Black Dragon Read online

  BLACK DRAGON

  A RYAN MITCHELL THRILLER

  BY RICHARD TURNER

  ~~~

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2015 by Richard Turner. All rights reserved.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  1

  Matua Island, Japan

  August 30, 1945

  Like a flaming thunderbolt crashing into the earth, the doomed transport plane struck the ground and exploded into a blinding, orange and red fireball. Overhead, a couple of dark shapes raced through the clouds before turning back out to sea to look for another hapless victim to bring down. Anti-aircraft guns ringing the airfield roared to life, filling the air with lead, but it was all in vain; their tormentors had already vanished into the clouds.

  A black plume of smoke curled up into the leaden sky, marking the death of yet another Japanese plane sent to evacuate those still trapped on Matua Island. With fear in their eyes, the soldiers looked over at the flaming wreckage, knowing that the noose was steadily tightening around them. They were next and they knew it.

  A loud, protesting squeal escaped from the jeep’s brakes as the battered vehicle came to a sudden halt outside of a long, wooden building. Painted green to match its surroundings, the building was guarded by several tired-looking soldiers who unenthusiastically stood outside, with their long rifles slung over their shoulders. The men were actually mere boys conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army for the defense of the homeland from invasion by the encroaching allies. With their ill-fitting uniforms hanging off their emaciated bodies, the soldiers looked miserable and dejected. Shuffling their feet on the wet ground, the boys breathed into their hands trying to warm them up. Wearily climbing out of the passenger-side seat, a slender man with short black hair, dressed in dirty, rumpled clothes, said a few quiet words to the driver of the jeep before politely bowing and walking away. Clutched tightly under his arm, as if it were the most important thing he had ever held, was a worn, brown leather briefcase.

  The unexpected sound of a machine gun firing nearby froze Kotaro Tanaka in his tracks. Fear coursed through his body. His heart raced wildly in his chest. His first thought was for the briefcase in his hands. Were they too late . . . ? Had the Soviets arrived?

  In the cold, gray light of dawn, Tanaka peered into the early morning fog, which hung over the camp like a ghostly white blanket, trying to pinpoint where the firing had come from. Through the swirling mist, barely fifty meters away, he saw a group of technicians and scientists forced off the back of a military truck by a squad of soldiers who shouted and cajoled the terrified people into a line with the long, sharp bayonets affixed onto the ends of their rifles. Tanaka shook his head when he recognized several of his colleagues being forcibly dragged away from the truck. The slaughter had been going on for hours. The new arrivals were quickly forced in front of a recently excavated ditch. Several men pleaded with the soldier to spare the women amongst them. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. The soldiers had their orders, and that was all there was to it. Tanaka watched numbly as a machine gun opened up, sending the bodies of the unfortunate Japanese civilians tumbling back into the ditch to join the dozens of others already lying there. The people had done nothing wrong, but the orders from Army Headquarters had been explicit. Only a handful of select personnel were to be spared. Anyone else who knew, or could have known, about the camp and its activities was to be exterminated. Tanaka numbly watched as a couple of young soldiers stepped forward and then hurriedly poured gasoline over the bodies. With a loud whoosh, the trench was set alight. Before long, a black cloud hung over the camp.

  Tanaka looked away; he had seen enough death in the past few months to last him a lifetime. Late last night, word had spread through the camp like wildfire that the Soviets were landing in force in the Kuril Islands. The camp’s commander had told them they had at best a day before the Russians arrived to take their island. Tanaka may have worked side by side with many of the people being slaughtered; however, he honestly couldn’t name more than a few of them. A quiet man, Tanaka had never bothered to get to know his fellow scientists. They had a job to do and if dying for the Emperor was a person’s fate, then so be it. Although barely twenty-five years old, Tanaka felt and looked as if he were a man in his late forties. His short black hair had begun to thin on his head. With nerves stressed to the breaking point, he rarely ate or slept anymore. Tanaka’s once-round body had grown thin, almost anorexic. Dark, bloodshot eyes stared out through his only remaining pair of thick, silver-rimmed glasses.

  He knew that there was still one last thing to do before he left. Tanaka hurried back inside the building that had been his laboratory for the past three years. His footsteps echoed down the long, empty corridor. Tanaka walked straight to his office. He looked over his shoulder to ensure that he wasn’t being watched, and then grabbed the stack of files that he had laid out earlier on his desk and jammed them all into his briefcase. Before he left, Tanaka bent down and reverently picked up a picture of his parents. Tanaka looked at the picture with sad eyes. His father wore the uniform of an army colonel while his mother was dressed in a long, traditional robe. They stood unsmiling, like granite statues outside of their home in Nagasaki. Mournfully he shook his head, knowing that he would never set his eyes upon them ever again, as he placed the picture inside his briefcase. Tanaka let out a deep, sorrowful sigh. He couldn’t believe that it had all come to this. When the war had begun with the Americans, he, along with millions of other young men, had enthusiastically supported his government’s decision. After the destruction of the American fleet at Pearl Harbor and the fall of Singapore, most had expected a quick victory over the corrupt American and British militaries, which naturally would be followed by a negotiated peace that would forever cement Japan’s rightful hold on the Far East. Now, however, everything was in ruins and his sacred homeland had been assaulted by new and deadly bombs that had leveled entire cities. The army tightly
controlled word of what had happened, but he and several other key scientists had been informed so they could make preparations to leave immediately. What had it all been for? wondered Tanaka. His parents were dead, incinerated in the atomic blast that had razed Nagasaki. His only sibling, a naval officer, died when his aircraft carrier sank at Midway. Stepping out of his office, Tanaka looked down the darkened hallway and saw that he was the only person left inside the building. A feeling of loneliness and isolation filled his heart.

  Until barely one week ago, the camp had been home to over two hundred scientists and research personnel. Now, however, most of the camp was gone, burnt to the ground, or demolished with explosives. Hardly anything remained standing to indicate that a clandestine military test establishment had once stood here. The top secret camp had been in operation for over eight years. Once guarded by a Japanese army regiment, the base now seemed eerily empty. Some of the key scientists had already been withdrawn back to Japan to prevent their capture, while the remainder lay dead in the smoldering ditch. Most of the soldiers fit enough to fight had been sent to help stem the Soviet armored forces steamrolling their way through Manchuria, leaving only the sick and very young to guard what was left of the camp. Tanaka had no doubt that they, too, would soon be dead, either by their own hand or at the hands of the Soviets.

  Unit 881 was officially listed on the books as part of the Imperial Japanese Army Railway and Shipping Section; however, its true identity was far more sinister. As one of several army units clandestinely conducting weapons’ testing, Unit 881 was responsible for taking new and emerging technologies for use against the allied forces rapidly closing in on the home islands. Although not involved in the Japanese Army’s attempt to build an atomic bomb, Unit 881 had spent many long years looking at new ways to strike back and cripple America, but most ideas had proven to be too costly, inefficient, and time consuming, and time was no longer on Japan’s side.

  “Are you ready to leave, Professor?” asked a voice from behind Tanaka, startling him. Turning his head, he saw it was Lieutenant Eiji, a tall, slender, eighteen-year-old soldier with a crippled right hand and atrocious eyesight, who bitterly regretted being denied the honor to die with the rest of his comrades. It was his men outside who had coldly butchered the scientists.

  “Yes, I am quite ready to leave this awful place, Lieutenant. When is the plane due?” asked Tanaka, not bothering to hide the disdain in his voice for the young officer. His research could have saved the Japanese Empire from ruin, but fanatics like Eiji had thrown it all away by biting off more than they could chew.

  “Sir, your plane has just contacted the tower. It will be landing in the next ten minutes. I suggest that you take everything that you can carry and meet me outside,” said Eiji, who bowed politely and then turned about to leave. Eiji paused for a moment and then looked back over at Tanaka. “Your Russians, sir?” asked Eiji hesitantly.

  “Taken care of,” replied Tanaka, saying no more.

  Eiji bowed once more and then left Tanaka alone in the deserted building.

  Holding his leather briefcase tight to his chest, Tanaka took one last look around. All the other offices were empty, not even a single scrap of paper remained. The laboratory where he had lived and worked for the past three years was empty. It was as if Unit 881 had never existed. A moment later, a couple of soldiers dragging jerry cans filled with gasoline walked past him without saying a word and then began to douse the floor. The last remaining building in the camp was about to be burnt to the ground. Tanaka could see the resigned look in the soldiers’ eyes; they knew that they were beaten and that the war was over. All of the men on the island saw the looming defeat as a horrible dishonor, one that would stain the nation for decades to come. He turned his back on the building, stepped out into the cool morning air and was taken back to see that the remainder of the camp was aflame.

  The steady drone of an approaching airplane’s engine caught Tanaka’s ear. Turning his head, he looked up at the gray, cloud-filled sky. At first, he didn’t see it, but slowly, a small transport plane came into sight. Rapidly descending through the clouds, it banked over and then dove down toward the ground, lining itself with the camp’s long airstrip.

  Tanaka saw a battered-looking jeep heading his way. The driver, a teenage private, parked the vehicle, got out, sharply saluted Tanaka, and then respectfully stepped aside to let him to get in. He was surprised to see that there was only one other passenger. There had been five scientists chosen by Tokyo to fly out with him, but their absence could only mean one thing: they had chosen to commit suicide rather than risk the shame of returning to a Japan soon to be under allied occupation. Sitting alone in the back of the vehicle was Professor Ryo Kase, a diminutive, gray-haired man who sat there, nervously looking about while clutching several file folders tightly in his old, gnarled-looking hands. His eyes were bloodshot and had the look of a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

  With a loud roar from its powerful engines, the brown-and-green camouflage painted Kawasaki Ki-56 transport plane landed. Bouncing up and down on the runway like a child skipping through a field, the Ki-56’s wheels soon gripped the ground. Slowing down, the plane came to a gradual rolling halt with its twin engines still running hot.

  From behind Tanaka, an army truck rolled past him, loaded with boxes and crates for the waiting plane. Their years of work would not be left for the Soviets. They would hide it throughout Japan until it was deemed safe enough for them to resume their research. A one-eyed sergeant jumped down from the front of the truck and swore loudly at his work detachment as they hurried over and quickly began to load the crates into the back of the aircraft. As soon as the plane was loaded, Tanaka looked over at the jeep’s driver. “Time to leave.”

  Nodding, the inexperienced soldier noisily changed gears on the jeep and then jammed his foot down hard on the gas pedal. The vehicle lurched forward, slowly picking up speed as it made its way down the dirt road to the waiting plane.

  Coming to a sliding halt that stalled the jeep, the young driver jumped out and helped Professor Kase climb out of the back of the vehicle. The side door on the plane sat open. A tough-looking army major, missing an arm, jumped down and ran over to help the two professors into the idling aircraft. Ignoring the sweating soldiers hurrying to load the plane, the major helped Kase, and then Tanaka, to climb up into the back of the plane. Both men made their way forward past the rows of wooden boxes and cluttered debris lining the floor of the plane. They rushed to sit down in the only available seats, followed by the major who pushed the last couple of soldiers out of the back of the plane before slamming the door closed. The officer made sure that Kase and Tanaka were buckled into their seats, before yelling up at the pilot sitting in the cockpit that they were ready to leave. With a determined look in his eye, the young pilot revved the plane’s dual fourteen-cylinder engines and then began to move down the airstrip, picking up speed by the second.

  Tanaka sat back in his seat. He turned to look out of the window and watched in disbelief as the young army private who had driven them to the plane calmly drew his pistol, then blew out his brains with his sidearm. Had the world gone mad? Tanaka closed his eyes; he hated flying, but he was more afraid of being captured by the Soviets. Tanaka wasn’t a religious man; however, today he prayed, hoping that someone would hear his prayers and allow the dangerously overloaded plane to take flight.

  With a jarring bump that Tanaka felt in his teeth, the plane leaped up into the air.

  The pilot, a nineteen-year-old youth with barely twenty hours of flight training felt his plane leave the ground.

  With a crooked smile upon his battle-scarred face, the major left Tanaka and Kase in their seats and walked up to the front of the craft to speak with the pilot.

  “Tanaka, do you know where we are going?” Kase asked as he looked nervously around the heavily laden plane.

  Shaking his head, Tanaka said, “I’m not sure. I heard that we could be headed to Japan to rejoin th
e remainder of our people, where we will all be given new identities.”

  “That suits me just fine,” replied Kase. “I’ve had enough. I want to live out the rest of my life in peace and quiet.”

  “I wanted to see my grandparents again, but that won’t be allowed, or so I was told by the army,” said Tanaka, his voice tinge with sadness. With the death of his parents, Tanaka had hoped to live with his grandparents before trying to find himself a new life.

  “It is a small price to pay for the Emperor and to keep our work a secret,” replied Kase as he patted the stack of folders sitting on his lap.

  Tanaka took a deep breath and sat back in his seat. Kase could think like that; the fool was an old man, while he was young. He wanted to live a normal life with a wife and children. The Emperor was just a man. It may have been heretical to think that way, but Tanka did not adhere to the divine worship of a man who had stood by idly while Japan allowed its military to slowly lose the war. Japan and her future was all Tanaka cared about now. Opening his briefcase, Tanaka looked down at the jumble of papers and files jammed inside. He pulled out a file marked top secret and opened it. Right away, confusion flooded his mind. The pages inside were all blank. He dropped the file to the floor, dug out another file and opened it. As before, the pages were all blank. Panic began to grip Tanaka. He hurriedly pulled file after file from his briefcase. All filled with blank paper.

  “No!” screamed Tanaka. He had been double-crossed. Years of painstaking research had vanished. Someone had stolen his work.

  Lieutenant Natalya Tarasova looked out the bubble canopy of her Yak-1b fighter aircraft. All she could see for miles were clouds and more clouds. Cursing her luck, she turned her head and saw her wingman, who, like her, was a female fighter pilot assigned to the Red Air Force’s 590th Fighter Aviation Regiment. Both women had scored kills over Hungary earlier in the year, making them unique among the mostly young and untried men of the regiment as they had at least seen combat. Nicknamed the Angel of Death by her co-pilots, Tarasova may have been barely nineteen years old, with straw-blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes, but she was the best pilot in the regiment and no one from the colonel on down doubted her hatred of the enemy. Originally flying cover for the soldiers landing on islands to the north of Matua, the pilots were now free to scour the skies for any Japanese planes that may have been foolishly sent to try to stem the Soviet advance.