“General, the levels are far beyond what that suit was designed to handle. I—”

“Your objections are duly noted,” Takahashi said.

Fear was etched deep in the scientist’s ravaged face. After what had happened to him at Fukushima it wasn’t difficult to determine why.

“Enter your access code to open the enclosure and leave the laboratory,” Takahashi ordered.

“But, General. You ca—”

“Do it now!”

Ito stood frozen as Takahashi put the headgear on and linked to a small air tank.

Finally, the scientist punched his code into a keypad next to the air lock and then hurried for the exit.

Takahashi passed through the air lock and walked directly to the box centered in the enclosure. There were a number of tools designed to be used with the mechanical arms and he picked up the heaviest, struggling to control it in the thick gloves. His breath fogged the suit’s faceplate as he swung the instrument repeatedly into the combination dial. On the fifth try, it shattered and pieces of it scattered across the stone floor. Selecting a more delicate tool, he dug into the exposed mechanism, carefully breaking off the various linkages and wires.

He tried to push back memories of the radiation victims the Americans had left in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but was unable to keep them fully at bay. He’d been only a small child when he’d first seen the burns—similar to Ito’s, but fundamentally different from the war injuries that had been so common at the time. A number of years had passed before the cancers had set in, but he could remember occasionally glimpsing people shamed by massive tumors and hearing tales of their slow, agonizing deaths.

With the last of the latches crumbling, Takahashi used a carbon fiber screwdriver to pry at the lockbox’s seams. He couldn’t hear anything beyond his own breathing, but felt the steel beginning to give as he drove the tool deeper. Sweat was stinging his eyes now and he tried to blink it away as the door finally released.

The documents were intact.

The tension in his shoulders and back relaxed somewhat and he carefully removed the thick stack of manila files.

Fate, it seemed, was once again favoring the Japanese people.

42

42

Outside Yaita
Japan

Jon Smith eased the car along the suburban Japanese street at precisely the speed limit. The houses on either side were a mix of styles, a bit more colorful than he’d expected and all borrowing to some extent from traditional Asian architecture. Most lots were at least an acre, and the overall landscape was too wide open to offer much cover.