Spiral

The screen on the iPhone flickered. The map was gone, the display blank. Then two words appeared: Stop. Wait.

Jake lifted the oars, and the boat drifted in the current. They were in the middle of the vast, slow river, hundreds of yards from any of the islands. It was cold as hell. Kitano’s lips were moving, but no sound was coming out.

Jake took in his surroundings. The water. The gray-and-white clouds. The snow white on the shoreline, muted shadows cast by the empty trees. What were they waiting for? A boat? He played the oars back and forth in the water, keeping his muscles warm. He prayed that Dylan wasn’t suffering. Maggie would go crazy when she found out. She would be inconsolable. Assuming she was still alive. Jake tried to picture a way out of this, a scenario in which everything turned out all right. But it was impossible to imagine.

Kitano spoke again: “When Japan was conquered, our souls were imprisoned. We denied it. We managed to re-create ourselves within the matrix of the conqueror, like a bird living in the rib cage of the beast. The bird wakes up every morning and goes about its day. But soon the bird understands its fate. It lives in darkness. It lives in slavery. It serves no purpose but to digest the food of its host. It becomes a parasite.”

The old man’s eyes were lit up like coals. He had bits of white spittle in the corners of his mouth. “When this realization occurs,” Kitano said, “the bird first acquiesces. Accepts its fate. That is what I did. That is what the modern men of Japan have done, these grass-eaters. They are little birds, living inside the cage America built for them. They have never known any other life. They have never fought. They have never tasted blood.

“But the bars of the cage are rotting away. Soon America will be too weak to protect itself, let alone Japan. So the bird must act. The bird must fight its way out of the darkness, and back into the sun. Japan must break free. It must retake its position as a dangerous and proud nation.”

A chill ran up Jake’s spine. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Do you know what we call you? You Caucasians? The bata-kusai-the men who smell like rancid butter. You are disgusting creatures who cannot even bathe yourselves properly. And you are cowards. You come and we defeat you. The Dutch came and conquered, but in the end we defeated them. The French, the British, the same. In the end our courage, our willingness to die, is your undoing. Your century is over. Ours has begun.”

“You’re insane. Japan doesn’t even have a real army,” Jake said. “Your constitution forbids it.”

“Your constitution,” Kitano said. “MacArthur wrote it. It has no authority over me. The armies of the east, of China and Japan, already equal in number those of the United States, and we can raise five times that number. Our military spending is doubling every five years. In a few short years, it will exceed America’s. China’s economic growth is outstripping yours by a stunning margin. You falter, China rises, with Japan leading her forward. You are not stupid, Mr. Sterling. You must know it. Soon we will dwarf you. China will be the body. And Japan the head.”

“China and Japan hate each other.”

“Waters ebb and flow. The nations of Europe were mortal enemies for centuries. The Chinese and Japanese similarly fought, struggling for the upper hand. But now we will join together.”

Jake felt an incredible heat coming off Kitano. The man was on fire. Jake heard a humming noise coming from far away. After a minute, he spotted it gliding over the water, too small to be an airplane.

It passed directly overhead, then banked and circled. Jake recognized it-an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, maybe one of the old RQ-2 Pioneers the Navy had flown in the First Gulf War. Jake had seen them up close on a number of occasions: they were human-sized, a few feet tall, with a wingspan of maybe fifteen feet, primarily used for reconnaissance. This one was sleeker than the old RQ-2s, probably one of the newer RQ-7 Shadows. What the hell was an RQ-7 Shadow doing out here?

“Do you know the history of the kamikaze?” Kitano said, completely ignoring the UAV. “They are named for a pair of giant typhoons, the winds of God, that destroyed Kublai Khan’s Mongol fleets in 1274, and again in 1281. The Mongols came to invade Japan. They paid for their arrogance with their lives. Those not killed by the storm were slaughtered by the Japanese forces. For the next seven hundred years, no gaijin dared repeat that mistake. Not until the Americans, the bata-kusai, the latest incarnation of the rancid-butter men. When they are destroyed, when you are destroyed, no one will dare threaten Japan again.”

The air was cold and still. Snowflakes fell slowly. “Cut the bullshit,” Jake said. “What the hell are you talking about?”