Popular Hits of the Showa Era (18 page)

Neither Nobue nor Ishihara had any talent for or experience with this sort of thing, but they found it surprisingly easy to acquire the necessary items at stores that specialized in chemicals and science equipment. Once they had everything, they set to work in all earnestness, poring over Haseyama Genjiro’s notes literally hundreds of times as they manipulated the ingredients. Incredibly, not once during the days that followed did they joke or goof around or laugh meaninglessly or tease or ridicule each other. What’s more, they restricted themselves to simple meals of sandwiches and coffee and never ate to the point of satiation. They mastered the operation of the reflux condenser and the separating funnel, and used almost excessive care at every step—whether heating test tubes to precisely three hundred degrees or icing gas-wash bottles for exactly forty-five minutes. Neither of them had ever before had anything to which to dedicate themselves so thoroughly, and they absorbed the basics of chemistry the way sand dunes absorb rain, working relentlessly and rarely catching more than an hour or two of sleep at a time. Gradually they began to feel that they finally understood what it was they’d been so starved for all their lives, what it was they really wanted. It was the first time that either of them had ever been able to throw himself into an endeavor so wholeheartedly that nothing else in the world mattered or rated as a distraction. They not only refrained from masturbation, for example—they forgot even to think about it.

“For a Better Tomorrow #3: Convert the ethylene and propylene to ethylene oxide and propylene oxide, respectively. CAUTION: Both oxides are highly flammable when mixed with air. Take special care not to expose these substances to any potential source of ignition, such as open flames, excessive heat, sparks, etc. Use well-iced gas-wash bottles….”

Haseyama Genjiro’s notes were precise down to the smallest detail—and therefore exceedingly dangerous in the wrong hands. But perhaps he had judged from looking at his two protégés’ faces that they would never succeed in constructing the item in question. He had asked them to come back and show him when they’d produced one-five-hundredth of the necessary material, thinking that if they succeeded in making even that much, he might reference their work in his next film. But by the time they began accumulating ethylene oxide and propylene oxide, Ishihara and Nobue had forgotten all about Haseyama Genjiro.

“For a Better Tomorrow #4: Combine the ethylene oxide and propylene oxide, in the ratio indicated above, in an appropriate vessel. A tank of some sort works best….

“For a Better Tomorrow #5: The fuse is of utmost importance. It must be what is commonly referred to as a delayed fuse, to trigger the explosion some seconds (see chart below) after the tank bursts upon impact with the ground….”

Various types of vessels were suggested in the notes, from plastic gas cans to milk bottles, but Ishihara and Nobue finally decided on a container of their own invention. They got hold of a very large and sturdily constructed tripod case of the sort used by film production companies and devised a thick, insulated vinyl bag to fit inside it. They filled the plastic bag with their mixture, fitted it into the tripod case—leaving not a centimeter of wiggle room—and covered it with a false bottom. On top of this they gently placed a much smaller tripod than the case was designed for. They made the delayed fuse, which would work on the same general principle as a hand grenade, out of one of those cylindrical tins that hold two hundred nonfiltered Peace cigarettes. They wrapped black gunpowder from dissected fire-crackers inside a tight roll of thick paper, which they packed inside the tin, along with a number of thin leaden tubes from toy model kits, also filled with gunpowder. They set a spring-loaded striker in such a way that it would release on impact, igniting the delay powder in the little leaden tubes, which in turn would ignite the fuse. Finally, they surrounded the fuse with triggering explosive and blasting powder. One Peace tin was all they needed. Nineteen days after they’d begun their work, the weapon was complete.

It was a fuel-air explosive (FAE), also called a thermobaric bomb, but more commonly known as the poor man’s nuclear weapon.

On
a sunny winter’s day, Nobue and Ishihara arrived at the offices of a helicopter charter service at Haneda Airport. They were carrying a Betacam video camera they’d rented and two tripod cases. They’d already made a reservation, and the transaction was processed quickly and uneventfully. Ishihara was posing as a cameraman employed by a German TV station, and Nobue as his assistant. No one would ever imagine homegrown terrorists chartering a heli for two hours at a hundred fifty thousand yen an hour. Besides, they hadn’t requested a flight over the Imperial Palace or the Diet building but rather the bland Tokyo suburb of Chofu City. Sitting on a plush sofa in the waiting room sipping cups of roasted-rice tea supplied by a young lady in black stockings, they wrote random names and addresses on the paperwork, scribbled on the dotted lines, paid cash in advance, and got a receipt.

“All set?” said the young pilot when they were introduced at the helipad. Nobue and Ishihara took one look at him and nearly squealed like teenage girls: he was a dead ringer for the late Sugioka. “We’ve removed the rear door to facilitate filming.”

Parked in the center of a big yellow-painted circle was a vintage Sikorsky. The Sugioka-look-alike pilot helped them climb into the rear seat with their video camera and tripod cases. Nobue held the camera in his lap. “Here we go,” said the pilot as the rotors began spinning and they lifted off. Below them, on the ground, the clerk who’d just accepted their three hundred thousand yen was smiling and waving moronically.

“We’ll head straight for Chofu, then, is that correct?” the pilot said over the intercom. Ishihara, who was already having the time of his life, replied in a queer falsetto voice, “That’s correct, dahhhling!” The pilot turned to give him a brief stare but then decided to let it go—no doubt there were a lot of eccentric people in TV and film. “Which part of Chofu?” he asked. “Chofu Station, please,” said Nobue, and both he and Ishihara, buffeted by the wind coming through the open door, burst into uncontrollable laughter. The pilot spoke again.

“We’ll arrive in fifteen minutes.”

III

Henmi
Midori was at home watching
Emmanuelle 4
. The film had been broadcast on WOWOW a couple of nights before, and she’d recorded it to video. It was early afternoon. A while ago she had called Tomiyama Midori, only to hear that Tomii was busy visiting with her son and didn’t have time to talk. She had then leafed absently through the textbook for an English conversation class she’d recently begun attending. Her body felt fuzzy and itchy inside, however, reminding her that it was about time for her period to begin, and the English letters began to look like microscopic photos of sperm, so she’d closed the book and inserted the tape of the sophisticated soft-porn film she’d set her VCR to record in the wee hours of the night before last. The original Emmanuelle, a middle-aged woman now, played a part in this film as well. How many years had it been since she’d watched the first film in the series with the man she’d been dating at the time? The man had told her that she bore a certain resemblance to Sylvia Kristel, and that night they’d slept together for the first time. It was perfectly clear to Henmi Midori that Sylvia Kristel, even in this later film and with a sagging middle-aged derriere, didn’t look like her in the least. Had the man just been feeding her a line, or was it that he liked her so much that he really imagined a resemblance? As she watched the film and thought back to those times, the itchy sensation worked its way deeper into her body. She was thinking that if she comforted herself now, in the middle of the day, she’d probably end up feeling pretty pathetic, when she noticed a sort of gasoline smell. A split-second later, Henmi Midori knew no more. In the space of an instant, she was burned to a fine ash, along with her entire house.

Tomiyama Midori was enjoying something she’d lost for some time but had regained after the battle on the seashore above Atami—conversation with her son. Osamu had become a regular chatterbox. He talked about school, his favorite TV shows, his friends, girls in his class, and especially American pro basketball, with which he was utterly obsessed. He watched all the games on TV and recorded them to review again and again, and he spoke endlessly of his favorite players and how “off the hook” their skills were. His animated face and shining eyes were adorable and radiated an energy that seemed to seep into and illuminate Tomiyama Midori’s own being. She had received a phone call from Henmi Midori earlier but had cut it short, unwilling to sacrifice even a minute of this precious time with her son. Hemii would only have wanted to reminisce about Atami or talk about the tall young sales rep at her office. “There’s a T-shirt I’ve just got to have,” Osamu was saying, and Tomiyama Midori immediately made up her mind that she would find it for him at any cost. Apparently it was a T-shirt with a picture of someone named Charles Barkley dunking a basketball over Godzilla’s head. “If Barkley and Godzilla ever really did get into a fight,” Osamu said, “Barkley would win for sure, that’s how awesome he is!” Before leaving her condo, Tomiyama Midori had helped her son into his hooded, child-sized Burberry slicker and wrapped herself in a mink half-coat she was paying for in thirty-six installments. They were now walking hand in hand down a poplar-lined street beneath the clear and pale blue winter sky. Such a tiny hand, and yet it contained all the necessary cells and nerves and pulsing blood vessels, she was thinking, and feeling such a surge of love that tears welled up in her eyes, when Osamu pointed at the sky and said, “Look! A chopper!” Neither of them noticed the black cylinder descending from it. They had taken a few more rustling steps through the fallen poplar leaves that covered the street, when the tripod case, after a drop of a thousand meters, hit the ground at a bus stop outside the north entrance to Chofu Station. It burst apart, as did the vinyl bag inside, releasing a gaseous mixture of ethylene oxide and propylene oxide, which instantly dissipated into the air over the entire city of Chofu. A few seconds later, the Peace tin exploded. This set off, not the sort of blast that expands outward, but an instantaneous combustion of the atmosphere itself. Tomiyama Midori and her son, along with all the other people crowding the streets in the center of town, simply evaporated in fire.

Because Suzuki Midori was airing her futon on the veranda of her apartment on the outskirts of town, where the combustion didn’t quite reach, she experienced a somewhat grizzlier death. She had recently begun listening to Mozart, and that afternoon she’d gone to the CD section of a department store and bought Piano Concertos Nos. 22 and 23. She listened to them as she made and ate a spaghetti lunch at her apartment, and then, inspired by the clear blue winter sky, decided to air her futon. Each note emanating from Vladimir Ashkenazy’s piano was like a tangible, sparkling jewel, and the music seemed to seep into her very bones. She wondered how it was that she’d come to feel Mozart so deeply, but the answer occurred to her almost at once. It all had to do with that night at the Atami seashore. A certain sense of superiority she felt at possessing such a powerful secret, a secret such as no one else possessed or could even imagine, was the thread that tied her to Mozart’s sensuality. Unless you had a legitimate sense of entitlement you couldn’t really understand the beauty of Mozart, she was thinking as she carried the futon out to the railing, intoxicated with the adagio of the second movement, and detected a strange odor. The next instant, fire filled her entire field of vision. The explosion itself didn’t reach her veranda, but because it devoured all the oxygen in the vicinity in zero-point-one seconds, she found herself clawing at her own breast as her face twisted into a hideous mask. The Mozart was drowned out by the all-consuming roar of her own throat collapsing, and with blood dripping from her broken nails and the gouges she’d dug into her own chest, she collapsed and expired there on the veranda, sandwiched in her own futon.

The junior college girl with the misaligned eyes was attending a lecture on child psychology in the big lecture hall at her school and wondering why no one in the crowded room took any of the seats around her. It made her sad to think it might be because her face was so scary, as her brother had always told her when she was little and as the manager at MOS Burger had said just recently when she went to apply for a part-time job. In her loneliness, she decided to try and summon up one of her ghost friends to talk to. Sugioka’s ghost was always the first to appear, and today was no exception. But as he emerged from the mists, it was clear that he wasn’t the same sorrowful and docile spirit as always. He was smirking. “You’re all gonna die,” he told her.
What are you talking about? Quit being so weird, or I won’t show you my boobies anymore
, she was about to reply, when the lecture hall disintegrated. “Take
that
!” Sugioka’s ghost snickered. The junior college girl knew right away that she had passed over. She experienced an odd mixture of sorrow and relief on finding that her entire face was gone.

Takeuchi Midori was in her car in the parking structure beneath the Ito Yokado superstore, and she, along with three other housewives who happened to be in their cars, survived both the fuel-air explosion and the depletion of oxygen in the immediate atmosphere. At first she thought it was either an earthquake or a nuclear war, and she sat in her car with all the windows rolled up for a full five minutes, then got out and climbed over the mounds of collapsed bricks and out into the street, where an astonishing sight awaited her. The town was in ruins. Burning automobiles sent up whirling billows of smoke, and charred bodies lay scattered over the ground as far as the eye could see.