Xu Lei - Search for the Buried Bomber

Little by little I continued to descend, until at last I dropped onto the platform. It immediately let out a fearful groan and began to buckle. I stepped onto the “No Entry” sign. The sign was so rusted, it split apart and tumbled through the cracks. The nerves on my back tingled. I took another step. Again the platform groaned, but this time the sound clearly suggested it would hold, so I dropped my whole weight onto it.

The generator was water powered and hidden beneath a layer of calcium carbonate. Even the propeller blades were covered in the stuff, but they still managed to slowly turn as water rushed past them. Knowing little about such things, I decided not to investigate it any further. Instead I took a quick, exploratory lap around the platform. Behind the machine, I found a space on the floor where one of the iron bars had split off, leaving a gap big enough for a person to descend through. I squatted down and shined my flashlight into the breach. Sure enough, thirty feet down the cave was no longer vertical. Here it sloped into a kind of staircase that ran deep into the earth. Perfect, I thought. From here on the way will be easier. Even if I fall, I probably won’t get seriously injured. So I pulled on the rope—telling them to let more of it out—squatted next to the opening, and took a careful look down. Kneeling this close to the platform, I began to detect a thick, foul chemical odor. Covering my nose, I leaned in close and looked down. A layer of iron netting had been wound underneath the platform and a hole torn through it. Something had clearly passed through here, but this “something” was a good bit smaller than Wang Sichuan.

I yelled up to the top several times, asking them to toss me down some pliers. A moment later a pair slid down the rope. Grabbing them, I extended my arm into the opening, felt around a bit, and began cutting through the netting. At this angle the work was strenuous. After a few minutes, my back started to cramp. I continued to cut, tearing off pieces of the netting as I worked. At last the job seemed more or less complete, so I bent over and wriggled my upper half through the gap, scanning about with my headlamp to see what was waiting for me underneath. The iron mesh beneath the platform was very dense, like close vegetation. I turned my head to illuminate the darkness. Then I saw it. There, tangled deep in the wiring, was a thick clump of hair.

Just beneath the hair, I saw a dark, curled-up shadow, but it was sunk too deep in the mesh for me to make it out.

As I brought my head closer to the object, the stink grew even stronger. In my heart I already knew what it was. I brought the pliers through the gap and, gripping the clump of hair, gently pulled it away, revealing a sickeningly pale face, swollen with water. Just as I’d thought. Even though I knew what I was going to find the moment I saw the hair, it was still a shock when my suspicions were confirmed. At once I pulled my head out and began to yell toward the surface. At last, someone else rappelled down—one of the corpsmen. He descended until he was hanging just above the platform. “What is it?” he asked. I gestured for him to quiet down. Having someone else down here filled me with newfound courage. Covering my nose to block the awful smell, I leaned back in for another look.

The corpse was entirely wound in the iron netting, his uniform identical to our own. He must have belonged to the same unit as Yuan Xile. The corpsmen had just searched this goddamn area, yet none of them had discovered the dead body. Did this mean that rather than continuing deeper into the cave, Yuan Xile and her team had stopped here and descended into the sinkhole, just as we were doing?

I felt a chill in the air and drew back out of the gap. After telling the young soldier that there was a dead body beneath the platform, I yanked on the rope, signaling to the others to lift us up. Back on top everyone was stunned. This is a clue as well, said Wang Sichuan. He asked me if I’d recognized who it was. I shook my head, but seeing as he’d died here, the sinkhole probably didn’t lead anywhere good. We’d better lift the corpse out and take a look first, I said. Then we could figure out our next move.

We spent the next three hours taking turns cutting away the iron mesh that bound the body. By the time we’d raised it up, all of us stunk of death from head to toe. The man’s hair was very long and covered his face. The face, although slightly swollen with water, remained well defined. He had very dark skin and looked to be about forty—he was probably the team elder. Wang Sichuan had been looking closely at the corpse. Once we washed its face clean, his expression abruptly changed.

“My God,” he stammered, “I know this guy. How did he end up here?” When he said the name, our faces all turned white. We stared at the corpse, none of us daring to believe it was true.

Forgive me for not revealing his name here. Within the world of geological prospecting, he was a famous expert, really more of a geologist than a prospector. In the history books, it states that he defected to the Soviet Union, but in reality he died a martyr’s death, here in the depths of the cave. Given the man’s identity, it became apparent that the quality of the first team was superior to anything we’d imagined. Had their standards been any higher, the only people left to include would have been legends and icons like Li Siguang and Huang Jiqing. We were stunned. If these were the people Old Cat was rescuing, it was a grand mission indeed.

Wang Sichuan searched the corpse’s pockets, but they were all empty. Next we inspected the body, hoping to learn how he’d died. He appeared to lack any external injuries, but his extremities—especially the fingers and toes—had taken on a greenish hue. Stranger than that, the gums in his wide-open mouth had all turned black and his entire body twitched. He was in a severe state of rigor mortis.

“Seems like he was poisoned,” I said, basing my judgment on folk knowledge.

Several people nodded their heads. What about poison gas, said Wang Sichuan. He suggested the Japanese had hoarded chemical weapons down below and they had begun to leak. It was hard to deny this possibility. In fact, after considering it a moment, the correctness of it struck me like a revelation. Yes, I thought, that’s exactly what happened. What if this cave was actually one of the sites where the Japanese stored their chemical weapons? To hide the fact they’d used them during the war, they’d buried those it was too late to destroy down this sinkhole. As for the plane, maybe it had only been transported here by chance. At the time of the Japanese surrender, war criminals were said to have revealed that nearly 2 million chemical warheads were secretly hidden around China. To this day the Japanese have divulged neither the locations of these bombs nor their total amount. It’s rumored the majority are scattered across what was once Manchuria.

After Japanese prospectors discovered and reported the underground river, their superiors must have realized that, although they’d located no mineral resources, this spot was suitable for storing chemical weapons. They then constructed a weapons storehouse within the cave. As this area was within the defensive zone maintained by the Japanese military against the Soviet Union, there were clearly strategic reasons for storing chemical weapons here as well. On the face of it, this explanation seemed entirely rational.