"Unless made to."
Yes," Abayon allowed.
"That is what 9/11 was. A wake-up call."
"But the United States attacked Afghanistan and Iraq. I do not see how that was good for the third world."
"It got attention, and everyone did not react as the Americans. Even now there is a backlash in that country over Iraq. And when I say 'western world,' that isn't quite accurate. Perhaps the better term is 'industrialized world.' For certainly Japan, and to an extent Korea, are part of this. It is those countries that consume at the expense of the rest of the world."
"There are so many countries like that, though," Fatima pointed out.
"Many countries, but…" Abayon lapsed into silence. Fatima waited for a little while before speaking.
"But…?"
"They are connected at some level, some secret level," Abayon said.
"How do you know this?"
"The gold and art that was hidden here. Most think it was just the Japanese. The Golden Lily project. But
I heard something a long time ago that I've often thought about."
"And that is?" Abayon felt old and tired. He did not want to tell this story but knew he had to. Fatima needed to know it if she were to make the right choices after he was gone. And with what he had planned shortly, he knew he would soon be high on the target list for his known and unknown enemies.
"You know my wife and I were captured by the Japanese during the war. What you – and everyone except your father – do not know, is what happened to us. How my wife really died. And no one, not even your father, knows what I learned from an American I met during my captivity."
"An American?" Fatima was confused.
"But you were sent to Manchuria, to…" She paused, unwilling to say the name.
"Unit 731," Abayon said.
"I have never heard of any Americans being sent there."
"A handful were," Abayon said.
"A special handful. What I am going to tell is part my story and part his story, so please bear with me."
Fatima nodded.
"Yes, Godfather."
Abayon looked around.
"Take me up to the observation platform. I'll tell you there."
Fatima got up and went behind the wheelchair. She pushed it to the door, opened it, pushed him through, and shut it behind her. Then she began the long journey to the platform, pushing Abayon in front of her.
"Thirty minutes," the crew chief yelled into Vaughn's ear.
He acknowledged the time warning and glanced across at Tai. She was lying on the red web seat on the other side of the plane, eyes closed. He doubted, though, that she was sleeping. No matter how many jumps one had, there was always a sense of anxiety.
Vaughn went over and tapped her on the shoulder.
"Thirty minutes. Let's rig."
David's eyes snapped open as the screech of an alarm bell resounded through the interior of the plane. Oxygen masks dropped from the overhead, dangling on their clear tubes. Instinctively, he reached for the mask, then paused. He could see the other passengers grabbing the masks and slipping them over their heads.
David's nostrils flared as he sniffed the air. Nothing seemed amiss. He took a deep breath and was rewarded with lungs full of oxygen. The alarm was still clanging but there was no other sign that anything was wrong. The plane was flying straight and level.
The man to David's left, across the aisle, slumped forward, head bouncing off the back of the chair in front of him. Within seconds all the other passengers were also unconscious. David reached out, took the mask that hung in front of him and stared at it. He was tempted to take a sniff, but didn't know how powerful the knockout gas obviously flowing through the plane's backup air system was.
The pilots. David unbuckled his seat belt, made his way forward and knocked on the metal door separating the passengers from crew. He waited a few seconds, the moments weighing heavily on him, then knocked again, harder. Then he pounded, slamming his fists against the unyielding metal.
"Stop."
David said the word out loud to make it very clear to himself. He did as he ordered himself. He slowly turned, went to the nearest person and checked his pulse. Still breathing, albeit very slowly. He nodded. It made sense. They would be killed when the plane crashed. On the very slim chance that a body was recovered, cause of death would be crash trauma. A smart plan.
There was no retirement. There was only oblivion. He had suspected as much. In fact, he now realized he'd known this was coming. It was the logical solution. Everyone on this plane was a loose end. And the Organization had never tolerated loose ends. Something else also struck him with startling clarity. There was no way the Organization was going to put this many of its members together and allow them to swap their stories, even it was on some remote island in the far Pacific. Pieces could be put together that were never meant to be put together.
David slowly made his way down the passenger compartment, searching for a tool to use to try to breach the door to the pilot's compartment. Since 9/11, planes had been hardened to make getting into that compartment nearly impossible. He held on to the word "nearly" – there was always a way around things.
CHAPTER 11
"It was just five months after the American disaster at Pearl Harbor," Abayon said. He and Fatima were near the top of Hono Mountain, in the same place where Abayon had watched the failed American raid to rescue the hostages just days before.
"Smoke was still rising from some of the ships sunk in Pearl Harbor, and oil has been leaking out of some of the hulks to this very day.
"The Rising Sun of Japan seemed to be spreading without check throughout the western Pacific Rim. At least, so it appeared to all of us back then. The day after the assault on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese launched attacks on the Philippines in preparation for invasion. Despite having had over fourteen hours of warning about what had happened at Pearl Harbor, the great Douglas MacArthur, the overall commander here in the Philippines, did not have his forces on alert, and most of his planes were destroyed on the ground, lined up at the airfields around the islands.
"It got worse. On the tenth of December, 1941, the pride of the British Pacific fleet, the battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse, were sunk by Japanese torpedo planes. It was a stunning defeat for the British, who had always looked down on the Japanese as an inferior race and not a foe worthy of serious consideration. That loss would soon be followed by another even more devastating blow.
"Singapore was considered by the British to be their Gibraltar in the Far East. Unfortunately for the British, and fortunately for the inferior Japanese, most of the defenses were oriented toward the ocean, where the British naturally assumed the attack would come. They were shocked when the Japanese landed on the Malay peninsula and fought through swamp and jungle toward the city. Despite being outnumbered by the British almost two to one, the Japanese rapidly advanced. They were under the command of General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who, as you know, would later be in command of the occupation of the Philippines."
Abayon was looking out to sea. The lights of a few anchored fishing vessels were visible, but otherwise there was no sign of man. He continued his story.
"The Japanese advance was swift and brutal. No prisoners were taken. Wounded men were executed. Locals who assisted the British were also killed. On February the eighth, 1942, the Japanese captured Singapore, taking over 100,000 Allied troops prisoner. A tenth of those would later die building the Burma-Thailand railway, much as many of those captured here died.