Vertical Run

AUTHOR’S NOTE

In 1946 Allied war crimes investigators discovered that Dr. Shiro Ishii, a general of the Japanese Imperial Army and commander of a military organization known as Unit 731, had constructed the world’s largest and most advanced biological weapons laboratory in Manchuria. Satellite laboratories were later found in Tokyo and elsewhere. Evidence assembled by investigators demonstrated that throughout the course of the war, Ishii and his assistants had conducted extensive biological weaponry tests on Chinese civilians and on American and British POWs held at various camps in Southeast Asia.

Inexplicably Dr. Ishii (whose crimes far exceeded those of his German counterpart, Dr. Josef Mengele) was never brought to trial. Rather, he was allowed a long and prosperous retirement, enjoying a sizable pension from the Japanese government as well as income from other sources that remained anonymous until, just as this novel was being sent to the typesetters, The New York Times revealed that the U.S. government had paid Dr. Ishii a handsome stipend.

Such few records as are publicly available are ambiguous as to the ultimate disposition of the extensive body of research reports prepared by Dr. Ishii and his staff.