Even after being briefed by the engineers in Beijing, he was stunned by the power of the blast. People around him screamed and dived to the floor, as did he, covering his head and making sure that panic read clearly on his face. He surreptitiously watched the people around him, not wanting to be the first, or the last, to look up.

When others started to move, he lifted his head and peered through the cracked window in front of him. As promised, the explosion had indeed been tightly concentrated. The entire front of the building across the street was caved in and starting to burn. People who weren’t lying motionless were fleeing desperately in every direction. Mangled cars, one still spinning on its roof, were scattered like a child’s discarded toys.

Yoshima stared into the smoke and dust billowing from the hole in the building across from him and felt his brow furrow involuntarily. The wind was pulling at the cloud, providing brief glimpses of what was behind. It took a moment for his mind to knit together the patchwork but when it did, he forgot the cameras and rose to his feet.

There should have been no more left of Takahashi’s car than a few small pieces of twisted metal and burning rubber. But there it was, lying intact on its side in the rubble.

Impossible.

11

11

Tokyo
Japan

General Masao Takahashi could no longer make sense of a world he thought he understood. There was no sound but the ringing in his ears and there was no light beyond a few muted rays coming from above. The only thing that seemed familiar was the ache in his shoulder, though he didn’t know why it hurt or when the pain had started.

After a few moments his equilibrium came back enough for him to realize that he wasn’t sitting upright. His arm was jammed between the back of the vehicle’s front seat and the door. The light filtering in was coming through a window. The car was on its side.

“Genzo,” he called out, but his driver didn’t answer.

Takahashi freed his arm, finally feeling his mind start to come back online. He was crumpled against the driver’s-side rear window, and through the glass he could see a mix of bright floor tiles and rubble.

“Genzo,” he said louder, righting himself to the best of his ability and leaning forward through the seats. His driver hadn’t been wearing a seat belt and lay motionless with one hand hanging loosely through the steering wheel. There was a blood smear about ten centimeters in diameter on the undamaged windshield, and when Takahashi reached for his man he discovered the stain had come from what had once been Genzo’s forehead.