Breathing heavy from fatigue after his long flight down the lava tube, Yashiro Fuiruchirudo failed to notice the three figures watching him from the recess of the lava pool. Exhausted beyond all reason, he slowed, turned around, and began walking backward. He listened for the sound of his pursuers, who had relentlessly followed him from the access tunnel at the base of the facility.
He could still hear the men coming for him, their footfalls echoing in the cavern as they drew ever closer. His fatigue now outweighed his fear, as he had been on the run for over two hours. He stopped from time to time only to catch his breath and to listen for his pursuers. He knew that they were toying with him, like a cat toying with a mouse; playing with it until it was time for the lethal bite. He could hear their laughter as they relentlessly followed him down through the lava tube.
Yashiro agonizingly realized that his time was almost up. He was exhausted and his halogen light was now going dead. In complete despair he would now wait here in the darkness; wait for the final shot that would put him out of his misery.
Yashiro missed his wife and child, and longed to be able to say goodbye.
He let out a muffled scream as a hand suddenly cupped his mouth and he found himself being brutally dragged into a pit. As Yashiro fell, he let go of his light. It hit the floor and shattered its lens, turning his world into one of total darkness. Yashiro felt the cold steel of a gun barrel being pressed against his head. A voice said, “Give me a real good reason as to why I shouldn’t blow your head off, amigo.”
“Please!” Yashiro pleaded in a hoarse voice. “Please help me. They are going to kill me.”
“Who’s going to kill you?” Turner asked in a whisper.
“The guards from Bishamon,” Yashiro said weakly. “They’re trying to keep me from escaping and warning the authorities,” he said in near panic.
“Here they come,” Captain Saune said in a whisper as he brought his AK-47 to bear over the lip of the ledge. “Get ready.”
“If you want to live, keep your head down and don’t try anything cute. Understand?” Turner said to Yashiro, who for the first time tonight felt a glimmer of hope as he scrambled behind the men in the darkness. He laid flat on the ground with his hands over his head.
The four Bishamon guards rounded the turn in the lava tube, knowing that they were near their prey and closing in for the kill. The leader told the others that he wanted the first shot to wound him, but after that they could indulge themselves. The four wore night vision goggles and carried a light as they walked through the tunnel nonchalantly, like hikers on a holiday. They never expected to encounter a trio of armed men, and were caught off guard when they heard a loud voice.
“Drop the weapons now!” Turner yelled, pointing his 45 at the man on the far right.
The lead guard spotted the three in their protected position in the lava pool, but made the fatal mistake of raising his AK-47. He was instantly cut down by a blazing onslaught from Captain Saune’s weapon. The other guards foolishly followed his lead and met the same fate in a hail of bullets from the trio in their ancient bunker. The Yakuza soldiers fell dead on the floor in a spreading pool of blood.
“That’s for my men you butchered,” Saune hissed, as the haze and burning odor of spent weapons permeated the cavern.
“Is everyone okay?” Samuel asked, rising up from the floor and cautiously walking over to the Bishamon guards.
“We’re fine, Samuel,” Turner responded. He then yelled, “Alright Dad, the coast is clear. You’re safe to come out.”
“Those guys are all dead, Josh,” said Samuel, returning from the scene of the carnage just played out.
“They would gladly die before ever giving up,” said a relieved Yashiro, who now slowly stood up off the ground.
“Who were they, and why were they after you?” Turner asked, retrieving the lantern and lighting the wick with a match. Once again the chamber was cast with a ghostly yellow light. Switching off the night vision, he flipped up the unit into the stow position and looked at the young, disheveled Japanese man sitting in front of him. Private Gonzales and his charges walked over to the group and knelt down in the soft yellow light as Yashiro started to speak.
“They were Yakuza soldiers; members of the Yagato Osama clan, and are sworn to do his bidding even unto their own death.”
“Isn’t the Yakuza the Japanese equivalent of our Mafia?” Eli asked the fatigued scientist.
“Yes, but our version is rumored to have been around since the seventeenth century in Japan. It was originally known as the Hatamoto-yakko, or Machi-yokko, which means servants of the town. Those men you killed are part of Osama’s Gurentai: his gang,” Yashiro replied, flinching as Maria touched his wounded arm.
“You’ve been wounded,” she said reaching for the canteen in the backpack.
“Just a slight graze from a bullet,” he replied. “It’s not serious.”
“Let’s clean it up to be sure,” she said as she helped the shaken scientist remove his lab coat. Maria began cleaning the wound as Yashiro took a grateful drink of water from the canteen.
“Alright, friend, who are you and what were you talking about when you said you had to warn the authorities?” Turner asked as he squatted down next to him on the cold rock floor of the cave.
“My name is Yashiro Fuiruchirudo,” he said in broken English, “and I am a geo-physicist from Kobe, Japan. I was hired originally to work on a new energy source by Bishamon Corporation, a Japanese company set up and funded by an American named Robert Pencor.”
“Pencor? I remember him,” Eli said. “Wasn’t he under indictment by a Federal Grand Jury back in the middle of the last decade? Not a very nice man from what I’ve read. I heard that he fled the country.”
“Yashiro, I’m Josh Turner and this is my father Eli. Over here are Maria Santiago and Samuel Caberra,” he said pointing to the pair seated next to them. “Those two fellows over there are Captain Saune and Private Gonzales from the Tenerife Guardia Civil. Some goons from Bishamon tried to kill them earlier and make it look like an accident. I think you owe us an explanation,” he stated emphatically.
“Have you ever heard of Scalar weaponry?” Yashiro asked as he rubbed his leg. It was sore from the fall he incurred as he was pulled into the lava pool.
“Can’t say I have,” Turner replied, taking a drink of water from the canteen.
“It is a weapon that comes from the study of Zero Point energy and—”
“Zero Point what?” Samuel interrupted with a confused look.
“Let me put it to you in simpler terms,” Yashiro said, seeing he had to keep it understandable for his listeners. “In the world of quantum mechanics, it was discovered many years ago that there is an energy source that exists all around us. All matter at the atomic level is surrounded by a vacuum in space-time, which is filled with particles of negative energy. It was discovered that this energy could be tapped and utilized as a free, never-ending supply of energy.”
“Free energy?” Turner asked, still somewhat confused. “There’s no such thing.”
“Yes there is, Josh,” Yashiro continued. “Free electromagnetic energy that can be harnessed for many uses. A man named E.T. Whittaker, back as early as 1903, introduced the theory of what we now call Scalar Interferometry. Not many people know this, but after World War II, the Russians used this theory to develop and actually test weapons of great power that they referred to as the science of energetics. They later found an unholy alliance with the AUM religious sect and the Yakuza organization of Japan. They proceeded to test these terrible weapons on a worldwide scale. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Yakuza took the technology back to Japan and continued for many years in an effort to refine the process and conduct testing.”