The Phoenix Tree. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ had a short-wave wireless somewhere in the village or nearby. Once a month, on a different day each month, his widow reports to a joint wireless station we run with the US Signal Corps in the Aleutians.’

      ‘Why can’t Mrs Cairns be Minato’s – what did you call it? Control?’

      ‘Yes, control. Two reasons. One, we’re not entirely sure of Mrs Cairns. I met her in Tokyo, but she had only just married Professor Cairns and, as far as we know, she didn’t know then that he was acting for us. Since his death she hasn’t fed us any false information – again as far as we know. We have to go on trust there. If she is on our side, then we can’t risk giving her away – I mean if Minato should doublecross us. You will, in effect, be the control for both of them.’

      Okada gave his cough of laughter again. ‘The meat in the sandwich, you mean.’

      ‘Possibly,’ said Irvine. ‘I don’t think any of us are trying to fool you about your chances.’

      Okada had felt out of his depth ever since he had entered the room; he had tried to float with the current, but now he was being swirled around. ‘You’re lengthening the odds too much, sir. You haven’t offered me one safe factor in this whole set-up.’

      Embury took over again. ‘That’s true, corporal. Do you know of any safe factors in a war such as we’re fighting now?’

      ‘Yes, sir. Being posted to a base like this.’

      ‘That’s enough!’ Reilly couldn’t contain himself, rank or no rank.

      Embury waved his pipe placatingly. ‘It’s okay, Roger. Corporal Okada is entitled to his opinion. I’m sure he feels the same way about the President being safe in the White House. The war is fought from many places.’

      You son-of-a-bitch, thought Okada. He sat silent, putting on the mask he had inherited from his ancestors. At that moment, though he did not know it, he looked more Japanese than he ever had in his life before.

      Okada sat staring at the one-way window in the wall. He was seated too low to be able to see into the next room. But Kenji Minato did not immediately interest him; the man next door was like himself, just a puppet in the game these men were playing. At last he said, ‘I’d like to think about it. But first, one question. How did you pick me out for this – mission?’

      ‘Your friend next door suggested you.’

      So the course had been set and now he was on the last downward spiral of it; or at least of the first leg. He drifted through the cloud cover, which made him suddenly feel even more isolated; he was trapped in a nightmare. Panic grabbed at him, then let go; he dropped below the cloud into clear dark air. Japan rushed up at him out of the darkness; his stomach tightened and acid gushed up through his gullet and into his mouth. He caught a swift glimpse of pine trees that seemed to be jumping up at him like black sharks; the pale grey face of a precipice; and a snow-covered road that ran along the edge of the precipice. He jerked frantically on the cords of the parachute as he had been taught; but he was too inexperienced. It was luck, rather than skilful manoeuvring, that saved him. He sailed in above the cliff-face, hit a tree on the far side of the road, swung in hard against the tree-trunk and hung there twenty feet above the ground.

      He was winded from hitting the tree and he felt sick from the acid in his mouth. But the overwhelming feeling was one of relief: he was alive. It was a good start: from now on he would have to learn to live by the hour.

      He dropped the suitcase he carried, then awkwardly freed himself from the harness. He was wearing a flying-suit and flying-boots; he felt as cumbersome as a crippled bear. Somehow he got a foothold on the trunk of the tree and clambered up its branches to cut loose the tangled parachute. It took him another ten minutes to get the ’chute to the ground; it kept getting caught in the lower branches as he dropped it. At last he had it on the ground, folding it up so that it would serve as a sleeping-bag. Winter is no season for parachuting into enemy territory; but, he wryly told himself, war’s calendar never waits for corporals. If he survived the war he hoped he might get retrospective promotion and back pay.

      He dug a hole in the snow with a broken branch, wrapped himself in the ’chute and lay down. He took stock of himself: there was no point in taking stock of his surroundings, since he couldn’t see any more than thirty yards in any direction. Behind him were the trees and in front of him, across the road, was a dark abyss. Black night, with the stars hidden by cloud, makes a joke of maps.

      There was no turning back now: that was the first thing that had to be accepted. Agents dropped into Europe always had, dangerous though it might be, a landline to safety, to Switzerland or Spain or Sweden; it was Irvine who had pointed out the comparison. If he had to run he had virtually nowhere to run to but to continue circling within Japan itself. Rebellious as he had been, he had never practised philosophical resignation; but he had to practise it now. He was here to stay, probably till the end of the war. He shut out the thought that his own death might come first.

      Abruptly he was exhausted; the tension of the last few days and hours caught up with him. He shivered with nerves; then the tension slipped out of him as if faucets had been opened in him. He lay back on the frozen ground and fell asleep. He stirred during the night with the cold, but better that than nightmares.

      When he woke the clouds had gone and the sun was shining. He lay for a moment, wondering if his body was still alive: from the neck down he felt as if he was inhabiting an iron frame. Then, as if it had been waiting for him to wake, the sun began to warm him; he looked up into it and accepted it as another omen. At last he sat up, feeling like an old man; then got painfully to his feet, walked a few stiff paces and relieved himself. At least, he thought, I can piss like a young man.

      He opened suitcase. It contained a change of clothing, a faded blue kimono, a second pair of shoes, a cheap overcoat, and a battered cap: the wardrobe of a working man. There were also a thick wallet of yen notes, a package of sandwiches, a Japanese thermos of coffee, a map and a pair of Japanese binoculars he had picked up on Saipan. While he ate the sandwiches and drank the coffee, he studied the map, comparing its contours with what he could now see of the landscape.

      The black abyss of last night on the other side of the road was now a valley; pine trees covered the upper half of the slopes like a green-black shawl, but the lower slopes were terraced. The snow-covered terraces were like giant steps of ice that caught the sun and flung it back up out of the valley in a white glare. A solitary peasant climbed like an ant up through the terraces; far below him stood two oxen, still as dark rocks. The valley was utterly silent and Okada, his mind straying for the moment, wondered where the war was.

      When he had finished breakfast he took the parachute and the flying suit and boots further up into the timber. The ground was too hard to break, so he buried the ’chute, the flying gear and his map in the snow; by the time the snow melted he would be long gone and a long way away. Then he went back to the road, put on the overcoat and cap, hung the suitcase over his shoulder by a strap and set off down towards the valley floor. He had a rough idea where he now was, an hour or two’s walk from the railroad that would take him to Tokyo.

      By the time he reached the railroad line, following it north along the road that ran beside it, he had come down into the floor of the valley. He had passed through several hamlets and two large villages and no one had stopped him or, in most cases, even glanced at him. His apprehension, which had begun to rise as he had approached the first hamlet, had subsided; the people he had passed took him for one of themselves, he looked no different except that he was a little taller than most of them. Then he was coming into a town, larger than any of the villages he had passed through, and he began to feel apprehensive again. Here there would be police and СКАЧАТЬ