Black wind

father’s discovery proves that chemical munitions were to be stockpiled in the Philippines for possible deployment in defense of the islands.”
    “My father’s discovery?” Dirk asked. “I don’t understand.”
    “I’m sorry, Dirk, let me explain. I received a toxin assessment from the Mariana Explorer taken from an ordnance sample recovered by | your father and Al Giordino.”
    “You’ve completed your database search on the arsenic sample already? I thought you said you wouldn’t have that completed until after lunch,” Yaeger asked the hologram.
    “Sometimes, I can just be brutally efficient,” she replied, throwing her nose in the air.
    “What’s the connection?” Dirk asked, still confused. “Your father and Al traced a toxic arsenic leak to an old cargo ship that apparently sank on a coral reef near Mindanao during World War Two. The arsenic was leaking from a shipment of artillery shells carried in the ship’s hold,” Yaeger explained.
    “One-hundred-five-millimeter shells, to be precise,” Max added. “Ammunition for a common artillery gun used by the Japanese Imperial Army. Only the contents weren’t arsenic, per se.” “What did you find?” Yaeger asked.
    “The actual contents were a mixture of sulfur mustard and lewisite. A popular chemical munitions concentrate from the thirties, it acts as a fatal blistering agent when released as a gas. Lewisite is an arsenic derivative, which accounts for the toxic readings found in the Philippines. The Japanese produced thousands of mustard lewisite shells in Manchuria, some of which were deployed against the Chinese. Some of these old buried chemical munitions are still being dug up today.
    “Was the Japanese Navy connected with the deployment of these weapons?” Dirk asked.
    “The Japanese Imperial Navy was actively involved with chemical weapons production at its Sagami Naval Yard, and was believed to have had four additional storage arsenals at Kure, Yokosuka, Hiroshima, and Sasebo. But the Navy possessed only a fraction of the estimated 1.7 million chemical bombs and shells produced during the war, and no records indicate they were ever used in any naval engagements. The biological weapons research was funded through the Imperial Army and, as I mentioned, centered in occupied China. A primary conduit for the research activity was the Army Medical School in Tokyo. It is unknown whether the Navy had any involvement through the medical school, as the college was destroyed by wartime bombing in 1945.”
    “So no wartime records exist that show chemical or biological weapons were ever assigned onboard Navy vessels?”
    “None that were publicly released,” Max said, shaking her holographic head. “The bulk of the captured Japanese wartime records, including those of the Navy Ministry, were consigned to the National Archives. As a gesture of goodwill, most of the documents were later returned to the Japanese government. Only a fraction of the records were copied, however, and even a smaller portion have ever been translated.”
    “Max, I’d like to explore the Naval Ministry records for information on the mission of a particular Japanese submarine, the I-403. Can you determine whether these records might still exist?”
    “I’m sorry, Dirk, but I don’t have access to that portion of the National Archives’ data records.”
    Dirk turned to Yaeger with an arched brow and gave him a long, knowing look.
    “The National Archives, eh? Well, that should be a lot less dangerous than tapping into Langley,” Yaeger acceded with a shrug.
    “That’s the old Silicon Valley hacker I know and love,” Dirk replied with a laugh.
    “Give me a couple of hours and I’ll see what I can do.”
    “Max,” Dirk said, looking at the transparent woman in the eye, thank you for the information.”
    “My pleasure, Dirk,” she replied seductively. “I’m happy to be at your service any time.”
    Then, in an instant, she vanished. Yaeger already had his nose against a computer monitor, fingers flying over a keyboard, completely engrossed in his subversive mission at hand.
    At promptly ten o’clock, Dirk entered a plush executive conference room, still carrying the large duffel bag over his shoulder. Thick azure carpet under his feet complemented the dark cherrywood conference table and matching wood paneling on the walls, which were dotted with ancient oil paintings of American Revolutionary warships. A thick pane of glass stretched the