Underground (19 page)

The team of Toru Toyoda and Katsuya Takahashi planted sarin on a northeastbound Hibiya Line train leaving Naka-meguro for Tobu-dobutsu-koen (Tobu Animal Park). Toyoda was the perpetrator, Takahashi his driver-accomplice.

Toyoda was born in 1968 in Hyogo Prefecture, near Kobe, west central Japan, and was 27 at the time of the attack. One of the many science-trained “superelite” converts to Aum, he studied applied physics at Tokyo University Science Department and graduated with honors. Progressing to an elite postgraduate laboratory, he completed his master’s and was about to go on to doctoral studies, when he threw it all away and took vows.

Within the cult hierarchy, Toyoda belonged to the Chemical Brigade under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

On the defendant’s bench at his trial, his hair was close-cropped and he wore a white shirt and black jacket. He glowered at everyone, his sharp cheekbones accentuating his thin face. It was the severe scowl of a serious young student. There’s a certain courage, a fiery “seeker-after-truth” streak about him. He’s the type that never rests once he has set his mind on something—he likes to see things through to the end. Or perhaps he is more the type of person willing to martyr himself for a principle. He’s sharp-witted, but is apparently interested only in direct, quantifiable objectives.

A longtime practitioner of Shaolin kick-boxing, he keeps his
backbone amazingly straight. Chin down, face turned to the front, eyes closed ever so slightly (or politely) as if in meditation—throughout the entire trial proceedings, he maintained that posture and never let it slip. Once only, when there was some unusual movement in the courtroom, did he gently open his eyes, and even then his gaze never met anyone else’s. His bearing seemed that of an ascetic undergoing the strictest discipline—or perhaps he actually was in training the whole time.

The contrast could not have been more marked between Toyoda and the spoiled, self-satisfied Ken’ichi Hirose seated next to him. There was just no knowing what Toyoda was thinking or feeling. It was as if he’d absolutely blocked out any wavering of emotion by sheer force of will.

On March 18 Toyoda received his gas attack orders from his superior at the Ministry of Science and Technology, Hideo Murai. Until then he had been involved with the cult’s Automatic Light Weapons Development Scheme and had dirtied his hands in various illegal activities, but even he was shocked by the plan to release sarin on the subway. With his abundant knowledge of chemistry and having also participated in the secret manufacture of sarin at Satyam No. 7, he could easily imagine the tragic consequences of the plan. It was nothing short of random mass slaughter. And he was being asked to take part himself.

Naturally Toyoda anguished over the possibilities. To an ordinary person with normal human feelings, even entertaining the notion of such an outrageous act must seem inconceivable, but Toyoda could not criticize a command from his master. It was as if he’d climbed into a car that was about to plummet down a steep hill at breakneck speed. At this point he lacked both the courage and the judgment to bail out and avoid the coming destruction.

All Toyoda could do—and this is exactly what his colleague Hirose did as well—was adhere to the teachings ever more zealously, to crush all doubts; in short, to shut down his feelings. Rather than leaping out of a speeding car by his own will and judgment, then having to face the consequences, it was far easier just to obey. Toyoda steeled his nerves. Resolution, rather than faith, would see him through.

Toyoda left Aum’s Shibuya
ajid
at
6:30
in the morning, and headed southwest in a car driven by Takahashi toward Naka-meguro Station on the Hibiya Line. On the way he purchased a copy of
Hochi Shimbun
and wrapped his two plastic packets of sarin in it.

His assigned train was B711T, departing at
7:59
for Tobu-dobutsu-koen. He boarded the first car, taking a seat near the door. As usual at this early hour, the train was crowded with commuters on their way to work. In all probability, for most of those who traveled with him, March 20, 1995, was just another ordinary day in their lives. Toyoda set down his bag by his feet, nonchalantly took out the newspaper-wrapped sarin parcels, and dropped them to the floor.

Toyoda was on the train a mere two minutes. When it stopped at the very next station, Ebisu, he unhesitatingly punctured the sarin packets several times with his umbrella, rose, and left. Then he rushed up the stairs to the exit and out to Takahashi’s waiting car. Everything went according to schedule.

Driving back to the Shibuya
ajid
, Takahashi started to show symptoms of sarin poisoning—this was the only miscalculation in the operation. Liquid sarin from Toyoda’s umbrella and clothes were taking effect. Luckily for him Shibuya is not far and there was no lasting damage.

The tip of Toyoda’s umbrella went straight through the plastic packets, spilling all 900 milliliters of liquid sarin onto the floor. Around the time the train reached Roppongi two stops later, passengers in the first car began to “feel strange,” breaking out in a panic just before the next station, Kamiyacho. They struggled to open the car windows, but even that was not enough to prevent the harmful effects. Many tumbled out onto the Kamiyacho Station platform and were taken by ambulance to hospital. Miraculously only one person died, though 532 were seriously injured.

Train B711T continued to Kasumigaseki with its first car empty, then all passengers were evacuated and the train taken out of service.
^*

I wake up at
6:30
, eat a simple breakfast, and leave the house at around
7:05
. I get the Toyoko Line to Naka-meguro, which takes thirty minutes. It’s not too crowded, though I almost never find a seat. If an express comes along I’ll always change. I’m a man in a hurry.

If I do get a seat, I read. Though I haven’t done much reading since the gas attack … I like history books. At the time I was reading
Zero Fighter
. Long ago I used to dream of flying, and I still take an interest in airplanes. I was page-turning straight through on the Toyoko Line, a fascinating read. Which is why I didn’t notice we’d reached Naka-meguro.

We line up in rows of three on the Hibiya Line platform. I usually line up around the third car from the front, but I was so preoccupied with my book I ended up farther back, about the sixth car down.

As soon as the door opened I turned right and got a seat. But then a woman came along and squeezed herself in, the fourth person in a seat meant for three, so that things were a little tight. “Well,” I thought, “better get my book out now. People get the wrong idea if you start fumbling around later.” I pulled out the book and carried on reading. I only had ten or twenty pages left and I wanted to finish it before I reached my station. But at Hiro-o, I looked up to see this man sitting directly to my left wearing a leather coat. I was still wrapped up in my book, but around Hiro-o it really began to get on my nerves. Leather coats often smell funny, don’t they? A disinfectant or nail-polish-remover kind of smell. “This guy stinks,” I thought, and I stared him right in the eye. He just stared back at me with this “You-got-a-problem, mister?” look.

But it really did stink, so I went on staring, only he doesn’t seem to be looking at me. He’s looking past me to something on my right. I turned around to look and saw something about the size of a notebook lying at the feet of the second person on my right. It’s like a plastic pack. In the news, they said it was wrapped in newspaper, but what I saw was plastic, and something spilling out of it.

“Ah, so that’s what’s making the place smell,” I thought, but I still just sat there. By that point, the third person to my right had gone. It must have been around Hiro-o or Roppongi I noticed that.

Soon everyone was saying, “Open the windows—it stinks.” So they all open the windows. I remember thinking, “It’s so cold, can’t you just put up with the smell?” Then an old lady sat down next to me. It was all wet under her feet, so she stood up and moved to a seat opposite, walking straight through the pool of sarin.

There’s nobody left at the back of the car. Everyone’s moved to the front, saying, “It stinks! It stinks!” This was around the time we’d reached Roppongi. By then my head was spinning. I heard the announcement, “Next stop, Roppongi,” and I thought to myself, “I really must be anemic today.” The symptoms were pretty much the same: a little nauseous, can’t see so well, breaking out in a sweat.

Still, I didn’t connect it at all with the smell. I was utterly convinced it was anemia. Lots of my relatives are doctors, so I’m familiar with the smell of medicinal alcohol or cresol. I thought maybe some medical person had dropped a bag of something and it had leaked out. “But why can’t someone pick it up?” I thought. I’m a little angry by now. Honestly, our morals have declined so far of late. If I’d been a bit more sound of body, I would have picked it up myself and tossed it out onto the platform.

But then after Roppongi, where the train slows, I knew something was wrong. My anemia was so bad I decided to get off at Kamiyacho and rest for a while, maybe let two or three trains go by. But when I tried to stand I couldn’t get up. My legs had gone. I grabbed the handstrap and sort of dangled from it.

I moved from strap to strap until I reached the pole near the door. Finally I stepped off the train, my hand out ready to catch myself at the far wall of the Kamiyacho platform. I remember thinking: “If I don’t make it to that wall and crouch down, I’m gonna fall and hit my head.” Then I blanked out.

Actually, I hadn’t left the train. I’d grabbed the stainless-steel pole and just slid down to the floor. What I thought was a wall was in fact the floor of the car, which felt chilly to my right hand. They ran a photo of me in the tabloids, so I could see later what happened.

They videoed me too. I was seen on television, lying like that on the car floor. I was flat out for at least half an hour. Nice and spread out
(laughs)
. Then the station attendants carried me away. You can see it in the videos.

I came to in Toho University Omori Hospital, but I don’t know when that was. Maybe that afternoon of March 20, when I had a moment of consciousness, then fell unconscious again.

When I finally came around for good, I was told I was well enough to move to the general hospital wing. It was March 23, though I was utterly convinced it was the day after the gas attack [March 21]. I had no awareness at all. But then, no awareness is paradise. True nothingness.

I didn’t have any near-death experience or anything like that. Only, I swear I heard a faint roar of voices coming from far off on the wind, like kids cheering at a baseball game, something like that, but hushed and indistinct, cut off now and then by the wind …

Actually, around that time one of my daughters was pregnant—in her fourth month, was it? I’d been anxious about it. It would be my first grandchild. Well, apparently my sister-in-law came in and said to me: “What if you never see your grandchild’s face?” Until then I’d shown absolutely no reaction to anything anyone had said, but this I heard and suddenly regained consciousness. My daughter had been at my side, saying, “Dad hold on! Don’t die!” and all I had heard was a vague murmur. But “What if you never see your grandchild’s face?”—those were the only words that reached me. My grandson was born in September, and thanks to him I came back to life.