Page 41 of Daikon

TWENTY-ONE

KEIZO KAN FOUND CAPTAIN ONDA in the Tama Airfield administration building, seated in an empty office, working at a desk.

“Excuse me, Onda-tai-i,” he said, sticking his head through the door and apologetically bowing.

Onda looked up from his maps and scribbled figures and air current chart. “Ah, Sensei. Come in. I’ve just been finalizing our plans. We’ll be leaving tomorrow evening. So not much longer to wait.”

“Tomorrow evening?” Kan felt the blood drain from his face.

Onda didn’t notice. “If we take off at ten-thirty, that should get us to Tinian just as the sun is rising at six. Was there something you needed?”

Kan struggled to steady himself. “I was hoping to make a telephone call.”

Onda’s eyes narrowed. “To whom?”

“To the Riken. To see if my wife has arrived. You said that she has been released.”

“Yes, I did. She has.”

“I’d like to make sure she has arrived safely.”

Onda considered for a moment. He frowned. “A letter would be better.”

“I’d like to assure myself with a phone call,” Kan persisted.

“She’s been released, as I told you. Don’t you trust Colonel Sagara?”

No, Keizo Kan thought.

“Please, Captain,” he said. “I only want to assure myself that she’s there.”

An annoyed tsk from Onda, a deep breath, then he stood up. “Don’t mention where you are. Not a word about any of this.”

“Of course not,” said Kan.

Onda led the way to another room with a telephone on a table and stood by as the scientist dialed the operator and waited for his call to go through. Kan turned his back for a bit of privacy. His heart was pounding as he counted the rings.

Miss Yokoyama, Nishina’s secretary, answered when he reached ten. “Kan-sensei!” she cried. “Where have you been? We’ve been worried!”

Kan, acutely aware of Onda’s presence, made an evasive reply. “I’m phoning to see if my wife has arrived.”

“Your wife? No. Why would she—” Miss Yokoyama stopped herself, flustered.

“Her situation,” Kan said. “That matter has been corrected. I was hoping she had returned.”

“No, she hasn’t. But that’s excellent news. Shall I get Dr. Nishina? He’s back now. Would you like to speak to him?”

A heavy weight of disappointment descended on Kan. He lowered his head.

“Shall I get Dr. Nishina?” Miss Yokoyama repeated.

“No, that’s all right. But please give him my regards. And thank you, Yokoyama-san. Thank you for all the kindness you’ve showed me.”

“Kan-sensei…” Miss Yokoyama’s concern carried through the telephone line.

“Goodbye.” Kan hung up the receiver.

“There,” Onda said. “Now you’ve had your call.”

Kan didn’t reply. He just stared at the phone.

Onda’s face softened as he saw the scientist’s distress. “Please don’t worry yourself,” he said, walking him to the front entrance of the building. “Your wife has just been delayed, that’s all. She’ll certainly arrive there tomorrow. And writing a letter would be so much better, don’t you think?”

Kan descended the steps and started back to the hangar, Onda’s cheery final words ringing in his ears: “We have just thirty more hours!” He passed the trainee barracks, now mostly abandoned, the mess hall and training school buildings, all of weathered unpainted boards.

Off to the right, beyond the front gate, he could see the road heading east to Tokyo and west toward the mist-shrouded mountains.

On the far side of the road were inviting green fields and a peaceful hamlet on the Tama River. If only he could just walk away…

The Daikon was now installed in the Renzan bomber and almost complete.

Kan and Yagi had finished the job an hour before, the scientist trying to ignore the pain in his hand as they worked inside the walled-off corner of the hangar.

The first step had been to reassemble the three elements that made up the projectile: the stack of nine enriched uranium rings; the tungsten tamper behind the rings; and behind the tamper, the rear steel plug.

Before mating them together, Kan restored the four beryllium-polonium initiators to their original position at the rear of the uranium stack, explaining their purpose to Yagi in general terms. He had ceased keeping any secrets from him.

With the whole assembly firmly wedged together, they had then wrapped it in a thin sheet of copper, the same metal Kan had peeled away at Hikari during his initial examination.

They trimmed the sheet to size, bent it around the assembly, heated it, and ran a bead of solder down the seam.

As the encasing copper cooled and contracted, it tightened onto the uranium rings, tamper, and steel, returning them to a solid projectile, a pristine, even beautiful thing.

It was the length of Kan’s forearm almost to the end of his fingers and weighed ninety kilos.

Yagi, straining mightily, could not get it inserted into the rear of the gun barrel, even with Kan using what strength he had to assist. The fit was too snug.

Finally, with the help of two mechanics and a great deal of grunting and sweating, they got the projectile lined up and inserted and pushed into place down inside the tube.

All that remained now was the explosive charge that would blast the uranium projectile down the gun barrel to mate onto the uranium target.

Cordite would be used, the same material that had been removed from the bomb at Hikari.

It was the obvious choice. Cordite had a rapid burn rate and high peak pressure, so it would propel the projectile and assemble the critical mass at maximum speed.

The salvaged American cordite was at hand, but Kan had decided it would be imprudent to reuse it.

A supply of Japanese cordite had been obtained through Captain Onda.

They had packed four kilos of it into a silk bag and placed it up against the projectile once it was in place.

The breech plug was then screwed onto the rear of the gun barrel, sealing the end.

The Daikon, resting on its trolley, was wheeled out to the plane.

“Well?” Yagi, perched up inside the bomb bay of the Renzan, looked down as Kan returned. “Did he let you make the call?”

Kan nodded, letting his disappointment show. “She wasn’t there.”

“Just like I thought. That’s what I told you.”

Yagi lowered his hand and helped Kan climb up inside beside him.

The tension between them following Yagi’s outburst the previous day was gone.

The navy man had become friendly again—friendly enough to urge Kan to ask Onda to make a call to the Riken to check on his wife.

That was the way Yagi was, Kan now understood.

He was like a volcano or geyser. He could erupt, then settle back down as if nothing had happened.

“Any mention of me?” Yagi casually asked.

Kan shook his head.

Yagi craned his neck, making it crack. It had been twenty-four hours and still no mention of removing him from the mission. Hadn’t they checked his navy record? It would be there.

They resumed their work on the Daikon. It was already in place, secured to the cradle of struts that had been welded to the frame of the aircraft.

Yagi was now stringing a wire from the tail end of the gun barrel to the radio operator’s compartment above, located near the midpoint of the aircraft, at the trailing edge of the wing.

Since there would be no radio operator on the flight, the space had been allocated to them.

When this was done, they climbed up into the compartment to install the switch that would serve as the trigger.

The firing mechanism was as simple as that—a guillotine switch wired up to a primer in the end of the bomb, which was in turn connected to the cordite charge nestled up against the projectile.

Lift the locking bracket on the guillotine switch, throw the switch, and the bomb would explode.

Kan affixed a note to the switch—Do Not Touch — after it was in place.

That and the locking bracket were the extent of safety precautions.

They also left the triggering wire disconnected from the bomb.

They would wait until the last moment to connect it. Just before takeoff.

Takeoff.

Kan checked his watch.

In twenty-nine hours…

The terror of what lay ahead returned to him in a rush.

He sank into the left-hand seat he would occupy during the flight, the triggering switch screwed down to the radio operator’s desk directly in front.

He looked up through the glass window above the two seats and struggled to push the black vision away.

Yagi was behind him, peering through the small rear door opening onto the next compartment extending to the back of the plane—largely an empty space now with the waist guns removed.

Beyond it, at the very back of the plane, was the tail gun.

Yagi had been given an orientation to the weapon and allowed to fire a few bursts when the Renzan was towed to the firing range.

“You know, I visited Korea once,” said Kan, for something to say. “My father went on a trip to Keijo and took me along. He was trying to interest me in the business.”

Yagi closed the door and settled into the seat beside Kan’s. “Then you’ve seen more of Korea than me,” he said. “I was only five when we came to Japan. What sort of business?”

“Importing soybeans, mostly. My father did well with Korean soybeans. Top quality for miso.” A wry smile. “But he didn’t have much luck with me. I didn’t want to get my hands dirty.”

“Don’t want to get your hands dirty, eh?” Yagi raised his hand and slapped the air. “ Smack! My father would have sorted you out.”

They fell silent. Kan returned to gazing up through the glass at the broken roof of the hangar. The receding panic left an empty feeling in his chest.

Yagi let out a wistful sigh. “I couldn’t get away fast enough, but I wish I could go back there now. We had some times in that garage.”

“It must have been hard,” said Kan. “Your father starting a business like that.”

“Hard!” Yagi snorted. “?‘No Korean businesses here!’ ‘Oh yeah? Think you can drive us out? Think again, fuckers!’ My father and me—we fought those bastards for that garage.” He held up his right fist, displaying a depressed knuckle.

“See that? I was sixteen years old when I did that. Broke my hand smashing a guy’s nose. ”

Silence. Kan returned to gazing up through the glass at the low, scudding clouds.

He closed his eyes, feeling weary. He heard Yagi draw in a long breath and slowly let it out.

“Are you sure Onda didn’t say anything about me?” said Yagi.

Kan shook his head.

They descended the ladder and exited the Renzan. Soon it would be time for dinner. Yagi went off to the airfield bathhouse. Kan returned to the barracks room they shared and took out his notebook.

The weakness that he had begun to notice a few days before was now becoming acute.

Installing the bomb had left him worn out and light-headed, even with Yagi doing most of the work.

He wrote out this observation in his notebook, his handwriting clumsy, then added an update about the deterioration of his right hand, which was causing him pain just gripping the pen.

He expected that it would continue to swell, as happened to the unfortunate Seaman Wada at Hikari.

What had become of Wada? Had he recovered?

Kan closed the notebook, stared at it for a while, then wrote on the cover: Send to Dr. Yoshio Nishina, Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Komagome, Tokyo .

He returned the notebook to the satchel beside his carelessly rolled futon. PO Yagi’s futon beside it was much more neatly stowed. Shipshape.

He reflected on Yagi. They had been together for not much more than a week, but he had already developed an affection for the volatile young man.

And now he felt sympathy, too, for he understood the wounds beneath Yagi’s bravado and anger.

Kan was well aware of the discrimination Koreans faced in Japan, no matter how well they assimilated.

It had taken its worst form following the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, when Koreans were accused of looting and arson and many were killed.

Kan had a vivid memory of being surrounded and threatened by a vigilante mob when he went out with his father to view the earthquake damage.

They had been mistaken for Koreans because his father had a beard.

There was nothing he could do to save himself. Any attempt would doom Noriko, and he would rather face the terror than do that. But perhaps there was something else he could do.

He looked at his watch.

Twenty-eight hours to go.

Kan waited until later that evening, when Captain Onda was alone in his room.

“Excuse me, Onda-tai-i,” he said, keeping his voice low, confidential. “But there’s something I need to tell you about Petty Officer Yagi.”