Consequences Unforeseen

Tokyo/Ito, Wednesday June 5th - Thursday June 6th 1991

Tokyo/Ito, Wednesday June 5th – Thursday June 6th 1991

 

The lush green Japanese countryside passed by the Shinkansen ‘Bullet train’ window in an effective blur that only speeds close to a couple of hundred miles an hour can achieve. Bill Doulas was reclined in the body hugging leather seat with a cold Sapporo beer can nestling in the arm rest cup holder and a sushi tray on the fold out table. Kris sat in the adjacent seat with her own sushi tray but her preferred beverage of ice cold Saki.

She was reading the remnants of Stephen King’s novel ‘The Stand,’ and he was playing around with the new Kyocera Smartphone. They had chatted about this and that for the first half hour of the trip, but the white noise of the train had them dozing not long after and when awake again, they decided on some food and a few drinks and now relaxed, they were in a holiday mindset, short though the holiday might be.

They were well on the way down to the spa town of Ito where they had booked a couple of days in a modern spa hotel. Not the traditional wooden, sleep on the floor, outdoor hot spring bath resorts, but a wonderful haven with enormous tiled baths in each guest room and verandas overlooking the valley below and all the way to the ocean.

Douglas very much wanted to chill out away from Tokyo and discussions with Yoshikawa on the use of the amazing dragonfly technology. He was troubled at the absolute secrecy that Yoshikawa and his team insisted he maintain. He was not surprised with this condition, since all of his work was in the realm of top secret, but the fact that he had never teased Kris about her reading and marking of her book, ‘The Stand’ weighed heavy on him.

Obviously, he held his work and specific details of operations away from her, but she DID know what his work entailed so the potential for adverse outcomes in the Crimea was prickling his subconscious with twinges of guilt. He also felt awkward withholding from her how powerful this new capability was and how much more secure his mission outcome felt like to him now he had absorbed the mobile technology.

He was playing with the dragonfly as he toured with its ‘eyes’ through the Ginza District all those miles away now, and thinking that now would be a good time to ask her for her book, turn to the paragraph she marked and say something teasing and smart like, “See how I can read your mind! I knew you had marked this particular part.”

He thought the better of it though and sped the dragonfly back to its nesting place in Yoyogi Uehara. Settled now, the debate was over. The world would need to wait on the outcome of the upcoming Soviet coup attempt. He comforted himself knowing that this was the case. No need to jinx any outcome with foretelling and second guessing an operation over which he had no decision to make. It simply HAD to be done.

The next couple of days would let him relax in Kris’ company and give them much needed private time away from the hubbub of Tokyo life. The Tokaido-Sanyo fast train was soon to deposit them in Atami from where they would take the slower JR Ito line to their destination. Douglas was amazed that this entire journey took less than two hours.

The short ride on the slower JR Line proved more diverting to them both as it made its way directly down the coastline with view out over the Sagami-nada Sea. They had left on the earliest dawn train they could and now the sun was setting the water on fire with silver flares that blinded the eyes if you stared for too long. Respite was provided by the occasional but dense forest trees that covered the hillsides down towards the water. The whole scene played out on the shadows it cast on the carriage walls opposite and the reflections on the opposing glass.

This whole region is called the Izu-Kogen or ‘Highlands of Izu,’ but this is somewhat of a misnomer because the hills were limited by nature to heights of merely one thousand feet or so.