To Free a Spy

by Nick Ganaway

  * * *

  Hangar 23 was at the end of a service road in a remote corner of Narita about a mile from the service gate they’d used. Sprigs of grass that poked up through cracks in the pavement testified to the low volume of traffic in the area and Warfield saw no other buildings close enough to worry about. The only other cars he saw were on an expressway in the distance. As they approached the mammoth hangar Warfield ducked down behind the seat again.

  The road went to the left just before the beginning of the tarmac and ran alongside a dense hedge that lined the outside hangar wall. Aoki slowed and followed the road to the back corner of the building. “I always park around the corner here,” he said. A moment later they came into view of the parking area and Aoki stopped in the middle of the road.

  “What’s wrong?” Komeito asked.

  “That car,” he said, pointing. “Ivan said I should never stop if a government car is here.” It was a dark blue sedan with an official-looking insignia on the door. Komeito told Warfield the insignia was Ministry of Transport.

  “What happens if you do?”

  “Not much, probably. He said his boss doesn’t like outsiders coming here.”

  “What do you think, Warfield?”

  “You two go in as planned,” he said from the floor. “We’ll talk when you come out.”

  Aoki drove on to the parking area and turned off the engine. Warfield reminded Komeito to memorize the layout inside.

  The whine and whoosh of jet engines in the distance were the only sounds after they left the car. Warfield thought about the time, and remembered his slow-motion powerlessness as a kid when trying to run in a pool or the ocean. August sixth was approaching faster than he could get everything out of the way.

  * * *

  Aoki and Komeito walked to the personnel entrance beside the huge hangar door and Aoki froze in his tracks. “Look!” he shouted. “It’s gone! The big plane is gone!” Aoki’s voice echoed through the cavernous hangar. “The office over there, that’s where I take the pizza,” he said, nodding toward a chain-link enclosure at the center of the left wall. They ran across the floor in that direction. No one was in sight.

  “What’s going on here?” Aoki mumbled, when they reached the office area. The building was almost empty. Two computers sitting on a desk in the center of the area had been smashed and the hammer that did the damage lay nearby on the floor. Aoki stood with his hands on his hips and looked around. “That canvas there,” he said, pointing to a big roll of tent cloth outside the office area, “it used to hang on the fence. Ivan said it was there to make the office more private.” Aoki kicked at two old Guido’s Pizza boxes lying on the floor next to an over-full trash can. “Everything’s gone. The plane. Ivan, the other two. The big thing they were working on at the other end. What has happened?”

  Komeito ran back to the car. “Warfield! There is no one inside.”

  As Warfield, Komeito and Aoki inspected the hangar together, Aoki pointed out the small enclosed area the Russians used as their living quarters and told them other details he knew from previous visits. In contrast to the disheveled office, the rest of the hangar—tools, machines, a supply of what appeared to be aircraft parts and the Russians’ living quarters—was okay. Warfield finished looking around the makeshift dormitory room and was making a second pass through the office area when he spotted the edge of a notebook peeking out from beneath some papers on the cluttered desk. He flipped it open and saw the Cyrillic characters of the Russian language. He called to Komeito.

  Komeito scanned the pages. “Boris Petrevich,” he yelled. “This is Petrevich’s notebook!” When he got to the third page, he shouted, “and Yoshida’s listed here, his phone number, too!”

  “Got ’im!” Warfield said, his eyes narrowing. “Let’s get out of here!” He pocketed the notebook and hurried toward the car. Warfield told Aoki to take them back to the gate where TK was waiting. Aoki was confused by it all, but complied.

  En route they saw several police cars, lights flashing, near the gate. It was hard to make out in the distance but it looked like they had surrounded a gray car. “Think it’s TK,” Komeito said.

  “Find another way out of here but don’t attract any attention!” Warfield ordered.

  Seconds later they reached the road that led back to the service gate where they entered but Aoki turned left, away from the gate, and followed the access road around a hangar where the tarmac resumed, and to another gate half a mile from the first one but on the same street. There were no police cars. Warfield hid himself on the floor again. The security guard remained sitting in the kiosk and waved Aoki through.

  Aoki turned left onto the street, away from the first gate. Warfield told him to drive to the nearest hotel.

  Several blocks later Aoki wheeled into a high-rise Holiday Inn and stopped. Warfield put his hand on Aoki’s shoulder and told him not to worry. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  As Warfield jumped out and ran toward the hotel, Aoki turned to Komeito for reassurance.

  “What you have done is for good,” Komeito said. “The police don’t know the good actors from the bad ones in this case yet, but they will. And you will understand very soon also.”

  Komeito caught up with Warfield as he entered a side door of the hotel. Warfield told Komeito to call the number in Petrevich’s notebook for Yoshida. “See what you can find out about him.” Warfield looked at his watch. It was exactly six p.m. Saturday evening in Tokyo. In Washington, five o’clock Saturday morning, where it was already August sixth!

  * * *

  Komeito knew chances were slim anyone would answer if the number in Petrevich’s notebook was to Yoshida’s office, even though Saturday was a workday for many Japanese. The number rang for a long time and he was about to hang up when a woman answered in Japanese. “Vice-Minister’s Office!” She was abrupt, and sounded angry.

  “This Fumio Yoshida’s number?”

  “You know it is Vice-Minister Yoshida’s office! And I know you are another reporter calling about his brother. Please do not call back. Good-bye.”

  So they had found the body. “No, wait! This is police.”

  “Police! Again?”

  “Yes. I am Captain Iwamoto,” Komeito said. “In charge of the investigation into Jotaro Yoshida’s death. Any of my officers still there?”

  “Two were here. That is why I am still here. They left a minute ago.”

  “We’re having radio problems. Haven’t talked with them since they left you. Mind repeating what you told them?”

  “I told them the vice-minister cannot be reached at this time. They were rude, so I did not tell them that he is on a training flight. They asked questions that were none of their business.”

  It was an opportunity made for the moment and Komeito seized it. “Please tell me your name, keishu.”

  “Mrs. Nakamura.” Being called a lady seemed to calm her down.

  “I am very sorry for their unforgivable rudeness, Mrs. Nakamura. I will speak with them, and I will see to it they apologize to you.”

  “You are a jentoruman. How can I help you?”

  “Did you say the vice-minister is on a training flight?”

  “Mr. Yoshida is responsible for pilot training standards and certification. Indirectly, I mean. He is a pilot and flies often, but his responsibilities include much more than that now.”

  “What is he flying?”

  “Not sure. A Ministry plane.”

  “Why can’t he be reached by radio?”

  “We’re trying now. For some reason he isn’t responding. Couldn’t have gone at a worse time. We are very upset about his brother. Have you found the two men who did it?”

  She knew it was two men, so it had to be Mrs. Tanaka, the old lady next door to the Yoshida’s, who called the police. He knew she would. “No, but we will get to the bottom of it soon.”

  “Minister Yoshida’s brother was affected. The bomb, you know. He cared for him all these years. I feel very sorry
for both of them,” she said.

  Komeito gave it a respectful moment before going on. She was close to the edge. “You didn’t say where he is flying to on this training flight.”

  “Oh, to Los Angeles, in America. You can check with air traffic control for details. He always files a flight plan. Vice-Minister Yoshida is very particular about things like that.”

  “I was wondering if you would call air traffic control and ask for his flight plan, Mrs. Nakamura. You must know some people over there.”

  “Sure, Captain. We work with them all the time.”

  “I’ll call you back. Five minutes long enough?”

  “I think so.”

  “Oh…, Mrs. Nakamura, please do not discuss this matter with anyone but me for the time being. If anyone asks, you should say you have spoken with several police officers about it. It will not be necessary to mention our conversation.”

  She was silent for a moment. “You are keeping secrets from your officers?”

  “Uh, not at all. It’s just that you would have no way of knowing who you are speaking with on the phone. It could be the reporters falsely identifying themselves in order to get information from you.”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Glad you reminded me.”

  When Komeito called Mrs. Nakamura back she had all the flight plan details. He wrote them down and thanked her.

  * * *

  Komeito told Warfield everything Mrs. Nakamura had told him about Yoshida. His position at the Ministry of Transport, her job as his assistant. “He’s in the air now and guess where he’s going.”

  The hair on Warfield’s arms stood on end when Komeito told him.

  Komeito handed him the notes he’d made when talking with Mrs. Nakamura, including the flight plan. “He expects to be there at five a.m. Los Angeles time. Logged it as a training flight.”

  Warfield did the time conversion. Yoshida’s Los Angeles ETA was less than three hours away. He barked instructions to Komeito to use his connections in Tokyo to get the Japanese authorities to Hangar 23 to look for nuclear traces. “Now, Komeito!”

  Warfield had to call Cross but needed more information if he was going to convince him to act. He remembered the file Komeito checked at Yoshida’s house and asked him about it. The Jotaro file.

  Komeito thought for a moment. “Uh-oh. Left in Aoki’s car.”

  “Did you read it, Komeito?”

  “First page. Looks like a diary.”

  The file might give Warfield what he needed to sell Cross, but time was short. “Call Guido’s and speak with Norio. Get him to bring it here ASAP.”

  “ASAP?”

  “Means now, Komeito. In a pizza box to Rolf Geering at the concierge desk.”

  Warfield stood out of view and watched as Aoki dropped off the box less than ten minutes later. He’d told the concierge to expect it and gave her cash for the driver. She was all smiles when Warfield retrieved the box. He stuffed the Guido’s delivery form into his pocket and hurried back to the telephone lobby, where Komeito was trying to reach the hazmat authorities, and took out the Jotaro file. “Translate this, Komeito, quickly!”

  Warfield listened impatiently as Komeito read excerpts aloud, yet he needed every nuance of Yoshida’s thoughts if he was going to move Cross. Fumio Yoshida had started the file diary-style when he was nine, recording his musings about his family’s devastation. It included his earliest awareness something was wrong with Jotaro and identified the beginnings of Fumio’s hatred for the Americans who caused it.

  His desire to get revenge showed up when he was twelve, and he had thought out the framework for a plan before he was twenty. He drove the first stake in the ground by taking a job with the Ministry of Transport. Entry after entry in the diary of RERF’s periodic evaluations of Jotaro’s progress, or lack thereof, revealed Fumio’s growing despair. His frustration and hatred grew unchecked.

  Komeito read Yoshida’s last entry, dated two years ago: “The Emperor in surrender (to the Americans at the end of World War II) did not speak for Fumio and Jotaro Yoshida, to whom the only acceptable alternative to victory is a fight to death. The instruments are now in place to achieve a modicum of justice for Jotaro and for other Japanese lives destroyed by the Americans.”

  Warfield was certain what was coming down and knew it was time to contact the president. But Cross hadn’t seen what he had seen, been where he’d been these last few days and wouldn’t buy it without a fight. The average wild-eyed conspiracy theorist would have more convincing evidence about his latest wacko extrapolation than Warfield had about Yoshida, and how many of those kooks even got beyond the three a.m. radio shows? To act on Warfield’s combination of circumstances and facts, the president would have to immediately commit to a course of action that had serious or even irreversible consequences no matter whether Warfield was right or wrong.

  If Warfield had a best, it was during a crisis. All his systems responded well. His pulse was steady, his thoughts clear. He had an ability to convince others with logic and reason. All these would be on the line now as he attempted to convince the President of the United States to take action on this. Time was again the enemy. Warfield went into a phone cubicle in the lobby wing and closed the door, which had a small rectangular slit for a window. At least there was privacy. He sat down and dialed the access number Cross gave him. It seemed so long ago.

  “State your name and I.D. code,” a live voice said seconds later.

  “Cameron Warfield,” he said, and gave him the code Cross had written for him.

  The voice told Warfield to hold and as he waited he thought for the first time how he would put it to Cross. That there was a madman in the air who was going to drop a nuclear bomb on the United States in two hours and so many minutes? How many disaster movies had done that? But he had to somehow convince the president this was real, that a Japanese madman had arranged for nukes and for someone to make them into a deliverable atomic bomb—remember Habur, Mr. President?—and that this man who was crazed by the bitter fruits of World War II was at this moment flying that bomb over the Pacific toward Los Angeles. He was aiming for revenge, and would get it on this, the day that would be the most symbolic for him: The anniversary of the first wartime nuke; the day Japan had realized raw defeat and humiliation at the hand of the United States. The day Jotaro’s, their mother’s and his fates were sealed. Oh, don’t discount the role of the Russian, Petrevich; he’s the crucial tool of the mastermind behind the plan and maybe it couldn’t have been done without him, but the day would go to the creator of it all who had suffered in mind and body and soul every day, every minute, for more than half a century. Who had neither forgiven nor forgotten nor moved beyond. Who self-generated the fuel necessary for hate to survive for so long. Who allowed himself to become a perpetual victim until he was no less evil than the evil he imagined had destroyed his life.

  The voice was back on the line. “Connecting you with the president, Mr. Warfield.”

  A click, then, “Cam! Is that you?”

  “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Pr—”

  “Forget that! Where th’ hell are you, anyway?” The president’s voice was clear and alert and gave no hint he had just been awakened.

  “Tokyo. And as you can imagine, it’s an emergency.”

  “I should hope so. Haven’t had a good crisis in hours.”

  “Wish I could say you’ll like this one.” Warfield took a breath, searching his brain for the best place to begin. “Look, sir, this call is either too early or it’s too late. I take responsibility for that. But I’m holding a short fuse. Some of what I’m going tell you is speculation at this point, but it will prove out. I may have that proof at any moment.”

  “You have my attention. Talk to me!”

  “It relates to the Turkey-Iraq border incident that got me in trouble with Fullwood.”

  “That Habur border gate, yeah.”

  “Few days ago in Washington I received a message from an army general I know in Russia from Soviet
days. He retired after the Soviet breakup and started working to keep nuke materials out of the wrong hands.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Cross, as the former CIA director, could have known of him. “Aleksei Antonov.”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, Antonov notified me he’d located the Russian I tracked from Russia and then lost at Habur, and invited me to meet him in Tokyo.”

  “You didn’t notify anyone here?”

  “I’ve second-guessed myself about that a few times in the last few days. But I’m a Washington outsider now, certainly with Fullwood and the FBI. And on short notice, this wouldn’t have been strong enough to arouse the NSC’s attention. Not until now, at least.”

  “So where does it stand now that you’ve met this General Antonov?”

  Warfield checked his watch. Precious seconds Cross would need later were slipping away but he was bringing the commander-in-chief up to date as fast as possible.

  “The transfer of the uranium into Iraq was a red herring. The Russian smuggler, Petrevich, wanted us to think his destination was Iraq or somewhere in the Middle East. I fell for it, but he’s here in Tokyo, or was. I will know soon whether the uranium was with him. I’m betting it was.”

  “Was, you say?”

  “Yes, was. Let me give you the fast version. Time is critical and—”

  “Go as fast as you want but I’m going to ask questions and I expect answers.” Cross was snappish.

  “Okay, ask them.” Warfield’s impatience bled through as well.

  “How did Antonov know the Russian was in Japan?”

  “Former KGB agent tipped him, said they suspected him before it happened but didn’t pursue it, I think because of the turmoil they were in after the Cold War.”

  “Go on.”

  “So I met Antonov here in Tokyo two nights ago. He said Russia acknowledged a little late that uranium was missing from Arzamas-16, where Petrevich worked.”

  “Arzamas-16!” Cross was knowledgeable about the old Soviet nuclear center. “How much was missing?”

  “More than we used on Hiroshima.”