The Apostates (13 page)

“Holy shit, Graham. This has tons of moving
parts. A real long shot we’ve got here,” Ravine commented.

“I know it sounds complicated and risky. But we have sleeper cells throughout the East. I wish I could make you understand the extensive efforts I have taken to make this happen, but there’s not time,” Graham cut himself short.

“Alright everybody, time’s up. We have to
deal with what’s coming our way,” Hades instructed.

“Good luck everyone. Assuming I am successful in my mission, I will contact you when you’re underway on your voyage. Graham out.” Graham cut the communication off.

Graham grabbed his overcoat and secured his quarters. He descended the stairs into the main foyer of the mansion. A grand, crystal chandelier, centuries old, hanged in the center of the space. Paintings of deceased family members lined the walls, and a black and white veined, marble floor shined with resilience. Graham looked around and thought that this might be the last time he’d see his family home. He absorbed the spectacle, then walked out the massive, dark wood, front door and locked it.

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He sat smoking a cigarette and tilted a ceramic vessel up to his mouth. The taste of green tea poured over his tongue. He stood and walked over to a map that was spread out, displayed on an easel. The map depicted the Far East and the Pacific Islands, with the land mass of Australia near the bottom. From the nexus point in the center of Japan, red sun rays dispersed across the map, terminating in the west on the borders of Russia, and in the East the Mariana Islands and as far north as the Aleutian Islands in the U.S. state of Alaska. They spread to the waters around Australia in the south. It was a truly vast stretch of Earth. The Roman Empire took four hundred years to forge, the British Empire took two centuries, but the Japanese Empire was established within a decade. He admired the map, but Toshihira Inoguchi had always known that the Japanese expanded too far, too fast, and had made very dangerous enemies of the most powerful states in the world.

Most militant Japanese were wrapped up in God-Emperor worship, which was their main reason for fighting. The Inoguchi clan had always been different. From the early feudal period, since coming into contact with Dutch missionaries they had been ardent Christians. In more recent times, they had become masters at concealing this fact from the Japanese state. But, Toshihira Inoguchi only fought for his belief in Jesus Christ and God the Father.

Inoguchi was a captain in the Imperial Navy and commanded a Yamato class, super battleship, the Musashi. He had just recently been promoted to Captain. After heroic action in the service of Japan, as well as the previous captain being killed when an American fighter shot down his transport plane. Nothing fast-tracked promotion quite like the assassination of a commanding officer by the enemy.

Captain Inoguchi was a tall man when it came to his national average. He wore a well-maintained mustache on his upper lip that did not extend past the corners of his mouth. Spectacles for reading teetered precariously on the end of his nose, but he had good long distance vision. Inoguchi found it difficult to entertain a sense of humor—he had experienced too much in war and his sense of duty governed his life. But, he was by no means and short-sighted man. Inoguchi had a keen understanding of many things of military significance. He knew that the Japanese position was untenable at this point in the war. Inoguchi was a pragmatist, and that is why he advocated for a negotiated peace before he was censured. It depressed him deeply that the Imperial leadership was so unyielding that they would bring ruin to their own people before surrender. He found it quite disturbing that many of his people would pay the price.

If Inoguchi were part of the leadership of Japan he would have done everything he could to put an end to the war peacefully, but sadly, in this highly rigid, militaristic system there was hardly room for compromise. This was the reality of the situation and he was the Captain of the largest of the Imperial battleships, so he surmised that his ultimate fate would lie in flame and wreckage, or at the silent bottom of the Pacific Ocean. He yearned for his home province, to see it one last time before another campaign. Shizuoka, was his home prefecture. The Inoguchi family had dwelt there for generations. He hailed from the city of Fujinomiya, which as its name indicated was located in the shadow of Mount Fuji. He missed the seaside air, the fish that were caught directly from Suruga Bay, and the sight of a weather system hugging the slopes of the iconic mountain. Most of all, he missed the embrace of his wife, and the wail of his small boy, whom he left at their modest home of paper and timber. In this far-flung region of the newly-sculpted empire, there was nothing that reminded him of what the Home Islands offered, and it saddened Inoguchi that he would meet his fate in strange waters. At the same time, if it meant that another Japanese city would be left intact then he would accept it.

An aide knocked on Inoguchi’s cabin door, and he prompted the aide to enter. The aide had a message from the Admiralty. He promptly handed it to Inoguchi, then bowed and was dismissed. Inoguchi speculated what the envelope contained. Were these the fateful orders for him to lead his battle group into the ages on some suicide mission? Captain Inoguchi used a dagger sitting on his desk to slice the sealed orders open. He unfolded the sheet and read the message written in Kanji. The message was ordering his battle group and associated aircraft carriers to the Mariana Islands. The Japanese Admiralty had been convinced that an American amphibious assault would soon be underway to take the islands after American aircraft carriers had started heavy air strikes against the islands. A good majority of the Japanese mobile fleet would converge to combat the invasion.

Of course, Inoguchi knew that this would mean that his ship, the Musashi would be at the vanguard of the attack—to keep the carriers safe from surface action. The Mariana Islands would be where a major clash would take place, and could very well be his grave site. He grabbed his uniform coat and threw it over his shoulders, and attached his officer’s katana to his belt. Inoguchi secured his quarters and made his way down the cramped corridors of his ship, accompanied by his retinue. En route to the bridge, passing sailors stopped abruptly to salute him. Captain Inoguchi entered the bridge of the Musashi and an ensign announced his presence. The crew stood at attention and Inoguchi dismissed them. He activated the intercom and prepared to make a general announcement.

“Honorable sailors of the Imperial Navy: I have received orders from the Admiralty and I am here to tell you about our next mission—a mission to protect what Japan has built. Our nation, at the end of the last century, had been at the mercy of foreign powers. They dictated the terms of trade agreements and held our nation hostage. So our Forefathers had done something about it: they went abroad to study the methods and institutions of the industrialized powers of the West. They accumulated a vast store of knowledge and brought it back to our Island domain to raise us out of a feudal way of life. What took Europe one hundred years of development, our Fathers accomplished in within a generation.

The established World Powers felt threatened by what we built, and when Japan sailed out to the horizons to forge an empire from distant lands—just as the British, just as the French, just as the Spanish, just as the Russians, and just as the Americans had done—they cried foul! They branded us as subhuman and vowed that they would stop us at all costs. The brave sons of Japan had made it happen: they forged the Empire; your empire! Now, as we speak, a little under one hundred years after the Americans sailed into Tokyo Bay, brandishing their guns, kick-starting our need for modernization, they are now back, doing everything they can to chip away at our hard-won empire!

And they are succeeding! Island by island and ship-by-ship they destroy what our fathers built and what you so passionately defend! But, they won’t stop there. When they are triumphant they will occupy your country, tear down your shrines, and force your children to speak their mongrel tongue. That will be the fate of our country if we fail here at sea. We are the one thing standing between the enemy and our home, and Emperor.

That is why I am here today to tell you that I have received orders that our mighty ship, the Musashi will be the flagship of a massive battle group to engage the American fleet in a battle—that can turn the tide of war back in our favor. We now draw a line in the sea with our ships and say not one league further. We will check their advance at the Mariana Islands and send them to the bottom of the sea or we shall dwell there ourselves. And so, my brave officers and crew, I give you the order to set sail to our destiny!” The Captain concluded his speech and hung up the intercom horn.

The ship was in an uproar over the Captain’s speech, “Bonzai! Bonzai!” was chanted by all throughout the ship, with the characteristic throwing up of arms. As the cheering died down there was a buzz of activity as sailors rushed about the ship to get to their action stations. Captain Inoguchi slumped in his command chair slightly. The speech had exhausted him. It didn’t suit his nature, and he knew it was deceitful. He was not ultra-nationalist like the rest of the Admiralty. The only thing that kept him from mutinying was his sense of honor, otherwise he’d be sailing toward the American fleet under white flags to defect.

The fact that the Admiralty was mustering such a force did give him a certain reassurance. With the force gathering—if used properly could give the Americans quite a shock. It was enough of a fighting force to theoretically knock the American carriers out of action, and if that occurred, surely it would force the Americans to the negotiating table? Inoguchi vowed to make as big as an impact as possible. He would show the Americans that it would be a far more attractive option to sit down at the table than to engage in a war of annihilation—the way the Germans and Russians fought in Europe.

The Musashi was under way and her massive propellers diced through the water. The journey would take a little under a week and the merging of fleets would probably take the better part of a day. Inoguchi would instruct his crew to write their final letters home and to make offerings to their ancestors. He would treat this as a one-way trip.

Captain Inoguchi got up and left the Conn. He dismissed his retinue and told them to wait on the bridge. Inoguchi stepped out a hatchway that led to the weather deck and walked over to the bulwark. He leaned on it and peered off into the horizon. The sun had climbed a quarter way into the sky and was sending rays down in a manner that inspired his country’s flag. Inoguchi got to thinking about his own religion. He didn’t practice Shinto, but he knew all about it. He had to keep the appearance that he actively practiced, for it was the state religion. Being a Christian, he assumed that most of his American adversaries were also Christian.

Inoguchi pondered how his God would view
his actions—having already taken so many Christian lives, and was most
certainly going to take countless more. He extrapolated that his God must be a
warlike god, having presided over numerous religious wars against other faiths
and between sects of Christianity. The nature of the Faith was warlike, as God
supplied the Europeans and Americans with no shortage of blood lust, against
one another and against foreign nations. Or was it something else? Christianity
was after all, at its core, a religion of peace. When Inoguchi had practiced it
he felt at peace—praying to Jesus. It was a different story with his
ancestors, who acted as assassins for several Shogun. They were ruthless and
fearless religious zealots, who felt no pain, and didn’t fear death. Perhaps they
had caught the violent, infectious strain of Christianity that the Americans
and Europeans seem to be infected with. He asked himself was it the effect of
the religion on the civilization, or the civilization’s effect on the religion.

Inoguchi had known that in its early days the Religion was for the weak: the poor and the disenfranchised; a religion for slaves. As time progressed and the religion spread, it had been transformed into a political tool to extend the power of a faltering empire: that of the Romans. That ancient, warlike empire which had been built through conquest would gain another couple hundred years of survival by adopting Christianity, the religion of the slaves, as its official state religion. But, it would not be adopted unchanged. It would be revised, edited, gospels deleted, and councils would add new rules. It would be transformed into a warrior’s religion.

Maybe this was the reason Inoguchi’s
family flocked to Christianity, like moths to a flame, in times past? Because
the religion was compatible with the beliefs of Bushido: the way of the
Samurai. The messengers who brought the Christian religion fourth to Japan were
monks of peace, but the adherents: the explorers, the seamen, the merchants and
the colonizers were the polar opposite. These foreigners showed the Inoguchi
clan a new spiritual system that filled the need for salvation and rewarded
those who bathed in the blood of infidels.

Inoguchi saw that it was his lord God’s plan that he be locked in a life and death struggle against men of the same faith. If he didn’t intend it to be so, God would surely show him a sign to stop fighting. No sign had been given. But it could still come—there was still time to avert the slaughter of Christians. Inoguchi made the sign of the cross against his body, careful to conceal his actions the best he could.

Inoguchi took one last look around the horizon where the ocean waters met the sky. He came to the conclusion that his God was a vengeful one that took pleasure in battle and was pleased with the sacrifice that would come soon. It would be a worthy sacrifice for His favor. With that thought, Inoguchi clasped his katana and turned back to the Conn tower, to be swallowed by the steel structure of the ship that was his Crusader’s armor.

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Captain Inoguchi’s transport plane had to fly very low, across vast tracks of ocean to avoid Allied RADAR. Also, most scout planes flew at very high altitudes to sweep the ocean for ship formations. Flying low made it tough for scout planes to detect them. It was a tense flight. Inoguchi had felt the sensation of flying low to the water very terrifying, but exhilarating. Inoguchi’s detail had taken off from his battle group near Manila Bay in the Philippines en route to Okinawa. The weather had been misty and the water choppy, which added to the nervousness. Admiral Ozawa had summoned Captain Inoguchi for reasons unknown to him. The communiqué had been brief and coded. Captain Inoguchi speculated that maybe the secret of his religious beliefs had been revealed, but then he concluded this was probably not the case because he would have been taking into custody by now.

Inoguchi’s plane gained altitude. He could see that they were coming upon the steep cliffs of Okinawa. This was the closest he had been to the Home Islands in over a year. The plane passed over rice patties and modest farmsteads. The land was lush green and the air was wet. The plane veered off to the west and came upon Oroku naval base. The pilot maneuvered the plane to land on the roughly-constructed airstrip. The plane bounced several times due to an overly hasty landing on the pilot’s part. Captain Inoguchi’s spectacles nearly fell off his face, but he caught them in time.