The Falling Sky - Book 2

Chapter One

24 July 1941, Manila, Luzon, Philippines

Tadashi Harada had nothing left to lose. The Kempeitai agent had caught up with him, and the Empire of Japan would leave another body to rot on foreign soil. Tadashi cowered as the agent clicked the safety off his silenced Nambu pistol, shame coursing through his veins. The sensation of urine seeping down his thigh wrenched his gut, and he collapsed to his knees. Weeping into his hands, he looked to the sky beyond the Kempeitai agent and cried out, “Chikara o kudasai!” Please give me strength.

The agent snickered. “You burned Aka-hebi alive, so don’t fear the merciful bullet, Tadashi.” Tadashi had burned Russian prisoners alive and performed many horrific acts under the Unit 731 banner for his Emperor. He was following orders—doing as he was told—for medical science.

Paul, the American driver, chuckled as he returned to the white sedan. Tadashi listened to the engine start, the clunk of the transmission shifting into gear, and the gentle crunch of gravel as the rear wheels struggled for traction. The car drove away, leaving Tadashi alone with the agent at a secluded, rundown farmhouse, miles from civilization.

Tadashi climbed to his feet and lifted his briefcase from the dirt. He dusted off his black three-piece suit and bowed. He had never had courage, but for this final act, he would summon it—either by stealing it from the demons that drove him to perform those awful experiments or from the knowledge that the papers inside his briefcase could lead the agent to his wife, Kiyoko, and their daughter. Time was not on his side.

The agent produced a dagger with a blade as long as Tadashi’s forearm. “You know what to do, Tadashi Harada.” He raised the pistol, the silencer’s weight making it unsteady in his hand. That minor detail ignited Tadashi’s spirit. He clenched his briefcase as rage boiled within. “Take the knife, Tadashi.”

Tadashi stepped forward, within reach of the knife still in its scabbard. The agent’s hand trembled, his jaw tightened, and his eyes narrowed. Tadashi growled, “No.”

The agent’s eyebrows lifted, and he cackled. “Suit yourself—”

Tadashi swung the briefcase, its light weight aiding its speed, and connected with the left side of the agent’s face. The pistol discharged. The dazed agent stumbled to the right and dropped the dagger. Tadashi was on him before the pistol could be wielded effectively, hammering the briefcase’s hard edge against the Kempeitai’s skull—again and again—blood spurting from the agent’s head. When the agent lurched back to block another of Tadashi’s rage-fueled blows, the briefcase’s metal banding sliced through his nose, severing it. The Nambu fell to the dirt.

Tadashi vomited as he reached for the pistol. Retrieving the slick gun, now reeking of acidic bile, he racked the slide, ejecting a single round, and let the bolt slam forward. His hands trembled, his heart raced.

The agent regained his balance, his face buried in his hands. “Ahh!” he yelled, reaching for the scabbard at his feet.

Tadashi squeezed the trigger, blowing the agent’s left ear off and shattering his collarbone. Fear gripped Tadashi again—he had just shot an agent—and the gun shook violently. He fired again, shot after shot, until the slide locked open; five or six rounds went wide, but one entered the top of the agent’s head at nearly point-blank range.

The agent’s body lay in a disfigured heap at Tadashi’s feet. Dropping the spent Nambu in the dirt, Tadashi ran four steps into the shade of a Balete tree, palmed the trunk, and heaved the last of his empty stomach. An odd burning sensation on the left side of his stomach drew his eye to a patch of blood. Inspecting it, his finger slipped into a small hole in his shirt. When and how? His finger crossed torn flesh, and pain shot through his gut. “Gesuyarou got me,” Tadashi muttered. Asshole.

In the shade, out of view from the road, stood the agent’s black Mercedes-Benz 320 coupe with diplomatic plates, which wouldn’t serve Tadashi long. He needed to escape and find medical attention. He walked the forty yards to the car, the pain in his gut growing with each step. The driver’s door was unlocked, but the keys were missing. The only item inside was a Texaco travel map of Luzon, folded on the passenger seat.

Tadashi groaned, “I’m not going to make it.” He wasn’t bleeding badly, and there was no exit wound. As a doctor, he knew time was against him before sepsis set in. Lumbering back to the agent’s body, he knelt over it, the raw stench of the man’s colon, expelled into his trousers in death, mingling with the lingering scent of Tadashi’s vomit. “Oh,” Tadashi gulped, swallowing air and words to keep from retching again.

He dug through the man’s pockets, retrieving his credentials, a full magazine for the Nambu, and, most crucially, the keys to the Mercedes-Benz.

Leaving the farm, Tadashi didn’t pause to respect the dead. The agent’s body lay in the path, and Tadashi was growing weaker. He gunned the accelerator; a satisfying crush and slush rippled through the open window as the car bucked over the body. He stopped in the middle of the road just past the gate, opened the map, and got his bearings. “Twenty minutes,” he sighed. I won’t make it.

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