Cho flicked her hand. "Forget Wu Chan, Mama. All that over. New world."
"So, you're saying everybody else in Ruhan will die except those close to the Bug City workers or the children of the Bug City workers."
"In two month, many people dead. Everything stop. Many people sick, jump from top of building. Sidewalk big mess. Many body. Much disease. We go away. Far. Fast. Good plan."
"Like a phoenix, you say. A new beginning. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. A disguise that looks like the end of life on earth as we know it, but it's really the beginning of a new life on Earth. A life we will invent. We just have to figure out how to make it happen. And how to live in it."
"Now, you happy. Cho always make John happy. This time, no drugs."
"Always," he said, wrapping his arms around her. Then he stopped, pushed her an arms-length away and looked deeply into her eyes. "What did you say? Are you saying you drugged me?"
"One time. Maybe two. Not much. Long time ago. Long time."
"Really?" He thought about it, only for a few seconds, and then smiled to himself. "Cho, you are one crazy lady. And what about you? How do you feel about all this? You know what's going on. Don't you feel bad about it all? Your business is over. You won't be able to do that again."
"Old business was good business," said Mama. "Always much demand. New place, same business. No problem."
"It's illegal in the US. You can't do it there."
"Illegal in China, too. Still good business. No problem."
John had admitted to himself all too often that he really didn't understand much of what went on in China. What was illegal and not enforced and what was illegal and enforced? He only understood about half of what he heard, even when he and the speaker were trying hard to communicate with each other. He dealt with the problems he could and dealt with the others when he had to. So far it had worked.
"Quiet, Mama. John, we do what need to do. We live or we die. Life simple. Maybe no more legal or illegal. Just business. Just life."
John had always thought that Cho's approach to life was extremely practical. Now, he knew where it came from. "It's not that simple. Aren't you feeling bad inside?"
"Little bit. Cho keep busy. Take care of John. 'Get out of Dodge.' No problem."
John spent most of the evening trying to figure out what life would be like when most of the population was gone. No police. No gasoline stations. No stores. Everything would have to be homemade, raised, bartered or scavenged. It would be different. But, would it be good? John thought for a while and finally decided that it didn't matter whether or not it was good. The only thing which mattered was survival. The will to survive was the most important characteristic of a survivor. All of the group he was about to gather must have that will or they would all die.
Shortly before midnight, Cho said, "Now do something. Is time. Moon gone. Go now. Help Cousin pull out plane."
"Finally, but pull it out where? There's no runway."
"That the trick."
They opened the two big doors and pulled the plane out of the barn and onto the ground beside it. When they pulled the tarps off the plane, John could barely see in the darkness that it had large pontoons with tires sticking out of the bottoms.
Cho and Mama climbed into the back seat with all the bug-out bags as John closed the big barn doors. Mr. Han climbed into the plane. The engine turned over several times before Mr. Han climbed back out, opened the engine cowling and began shouting at the engine in Mandarin. John watched as Mr. Han jiggled wires. Finally he said something which had the tones of "Ah ha." He pulled a small wrench from his pocket and tightened a nut. He climbed back into the plane, after kicking the tires, and with a few more tries and a few more shouts, it started. John climbed in and Mr. Han pulled out the throttle. The engine roared and they rolled into the rice field.
"Part of field deep for pontoon. Cousin know where," Cho shouted over the roar of the engine. "Take off here many times. Always at night. Cousin great pilot."
"That's good, since there's no light. Where are we going?"
"On phone, you say Japan. Okinawa eight hundred miles. Almost two thousand to Tokyo. Maybe get to Okinawa, but big chance. Have to ditch plane. Cousin not like. Still need plane. Tokyo too far for plane. Cousin know captain of boat. It go Singapore to Tokyo. Cousin take us to boat. Boat take us to Tokyo. Good plan. Yes?"
"Yes, a great plan. I love it."
The roar of the engine grew much louder and made it impossible to talk. Cho's cousin was not as good at keeping the plane in the channel as Cho thought. Four times, the little plane nearly flipped over as one of the pontoons scraped the edge of the channel. Each time the plane jerked sideways with Cousin Han barely straightening it out before hitting the other side of the channel and almost flipping over again.
John kept telling himself that in Florida and California, people were paying big bucks for a ride that wasn't half as exciting at this.
Finally, the plane climbed into the air, but not far. John thought that something was wrong as Cho's cousin eased off on the throttle and pushed the yoke forward. The noise was no longer deafening, but the plane stayed no more than a hundred feet above the ground, sometimes as little as fifty feet.
"We go low. Stay off radar. Good plan. Government watching close today. Yes?"
At that height, they were close enough to the ground to see into house windows and see cars on the roads. Close enough for John to be scared for his life. The plane barely missed an apartment building, then a smokestack and a radio antenna. Each time her cousin made a strange maneuver, Cho commented what a great pilot her cousin was. Each time, John thought he was going to die. From time to time, Cousin Han would make a sharp right or left turn. John figured he was doing that to elude or confuse radar, but nobody said anything.
Two hours later, they were over the ocean and, finally, John could see lights on the horizon. As they flew closer, he could just make out a large ship. Stacked high with shipping containers, it looked like it would blow over in the slightest wind. The plane circled the ship, sat down on the ocean nearby and taxied close. Cousin Han left the engine running as a small powerboat motored over. Only one man was onboard.
"Hello my friends. I am Captain Cortez. I understand you are interested in a trip to Japan. I will take you to my ship where I have a room for you. We will arrive in Tokyo in two days. I suggest you remain in your room -- for your own safety."
After the three were on the small boat, Cho handed an envelope to Cousin Han, presumably containing the thousand-dollar fee. Captain Cortez handed several small boxes to Cho's cousin, who handed him an envelope, then immediately hit the throttle and took off.
Once onboard the ship, the captain escorted them to a tiny cabin, pulled out a gun and demanded all their money and valuables. Neither Cho nor Mama was wearing jewelry. The captain said he would deliver meals to the door, knock, and then leave. He said again not to leave the cabin. John gave him the last of the cash in his wallet, two thousand dollars, making sure to show the Captain his empty wallet, lest he think he was being cheated. Of course John didn't mention the twenty hundred dollar bills he kept inside each sock and the four gold coins in the heel of each shoe or the money sewn into the lining of his bug-out bags. The Captain appeared satisfied and left, possibly thinking he would dump them overboard later and check their luggage for more money, then.
The next day, they listened to the radio and to news on the short-wave radio and on satellite television. The Chinese government admitted that a thousand people had been sickened by an unknown strain of flue, possibly a new variant of the bird/swine flue, but assured the world that the situation, like all the previous ones, was completely under control. They claimed the whole area around Ruhan had been locked down and nobody was allowed to leave.
John knew differently. He knew the virus would be impossible to contain. It would travel in the wind. The pattern of the affected would become a tongue of death and it would grow larger and larger. The tongue wou
ld lick out in whatever direction the wind blew, until it brought death to everyone it touched. The whole world was about to change, in the worst possible way.
The following day, reports were confusing. Some said that only fifty people were actually dead but other stories on social media claimed that half the city was sick and the morgue was full. The local hospital was flooded with patients and tents had been erected outside to handle the tremendous numbers. Doctors and nurses wore masks all day long and even slept wearing masks. A few hours later, social media and phone connections to China were lost. A technical problem to be fixed soon, the government said. Totally unrelated to the virus.
That night, the ship was cruising up the east coast of Japan when it received a message from the Japanese Navy requesting details of the ship's itinerary and a full manifest of passengers and crew. It also asked if any of those onboard had come from the area around Ruhan. A Navy cutter would come alongside the next morning for a complete inspection.
John knew the knock on the door of the small cabin was bad news. It was expected. He had seen the messages. Life was throwing him another curve ball. Hitting it out of the park was impossible, dodging it was the best he could hope for.
"Ah, Captain. Nice to see you. We're almost there."
"You are there, my friend. I dropped a rubber boat over the side. You can be on land before sunrise. It is only a few miles. If your friends are still onboard when the Japanese Navy arrives, they will quarantine the whole ship and our cargo will rot. I cannot afford that. You will be gone, whether you get on the boat or whether I shoot you and throw your bodies overboard myself."
The captain was holding a gun and John knew resistance would be futile. Even if they shot the captain, the crew would overpower them and throw them overboard. And then there was the Japanese Navy. This was no time for heroics. The current objective was to stay alive, to survive for a better time. John figured that would be his objective for the rest of his life.
The three climbed into the small boat with their bags, cast off and John and Cho began rowing toward the shore with Mama between them. There was no moon to provide light, but John's GPS unit had its own and he pointed the boat to the south side of Yokohama. After a few hours, lights from shore were visible. They steered away from the lights to a quiet part of the beach, a mile south of a large hotel complex.
As they approached shore, the wind began to build and the rain poured down. The wind and waves made progress difficult. John was already tired and the GPS showed they were barely holding their own, wasting what little energy they had left and going nowhere. The waves pounded the side of the boat and tossed the small boat further into the air as each wave hit. John stopped rowing and held on to the slippery rubber boat, as well as he could in the rain. Cho grabbed the oarlock with one hand and Mama with the other. John reached for Mama, but missed as the boat was thrown into the air by the waves. The next wave was the worst and they were all thrown out, into the ocean as the boat capsized and disappeared into the dark waters below. John yelled for Cho and heard her scream.
"Mama. Mama. Where you? Talk!"
Then, she started yelling in Mandarin, but John only caught a little of it. John swam toward the voice and grabbed Cho's hand. "Where'd she go? Mama where are you?"
They both continued to yell as they kept each other afloat, but heard no answer. After they had both grown hoarse and tired, they finally made it to the beach two miles south of where they were heading, but could not see any sign of Mama.
They walked up and down the beach for hours, finding their suitcases with their bug-out bags, but no sign of Mama. They also found the bodies of three other Chinese, washed up on the beach, each time thinking it was Mama and each time being disappointed.
These people, who had probably never been in Ruhan, maybe not even in China, had been thrown overboard by crews because they looked Chinese. Crews threw them overboard for fear of being quarantined with a bunch of Chinese, any one of whom could have the virus and could drag them into a painful death.
Finally, they gave up and Cho sat on a large rock and cried for the next hour. John held her, but it didn't help. The sun finally inched over the horizon and they walked up and down the beach two more times. Mama was not to be found, but four other bodies were. As the sun neared it's peak, they gave up and walked toward the hotel, two miles away, their suitcases soaked with seawater, heavy and dripping.
Chapter 7 - Masako Hirakawa
Masako was not a typical Japanese at five foot six, and with a long, thin face. She definitely didn't look like the stereotypical Japanese woman with the 'China Doll' round face, probably because her mother was American. Her mother was a television news correspondent assigned to Tokyo and met her father at a news conference.
Masako was thin and had naturally black hair, but like a great many Japanese women attempting to be different, had dyed her hair brown. John thought it was odd that everybody was being different by being the same, but, in spite of that, he found her dark brown eyes mysterious and alluring.
Since her father was chief editor at the largest newspaper in Japan and supervised nearly a hundred correspondents, Masako was an ideal candidate for the company. Recruiting began when she was eight years old. The company located two operatives near her family's house, one next-door.
Both of the families were recruited in the U.S., largely because of their Japanese ancestry, but also because they had sons and daughters near Masako's age. Before they were moved to Japan, the families were given intensive lessons in Japanese customs which those raised outside of Japan seldom learned. In a short time, they all became great friends with Masako and her family. They went to the same school together, played together, went to parties together and even went on vacations together.
At first, spying was only a game. They pretended to be double-oh spies and would keep logs of their parents' activities. Before long, they began spying on everybody, making logs of the activities of all the residents on the block. When did they leave? Which way did they go? What visitors did they have? Who was their employer, their relatives? Every piece of information collected had a point value and the one with the greatest number of points each month won. The notebooks were turned in to Masako's neighbors for grading.
The prize was usually a party with the winner the guest of honor at the head of the table with the biggest bowl of ice cream. Masako usually won, but not always. Her friends made sure she lost just often enough that she worked harder and harder to be the best each month and obtain more information than the others. All neatly cataloged in notebooks.
Five schoolchildren in their school uniforms were not noticed by anybody. Schoolchildren in their uniforms would never be considered foreign spies.
In the beginning, the five children also went to summer camp together. Masako's father was surprised when his friends told him they had nominated Masako to the summer camp their children attended. He was even more surprised and a little curious when she received a full scholarship to the camp. He checked his sources and the internet to make sure the camp was legitimate. But, who receives a scholarship to a summer camp? He assumed that his friends had obtained a free tuition for his daughter because four of their children were also going. Buy four, get one free. No need for concern.
In the beginning, the camp was only two weeks long, but each year it increased by a week until it was eight weeks long. By that time, her father had become accustomed to the whole scheme and didn't question it. To insure that he didn't become suspicious, Masako usually returned from the camp with a collection of potholders and wallets that she made the last few days as cover. When she was fifteen, the camp became different: the people, the location, John.
* * *
"Today," the counselor said, "you will partner with another to locate bugs and video cameras in the campground. Stay inside the fence and come back in one hour. No questions will be allowed."
"Hi, I'm John. You want to be partners?"
"Sure. I'm Masako. I haven't seen you befo
re. It's a different group. I wonder why?"
"I think we've graduated and we've been promoted to a higher level. We're the best of our former groups," John said, raising his fist into the air. "We are the best!"
"That's arrogant. I haven't met many Americans. I heard you were all loud and arrogant. You certainly are."
"Sorry. We call that being an 'Ugly American.' And we're not all like that."
"OK, if you promise not to be ugly, we can work together."
"Sure. Do you like learning to be a spy?"
"It has been fun, and working for Naicho is patriotic."
"Your parents are both Japanese?"
"No, my mother is American."
"That makes more sense."
"Really? Why? Do I look American?"
"No, well a little bit. Your English is excellent, but this camp isn't run by the Japanese intelligence agency. It's all American. Did they tell you it was Naicho?"
"No, I just assumed it was."
"It's not. Let's go."
"Wait a minute, John. If the camp isn't run by Naicho, who have I been spying for all these years? My father will kill me if he finds out I've been a traitor. I may have to perform seppuku. I'll have to buy some swords and learn how to properly sharpen them."
"Don't worry about it. Hari-kari isn't in style anymore. Make sure he doesn't find out. And you're not a traitor. Your mother probably knows all about it, and is happy with the arrangement. Let's start. We're burning daylight. We only have fifty-five minutes to finish our test."
An hour later, as they returned to the starting point, everyone was turning in their maps and comparing numbers.
"Masako and John," the counselor said, "why do you have two maps? You were supposed to work together."
"He upset me. He lied to me and then he cheated. I don't like him -- at all. He says he found sixteen devices, but two were out of bounds. They were outside the fence. I found fifteen devices and they are all legitimate. I won, fairly."
The Weak Shall Die: Complete Collection (Four Volume Set) Page 5