Page 4 of Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier

“Loud and clear, Doc.”

“Good. The test will begin momentarily. You will hear a series of tones, sometimes in the left ear, sometimes in the right, sometimes in both. If you hear a tone in your left ear, lift your left hand; if the right ear, the right; and, of course, both hands if the tone rings in both ears. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Let’s try it. Ready?”

“Ready.”

Mitomo pressed a button on the control station.

A moment later, Jansen raised his left index finger.

“Very good, Carl. It looks like we’re all set. Ready to begin the test?”

Jansen nodded. “Ready.”

“Then let’s begin.”

Mitomo adjusted several dials and knobs for a few moments, then pressed the first tone button. Jansen lifted his right hand. Two seconds later, he lifted the left.

Jansen’s face paled, his breathing shallow.

“Is something wrong?”

“Doc…I don’t feel so good.”

“Tell me what you’re feeling.”

Jansen bolted out of his chair, but his splinted leg gave way. He fell back, gasping for air, his panicked eyes pleading with Mitomo. He screamed for help, but the sound caught in his mouth. He clutched at his throat as his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

The big American airman crashed against the glass and crumbled to the floor.

?

Dr. Mitomo held the cigarette in his lips as he examined Jansen’s open chest cavity. The corpse lay on a steel dissecting table.

Lieutenant General Ishi stormed into the autopsy room. He was the commander of Unit 731, officially known as the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army. In reality, it was Japan’s testing center for chemical and biological warfare.

“What have you discovered, Mitomo?” the mustachioed surgeon asked.

“My aerosolized botulinum has worked perfectly on the American specimen.”

He poked at the musculature around Jansen’s lungs with his scalpel.

“The diaphragm, abdominals, intercostals, scalenes—even the sternocleidomastoid. All hard as vulcanized rubber. Total paralysis, and nearly instantaneous.”

Jansen had been selected because he was considered a prime example of American biology.

Mitomo had put out an urgent request to the army for any captured Americans. Jansen had arrived in such terrible shape, however, that Mitomo was compelled to restore his health so that the test could be properly administered.

“And how many specimens have you tested?” Ishi asked.

“This is the fifth American. He’s a perfect specimen with an excellent health record and no comorbidities. He showed no resistance to the botulinum whatsoever.”

“Then we can proceed with Operation Black Chrysanthemum?”

“As soon as we produce sufficient quantities of the neurotoxin.”