Kempt thanked General James for his time and then ended the video conference with him. Sitting back in his chair, Kempt locked his fingers behind his head and then stared at the wall for a few seconds.
He took a deep breath, placed his hands down on the table, and looked into the faces of the people in the room. “Something stinks to high heaven, and I don’t know what it is, but I want answers. There are too many things happening on the Korean peninsula all at once to be mere coincidence. First, there is a coup in the North and then the South’s government collapses, leaving a leadership vacuum in both nations that needed to be filled by a new president who wishes to us to pull our forces from Korea. Not to mention this premeditated murder of South Korean children made to look like our personnel were responsible. I smell a rat.”
“A mighty big one if you ask me,” added the vice president.
“Okay, folks, here is what I want to happen. I want the perpetrators of the Seoul massacre hunted down and caught. I want to know why none of us saw a major policy change in South Korean defense coming before it was splashed on the evening news, and lastly, I want our posture changed in the Pacific. I’m not going to get caught with my britches down.”
“Sir, I can quickly ramp up an exercise with the Japanese and South Korean navies as cover. The Seventh Fleet could have two carrier groups steaming for South Korea in a matter of days,” said General Patterson.
“Make it happen, General, and see if the Chinese want to get involved as observers. That should make the North Koreans a bit uneasy, wondering just what we’re up to,” said the president, with a wide grin on his face.
“Can do, sir.”
“Now if there is nothing else to discuss, I’ve got a charity golf game to attend.” With that, President Kempt stood and left the room, quickly followed by his chief of staff, leaving the rest of people in the room hurriedly phoning their respective staffs to put into motion the president’s orders.
26
Jen stopped her rented Ford Fiesta and looked down the narrow, tree-lined gravel road that led down to a small wooden cottage nestled against the side of a finger-shaped lake. Overhead, a couple of ducks came in to land on the smooth glass-like waters of the inviting lake.
Jen was thrilled when Ryan asked her to help investigate what had happened on Matua Island during the war. As soon as she hung up, Jen called Mike Donaldson, and for over an hour, they discussed the problem and the road ahead. From Donaldson’s perspective, the problem was not going to be easily solved. Working with the National Archives located in Washington D.C., Donaldson was surprised to learn that everything relating to Japanese wartime activities on Matua Island was still considered top secret and was not available to the public. In fact, as far as the U.S. government was concerned, Unit 881 never existed. There was no mention of it anywhere in the archives.
From her studies, Jen knew that the U.S. government had given many Japanese scientists immunity from prosecution for war crimes in 1948, in exchange for their cooperation in helping them develop biological weapons. To be fair, she knew that the Soviets did exactly the same thing; not that it absolved either nation from allowing known war criminals to live out the rest of their lives as ordinary citizens when their experiments had horribly killed thousands of innocent Chinese citizens and captured allied soldiers. However, according to what Ryan had passed on to her, Unit 881 wasn’t involved in biological weapons testing, so she couldn’t understand why it was still considered to be a state secret by the government.
Jen suggested to Donaldson that he continue with his research online with the archives, just in case there was something there that could help, while she tried a different tactic. She intended to see if there was anyone living in the United States who had served with the Japanese Army on Matua Island. After several hours searching through the immigration archives on line, Jen found four possible names. The first two turned out to be dead ends as both men had already passed away, while the third was in a retirement home suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. The last name on her very short list was for a man living up in Vermont. Tamba ‘Joe’ Kataro had moved to the United States in 1949 and, along with his wife, became a naturalized citizen in 1954. He had written a book chronicling his time as a translator for the U.S. Occupation Forces from 1945 until he left Japan. She bought it online and downloaded it to read later.
When Jen called the man’s home, a woman answered the phone and introduced herself as Mister Kataro’s great-granddaughter. She explained that she visited her great-grandfather on a weekly basis to see how he was doing and was lucky to catch her when she did as she was on her way back home. When Jen asked if she could meet Mister Kataro, the woman grew curious and asked why a complete stranger would want to meet her great-grandfather. Jen crossed her fingers and told a little white lie that as a historian, she was researching the experiences of Japanese translators who had worked for the allied forces in post-war Japan. Explaining that time, however, was of the essence, and if it wasn’t too much of a bother, that she would fly up first thing the next morning to chat with Mister Kataro. After chatting with her great-grandfather, the woman said that it would be no problem at all and that she would meet Jen at her great-grandfather’s cottage.
Jen rose early the next day, She took the first available flight to Montpelier and then made her way through the winding back roads around St. Albans until she arrived at Kataro’s home. Her heart was racing. Normally, her research was dull and spread out over weeks or months of painstaking study. Here, everything was different; lives were on the line, and what she learned today could help solve a decades-old riddle.
The loud blare of a vehicle’s horn startled Jen. She turned her head and saw a mud-splattered, red Dodge truck coming down the gravel road. Pulling up beside Jen’s car, the driver of the truck jumped out and strode over to shake Jen’s hand.
“Good morning, Miss March,” said a woman dressed in blue jeans with a loose-fitting T-shirt that had the logo of presumably the local high school football team on it. She had short red hair, with striking green eyes. Her face had only a hint of her Japanese heritage and by the look of her, she was at least six months pregnant.
“Good morning to you, Mrs. Faraday,” replied Jen, with a warm smile on her face. She felt out of place in the backwoods of Vermont, as she was dressed as if she were going to her office.
“What do you say we drop the formal stuff? You can call me Sarah,” said the woman.
“Please call me Jen.”
“Okay then, Jen, there are a few things that you should know about my grandfather. He likes to be called Joe; it was the nickname the soldiers gave him in Japan after the war. He liked it so much that he insists that people use it, not his original Japanese name. Secondly, he may be pushing on ninety, but his mind is as sharp as ever. Don’t let his doddering, old-great-grandfather act fool you. He likes young women to do things for him, so don’t be surprised if you end up making him some tea and perhaps some toast while you two chat.”
Jen smiled and wondered how she would be when she was that old.
“Will you be coming in with me?”
“Just to make the introductions; after that, I’m taking off for about an hour as I need to pick up my kids from swimming lessons.”
“I can’t thank you and your grandfather enough for letting me see him on such short notice.”