“Are you ready to leave, Professor?” asked a voice from behind Tanaka, startling him. Turning his head, he saw it was Lieutenant Eiji, a tall, slender, eighteen-year-old soldier with a crippled right hand and atrocious eyesight, who bitterly regretted being denied the honor to die with the rest of his comrades. It was his men outside who had coldly butchered the scientists.
“Yes, I am quite ready to leave this awful place, Lieutenant. When is the plane due?” asked Tanaka, not bothering to hide the disdain in his voice for the young officer. His research could have saved the Japanese Empire from ruin, but fanatics like Eiji had thrown it all away by biting off more than they could chew.
“Sir, your plane has just contacted the tower. It will be landing in the next ten minutes. I suggest that you take everything that you can carry and meet me outside,” said Eiji, who bowed politely and then turned about to leave. Eiji paused for a moment and then looked back over at Tanaka. “Your Russians, sir?” asked Eiji hesitantly.
“Taken care of,” replied Tanaka, saying no more.
Eiji bowed once more and then left Tanaka alone in the deserted building.
Holding his leather briefcase tight to his chest, Tanaka took one last look around. All the other offices were empty, not even a single scrap of paper remained. The laboratory where he had lived and worked for the past three years was empty. It was as if Unit 881 had never existed. A moment later, a couple of soldiers dragging jerry cans filled with gasoline walked past him without saying a word and then began to douse the floor. The last remaining building in the camp was about to be burnt to the ground. Tanaka could see the resigned look in the soldiers’ eyes; they knew that they were beaten and that the war was over. All of the men on the island saw the looming defeat as a horrible dishonor, one that would stain the nation for decades to come. He turned his back on the building, stepped out into the cool morning air and was taken back to see that the remainder of the camp was aflame.
The steady drone of an approaching airplane’s engine caught Tanaka’s ear. Turning his head, he looked up at the gray, cloud-filled sky. At first, he didn’t see it, but slowly, a small transport plane came into sight. Rapidly descending through the clouds, it banked over and then dove down toward the ground, lining itself with the camp’s long airstrip.
Tanaka saw a battered-looking jeep heading his way. The driver, a teenage private, parked the vehicle, got out, sharply saluted Tanaka, and then respectfully stepped aside to let him to get in. He was surprised to see that there was only one other passenger. There had been five scientists chosen by Tokyo to fly out with him, but their absence could only mean one thing: they had chosen to commit suicide rather than risk the shame of returning to a Japan soon to be under allied occupation. Sitting alone in the back of the vehicle was Professor Ryo Kase, a diminutive, gray-haired man who sat there, nervously looking about while clutching several file folders tightly in his old, gnarled-looking hands. His eyes were bloodshot and had the look of a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
With a loud roar from its powerful engines, the brown-and-green camouflage painted Kawasaki Ki-56 transport plane landed. Bouncing up and down on the runway like a child skipping through a field, the Ki-56’s wheels soon gripped the ground. Slowing down, the plane came to a gradual rolling halt with its twin engines still running hot.
From behind Tanaka, an army truck rolled past him, loaded with boxes and crates for the waiting plane. Their years of work would not be left for the Soviets. They would hide it throughout Japan until it was deemed safe enough for them to resume their research. A one-eyed sergeant jumped down from the front of the truck and swore loudly at his work detachment as they hurried over and quickly began to load the crates into the back of the aircraft. As soon as the plane was loaded, Tanaka looked over at the jeep’s driver. “Time to leave.”
Nodding, the inexperienced soldier noisily changed gears on the jeep and then jammed his foot down hard on the gas pedal. The vehicle lurched forward, slowly picking up speed as it made its way down the dirt road to the waiting plane.
Coming to a sliding halt that stalled the jeep, the young driver jumped out and helped Professor Kase climb out of the back of the vehicle. The side door on the plane sat open. A tough-looking army major, missing an arm, jumped down and ran over to help the two professors into the idling aircraft. Ignoring the sweating soldiers hurrying to load the plane, the major helped Kase, and then Tanaka, to climb up into the back of the plane. Both men made their way forward past the rows of wooden boxes and cluttered debris lining the floor of the plane. They rushed to sit down in the only available seats, followed by the major who pushed the last couple of soldiers out of the back of the plane before slamming the door closed. The officer made sure that Kase and Tanaka were buckled into their seats, before yelling up at the pilot sitting in the cockpit that they were ready to leave. With a determined look in his eye, the young pilot revved the plane’s dual fourteen-cylinder engines and then began to move down the airstrip, picking up speed by the second.
Tanaka sat back in his seat. He turned to look out of the window and watched in disbelief as the young army private who had driven them to the plane calmly drew his pistol, then blew out his brains with his sidearm. Had the world gone mad? Tanaka closed his eyes; he hated flying, but he was more afraid of being captured by the Soviets. Tanaka wasn’t a religious man; however, today he prayed, hoping that someone would hear his prayers and allow the dangerously overloaded plane to take flight.
With a jarring bump that Tanaka felt in his teeth, the plane leaped up into the air.
The pilot, a nineteen-year-old youth with barely twenty hours of flight training felt his plane leave the ground.
With a crooked smile upon his battle-scarred face, the major left Tanaka and Kase in their seats and walked up to the front of the craft to speak with the pilot.
“Tanaka, do you know where we are going?” Kase asked as he looked nervously around the heavily laden plane.
Shaking his head, Tanaka said, “I’m not sure. I heard that we could be headed to Japan to rejoin the remainder of our people, where we will all be given new identities.”
“That suits me just fine,” replied Kase. “I’ve had enough. I want to live out the rest of my life in peace and quiet.”
“I wanted to see my grandparents again, but that won’t be allowed, or so I was told by the army,” said Tanaka, his voice tinge with sadness. With the death of his parents, Tanaka had hoped to live with his grandparents before trying to find himself a new life.
“It is a small price to pay for the Emperor and to keep our work a secret,” replied Kase as he patted the stack of folders sitting on his lap.
Tanaka took a deep breath and sat back in his seat. Kase could think like that; the fool was an old man, while he was young. He wanted to live a normal life with a wife and children. The Emperor was just a man. It may have been heretical to think that way, but Tanka did not adhere to the divine worship of a man who had stood by idly while Japan allowed its military to slowly lose the war. Japan and her future was all Tanaka cared about now. Opening his briefcase, Tanaka looked down at the jumble of papers and files jammed inside. He pulled out a file marked top secret and opened it. Right away, confusion flooded his mind. The pages inside were all blank. He dropped the file to the floor, dug out another file and opened it. As before, the pages were all blank. Panic began to grip Tanaka. He hurriedly pulled file after file from his briefcase. All filled with blank paper.