"He would not know who took the child or where it was taken, sensei."
Obtaining this particular child was suddenly very important to Hiroki.
"He is an officer with Naval Intelligence," Shimazu said with a reproving tone. "Some say he is one of the finest intelligence officers in all Japan. Do you think you could hide the child from him for long?"
"Would he even look, sensei? I sense that he suffers the mongrel's presence begrudgingly. He has refused to give it his name."
"He may have grown up in America, but he was raised in the Bushido tradition. Will such a man passively suffer the loss of face inherent in having a child stolen from his wife, from under his roof, from his implicit protection? I think not. He will fight to prevent that."
"He will be defeated. I will see to it."
Shimazu shot to his feet. His anger radiated through his mask and robe like an unbanked fire.
"Did you sacrifice your ears to the Order without informing me? Have I not told you a thousand times that there is to be no bloodshed between you and your brother!"
"Yes, sensei," Hiroki said, shaken, bowing meekly. And for the thousandth time, he wondered at Shimazu's fervor in this regard. "But if, as you say, Matsuo will leave no stone unturned in his quest to retrieve the zasshu child, what are we to do?"
"We shall wait. Your brother is leaving Japan on an espionage mission to the United States."
Hiroki was shocked at the news. "I did not know."
"He only found out recently himself. During his absence, it so happens that we will be moving the temple to another city."
More shocking news
"Where, sensei?"
"I have not decided that yet. Tokyo is coming under increasingly heavy attack. It appears to be only a matter of time before this structure is razed by American incendiary bombs. We need a new city. A number are under consideration. When I decide, I shall tell you. And that is when you may take the child. Your brother will be away and by the time he returns the Order will be well established in its new quarters. The trail will be cold, as they say. He will find nothing to connect the Order to the disappearance. Not even your brother will be able to pick up the scent. If he returns at all."
"That is a most excellent plan, sensei."
Hiroki yearned for the day when his handpicked squad burst into Meiko's home and pulled that foul mongrel from her grasp.
Soon, he promised himself. Very soon.
MAY
"I have a terrible feeling about this," Meiko whispered as she huddled in Matsuo's arms.
There are no secrets in a Japanese house, and the knowledge that only a flimsy wood and paper barrier separated them from her sleeping parents had made their lovemaking hurried and self-conscious. Tonight she could not find the inner peace it usually brought her, a peace she needed so desperately.
"What's wrong?" Matsuo said.
"I don't want you to go."
"I don't want to go. You know that. But I must."
"Am I going to lose you?" The thought brought tears to her eyes. She shuddered and Matsuo held her tighter. "You're going into a huge country filled with millions and millions of people who will all want to kill you."
"And I worry about you and Naka. Even though you are in your father's house, I will have Shigeo look in on you from time to time to see if you need anything. Don't worry about me. I'll be back."
Will you?
She dared not give voice to those words, but she could not help thinking them. That fear had haunted her since yesterday when Matsuo told her. In that instant she became convinced that something awful would happen while he was gone. But it was just an irrational fear, she told herself over and over. Just a silly fear.
"Naka and I will be waiting here for you. We'll go to the shrine every day to leave rice and an ema for your safe return."
She clung to him in the darkness.
Oh, Matsuo, my love, don't let them hurt you.
* * *
Matsuo sat in the darkness with the daisho propped across his folded legs, his hands resting gently on the scabbards. Leaving the swords here was like leaving a part of himself behind, but he could not risk losing them in America.
He gripped the scabbards more tightly.
What can you tell me?
He closed his eyes and dozed, praying to the kami of the blades for one last sword-dream before he left Japan.
When the images finally came, he was disturbed by what he saw: Frank and Meiko together again. He did not know where or when, but they were together and he was not present.
The memory of the dream was a leaden weight in his belly as he left for the harbor the next morning.
THE CENTRAL PACIFIC
"Smoke on the horizon!"
Matsuo heard the clatter of feet running on the submarine's wooden walkways and opened his cabin door to see what was happening. He headed toward the bridge.
The I-85 was making its way eastward from Yokohama, running below the surface on battery power during the day, knifing through the Pacific swells with its diesels at night. They now were somewhere between Wake and Midway. Naval Intelligence had wanted a direct run to the United States but headquarters had demanded that the sub be fitted with maximum offensive capacity. Matsuo too wanted as brief a voyage as possible but had to admit that the Chief of Staff's reasoning was sound: With fuel oil so precious in Japan now, the greatest tactical advantage had to be squeezed from every drop.
And so the I-85 cruised eastward at top speed but kept its periscope up in the event that an American supply convoy hove into view. And now it had.
Matsuo watched the four young kaiten pilots, not yet out of their teens, cluster around Captain Yanagida, begging to be allowed to enter their craft. The captain considered their pleas, then nodded his agreement. With loud shouts of "Banzai!" they ran aft to their quarters.
The captain looked at Matsuo and shrugged. "The targets are too far off for conventional torpedoes."
Matsuo signaled his understanding with a bow, then returned to his cabin. He knew what was to follow and could not bring himself to watch. The standard afterdeck equipment—reconnaissance plane, catapult, and deck gun—had been removed from the 1-85 and replaced with four kaiten torpedoes. The four youths, heads banded with bright hachimaki, would down a cup of sake at the ship's shrine and then crawl through a tube from the control tower to his personal kaiten. Once sealed inside, he would cast off, never to be seen again. Each eight-ton craft was a human-guided torpedo, a seagoing kamikaze.
The kaiten almost eliminated the element of chance that plagued conventional torpedoes. Its pilot could steer it toward a convoy, pick out a prime target, and aim for a strike amidships. Evasive maneuvers by the target were useless. The kaiten had a thirty-mile range and would follow the ship wherever it ran until it could detonate its powerful warhead against the hull. The convoy's only hope was to sink the kaiten before it struck.
Matsuo concentrated on what was to come for him. Once in America, he had to locate Koe, his contact. No one in Intelligence knew who Koe was, but he had been transmitting ship movements in and out of San Francisco Bay since June of 1942. His messages, boldly sent in uncoded English until the revised codebook was passed to him via Panama in 1943, had been valuable at first, but quite useless now, what with the Imperial Navy far more concerned with what American ships were doing nearer to Japan. Yet he kept transmitting, brilliantly, courageously, defiantly, from the very heart of San Francisco. And still his identity was an enigma. He was known only as Koe—the Voice.
Matsuo heard more "banzais," faintly this time, then a clanking on the deck, then silence. Eventually, the captain came to his cabin.
"We are underway again. And we are lighter so we should make better speed."
Matsuo nodded silently, trying not to think of those four fervent boys piloting thirty-two tons of machine and explosive toward the American convoy, dying for a cause that was already lost: Word had come just as he was boarding the I-85 that Germany had unconditio
nally surrendered. That meant all the war resources of the white world would be withdrawn from Europe and brought to bear on Japan. The little cluster of islands no bigger than California now stood alone.
He turned his thoughts to Meiko. Leaving her had been the most difficult thing he had ever done. Here, in this propeller-driven underwater coffin, he felt more alone than ever. He wanted to be home with Meiko beside him. But his home had been reduced to a pile of ashes and his country was being ground into the dirt by American bombers.
Japan could stand and fight like no other country before, could make America modify its call for unconditional surrender—but not if America had an atomic bomb.
Japan had to know, and the Supreme Command thought he could do it. Why? There was nothing special about him.
Why me?
He closed his eyes and prayed he would see Meiko again.
JUNE
PACIFICA, CALIFORNIA
Matsuo stood poised on the ladder under the conning tower hatch, waiting for the captain's signal as the sub rose toward the surface. They had hovered tense and silent just above the seafloor for the better part of three hours while American surface craft cruised above them. Now the captain was at the periscope, turning it this way and that, scanning the surface as the I-85 continued to rise.
"Now!" he shouted.
Matsuo began spinning the hatch wheel. Seawater poured in on him but he fought his way up against it to the air and the dim light above.
Only the upper half of the conning tower had broken surface. Through the fog and the fading light of dusk, he caught sight of a pale strip of beach a hundred and fifty yards away. In a rush, he pulled his belongings clear of the hatch and slammed it down. He could hear the sailors below tightening the wheel behind him as he caught a swell and began swimming to shore. He was barely a dozen feet away from the tower when it gurgled and sank from view.
Clad only in his fundoshi, Matsuo swam as fast as he could. He needed what little light remained from the day to keep his bearings. Once darkness fell, that bleak deserted shore would be swallowed up by the night and he might spend hours swimming in a circle.
He rode a breaker onto the sand and then hurried across the beach to the shelter of the hills that jutted into the swirling fog. Quickly he tore open the oilskin-wrapped bundle that contained the disguise prescribed by Koe. No surprises within. He had already tried everything on and it all fit.
First he pulled on the old shirt and pants, and the old American tie shoes, then smeared a thin coat of pale, Caucasian-toned greasepaint on his face. The white wig and full beard followed, then the dark glasses and hat. He had to admit it was quite an effective ensemble. The shaggy hair and beard masked his features, the dark glasses hid his eyes. With the telescoping white cane to complete the picture, he looked like an old blind man—an old American blind man.
Now to head north to San Francisco to meet Koe.
After a three- or four-mile walk along the sand, he climbed uphill and stepped onto the streets of Parkside. He followed them into Forest Hill. New homes clustered where there had been only woods before. The city had grown since he had left it thirteen years ago. He crossed the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park and entered the Western Addition. He kept to Fell Street, skirting Japantown as he made his way toward Market Street.
Market Street had changed, especially the theaters. Many of his favorite movie houses of old were closed or gone or operating under new names. New buildings and new signs and new model cars on the pavement, but the Muni buses still ran back and forth along streets with more hustle and bustle than ever. He walked until he neared the hairpin intersection of Market and California, then cut up to California and started the long, steep climb to the crest of old Nob Hill.
It almost seemed a shame, really. Japanese cities were being reduced to rubble and cinders while San Francisco grew and prospered unscathed. And yet he found the timelessness of Nob Hill somehow reassuring. Something from his past was being preserved.
He looked around. It was all still here, all so familiar, as if he had never left. Everything was just as he remembered it. Grace Cathedral was just as granite-block cold and majestic as ever; the old Union Pacific Club still looked like a stolid, brownstone library; the hotels—the Mark Hopkins, the Stanford Court, the Fairmount—buzzed with activity, apparently booked to capacity.
Standing here in the fog-diffused light from the street lamps, smelling the brine of the bay, listening to the rasp of the cables under the street, he felt a peculiar fullness growing in his chest, in his throat. He fought it, battered it down. He did not want it, refused to recognize it.
And yet it persisted, growing stronger despite his best efforts to smother it. Finally it threatened to overwhelm him.
It felt like home.
No!
Japan was where he belonged. Kyoto and all she represented was the city that had claimed his heart and where he knew he belonged, where he would someday live. Why then did the streets and the buildings and the very air of this city on the shore of hated, accursed America wrap him in her arms like a mother welcoming home a long-lost son?
Helpless before her, Matsuo had no choice but to accept the embrace.
He had come home.
* * *
After a while he stumbled down Leavenworth's steep incline through Russian Hill, dimly aware as he neared the waterfront of the lights of Alcatraz growing from the midst of the fog-enshrouded bay.
He was to meet Koe on Jefferson Street. No particular block or intersection, just Jefferson Street. Not very precise, but perhaps that was wise. Anyway, he knew Jefferson wasn't very long, running no more than five or six blocks along the waterfront.
So Matsuo hobbled along the littered sidewalk, trying to look infirm and blind, shuttling slowly back and forth between the red-brick Del Monte cannery and Powell Street, first one side of the street and then the other, stopping at times to watch the late-coming fishing boats unloading their catches for the day, then continuing on his way. He didn't know how long he walked or how many circuits he made, but he was despairing of ever making his contact when he glanced up Taylor Street and saw his mirror image approaching.
Matsuo stopped walking. He leaned against a building on the corner and pretended to feel about in his shoe as if searching for a pebble. The other white-haired, bearded old man with dark glasses paused in front of him.
"Where y'from, Mac?"
Matsuo gave the prearranged answer. "The floating world."
The other turned and headed back up Taylor. "This way."
Fighting the unfounded fear that he had been betrayed and was being led into a trap, Matsuo followed the man for a number of blocks, around a couple of corners, and then down a narrow alley barely wide enough for two men to walk abreast. The other unlocked a door and Matsuo followed him inside.
"Here we are," the man said, turning on the lamp in a small furnished room.
Matsuo closed the door behind him but kept his hand on the knob. "Yes. Here we are. But who are we?"
"Koe." He pulled off his white beard and wig, revealing a face that was pure Japanese. And vaguely familiar.
"Sachi!" Matsuo cried as he recognized him. His face was scarred and he was leaner, harder, much tougher looking than when Matsuo had last seen him almost twenty years ago. He pulled off his own beard and wig. "It's me—Matsuo Okumo!"
Sachi's brow furrowed as he studied Matsuo's features, then recognition dawned. "From Izumi-san's store! My God, it's really you!"
Matsuo began to bow but Sachi leaped forward with a grin and pumped his hand.
"To see a Japanese face after all these years, and find out it's someone I know!"
"It's good to see you, too, to know you're all right," Matsuo said. "But of all the Japanese in America, you're the very last one I would have suspected of being Koe."
Sachi's smile remained but it suddenly looked forced. "Well, just goes to show how you never can tell how things'll work out."
Matsuo's instincts told him t
o let the matter drop, but he had to know, he had to be sure about Sachi.
"But you were the all-American nisei. You never cared about Japan, never even wanted to hear about it. You told me you wanted to forget it ever existed."
His grin dissolved into a tight-lipped grimace of pain and anger. "Yeah, well, that used to be true until our glorious President Roosevelt decided the American Constitution didn't exist for me. He signed an executive order: Anyone with even one Japanese grandparent was outlawed from the West Coast."
"They've always hated us here," Matsuo said, remembering Mick McGarrigle and the adults who spawned him.
"Here, yes. But this was done in Washington. We had nowhere to turn. We knew what to expect from swine like Hearst." He laughed harshly. "And did he turn tail and run. Closed up his mansion and fled the coast with his tail between his legs! But it wasn't just the Hearsts who came after us. Even so-called liberals like Walter Lippmann got on the Jap-hating bandwagon. Never one act of sabotage anywhere along the West Coast but Lippmann said that was because we were all waiting for our chance to do something really devastating. FDR and Walter Lippmann, Champions of the Little Man." He spat. "Hypocrites! I did a dance when I heard that rotten old bastard had died."
He paused, controlling himself with difficulty.
"They gave us five days to settle our affairs, then we were to be evacuated. We were allowed to take along only what we could carry. So we sold off our cars and possessions with plenty of our good California neighbors ready to buy at the bargain prices we had to take. Some even tried to haggle us down further. How my mother cried when she sold her curved glass china cabinet and everything in it."
"I'm sorry, Sachi," Matsuo said.
But Sachi was not finished. Matsuo sensed that a long-pent-up rage had finally found a vent.
"They herded us like animals into fairgrounds and racetracks, searched us like criminals, then bundled us off to ‘relocation centers.' But everyone knew they were concentration camps. They put us in tar-paper shacks in deserts where the sun baked us in the day and the wind froze us at night." He lowered his head and his voice softened. "Yet even there, amid all that ugliness, Japanese gardens created from bleached wood and desert flowers began to appear alongside the shacks."