"They're sealing the entrance," he said.
The man pushed down the plunger, then dust blew out of the tunnel entrance, the rumble of the explosion drifting across the valley to Abayon and Moreno. A second explosion followed, and the mouth of the tunnel crumbled, leaving behind a tumble of rocks blocking the entrance.
"But where are the rest of the Japanese?" Moreno asked.
Abayon simply pointed. The colonel had his pistol out. He lifted it and fired three times, killing the men who had been with him.
"My God," Moreno muttered.
"What is going? Has he lost his mind?"
"A secret," Abayon whispered, realizing the import of what they had just witnessed.
"He's the only one who knows this location. The jungle will grow over those rocks."
Abayon nodded grimly.
"But we know."
He stood.
"Come."
His eyes were no longer on where the tunnel had been, but on the Japanese officer who was walking down the thin dirt road, unreeling more wire, stopping every so often to attach the leads to charges on trees. The demolitions must have taken days to prepare, Abayon realized as he and Moreno headed into the valley. And the engineers who had prepared them were now trapped inside the mountain, either already dead or dying.
They heard three explosions as they headed toward the road. The colonel was blowing trees on the side of the road. Like the tunnel entrance, it would not take long for the jungle to reclaim the road, hiding what had been there.
They reached the valley floor as a fourth explosion rumbled through the forest, followed by the sound of trees falling. It was not far from their location, less than half a kilometer away, as near as Abayon could tell. He tried to imagine the rationale for building something inside the mountain and then immediately destroying all trace of it and blocking the way in. What had been in those crates? And why was the colonel hiding them even from his own people?
They climbed up out of the stream bed, and the double track trail was in front of them. Abayon signaled to Moreno, and the two took up hidden positions alongside the rutted track. After several minutes the Japanese colonel appeared, hooking up the detonator to fused charges he'd placed on a half-dozen trees spaced out along the way. He did the last one less than one hundred meters from their location and unreeled about half the distance in wire before kneeling and pushing the plunger.
The explosion thundered through the jungle, trees from both sides collapsing across the path, making it impassable for vehicles. The dust-covered colonel retrieved as much of the wire as he could, reeling it up, then turned to continue his destructive journey toward the beach and the waiting patrol boat. Abayon had no doubt what the fate of that crew would be once the colonel returned to civilization.
But that was not going to happen.
As the colonel drew even with their position, Abayon gave Moreno the signal. The two men leapt out of the brush and overwhelmed him as he hooked up the wire to a charge on a tree opposite their location. They had him pinned to the ground within a second, Abayon tying the man's hands securely behind his back. The colonel struggled and fought, but the two guerrillas were too much for him.
Abayon rolled the Japanese over on his back as he unbuckled the samurai sword from around the officer's waist. The colonel kicked out, catching Moreno in the stomach, doubling him over. Abayon drew the sword and placed the point against the man's chest.
"Do not move," he ordered.
The colonel glared up at him, but did as ordered. Moreno got to his feet, cursing. He pointed the muzzle of his rifle at the colonel, his finger curling around the trigger.
"Not yet," Abayon ordered his friend.
Instead of a bullet, Moreno spit, the glob splattering on the officer's face.
"Keep him covered," Abayon ordered as he put the sword down and quickly went through the prisoner's pockets.
He drew out a leather wallet that contained identification and papers.
"Colonel Tashama," Abayon read.
"From the Kempeitai."
Moreno hissed as he heard the name of the infamous military intelligence branch of the Japanese army. They had led the way in rape and torture on the main island.
"What did you put in the mountain?" Abayon asked.
Tashama just glared at him. Abayon stared back, thinking it through.
"You are the only one who knows where the entrance to the tunnel is. In fact, who probably even knows what mountain you tunneled into."
He knelt down, the edge of the sword resting across Tashama's neck, and smiled.
"Except for my friend and I."
Muscles on Tashama's face twitched, but still he remained silent.
"Whatever you buried there must be very important," Abayon continued, "for you to have killed so many of your own men. For you to go to such extreme lengths to keep this place secret."
Abayon shrugged.
"It does not matter."
Even as Tashama frowned, Abayon drew the blade across the man's neck, the razor-sharp edge easily slicing through skin, cartilage, and arteries. Blood spouted and Tashama gasped, his body spasming as his life poured out of him.
"He could have told us things," Moreno said disapprovingly, his initial rage having subsided.
"He was Kempeitai," Abayon said, wiping the blood off the blade on Tashama's uniform blouse.
"He would never have spoken. Besides, we know where the tunnel is. We can find out for ourselves what is in there."
In the years after, Abayon often reflected that Moreno was right, that in immediately killing Tashama, he'd been too rash that day. They could probably have learned more from the man.
In the days that followed, Abayon led a group that swam out to the patrol boat one dark night, slaughtering the sailors on board and scuttling the boat, effectively cutting off any Japanese contact with the island and the tunnel. Then the gathered guerrillas went to work digging through the debris into Hono Mountain.
When they managed to break through, Abayon, mindful of what they'd witnessed, ordered everyone except Moreno to remain outside as the two of them went into the complex. What they found there stunned them so much that they remained inside for three days before returning to the anxious group of men who awaited them.
Abayon had the men block the entrance once more. He knew with the war still raging there was nothing that could be done with such treasure, and he feared the return of the Japanese. The priority right now was the war.
Within the year, they had gone on the offensive against the Japanese, returning to the main island and hooking up with a handful of American officers, including Colonel Volckman, who were organizing the resistance. They fought for over six months before the base camp that Abayon was in charge of was overrun by Japanese soldiers led by a traitor. Moreno was wounded but escaped. Abayon, in charge of the rear guard action, and his wife, who stood by his side, were knocked unconscious by a mortar blast and taken prisoner.
Given what happened next, Abayon often looked back and thought it would have been better if both of them had been killed by that mortar round.
Now, over sixty years later, with one last glance at the mummified body of Colonel Tashama, Abayon turned his wheelchair around and headed back out the way he'd come. Since he had not been killed then, all that was left to him was vengeance. It had taken decades, but the time was now at hand to pay back those who had done such terrible things to his family and his people.
CHAPTER 7
The target window was tight. Vaughn checked his watch one more time. He was in a hotel room, using the key card he'd been handed by the driver when they pulled up to the service entrance in the rear. The driver had not said a word, just tapped his watch and held up a single finger – one hour – which confirmed the parameters in the packet Vaughn had received.