Underground (10 page)

At
11:00
news came that it was sarin. Finally the doctors would have a look at me! They got the picture. Straightaway it was transfusions, hospitalization. I was their first sarin patient, so suddenly the doctors were fascinated. They gathered around, poking me all over the place for symptoms, chatting among themselves: “See, this is what it does.” I was in there for three days.

I was so exhausted I slept really well, but the three months after that were tough. I was tired all the time. Try and do something and I’d be worn out. My eyes had gone, my focus was blurry and my field of vision was tiny. My job involves a lot of driving, but after dark I couldn’t see a thing. My vision’s normally okay, but I couldn’t even make out street signs. And if I can’t read a computer screen I can’t do business.

I probably went a little funny in the head, too. Seriously. I went around telling people, “Something’s out there. You’ll see, something strange is going to happen.” I was buying survival gear at camping stores
(laughs)
. After I came back to normal, I thought, what a fool I’d been … but at the time I was deadly serious. Now, what am I going to do with a survival knife?

It’s odd, but I didn’t feel anything like anger. Of course, it makes me angry to think of those who died. It makes me especially sad to think of the dead station attendants who carried out the sarin. If they hadn’t been there, I might have died too. But I don’t feel any personal hatred or bitterness toward the criminals. It feels more like I had an accident. Maybe you were expecting another response?

Either way, I couldn’t stand the media coverage of Aum. I don’t even want to look at it. Yes, you could say it’s reinforced my mistrust of the media. The long and the short of it is, everyone loves a scandal. They just enjoy saying, “Oh, what a shame.” I’ve even stopped reading magazines.

The team of Ken’ichi Hirose and Koichi Kitamura planted sarin on a westbound Marunouchi Line train destined for Ogikubo.

Born in Tokyo in 1964, Hirose was 30 years old at the time. After graduating from Waseda High School, a preparatory school for the prestigious Waseda University, he enrolled at the university’s Engineering department, from which he graduated in Applied Physics at the top of a class of one hundred. He’s the very model of an honor student. In 1989 he completed his postgraduate studies, only to spurn offers of employment and take vows instead.

He became an important member of the Aum cult’s Chemical Brigade in their Ministry of Science and Technology. Along with fellow perpetrator Masato Yokoyama, Hirose was a key figure in their secret Automatic Light Weapon Development Scheme. A tall, serious-looking youth, he seems rather more boyish than his 32 years. In court he chooses his words carefully and speaks quietly and to the point.

The morning of March 18, Hirose received orders from his Ministry of Science and Technology superior Hideo Murai to plant sarin on the subway. “I was extremely surprised,” he said later in court. “I shuddered to think of all the victims this would sacrifice. On the other hand, I knew I couldn’t be well-versed enough in the teachings to be thinking like that.” In awe of the gravity of his mission, he felt a strong “instinctual resistance,” but his adherence to Aum’s teachings
was even stronger. While he now admits his error, he claims he realistically had neither the liberty nor the will to disobey orders from above—that is, as he says himself, from Shoko Asahara.

Hirose was ordered to board the second car of an Ogikubo-bound Marunouchi Line train at Ikebukuro Station. At Ochanomizu Station, he would poke holes in two packets of sarin and be picked up by Kitamura’s car waiting outside. The train number was A
777
. Detailed instructions were provided by Hirose’s “Big Brother,” Yasuo Hayashi. After twenty days of training at Kamikuishiki Village, Hirose finally poked so hard with his umbrella that he bent the tip.

Leaving the Aum
ajid
in Shibuya, west central Tokyo, at
6:00
on the morning of March 20, Hirose and Kitamura drove to Yotsuya Station. There Hirose boarded a westbound Marunouchi Line train for Shinjuku, then changed to the Saikyo Line northbound for Ikebukuro. He bought a copy of a sports tabloid at a station kiosk and wrapped the sarin packets in it. He waited around before boarding the appointed Marunouchi Line train, standing by the middle door of the second car. But when it was time to release the sarin, the newspaper wrapping made such a noise it drew the attention of a nearby schoolgirl—or at least Hirose thought it had.

Unable to bear the mounting tension, he got off the train at Myogadani or Korakuen Station and stood on the platform. Overwhelmed by the horror of what he had been commanded to do, he was filled with an intense desire to leave the station without going through with it. He confessed to feeling “envious of the people who could just walk out of there.” In retrospect, that was the crucial moment when things might have been very different. Had he simply left the station, hundreds of people would have been spared a major derailment in their lives …

But Ken’ichi Hirose gritted his teeth and overcame his doubts. “This is nothing less than salvation,” he told himself. The act of doing it is what matters, and besides, it’s not just him, all the others are doing the same thing too. He couldn’t let the others down. Hirose got back on the train, taking another car, the third, to avoid the inquisitive schoolgirl. As the train approached Ochanomizu Station, he pulled the packet of sarin out of his bag and dropped it unobtrusively on the floor. The newspaper wrapper fell off as he did so and the
plastic packet was exposed, but by then he didn’t care. He didn’t have time to care. He repeated an Aum mantra under his breath in order to steel himself, then, just as the doors opened at Ochanomizu, he banished all thoughts and stabbed at the bag with the tip of his umbrella.

Before getting into Kitamura’s waiting car, Hirose rinsed the umbrella tip with some bottled water and tossed it into the trunk. Despite being extremely careful in his movements, he soon showed the unique symptoms of sarin poisoning. He couldn’t speak properly and breathing was difficult. His right thigh began to twitch uncontrollably.

Hirose hurriedly injected himself in the thigh with the atropine sulphate given him by Ikuo Hayashi. With his excellent scientific background, Hirose knew how deadly sarin could be, but it was far more toxic than he had expected. The thought crossed his mind: “What if I just die like this?” He remembered Ikuo Hayashi’s advice: “At the first sign of any physical abnormalities, report to Aum Shinrikyo Hospital in Nakano for immediate medical treatment.” Hirose had Kitamura drive the car to Nakano, but was completely caught off-guard to find the doctors there knew nothing about the secret sarin drop. They returned swiftly to the Shibuya
ajid
, where Ikuo Hayashi administered emergency care.

Back at Kamikuishiki Village, Hirose and Kitamura joined the other perpetrators to deliver to Asahara the message: “Mission accomplished.” Whereupon Asahara commended them, saying, “Trust the Ministry of Science and Technology to get the job done.” When Hirose confessed to having changed to another car because he thought he’d been noticed, Asahara seemed to accept his explanation: “I was following everyone’s astral projections the whole time,” he said, “and I thought Sanjaya’s (Hirose’s cult name) astral projection seemed dark, as though something had happened. So that’s what it was.”

“The teachings tell us that human feelings are the result of seeing things in the wrong way,” said Hirose. “We must overcome our human feelings.” He had succeeded in puncturing two plastic packets, releasing 900 milliliters of liquid sarin onto the floor. As well as the one passenger who died, 358 were seriously injured.

At Nakano-sakaue Station a passenger reported that someone had collapsed. Two severe casualties were carried out: one died; the other, “Shizuko Akashi,”
^*
was temporarily reduced to a vegetative state. Meanwhile, a station attendant, Sumio Nishimura, scooped up the sarin on board and cleared it from the station
(see this page
)
. But the train itself continued on its way, the car floor still soaked with liquid sarin.

At
8:38
the train reached Ogikubo, the end of the line. New passengers got on and the train headed back eastward in the opposite direction. Passengers in the eastbound train complained of feeling ill. Several station attendants that had boarded the train at Ogikubo also mopped the floor, but they too gradually became unwell and had to be rushed to the hospital. The train was taken out of service two stops later at Shin-koenji Station.
^†

Actually, the whole week before I’d been down with the flu. That was the first time in my adult life I’d ever taken to my bed. I’m never ill.

So there I was, going back to work that day after my absence, which is why I wanted to get to the office a little early, to make up for lost time
(laughs)
. I left the house ten minutes earlier than usual.

I always sit down and have a leisurely read of the newspaper on the Yokohama Line going west to the Hachioji office, but that day it just so happens I was supposed to go to the downtown Shinjuku office for a special meeting of regional managers. I planned to spend the morning in Shinjuku, then put in an appearance at Hachioji.

The meeting began at
9:45
. I left the house before
7:00
, taking the Yokosuka Line up to Shimbashi, then the Ginza Line to Akasakamitsuke, then changed to the Marunouchi Line for Shinjuku-gyoemmae: travel time, an hour and a half. The Marunouchi Line clears out after Akasaka-mitsuke, so I’m assured of a seat. But that day, I sit down and straightaway I notice an acid smell. Okay, trains often smell funny, but this was no ordinary smell, let me tell you. I
remember a lady sitting across from me covering her nose with a handkerchief, but otherwise there was nothing obviously wrong. I’m not even sure that smell was sarin. It’s only later I thought back, “Ah, so that’s what it was.”

I got off at Shinjuku-gyoemmae, except it was incredibly dark, like somebody had switched off all the lights. It had been a bright day when I left home, but when I exited above ground everything was dim. I thought the weather had taken a turn for the worse, but I looked up and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I was taking a hay-fever remedy at the time, so I thought it might be a reaction to the drug; It was different from my usual, so maybe this was a side effect.

But everything was still dark when I reached the office and I felt so lethargic I just sat in a daze at my desk, gazing out of the window. The morning meeting ended and everyone else went out for lunch. But everything was still dark and I had no appetite. I didn’t feel up to talking to anyone. So I ate quietly alone and then I broke out in a sweat. The TV was on in the ramen noodle shop and it’s round-the-clock news about the gas attack. The others tease me, saying, “Hey, maybe you have sarin poisoning,” but I knew it was the hay-fever remedy, so I just laughed along.