Black Wind (8 page)

“Perlmutter here.”

“Julien, it's Dirk. How's my favorite nautical historian?”

“Dirk, my boy, so good to hear from you! I was just enjoying some pickled green mangoes your father sent me from the Philippines. Pray tell, how are you enjoying the Great White North?”

“We just finished our survey in the Aleutians, so I am back in the Pacific Northwest. The islands were quite beautiful, though, but it was a little cold for my blood.”

“Heavens, I can imagine,” Perlmutter's voice bellowed. “So, what's on your mind, Dirk?”

“World War Two–era Japanese submarines, to be exact. I'm curious about their record of attacks on the U.S. mainland and any unusual weaponry in their arsenals.”

“Imperial submarines, eh? I recall they made some fairly harmless attacks on the West Coast, but I have not delved into my Japanese wartime files in some time. I'll have to do some nosing about for you.”

“Thanks, Julien. And one more thing. Let me know if you run across any references to the use of cyanide as an armament.”

“Cyanide. Now, that would be nasty, wouldn't it?” Perlmutter asked rhetorically before hanging up.

*  *  *

C
ONTEMPLATING THE
enormous collection of rare maritime history books and manuscripts jammed into his Georgetown carriage house, St. Julien Perlmutter needed only a few seconds of pondering to pinpoint the material he was looking for. Perlmutter resembled an overgrown Santa Claus, with sparkling blue eyes, a huge gray beard, and an enormous belly that helped him tip the scales at nearly four hundred pounds. Besides a penchant for gourmet foods, Perlmutter was known as one of the world's foremost maritime historians, in large part due to his peerless collection of sea-related ephemeris.

Clad in silk pajamas and a paisley robe, Perlmutter padded across a thick Persian carpet to a mahogany bookcase, where he examined several titles before pulling down a book and two large binders with his meaty hands. Satisfied it was the material he was looking for, the immense man returned to an overstuffed red leather chair, where a plate of truffles and a hot pot of tea beckoned him.

*  *  *

D
IRK CONTINUED
on his drive to Portland, where he found the antique auto auction he was looking for at a large, grassy fairgrounds at the city's edge. Scores of people milled about the gleaming autos, most from the forties, fifties, and sixties, which were neatly lined up on the wide grass field. Dirk sauntered by the cars, admiring the paint jobs and mechanical restorations, before heading to a large white-canopied tent where the auctioning was taking place.

Inside, loudspeakers blared out the auctioneer's grating staccato voice as he spat out price bids like a rapid-fire machine gun. Grabbing a side seat away from the blare, Dirk watched in amusement as the team of auctioneers, wearing a ridiculous combination of seventies-style tuxedos and cheap cowboy hats, pranced around in a futile attempt to hype the excitement, and price, of each car. After several Corvettes and an early Thunderbird were passed through, Dirk sat up as a 1958 Chrysler 300-D drove up onto the stage. The huge car was painted an original Aztec turquoise, enhanced by miles of gleaming chrome and a pair of rear tail fins that jutted into the air like the dorsal fin of a shark. In a reaction only a true car fanatic could understand, Dirk felt his heartbeat quicken simply at the sight of the artistic mass of steel and glass.

“Perfectly restored to concourse condition by Pastime Restorations of Golden, Colorado,” the auctioneer pitched. He resumed his vocal convulsions, but bidding on the car surprisingly stalled early. Dirk raised his hand in the air and was soon dueling for the car with an overweight man wearing yellow suspenders. Dirk quickly countered his opponent's bids in rapid succession, showing his intent was serious. The tactic worked. Yellow Suspenders shook his head after the third bid and headed toward the bar.

“Sold to the man in the NUMA hat!” the auctioneer barked as the surrounding crowd applauded politely. Though it cost him several months' salary, Dirk recognized it was a good buy, knowing that less than two hundred Chrysler 300-D convertibles were manufactured in 1958.

As he arranged to have the car shipped up to Seattle, his cell phone started to ring.

“Dirk, it's Julien. I have some information for you.”

“That was fast service.”

“Well, I wanted to get back to you before supper,” Perlmutter replied, contemplating his next meal.

“What can you tell me, Julien?”

“After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese placed nine or ten submarines on station along the West Coast, but they were gradually pulled off as the battle action moved to the South Pacific. The Japanese submarines were primarily on reconnaissance missions, observing the major bays and harbors while trying to track major ship movements. They did manage to sink a handful of merchant ships early in the war and create a dose of psychological fear in the general public along the way. As for actual land attacks, the first occurred in early 1942, when the
I-17
lobbed a few shells near Santa Barbara, damaging a pier and an oil derrick. In June of '42, the
I-25
fired upon Fort Stevens, near Astoria, Oregon, while the
I-26
bombarded a radio station on Vancouver Island in Canada. No fatalities were recorded in either of the attacks. In August of 1942, the
I-25
returned near Cape Blanco, Oregon, and launched a seaplane armed with incendiary bombs in an attempt set fire to the nearby forests. The attack was a failure, as only one small fire was ignited in the region.”

“Sounds like they were primarily nuisance attacks,” Dirk commented.

“Yes, there was nothing overly strategic about their actions. Things slowed down after the incendiary attack, as the submarines were moved north to support the Aleutian campaign. Imperial submarines were heavily involved in supporting the capture and later evacuation of Attu and Kiska islands during fighting in 1943. The Japanese lost five subs during the Aleutian battles as our sonar technology really began to pick them out of the seas. After the fall of Kiska, just a few Imperial submarines continued to operate in the north and western Pacific. The
I-180
was attacked and sunk near Kodiak, Alaska, in April of 1944, then things were pretty quiet on the home front until the
I-403
was sunk off Cape Flattery, Washington, in January 1945.”

“Odd that one would get tagged off the West Coast at a point in the war when their navy was on its last legs.”

“It's even more queer when you consider that the
I-403
was one of their big boats. Apparently, it was planning an air attack when it was surprised by an American destroyer.”

“Hard to believe they constructed submarines back then capable of carrying an airplane,” Dirk marveled.

“Their big boats could carry not just one but actually three airplanes. They were massive beasts.”

“Did you find any indication that the naval forces used cyanide weapons?”

“None that was recorded in battle, but they did exist. It was the Imperial Army, I believe, and its biological warfare unit in China, that experimented with biological and chemical weapons. They did fool around with cyanide artillery shells, among other things, so it is possible the Navy tried experimenting with them, but there is no official record of their use.”

“I guess there is no way to prove it, but I suspect the
I-25
launched a cyanide shell that killed four people the day before it attacked Fort Stevens.”

“Quite possible. May be hard to prove, as the
I-25
was later lost in the South Pacific, presumably sunk near Espiritu Santo Island in 1943. But with one possible exception, all accounts I have seen indicate that the Japanese vessels were armed only with conventional weapons.”

“And the exception?”

“The
I-403
again. I found a reference in a postwar Army journal stating that a shipment of
Makaze
ordnance was transferred to the Navy and delivered to the submarine in Kure prior to her last sailing. I've never seen a reference to
Makaze
before, however, and could find no other references in my ordnance and munitions files.”

“Any idea what the term means?”

“The best translation I can make of it is ‘Black Wind.'”

*  *  *

D
IRK MADE
a short phone call to Leo Delgado, then reached Dahlgren, who was drinking a beer in a lounge overlooking Lake Washington following his morning kayak with the bank teller.

“Jack, you up for a dive tomorrow?” Dirk asked.

“Sure. Spearfishing in the Sound?”

“I've got something a little bigger in mind.”

“King salmon are game for me.”

“The fish I'm interested in,” Dirk continued, “hasn't swum in over sixty years.”

7

I
RV
F
OWLER WOKE UP
with a raging headache. Too many beers the night before, the scientist mused as he dragged himself out of bed. Chugging down a cup of coffee and a donut, he convinced himself he felt better. But as the day wore on, the pain seemed to swell, with little relief offered despite his multiple hits on a bottle of aspirin. Eventually, his back joined in the game, sending out waves of pain with every movement he made. By midafternoon, he felt weak and tired, and left early from his temporary office at Alaska State Health and Social Services to drive back to his apartment and rest.

After he downed a bowl of chicken soup, his abdomen started firing off streaks of shooting pain. So much for home remedies, he thought. After several fitful naps, he staggered into the bathroom for another dose of aspirin to help kill the pain. Looking into the glassy-eyed worn and weary face that stared back at him from the mirror, he noticed a bright red rash emerging on his cheeks.

“Damndest flu I've ever had,” he muttered aloud, then fell back into bed in a heap.

*  *  *

S
ECURITY WAS
tight at the Tokyo Hilton Hotel and guests for the private banquet were required to pass through three separate checkpoints before gaining entry to the lavish dining hall. The Japan Export Association's annual dinner was an extravagant affair featuring the best local chefs and entertainers performing for the country's top business leaders and dignitaries. Executives from Japan's major exporting companies helped sponsor the dinner on behalf of their major trading partners. In addition to key customers, in-country diplomats from all the Western and Asian countries that constituted Japan's primary trading partners were treated as special guests.

The recent assassination of U.S. Ambassador Hamilton and the bedlam at the SemCon factory opening had created a buzz in the crowd and heads turned when the American embassy's deputy chief of mission, Robert Bridges, entered the room, accompanied by two undercover security men.

Though a career diplomat, Bridges was more at home working policy strategies or conducting business security briefings rather than socializing in mass crowds. Hamilton had been by far the better glad-hander, Bridges thought as he made small talk with a Japanese trade representative. A dinner host soon arrived and escorted him to a small banquet table, where he was seated with a number of European diplomats.

As traditional dishes of sashimi and soba noodles were brought to the tables, a troupe of geisha dancers glided elegantly about a raised stage, dressed in brightly colored kimonos and twirling bamboo fans as they pirouetted. Bridges downed a shot of warm sake to help deaden the pain of listening to the French ambassador drone on about the poor quality of Asian wines while he watched the dancers spin.

As the first course was finished, a litany of corporate executives took to the stage to promote their self-importance with blustery speeches. Bridges took the opportunity to visit the restroom and, with a large bodyguard leading the way, walked down a side corridor and into the men's room.

The bodyguard scanned the tiled restroom, finding only a waiter washing his hands in a sink at the far end. Letting Bridges pass to the urinal, the bodyguard closed the door and stood facing the interior.

The bald waiter slowly finished washing his hands, then turned his back to the bodyguard as he dried his hands from a paper towel rack. When he spun back toward the door, the bodyguard was shocked to see a .25 automatic in the waiter's hand. A silencer was affixed to the muzzle of the small handgun, with the business end pointed directly at the bodyguard's face. Instinctively grabbing for his own weapon, the bodyguard had barely moved his hand when the .25 emitted a muffled cough. A neat red hole appeared just above the bodyguard's left eyebrow and the large man raised up and back momentarily before collapsing to the floor with a thud, a river of red blood running from his head.

Bridges failed to detect the muffled gunshot but heard the bodyguard collapse. Turning to see the waiter pointing the gun at him, Bridges could only mutter,“What the hell?”

The bald man in the waiter suit stared back at him with deathly cold black eyes, then broke into a sadistic grin that revealed a row of crooked yellow teeth. Without saying a word, he squeezed the trigger two times and watched as Bridges grasped his chest and fell to the ground. The assassin pulled a typewritten note out of his pocket and rolled it up tight into the shape of a tube. He then bent over and wedged it into the dead diplomat's mouth like a flagpole. Carefully disassembling his silencer and placing it in his pocket, he gingerly stepped over the two bodies and out the door, disappearing down a hall toward the kitchen.

8

T
HE FIBERGLASS BOW
of the twenty-five-foot Parker workboat plunged through the deep, wide swells, cutting a white foamy path as it rolled through the trough before cresting on the peak of the next wave. Though tiny in comparison to most vessels in the NUMA fleet, the durable little boat, identified on the stern as the
Grunion
, was ideal for surveying inland and coastal waterways, as well as supporting shallow-water dive operations.

Leo Delgado rolled the helm's wheel to the right and the
Grunion
quickly nosed to starboard and out of the path of a large red freighter bearing down on them near the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

“How far from the strait?” he asked, spinning the wheel hard to port a moment later in order to take the passing freighter's wake bow on.

Standing alongside in the cramped cabin, Dirk and Dahlgren were hunched over a small table studying a nautical chart of their present position near the entrance to the Pacific Ocean, some 125 miles west of Seattle.

“Approximately twelve miles southwest of Cape Flattery,” Dirk said over his shoulder, then dictated latitude and longitude coordinates to Delgado. The
Deep Endeavor
's first officer reached over to a keyboard and tapped the position into the small boat's computerized navigation system. A few seconds later, a tiny white square appeared in the upper corner of a flat-screen monitor that hung from the ceiling. At the lower edge of the monitor, a small white triangle flashed on and off, representing the
Grunion
as it motored into the Pacific. With the aid of a satellite Global Positioning System interface, Delgado was able to steer a path directly toward the marked position.

“Now, you guys are sure Captain Burch isn't going to find out we borrowed his support boat and are burning his fuel just for a pleasure dive?” Delgado asked somewhat sheepishly.

“You mean this is Burch's private boat?” Dirk replied with mock horror.

“If he comes snooping, we'll just tell him that Bill Gates stopped by and offered us a few million stock options if he could take the
Grunion
out for a spin,” Dahlgren offered.

“Thanks. I knew I could trust you guys,” Delgado muttered, shaking his head. “By the way, how good is your fix on the submarine's location?”

“Came right out of the official Navy report on the sinking that Perlmutter faxed me,” Dirk replied, grabbing the cabin door sill for balance as the boat rolled over a large swell. “We'll start with the position that was recorded by the destroyer after she sank the
I-403
.”

“Too bad the Navy didn't have GPS back in 1945,” Delgado lamented.

“Yes, the wartime action reports weren't always entirely accurate, especially where locations are concerned. But the destroyer had not traveled very far from shore when it engaged the sub, so their reported position ought to put us in the ballpark.”

When the
Grunion
reached the marked position, Delgado eased the throttle into neutral and began keying a search grid into the navigation computer. On the back deck, Dirk and Dahlgren unpacked a Klein Model 3000 side-scan sonar system from a reinforced plastic crate. As Dirk hooked up the cables to the operating system, Dahlgren reeled a yellow cylindrical sonar towfish out over the stern gunwale and into the water.

“The fish is out,” Dahlgren yelled from the back deck, whereupon Delgado applied a light throttle and the boat edged forward. In a matter of minutes, Dirk had the equipment calibrated, resulting in a continuous stream of contrasting shadowy images sliding across a color monitor. The images were reflections of sound waves emitted from the towfish, which bounced off the seafloor and were recaptured and processed into visual recordings of protrusions or cavities on the sea bottom.

“I have a one-mile-square grid plotted around the
Theodore Knight
's reported position at the time she rammed the sub,” Delgado said.

“That sounds like a good starting range,” Dirk replied. “We can expand the grid if we need to.”

Delgado proceeded to steer the boat down a white line on the monitor until the end of the grid was reached, then he spun the wheel around and brought the boat down the next line in the opposite direction. Back and forth the
Grunion
sailed, in narrow two-hundred-meter paths, slowly chewing up the grid while Dirk kept a sharp eye for a long, dark shadow on the sonar monitor that would represent the I-boat lying on the bottom.

An hour went by and the only recognizable image that appeared on the sonar screen was a pair of fifty-five-gallon drums. After two hours, Dahlgren broke out tuna sandwiches from an ice chest and tried to relieve the tedium by telling an assortment of weakly humorous redneck jokes. Finally, after three hours of searching, Dirk's voice suddenly cut through the damp air.

“Target! Mark position.”

Gradually, the fuzzy image of an elongated object rolled across the screen, joined by two smaller protrusions near one end and a large object lying next to it amidships.

“Lord have mercy!” Dahlgren shouted, studying the image. “Looks like a submarine to me.”

Dirk glanced at a scale measurement at the bottom of the screen. “She's about 350 feet long, just as Perlmutter's records indicate. Leo, let's take another pass to verify the position, then see if you can park us right on top of her.”

“Can do,” Delgado replied with a grin while swinging the
Grunion
around for another run over the target. The second-pass image showed that the submarine was clearly intact and appeared to be sitting upright on the bottom. As Delgado punched the precise location into the GPS system, Dirk and Dahlgren hauled in the sonar towfish, then unpacked a pair of large dive bags.

“What's our depth here, Leo?” Dahlgren called out as he poked his feet through the leggings of a black neoprene wet suit.

“About 170 feet,” Delgado replied, eyeing a humming fathometer.

“That will only give us twenty minutes of bottom time, with a twenty-five-minute decompression stop on the way up,” Dirk said, recalling the recommended dive duration from the Navy Dive Tables.

“Not a lot of time to cover that big fish,” Dahlgren considered.

“The aircraft armament is what I am most interested in,” Dirk replied. “According to the Navy report, both aircraft were on deck when the destroyer attacked. I'm betting those two sonar images off the bow are the Seiran bombers.”

“Suits me fine if we don't have to get inside that coffin.” Dahlgren shook his head briefly, considering the scene in his head, then proceeded to strap on a well-worn lead weight belt.

When Dirk and Dahlgren were suited up in their dive gear, Delgado brought the
Grunion
back over the target position and threw out a small buoy tied to two hundred feet of line. The two black-suited divers took a giant step off the rear dive platform and plunged fin first into the ocean.

The cold Pacific water was a shock to Dirk's skin as he dropped beneath the surface and he paused momentarily in the green liquid, waiting for the thin layer of water trapped by the wet suit surface to match the warmth of his body heat.

“Damn, I knew we should have brought the dry suits,” Dahlgren's voice crackled in Dirk's ears. The two men wore full-face AGA Divator MK II dive masks with an integrated wireless communication system, so they could talk to each other while underwater.

“What do you mean, it feels just like the Keys,” Dirk joked, referring to the warm-water islands at the south end of Florida.

“I think you've been eating too much smoked salmon,” Dahlgren retorted.

Dirk purged the air out of his buoyancy compensator and cleared his ears, then flipped over and began kicking toward the bottom following the anchored buoy line. Dahlgren followed, tagging a few feet behind. A slight current pushed them toward the east, so Dirk compensated by angling himself against the flow as he descended, trying to maintain their relative position over the target. As they swam deeper, they passed through a thermocline, feeling the water temperature turn noticeably colder in just an instant. At 110 feet, the green water darkened as the murky water filtered the surface light. At 120 feet, Dirk flipped on a small underwater light strapped to his hood like a coal miner. As they descended a few more feet, the elongated, dark shape of the Japanese submarine suddenly grew out of the depths.

The huge black submarine lay quietly at the bottom, a silent iron mausoleum for the sailors who died on her. She had landed on her keel when she sank and sat proudly upright on the bottom, as if ready to set sail again. As Dirk and Dahlgren drew closer, they were amazed at the sheer size of the vessel. Descending near the bow, they could barely see a quarter of the ship before its bulk disappeared into the murky darkness. Dirk hovered over the bow for a moment, admiring the impressive girth, before examining the catapult ramp that angled down the center deck.

“Dirk, I see one of the planes over here,” Dahlgren said, pointing an arm toward a pile of debris lying off the port bow. “I'll go take a look.”

“The second plane should be farther back, according to the sonar reading. I'll head in that direction,” Dirk replied, swimming along the deck.

Dahlgren quickly darted over to the wreckage, which he could easily see was the remains of a single-engine floatplane, dusted in a heavy layer of fine silt. The Aichi M6A1 Seiran was a sleek-looking monoplane specially designed as a submarine-launched bomber for the big I-boats. Its rakish design, similar in appearance to a Messerschmitt fighter, was made comical by the attachment of two huge pontoons braced several feet below the wing, which looked like oversized clown shoes extending beyond the fuselage. Dahlgren could see only a split portion of one pontoon, though, as the left float and wing had been sheared off by the charging American destroyer. The fuselage and right wing remained intact, propped up at an odd angle by the damaged pontoon. Dahlgren swam to the seafloor in front of the plane, studying the visible undercarriage and wing bottom of the bomber. Moving closer, he fanned an accumulation of silt away from several protrusions, revealing a set of bomb grips. The clasps that secured the bomber's payload were empty of armament.

Gliding slowly up the side of the fuselage, Dahlgren kicked over to the half-crushed cockpit canopy and wiped away a layer of silt from the glass enclosure. Shining his light inside, he felt his heart pound rapidly at the startling sight. A human skull stared up at him from the pilot's seat, the bared teeth seeming to smile at him in a macabre grin. Playing the light about the cockpit, he recognized a pair of deteriorated flying boots on the floorboard, a sizable bone remnant jutting out of one opening. The collapsed bones of the pilot still occupied the plane, Dahlgren realized, the flier having gone down with his ship.

Dahlgren slowly backed away from the aircraft, then called Dirk on the radiophone.

“Say, old buddy, I've got the business end of one of the floatplanes here, but it doesn't look like she had any weapons mounted when she sank. Airman Skully sends his regards, though.”

“I've found the remains of the second plane and she's clean as well,” Dirk replied. “Meet me at the conning tower.”

Dirk had found the second bomber lying thirty yards away from the sub, flipped over on its back. The two large pontoons had been ripped off the Seiran bomber when the sub went under, and the plane's fuselage, with wings still attached, had fluttered down to the bottom. He could easily see that no ordnance was mounted on the undercarriage and found no evidence that a bomb or torpedo had fallen away when the plane sank.

Swimming back to the sub's topside deck, he followed the eighty-five-foot-long catapult ramp along the bow until reaching a large round hatch. The vertical hatch capped the end of a large twelve-foot-diameter tube, which was mounted at the base of the conning tower and stretched aft for more than one hundred feet. The airtight tube had been the hangar for the Seiran aircraft, storing the sectional pieces of the planes until they were ready for launching. Set back above the tubular section was a small platform containing triple-mounted 25mm antiaircraft guns, which still sat with their barrels pointed skyward waiting for an unseen enemy.

Instead of a large metal sail rising upward, Dirk found a huge hole in the center of the
I-403
, the gaping remains of where the conning tower had been sheared off in the collision. A small school of lingcod swam around the jagged crater's edge, feeding on smaller marine life and adding a splash of color to the dark scene.

“Wow, you could drive your Chrysler through that hole,” Dahlgren remarked as he swam up alongside Dirk and surveyed the crater.

“With change to spare. She must have gone down in a hurry when the sail ripped off.” The two men silently visualized the violent collision between the two war vessels so many years before and imagined the agony of the helpless crew of the
I-403
as the submarine sank to the bottom.

“Jack, why don't you take a pass through the hangar and see if you can eyeball any ordnance,” Dirk said, pointing a gloved hand toward a gash along the top of the aircraft hangar. “I'll go belowdecks and do the same.”

Dirk glanced at the orange face of his Doxa dive watch, a gift from his father on his last birthday. “We've only got eight more minutes of bottom time. Let's be quick.”

“I'll meet you back here in six,” Dahlgren said, then disappeared with a kick of his fins through the gash in the hangar wall.

Dirk entered the gloomy crevice adjacent to the hangar, diving past a jagged edge of mangled and twisted steel. As he descended, he could make out the sub's unusual twin side-by-side pressured hulls, which ran lengthwise down the keel. He entered an open bay and quickly identified it as the remains of the control room, as evidenced by a large mounted helm's wheel, now covered in barnacles. An array of radio equipment was fixed to one side of the room while an assortment of mechanical levers and controls protruded from another wall and ceiling. Shining his light on one set of valves, he made out
BARASUTO TANKU
in white lettering, which he presumed operated the ballast tanks.