Army Second Lieutenant Sarah McIntire held the porous lava rock in her hand for all to see. Then she winked at Vincent Fallon, professor of Asian Studies from UC–Riverside, and gave a quick nod of her head.
“So this area of the cave had been excavated before?” he asked.
Lieutenant Commander Carl Everett stood and watched the reaction of the others. He was on detached service from the U.S. Navy, serving in his sixth year in the highly secretive Department 5656, known to a very distinct few in the United States government as the Event Group. The tightly controlled Group was established officially during the Teddy Roosevelt era with historical arms that reached all the way back to Abraham Lincoln.
Carl watched Sarah McIntire closely. She was the only other member of the Group on station. They had infiltrated the university dig three weeks earlier and he was hoping this mission was a wild-goose chase. But according to Sarah, who was a damned good geologist, it seemed very likely that the research that had been done by Dr. Fallon was accurate. Meaning they might have a biological disaster on their hands, and that meant the mission to infiltrate the archeological dig might have just risen in the danger level by a hundred percent.
Sarah tossed the flame-scorched rock to the floor of the giant cave and briefly glanced at Carl. She knew he was far better than just adequate to provide security for the unsuspecting students and professors on this dig, but it didn’t stop her from wishing Major Jack Collins, the head of Event Group security, was here also. The ancient lava-formed caves were dark and powerfully evocative of a past conflict that had been brutal in its cost in human misery.
“There’s not only detonation marks on the stone and surrounding lava rock formations, but the density of the back wall shows its loose fall. In layman’s terms, Professor, that wall had once been open to this side of the cave and has since been hastily sealed.” She adjusted one of the floodlights to show the rock fall she had just examined. “I suspect our Mr. Seito is correct, that there is another chamber behind the rock fall, just as he said there would be.”
Carl looked at the old man sitting on a large rock. He had his eyes closed and was slowly rocking back and forth. The interpreter they had been using was standing next to him, silent, as he watched the analysis of the cave progress. The old man mumbled something and then the Japanese linguistics student from the University of Kyoto smiled and translated it.
“Mr. Seito says that his memory has failed in many areas, but it will never shed what had occurred during his last days on this island.”
Carl half-bowed toward the old man who had reluctantly explained in detail the last terrifying days on Okinawa. He had told them with complete clarity that he was one of the men who had sealed this very cave in 1945. That he had joyously destroyed that which Professor Fallon was desperately seeking. The old Japanese soldier had closed his eyes when he recounted how he had assisted in the ritual suicide of the island’s commander, Tarazawa.
“I must remind you, Professor Fallon, if the find is actually there, it must be immediately secured by my government,” said Mr. Asaki, an official from the government of Okinawa, as he carefully eased his way over the loose stone. He stopped before the professor, removed his glasses, and cleaned them with a white handkerchief.
Carl kept quiet as the professor nodded and responded, “We’re all well aware of your orders, Mr. Asaki, and we will be glad to turn over any substance find along with the vessel itself as soon as we verify it was actually a part of Kublai Khan’s battle fleet, and not until then; that was our deal with Tokyo.”
Asaki didn’t comment but did bow quickly, and then he waved for his man at the cave’s opening to allow the woman scientist into the excavation.
Sarah smiled and started to move away from the group to continue her inspection. She couldn’t resist saying, as she patted the naval officer on the shoulder on her way by, “Oh boy, Ms. Personality is coming in, Carl. I think she has the hots for you.”
Carl didn’t respond, but Sarah could see him shudder at the mention of the woman they both disliked. The navy man watched as the two women passed each other and nodded their heads out of courtesy; their greeting was chilly at best. The woman was Dr. Andréa Kowalski. She had been recruited by Dr. Fallon and held credentials from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Unlike Sarah and him, she was here legitimately and not undercover. She was of average size, and that was the last place you could use the word “average” when describing this woman; she was a knockout. Her red hair was done up in a ponytail and she wore her extreme-environment suit unzipped and tied at the waist. Her one flaw as far as he could see was the small fact that the woman was a total bitch.
“I find your friend extremely rude,” Andréa remarked to Carl as she joined the group of people at the mouth of the excavation.
“She has a fondness for you, too,” Carl said, looking away and winking at the old Japanese soldier.
“I know she is a geologist and is needed on this venture, but what is it you do again, Mr.—”
“Knock it off, Andréa, you know he’s in charge of logistics. Remember, he’s the one that got all that fancy lab equipment here in one piece,” Professor Fallon called out. “Now I suggest you go and set up; Sarah says we can be through the wall in the next hour if we’re lucky.”
After giving Carl one more questioning glance, Andréa turned away and started setting up her equipment.
“Wonderful analyst you found there, Doc; she has the personality of a vampire bat.” Carl smiled and bowed at Seito, whose toothless grin seemed to indicate he understood the insult directed at the viral specialist.
As the old man sat his mind drifted back in time to those awful last days on Okinawa—the original discovery of what they now sought, and the horrible consequences that once could have changed the course of a war that had ended seventy years ago. Seito shuddered at the memory and, as he looked around the cavernous enclosure, he couldn’t help but see and feel those days once again …
The American F4F Hellcats from no less than five fast attack carriers had been bombing the Ryukyu chain of islands since mid-March. For the past several weeks, the sorties had gained in intensity as the Americans prepared for the invasion of the last stepping-stone before their final thrust at the throat of the Japanese Empire.
Admiral Jinko Tarazawa, once a trusted advisor to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, had been in disgrace for two years for his failure to stem the tide of American resistance in the Pacific at the war’s turning point, known to the Americans as the Battle of Midway. He had been blamed for this along with his commander, Chuichi Nagumo, and as a result was now in command of the island’s defense instead of fighting and dying for his beloved navy. A hero of the empire only three years before for his coleadership in planning the greatest naval attack since Lord Nelson ruled the seas, he now found himself a long way from Hawaii and Pearl Harbor. His dishonor was great. To be relegated to building bunkers instead of commanding one of the last battle groups remaining to the Imperial Japanese Navy was humiliation nearly beyond endurance.
As the admiral stood with his arms behind his back, looking out to sea, he was approached by his intelligence officer and handed a message. He read it quickly and gave it back to the Imperial Marine captain. The message burrowed deep into his mind, lodging there and bringing on a new wave of despair. The estimate from the naval attaché based in Spain had reported to Tokyo that the Americans were mounting the largest invasion force one nation had ever assembled. More than one thousand ships of war would soon be pointing their guns and sending their young men to the shores of this island. Tarazawa quickly nodded for the young marine to return to his duties, then closed his eyes and prayed for the safety of the emperor, for he knew this was to be the last blow before the Americans invaded Japan itself.
As rumbling from the excavating of caves shook the volcanic island, he saw several Hellcat fighter aircraft fly low over the island, bringing quick eruptions of antiaircraft fire from their hidden batteries.
Tarazawa was interrupted by another marine, this one a fresh-faced lieutenant who was running up waving his hands, forgetting even to bow to his commander.
“Sir, I have a report from the naval engineers on the north side of the island.”
“What is it? I cannot go rushing off from here every time they have a small cave-in!” he said. “Just tell them to clear it and start moving the medical supplies and civilians in as soon as possible; we are very short of time.”
Tarazawa was surprised when the young man stood there, disobeying his order.
“I beg for your indulgence, Admiral.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“The northernmost cave, sir, the army and naval engineers have found something you must see.”
Tarazawa’s curiosity was piqued by the boy’s eagerness. “What is it they have found that has you in such a state, Lieutenant Seito?”
The nineteen-year-old finally removed his blue cap and stepped agitatedly from one foot to the other. “When we blasted through the cave’s far wall we broke into another chamber, a chamber that had been sealed up for many, many years, Admiral.”
“This is good, is it not? That means they won’t have to expand on that particular cave as much as they had originally thought.”
“Sir, they discovered—I mean they found a ship inside. A very old ship,” the boy said excitedly.
“Unless the ship you speak of is a new aircraft carrier with attack planes onboard, I don’t see how this would interest me, young man,” Tarazawa said with a frown.
The boy momentarily looked deflated and brightened when he remembered a detail. “Sir, Colonel Yashita says it is our salvation, at least that is the information he has received from a few Chinese laborers he used to examine the vessel!”
The admiral just stared at the boy and shook his head, not understanding anything except that foolish army colonel was not following his orders to expedite the expansion of the caves. And now he is pulling his prisoner labor force from their duties? Tarazawa quickly decided he would visit the cave and have a talk with that particular soldier. This disrespect of his orders would end if he had to execute an officer as an example to the rest. He might be old and disgraced but he was still a warrior of the Bushido code.
An hour later, Admiral Tarazawa entered the front of the cave. He could see immediately that the natural feature was created by large lava flows that had once reached to the sea. It took twenty more minutes of finding his way in the semidarkness and avoiding the collisions with more than two hundred Chinese and Korean laborers clearing debris from the interior before he saw light at the rear of the monstrous cave.
There, yellowish lights played on the outline of a very old ship’s hull. The admiral could see army personnel carefully crawling all over its ancient decks. They had even gone as far as erecting wooden scaffolding, even though lumber was getting scarce and thus critical. Tarazawa stopped in his tracks, fuming.
“How long has work been stopped at this site?” he asked in a very low and controlled tone of voice while grinding his teeth together.
Lieutenant Seito again removed his hat before speaking.
“Thirteen hours, sir.”
Tarazawa closed his eyes and lowered his head. Then he forced himself to calm down as he breathed deeply. He reopened his eyes to the bright spectacle before him and walked slowly toward the short man who, unaware of his presence, was busy shouting orders from a large stage of lava rock.
“What is the meaning of this?” the admiral asked loudly so he could be heard above the portable generators.
Colonel Yashita had been a veteran of many campaigns in China before being ordered to Okinawa. He had had to suffer many indignities from higher-ranking officers who thought him to be an arrogant pig, but he would tolerate no interference from a disgraced admiral. He merely responded with a smirk.
“I asked you a question, Colonel!” Tarazawa said as he stepped onto the lowest scaffold below the rock that Yashita was standing upon. The workmen ceased their labors and listened.
“If you must know, Admiral, I am endeavoring to save our empire and our beloved emperor; and you, at the moment, are delaying this great task!”
“Explain yourself! I have thousands of men working until they collapse to make the defenses ready and you are here, instead of building a hospital as ordered. You are needlessly delaying construction because you are in a fit of delusion! You are not going to be fighting defenseless Chinese in the coming weeks, Colonel, but battle-hardened American marines and soldiers who actually shoot back!”
“Very well, I will indulge the admiral.” Yashita calmly ordered his men back to work. “Have you seen this type of vessel before? You have vast experience; you should recognize her design. I did after only a moment.” He rocked back on his heels while he bragged. “I have an advanced degree in history and engineering from London Polytechnic,” he said, reminding Tarazawa of his rich heritage.
Tarazawa glared at the colonel, then quickly scanned what could be seen of the deteriorating ship. The gunwales were deep and her deck was sloped to the extreme. The stern of the vessel was high, topped with wooden railing; there was no mast as it, along with the sail, had long since succumbed to age. He knew what the vessel was and where it came from, he just couldn’t fathom why it was here on Okinawa. Nor how it came to be entrapped in a cave that couldn’t have seen the ocean for centuries at the very least.
“It is a Chinese junk, of course. You have stopped work on one of our important underground hospitals for this?”
Yashita turned away as if he hadn’t heard the question. He paused to adjust the black-sheathed samurai sword on his belt. “This ship, according to my Chinese laborers, two of whom used to teach on the mainland, once belonged to an enemy of Japan, a seemingly invincible foe such as the Americans appear to be. But like the Chinese, they will suffer when they try to land their marines on our soil.”
“Quit speaking in riddles, Colonel, and explain why you are disobeying my orders!” Tarazawa said as he stepped menacingly closer to Yashita.
“This vessel was part of an invasion of our homeland over seven hundred and thirty years ago, Admiral.” He looked significantly at Tarazawa, his brown hat firmly angled on his shaved head, its single silver star blinking brightly in the lights. “Yes, I can see you understand now,” he said as Tarazawa added up the years and then appeared perplexed. “The year you are searching for is 1274 and the name you have misplaced in your aged mind is Kublai Khan.”
Tarazawa quickly reacted. “Impossible! The invasion fleet sank or was driven off in a storm hundreds of miles north of Okinawa. This vessel cannot belong to the grand Chinese fleet of the Khan; again, you waste our time!”
“I and my Chinese historians would have to disagree, Admiral. This ship, according to dates we have uncovered, was a part of the fleet that was destroyed by the Divine Wind.”
“The Divine Wind,” Tarazawa mouthed the words.
“Yes, Admiral. The Kamikaze, the Divine Wind of the gods, the very same wind that reached out to destroy the invasion of Kublai Khan in 1274. And now, the discovery of this ship, which was separated from the main fleet by a storm over seven centuries ago, will be the answer to millions of prayers. Only this will be a divine wind of our making that will carry with it the death of every American in our home waters. This war will be ours!” Yashita shouted loudly and then started laughing.
Four hours later, after the second shift of laborers left the new excavation, Tarazawa sat inside the ancient junk’s cargo hold. Lieutenant Seito and one of the Chinese workers sat with him. An oil lamp sitting between them cast an eerie glow on the faces of the three men. They had been that way for the last three hours after examining the strange porcelain jars that the workmen had found inside the vessel. The jars were three feet high and there were over thirty-two of them. All were sealed permanently closed at the mouth by clay, porcelain glass, and beeswax, effectively making them airtight. The nature of their contents had been elusive to the Chinese for the first half of the day after Yashita had brought the containers into the hold. Their only clues to the jars’ contents were the dried and crumbling clay markers around the neck of every jar, explaining the use of the material. Tarazawa and the others didn’t know the exact name for the strange weapon that Kublai Khan had intended to use on their ancestors, but they quickly learned it was lethal.
As one of the seals was cracked open, the Chinese laborer had failed to see that some of the powder had adhered to the cork sealant. The elderly Chinaman blinked his eyes and felt the powder soak into the pores of his skin. He immediately convulsed once, then again more violently. He coughed, a deep fluidic sound that forced burst membranes to spew forth an avalanche of blood and mucous. His eyes bulged and the pupils rolled back to show the whites that were quickly filling with blood.
The admiral and Seito backed away in horror as the man started to come apart from the inside. Tarazawa watched in terrified fascination as the infected man fell to the hardened and rotted wood decking, coughed out another glob of blood, and then finally lay still in death.
“What have we uncovered?” the admiral asked aloud as he and Seito moved quickly to the makeshift ladder leading to the upper deck. They climbed as quickly as possible to safety.
Lieutenant Seito, his young face scrunched up in horror at what they had just witnessed on the old petrified vessel, hung his head. Then he looked up with hope in his young eyes. Seito was one of the Imperial Navy’s brightest. He had been drafted into the service just last year. He, like many in his class, was also a realist and knew no matter what the fanatical right wingers in the government said, Japan had lost the war. He only hoped there were still people around in his homeland after the shooting stopped. He was one whom those fools called defeatist, one who wished for an immediate cessation of hostilities no matter what the price might be, even to the point of the emperor having to abdicate and admit his false divinity.
“Surely this horrible plague, this substance, shouldn’t be potent after seven centuries? Well?” Tarazawa questioned the eldest of the Chinese who had only moments earlier escaped the fate of his countryman inside.
“As it is in a powder form, the Khan must have planned to disperse this substance on the winds if his invasion met with disaster.”
Above them, on the makeshift scaffolds extending from the deck that they sat on, they heard the return of Colonel Yashita and his men. Then the thud of block and tackle as it struck the scaffolding and strongest parts of the ancient deck.
“He’s come to take the cargo from the hold of the vessel,” Seito said, removing his cap and wiping the sweat from his brow. “Are you going to allow this?”
Tarazawa stood and picked up the lantern. “Colonel Yashita’s intention is the salvation of the war, and is dishonorable for the single fact he would only prolong this conflict for his own selfish reasons, and would possibly kill many hundreds of thousands of Americans, bringing on a retaliatory response that could possibly end the Japanese civilization. This must not be allowed to happen.”
“What are you saying, sir?”
Tarazawa didn’t answer. He just looked from the Chinese laborers to the lieutenant and then lowered the wick in the lantern until it dimmed and then died, casting them and the Japanese Empire into darkness.
As the last of the rocks were moved away by Japanese contractors hired on the island, Professor Fallon called a halt. He asked the islanders and most of the Cal Riverside students to leave the cave for safety reasons. After hearing the story as told by the old soldier Seito the week before, the professor wasn’t taking any chances. The documents he had uncovered in Beijing twenty years ago with the aid of the Chinese government, during one of their more friendly and nonenlightened periods, had told him that beyond that wall could be found not only a great archaeological find with the Chinese junk, but also one of the most dangerous substances known to man.
Of the six people left to remove the last of the lava rock and stone, Sarah was out in front. A trained geologist, she would watch for instability in the rock fall when the opening was cleared. She was joined by Dr. Kowalski, who bore with her a device they called a “sniffer.” It would measure and analyze the air particles, and immediately alert her if any of the substance had become airborne after Tarazawa had sealed the excavation in ’45. Both women were now dressed in airtight chemical suits. Carl Everett wondered if their animosity was coming through their small speaker systems as they removed the last stone.
“Stand clear, Ms. McIntire, if you please. I must be able to get a solid reading,” Andréa Kowalski said.
Sarah was about to respond when she heard Carl clear his throat from about ten feet away. She instead backed away as ordered.
Andréa handled the microphone-shaped probe expertly as she eased it cautiously through the door-size opening, careful not to touch the stone itself. Once it was inside the opening, she placed a thin panel of steel over the hole and then thumbed a switch on the sniffer’s small control panel. Inside the darkness of the cave, the microphone-shaped device came apart with a small pop. The heavy springs inside engaged and sent two hundred small darts in all directions. Each dart was tungsten tipped and the small shaft was made of lypcochlorinide, which upon impact sent a burst of moisture into the air, activating any minute amounts of any substance that may be embedded in the lava rock. The tungsten heads were miniature radio units that would relay any findings to the device’s control panel. Of the two hundred darts, some found rock, others sand, and still others tumbled into the blackness. Andréa slowly brought up the particle gauge and read the virtual readout. The device was so sensitive it immediately broke down all the airborne elements in the old excavation.
The others watching Andréa’s progress could see the woman in her yellow chemical suit slowly relax her shoulders as the small darts sent back their vital information on the air quality in the cave. But none of them realized just how tense she had become.
Carl finally took a breath, not even knowing he had been holding it. He relaxed when he saw her remove the small steel plate from the hole.
Andréa removed a small round object from her belt, leaned into the opening, and tossed the small device as far as she could. The round object was a one-time-use portable analysis pod. Once thrown, it would separate into five different sections and its components would read the interior air of the confined space. It was so accurate that it picked up the traces of cordite and TNT that had been used in 1945, over sixty years before.
Andréa removed her hood. “All clear; only one strange reading I can’t figure out,” she said. “But it’s nontoxic.”
“What is it?” Professor Fallon asked, with concern.
“Trace amounts of blood.”
The others started to remove their own protective equipment.
“Don’t do that, please; just because there is nothing in the air doesn’t mean we won’t disturb trace amounts when we enter. The petrie darts only cover about ten percent of the cave; that leaves ninety percent capable of carrying something that could kill you all,” Andréa said blandly as she placed her own hood back in place.
As she turned and entered the cave, Professor Fallon and Carl and two other members of the dig team hefted the portable lighting they would use in the initial phase of the recovery. Sarah was the first to follow the CDC specialist into the opening. She switched on her flashlight once she was inside. At first, all she caught in the light was floating dust and the back of Andréa, who was waving another metal probe that was connected to her readout, this time making sure their footsteps weren’t bringing death with every movement they made. Then Sarah’s light caught the geometric shape of wooden scaffolding standing out through the dust swirls. Out of the darkness rose a black ship. Still legible on its side was what looked like a faded dragon carved into the dark wood. It ran the entire length of the ship and its tail wrapped around the stern. As she played her light around it, she could see that the bottom half of the vessel had deteriorated badly. The rotted planks that made up its hull were starting to collapse, causing the top deck to sag into the interior of the vessel.
“Director Compton would have loved to have seen this.”
Sarah jumped at the sound of Carl’s voice. “Jesus, don’t do that,” she admonished. “You scared the hell out of me.” But he was right, she thought, Niles Compton, the director of the Event Group, lived for discovery like this, and he also would have loved to get it into one of the Group’s vaults for further study. Sarah shook off the thought of Niles and brought her focus back to where it should have been; after all, they were here to make sure the old legends about this ship weren’t true. That was the whole reason for her and Carl’s infiltration of this college dig in the first place.
“We may have a dangerous situation here,” Andréa said from the lower-most scaffolds.
“Danger?” Fallon asked as he looked at the ship, still giddy at proving his research right and vindicating Seito’s elaborate tall tale of an ancient vessel buried in a cave.
“The junk is collapsing in on itself. If that upper deck gives way, it will crush whatever cargo this vessel was once carrying, and if your theory and old Seito’s memory are correct, we could contaminate all of Okinawa.”
“Before we find out, doctors, I suggest you bring the old man in here and ask him a few more questions,” Carl said after he gained the top of the scaffold that looked down onto the main deck of the Chinese junk.
“He isn’t authorized, Mr. Everett,” Fallon said as he carefully eased his way to where Carl was standing.
“What have you got up there, Carl?” Sarah asked from below.
“The reason why Dr. Kowalski’s equipment was picking up trace amounts of dried blood,” Carl replied as the professor joined him.
“Good God, what in the hell is this?” Fallon exclaimed when he saw what Carl was looking at.
“Are you going to keep us in suspense up there or are you going to act like professionals?” Andréa said from the lower level.
“I think our old Lieutenant Seito needs to tell us why there are three skeletons in Japanese Army uniforms up here,” Carl said flatly.
They were all amazed an hour later when the old man, along with his interpreter, both now dressed in yellow chemical suits, bowed deeply at the waist at the remains of the three skeletons on the upper scaffold.
“Who is it?” Carl asked the old soldier.
The old man straightened with the aid of the interpreter. They could hear him breathing deeply of his oxygen, almost hyperventilating. Then he began to speak in his native Japanese.
“He said,” his interpreter translated, “that it is his great shame that this is Colonel Yashita and two of his army soldiers. Murdered, shot in the back by himself and Admiral Tarazawa.”
“He wanted to excavate the cargo, didn’t he?” Carl asked. “Yashita wanted to use it if it was still viable.”
The old man understood the question without need for the interpreter and nodded. Then he said something too low for the others to hear.
“Mr. Seito says it was a traitorous act on his and the admiral’s part, but that he would do it again. There had been enough death. They resealed the cave and in their report attributed the unfortunate loss of the colonel and his men in a cave-in.”
The group was silent. Carl just nodded his head at the old man and Sarah patted Seito on the back.
“Where is Dr. Kowalski?” Fallon asked suddenly.
Carl looked around; Andréa was nowhere to be seen. Then he heard the sound at the same time the others did. There was noise coming from inside the ancient cargo hold.
“Goddammit!” Carl exclaimed as he quickly stepped down onto the uppermost deck. His foot immediately crashed through the rotted wood as if he had stepped on a glass floor. As he gently tried to pull his booted foot free he saw the others rushing up the old wooden scaffolding. He held up his arm quickly. “Stay back! This damned thing is coming apart, I’ll—”
That was as far as Carl got, as his weight was enough to crack the rest of that section of deck. He felt weightlessness at first and then his stomach lurched up into his chest as he started to fall. There was a momentary darkness, then a bright flash of light. He felt something soft break his fall. He heard a loud grunt and then an expletive that sounded like French. Then he felt himself, and whatever it had been that broke his fall, strike the bottom of the hold.
“You clumsy oaf, you could have broken my equipment,” Andréa said from beneath him. “Or me! Now get off,” she ordered as she pushed at him.
As they both stood up, she silently held her light on something. The sight of it made her freeze instantly. She gestured for him not to move, by holding out her hand. Carl raised his light and in its beam he was amazed to see at least thirty large containers, yellowed with age and standing three feet in height, leaning against one another, still bound with the remains of old rotted restraining ropes used to keep them in place over seven hundred years before. The jars all had a red dragon, dimmed with age, painted on their sides.
“I’ll be damned,” Carl murmured under his breath.
“If whatever is in there is still viable, we all may be damned,” Andréa said as she stared at thirty-two containers of a mystery weapon Chinese legend said was the Breath of the Dragon.
Two hours later, after the dig team had assisted Andréa in setting up her equipment outside of the junk’s hull, they waited anxiously for her to confirm their worst fears. The grad students and Professor Fallon knew if the cargo was still an active powdered agent, they wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of examining the ancient junk.
Carl finally put all the puzzle pieces together. The previous year, a seven-hundred-year-old Chinese laboratory had been unearthed during an archeological dig outside Beijing. When it was discovered by an Event Group infiltration unit that students of Beijing University had found trace evidence of a biological facility that was hundreds of years ahead of its time, the news had shaken the virologists at the Event Group badly. Trace amounts of chemical agents had been discovered inside the remains of kilns. Rudimentary microscopes made up of eight or nine different lenses of glass, providing the magnification needed to study the spread of disease, were also unearthed at a nearby, separate excavation that was also tagged by the Group. Those two elements side by side painted a historical picture that would shake modern science to its foundations if word was let out. Then it was discovered in old marching orders uncovered by the Computer Sciences Department at the Event Group that a powdered compound had been intended to be released into the air over seven centuries earlier by Kublai Khan’s invading force. The findings were passed up the chain of command until the president gave reluctant permission for the Fallon dig to include Carl and Sarah for reasons of national security, after they found out that Dr. Fallon had discovered the site through an alternate means while researching survivor records in Shanghai that told of a mysterious shipwreck on the island of Okinawa.
Still in her chemical suit, Andréa set up a small worktable inside the cargo hold of the Chinese vessel. Carl strung some makeshift lighting inside and stood by as the doctor made her analysis. Carl was the only member of the dig team she allowed inside, and only then because he was already there. Thus far she had carefully used a special drill to penetrate the beeswax and porcelain. Without extracting the drill she carefully slid a rubber collar down the drill bit and made it secure to the outer wax sealant, then withdrew the drill bit from the container and rubber gasket. As she freed the tool she quickly capped the rubber gasket with a rubber stopper, then she took a deep breath and sat back. From the supplies she had assembled on her small table, she pulled out a small vile of a clear chemical and shook it up until it turned amber in color. She then placed the very tip of the probe into it.
“If you’re a religious man, Mr. Everett, now’s the time to pray whatever this stuff is has deteriorated over the centuries and has become inert; if not, I’m afraid there’s one hell of a cleanup ahead of us.”
Carl didn’t respond; he had been silent throughout the entire procedure. Ever since he had fallen through the rotted decking of the junk, he had been keeping his eyes open and thinking a few things over. He had studied Dr. Kowalski’s dossier that Niles Compton had forwarded from the Group in Nevada, and it had said nothing about the good doctor’s speaking French. The information didn’t seem critical, but the dossiers were made up by the National Security Agency and they left nothing out. Still, he would be on the alert now for other slips.
As Andréa slowly pulled the small rubber cork from the gasket, she quickly plugged it again with the telescopic probe, then began cautiously to inch it into the porcelain container. Carl could hear her short, controlled breaths as she held her arm steady. She inserted the probe into the container until she met resistance and then she let go and shook her hands as if they had fallen asleep.
“Whatever is in there has hardened over the years. That’s good news; it means it may not be a powder any longer and easier to move if it proves active.”
“Makes me all giddy inside to know that, Doctor,” Carl said, keeping his eyes on Andréa and the container.
Andréa frowned behind her faceplate and then retrieved her portable analyzer from the table. She took two small electrical leads that protruded from the steel probe she had placed in the porcelain container and attached them to her laptop computer. Next, she took the 1/8-inch clear rubber tube on the probe and also inserted that into the side of her analyzer. Then she took a deep breath of her oxygen and started tapping commands on the keyboard. Suddenly the analyzer beeped three times in rapid succession. The indicator in the upper right corner of the analyzer flashed red.
“Well, that doesn’t look or sound too good,” Carl said.
Andréa didn’t respond. She laid the analyzer down slowly, leaving the probe in the container, and carefully stood. She backed away slowly and keyed her radio on the yellow sleeve of her chemical suit.
“Well, what is it?” Carl asked as Andréa backed away from the container.
“Professor Fallon? I don’t fully understand how the Chinese did it seven hundred years before they were supposed to be able to, but they managed to—”
“Dr. Kowalski, Mr. Everett, would you be so kind as to join us up on the scaffold please,” ordered a familiar voice. “I don’t wish to be unpleasant to your colleagues.”
Andréa looked at Carl.
“May I assume you have a weapon on you, Mr. Everett?” Andréa whispered as she reached into a small satchel attached to her side and brought out a Beretta nine-millimeter automatic pistol.
Under his faceplate Carl raised his eyebrows. “Is that standard CDC issue, Doctor?” he mouthed as he reached into his satchel and brought out a Colt .45 automatic.
“Is that Asaki, the nerd from the Okinawa government, talking?” Andréa asked quietly.
“Yes, and I don’t think I care for his tone,” Carl replied as he steeled himself for confrontation.
“Mr. Everett, if you are armed, please toss your weapon out onto the upper deck before you appear, or I’m afraid our friends here will do something distasteful,” Asaki warned.
Carl gestured for Andréa to slide her pistol into her chemical suit. Without hesitation she quickly released the Velcro, unzipped her suit, and plunged her Beretta inside; it was almost as if she had anticipated Carl’s order.
“We can remove the protective suits for now, there’s no trace of any airborne particles,” Carl said loudly.
He removed his hood and faceplate, tossed his .45 through the opening he had made when he fell through the deck, and then turned back toward Andréa.
“So, what agency are you with, Doctor? NSA, CIA, or is it someone else?” he whispered.
“Please come out on deck, so we may finish our business,” Asaki ordered. “Any untoward antics and we will begin harming your friends, starting with the students.”
Carl took a deep breath and waited for Andréa.
As she passed him, she removed her faceplate and hood, then shook out her red hair. She stopped long enough to retrieve her glasses from the small table. Then she turned and faced Carl as she put them on.
“In answer to your question, Mr. Everett, I guess you could say you know my husband, or ex-husband to be more accurate. You see, Mr. Everett, I also know you are no field security man contracted for the university at Riverside, but actually the number two man in the security department for what is known in very private circles as the Event Group,” she whispered. “My name is Danielle Serrate, formerly Mrs. Henri Farbeaux. Now I’m afraid we must do as they say before we get one of those innocent kids killed.”
Carl couldn’t move for a moment. He expected something, but not the former wife of the Group’s number one enemy. Now he knew why she cursed in French when she was caught off guard. Colonel Henri Farbeaux had been a thorn in the side of his organization for the better part of fifteen years. Farbeaux was far better at gleaning the historical record than most nations gave him credit for. Although ruthless in his pursuit of antiquities and technology, not necessarily in that order, he was a man who rivaled Group director Niles Compton in the IQ department, which was why he was so dangerous and had a death warrant out for him by at least five countries.
“No wonder you were such a bitch,” he mumbled to himself as they started up.
Carl immediately took in the situation and knew from a military, or defensive, standpoint, he was going to be like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. With the way the bad guys were deployed in and around the cave, he could see he was hamstrung. Asaki had a crew of his own men and had organized six different areas in which he was holding the field team inside the cave. Carl knew Asaki had to have additional men, either in the larger cave or outside, more than likely both. Sarah and Professor Fallon, along with the old soldier Seito, were standing next to the Okinawa field representative, which Asaki obviously wasn’t or, worse, he was pulling double duty as a thug and bureaucrat; moreover, standing next to him, holding his very own Colt .45, was the old man’s interpreter.
“Please step aside and let Dr. Kowalski join us, Mr. Everett, we have much to do and a very short time to do it,” Asaki admonished while waiving a small pistol of his own.
Carl allowed the newly disclosed Danielle Farbeaux, or as she said, Serrate, to step up from behind him. He still wasn’t sure she wasn’t a part of what was happening here.
“Very good; as you can see, things are not as they seem. Your situation has turned from one of discovery to that of cooperation. Do this and I assure you no one will be harmed,” Asaki said loudly enough for all in the cave to hear, his voice carrying easily in the small enclosure.
“You… are a … dishonor,” said Seito in halting English.
Asaki ignored the old man and gestured for Danielle to come forward.
“Now, what sort of biological agent are we dealing with, Doctor?”
“I haven’t completed my analysis yet.”
“I think you are lying, but have no fear, Doctor, we have people for that; we will remove the weapon first and then—”
Andréa cut him off. “If you make one mistake, you could doom yourselves to a horrible death,” she hissed as she stepped directly on the remains and tattered uniform of the World War II army colonel. Her foot had come down on the colonel’s samurai sword. “Just why are you doing this?”
“The man you are so casually standing on is my grandfather. My real name is Yashita,” said the man they knew as Asaki.
Carl now understood at least part of what was happening. Who would have figured?
The government man adjusted the aim of his pistol and pointed at Seito, “He was murdered by this man and the cowardly, disgraced Admiral Tarazawa because they didn’t have the fortitude to save the war as my grandfather had wished to do with this gift from the gods. But today, old wounds will be healed and I will kill two birds with one single stone.”
Seito, the old warhorse and feisty to the end, spat at Yashita. Sarah, seeing the rage cross Yashita’s features, stepped in front of the old soldier without thinking. Then a strange calmness came over the government representative’s face and he smiled as he wiped the old man’s spittle from his cheek and neck.
“As I said, by the end of today my sense of justice will be satisfied.”
“What will someone like you do with a biological agent? Sell it to the highest bidder?” Carl asked, his hands still up.
“Nothing so mundane, I assure you. You Americans always think it’s the money. Money, money, money,” he said with a snarl. “The war never ended for many of us, Mr. Everett. Like my grandfather before me, I am a patriot and still very much active in the war with your country, as are many from all over the world.” He stepped forward and motioned below as ten men dressed in green chemical suits started up the scaffolding. They all carried large zippered bags. “After we have the weapon analyzed, it will be dispersed worldwide. Every element in our cause against the West will receive one canister. Who would have thought the great and mighty Kublai Khan would come to the aid of our struggle? This will be used to avenge the rape of my country and the senseless slaughter of hundreds of thousands,” he said as he watched Carl take a menacing step forward.
“Please, continue to advance, Mr. Everett, and we can begin this right now if you wish,” Yashita said as he aimed his gun at Sarah.
Yashita’s men pushed by Carl and Danielle, knocking them together, a move that forced Carl to grab her to keep her from tumbling off the scaffold. As he righted her, he found himself standing on the old samurai sword.
Yashita shouted in Japanese and his men below herded the students to the outer cave. Then he climbed the last scaffold, placed the protective hood over his head, and easily lowered his body into the hold to see the containers for himself.
The interpreter and three of Asaki’s men herded Sarah, Fallon, and the old man toward Carl and Danielle.
“You two all right?” Carl asked.
“I’ve never felt so damned helpless in my life,” Sarah said angrily.
“This is a little different than your clean classrooms in Nevada, isn’t it, Second Lieutenant McIntire?” Danielle asked.
Sarah didn’t respond to Danielle’s sarcasm; she instead raised her eyebrows as she looked at Carl.
“Our Dr. Kowalski, as it turns out, is Danielle Serrate, the former Mrs. Henri Farbeaux.”
Sarah allowed her shock to show as she momentarily dropped her arms, eliciting a loud rebuke from their captors. She quickly raised them again. Then she laughed.
“No wonder she’s such a bitch,” she said, echoing Carl’s earlier comment.
Twenty minutes later, the armed men allowed them to lower their arms and ordered them to sit on the creaking wooden scaffolding. Carl was careful to place his ass right over the colonel’s old sword, as uncomfortable as it was.
“You work for the French Antiquities Commission?” Sarah asked.
“Yes, my being here has not been authorized. I learned that my former husband had started learning all he could about dangerous biohazards; he had an extensive file on the Kublai Khan invasion, which mentioned this vessel in several passages, so I thought he might show up here.”
“You went through all that trouble to track down your ex? Were you in that much of a reconciliatory mood?” Sarah asked.
“My mood was a bit darker, little Sarah; I was going to kill him,” Danielle answered coldly.
“He used to work for your department. What would your director say about that?” Carl asked her.
Danielle slowly turned toward Carl and smiled grimly. “I am the director of my department.”
Sarah and Carl exchanged looks.
“Who are you people? Is anyone who they said they were, when they signed on?” Fallon asked angrily.
Poor Fallon, Sarah thought. What could she tell him, that she worked for the most secret organization in the American government? That all she did is collect data from history and analyze it, catalog it, and learn from it to make sure her country didn’t make the same mistakes twice? A job that required her to infiltrate field digs from universities, and hire into private companies to gain information about anything and everything? That she was there to protect the American people and sometimes the world from themselves, because what they didn’t know is that their government agency knows most everything from the truth of religion to that of UFOs?
“Professor Fallon, all we can say is that we are here to help,” Sarah answered.
“I’m sure that will comfort him,” Yashita said as he climbed back up from the inside of the ancient hold. He removed his protective hood. “One thing you should know, all of you: there are no more heroes left in your part of the world, only robots that do the bidding of Washington and other dying entities just like it.”
“I think there may be one or two left in the West,” Danielle said smiling.
As if on cue, screaming started from the outer cave. Yashita looked confused and ordered his three men to investigate. As they started down the scaffolding, Danielle unzipped her protective suit, pulled her Beretta, and quickly fired, but missed Yashita as he jumped from the topmost scaffolds to the bottom one, landing hard and rolling. As he tried to stand, a tremendous explosion rocked the cavern, knocking everyone over. The chemical-suited men began exiting the hold of the ship on the ladders they had installed for their descent, and pulled handguns from their satchels. The interpreter started shouting orders and then the men turned their weapons on their captives.
“Oh, shit,” Carl yelled. He struck out with a rubber-booted foot, hitting the closest man and knocking him from his feet. He quickly grabbed for the man’s weapon, a small-caliber Colt, and fired into the facemask of another of Yashita’s man. As he did so he saw several others suddenly flop to the scaffold, as something unseen and unheard took them down. Their added weight hitting rotten wood was too much for the structure. It cracked and folded in on itself. Just before it did Carl saw several holes stitch across one of Yashita’s men as he fell backward into the cargo hold. Then that was it—they were all falling.
There were shouts coming from all areas of the cave. Carl was lying in the hull, stunned, with Danielle on top, fighting to get a hundred pounds of rotted wood off them. He could hear Sarah from somewhere shouting that Yashita was over to the left. Suddenly Carl felt himself lifted and shoved over. He felt hands reaching under him and then whoever was assisting him disappeared into the dust and smoke. Then he heard Sarah shouting again.
As the scaffold started coming down, she had grabbed for the interpreter’s weapon. It had fired and Sarah felt a searing pain crease her shoulder. The man had then fired point-blank at Seito. She yelled again in warning, and saw the old soldier jump to the right, pushing debris from the scaffolding out of his way as he did. Sarah started to pull herself out of the mess of rotted wood, when she saw Yashita above her, firing at someone in the cave below. She wondered if the students had somehow gotten free and started this nightmare. Suddenly she felt herself lifted, by none other than Yashita. He was bleeding from the mouth and shaking her.
“Who are you people?” he screamed.
Below them, Carl finally pulled Danielle to her feet, took the Beretta from her firm grasp, and then tried to step free of the debris that covered the cave floor. As two men took aim at him, he knew he couldn’t get the pistol up in time, but even before he could try to shoot, a line of tracers struck the men and they went down. That was when Carl noticed someone dressed in black Nomex and wearing a nylon hood and gas mask step out from a rock out-cropping. He was about to shout when he heard other, louder screams of outrage coming from behind them. The man in black ran forward; Carl and Danielle quickly followed.
“I want out of here! You will allow me to pass or this woman’s death will be on you, not I,” Yashita shouted again. His pistol was pointed right at Sarah’s temple. She had a scowl on her face as if she were far more angry than scared.
The man in black acted as though he hadn’t heard; he slowly inched forward, his Ingram submachine gun not wavering a millimeter. Carl reached out and tried to stop the black-garbed commandos but the man easily shrugged his hand away. From behind the black goggles and a night-vision scope placed over the gas mask, the man’s eyes were trained directly at Yashita. Carl knew that if the commando fired, Yashita could have a knee-jerk reaction and kill Sarah anyway.
Suddenly there was a loud shout in Japanese and a figure jumped out of the darkness. The bright and shiny edge of a blade made a streak in the darkness, and Yashita’s pistol hand fell away from Sarah’s head. Sarah was sprayed with blood as she pulled free of her captor’s other arm. Then all movement stopped as all eyes fixed upon Seito. He held the samurai sword high. Blood was coursing down his chest, staining the yellow plastic of his chemical suit. With a scream of outrage, he brought the sword down and into Yashita, severing him from the neck to the center of his chest. The old man watched his enemy collapse. He continued to stand there quietly, sword unmoving, his brown eyes focused on the dead man before him. Then he slowly allowed the sword to fall from his arthritic grasp as he crumpled onto his right side.
The man in black ran forward with his weapon still trained on Yashita’s head. When he saw no movement, he quickly went to Sarah and, with one powerful arm, lifted her to her feet. Carl and Danielle ran toward the fallen Seito. Carl immediately saw the bullethole in the old man’s chest and exhaled in exasperation. He then lowered himself and raised Seito’s head. Danielle sadly took the old man’s hand into her own.
There were seven commandos all together. Six of them had herded the students and Fallon into a protective bunch at the cave’s opening; all were in good shape, from what Carl could see.
“Had to go and play soldier again, huh?” he asked the dying Seito.
“The … man … had no … honor.”
Carl nodded.
Seito smiled as he looked at the man in black Nomex. The old man started to say something in English but failed. Instead he croaked out a few sentences quickly in Japanese, the words slurring as he finished, and then his eyes closed and he was gone.
“I wonder what he said,” Carl asked, brushing some gray hair out of the old man’s eyes.
“He said he had heard what Yashita said about there being no heroes left,” Danielle translated.
The man in black removed his night-vision gear, gas mask, and hood in one movement. Jack Collins, the director of security for the highly secretive Event Group and Carl’s boss, looked down at Seito.
Danielle frowned. “He said that Yashita was wrong; where there are good men, there will always be heroes.”