The Nicholas Linnear Novels (35 page)

The Colonel had gotten it into his head that as long as he had that pipe, as long as he could pull his hand away from the hot grip of his smoking Sten gun, reach inside his uniform pocket and feel the irregularity of the outside of its bowl, everything would turn out all right.

He recalled with vivid clarity the morning in the early summer of 1945 when his unit had begun its assault on the perimeter of Singapore. They had just broken camp and were making their way slowly southward, the units in constant walkie-talkie contact.

In the jungle, the Colonel had reached for the comforting bowl of the pipe, found it gone. He paused, peering at the ground behind him, but could find nothing in the muddy tangle of gnarled roots but centipedes and leeches. A creeping sense of panic had overcome him and, without thinking further, he called for his men to backtrack with him until they had returned to the camp area. He found the pipe half-buried in the silty soil and, brushing it off, was about to order his men out when he heard the first of the rolling reports. The ground shook as if in an earthquake. Southward, they saw the violent geysering of earth and foliage, stained red.

Silently, the Colonel waved them out and they crept forward, zigzagging through the dense jungle only to find the entire company ripped apart; those who had not been caught in the cleverly planted mine field had been taken by sniper fire. The Colonel felt in his pocket for the pipe. The brier was warm under his callused fingers. He hefted his Sten gun and took his men west, through the stinking mangrove swamp, skirting the bloody deathscape, before turning south again. In the dead of night they came upon the Japanese encampment from the rear. They took the perimeter guards out without a sound, stringing them up in the trees as mute witnesses. The Colonel sent half his men into the southeast. At 0400 hours precisely, the Colonel and his men opened fire from their position just south of the encampment. Lead sizzled the air and the Sten guns smoked merrily. Fully half the encampment went down under that withering fire. The other half were not so fortunate. They retreated directly into the line of fire of the second contingent of the Colonel’s unit. Caught in a cross-fire, they danced like pyschotic marionettes until their bodies literally disintegrated.

At another time the Colonel might have thought it a terrible waste of precious ammunition, but not that searing blast-furnace night; a
Walpurgisnacht.

“Satsugai,” the Colonel said calmly, the war still vibrating behind his eyes as he languidly blew out a cloud of aromatic smoke, “you know the history of your country as well as anyone, I daresay. Communism is not a reality for Japan, you know that. There is far too much tradition against that kind of idealized egalitarianism. The idea of commune-izing Japan is ludicrous; the people would never stand for it.”

Satsugai’s face held a hint of a steely smile. “Whatever I believe is of little importance,
hai
? It is what the Americans believe that matters. They understand the communist menace; they know that we of the
zaibatsu
are this country’s greatest bulwark against communism. You can’t fight it with liberal reform. Your MacArthur found that out in 1947.”

The Colonel’s eyes blazed. “We all had high hopes for the future of Japan, then—”

“Hopes, Colonel, are for the naïve,” the other said blandly. “Realities must be faced. The mainland is only just across the
genkainada
from Fukuoka. Their threat is quite real, I assure you; they will never stop trying to infiltrate, to subvert the government of Japan. That’s why we require firm measures and the strictest enforcement of regulations. Liberalism cannot be tolerated here. Surely you can recognize that.”

“I see only a country being twisted for the ends of certain interests, just as it was during the war.”

For a moment the eyes of the two men locked and it was as if sparks flew from the dynamic friction of the contact.

“If things had been the way they are now in 1873,” Satsugai said softly, “the
seikanron
would never have gone down to defeat.” He was speaking of the Genyosha’s advocacy of a military campaign against Korea in that year. Its failure to be passed instigated the first overt act of violence by the Genyosha against the Meiji government, an attempted assassination of Tomomi Iwakura. “Do not forget, Colonel, that if the
seikanron
had met with success there would have been no fighting in Korea; the communists, when they came, would have been bottled up in Manchuria. As it is”—he shrugged—“the Americans hurl themselves from war to war without any wholeheartedness.”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? You yourself fought in the jungles of the Asian continent. There American tanks and artillery and even large-scale bombing are not the answer. The communists are far too well organized and, in any event, they have a virtually inexhaustible supply of men.”

“Vietnam is no concern of ours.” The Colonel’s pipe had gone out but he appeared not to notice.

“Excuse me, my dear sir”—Satsugai crossed his legs, smoothing down the center crease of his worsted trousers—“but in that I must say that you are most certainly wrong. If Vietnam falls, Cambodia must certainly be next and then what happens to Thailand? No, the so-called Domino Theory is all too real a possibility; a chilling one, at that.”

The Colonel appeared to be half asleep. His cold blue eyes were hooded, the irises dark beneath. His cold pipe was still stuck firmly in the corner of his mouth. He listened to the hypnotic rattle of the rain against the windowpanes, on the eaves, his thoughts filled with history.

So much idealism. It had started out that way, in any case. But MacArthur was such a paranoid bastard. By 1947, the time of the American “reverse course” in Japan, the United States was no longer so desirous of strict war reparations as such. After all, Japan was demilitarized; that was enough. What began to concern them more and more was that Japan should become their watchdog against communism in the Far East and to this end they began two separate but contiguous courses of action. First, they restored many of the formerly suspect powerful right-wing politicians and businessmen to power and, second, they poured millions of dollars into the Japanese economy until now over 80 percent of the old prewar structure and industry were back in operation. In doing so, they allowed a totally Japanese-inspired campaign to scour out suspected communists and leftist radicals, doing what they had done in Spain and Iran and South America. Over and over. Only this time, it had hit home.

Outside, the wind had picked up, throwing the rain in hard brittle bursts against the windowpanes. There was no color left in the low sky.

That small but intrepid group of men so full of enthusiasm in 1945, certain that their far-reaching vision for a truly democratized Japan, free from feudal encumbrances, was the correct choice for the country. How naive we all were! the Colonel thought sadly, echoing Satsugai’s words. All of them, all my friends are gone now. He watched the rain streaking the glass like tears, cold and forlorn. A violent eddy of wind caught the wet leaves that had fallen since Ataki had last been at the house, sent them skimming through the air, whirling and spinning like miniature airships of alien design. In his twenty-three years in the Far East, the Colonel never felt more like an alien than he did now. His isolation seemed to him both complete and irreversible. One by one, the members of that inner circle of minds linked in friendship, that core of policy advisers to MacArthur, were either transferred or dismissed. In truth, they were unaware of the political machinations that went on around them or of the increasing instability of MacArthur himself. Still, they had hung on tenaciously, even after the reversal in 1947, hoping against hope that their combined influence could help stem the tide and return the new Japan to the beginnings of democratization. Now, in retrospect, it was so obvious; easy to see just how impotent they had been all along. Policy had been determined on the other side of the world and they were expected to implement, not comment. No one had told them that in the beginning. Terlaine had spoken out and had been summarily dismissed; McKenzie had been crushed, transferred back to the States; and Robinson had left two years ago, retired, having been ground down into the dirt as long as he could take it. Only the Colonel remained, the iron man, outwardly the same. But inside he was sick at heart and terribly disillusioned. He could not bear to believe that his life’s work had been utterly meaningless; that what he had fought for for so long and with such unwavering intensity would never become a reality.

But the Colonel could not give up, even now; it was simply not in his nature to contemplate such a thing. He had thought that he had been cleverer than all the rest; he had an ace to play, after all, that the others knew nothing about.

It seems, he thought, that I’ve played the game and lost. The fox somehow outsmarted me. But it’s not over yet. It can’t be. I won’t let it.

The germ of the idea had come to him the day after Satsugai had been arrested by the SCAP Military Police late in 1946. Ostensibly, there was nothing the Colonel could do about it. Satsugai was well known in Japan, a powerful reactionary who was head of one of the monstrous
zaibatsu
combines. It was inevitable that he should come under suspicion and, subsequently, be arrested as a war criminal.

Itami withstood the shame stoically, as she withstood everything else in life. But Cheong was hysterical. That night, as they lay in bed, she pleaded with the Colonel to intervene. He was high up in the SCAP hierarchy, an adviser to General MacArthur himself. Surely there was some way he could help Satsugai.

“My darling,” he had said, “matters are not as simple as that. This is a highly charged time. Besides,” he added reasonably, “Satsugai may indeed be guilty of all they say he is.”

But this only served to further infuriate Cheong. “It does not matter,” she said simply. “He is family.”

“You mean therefore he is no criminal?”

“Yes.”

“Darling, you’re talking foolishness.”

“Maybe so.” Her voice was quite serious, containing the undercurrent of strength the Colonel recognized. “But I tell you that your duty is to your family and if there is a way to help Satsugai you must do it.
Kakujin wa hombun wo tsukusa neba narimasen
.” Everyone must do his duty.

Cheong is a most intelligent person, the Colonel thought, but she can be inordinately stubborn at times. He had known there was no way to deflect her from her purpose; knew, too, that there would be no peace for him at home until he had proved to her that he had done his best to enforce his influence.

He had fallen asleep with that thought in his mind and had awakened just before dawn with the idea blooming already.

There
was
a way to free Satsugai, he was quite certain of that now, but to implement the plan would involve tremendous risk. He had no doubt that he could talk the SCAP tribunal into going along with him. It was purely a matter of whether he wanted to go ahead with it.

In the end, he knew he had little choice. He already understood the precariousness of the advisory board of which he was a member and now he thought of his plan as a kind of insurance policy against the day his job should go sour.

He knew a good deal about Satsugai’s background; in fact a good deal more than Satsugai himself was aware. The Fukuoka connection was too obvious to ignore. The Genyōsha had never been an outlaw organization in Japan; records were not too difficult to unearth. The Colonel had taken a clandestine trip south to Kyūshū and had found out the truth. Satsugai was a Genyōsha leader.

At this particular point in time, that sort of information was incendiary. If it came to the attention of the SCAP tribunal, it would not matter how many incriminating documents Satsugai had destroyed in time, he would be executed.

However, the Colonel had absolutely no intention of divulging that piece of information to anyone. In any event, Satsugai’s death would serve no purpose. The society would simply elevate another member and go on with its work. That work was totally counterproductive to what the Colonel perceived as the correct course toward Japan’s future. He wanted the Genyōsha destroyed. If Satsugai were exonerated, he would be a dog on a leash—the end of which the Colonel had firm hold of. Sooner or later, Satsugai would lead the Colonel home to the center of the Genyōsha.

The Colonel turned his gaze from the weeping glass into the warmth of his study. He watched the slanted Mongol eyes of his adversary, so well trained that he could see nothing below the surface, nothing that the man did not want him to see.

It seemed a long time ago, the Colonel thought now, that I let him go and he has led me nowhere. He has known from the beginning. He knew what I wanted. I have managed to neutralize him as a force but he has otherwise stymied me. The Colonel felt a deep sadness inside himself. It was always his game to win, he thought. I was a fool to think otherwise.

That Satsugai hated him came as no surprise to the Colonel. After all, they were from opposite sides of the political spectrum. And while the Colonel understood better than any Westerner in Japan the importance of the maintenance of its traditions, its heritage, knowing that without those things the country would disintegrate, yet he also understood that the kind of traditionalism that Satsugai represented was as evil and self-serving as anything could be in Japan. This was a country of heroes, he knew, not of villains. Those were few and far between. At that moment as he stared into those baleful eyes across the warm expanse of his study, the Colonel knew that he had missed something elemental in the puzzle. There was a piece missing that was, he was convinced, the key to it all. He had believed that he had pierced Satsugai’s secret life many years ago and all his actions since then had stemmed from that assumption. He now suspected that assumption, was angry at himself for having been so easily fooled. He played with me as if I were a child, the Colonel thought furiously.

It gave him little comfort at the moment that, by his intervening, he had put Satsugai in an agonizing situation. He was in debt to the Colonel, a man he despised. It was an intolerable situation for a Japanese, yet Satsugai bore it well. I have to give him that, the Colonel thought.