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  “Sit down,” Nakanga said. “I have listened to your after-action report again and played it for the Genoysha.”

  Nishin’s eyes involuntarily flickered to the shadowy figure inside the room and he felt his heart pick up pace. No one he had ever met, other than Nakanga, had ever seen or met the Genoysha in person. He carefully sat down.

  Nakanga had questioned Nishin on the submarine that had picked up the signal from the transponder Nishin had activated once he was in the ocean. Even before the ship’s doctor had been allowed into the small cabin to tend to him, Nishin had been questioned in detail about the mission, a small tape recorder taking down his words. The submarine’s crew were dressed in a strange uniform—not that of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. Nishin had not known that the Society controlled its own submarine, but it did not surprise him. After all, the company that built submarines for the Self-Defense Force was owned by the Society as so much else of Japan’s small but very efficient military industrial complex was. The wealth of the Society was greater than that of many countries.

  “It is unfortunate that the helicopter could not take off,” Nakanga continued. “Our sources say that the North Koreans are puzzled. They have Nagoya’s body, but it tells them nothing. Certainly they may have suspicions, but they have proof of nothing. The cave has been destroyed.”

  Nishin waited, perched on the edge of his seat. He knew the first sentence was all Nakanga would say about the lack of exfiltration that had left Nagoya and he stranded. From the rest of what Nakanga said, it appeared that the mission had been a success. But then why was he talking to him? And why was the Genoysha listening? For there was no doubt in Nishin’s mind that the man in the wheelchair was the head of the Black Ocean Society. And what suspicions could the Koreans have?

  Never before had he been in the Genoysha’s presence. In fact, he had not expected to be in Nakanga’s presence again so soon. Success on a mission was considered the standard. If Nishin had ever failed on an assigned mission he would not be here. He’d be dead. He watched carefully, waiting.

  Nakanga’s face was devoid of expression. His skull was completely devoid of hair and on the left side, behind his ear, there was a jagged scar, starting at the top and working its way down, disappearing into the neck of the traditional robe he wore. From his chest, flowing up his neck and out over his face, were the bright red tendrils of sunlight, an extension to the same tattoo that was on the chest of senior members of the Society. Nakanga could never go in public unnoticed with the intricate needlework on his face, but since having it placed there, on the day he was chosen as First Sensei to the Genoysha, he had never gone out of the temple except on special missions as the personal envoy of the Genoysha. At such times the tattoos served a purpose by showing all he met who he was and the power he represented.

  “Do you have any idea what was in that cave?” Nakanga asked.

  “No, Sensei.”

  Nakanga’s dark eyes turned away from the balcony and peered at the countryside. “Unfortunately, it is not finished. There is more work to be done.”

  Nishin waited.

  “The North Koreans are making trouble. They will dig into the mountain again, but we believe that this blast finished a job that should have been done better long ago. The problem is that we do not know what they found prior to your mission. We only knew that they had found the cave when they made a discreet, for them at least, approach to a government official in Tokyo.

  “They are very primitive people, the Koreans. They would still be living in caves if we had not pacified them so many years ago. But do they show any gratitude? No. They act like gangsters, trying to blackmail our country and our Emperor.”

  “Blackmail, Sensei?” Nishin was surprised. What had been in that cave?

  Nakanga continued, almost speaking to the man inside the room. “We are walking a very thin path that is fraught with dangers on both sides. There can be no allowance for further trouble. We must make our path and not allow others to dictate it. Our past is haunting us and if it is revealed it will be devastating to our interests and the country’s interests. It will change history, which will change the present.”

  “The current situation between our country and the Americans is very tense but also filled with great opportunity. There are many who do not see the parallels between now and the late nineteen-thirties, but they are there. Except now the roles are reversed. We hold the economic power and the Americans are squirming under the imbalances.

  “Unfortunately,” Nakanga continued, “one factor that remains the same is that the Americans still have the more powerful military and a country full of natural resources, neither of which we had then or have now. What we must insure is that they do not have reason to use their military as we degrade their economic capability. This is a path we have tried to walk for many years now, but it is a path that is threatened by the North Koreans.” Nakanga’s voice strengthened. “What I tell you now goes to your heart.”

  Nishin knew that meant as long as he lived he could never repeat it.

  Nakanga waved a wrinkled hand. The skin was covered with small black waves, flowing toward the fingertips like black fish scales. “This started many years ago. Before the war. And it did not start in Korea. It began here. What I tell you I only know from the mouth of the Genoysha. All written records of the Society were destroyed just before the occupation at the end of the war. And the Genoysha only knows what he saw and was told by his predecessor. There is the possibility that some information was lost with the death of the previous Genoysha and the destruction of all records. And there are some aspects of this that died with those involved and no one alive knows about.”

  Nishin listened raptly. He had never heard Nakanga speak so many words. And for him to repeat the words of the Genoysha! The Genoysha’s mind was the true record of the Black Ocean Society. But what Nakanga said next dumbfounded Nishin.

  “In the autumn of 1938 the first atom was split in Germany,” Nakanga continued. “That is common knowledge. What is not common knowledge is that a member of our society was immediately sent to Germany to study at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute where this event took place. He was a scientist. A young man named Kuzumi who saw the potential in this event just as a few other scientists in Germany, England, and the United States saw it.

  “Kuzumi learned as much as he could from the German scientists. Then he returned by way of America. His mission there was to see where that country stood in the field of atomic research. Even at that time, well before the United States was at war with us, the Americans were beginning to classify all atomic research. They were preparing for their war against us years before they forced our hand, yet they cried so bitterly after Pearl Harbor.”

  “Besides being a scientist, though, Kuzumi was well trained as a spy by the Society. He learned enough to believe that the Americans were looking at the potential of the atom as a weapon. He returned here and made his report. We dutifully sent it to the military authorities to warn them and also to show them the potential of such a weapon.”

  Nakanga made a sound of disgust. “The fools scoffed. The young ones had taken over.” Nakanga glanced at Nishin. “You know the history of that time. There was much turmoil in the government and the military. The report disappeared. But the Genoysha at the time saw the potential in what Kuzumi had reported. He ordered Kuzumi to begin work to see if this thing was truly possible. Much money and resources from the Society were allocated.”

  “On the first of October in 1941, Kuzumi presented a report on his own research. The conclusion he drew was that an atomic bomb was feasible but would require much work to move from theory to reality. Again the military was informed. This time some more attention was paid, but only because the external situation was growing more dangerous. The United States was economically trying to destroy Japan. Not unlike certain events in the present,” Nakanga said. “Pearl Harbor was only two months away and far-thinking minds were beginning to see that the war we were
already fighting for our survival was going to expand.”

  “A pact was made between the Genoysha and the head of the Imperial Navy to continue Kuzumi’s work. The Army also showed interest and started their own project, but they were very far behind ours and the Navy’s project because we had Kuzumi and his experience and knowledge. The project was originally based outside of Tokyo in the Rikken.”

  Nishin knew that was the name for the old industrial research arm of the government.

  Nakanga paused, then continued. “As I said, there is much information that has been lost. Suffice it to say that the project was a difficult one and work proceeded very slowly. It took the Americans, with more resources and expertise, until 1945 to complete their Manhattan Project. Kuzumi worked miracles with what he had, but as the war turned against us. He was forced by the American B-29 bombings to move from the home islands. He lost much time in making this move. Perhaps a fatal amount for our country.”

  Nakanga’s dark eyes focused on Nishin. “Seeking a more secure place that could also supply him with the necessary amount of power he would need to complete the work, Kuzumi moved the project, named Genzai Bakudan, to Hungnam.”

  Nishin bowed his head. He now had some of the answers he’d never thought he’d get.

  “We had much industry there. Most of it owned by the Genoysha who had seen the potential of the valley and its resources early in the nineteen-thirties. It was out of the way of the American bombers. Kuzumi continued working even as the Americans came closer and closer to the homeland, island by island.

  “At the end ...” Nakanga’s shoulders moved under his robe in what might have been a shrug. “I do not know exactly what happened. The Genoysha told me that he was informed that Kuzumi succeeded. That he and those who worked with him actually made a prototype bomb. But it was too late. The Russians were close to the project, perhaps even trying to capture it for their own purposes. They were like scavengers invading Manchuria and Korea as they saw the end of the Empire coming. As you know, they still hold the Kuril Islands as a result of the war.”

  “The cave you were sent to reclose housed the assembly portion of the Genzai Bakudan project. It was sealed before the Russians arrived. It was reported that the prototype Genzai Bakudan was taken out into the harbor of Hungnam by the ranking naval officer and detonated, destroying the last evidence. There is no way to verify this. In fact, it is not something we ever wish to have verified.”

  Nakanga fell silent.

  “Sensei?” Nishin prompted.

  “Yes?”

  “What happened to Kuzumi?”

  Nakanga glanced toward the figure in the wheelchair, then sighed. “I was told he was in Hiroshima with his family when the American bomb came down. He died there.”

  Nishin frowned. Why had Kuzumi not been in Hungnam working on the bomb until the very end? That was his duty, and as Black Ocean, duty would have come first. But this was not the time to ponder that question of the past. There were more immediate concerns in the present. “You say we still have a problem, Sensei. Did the Koreans recover something out of the cave before we were able to close it again?”

  “I believe so,” Nakanga said. “At the very least they are pursuing a new direction. Our sources tell us that four days ago North Korean agents left their country by ship. They are going to San Francisco.”

  “San Francisco, Sensei?” Nishin frowned. Four days ago? That was when Nagoya and he had been at Hungnam.

  Obviously they had been too late. “What is in America that they seek?”

  “As I told you, all documents about Genzai Bakudan were destroyed here in the Society. The site in Hungnam was destroyed, or at least we thought it was. But remember I also told you that the Imperial Navy was involved in the project. They had their own records. We thought they too had been destroyed. But that thinking is being re-evaluated in light of this new development.”

  “When the Americans occupied us after the war, their intelligence services seized much information in the form of documents and they also debriefed many officers and men of the Imperial Navy. That information was returned to the United States. We believe that the North Koreans learned something from the cave. Perhaps they recovered a radio message log. That would point to other documents that the Americans might have in their possession.”

  “But surely, Sensei,” Nishin said, “the Americans would have made public any information they had about our having had an atomic bomb program if they had it in 1945!” Nishin could now well imagine what Nakanga had meant earlier about the importance of what they were discussing. Such a disclosure would have been fantastic back then and would most certainly have changed the course of the next half of a century. It would be just as disastrous now, especially with tensions between Tokyo and Washington so strained over the trade imbalance. Such a discovery would give the Americans a moral club almost as powerful as the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor had so many years previously. It would be devastating to the national psyche of the Japanese people. “

  “If they knew what they had,” Nakanga agreed, “I believe they would have made it public. But the Americans seized so much material. It is very possible they simply placed such documents in boxes that have never been looked into. Or, if looked into, the significance of the material was not recognized because little word of the Genzai Bakudan program has ever been made public before.”

  “There was a newspaper report in a minor American newspaper after the war about Hungnam and a Japanese atomic bomb project. But since the Russians occupied North Korea, little was made of the report and the Genoysha also worked then to ensure nothing more was said. As we must work now,” Sensei Nakanga concluded. He turned and looked out over the valley for a few moments.

  Nishin waited for his orders. He was acutely aware of the presence in the darkened room. He could feel the Genoysha as if the man were a shadow looming over the sunlit porch. A thrill of dedication ran down Nishin’s spine as he realized he was part of perhaps the most important thing happening right now in the Black Ocean. Something so important that the Genoysha himself would listen in. There was only one being on the planet higher than the Genoysha in Nishin’s mind and that was the Emperor.

  Nakanga turned back. “The North Koreans are amateurs at overseas operations. However, we suspect that they might pose as South Korean agents and recruit assistance from the large population of South Koreans in the San Francisco area. In the same manner, you will be able to operate there. We have contacts among the Yakuza in San Francisco. I have already made contact with the local Oyabun.”

  The Yakuza was the Japanese equivalent of the American Mafia. It operated here in Japan and had branches overseas, wherever there was a Japanese subculture. Nishin knew that the secret societies and the Yakuza were not unaware of each other’s presence and on occasion worked together when the objectives met both organizations’ goals. They also clashed on occasion when the objectives did not concur. Nishin had bloodied himself several times in such clashes. The thought of rubbing shoulders with Yakuza, especially American Yakuza, bothered him, but he dared not let it show in front of Nakanga and the Genoysha.

  “The government,” Nakanga continued, “is also on alert. Ever since those fools gassed the Tokyo subway every organization, even one as old and venerable as ours, has been under constant surveillance by Central Political Intelligence. You must be careful not to be tracked by CPI to the United States.”

  Nishin was glad he had had a good night’s sleep and had recovered as far as he had from his injuries. The information he had just been given and the task assigned seemed overwhelming. CPI was a secret arm of the Japanese government that battled the secret societies and the Yakuza by any means possible. Nishin had run into CPI agents while on mission and he respected their dedication and most especially their technical expertise. Given that they had access to the best electronic equipment in the world, CPI agents were masters of surveillance. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for Nishin, CPI agents usually lacked
the ruthlessness needed to complete missions. They were limited by the laws and regulations placed on them by the government.

  “Arrangements have been made for your travel.” Nakanga held out a large brown envelope. “I have your cover documents ready: passport, driver’s license. All that you will need. Also a sufficient sum of money to allow you to do your job. Memorize the contact plans and procedures. You will leave this evening.”

  Nishin stood and took the envelope. He froze when a voice spoke from the shadows.

  “You must not allow the secret of Genzai Bakudan to be revealed,” the man in the wheelchair rasped. “Use whatever means necessary.”

  Nishin inclined his head, indicating he understood, afraid to say anything. When nothing more was said he quickly left the deck.

  Behind, standing alone, Nakanga looked at the entrance to the room, waiting.

  “Leave me,” the Genoysha ordered.

  “Yes, Genoysha Kuzumi.”

  As soon as Nakanga left, Kuzumi slowly pushed aside the curtain and rolled onto the balcony. It was his favorite place to think. It was also the only place where he was ever out of doors. Nakanga’s words rang in his ears, as did Nishin’s questions. They raised disturbing thoughts like a dust cloud on an old road.

  Lies, deception, and double and triple dealing were the way of power, Kuzumi knew, but Nakanga’s answer to Nishin’s question about his location at the end of the war brought forth a double-edged sword of deception that cut deep. I did not die in Hiroshima, Kuzumi bitterly knew. Late at night when he was alone lying on his mat he often wished he had. Sometimes he wondered if memories and nightmares were all he had other than his duty to the Society.

  At least everything else Nakanga had told Nishin was true. What bothered Kuzumi as much as anything else was the fact that the part about not knowing the full story was also true. Kuzumi had been high in the Society by the end of the war, but only the Genoysha at the time, Taiyo, had known all that was going on. As only Kuzumi knew all that was presently going on within the many tentacles of the present-day Black Ocean society so Taiyo had ruled and plotted. What concerned Kuzumi was whatever had grown from those unknown past seeds that had been scattered at the end of the war.