“Yes. The technical version or plain English?”
“Something in the middle.”
“The risk posed to a mother’s fetus at Hiroshima or Nagasaki was dependent on a couple of things. One is proximity to ground zero; as you would expect, closer equals more exposure and therefore more risk. The other major factor was fetus gestational age at the time of exposure.
“Never thought of this.”
“Most people don’t.”
“You mentioned gestational age.”
“Yeah, the age of the fetus when exposure took place. This is the more important factor in determining degree of retardation. Of fifteen-hundred or so cases, exactly twenty-five were classified as severely retarded. It turned out that these were prenatally exposed at developmental age eight weeks through twenty-five weeks.”
“So an unborn child in, say, week thirty wasn’t affected.”
“Generally not much. But it varies.”
Warfield thought of the grim events of August 6, 1945, when the first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. He recalled some of the details from reading he’d done at the library in high school. The B-29 bomber famously nicknamed Enola Gay left Tinian Island in the western Pacific carrying the five-ton bomb containing uranium-235. Someone had mockingly named it Little Boy. The bomb detonated above the city and generated winds of almost a thousand miles an hour. The ground-level temperature rose to 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat and the wind pressure destroyed all structures and instantly killed every living being within a third of a mile of ground zero. Still more exposed people died before the end of the year; in all, close to a half-million people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki perished.
Warfield mulled over the grim description. “Tell me more about these kids.”
“Most need only a little assistance if at all. But the severely retarded ones, they might have trouble carrying on a simple conversation with another kid, or adding six and four. Probably can’t manage basic living skills, you know, like brushing their own teeth. Some are institutionalized or at least have intense home care by someone.”
“And there are exactly twenty-five like that?”
“Yep.”
Warfield said nothing, thinking.
After a moment, Anderson continued. “I could fax a summary of the official report to you. Only a few pages.”
Warfield read the fax number to him off the hotel room key.
“You’ll have it in a couple of minutes. Oh, by the way, Namiko tells me there’s no record of an Antonov calling or visiting here.”
Warfield got off the phone with Anderson and called Komeito’s voicemail. Komeito had left a message that he was finished at the police station and would meet Warfield at eleven a.m. That was half an hour off, so Warfield called the hotel telephone operator and asked to have Anderson’s fax delivered to his room as soon as it came in.
“Oh, it’s printing now, Mr. Geering. I’ll send it right up.”
A bellman who appeared to be at least eighty showed up with the report and handed it to Warfield along with a USA Today newspaper that had been dropped at his door. Warfield threw the paper onto the bed and studied the RERF report. It contained a lot of dense detail and several graphs and charts. Anderson had circled the numbers he’d given Warfield on the phone.
Throughout Warfield’s career, war victims of the enemy were statistics, but this report was about babies whose brains were damaged before they were born. War is hell was not just a cliché. He had never given the enemy a face, a life, a mother, a soul. Now he was holding a report about real people whose lives were ruined by war, innocent citizens of an aggressor country, which was no longer the enemy at all.
The second page of the report made reference to the radiation exposure dates, August 6 and August 9, 1945, when the bombs were dropped on the two cities. When Warfield finished reading, something nagged at him. He read it again and then ambled over to the window and peered down at the ant-size pedestrians on the street below, weaving in and out on the narrow sidewalks alongside what he decided were the least attractive buildings he’d seen anywhere. The structures in this part of Tokyo, northeast of the Imperial Palace in the central city, were older and more traditional, nothing like the modern buildings around the East Island Winds.
A sign mounted on the corner of the drab brick building across the street lazily gave the time, date and temperature, in slow rotation. Warfield watched as it displayed the time, 10:46; the date, 8.5 and 27 °C, the temperature; over and over until the time inched up minute after minute and the temperature eventually increased by one degree.
He picked up the USA Today and sat down on the bed, still thinking about the information Anderson had sent him. The headline read, “Hiroshima Prepares to Pause.” The story described the memorial service to be held tomorrow in that city, with similar silent observances all across Japan. Warfield stared at the words for a second, then jumped up and strode back to the window in two steps. The flashing sign! The eve of Hiroshima, 8.5. Of course! Antonov’s 8.6 notation referred to the day Hiroshima was bombed! August, 1945! That would be tomorrow!
Warfield dialed John Anderson and while waiting for the receptionist to find him wondered if it would be possible to get anyone in Washington to act on the information he could present to them. He decided not. Even with the best of evidence, Fullwood would ignore him out of spite. How about the military establishment? The president? He could try them but out of caution they wouldn’t take any action without their own independent intelligence to back them up and there was no time for that. “My God, Warfield, you want to risk an international incident on the basis of speculative information?” they would say, and Warfield wondered whether he wouldn’t say the same thing if the roles were reversed.
Warfield had always kept an ace in the hole but this time was different. No one sent him to Japan or even knew he was there, and if he went further he was setting himself up for no-telling-what violations of the law — both American and Japanese. But there was no return now. Something was going down tomorrow, August sixth, a few hours away. With Boris Petrevich likely involved, that could not be good news.
Anderson got to the phone.
“Geering again. Need your help. Time’s critical.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Names of those twenty-five — the severe retardation cases. How fast can you get those to me?”
“Why didn’t you ask for something hard, Geering. Those names are hidden away in a computer somewhere else. That’s one thing that’s kept confidential. They’re given case numbers. It might take days to get names, even if I can get approval to do it.”
“Can’t wait.”
“How about dates of birth, other stats? That help?”
Warfield thought for a moment. “Okay, birth dates. When can you have that for all twenty-five?”
“An hour, two at most.”
“Good man. Need it in one. I’ll call. Don’t leave there until you hear from me.”
Warfield had missed the meet with Komeito and went to the fallback they’d agreed on. A gray Toyota sedan cruised by and stopped a few feet beyond where he stood on the sidewalk. A window cracked open enough for Warfield to make out Komeito inside. He jumped in and told Komeito to go to the Tomodachi bath house.
Komeito asked what it was about.
“Later. What happened at the police station?”
“Went okay. They asked about the man who left the Izumi with me. I said you were at table all the time. Police know me through my job at the embassy and trust me but they want to talk to you anyway.”