She jammed the gun once more, and he screamed, then she stepped back and waited. When he caught his breath, the man managed to speak. "I'm his grandson."
Fatima spun back to Shibimi and walked up to him. "I will make you a deal. You tell me what you know of the submarine I-104 and I will have my people take your grandson into Manila and drop him at the hospital. You do not tell me, he dies."
Shibimi closed his eyes for several moments, then opened them and nodded ever so slightly. Fatima gestured, and the two men holding the guard dragged the wounded man toward a waiting car.
"I am upholding my end," Fatima said. "Talk."
Shibimi watched his grandson tossed in the backseat of the car and as it drove away up the dirt trail. When it was out of sight he returned his eyes to Fatima. "There were three 400 series Sensuikan Toku-class submarines built near the end of the war: I-400, I-401, and I-402. They were the pride of the fleet. The largest submarines ever built up until the 1960s, when the first ballistic missile submarines were built. They were underwater aircraft carriers."
"I've never heard of such a thing," Fatima said, noting that Araki had gotten over her shock about Nishin's death rather quickly and was listening intently.
"I was assigned to the I-401," Shibimi said. "It was indeed huge. We were all stunned the first time we saw it. Over four hundred feet long and forty feet high. There were 144 men in the crew. It had a waterproof hangar built onto the deck in front of the conning tower. Inside were three bombers. Fully loaded with fuel, we had the potential to sail back and forth across the Pacific without refueling."
"Where did you sail?" Fatima demanded.
Shibimi closed his eyes and sighed. "The I-401 was built with a specific mission in mind. We were to sail to the Panama Canal and use our three planes to bomb it, shutting it to traffic. But the war ended before we could do that mission. We were at sea when the surrender was signed. We'd been at sea for two months. Doing trial runs. First heading toward the Panama Canal. Then sent north toward the American West Coast, where we were to rendezvous with a freighter and take on biological weapons to attack San Diego and Los Angeles."
"Biological weapons developed by Unit 731," Fatima said.
Shibimi looked startled, then nodded. "Yes. But that mission was canceled when we were within fifty miles of San Diego. No explanation was given. We were directed to rendezvous with a ship in the South Pacific, east of Australia. It was a long journey back across the ocean.
"When we arrived at the location, we were shocked to see an American submarine tender. They were as shocked as we were, but they had the same orders. They refueled us. And we received new orders. To head here, to the Philippines."
"Where you were met again by Americans," Fatima said.
Shibimi nodded. "Yes. We surfaced at night, not far from here, off Corregidor. Then an American cargo ship came alongside. Our three airplanes were dumped overboard. In the hangar were placed numerous, unmarked crates."
"Golden Lily," Fatima said. "Part of it."
"Yes," Shibimi said. "Although neither I, nor any member of the crew, knew it then. We also took on a large amount of food store. And received sailing orders once more."
"To go to Antarctica," Fatima said.
"If you know all this, then why are you asking me?" Shibimi said.
"I don't know everything," Fatima said. "Where in Antarctica?"
"Due south. We sailed to the edge of the ice pack of the Ross Sea. Then we waited until it was summer and the pack had receded as far as it could. The captain was the only one who knew what we were doing. The rest of us just followed orders. We picked up random radio transmissions at times. We found out about the dropping of the atomic bombs. Details of the surrender."
Shibimi's eyes grew distant. "That's when the suicides began. A man whose family had been in Nagasaki was first. Then others. In the first month while we sat off the coast, eight men killed themselves. They saw no hope, no reason to live. The captain would not explain what our mission was. Then something strange happened."
Shibimi fell silent for a few moments, and Fatima gestured for one of her men to give him some water. His wound had stopped bleeding.
"What happened?" Fatima finally asked.
"Two more submarines arrived," Shibimi said.
"American?" Fatima asked.
"No, German," Shibimi said. "Because I was Kempetai, I talked to the member of one of the crews who was Gestapo. He told me an interesting story. He said the Germans called Antarctica Neuschwabenland and considered it part of the Third Reich. Or had. The Third Reich no longer existed by the time we met. He told me that before the war, the Germans had sent planes down to Antarctica and dropped pennons with Nazi flags over as much of the land as they could, a naïve way of trying to claim the land as theirs.
"In 1943, Admiral Donitz, who commanded the German submarine forces, claimed that the Germans had created a fortress in Antarctica, a boast of a rather feeble attempt to establish a base there. But the agent told me this was not the first time his submarine, U-530, had been to Antarctica. In fact, it was its sixth trip. And every time they brought supplies and, like us, unmarked crates. This was their last trip along with their sister ship the U-977."
"What happened then?" Fatima asked. She found it strange to be talking about such a cold and faraway land here in the middle of the sweltering Filipino jungle. And to have a man who was in the Japanese Kempetai talking about meeting a Gestapo agent off the shores of Antarctica.
"A landing party was organized under the command of one of the German officers who had obviously been there before and was experienced in traversing the land. It consisted mostly of Germans, but a few members of our crew were part of it. They struck out over the ice cap covering the Ross Sea.
"We waited. And finally we received a radio call from the party that they were in place. All three submarines submerged. One of the German ships was in the lead. You have to remember, we were sailing almost blind under the ice. We homed in on the sonar signal the land party was broadcasting.
"When we arrived, we found that the land party had blasted holes through the ice so that each submarine was able to extend a snorkel and radio transmitter up to the surface. But that was it." Shibimi fell silent for a moment. "It made no sense to the rest of the crew. We couldn't surface. We couldn't bring the land party aboard. The captain didn't give the rest of the crew time to. He ordered almost everyone with the exception of myself and his executive officer into the rear crew compartment and the engine room. Then he had us seal the hatch from our side.
"I think it was merciful what we did. We were cold anyway. Our country had been devastated in the war. Surrender was not an option. Most of us had nothing to go home to, and if we did, we would have been in disgrace. We pumped the air out of the rear compartments. It was over relatively quickly. Relative, when you hear the echoed screams of men dying and their banging on the hatches and pipes and hull. One hundred and twenty-nine men were killed."
Fatima glanced over at Araki. She had gotten more than she had bargained for on this mission.
Shibimi continued. "The captain then said we must commit hari-kari. He said it would be his place as captain to be last. However, those were not my orders. I had to act quickly. I drew my pistol and shot the executive officer and captain. I powered the ship down except for the radio, which I put on a certain frequency at low power to continuously transmit. Then I put on a dry suit and a rebreather. I went into the escape hatch in the conning tower. I sealed myself in then opened the outer hatch.
"The water was cold even with the dry suit, on the verge of becoming ice. It was pitch-black under the ice. I made my way by feel to the snorkel and radio transmitter. I grabbed on and made my way up in the darkness, fearful that I would find them enclosed in ice when I reached the ice pack. But the hole that had been blasted had not completely iced in yet. I was able to wiggle into it, pulling my way up, still afraid that as I got closer to the surface it would be sealed in.