Crisis in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll get right on it.”

  “Oh, and Max . . .”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Make sure you have Herb Knoff handle the transfer of funds, and the acquisition of the formula for the bomb and the vaccine. He has instructions from me to make sure that bastard Ishi never lives to enjoy his blackmail money.”

  “Certainly, Madam President. I’ll see to it.”

  Forty-seven minutes later, when Ishi called back, General Maxwell came on the line in less than a minute. “OK, Dr. Ishi. We have a deal. Five million in gold and diamonds are on the way to my office now. Arrangements have been made to fly you to Switzerland, and your family to Japan. You understand, as soon as they are deposited in your account you must give us the information we need both for the bombs and the vaccine.”

  “I only have the scientific formula for the antidote vaccine, as you call it. As you must have guessed, I will keep it until my family, and the gold and diamonds, are safely out of the USA. Then I will give the formula to you, and instructions for your scientists on how to prepare it in a living culture. It grows very rapidly. In only a few days you will have enough vaccine to inoculate every soldier and civilian in this country. As with most vaccines, it requires only a small amount. What about the airplane I requested?”

  “A private jet will be waiting near the runway here at our military compound. We’ll send someone for your wife and children. However, there has been a problem with your father. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.”

  “A problem? What sort of problem?”

  “Your father and his housekeeper were apparently killed by robbers last night. Our reports say someone broke down the front door. The housekeepers throat was cut, and your father was shot in the head. I’m truly sorry.”

  Yiro froze, his hand clamped around the telephone. He knew for certain that his father’s death, and Yoko’s, were not due to a robbery attempt. Someone from FPPS had traced him to his father’s house and then killed him.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, fighting back tears. Tsi had not deserved to die like that.

  “Are you still there, Dr. Ishi?”

  “Yes.” He sighed. “I am here.”

  “Drive to the main gate of the compound. Ask for me, and give them the code word—Atlas.”

  “Atlas?”

  “Yeah. He had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Sometimes, I feel the same way. A guard at the gate will call me, and I’ll have you escorted here as soon as you arrive.”

  “I do not have the bacteria with me,” Ishi said, trying to hide the fury he felt at his father’s murder. “They are in a safe place, the location of which I will divulge to you after I have the money and what remains of my family is safe.” Yiro warned, “Once recovered, someone must guard the vials closely. They can be very dangerous, and special equipment has to be worn while they are being handled.”

  “I understand, Dr. Ishi. In the meantime, call your wife and have her ready to travel. A squad of special soldiers will be there to pick her and your children up. They will be driven to the airplane. The pilot will await your instructions as to where they are to land in Japan.”

  Yiro’s mouth was dry. “You understand, General Maxwell, that I have taken certain necessary precautions. Unless you do exactly as I have asked, the bacteria and everything I have shown you will be useless.”

  “We expected no less, Dr. Ishi. Drive to the main gate and give the guard the code word. You will be brought here to my office, and then you can verify that your family is safely aboard the jet.”

  “And you will have the gold and diamonds and another plane there for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “I will be there in half an hour, General. Please do not betray me, or there is a possibility many innocent people will die.”

  “I understand, Dr. Ishi. I’ll be waiting for you here, and there will be no betrayal.”

  Yiro hung up, sleeving tears from his eyes while remembering his father. He would make damn sure he hadn’t died in vain, and that President Osterman and her generals paid dearly for his death.

  He drove his car with its deadly cargo to a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Indianapolis. He carried the vials of bacteria into the temple and through a door leading to the basement. As he stored the plague bacteria in a wooden box, he thought it fitting that the deadliest weapon known to man was resting in a temple dedicated to peace, for if all went well his vials would at last end the war and bring peace to the world.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Yiro Ishi drove into the command post west of Indianapolis without hesitation. The guards seemed to know he was coming, but he played the general’s game and gave the code word, anyway.

  “Atlas,” he said when the guard leaned in his window. The guard waved his hand and another soldier in a Jeep led him toward the underground bunker where he had first offered his grandfather’s project to the top brass at USA headquarters.

  He stopped the Nissan in front of the small building leading to an elevator down to General Maxwell’s offices, and the nerve center of the USA’s military effort. A detail of eight men in black shirts, automatic rifles slung from shoulder straps, came toward him, surrounding his battered car.

  “Follow me, Dr. Ishi,” a tall soldier said.

  After Ishi got out of the car, the guard whispered to another man, “Search the car and make sure he doesn’t have anything hidden in it.”

  Ishi overheard the order and smiled to himself. He’d repacked the vials and added an envelope with a bogus formula for the vaccine and left them in the basement of the temple, where no respectable agent of the USA would ever venture.

  “Contact General Maxwell. Before I go down to talk to him, I must be certain that the jet plane is ready, and that my family is on board.”

  The Black Shirt scowled. “You aren’t exactly in any position to be making demands. In case you can’t count, you are surrounded by soldiers of the USA—”

  “You are not soldiers,” Yiro said quietly, his voice filled with scorn. “You are nothing more than common thugs who hide behind your black shirts as if they give you power. Now, do as I said and call General Maxwell at once, unless you want me to tell him I’ve changed my mind due to your insolence.”

  The Black Shirt gritted his teeth and clenched his hands until they were white on his automatic rifle. He was not used to people, especially not minorities, talking to him in this manner. He was about to slap the little bastard’s face, until he looked into his eyes. They were deadly serious, and showed not an iota of fear. The man hesitated. Maybe he’d misread the situation. With a shrug, he turned and picked up a telephone mounted on the wall of the building.

  “Please inform General Maxwell that I will not talk to him until I have seen my family, and the airplane that will take them across the Pacific to Japan.”

  “You talk mighty big for a little bastard who ain’t even carryin’ a gun,” the Black Shirt said, turning to the others around him.

  “Perhaps so. But I assure you that all of you will die a slow, miserable death from the bubonic plague unless you do as I ask.”

  Another Black Shirt spoke up, a short, muscular man with a number of tattoos on his arms. “Why don’t we just kill this smart-mouth Nip?” he asked, looked to the leader of the squad for support.

  “Shut up, Clyde,” the squad leader snapped. “Show Dr. Ishi to one of our Jeeps and take him over to the airfield. His wife an’ kids are there in the Learjet. We’ll let him talk to ’em for a minute.”

  Ishi gave an insolent smile and a slight bow of his head. “Thank you.”

  “Radio down to the general that his little Jap friend is here, and that we’re takin’ him over to see his family.”

  An older model Learjet sat at the end of a runway, with a pair of Black Shirt guards flanking the steps leading into the plane.

  Yiro climbed the portable steps carefully, wondering if he might be facing a double-cross after he got inside the fuselage to
see his family.

  Sun Li leapt out of her seat to throw her arms around his neck.

  He embraced her, and smiled at their children buckled into seats near the front of the plane.

  He spoke to her in Japanese.

  “Do you have everything?”

  “Yes, just as you instructed.”

  “The box?”

  “It is here, in my small suitcase.”

  Yiro kissed away the tears on her cheeks. “Do not worry, Sun Li,” he whispered.

  “I have never been so afraid, my husband. These are mean people. They will kill us. I fear for the lives of our children.”

  “It is a chance we must take. The ethnic cleansing would have sent us to our deaths sooner or later. I am doing this for our children . . . and for us.”

  “They will kill you, Yiro.”

  He wagged his head. “Not now. Not yet. I have the thing they need most. Do not ask me to explain it now. I will tell you later.”

  “What do I do with the box? If something happens to you, my husband.”

  “Send it to Alfred Simmer. He is with the Rebels, living in Florida. The address is in the box. Do not entrust it to anyone.”

  “But how do I send it . . . if . . . if something happens to you?” she cried.

  “There is a name on the outside of the envelope, a man who will see to it that the box is handed over to Dr. Zimmer. Money for the delivery is in the envelope.”

  Sun Li trembled against him, holding him fiercely against her. “I am afraid I will never see you again, darling Yiro. My heart tells me that we are saying good-bye for the last time. Please assure me this is not true.”

  “It is not true,” he said, speaking the high-mountain Japanese dialect they both knew.

  He felt her shudder again.

  “Do not cry. Once you get to Japan, I will have a great deal of money in a bank in Switzerland. I will contact you with the account number, so the funds can be accessed from our Japanese bank. Take the account number to my cousin in Hiroshima, and give him the letter addressed to him hidden at the bottom of the box. He will know what to do. If nothing goes wrong, I will be able to join you within the week.”

  She stepped back and stared into his eyes. “You mean if they do not kill you?”

  Again, he shook his head. “They need me, General Maxwell and his staff. Without me, they cannot use the vials without grave risk.”

  “Why do we have to do this?” his wife asked tearfully, a plea in her voice.

  “Because they would have ultimately killed us as a part of the ethnic cleansing, anyway. I am doing the only thing I can to keep us, and our children, alive. If nothing goes wrong, my plan should work.”

  A Black Shirt stuck his head into the plane. “Hey, Ishi! General Maxwell wants to see you right away, and he’s a man who don’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “I must go now,” Yiro said. “I will be in touch with you soon. I will not give them what they want until I have heard you and the children are safe. Remember the code word is cherry blossom—if you are okay and they are not holding you under duress. If I do not hear you say that, I will know it is a trick, and you are not safe.” He leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips, whispering, “Remember my instructions once you get to Hiroshima.”

  She looked up when he released her. “You said your father would be flying to Japan with us. Where is he? Will they bring him here?”

  Yiro took a deep breath, not wanting to lie to Sun Li, at the same time afraid of what the truth might do to her. “He is dead. Yoko is also dead.”

  “Dead? What happened?”

  He prepared himself to tell a small white lie, the same lie he’d been told by the Black Shirts. “Some robbers broke into his house last night.”

  Sun Li blinked, searching his face. “I do not believe that,” she said softly. “It is a part of what you are doing now, isn’t it?”

  “Do not ask me questions now,” he said. “I must speak to General Maxwell at once.”

  The Black Shirt spoke again in an angry voice. “Let’s go, you yellow bastard. General Maxwell is waiting for you, and we ain’t got all day.”

  Yiro kissed Sun Li one more time, then he turned and followed the soldier out of the Learjet.

  He turned and waved to his children, who stared out at him from small windows, as he walked across the tarmac.

  The canvas bags were heavy, almost more than he could carry, and he’d been sure to examine each one. Most were filled with gold coins. Two smaller bags held cut diamonds of the best possible clarity. He was tempted to put the bags on the Learjet with Sun Li and his children, but he knew the USA would have agents watching them in Japan. The only place in the world the money would be safe from the USA’s influence was Switzerland, which still guarded its numbered accounts and kept them secret.

  General Maxwell introduced him to a man who had been sitting in a corner of his office while Ishi examined the bags. “Mr. Ishi, this is Herb Knoff. He is going to accompany you to Switzerland to make sure you don’t have any trouble depositing the money, and you are to give him the information on the location of the vaccine formula and the vials of bacteria.”

  One look at the man was enough for Ishi. He’d seen his type plenty of times before. He knew Knoff was along to kill him as soon as he gave him what they wanted.

  Ishi nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He didn’t want them to know he was aware of what they had in store for him.

  Maxwell and Knoff led him to another Learjet on the landing field, just a hundred yards from the one containing his family. He watched Sun Li and his children take off, then entered the airplane, followed by Knoff.

  After they were seated and his bags stored next to him, Knoff leaned his seat back and closed his eyes. “It’s a seven hour trip to Geneva, so you might as well get some sleep,” he said.

  Ishi laid his head back and closed his eyes. He still had plans to make, and would use the entire seven hours to make sure there were no loopholes in his scheme.

  The plane flight to Switzerland and the ride to the bank were uneventful. The Credit Suisse was housed in an old building, in a row with several other banks. It seemed to Ishi as if the entire economy of Switzerland was built on handling other people’s money.

  The lobby was large, with several windows occupied by tellers, all busy serving people from many different countries.

  Ishi walked to a desk and asked to see the manager. In less than a minute, a heavyset gentlemen dressed in a suit and vest sauntered out from a private office.

  “I am Herr Geldman. What can I do for you?”

  “I have approximately five million dollars in gold and diamonds to deposit,” Ishi said, smiling slightly at the reaction of the banker, who suddenly became quite deferential.

  “Of course, gentlemen. Perhaps you could come into my private office, just down the hall?”

  It took less than an hour for Ishi’s treasure to be counted and placed in the bank vault and for him to be issued his nine digit account number.

  He folded the paper carefully and placed it in his billfold, then turned to Knoff, who was sitting in a large, overstuffed chair across the room.

  “If you will excuse me, Mr. Knoff. Perhaps you could wait for me in the lobby while I call to see if my wife and family are safe.”

  Knoff’s face looked uncertain. “Is there any back way out of this building?” he asked Herr Geldman.

  “Why . . . no. The only exits are through the lobby.”

  Knoff nodded, glaring at Ishi. “I’ll be waiting outside. Don’t try anything funny.”

  After he left, Ishi turned to Geldman. “Might I use your phone for a long distance call to Japan?”

  “Certainly. Make yourself at home, Herr Ishi.”

  Ishi called the prearranged number in Japan and his wife answered.

  “How are you, Sun Li? Is everything all right?” Ishi asked.

  “Oh, Yiro. Everything here is even more beautiful than I imagined it would be. The che
rry blossoms are in full bloom, and are gorgeous.”

  “The children are well?”

  “Yes. We are all safe and awaiting your return, my husband.”

  “Good. I love you, Sun Li. Here is the account number—write it down.” He gave her the number and hung up, telling her he’d see her in a few days.

  After he hung up, he turned to Geldman. “Is there a Japanese restaurant nearby?”

  “Yes, the Bizan. The food is excellent.”

  “Is it a traditional Japanese restaurant?”

  “Yes, and the decorations are delightful. I’m sure you’ll find it to your satisfaction.”

  “Would you dial the number for me, please?”

  “Certainly.”

  When he had the restaurant on the line, he handed the phone to Ishi.

  Speaking Japanese, he asked if the waitresses dressed in the traditional manner. When the manager assured him they did, Ishi made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

  He hung up the phone, picked up the small valise he’d carried with him on the plane, and walked out to the lobby.

  Knoff stood up, his face dark. “What took you so long?”

  “I had to make sure my family was safe before I gave you the location of the bacteria and the vaccine formula.”

  Knoff didn’t speak, just held out his hand. Ishi took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to the bodyguard.

  “Perhaps you’d like to call General Maxwell and have him verify that everything is in order before I leave?” Ishi asked, as if naively assuming Knoff was going to let him go free.

  “Yeah, that’d be a good idea,” Knoff said, a crafty look in his eye.

  Ishi pointed to a set of doors at the side of the lobby. “I’m going to use the rest room and freshen up a little. Okay?”

  Knoff walked over and peeked in the men’s room, making sure there were no windows Ishi could climb out. “Sure, I’ll just be over there on the phone.”

  Once in the rest room, Ishi went into a stall and locked the door. He opened the valise and took out what he needed and began to prepare his escape.

  Knoff gave Maxwell the location of the hidden vials of bacteria and left his number so he could be called back when the general was sure all was as it should be.