Hidden Sun

by John Campbell

  “So where have you been for the last three days?” she asked.

  “Uh, well, it took me some time to get back here. The truth is that I think someone is after me,” he explained, lowering his voice. “There are men watching my hotel room. I barely got in and out before more men showed up.”

  “It’s probably just the police. They’ll want to talk to you about blowing up most of Tung-yin Tao,” replied Maggie.

  “No, this isn’t the police,” said Hendrick with certainty. “Loh checked with his friends in the police force. They don’t want me for anything. They think I’m dead. It’s someone else.”

  “I guess you didn’t find Konaka,” she said with relief.

  Hendrick’s face fell, then darkened with anger. “Someday.”

  Maggie was silent for a moment, pressing her face into his chest. When she spoke, her voice was full of emotion. “I’m sorry about Joe.”

  Hendrick exhaled with grief. “Looks like anyone who hangs around with me gets killed.” His voice took on a note of surprise. “I have no one left.”

  “Wrong,” said Maggie. “You have me.”

  Hendrick nodded and tried to smile.

  She had a sudden thought. “Oh, I have something for you.” Maggie slid out of bed and walked over to the closet. Hendrick gazed at her, her complete tan and the memory of her soft skin pulling at his desire. Maggie grabbed a robe and slipped it on, breaking his reverie. She picked up a flight bag and handed it to him.

  “My bag!” he said with surprise. “You saved it. Good thing the bag was waterproof.”

  He pulled out his camera with the satisfaction of finding an old friend. “I thought I’d never see this again. You’re a doll for saving my stuff.” He moved over to give her another kiss. She returned the kiss enthusiastically.

  Maggie went over to a drawer and pulled out a yellow piece of paper. She turned around and handed it to Hendrick. He looked it over quickly.

  “This is the letter that Konaka had taken from that metal cylinder I found on the Awa Maru,” said Hendrick with surprise.

  “I’d love to know why Konaka was so glad to read this letter,” she said.

  Hendrick looked the letter over once again. Some of the words were smeared from Maggie’s swim to the seaplane, but it was still readable. He had read it while Konaka’s prisoner but hadn’t understood all of it. His eyes immediately went to the bottom of the pages to confirm who had signed the document. The scrawl was illegible. His eyes flicked to the name neatly typed under the signature. The name was Josef Stalin.

  “Why was this thing in a metal cylinder?” mused Maggie. “Strange they had a screw cap on one end, then welded it shut.”

  Hendrick’s mouth fell open in shock. The screw cap on the cylinder! His mother’s words exploded in his mind.

  Your father would stop and pick up every stick that we would walk past. I’d yank on his arm to move him along, but he’d insist that he had to polish the end of the stick.

  He wasn’t polishing! He was trying to unscrew the cap on the metal cylinder I had found on the Awa Maru!

  Hendrick looked at the letter again. This had been his father’s mission. This was his father’s obsession.

  CHAPTER 31

  The Soviet Offer

  TAIPEI, TAIWAN

  The house was quiet with a creak now and then as the wind off the East China Sea made the house flex slightly. The clock on the mantelpiece bonged once softly, marking the half hour.

  Robert Lindsey wished he had the energy to get up and make a fire in the woodburning stove. The room would warm up and give a feeling of contentment once again. He hadn’t felt warm since his wife, Eva, had died, leaving him alone. They hadn’t had any children, and the nearest relatives were several thousand miles away.

  He picked up the envelope and pulled out the photo, looking it over one last time. He had heard years ago that it had cost three agents’ lives to obtain that one piece of intelligence. He gazed at the gray tones then irritably shoved it into the folder where it had been for nearly six decades. He leaned over and shut out the light on the side table next to him. Sometimes he would just sit in the dark for hours, thinking.

  The last report from their agent on the Kurchatov stated that Hendrick had led just a salvage mission. No intelligence mission involved, even though two members of the SVR were on board. They were there apparently to make sure that Russia got their cut of the treasure. How the mission of Russia’s intelligence agents has changed, thought Lindsey with a grunt of amusement.

  And Steve Hendrick had found no trace of the Russian diplomatic mission on the Awa Maru. At least that what the report had said.

  Lindsey’s aging eyes swept over the walls with their myriad shadows overlapping each other, creating a whirlwind of emotion in his mind. He thought of his friend Ed Hendrick, Steve’s father. They had fought together for years against the Japanese occupation of China and had braved many dangers. They were proud of their harrowing experiences, the narrow escapes, the race for safety into the night. I was so naive then, he thought. I expected we would discover the Russian mission, and escape in a life raft, not get sunk by torpedoes from one of our own submarines.

  The shuddering of the Awa Maru ran through him once again as the four torpedoes slammed into its starboard side one by one. He reeled at the impacts and groaned as the ship groaned with the strain of seawater pouring into gaping holes in her side.

  The lights had gone out, and all hell had broken loose seconds after the torpedoes had opened her side to the sea. People poured from the cabins and struggled up the stairs to get topside before the ship sank beneath them. He had lost track of Hendrick in the meleé, and while forcing his way up one of the stairwells, had been struck on the head by something very hard after one of the secondary explosions. He awoke some time later in the water, choking from inhaling seawater and amazed that he was still alive.

  He had seen Hendrick once more years later. Ed Hendrick didn’t recognize him. Lindsey had known that there was a medical reason why, but it still hurt that his old friend hadn’t fought through the fog in his mind to talk to him.

  He thought of him for a while and felt embarrassed to realize that his face was just a blur dimmed by the intervening decades. No pictures were ever taken of either of them during the war in case of their capture by the Japanese.

  He felt he owed something to his friend, one who had saved his life many times over. He also had returned the favor many times during the war years. But what did he owe Hendrick? Maybe he could bring closure to the mission they had undertaken so long ago. That was the reason he had traveled to Taiwan and had rented this house. To be close to the ones who could expose the Stalinist treachery of a half century before. And he had in hand the means to complete it.

  It was time for the truth. No more lies, no subterfuges, no maneuvering, just truth. His eyes settled on the envelope he had laid on the table next to him.

  A truth that would shake two governments to their core.

  Hendrick stared at the document in front of him. He touched it gingerly as if to remind himself that the letter was actually real. His father’s presence on the Awa Maru suddenly made sense. The OSS had assigned him to find out why the Soviets were on a ship bound for Japan. The Soviet Union was allied with the United States, so why were the Soviets going to talk to the Japanese? The letter in front of him had the answer.

  He reached into the night table and got blank paper, then proceeded to write out the English translation of the letter. He wrote out what he knew, then picked up the Russian-English dictionary he had in his bag to fill in the unknown words. One of the words he couldn’t translate was izdelie. His fingers flew over the pages of the dictionary until he found the English equivalent. Izdelie meant article. There was another word associated with it, iadernyi. He poured through the dictionary in a fever.

  Iadernyi meant nuclear. Hendrick’s jaw went slack.

  Putting the two words together, he had nuclear article. But what kind of nuclea
r article? Hendrick grunted to himself. Had the Soviets used the words atomic bomb, he would have spotted it immediately. The word atom appears the same in Russian as in English, and the word bomb is very nearly the same in both languages.

  He quickly filled in the missing words and read the entire letter from Josef Stalin to the premier of Japan with the hair rising on the back of his neck.

  The government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics extends its greetings to the Imperial Government of Japan.

  The Soviet Union finds that it is in its interest that Japan stay in the war against the United States for as long as possible, and that Japan obtains the most favorable terms at the cessation of hostilities.

  The Soviet Union has been engaged in the development of an article of great energy for some years now, and this project is nearing completion.

  Toward that end, the Soviet Union is willing to enter into negotiations to deliver to Japan two or more completed nuclear articles in exchange for other considerations, which the government of Japan may be willing to extend to the Soviet Union.

  This initiative shall be referred to by the code name Hidden Sun.

  My personal representative, Boris Maximovich Deriabin is to be extended every courtesy, and he is accompanied by Yuri Vladimirovich Rybakov who will give you a technical briefing on this initiative.

  The government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics awaits your reply.

  Josef Stalin

  Premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

  Secretary General of the Communist Party

  Maggie leaned over his shoulder and read the translation. She whistled softly. Her thoughts ran forward. “Why would Konaka get excited by this? He said that this letter gave him Japan.”

  Hendrick read the letter again to be sure of its meaning then leaned back as the historic implications roared through his mind. The letter from Stalin made it clear that the article referred to was a nuclear weapon. The Russians might have deliberately used a generic phrase instead of atomic bomb as the U.S. had used. The phrase nuclear article could be construed to be a nuclear reactor, so that the Russians could in the future deny the offer to provide atomic bombs to the Japanese.

  “Wait a minute. Something’s wrong here,” mumbled Hendrick to himself. His forehead knotted in bewilderment. Maggie looked at him questioningly.

  “The Soviet Union only exploded their first atomic bomb a few years after World War Two ended, in 1949, I think,” he said, a question forming in his mind.

  Maggie gave voice to it. “Then why would Stalin want to offer the Japanese something he didn’t have?”

  Hendrick shook his head to convey his uncertainty. He lapsed into thought. “One thing is certain. We can’t stay here. I’ve stayed here too long. Loh has offered us his country house as a safe place until we can sort this thing out, and until the Taiwan authorities can grab all of Konaka’s men. So let’s get out of here.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Love and Flames

  Loh’s house was nestled in the Taiwan countryside in Taipei County near Wulai. The scenery was beautiful with mountains rising sharply from deep gorges, a winding river flowing at the bottom. The rural surroundings had houses of mostly western design, except for the older homes of Japanese design left over from the Japanese rule of Taiwan. Loh’s home was a western style home with stucco exterior and some extras, chief of which was the large, wood-burning fireplace in his living room, a rarity in Taiwanese homes.

  The view was breathtaking, looking down a curving valley, small homes dotting the riverbanks, and hills bright green with dense vegetation enclosing the peaceful countryside. The road was long, narrow, and winding, up the side of a mountain, eventually turning into a dirt path as they neared Loh’s house. Loh was at his apartment in Taipei and used the house on his days off.

  Hendrick and Maggie walked up to the house and through the front door, turned on the lights, Hendrick dropping his bag next to the door. He walked over to the telephone, explaining that he hadn’t checked his voice mail at the hotel for several days. He dialed a number, talked to an operator, punched in his access code, and began listening to the recorded messages. A few were from relatives, but one message brought a smile to his lips. It was from Golubev, the submarine captain he had hired to take them into the Taiwan Strait and his new-found Russian friend. Hendrick listened for a while then turned to look at Maggie’s politely puzzled face.

  “Golubev has started his own company!” said Hendrick with an amazed smile as he scribbled down the phone number Golubev had left in his message. “He actually bought the submarine we used to recover the treasure from the Awa Maru. Now he’s looking for clients to go after sunken treasure!” Hendrick smiled fully for the first time since Joe Malik was killed. Maggie was relieved to see him relax a bit, but remained puzzled until Hendrick explained who Golubev was. He left out the part about splitting the Awa Maru bank notes with the grizzly old Russian.

  There was a knock at the door. Hendrick looked through the curtains and recognized a familiar figure. He pulled open the door and warmly greeted Ian Howard. Howard came in, and Hendrick introduced him to Maggie.

  “Loh told me where to find you,” said Howard to explain the questioning look from Maggie. He had a compassionate look on his face. “I heard about Joe Malik. I’m sorry.”

  Hendrick grimaced and nodded. He waved Howard to a chair and settled on the sofa facing the fireplace. Maggie sat next to him.

  “Loh is taking care of shipping his body back to the States,” said Howard.

  “Yeah, he’s got a brother who’ll take it from there,” replied Hendrick.

  “I hope you made that bloke Konaka pay a pretty price for Joe,” said Howard.

  “Not the price I wanted,” said Hendrick grimly.

  Howard understood and nodded.

  “How is Wong, Loh’s cousin?” asked Hendrick.

  “Apparently he’ll be okay,” replied Howard. “They got him to the hospital just in time. With Loh’s contacts, he’ll be able to smuggle Wong back to Niushan Dao after he’s better.” He seemed to want to say something but hesitated. Steve and Maggie looked at him expectantly.

  “Konaka now has the attention of several governments, Japan and the United States, of course. China as well,” said Howard slowly.

  Maggie caught on. “How do you know?”

  “I work for British SIS,” said Howard.

  “Secret Intelligence Service. They used to call you MI6,” said Maggie with a touch of awe in her voice. Howard nodded.

  Hendrick thought back to recovery operations aboard the sub. “British intelligence was keeping an eye on us?”

  “You were covertly entering the territorial waters of one of the few remaining Communist countries in the world using a Russian sub and a Russian crew,” replied Howard. “Someone, somewhere decided that we should find out what was really going on.”

  “Who’s that someone?” asked Hendrick.

  “CIA,” replied Maggie with certainty.

  Howard hesitated, then nodded. “Joe Malik was nosing about trying to find divers and managed to get two from the UK. I had diving experience in the North Sea, so we convinced one of the divers that I should go in his place. It’s no secret that the US and the UK share intelligence, and covert operations as well.”

  “Oh, yeah. You were the last minute replacement for a diver who got sick,” said Hendrick, the intelligence operation on his salvage mission becoming clear. Hendrick shook his head. He knew he should be angry, but Ian had helped greatly with the salvage operation. “Glad to have you along.”

  “Glad to be of service, Yank,” replied Howard with a broad smile.

  Hendrick returned a smile.

  “Steve, who are Loshak and Drukarev?” asked Maggie. She noticed Howard suddenly sit up straight in his chair.

  “They were two SVR agents on the sub with us when we recovered the treasure,” replied Hendrick. “Why do you ask?”

  “They’re working for Kon
aka,” she said.

  “How do you know?” asked Howard who seemed very interested in the information.

  “When I was traveling with Konaka to Niushan Dao to find Steve, Konaka talked about those two as if they were his employees,” answered Maggie. “He didn’t know I speak Japanese.”

  “Russian intelligence sends two agents to keep an eye on me, but they’re really working for Konaka,” said Hendrick. “So that’s why they wanted those bank notes so badly. They wanted to help Konaka finance his operation on that island.” Hendrick shook his head. “Let’s see. American CIA, British SIS, and Russian SVR all interested in us. Any others?”

  “Don’t forget Loh, who used to be in Taiwanese intelligence,” said Maggie. Howard nodded knowingly, and Hendrick rolled his eyes.

  “Yes, it seems I’m surrounded by spies,” said Hendrick and looked pointedly at Maggie. And who do you work for? he thought. His doubt about Maggie was always just under the surface ready to pop up at any moment. He had been ignoring it since he had gotten back from Konaka’s island, but he knew he’d have to confront her soon.

  “I wonder what that bugger Konaka is really up to,” mused Howard.

  “He apparently wants to rule Japan,” said Maggie.

  Hendrick grunted to himself. “Yeah, That’s what he said after he saw Stalin’s letter.”

  “Stalin’s what?” asked Howard.

  Hendrick told them about Stalin’s letter offering atomic bombs to Japan to stay in the war. Howard let out a soundless whistle.

  “But what I don’t understand is why the Russians offered atomic bombs to Japan that the Russians themselves didn’t have,” said Hendrick.

  “The Soviets only exploded their first atomic bomb in August of 1949, four years after Stalin made this offer to the Japanese,” said Howard. “The Soviets weren’t working hard on an atomic bomb until after Hiroshima when Stalin suddenly woke up to the political implications of the United States having the bomb, and the Soviet Union not having it. They then instituted a crash program to make a bomb at any cost.