MERSING CHRONICLES

Chapter 5 The Holy Grail

Present

"How's my girl getting along?" Hiang spoke affectionately into the phone.

"Fine mummy," Jerusha answered, her voice loud and clear. "And how are you doing in Japan? What's that city again?"

"Fukuyama."

"Having a nice time?"

"I am. Remembering my youth. First visited this place in my thirties with your dad, catching up on memories of those days. Looked up that diner in the back alley, the one we went to many times when I worked in Tokyo. Still there. Food as good as before. Then walked through the castle. Reminded me of that old novel, Shogun, by James Clavell, and the mini-series starring Richard Chamberlain. You saw that series as a kid, remember?"

There was a pause at the other end.

"Maybe not," Hiang continued. "But what a wonderful series that was."

"How's Amazon hun?" Hiang asked.

"Good, although it's taxing at times."

"Software development, at the advertisement side?"

"Uh-huh."

"Tell mummy what you are doing."

"My supervisor asked me to write a program to collect data from a lot of apps we use in the front end so we could analyze these data to see better what our clients are looking for. But not sure how to go about doing it."

"Don't you want to ask him how to go about doing it?"

"I can't. Not supposed to at my level. Have to figure it out myself. What do you think I should do?"

"Are the apps in python?"

"No, I am supposed to write in python, but these are old apps and there's other languages they used," Jerusha sighed.

"Can you read the code of these apps?"

"Uh-huh."

"So read the code and figure out what data they have and extract that data into your program. How's that for a starting point?"

There was silence at the other end.

"Might work mummy, will try that."

"How's your sister? Is she ok?"

"We went out for Korean bbq today. She's getting heavy."

"Don't tell Natie that ok. She won't like that."

Jerusha and Nathalie, 24 and 21. How time flies. It was only 26 years ago when she met their father, she mused. And now he's gone, in a blink of an eye. A heart attack at 47 years old, that was seven years ago.

There was a knock on her door. She walked to the door and looked through the peephole, it was Major Azukari. What a pleasant surprise.

"Hi Hun, I got to go, there's a visitor at the door."

"Ok mummy, Love you."

"Love you too and tell Natie mummy called. Bye."

She looked in the mirror to see if she looked presentable, patted down her wavy hair slightly, and then went to the door.

"Major Oona, what a nice surprise?" Hiang exclaimed opening the door, and they greeted each other with a bow.

"May I come in?"

"Sure, come on in."

The Major stepped into the room.

They both felt awkward for a moment as the room was tiny and there was only one chair.

"Why don't we go to the café at the lobby and we can talk there," Hiang suggested.

The Major nodded.

The café was well lit with yellowish ambience, and Japanese style paper partitions separating the tables providing privacy to customers. It was evening close to 8:00 pm and the lighted street was busy with people and huge advertisement screens dancing in midair.

"I have some news Evelyn San," Major Oona said as they sat on a small rounded table with a pot of green tea on it.

Hiang's pulse quickened with expectation.

"After we met five days ago, I started looking through my old diaries. I kept diaries as a habit. I was looking for the year 2050 and because it was the first few days of the war, I found three diaries for that year. I must have written every single day. And I have brought the diary that spoke of the events in July 2050." She took out an old worn hard-covered book and placed it on the table. It was sizable around A4 size and maybe 100 pages.

Hiang stared at the book, its spine still intact, but the pages seemed stained with age, although that could be the effect of the yellowish light in the café. It appeared to her like the holy grail, that so long sought artifact that supposedly held the blood of Jesus as he hung on the cross, dying.

"Can you still read Japanese?" the Major asked.

"Not very well, but I can see if I recognize the words."

The Major flipped to a page where there was a postcard used as a bookmark.

"Can you see the date?"

Hiang peered at the writing where the Major's index finger was pointing.

"July 15, 2050," Hiang read the date out loud her heart racing. That's the day after she last saw him.

She read the paragraph quickly and interpreted it in her mind: Was ordered to take the Puma today and help retrieve debris from the sea 500 m east of Tioman. First time in ten years I have heard of such an order. How...

"What does this mean?" Hiang asked pointing at the word.

"Bakagete iru. Means 'ridiculous'."

...ridiculous, she continued in her mind. Was hovering over the salvage area while divers hooked up large pieces of the debris. Then transported the pieces to a barge nearby. Was a full day of work.

She went on to the next date, July 16, 2050: Same activities today, salvaging the debris. Looks like pieces of a boat. Saw the insignia of the Chinese Navy on a piece. Was talking to the Commander today when I saw him and asked why this debris was so important. The Commander said it came from an island nearby where the Chinese was looking for a secret underground bunker and it may have some top-secret material onboard when they sank it.

The smoking gun! Hiang cried in her heart.

"Was there a body?" Hiang asked. She went quickly through the next two dates looking for the word 'shitai'.

"There is no body, Evelyn. Only the debris. And you are right about that piece of engine on the Musashi deck, it came from this boat."

Hiang wept, overwhelmed with this confirmation, as if a load had been lifted off her shoulders. A huge step forward, she thought.

"Thank you so much, Oona San, I am eternally grateful," she grasped the Major's hand. And Oona smiled.