"A few went up and down the rows of stakes, confirming that all were dead. I knew this was my only chance. I slumped forward against the ropes holding me. I had vomit all over my chest and down my legs. Excrement and urine soiling my pants. I held my breath so the soldier coming along my line would not see my chest move. They didn't want to touch the bodies to check pulses. They were confirming death just by looking for breathing.

"The soldier was in a rush. He looked at me for no more than ten seconds, then moved on the next one. He made it to the end of the line, then joined his comrades. They drove away in their truck. Several hours later, just before nightfall, a truck came back. This one contained the prisoners whose job it was to clear the field. Take in the harvest, so to speak.

"The Japanese used Korean laborers for this. The Japanese did not care if the Koreans became infected. Once more I pretended to be dead. I nearly was, so it was not difficult. I was very sick. I was running a fever. I was dehydrated. Almost delirious. A man cut me loose from the stake and dragged me to the cart behind the truck, which was full of bodies. He threw me in. I weighed perhaps eighty pounds after months of captivity and because of whatever they had infected me with.

"They threw bodies on top of me. Meruta. Logs. And that is how we were tossed in that cart. I lay there, buried among the dead. I almost wished I was."

Again Abayon fell silent.

"How did you survive?" Fatima asked.

"Hate," he said.

"And love."

"I don't understand."

"Even though my wife was dead, I still loved her," Abayon said.

"That kept me going. And because I loved, I hated those who had killed her. That gave me strength. All I thought of while I was in that cart was revenge. They drove to a ditch and dumped us in. I lay there until they were long gone, then clawed my way out. Through all the bodies. I crawled all night. Just to put distance between myself and that place of death."

He turned from the ocean and stared at his goddaughter.

"After that, you can well imagine that I wanted to know everything there was about Unit 731. And about that American."

"I don't understand the connection," Fatima said.

"Neither did I at the time," he replied.

"When I escaped from 731, the war was winding down. The Japanese in the camp released all their plague-infected animals. Over thirty thousand people died in the Harbin area in the next couple of years because of that.

"But here is where it gets interesting and lines begin to cross," Abayon continued.

"The good Dr. Ishii was captured by the Americans. And did they put him on trial for the war criminal that he was?" Abayon did not wait for an answer.

"Of course not. He – and the information he had – was too valuable. In exchange for immunity from prosecution, he gave the Americans the results of the so-called field tests – the tests my wife and I and hundreds of thousands of others had been part of. Valuable data on biological warfare that the Americans wanted.

"Thirty members of 731 – none of the important ones – were put on trial as part of a big show. They were brought before the Allied War Crimes Tribunal in Yokohama on the eleventh of March, 1948. Charges ranged from vivisection to murder to wrongful removal of body parts."

Abayon shook his head.

"Wrongful removal of body parts – can you believe there was ever a need for such a charge?

"Twenty-three were found guilty. Five were sentenced to death. None of those were ever executed, though. By 1958 every single one of those convicted was free. The Russians weren't so nice. Those members of 731 they captured, they executed. I suppose it was because the Americans got Ishii and all the good data.

"There is even a shrine in Japan dedicated to the members of Unit 731. Can you believe that? No collective sense of guilt for what they did. It is only in the last few years that the Japanese even acknowledged what they did in Nanking.

"But back to Lansale. He was supposedly an operative of the OSS – Office of Strategic Service. But that was just his cover. And the mission of the other two men who accompanied him was obviously a sham also. It took me many years to find out who Lansale met with and why. He was an envoy from a secret organization sent to negotiate with the Japanese. Even though the two countries were at war, there were those on both sides who were looking past the war and to the future."

"What was this secret organization?" Fatima asked.

"Why do you use the past tense?" Abayon asked, but did not wait for a reply.

"I've only heard rumors of it. And never a name."

Fatima frowned.

"How can something not have a name?"

Abayon shrugged.

"Surround yourself with enough layers of protection and cutouts and you can do anything. This group is very secretive. Which makes me wonder if they are really part of any government, because governments – especially democracies – are sieves when it comes to keeping secrets. But let me continue my story.

"Lansale was taken from the Kempetai headquarters to a meeting with Hirohito's brother, Prince Chichibu, to coordinate the Golden Lily project. Also present at the meeting was Admiral Yamamoto, who carried out the Pearl Harbor attack. You see, this organization knew what the Japanese were doing, the systematic looting of all the lands they conquered."

"How did they know this?" Fatima asked.

"That is a good question," Abayon said.

"And I don't know the answer. But I talked to a senior Japanese officer who was Yamamoto's adjutant. He was on trial in the Philippines for war crimes. He'd been sentenced to death, and perhaps that made his lips a little looser. He told me that at this meeting a verbal agreement was made: the Americans would allow the Japanese to continue the Golden Lily. But none of it was to be shipped back to Japan. It was to be hidden in the Philippines."

"Why?"

"As every Filipino is taught in school, Douglas MacArthur had vowed to return to the islands. Essentially, the Americans were allowing the Japanese to do their dirty work for them."

"But why would the Japanese agree to this?"

"Because Lansale pointed out something that most smart Japanese knew, even back in those dark early days of World War Two when they seemed unstoppable: that the end of the war, with Japan losing, was inevitable. Yamamoto was particularly aware of this, having spent considerable time in the United States prior to the start of the war. Even though he planned the Pearl Harbor attack, up to the last moment he had argued vehemently against implementing it.

"Do you think the amazing recovery Japan made after the war was a coincidence? Plain good luck? From this meeting forward, elements in both the United States and Japan were already planning the economic recovery of the defeated nation."

"But…" Fatima drew the word out.

"I still don't see why the Japanese would agree to this. What did they get in return – beyond this plan for economic recovery?"

"The emperor was assured that he – and his family – would not be tried for war crimes. Not only that, but that he would be allowed to keep his position after the end of the war. Think about it: why was the leader of a nation that had blatantly and so dishonestly ordered a surprise attack on the United States not only pardoned, but allowed to remain in power?

"Of course, there were some other angles to the whole deal," Abayon continued.

"Chichibu had to give Lansale assurances that the Japanese would not try to develop atomic weapons. So in a way, the cover story for the OSS mission was true, just not in the way the other two unfortunate souls who accompanied Lansale anticipated."

"So Chichibu and Yamamoto sold out their own country," Fatima said.

"Is that the way you see it?" Abayon asked, staring at her hard. She'd seen that look before, and turned over what she had just learned in her mind, examining the various angles as Abayon had taught her.