Fortunes of War

by Stephen Coonts

  “Do not speak to me of law. Not after what you have told me.” Abe pounded his chest. “You reign, I rule. That is the Japanese way.”

  Abe took several deep breaths to compose himself. “If you will give me a copy of the letter, I will have the foreign minister prepare a reply.”

  The emperor didn’t seem to hear. He continued, thinking aloud: “In this era of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, war is obsolete. It is no longer a viable political option. The nation that plunges headlong into war in the twenty-first century will, I fear, merely be committing national suicide. Death, sir, is most definitely not Japan’s destiny. Death is final and eternal, whether it comes slowly, from natural causes, or swiftly, in a spectacular blaze of glory. Life, sir, must be our business. Life is our concern.”

  Before Abe could think of a polite reply, the emperor added softly, “You carry a very heavy burden, Prime Minister. You carry the hopes and dreams of every Japanese alive today and those of our honored ancestors. You literally carry Japan upon your back.”

  “Your Excellency, I am aware of my responsibilities,” Atsuko Abe retorted, as politely as he could. He struggled to keep a grip on his temper. “Keenly aware,” he added through clenched teeth. “In your public speeches that I have read, sir, you speak as if Japan’s destiny were as obvious as the rising sun on a clear morning,” Emperor Naruhito said without rancor. “I suggest you consult the representatives of the people in the Diet before you make any major commitments.”

  He could think of nothing else to say to this fool facing him … “Follow the law,” the emperor added. That was always excellent advice, but … “The Japanese are a great people,” the emperor told the prime minister, to fill the silence. “If you keep faith with them, they will have faith in you.”

  Abe forced his head down in a gesture of respect. The skin on his head was tan, the hair cropped short. Naruhito could stand no more of this scoundrel. He rose stiffly, bowed, and walked from the room. That had been two days ago. Naruhito had forsaken his ceremonial, almost-mystical position as head of state to speak the truth as he believed it, for the good of the nation. He had never done that before, but Abe … advocating the unthinkable…, telling the emperor to his face what his duty was — never in his life had Naruhito been so insulted. The memory of Abe’s words still burned deeply. He had written a letter to the president of the United States, written it by hand because he did not wish to trust a secretary. The truth was bitter: He could not affect events. The children were singing now, led by Naruhito’s wife, Masako. A flush of warmth went through the emperor as he regarded her, his dearly beloved wife, his empress, singing softly, leading the children.

  Truly, he loved life. Loved his wife, his people, his nation…, this Japanese nation. His life, the nation’s life, they were all bound up together, one and inseparable. A profound sense of loss swept over him. Time is running out … Captain Shunko Kato stood concealed by a curtain at a second-floor window in the Imperial Palace, watching the ceremony on the lawn below. Behind him stood the other three er/while telephone repairmen, his men, standing motionless, seemingly at perfect ease. They weren’t, Kato knew. He could feel the tension, tight as a violin string. Military discipline held them motionless, silent, each man in communion only with his thoughts.

  The sunlight coming through the window made a lopsided rectangle on the floor. Kato looked at the sunlit floor, the great frame that held the window, the hedge, the lawn, the people, the bold, brazen sky above … He was seeing all this for the last time. Ah, but to dwell on his personal fate was unworthy. Kato brushed the thought away and concentrated on the figures before him on the lawn.

  There was the emperor, shorter than the average Japanese male at five feet four, erect, carrying a tummy. Surrounding the group were security officers in civilian clothes — most of these men had their backs to the ceremony.

  Kato retreated a few inches. He ensured he was concealed by the shadow of the drape, hidden from the observation of anyone on the lawn who might look at this window. Satisfied, he scanned the security guards quickly, taking in their state of alertness at a glance; then he turned his attention back to the royal party.

  The emperor stood slightly in front of a group of officials, watching the empress and the children, seemingly caught up in the simple ritual. No doubt he was. He certainly had nothing else to worry about. The emperor, Kato was sure, was quite oblivious to the desperation that had ravaged so many lives since the bank collapse. How could it be otherwise?

  The emperor certainly didn’t move in ordinary circles.

  Yet the man must read newspapers, occasionally watch television. How could he miss the corruption of the politicians, the bribes, the influence peddling, the stench of scandal after scandal? Could he not see the misery of the common people, always loyal, always betrayed?

  He never spoke out against corruption, avarice, greed. Never. And never condemning, he silently approved.

  Kato felt his chest swelling with indignation. Oh, that they called such a man “Son of Heaven!” An extraordinary obscenity.

  The empress was saying good-bye to the children. The ceremony was ending.

  Kato turned, surveyed his men. Still wearing the blue jumpers and caps of the telephone company, they were as fit as professional athletes, lean, with ropy muscles and easy, fluid movements. Kato had trained them, hardened them, made them soldiers in the Bushido tradition. In truth, he was proud of them, and now that pride showed on his face. The men looked back at him with faces that were also unable to conceal their emotion.

  “For Japan,” he said softly, just loudly enough for them to hear.

  “For Japan.” Their lips moved soundlessly, for he had told them to make no sound. Still, the reply echoed in Kato’s ears.

  “Banzai,” he mouthed.

  “Banzai!” The silent reply lashed his soul.

  The security guards escorted the emperor and empress toward the door of the Imperial Palace. One of them held it open for the emperor, who always preceded his wife by two paces. The security men did not enter the hallway; they remained outside. The entire palace was inside a security zone.

  Inside the building, away from other eyes, the emperor paused to let Masako reach his side. She flashed him a grin, a very un-Japanese gesture, but then she had spent years in the United States attending college before their marriage. He dearly enjoyed seeing her grin, and he smiled his pleasure.

  She took his arm and leaned forward, so that her lips brushed his cheek. His smile broadened.

  Arm in arm, they walked down the hall to the end, then turned right.

  Four men stood silently, waiting. They blocked the hallway.

  The emperor stopped.

  One of the men moved noiselessly to position himself behind the royal couple, but the others did not give way. Nor, the emperor noted with surprise, did they bow. Not even the tiniest bob.

  Naruhito looked from face to face. Not one of the men broke eye contact. “Yes?” he said finally. “Your wife may leave, Your Excellency,” said one of the men. His voice was strong, even, yet not loud. “Who are you?” asked the emperor. “I am Captain Shunko Kato of the Japanese Self-Defense Force.”

  Kato bowed deeply from the waist, but none of the other men moved a muscle. “These enlisted men are under my command.”

  “By whose authority are you here?”

  “By our own.”

  Naruhito felt his wife’s hand tighten on his arm. He looked again from face to face, waiting for them to look away as a gesture of respect. None of them did. “Why are you here?” the emperor asked finally. He realized that time was on his side, not theirs, and he wished to draw this out as long as possible. Kato seemed to read his thoughts. “We are here for Japan,” Kato said crisply, then added, “The empress must leave now.”

  Naruhito could read the inevitable in their faces. Although the thought did not occur to Captain Kato, Naruhito had as much courage as any man there. He turned toward the empress. “You must go, de
ar wife.”

  She stared into his face, panic-stricken. Both her hands clutched his arm in a fierce grip. He leaned toward her and whispered, “We have no choice. Go, and know I love you.”

  She tore her eyes from him and swept them around the group, looking directly into the eyes of each man. Three of them averted their gaze. Then she turned and walked back toward the lawn. From a decorative table nearby, Kato took a samurai sword, which the emperor had not previously noticed. With one swift motion, the officer withdrew the blade from the sheath. “For Japan,” he said, grasping the handle with both hands. The sword was very old, the emperor noticed. Hundreds of years old. His heart was audibly pounding in his ears. He looked again at each face. They were fanatics. Resigned, Emperor Naruhito sank to his knees. He would not let them see him afraid. Thank heavens his hands were not trembling. He closed his eyes and cleared his thoughts. Enough of these zealots. He thought of his wife and his son and daughter. The last thing he heard was the slick whisper of the blade whirring through the air.

  Masako walked slowly toward the door where just seconds ago she and her husband had entered the palace. Every step was torture, agony … The men were assassins. Masako, in her horror, had sensed it the moment she saw them. They had no respect; their faces registered extraordinary tension — not like loyal subjects meeting their emperor and his wife, but like assassins. She knew her nation’s history, of course, knew how assassins had plagued rulers and politicians in times of turmoil, how they always murdered for Japan — as if their passionate patriotism could excuse the blood, could excuse slashing the life from men who had little or no control over the events that fired the murderers — then atoned for their crimes in orgies of ritual suicide. The bloody melodrama was terrible theater, yet most Japanese loved it, reveled in it, were inspired by it. Ancient racial memories were renewed with flowing fresh red blood. New sacrifices propitiated savage urges…, and mesmerized the audience. Patriotic murder was sadistic, Masako thought, an obscene perversion that surfaced when the world pressed relentlessly in upon the Japanese, as it had in the 1930’s, as it had in December 1941, as it apparently was…

  Now?

  She could scarcely place one foot in front of another. Oh, Naruhito, beloved husband, that we should have to face this…, and I should not be at your side … She turned and hurried back toward her husband. Toward the evil that awaited them both. She ran, the length of her stride constrained by her skirt. Just before she reached the corner, she heard the singing of the sword and then the sickening thunk as it bit into flesh. She turned the corner in time to see her husband’s head rolling along the floor and his upright torso toppling forward. She saw no more. Despite her pain — or perhaps because of it — she passed out, collapsed in a heap.

  Shunko Kato did not look again at the emperor’s corpse. There was little time, and staring at the body of a man who had failed Japan would be wasting it. He arranged a letter on the table where the sword had rested. The letter was written in blood, the blood of each man there, and they had all signed it. For Japan. Kato knelt and drew his knife. He looked at his chief NCO, who was standing beside him, his pistol in his hand. “Banzai,” he said. “Banzai.”

  Kato stabbed the knife to the hilt in his own stomach. The sergeant raised his pistol and shot Kato in the back of the head. Blood and brains flew from the captain’s head. The sound of the shot made a stupendous thunderclap in the hallway. In the silence that followed, he could hear the tinny sound of the spent cartridge skittering across the floor. Air escaping from the captain’s body made an audible sound, but the sergeant was paying no attention. He looked at his comrades. They, too, had their pistols out. Brave men, doing what had to be done. The sergeant took a deep breath, then raised the barrel of his pistol to his own head. The others did the same. The sergeant inadvertently squeezed his eyes shut just before he pulled the trigger.

  2

  “Captain Kato and his men were all dead when the security men got there,” Takeo Yahiro told the prime minister, Atsuko Abe. “Apparently they committed suicide after they beheaded the emperor. The empress was the only person alive — she was passed out on the floor.”

  Abe’s astonishment showed on his face. “The emperor was beheaded in the presence of his wife?”

  “It would seem so, sir. She was lying on the floor in a faint when the security officers came upon the scene.”

  Abe shook his head, trying to make the nightmare easier to endure. To assassinate a powerful official for political reasons was certainly not unheard of in Japan, but to do so in the presence of his wife…, the empress? He had never heard of such a thing. What would the public think?

  “Captain Kato left a letter under the sword scabbard, sir, a letter written in blood. It gave the reasons for his actions.”

  The prime minister was still fixated upon the presence of the empress at the murder scene. With his eyes closed, he asked, “Did the assassins touch the empress?”

  “I do not know, sir. Perhaps the doctors—“

  “Has the press gotten this detail?”

  Takeo Yahiro spoke softly, yet with assurance. “No, sir. I took the liberty of refusing to allow any press release until senior officials were notified.”

  Abe breathed deeply through his nose, considering, before he finally opened his eyes. He nodded almost imperceptibly, a mere fraction of an inch. “Very well, Yahiro. Inflaming the public will not accomplish anything. A tragedy, a horrible tragedy …”

  “There was a letter, sir. The assassins were disciples of Mishima.”

  “Ahh …” said the prime minister, then fell silent, thinking. Yukio Mishima had been an ultranationalist, a zealot. Unfortunately he had also been a writer, a novelist, one with a flaming passion for the brutal, bloody gesture. Thirty-eight years ago he and four followers stormed into Japan’s military headquarters in downtown Tokyo, barricaded themselves in the office of the commanding general, and called for the military to take over the nation. That didn’t happen, of course, but Mishima was not to be denied. He removed his tunic and plunged a sword into his belly; then one of his disciples lopped off his head before killing himself, as well. The whole thing was neatly and tidily done in the grand samurai tradition. Mishima seared a bold political statement into the national conscience in a way impossible to ignore. And, incidentally, there was no one left alive for the authorities to punish — except for a few people on a minor trespass charge. In the years since Mishima had become a cult figure. His ultranationalistic, militarist message was winning new converts every day, people who were finally coming to understand that they had an absolute duty to fulfill the nation’s destiny, to uphold its honor. “Public dissemination of the fact that the empress was a witness to her husband’s assassination would accomplish nothing,” Abe said. “The empress may mention it, sir.”

  “She never speaks to the press without clearing her remarks with the Imperial Household Agency. She has suffered a terrible shock. When she recovers, she will understand that to speak of her presence at the murder scene would not be in the national interest.”

  “Yes, sir. I will call the agency immediately.”

  The prime minister merely nodded — Yahiro was quite reliable — then moved on. “Prince Hirohito must be placed on the throne. In a matter of hours. Ensure that the ancient ceremony is scrupulously observed — the nation’s honor demands it. He must receive the imperial and state seals and the replicas of the Amaterasu treasures.” The actual treasures — a mirror, a sword, and a crescent-shaped jewel — could be traced back to the Shinto sun goddess, Amaterasu, from whom the imperial family was descended, so they were too precious to be removed from their vault. “Arrange it, please, Yahiro.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister. By all means.”

  “The senior ministers will all attend. The empress may attend if the doctors think she is strong enough.”

  The prime minister was almost overcome by the historic overtones of the moment and was briefly unable to speak. The emperor was dead. A new em
peror was waiting to be enthroned. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. So much to be done “Clear my calendar and send for a speechwriter,” the prime minister told the aide. “And the protocol officer. We must declare a period of national mourning, notify the foreign embassies — all of that — then set up a state funeral. Heads of government from all over the world will undoubtedly attend, so there is much planning to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ensure that a copy of Captain Kato’s letter is given to the press. The public is entitled to know the reason for this great calamity.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We are on the cusp of history, Yahiro. We must strive to measure up to the va/s of our responsibilities. Future generations will judge us critically.”

  Yahiro pondered that remark as he went out of the office, but only for a few seconds. He was a busy man. Prime Minister Abe waited until the door closed on Yahiro; then he opened the door to the conference room that adjoined his office and went in. Two men in uniform were sitting at the large table. Small teacups sat on the table before them. One of the men was chief of the Japanese Self-Defense Force. The other was his deputy. The two soldiers looked expectantly at Abe’s face. “It is done.”

  The soldiers straightened in their chairs, looked at one another. “His wife was with him … She saw it.”

  “A bad omen,” one said. Careful planning, dedicated men, and then this horrible slipup. “We’ll try to keep the public from learning that fact,” Abe said. He made a gesture of irritation. “We must move on. There is much to be done.”

  The generals got to their feet, then bowed. “For Japan,” the chief of staff said softly.

  When Masako awoke, she was in her bed in the royal residence, a Western-style home on the grounds of the Imperial Palace. A physician and nurse were in attendance. The nurse was taking her pulse; the doctor was writing something. She closed her eyes. The scene came back so vividly she opened them again, focused on the ceiling. The nurse whispered to the doctor; the doctor came to check her head. He pressed on her forehead, which was sore. Apparently, she had hit it when she had fallen. “Please leave me alone,” she asked. It took a while, with much bowing by the nurse, but eventually the professionals left the room and closed the door behind them. Masako kept her eyes open. She was afraid of what she might see if she closed them. They killed him. She wondered if she was going to cry. When it became apparent that she was not, she sat up in bed, examined her sore head in a mirror. Yes, she had fallen on her forehead, which sported a vicious bruise. She fingered the place, felt the pain as she pressed, savored it. They killed him! A shy, gentle man, a figurehead with no power. Murdered. For reasons that would be specious, ridiculous. For reasons that would interest only an insane fanatic, they killed him. She felt empty, as if all life had been taken from her. She was only an unfeeling shell, a mere observer of this horrible tragedy that this woman named Masako was living through. She sat upon the bed, unwilling to move. Scenes of her life with Naruhito flashed through her mind, raced along, but finally they were gone and the tree outside had thrown the room in shadow, and she was merely alone, in an empty room, with her husband dead.