“Obviously, intent is difficult to confirm. But as for the functions of the missiles — are they operational. General?”
“Prime Minister, the missiles are in perfect working order. Once manufactured they do not, after all, break. The bunker was climate-controlled, leading us to the knowledge that the missile-computer systems were being attended to.
Furthermore, these weapons are not launched from silos as Minister Yoshida mentioned but from trucks. The missiles were preloaded onto launcher subassemblies inside the bunker. We can go back and review the disk if there is any doubt of that. The subassemblies need only be lifted onto a launcher truck to be ready to fire. A simple flatbed truck will suffice.”
“So allow me to review. General. You are certain these missiles work?”
“I am, sir,”
“And they have launchers?”
“They do.”
“And the launchers will work?”
“We are certain of it.” The meeting went on for another hour while the opinions of the men in the room moved closer to the idea of a military strike, in spite of Yoshida’s dissenting feelings. Finally General Gotoh made a move to review the arguments.
“So, gentlemen, if I might take this moment to summarize.
I think we have reached agreement on several points. First, that there are offensive missiles in Greater Manchuria. Second, that these missiles are nucleartipped. Third, that the units are operational. Fourth, the missiles are twenty-four minutes’ flight time from Tokyo.
And therefore, fifth, if President Len has an intention of launching an attack on Japan, he will be successful.
Tokyo will look worse than 1945. Worse than Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombs were dropped. To put it in perspective, the Hiroshima bomb had the equivalent of twenty thousand tons of TNT explosive. An SS34 has over two million tons. Twenty well-targeted SS34s would take our nation back two thousand years. Our descendants would live off whatever little land is not contaminated by nuclear radiation. Our promises to the people that Japan would never again suffer this humiliation and death will be turned to ashes along with the world’s most advanced cities. On this, we are agreed, are we not?”
Kurita kept his face neutral. The men had agreed on the first four points. The fifth was Gotoh’s opinion based on the consequences of a nuclear attack. But what he had said would need to be covered at some point, and perhaps it would be best to signify agreement and get the discussion of the memories of being bombed with nuclear weapons behind them. Since Japan remained the only nation to have been targeted and attacked by nuclear bombs, the national consciousness had remained sensitive to the issue. The antinuclear protests in Asia during the past decades had been heavily funded by Japan, and had succeeded in spite of rumors in the Western press that Japan itself was working on a new type of nuclear weapon.
Kurita began working his way around the table, asking each man present for an opinion, bringing out each minister’s specialty. The minister of finance, Haruna Sugimoto, was asked what effect the weapon’s presence alone had on the economy of Japan, and then what would happen to the economy if the SS-34s ever landed on Japanese soil. The MITI minister was asked about the effects on industry and how long it would take to rebuild the nation should it come under attack. MacHiie was asked about the effects of an attack on the world’s information network, and he had replied in much the same voice as did the MITI and finance ministers.
When all had spoken except Adm. Akagi Tanaka, who was not involved in the actual decision-making process but was present to give the council the benefit of his naval knowledge, Kurita stood.
“We have taken many hours to understand and explore the data before us — the fact of the existence of the SS-34 missiles and exactly what that means to Japan and the world around us. We now know the consequences of the use of those weapons, and we realize that those consequences are indeed grave. So grave that we are moved to ask the next question — what action do we now take?”
“Mr. Prime Minister, aren’t we forgetting something?”
The room turned toward Foreign Minister Yoshida.
Kurita bit the inside of his lip, but turned toward Yoshida and allowed him to speak.
“We have spoken about the weapons. We have spoken of what they can do. But for many decades we have been surrounded by such weapons. Before the revolution China had many such instruments of war, some no doubt reserved for Tokyo. Who could doubt Soviet Russia had even more? And the ships of the United States fleet that docked here for so many decades until the trade war, how many of them had nuclear missiles in their holds and magazines?
