The 731 Legacy Page 19

  For Cotten, it was a hard climb back to respectability. Pete had to be wondering if this was also a hoax she had gotten caught up in to further her career.

  "You've got to trust me. Pete, I learned my lesson long ago. I don't jump to conclusions, and I don't grab on to things just for notoriety. Please trust me."

  He swallowed the last of his drink. "Well... I can't promise anything, but I'll see what I can do." He put his glass down on the table.

  "I'll be waiting for your call."

  "Yeah." He started to throw a couple of dollars on the table.

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  "I've got it," she said.

  Pete stood and turned to leave, but then paused and looked back. "Don't make me look like a fool."

  SWAN SONG

  "Dr. Swan, this is Cotten Stone from the Satellite News Network," said Pete Hamrick. "Cotten, I'd like you to meet Director Charlotte Swan."

  "Thank you so much for seeing me on short notice." Cotten shook the woman's hand. She had arrived at the CDC campus off Clifton Road twenty minutes earlier and was greeted by Pete at the main security center before being ushered to Swan's tenth-floor office.

  "Please, have a seat," Swan said, indicating the leather chairs facing her desk.

  As she and Pete took their seats, Cotten guessed that Charlotte Swan was in her late forties. And she was definitely all business— as evidenced by her attitude and appearance—navy-blue tailored suit and blonde hair pulled back tightly into a small bun at the base of her neck. Her desk was just as meticulously groomed.

  How did anybody work like that, without stacks of papers, file folders, staplers, scattered paperclips, pencils and pens? Cotten pictured her own desk at SNN. Whenever she was deep into a project, especially when conducting research, her entire office gave the appearance of being as organized as an explosion.

  "Dr. Hamrick suggested you be a priority on my schedule today, that you have something to discuss that would be of concern to the CDC." The director leaned back in her chair with an inquisitive expression. "I pressed him for details, but he said I should hear it from you. He also assured me that you were here in the capacity of a private citizen, not as a network news correspondent. So I assume that what we discuss is off the record?"

  "That's correct," Cotten said.

  "I am most curious to hear what you have to say, Ms. Stone, but I have a video conference with the director of the World Health Organization in twenty minutes. That's all the time I can give you."

  The woman's tone was cordial but to the point. Swan didn't seem irritated by the interruption in her schedule, but Cotten knew she had one shot at this, and it had to be good.

  Even before the first word came out of her mouth she detected the signs of her nervousness. Her feet were cold, her mouth felt dry, and her hands clammy. She brushed a stray strand of tea-colored hair behind her ear. "Do you recall the incident last year with the discovery and subsequent loss of the

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  Oceanautics research vesselPitcairn?"

  "Vaguely," the director said.

  "The ship was found drifting off the west coast of North Korea," Cotten said. "The crew and student scientists were found dead by specialists from an American warship. ThePitcairn ended up falling

  into the hands of the North Koreans who still have it according to satellite images."

  "Oh, yes. I remember. The description of the bodies got our attention. It sounded like a hemorrhagic fever."

  "Right," Cotten said. "Well, it seems that other people have recently died with physical symptoms similar to those on the ship." She explained in detail the deaths of Jeff Calderon, the Yanomamo woman, and Thelma Sutton, her empty coffin, the abandoned T-Kup labs in New York and now in California, the other T-Kup holdings around the world, and the possible Asian connection to them all.

  "I believe these deaths are connected. And I fear that it signals a possible biological threat, perhaps to this country or one of our allies."

  Cotten anticipated Dr. Swan's questions and concerns, and attempted to head them off. "I know there are no bodies to examine, but that reinforces my premise. Just think, Calderon's body mysteriously disappeared from a major New York City hospital, and Thelma Sutton's body was stolen from her grave. Somebody doesn't want those bodies examined. No autopsies mean no trail of evidence. Add to that the fact that the North Koreans refused to release any medical details on the cause of death from thePitcairn bodies."

  "Are you saying this is the doing of the North Koreans?" the director asked.

  "I don't know."

  "They thumb their nose at the world all the time. That's no surprise," Pete said.

  Dr. Swan folded her hands on the top of her desk. "The work of the CDC

  is heavily weighted on the empirical side, not theoretical."

  Cotten felt her shoulders slump. "Dr. Swan, so much is at—"

  "However," Swan continued, "it has been my experience that gut intuition often leads to the right hypothesis, and from that point on you can prove or disprove. It's that first inkling that starts everything in motion."

  Cotten found herself smiling in relief. "Then you agree that there is a strong possibility these deaths might indicate a connection? That there might be a threat?"

  "You have to understand, dealing with political issues is not within the CDC's authority or domain."

  "Does that mean you're not going to investigate?" Cotten asked.

  "I didn't say that. What we will do is look into what kind of outbreak this might be and then what we can do about it."

  Cotten took out her wallet and pulled a card from it. "This is the number for the county sheriff in West Virginia. Thelma Sutton's coffin is being examined

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  for any residue or evidence. You might want to take a look at the results of the forensics report."

  Dr. Swan took the card. "We'll get in touch with the sheriff and the Sutton family, and request access to their home, especially Ms. Sutton's room."

  "Thanks," Cotten said. "If you can nail down the disease, maybe we can find out how to stop this."

  Dr. Swan stood. "I'll be in touch."

  They shook hands and Cotten said, "Please keep me in the loop." She removed her own business card from her purse and handed it to the director.

  "And Pete, you have my number, too."

  "Thank you for coming in," Dr. Swan said.

  Pete escorted Cotten out of the office to the elevator. Just as the doors slid open, Cotten's cell rang. She looked at the caller ID, then closed the phone.

  "Thanks again, Pete," she said as she entered the elevator. "Call me with any news."

  A few moments later, she handed in her visitor badge at the security desk and stepped out into the bright Georgia sunshine. Opening her cell, she pushedcall back on the missed call.

  "Hi, Ted. What's up?" she said.

  "When are you back in New York?"

  "I'm headed to the airport right now."

  "Then come straight to the office. What I've discovered is going to blow you away."

  UNIT 731

  Cotten walked into Ted's office, having come directly from Kennedy. She took a seat and gazed out the large window behind his desk. "I've wondered about something for a long time but never asked you—what good is an office with a view if your desk is faced away from the window?"

  "If I look out the window all the time," he said, "I don't get my work done. Makes me daydream." He spun his chair 180 degrees. "And I can always do this when my brain needs a short hiatus from the job." He swiveled back around to look at Cotten.

  "So tell me what you found."

  Ted opened a file folder on his desk revealing a stack of papers. He spread them out. Some were handwritten notes on yellow notepad paper and others were hardcopies printed from the Internet. "I was researching biological warfare to see what I could come up with. This is the thread I ended up following. We've got to go back to the year 1925 and the Geneva Protocol that banned gas and germ warfare—which, by the way, w
as approved by all the

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  great

  powers except the United States and Japan. The U.S. signed, but didn't ratify it until fifty years later, in 1975. The Japanese never signed it. Anyway, the Japanese were so impressed that such warfare was so heinous that it had to be banned under international law that they decided germ and chemical warfare must be the ultimate weapon. In 1930, Japan's biological weapons program began under the direction of an officer named Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii."

  Ted looked up from his notes. "I'm going to try to give you a timeline to follow. Bear with me."

  "Should I make some notes?"

  "No, just listen for now." Ted shuffled through the papers. "1932. Japan invaded Manchuria and Ishii began preliminary experiments. Soon after that, he established Unit 731, a biological warfare unit disguised as a harmless government agency. He razed eight villages to build a huge compound in Pingfan near Harbin, a remote part of the Manchurian Peninsula. The compound consisted of 150 buildings covering about four square miles. There were barracks, labs, operating rooms, crematoria, and more. And get this, a theater, bar, and Shinto temple. There were at least seven other similar units scattered across Japanese-occupied Asia, all under Ishii's command. By the time he was promoted to full general, he had over three thousand people working under him. The atrocities Ishii and his colleagues committed are right up there with the likes of Joseph Mengele. As a matter of fact, some of the research I came across referred to it as the Auschwitz of the East."

  "Really?" Cotten said. "I've never even heard of Ishii or Unit 731."

  "Most people haven't, and there's a reason. I'll get to that in a minute." Ted waved a paper with his notes scrawled on it. "Unit 731 experimented on humans. They nicknamed their victimsmarutas, which means logs. That's how they saw their prisoners, nothing more than inert logs."

  "Sounds like a good brainwashing technique so their consciences didn't get in the way," Cotten said.

  "Nobody with a conscience could have committed what I found. Let me give you some examples."

  Ted searched the papers, finally ending up with one in particular. "Some prisoners were given electrical charges which slowly roasted them. Others were decapitated in order for the Japanese soldiers to test the sharpness of their swords. Limbs were amputated on live victims to study blood loss."

  Ted sat back and rubbed his shoulder as if it ached. "Want to know how sick these guys were?" He didn't wait for Cotten's response. "Sometimes they would stitch the limbs back on the opposite side of the body. They would remove all the organs, and for whatever reason I can't imagine except for some perverted kick, they'd reattach the esophagus directly to the intestines." Ted peered over his glasses at Cotten. "Too much for you yet?"

  She shook her head in silence.

  "They hung prisoners upside down to determine how long it would take

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  them to choke to death. Prisoners were locked in high pressure chambers until their eyes popped out. Themarutas were even put in giant centrifuges and spun to death."

  "Jesus," Cotten said. "What the fuck kind of medical research is that?"

  Ted didn't give a direct answer. "I found out that the Japanese had what they calledcomfort women. The military operated brothels for its soldiers. But when venereal disease became an issue, Ishii took it on. He had his scientists bring a prisoner infected with syphilis together with another who was not infected and demand they perform sex or be killed. Then they would track the progress of the disease from the moment of infection." Ted looked away and breathed out a loud breath. "Instead of just looking at the external signs, like examination of genitalia, they performed live dissections—vivisections, most often without any type of anesthesia. They would cut themarutas open and note the effect of the disease on the internal organs. The babies of those women who they did not kill by vivisection were also used in unspeakable experiments. Or they were given to the soldiers to practice tossing them with their bayonets while the infants were still alive.

  "And there was more; many of the prisoners were infected with plague, cholera, typhoid, and a myriad of other diseases so they could study the progress of the diseases as well as vaccines. Again, live dissections were the norm. In the end, all the data was to be used to find a way to attack the United States. Near the end of the war, Unit 731 came up with the plan, codenamed, Cherry Blossoms at Night, to use kamikaze pilots to infest California with plagueinfected fleas. The plan was for a submarine to take them near the coast of Southern California. A plane carried by the sub would be flown into San Diego and the insects released. But before that could happen the war ended. They had formulated many other attack plans as well—to release infected animal feed and all kinds of disastrous disease on the United States, but luckily, didn't get to carry them out. In the final days of the war, Ishii ordered the last 150marutas killed to cover up their experimentations. The Japanese blew up the secret labs and headquarters of Unit 731."

  Cotten stared at Ted. She could think of nothing to say as the horrible images swam in her mind.

  Ted engaged her eyes. "When I started this research I couldn't believe what I was reading."

  "Why hasn't there been the same horrendous outcry as there was against Hitler and the Holocaust?"

  "I can only assume it was a massive cover-up. From what I've read the United States believed the information collected by the Japanese on biological warfare far outweighed prosecution for war crimes. In the fall of 1945, General MacArthur granted immunity to members of Unit 731 in exchange for the research data on biological warfare."

  Cotten felt sick to her stomach. "How could they? How could we?"

  "Listen to what happened to some of the major players of Unit 731 in the

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  postwar years. This will blow you away." Ted flipped through the papers, then lifted one and adjusted his glasses. "Asahin Masajjiro, a member of the typhus team, went to work for the National Institute of Health as did Murata Yoshisuke who was part of Unit 1644. Futagi Hido, the vivisection team leader, became the cofounder of Green Cross Corporation."

  "What's that?" Cotten asked.

  "It was Japan's first commercial blood bank, which later became a big pharmaceutical company, merged with other corporations, and now even has subsidiaries in the United States." Ted pushed the papers back into the folder.

  "The list of those who got away with murder goes on and on."

  "So where does this leave us? How does this fit in with T-Kup, Calderon, and Sutton?"

  "Oh, kiddo, I've saved the best for last."

  MEGA-MART

  The Forest Park Mega-Mart west of Chicago was packed with holiday shoppers now that the blizzard had finally let up. The Cadillac Escalade circled the huge parking lot. Behind the wheel, the woman regretted she had waited this late in the season to start her shopping.

  "Mom, I'm bored," her eight-year-old said from the back seat.

  "We're here already," the mother said, glancing from side to side, searching for an empty spot. "I just have to find a parking space. Keep watching yourShrek DVD."

  "You brought the wrong one," her son said with a whine. "I wanted the new one."

  "And whose fault is that? How many times did I tell you to get ready to go and pick out a movie?"

  "But I've seen this one already."

  "It's your favorite."

  A small import started pulling out of a space just ahead. She switched her blinker on. The guy was taking his own sweet time backing out, she thought. Another car turned into the row from the opposite direction. She eased forward. The import finally cleared the spot and turned to pass her. Before the driver coming toward her could make his move, she shot forward turning wide to block him and pulled her big SUV into the space.

  Finally, this first challenge to Christmas shopping was complete—finding a parking place.

  Mother and son bundled up and got out. The headlights flashed as she pressed the lock button on her remote, and the two headed across the
parking lot. The crust of ice and snow crunched under their feet as they passed rows of

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  automobiles and abandoned shopping carts.

  With a whoosh, the sliding doors opened, and the welcome warmth of the store surged over her. The greeter, a gray-haired lady in a wheelchair, nodded at her as she did to everyone entering Mega-Mart.

  "I wanna go to the toy section first," the boy said.

  "We've got a lot of gifts to buy for both your grandmas and grandpas, and Auntie Sue, and Uncle Jack. And we've got to get something for Daddy. Sugar, I don't think we have time to look at toys this trip."