic philosophy far removed from a strict religion. During the American occupation all government support of Shinto shrines was discontinued, but they were later designated as national treasures and honored cultural sites.
The inner sanctuary of all Shinto shrines is off limits to everyone except for the chief priest. Inside the sanctuary, a sacred object representing the divine spirit’s symbol is enshrined. At Yasukuni the sacred symbol is a mirror.
No foreigners are allowed to pass through the huge bronze gateway leading to the war heroes’ shrine. Curiously overlooked is the fact that the spirits of two foreign captains of ships sunk while supplying Japanese forces during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 are deified among the nearly 2,500,000 Nipponese war heroes. A number of villains are also enshrined at Yasukuni. Their spirits include early political assassins, underworld military figures, and the war criminals led by General Hideki Tojo who were responsible for atrocities that matched and often went beyond the savagery of Auschwitz and Dachau.
Since the Second World War, Yasukuni had become more than simply a military memorial. It was the rallying symbol of the right-wing conservatives and militants who still dreamt of an empire dominated by the superiority of Japanese culture. The annual visit by Prime Minister Ueda Junshiro and his party leaders to worship on the anniversary of Japan’s defeat in 1945 was reported in depth by the nation’s press and TV networks. A storm of impassioned protest usually followed from political opposition, leftists and pacifists, non-Shinto religious factions, and nearby countries who had suffered under Japanese wartime occupation.
To avoid open criticism and the spotlight of adverse opinion, the ultranationalists behind the resurrected drive for empire and the glorification of the Japanese race were forced to clandestinely worship at Yasukuni during the night. They came and went like phantoms, the incredibly wealthy, high government dignitaries, and the sinister manipulators who skirted the shadows, their talons firmly clutching a power structure that was untouchable even by the leaders of government.
And the most secretive and powerful of all was Hideki Suma.
A light drizzle fell as Suma passed through the gate and walked the gravel path toward the Shokonsha shrine. It was well after midnight, but he could see his way by the lights of Tokyo that reflected from the low clouds. He paused under a large tree and looked around the grounds inside the high walls. The only sign of life was a colony of pigeons nestled under the disks that crowned the curved roof.
Satisfied that he would not be studied by an observer, Hideki Suma went through the ritual of washing his hands in a stone basin and rinsing his mouth with a small ladle of water. Then he entered the outer shrine hall and met the chief priest, who was awaiting his arrival. Suma made an offering at the oratory and removed a sheaf of papers wrapped in a tissued scroll from the inside pocket of his raincoat. He gave them to the priest, who laid them on the altar.
A small bell was rung to summon Suma’s specific deity or kami, and then they clasped their hands in prayer. After a short purification ceremony, Suma spoke quietly with the priest for a minute, retrieved the scroll, and left the shrine as inconspicuously as he’d arrived.
The stress of the past three days fell from him like glistening water over a garden fall. Suma felt rejuvenated by the mystical power and guidance of his kami. His sacred quest to purify Japanese culture from the poison of Western influences while protecting the gains of financial empire was guided by divine power.
Anyone catching a glimpse of Suma through the misty rain would have quickly ignored him. He looked quite ordinary in workman’s overalls and a cheap raincoat. He wore no hat, and his hair was a great shock of brushed- back white. The black mane common to almost all Japanese men and women had lightened at an early age, which gave Suma a look much older than his forty-nine years. By Western standards he was short, by Japanese ideals he was slightly on the tall side, standing at 170 centimeters.
It was only when you looked into his eyes that he seemed different from his native cousins. The irises were of a magnetic indigo blue, the legacy, possibly, of an early Dutch trader or English sailor. A frail youth, he’d taken up weight lifting when he was fifteen and labored with cold determination until he had transformed his body into a muscled sculpture. His greatest satisfaction was not in his strength but the molding of flesh and sinews into his own creation.
