Page 53 of Daikon

The movement stopped. The Renzan had been towed only a short distance, onto the tarred gravel outside the hangar.

Yagi sat at the radio operator’s desk, disassembling the guillotine switch as he listened to the tractor back away, then fall silent.

Then he put the switch back together. When he was finished, it looked just as it did before, seemingly in the “off” position on the right, the attached bracket locking it down as an added precaution.

But with it reversed, the switch was actually in the “on” position.

When the plane’s electrical system was turned on, the only thing required for the Daikon to explode was for the thermometer needle to move to the left and touch the nail at minus fifteen degrees.

Would a good shake to the plane be enough to jar the needle across that small space?

Footsteps outside. The squeak of wheels. The creak of a pump. They were fueling the tanks.

They were going to test the engines.

Yagi was trapped in the plane.

He returned the flashlight to the cabinet above the desk and looked around the cramped compartment.

It was just an empty box with two seats and a desk, no place to hide.

He went to the rear door and peered through into the waist gunner’s compartment, even more bare.

A glance through the door would reveal him.

He looked down and saw his bare feet. Even more incriminating than his mere presence. He put on his boots.

He passed through the forward door and crept across the catwalk to the flight deck.

The situation here was no better. The flight engineer, Otani, would be seated right there, commanding a view of the entire rear half of the space.

That left only the cockpit, where Onda or copilot Yoshino soon would be seated, and the navigator’s position, fully visible to everyone outside through the glass panels of the nose.

A head appeared at the hatch directly below.

Yagi jerked back and closed the door and stood motionless in the dark on the catwalk.

He heard someone climbing up into the plane.

If they opened the door, they would see him.

Moving as quietly as he could, he stepped off the catwalk and climbed down into the shadows, down until he was crouched between the starboard-side auxiliary tank and the Daikon.

It was Otani, followed by Onda, taking their seats. Yagi could hear their voices but not make out their words, procedures being called out and repeated, the clicking of switches.

A hum from inside the aircraft. The Renzan’s electrical system had just been turned on.

That meant the Daikon was now live, held in check only by the quivering tip of the thermometer needle.

Yagi’s eyes, which had been locked on the door above leading to the flight deck, dropped to the black metal of the gun barrel a handbreadth from his face.

The first engine coughed to life, then another, then all four engines together. They rose to a collective roar, steady and pure.

The testing of the engines had been ongoing for twenty minutes, Yagi crouched beside the Daikon the whole while, his mind going over various explanations for his presence if he was discovered. Nothing came to him better than the search for Keizo Kan’s watch, still in his pocket.

A light came on in the bomb bay. Yagi lowered his head, expecting the door from the flight deck to open above.

The light went out. Back on again. Off.

Onda was testing the plane’s electrical systems.

The bomb bay doors started to open, letting in the waning daylight and the engines’ full roar. Yagi willed them to close. They didn’t. Instead, the engines began to subside, the whine diminishing in pitch as the propellers slowed to a stop.

Silence. Yagi looked down through the open bomb bay doors at the gravel, expecting at any moment for someone to duck under and look up and see him hiding inside. He was completely exposed.

“The fuel is excellent!” It was Onda, calling out his side window to the mechanics.

The tread of feet above Yagi’s head and forward. Onda and Otani were leaving the plane. Yagi climbed back up to the catwalk, repeatedly glancing down, expecting a head to appear at any moment.

He eased the flight deck door open a crack and listened. He heard nothing. He opened the door farther and peered through it. The flight deck was empty.

He entered and crouched down in the corner, beside the flight engineer’s seat. The hatch leading out of the plane was right there, by his feet.

He waited, listening to the voices outside, Otani and Captain Yoshino, the copilot, conversing with Onda.

They sounded to be in good spirits. The test of the fuel and the engines clearly had been a success.

Were they looking up into the bomb bay, checking the Daikon?

Yagi thought he heard Onda say at one point, “Where’s Yagi-heisō? ”

The murmurs subsided. Yagi heard them move to the left, then behind him, then over on the right. The crew was walking around the plane.

Onda’s voice again, raised and clear: “All right, take it back into the hangar. We go in the morning! Yoshino, shut it down!”

Yagi slipped out the rear door of the flight deck and back onto the catwalk a moment before Yoshino’s head popped up through the hatch.

He continued on back to the radio operator’s compartment and stood inside, listening at the door.

He heard the bomb bay doors close, returning the bomb bay to darkness.

The tractor started up. The Renzan was towed back into the hangar. Yoshino completed the shut-down procedures and exited the plane. The voices outside diminished as people walked off.

Yagi waited. The light entering the compartment through the window above was becoming a deepening orange. He checked Kan’s watch in his pocket. Six-thirty.

He left the compartment and returned to the flight deck and lowered his head through the hatch, scouting around. No one in sight but the guards at the front of the hangar, facing out.

He eased himself through the hatch and climbed down the ladder. He stepped away and gazed up at the plane, acting as if he had just come over for a look. He turned and casually began strolling away.

“Yagi-heisō!”

It was Captain Onda. He had just appeared at the entrance.

“Yagi-heisō. Where have you been?”

A dozen lies raced through Yagi’s brain. He felt the weight of Kan’s watch in his pocket and the story began to form on his lips. But that would mean admitting he had been in the plane.

He lowered his eyes, acting sheepish.

He inclined his head toward the workshop where he and Kan had assembled the Daikon. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I fell asleep back there.”

Onda continued to look at him with what seemed like suspicion.

Finally a wry smile came onto his face and he checked his watch. “Well, you’d better hurry or you’ll get no dinner.”

Yagi continued on to the mess hall. He found Kan waiting there, scarcely able to contain his agitation. He answered the scientist’s questioning look with a nod and they proceeded inside together.

“I didn’t need it,” he whispered, returning Kan’s watch. “But I’m not sure about Onda. Now we have to go.”