Fumio Yoshida had many times closed his eyes and imagined those last glorious seconds of his father’s life. He had not dropped like a rock onto his target. He came in low, almost like he was landing, and took out a long swath of planes on the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier. The burning planes. Every one of them filled with fuel. American sailors on deck, unable to escape below in time to avoid slow and painful death, many of them jumping into the Pacific Ocean to escape the flames and perishing there. The screams for help. The joy, the pride his father must have felt in those moments before things went blank for him.
To Fumio, the Americans were the root cause of the war. His own hate stemmed from that. The Americans had claimed not only his father and mother, it had left his brother forever dependent on others, never to be free of health problems, never able to make decisions for his own life. Fumio sometimes had wondered if Jotaro, by some miracle given a few minutes of lucidity in which to consider his circumstances, would choose to continue the life determined for him even before he was born, or would he prefer death? Jotaro would never have that moment of contemplation, and Fumio had made the decision for him.
Fumio’s responsibility to Jotaro had robbed him of a career of flying the world, perhaps as an airline pilot or in the military. Jotaro could never be left alone for more than a few hours during the day. But the positions Fumio held at CAB at least put him on the periphery. For a period of time he had direct responsibility for pilot certification standards and spent every possible moment analyzing and redesigning training manuals, configuring cockpits for better safety and revolutionizing flight simulators, the stationary virtual cockpits used to train and test pilots. Fumio Yoshida became recognized around the world as a leading authority in civil aviation training and safety.
He looked for every opportunity to fly, climbing out over Japan’s snow-capped mountains to the north or above the silver ripples of the ocean, forgetting for those precious minutes about Jotaro and the responsibilities that would still be there for him when he returned that evening. He became certified on every type of aircraft used by the Japanese airlines and spent hundreds of hours in the simulators, often choosing to conduct the test sessions for pilots himself.
Fumio parked the motor pool car behind Hangar 23. He bounced out of the car and strode past the summer weeds that grew along the side of the hangar to the personnel door. Boris Petrevich sat in his makeshift office across the hangar. Yoshida stopped for a second before he crossed under the belly of the splendid Boeing 747–400 sitting in the hangar and looked up at it.
Dr. Boris Petrevich saw Yoshida coming and gathered up the Guido’s Pizza boxes from the office floor and stuffed them into a trash can. Fumio had never been satisfied with the Russian’s housekeeping habits and had directed him to shape up. How could the clear, precise knowledge of nuclear physics coexist with such slovenliness within the same mind?
“You are still on schedule?” Fumio demanded, scowling at the messy office.
Petrevich had imported two men he’d trained in Russia — Mikhail, a nuclear technician, and Ivan, an aeronautical engineer — to help him with the project. He’d asked Yoshida for local labor to do grunt work but Yoshida refused. Too risky, he’d said, thinking of his project’s necessary secrecy. Petrevich managed to keep on schedule by working long hours. He and his crew did a lot of things he would have assigned to flunkies in his exalted position back at Kremlyov.
“I think so,” he answered. “Even if something goes wrong we should meet the required schedule at the end.”
Fumio Yoshida’s eyes blazed as his body became rigid. “Give me your attention!” he barked, and waited for Petrevich to face him. “You will allow nothing to go wrong! Everything will be exactly as agreed, precisely on schedule. There will be no delay.” Fumio did not wait for an answer and did a right face to leave, clicking his heels together as he’d done as an officer in the military, then abruptly stopped three steps away. “Anyone asking you questions?”
“Questions…?”
“Where you live. Why you are in Japan.”
“Nyet.”
“Met anyone from Russia who knows you?”
The Russian stiffened and looked at the floor. “Nyet.”
Fumio Yoshida’s face was the look of death as he moved closer and put his finger in the Russian’s face. “Do not lie to me, Petrevich,” he screamed.
Petrevich had never forgiven himself for the way he allowed this little Jap bastard intimidate him. He backed away as much as he could in the small cubicle and said, “There is one slight possibility, Comrade. I saw a man I knew from Russia. Some sort of military officer then, but I am sure he is retired by now so I do not believe he is in Tokyo in any official capacity.”
Fumio roared from some place deep inside his chest, “Where were you?”
Petrevich hesitated, then, “A bar.”
“Your Moscow club again!” Yoshida snapped.
Petrevich said nothing. Yoshida kicked the trash can across the floor and paced around for a few seconds.
“You are not to be seen. You risk this project,” he spewed.
“It will not happen again,” Petrevich said.
Fumio turned to leave but then whirled around and fired a final rocket. “One other thing Petrevich. Never call me comrade again.”
Petrevich reeled. It took all of his inner strength to overcome the impulse to go for Fumio then and there. Moments later, after Yoshida was gone, the Russian realized his men had witnessed his humiliation. To make it worse his hands trembled from unspent adrenaline. They saw what happened and now he would look weak to the aggressive Ivan. Boris Petrevich hated Yoshida now more than ever. The little sawed-off Jap rooster. That was his favorite description of Yoshida. He wouldn’t care if he’d killed him except that so much money was at stake. Good thing he kept his T-33 under his pillow instead of in his pocket, he thought. The temptation might have been too great.
Now he had to calm Ivan, who could screw up the whole deal. Petrevich never liked Ivan much back in Russia but brought him in because of the skills he possessed. He was a brilliant young engineer seven years out of the university, but brash and resentful of authority.
Ivan had boarded Fumio Yoshida’s train near the Ministry of Transport building after work one day and tailed him through the labyrinth of Tokyo subway tunnels and all the way to Yoshida’s home. Once he saw where he lived he didn’t know what he’d ever do about it, he told Petrevich later. It was part of knowing your enemy, and Ivan considered Yoshida just that.
As Ivan was about to leave the area and head back to the hangar that day, he’d seen Fumio Yoshida and another man emerge from his home. He decided to follow them and this time ended up at a bath house a few blocks away. “Looked like some sort of little retard that went with him to that swimming pool place,” he told Petrevich then.
Petrevich had reacted in anger that day. “You’re a fool, Ivan. He sees you, I have a lot of questions to answer.” Petrevich had considered eliminating Ivan then, or maybe getting one of the Russians at the Moscow East who would do anything for money to do it for him, but Ivan was creative and Petrevich needed him. Like no other engineer Petrevich had ever seen, Ivan could design a nuke delivery system to satisfy the most demanding situation. This one wasn’t so bad but it was unique. The job could be done best by Ivan, and Petrevich decided that day to keep him on the team but ordered him to stay away from Yoshida.