Glimmering

“A secret Japanese research project to create biological weapons during World War II. They were headquartered near Dzoraangad, in Mongolia. The Gobi Desert. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed—Chinese, Koreans, Mongolians. Some Europeans and Americans, too. They were experimenting with bubonic plague, with nerve gas and anthrax and cholera. The Geneva Convention had banned biological warfare, so the Japanese figured this must be some pretty intense shit. In 1937 they formed Unit 909. They were trying to come up with new pathogens to use against the United States in the war. They did all kinds of shit—even sent balloons across the Pacific Ocean, to drop canisters of plague-bearing fleas in the United States. Two years ago they found the remains of one of the balloons in Utah.”

Her hand touched the controls. Once more images began to move across the screen, but slowly. A chamber empty save for a screaming child. Human heads floating in tall jars. White-clad surgeons standing around a table where a man sat upright, his mouth an enlarged O of pure anguish: his chest had been sawed open, and one of the doctors held something darkly shining in his gloved hand. Rows of men and women marching across a blinding white plain. Rows of lockers with Japanese characters written on them. Rows of human feet. An infant’s hand with needles protruding from the fingertips. A half-inflated balloon dangling from a scaffold. Teeth.

“‘The human capacity for barbarism is, seemingly, bottomless.’”

He thought Nellie had spoken. But it was her voice on a soundtrack, harsh and disembodied. A minute’s worth of motion picture frames danced jerkily. Badly scratched black-and-white film showed the same screaming child depicted before, now glimpsed through an observation window. Smoke began to fill the chamber; at the same time, a door swung open and a woman ran inside. Her mouth opened and closed in mute agony as she covered the child with her own body, trying to save him from the gas. In the corner of the frame a shadowy hand moved, camera operator or one of the watching torturers.

“‘We sons of pious races,’” a man’s voice recited as the screen went black.

Onetime defenders of right and truth,
Became despisers of God and man,
Amid hellish laughter.
Wherever I look, grasp, or seize
There is only the impenetrable darkness.

Across the bottom screen letters appeared. Night Voices in Tegel, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The frame filled with words written in a fine, runic-looking hand.

NIGHT VOICES

UNIT 909: THE IMPENETRABLE DARKNESS

A DOCUMENTARY BY NELLIE CANDRY

PRODUCED BY LEONARD THROPE

“Leonard.”

Jack was not aware that he had shouted until he saw her drawn face beside him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—”

He stumbled to his feet but she caught him. “Lie down, you should lie down—”

Nellie half dragged, half carried him into the room with the futon. He fought her in avid silence, feeling as though he had lost his mind; then suddenly collapsed onto the mattress. He knelt there weeping in the near darkness, his breath coming in savage bursts. With a soft cry he fell upon the futon, and slept.

He woke to silence. A blanket had been pulled over his shoulders. He had no idea how much time had passed. The image of Jule’s crumpled body glowed as though branded upon his retina. For an instant he thought the suicide had been a terrible dream.

Then he saw that the bed was not his own. There were papers and photographs scattered along the wall. The pillow he leaned upon smelled of sweat and stale makeup. Jule was dead, and Jack was somewhere within the GFI Pyramid, surrounded by evidence of a forgotten wartime atrocity.

“You’re awake.”

Nellie Candry knelt at the end of the futon, brass candleholder before her. In it three small candle ends burned brightly. She picked it up to move closer to Jack.

He rubbed his eyes. She had removed her death’s-mask makeup. In the dim light her scars looked fresh, unhealed. “What—what time is it? Did someone call from downstairs? About a ride?”

“Not yet. I checked about an hour ago. We can try again. It’s just past four.”

“Jesus. My grandmother must be frantic—”

“No—it’s okay, someone got hold of her. I called downstairs to check with security. Apparently she’s very upset but one of your brothers should be there by now—”

“Dennis.”

“They’re very anxious for you to get back. Of course.”

“I thought some cop was supposed to give me a ride. They kept me down there for two hours, and now they don’t have the decency to help me get home? What the fuck is going on?” He began to shake again. “Who the fuck are you?”