"Yes. Strange, isn't it? And the secret should have died with them. The Japanese held a trial of the crew. It took them all of twenty minutes. The Americans couldn't understand anything, since it was all done in Japanese. There was no defense counsel, and it wasn't until after they were taken out of the courtroom that they discovered they had been condemned to death.
"The sentence was to be carried out several weeks later, but it wasn't until the day before they were to be killed that the Americans were informed of their sentence. They wrote letters to their families – which were never sent. Then, the next day, the Japanese took them into a cemetery. There were three small wooden crosses stuck in the ground, and the men were made to kneel with their backs against the crosses. Their hands were tied to the cross pieces. White cloth was wrapped around their faces – not as blindfolds, but with a large X marked on it just above the nose as a target point. It only took one volley from the firing squad."
Abayon paused. Fatima had seen death in her work for the Abu Sayef, but the horrors of World War II were on a scale that her generation could not visualize.
She waited a few moments, then asked, "But what does any of that have to do with the Golden Lily? And what is in this complex?"
Abayon ran his hands along the worn arms of his wheelchair. It had been years since he'd been able to walk. Years since he'd left the complex. He knew his present condition was a direct result of what had been done to him by the Japanese so many years ago. He was lucky to have survived when so many others had not, but revisiting that place, even in conversation, was painful. Still, Fatima had to know what he knew and what he suspected.
"The men who jumped out of that bomber into Japan are the connection," he finally said.
"After we were captured, my wife and I were taken from the Philippines to China for a while and then eventually to Manchuria, to a place called Pingfan, about twenty-five kilometers southeast of Harbin.
"At first we thought it was just a concentration camp. But the collection of prisoners was strange. There were Chinese, of course, but there were two dozen Filipinos; some Europeans who had been captured; a handful of Australians; many nationalities were represented, in small numbers for some reason. And there was one American."
"One of the jumpers," Fatima said.
Abayon smiled despite the terrible memories bubbling in his mind. She was indeed the right one.
"Yes. One of the jumpers. I talked to him. His name was Martin. Kevin Martin. At first he said nothing of his past or how he had been captured or even who he was. But when I told him of the American aircrew from Doolittle's raid and that I had seen that they were prisoners of the Japanese, it was the key to opening him up. Martin wanted to know what had happened to the men. He was quite upset when I told him they were executed, even though we were in a place where it was obvious we would not live long either."
Abayon paused, gnarled hands moving back and forth on the arms of his wheelchair in agitation.
"What do you know of Unit 731?"
"What you have told me," Fatima said.
"It was the biological warfare experimental laboratory for the Japanese."
"I have studied the unit and its history as much as any person since the end of the war," he said.
"The Japanese made no secret of their interest in developing biological and chemical weapons. Early on, they knew they were at a technical disadvantage to the West, but in this field they felt they might be able to gain the upper hand.
"In 1925 the Japanese made this clear when they refused to sign the Geneva Convention ban on biological weapons. In fact, I believe, given information I have examined over the years, that in a perverse way the fact that there was a ban on these weapons is what made the Japanese actually more interested in them. High-ranking Japanese officers figured that if something was so terrible it was outlawed, then it must be an effective weapon.
"They weren't stupid, though. They knew better than to build facilities in their own country. When they invaded Manchuria in 1932, accompanying the troops was an army officer who was also a physician, Dr. Ishii. He began the preliminary work that would lead four years later to Unit 731 being established. Besides the remoteness of the site, it also allowed them access to numerous test subjects: namely, Chinese soldiers and citizens, whom they considered less than human.
"It was a large compound," Abayon said, remembering.
"Around 150 buildings covering several square kilometers. The Japanese used bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax, and other diseases in controlled tests on humans. They decided they also needed to make sure that the diseases worked the same on different races, so they began importing prisoners from other theaters of the war. That is how I ended up there.
"They did more than experiment – they also used the weapons. In their war against China, the Japanese used poison gas over one thousand times. They dropped bacteria from planes numerous times, starting plagues among not only enemy troops, but the civilian population. The estimates of how many died run into the hundreds of thousands."
"But…"
Abayon paused.
"Yes?"
"Biological warfare has never been considered particularly effective for the battlefield. That is why it has so rarely been used."
Abayon nodded.
"True. And it wasn't particularly effective then either. Even though they killed many, the Japanese couldn't control what they had unleashed. Japanese troops also died. But still, the experiments at 731 went on."
Abayon fell silent, and Fatima did not disturb him as his mind wandered down the dark alleys of his past. Finally he stirred.
"My wife. They took her before they took me. They called us meruta – logs. That's what they thought of us."
"Why logs?" Fatima asked.
"Because that's what we looked like when they stacked the bodies," Abayon said.
"Seventeen days after we arrived at Unit 731 – shipped there packed in trains like cattle – they took my love along with several dozen others. Out to the testing range. They tied them to stakes. A plane flew by overhead, spraying whatever latest germ the scientists had come up with.
"The lucky ones died quickly and on the stake. My wife wasn't one of the lucky ones. The Japanese doctors wanted to see how quickly the disease progressed and what it did to the victim. So at a certain schedule, soldiers garbed in protective gear would go out to the field of death and take a harvest. They would bring several living prisoners back to the doctors. Then…"
Abayon fell silent.
"Your wife was one of these chosen?" Fatima asked.
"Yes. I was in my barracks. Locked in. I could look through a split in the wood. I saw them drive the truck in, the bodies in the back, sealed in a protective tent. Still alive. The doctors wanted them alive. So they could cut them open and see what their diseases were doing to a living person.
"I heard my wife's screams. They went on and on. I had seen the bodies of others who had been taken into the operating lab before, so I had a good idea – too good – of what they were doing to her. Vivisection. Cutting her open without anesthesia. The screams became so bad, they couldn't even be recognized as coming from a human being anymore. It was like an animal that had been trapped and was being tormented."
Abayon spit.
"Doctor Ishii. Whatever oaths he had sworn in medical school were long forgotten. One hears so much about the Nazis and their death camps, but no one talks about 731. Everyone acts like it didn't exist. The Japanese premier and emperor both denied ever hearing of it at the end of the war. But Tojo personally gave Ishii a medal for his work there.