“That's revolting,” Yaeger said, shaking his head. “I hope the perpetrators paid for their crimes.”
“For the most part, they did not,” Max continued. “Nearly to a man, those in charge of the chemical and biological army units avoided prosecution as war criminals. The Japanese destroyed much of the documentation, and the camps themselves, before their surrender. American intelligence forces, unaware of the extent of horrors, or, in some cases, seeking to obtain the results of the ghastly experiments, looked the other way at the atrocities. Many of the Imperial Army medical professionals who worked in the death camps went on to become respected business leaders in Japan's postwar pharmaceutical industry.”
“With blood on their hands,” Dirk muttered.
“No one knows for sure, but experts estimate that at least two hundred thousand Chinese died as a result of Japanese chemical and biological warfare activity during the thirties and forties. A large percentage of the casualties were innocent civilians. It was a wartime tragedy that has only recently received much attention from historians and scholars.”
“Man's inhumanity to man never ceases to amaze,” Yaeger said solemnly.
“Max, exactly what pathogens and chemicals did the Japanese work with?” Dirk asked.
“It might be easier to ask which agents they didn't experiment with. Their known research in bacteria and viruses ranged from anthrax, cholera, and bubonic plague to glanders, smallpox, and typhus, with experiments conducted in pretty much everything else in between. Among the chemical agents employed in weaponry were phosgene, hydrogen cyanide, sulfur mustard, and lewisite. It is unknown how much was actually deployed in the field, again due to the fact that the Japanese destroyed most of their records as they retreated from China at the end of the war.”
“How would these agents have been used on the battlefield?”
“Chemical agents, possessing a long shelf life, are perfectly suitable for munitions. The Japanese manufactured a large quantity of chemical munitions, mostly in the form of grenades, mortars, and a wide range of artillery shells. Thousands of these weapons were even left behind in Manchuria at the war's end. The Japanese biological delivery systems were less successful due to the sensitive nature of the arming agents. Development of a practical biological artillery shell proved difficult, so much of the Japanese effort at fabricating the release of biological agents was focused on aerial bombs. Known records seem to indicate that the Japanese scientists were never completely satisfied with the effectiveness of the bio bombs they developed.”
“Max, are you aware of the use of porcelain as a bomb-casing material for these chemical or biological agents?”
“Why, yes, as a matter of fact. Steel bombs generated excessive heat upon explosion that would destroy the biological pathogens, so the Japanese turned to ceramics. It is known that a variety of porcelain bomb canisters were tested in China as aerial delivery systems for the biological agents.”
Dirk felt a lump in his stomach. The I-403 had indeed been on a mission of death with its biological bombs back in 1945. Fortuitously, the submarine had been sunk, but was that, in fact, the last of its failed mission?
Yaeger broke his concentration. “Max, this is all new history to me. I had no idea the Japanese actually used chemical and biological weapons in battle. Were they ever employed outside of China, against American forces?”
“The Japanese deployment of chemical and biological weapons was primarily restricted to the Chinese theater of war. Limited instances of their usage were also reported in Burma, Thailand, and Malaysia. My data sources show no recorded use of biochemical agents in battle with Western Allied forces, perhaps due to Japanese fear of reprisal. It is suspected that chemical weapons would have been employed in defense of the homeland, had an invasion of Japan been necessary. Of course, your father's discovery proves that chemical munitions were to be stockpiled in the Philippines for possible deployment in defense of the islands.”
“My father's discovery?” Dirk asked. “I don't understand.”
“I'm sorry, Dirk, let me explain. I received a toxin assessment from the Mariana Explorer taken from an ordnance sample recovered by | your father and Al Giordino.”
“You've completed your database search on the arsenic sample already? I thought you said you wouldn't have that completed until after lunch,” Yaeger asked the hologram.
“Sometimes, I can just be brutally efficient,” she replied, throwing her nose in the air.
“What's the connection?” Dirk asked, still confused. “Your father and Al traced a toxic arsenic leak to an old cargo ship that apparently sank on a coral reef near Mindanao during World War Two. The arsenic was leaking from a shipment of artillery shells carried in the ship's hold,” Yaeger explained.
“One-hundred-five-millimeter shells, to be precise,” Max added. “Ammunition for a common artillery gun used by the Japanese Imperial Army. Only the contents weren't arsenic, per se.” “What did you find?” Yaeger asked.
"The actual contents were a mixture of sulfur mustard and lewisite. A popular chemical munitions concentrate from the thirties, it acts as a fatal blistering agent when released as a gas. Lewisite is an arsenic derivative, which accounts for the toxic readings found in the Philippines. The Japanese produced thousands of mustard lewisite shells in Manchuria, some of which were deployed against the Chinese. Some of these old buried chemical munitions are still being dug up today.
“Was the Japanese Navy connected with the deployment of these weapons?” Dirk asked.
“The Japanese Imperial Navy was actively involved with chemical weapons production at its Sagami Naval Yard, and was believed to have had four additional storage arsenals at Kure, Yokosuka, Hiroshima, and Sasebo. But the Navy possessed only a fraction of the estimated 1.7 million chemical bombs and shells produced during the war, and no records indicate they were ever used in any naval engagements. The biological weapons research was funded through the Imperial Army and, as I mentioned, centered in occupied China. A primary conduit for the research activity was the Army Medical School in Tokyo. It is unknown whether the Navy had any involvement through the medical school, as the college was destroyed by wartime bombing in 1945.”
“So no wartime records exist that show chemical or biological weapons were ever assigned onboard Navy vessels?”
“None that were publicly released,” Max said, shaking her holographic head. “The bulk of the captured Japanese wartime records, including those of the Navy Ministry, were consigned to the National Archives. As a gesture of goodwill, most of the documents were later returned to the Japanese government. Only a fraction of the records were copied, however, and even a smaller portion have ever been translated.”
“Max, I'd like to explore the Naval Ministry records for information on the mission of a particular Japanese submarine, the I-403. Can you determine whether these records might still exist?”
“I'm sorry, Dirk, but I don't have access to that portion of the National Archives' data records.”
Dirk turned to Yaeger with an arched brow and gave him a long, knowing look.
“The National Archives, eh? Well, that should be a lot less dangerous than tapping into Langley,” Yaeger acceded with a shrug.
“That's the old Silicon Valley hacker I know and love,” Dirk replied with a laugh.
“Give me a couple of hours and I'll see what I can do.”
“Max,” Dirk said, looking at the transparent woman in the eye, thank you for the information."
“My pleasure, Dirk,” she replied seductively. “I'm happy to be at your service any time.”
Then, in an instant, she vanished. Yaeger already had his nose against a computer monitor, fingers flying over a keyboard, completely engrossed in his subversive mission at hand.
At promptly ten o'clock, Dirk entered a plush executive conference room, still carrying the large duffel bag over his shoulder. Thick azure carpet under his feet complemented the dark cherrywood conference table and matching wood paneling on the walls, which were dotted with ancient oil paintings of American Revolutionary warships. A thick pane of glass stretched the length of one wall, offering a bird's-eye view of the Potomac River and the Washington Mall across the water. Seated at the table, two stone-faced men in dark suits listened attentively as a diminutive man in horn-rimmed glasses discussed the Deep Endeavor's recent events in the Aleutian Islands. Rudi Gunn stopped in mid-sentence and popped to his feet as Dirk entered the room.
“Dirk, good of you to return to Washington so quickly,” he greeted warmly, his bright blue eyes beaming through the thick pair of eyeglasses. “Glad to see your ferry landing injuries were minor,” he added, eyeing Dirk's swollen lip and bandaged cheek.
“My companion broke her leg, but I managed to escape with just a fat lip. We fared a little better than the other guys,” he said with a smirk, “whoever they were. It's good to see you again, Rudi,” he added, shaking the hand of NUMA's longtime assistant director.
Gunn escorted him over and introduced him to the other two men.
“Dirk, this is Jim Webster, Department of Homeland Security special assistant, Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection,” he said, waving a hand toward a pale-skinned man with cropped blond hair, "and Rob Jost, assistant director of Maritime and Land Security)
Transportation Security Administration, under DHS.“ A rotund, bearish-looking man with a flush red nose nodded at Dirk without smiling ”We were discussing Captain Burch's report of your rescue of the CDC team on Yunaska Island," Gunn continued.
“A fortunate thing we happened to be in the area. I'm just sorry we weren't able to reach the two Coast Guardsmen in time.”
“Given the apparently high levels of toxins that were released near the station, they really didn't have much of a chance from the beginning,” Webster said.
“You confirmed that they died from cyanide poisoning?” Dirk asked.
“Yes. How did you know? That information hasn't been made public.”
“We recovered a dead sea lion from the island, which a CDC team in Seattle examined after we returned. They found that it had been killed by cyanide inhalation.”
“That is consistent with the autopsy reports for the two Coast Guardsmen.”
“Have you uncovered any information on the boat that fired at us, and presumably released the cyanide?”
After an uncomfortable pause, Webster replied, “No additional information has been obtained. Unfortunately, the description provided matches a thousand other fishing boats of its kind. It is not believed to have been a local vessel, and we are now working with the Japanese authorities to investigate leads in their country.”
“So you believe there is a Japanese connection. Any ideas on why someone would launch a chemical attack on a remote weather station in the Aleutians?”
“Mr. Pitt,” Jost interrupted, “did you know the men who tried to kill you in Seattle?”
“Never saw them before. They appeared to be semiprofessionals, more than just a pair of hired street hoods.”
Webster opened a file on the table before him and slid over a crinkled photograph in the form of a small postcard. Dirk silently looked at the black-and-white image of a hardened Japanese woman of fifty glaring violently into the camera lens.
“An homage card of Fusako Shigenobu, former revolutionary leader of the JRA,” Webster continued. “Found it in the wallet of one of your would-be assassins after we fished them out of the sound.”
“What's the JRA?” Dirk asked.
“The Japanese Red Army. An international terrorist cell that dates to the seventies. Believed to have been broken up with the arrest of Shigenobu in 2000, they appear to have staged a deadly resurgence in activity.”
“I've read that the prolonged weakness in Japan's economy has spawned renewed interest in fringe cults by the Japanese youth,” Gunn added.
“The JRA has attracted more than a few bored youths. They have claimed responsibility for the assassinations of our ambassador to Japan and deputy chief of mission, as well as the explosion at the SemCon plant in Chiba. These were all very professional hits. The public outrage, as you are no doubt aware, is straining our relations with Tokyo.”
“We suspect the JRA may have been behind the cyanide attack on Yunaska, as a prelude to a more deadly strike in a major urban area,” Jost added.
“And also behind the smallpox infection of the Yunaska scientist Irv Fowler,” Dirk stated.
“We have not established that link,” Webster countered. “Our analysts suspect that the scientist may have contracted the disease in Un-alaska, from a local Aleut. Japanese authorities do not believe the JRA is sophisticated enough to obtain and disperse the smallpox virus.”
“I might think otherwise,” Dirk cautioned.
“Mr. Pitt, we are not here to gather your conspiracy theories,” Jost remarked in a belittling tone. “We are just interested in learning what ^ JRA agents were doing in the country and why they tried to kill a Iv[UMA diver.”
“That's special projects director,” Dirk replied as he hoisted the duffel bag up onto the conference table. Then, giving it a strong shove, he pushed the bag across the table in the direction of Jost. The arrogant transportation security director scrambled to hoist a cup of coffee out of the way before the bag slid up against his chest.
“Your answer is in there,” Dirk stated brusquely.
Webster stood and unzipped the bag as Jost and Gunn looked on intently. Carefully wrapped in foam padding was a large section of the bomb canister that Dirk had recovered from the I-403. The silver-porcelain casing was split open, revealing a segmented interior, with several empty compartments positioned beneath a small nose tip component.
“What is it?” Gunn asked.
“A sixty-year-old dirty bomb,” Dirk replied. He then retold the story of the World War II attack on Fort Stevens, his discovery of the submarine, and the retrieval of the bomb canister.
“An ingenious weapon,” Dirk continued. “I had the epidemiology lab in Washington test for trace elements, to see what was armed in the payload section.”
“It's made of porcelain,” Webster noted.
“Used to protect biological agents. The nose cone had a simple timed explosive, designed to detonate at a pre specified altitude to disperse the main payload armament. As you can see, it would have been a pretty small charge. Enough to shatter the porcelain casing but not damage the payload with undue heat or pressure.”
Dirk pointed to the interior payload compartments, which were cigar-shaped and stretched nearly to the tail fins.
“It's not clear whether the payload agents were mixed together during flight or upon detonation. But the bomb could obviously carry multiple compounds. The contents might be one or more biological agents with a booster, or a combination of biological or chemical agents. The CDC lab was only able to find a trace chemical agent in one of the compartments on this particular bomb.” '
“Cyanide?” Gunn asked. “None other,” Dirk replied.
“But why utilize more than one payload?” Webster queried. “To ensure a specific kill zone, and perhaps divert attention. Let's say cyanide was combined with a biological agent. The cyanide gas would have a high lethality in a concentrated area only, whereas the biological agent would create gradual problems over a larger region. Cyanide gas also dissipates quickly, so attack survivors would reenter the drop zone unaware of a secondary danger. But that's just speculation. It's possible the canister design was for a different intent, to strike with a mixture of several chemical agents or biological agents that would produce a higher lethality in combination.”