Fortunes of War (3 page)

The bloody melodrama was terrible theater, yet most Japanese loved it, reveled in it, were inspired by it. Ancient racial memories were renewed with flowing fresh red blood. New sacrifices propitiated savage urges…and mesmerized the audience.

Patriotic murder was sadistic, Masako thought, an obscene perversion that surfaced when the world pressed relentlessly in upon the Japanese, as it had in the 1930s, as it had in December 1941, as it apparently was…

Now?

She could scarcely place one foot in front of another.

Oh, Naruhito, beloved husband, that we should have to face this…and I should not be at your side….

She turned and hurried back toward her husband. Toward the evil that awaited them both.

She ran, the length of her stride constrained by her skirt.

Just before she reached the corner, she heard the singing of the sword and then the sickening
thunk
as it bit into flesh.

She turned the corner in time to see her husband's head rolling along the floor and his upright torso toppling forward.

She saw no more. Despite her pain—or perhaps because of it—she passed out, collapsed in a heap.

Shunko Kato did not look again at the emperor's corpse. There was little time, and staring at the body of a man who had failed Japan would be wasting it.

He arranged a letter on the table where the sword had rested. The letter was written in blood, the blood of each man there, and they had all signed it.

For Japan.

Kato knelt and drew his knife. He looked at his chief NCO, who was standing beside him, his pistol in his hand. “Banzai,” he said.

“Banzai.”

Kato stabbed the knife to the hilt in his own stomach.

The sergeant raised his pistol and shot Kato in the back of the head. Blood and brains flew from the captain's head. The sound of the shot made a stupendous thunderclap in the hallway. In the silence that followed, he could hear the tinny sound of the spent cartridge skittering across the floor.

Air escaping from the captain's body made an audible sound, but the sergeant was paying no attention.

He looked at his comrades. They, too, had their pistols out.

Brave men, doing what had to be done.

The sergeant took a deep breath, then raised the barrel of his pistol to his own head. The others did the same. The sergeant inadvertently squeezed his eyes shut just before he pulled the trigger.

“Captain Kato and his men were all dead when the security men got there,” Takeo Yahiro told the prime minister, Atsuko Abe. “Apparently they committed suicide after they beheaded the emperor. The empress was the only person alive—she was passed out on the floor.”

Abe's astonishment showed on his face. “The emperor was beheaded in the presence of his wife?”

“It would seem so, sir. She was lying on the floor in a faint when the security officers came upon the scene.”

Abe shook his head, trying to make the nightmare easier to endure. To assassinate a powerful official for political reasons was certainly not unheard of in Japan, but to do so in the presence of his wife…the
empress
? He had never heard of such a thing.

What would the public think?

“Captain Kato left a letter under the sword scabbard, sir, a letter written in blood. It gave the reasons for his actions.”

The prime minister was still fixated upon the presence of the empress at the murder scene. With his eyes closed, he asked, “Did the assassins touch the empress?”

“I do not know, sir. Perhaps the doctors—”

“Has the press gotten this detail?”

Takeo Yahiro spoke softly, yet with assurance. “No, sir. I took the liberty of refusing to allow any press release until senior officials were notified.”

Abe breathed deeply through his nose, considering, before he finally opened his eyes. He nodded almost imperceptibly, a mere fraction of an inch.

“Very well, Yahiro. Inflaming the public will not accomplish anything. A tragedy, a horrible tragedy…”

“There was a letter, sir. The assassins were disciples of Mishima.”

“Ahh…” said the prime minister, then fell silent, thinking.

Yukio Mishima had been an ultranationalist, a zealot. Unfortunately
he had also been a writer, a novelist, one with a flaming passion for the brutal, bloody gesture. Thirty-eight years ago he and four followers stormed into Japan's military headquarters in downtown Tokyo, barricaded themselves in the office of the commanding general, and called for the military to take over the nation. That didn't happen, of course, but Mishima was not to be denied. He removed his tunic and plunged a sword into his belly; then one of his disciples lopped off his head before killing himself, as well. The whole thing was neatly and tidily done in the grand samurai tradition. Mishima seared a bold political statement into the national conscience in a way impossible to ignore. And, incidentally, there was no one left alive for the authorities to punish—except for a few people on a minor trespass charge.

In the years since Mishima had become a cult figure. His ultranationalistic, militarist message was winning new converts every day, people who were finally coming to understand that they had an absolute duty to fulfill the nation's destiny, to uphold its honor.

“Public dissemination of the fact that the empress was a witness to her husband's assassination would accomplish nothing,” Abe said.

“The empress may mention it, sir.”

“She never speaks to the press without clearing her remarks with the Imperial Household Agency. She has suffered a terrible shock. When she recovers, she will understand that to speak of her presence at the murder scene would not be in the national interest.”

“Yes, sir. I will call the agency immediately.”

The prime minister merely nodded—Yahiro was quite reliable—then moved on.

“Prince Hirohito must be placed on the throne. In a matter of hours. Ensure that the ancient ceremony is scrupulously observed—the nation's honor demands it. He must receive the imperial and state seals and the replicas of the Amaterasu treasures.” The actual treasures—a mirror, a sword, and a crescent-shaped jewel—could be traced back to the Shinto sun goddess, Amaterasu, from whom the imperial family was descended, so they were too precious to be removed from their vault.

“Arrange it, please, Yahiro.”

“Yes, Prime Minister. By all means.”

“The senior ministers will all attend. The empress may attend if the doctors think she is strong enough.”

The prime minister was almost overcome by the historic overtones
of the moment and was briefly unable to speak.
The emperor was dead
. A new emperor was waiting to be enthroned.

He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. So much to be done…

“Clear my calendar and send for a speechwriter,” the prime minister told the aide. “And the protocol officer. We must declare a period of national mourning, notify the foreign embassies—all of that—then set up a state funeral. Heads of government from all over the world will undoubtedly attend, so there is much planning to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ensure that a copy of Captain Kato's letter is given to the press. The public is entitled to know the reason for this great calamity.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We are on the cusp of history, Yahiro. We must strive to measure up to the vastness of our responsibilities. Future generations will judge us critically.”

Yahiro pondered that remark as he went out of the office, but only for a few seconds. He was a busy man.

Prime Minister Abe waited until the door closed on Yahiro; then he opened the door to the conference room that adjoined his office and went in. Two men in uniform were sitting at the large table. Small teacups sat on the table before them.

One of the men was chief of the Japanese Self-Defense Force. The other was his deputy.

The two soldiers looked expectantly at Abe's face.

“It is done.”

The soldiers straightened in their chairs, looked at one another.

“His wife was with him…She saw it.”

“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 antiacid 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!”

“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.