“How’d you find me?”
“Just snooped around after I finished some business.” His tone changed.
Vincent scratched his chin. Spy business, old friend?
“And why are you hanging around Brisbane?” Tad took a deep breath.
“Vacation, needed time off.”
“Come on, Vince, what’s going on?”
“Like I told you, I’m on vacation.”
The telephone rang. Vincent walked across the room, picked up the receiver. “Hello.” He listened a few seconds then pointed the mouthpiece at Tad. “Sorry pal, got some business myself. Why don’t we meet later for a drink?”
“Sounds good.” Tad stared at the phone. “How about seven tonight, same place?”
“See you then.” Vincent put the receiver on the bed, escorted Tad out the door, and came back to the phone. “Sorry Colonel—what? Damn, she’ll be off schedule. When’s the front supposed to clear? I’d better…No? Shouldn’t I know who’s on it? Yes, I gave her the orders, but she needs—yes sir.” He hung up, sat on the bed’s edge with his head in his hands. That’s why Tad lied. He was tracking AE, but for which side?
A Prison in the Japanese Mandated Islands
1938
The small cell door opened. Light streamed into the room, blazed into the eyes of the tall woman sitting on a hard bunk. She recoiled, pulled a thin arm across high cheekbones protruding from her pale face. Stomach spasms raged throughout her insides and doubled her over. Saliva filled her mouth, started the reflex sensation up her esophagus. She cupped trembling hands over her mouth but nothing came except hurting. Warm sweat poured off her brow onto her cheeks. She drew a washbasin half-full of bile to her lips, spit out the saliva.
A medium-built Japanese officer stood in the doorway, smelled the stale air, limped in. “I brought you some honey-tea and strained rice.” He set a small tray on the bed.
“Thank you.” She turned, put down the washbasin. “I doubt it will help, but thanks anyway.”
He poured the tea, lifted the cup to her chapped lips. “Just a sip.” He tilted her head back.
She drank the tea, relaxed more between each swallow.
“There now, do you feel a little better?”
She leaned against the wall. “A little.” A weak grin crossed her face. “Funny—at home, I never got sick. I cared for the sick.”
“I know you did. I’ve followed your career.”
“You know about me?”
“I was the top flying cadet in 1932 when you flew solo across the Atlantic. They sent me to America to be educated and learn English.”
“And now, you’re at this prison?”
“My leg . . .” He looked down. “I was wounded in China. I must serve the Emperor as I can.” He fed her some rice. “I saw when you were brought in.”
She touched his hand. “Why do they want me?”
“I don’t know the complete answer.” He felt her fingers tremble. “I am sorry you are sick. I will do what I can.”
“They must let me go. When my government finds out...”
“The United States will never know what happened.” His tone hardened. “You are too important to us.”
She leaned forward. “How could I be important to Japan?”
“In Japan, women are not such as you.” His face softened. “You have done what few men have done.”
Some color returned to her face. “I only did what I must. Women cannot be pushed aside by men because they are women.” She sat up straight. “I don’t want to die here.”
“I will not let you die.” He patted her short hair. “Each day I will visit, get you strong again. Someday you will leave.” He walked out of the cell.
She took another sip of tea, stared at the closed door. The letter said ditch. She ditched. Oh, Vincent, would she ever see him again?
Honolulu, Hawaii
March, 1941
On a clear Friday night Tad Yamaguchi walked into the Shuncho-ro Restaurant overlooking Pearl Harbor. American sailors and officers filled the noisy bar, smoking and talking to pretty Nisei girls. A thin twenty-eight year old former ensign of the Japanese Navy sat in a corner booth. On each side a petite girl was tucked next to his bright aloha shirt.
Tad eased through the crowd, sat down in the frail-looking man’s booth. “Ito.” He slid close to the younger girl.
“Toshio, you’re late,” Takeo Ito said.
“I was swimming. You said you wanted the tides and beach gradients up to date.”
A smile spread over Ito’s face. “Oh yes, America did provide me a champion swimmer.”
“The best at Berkeley.” Tad laughed.
The two girls giggled, sipped their drinks. Each had the soft, graceful features of Japanese women. Their eyes followed every movement of the men.
“Now to business.” Ito crowded closer to Tad, squeezed the tiny girl between them. “I have photographs. They must reach Tokyo soon as possible. Admiral Yamamoto must know how many ships are in and out of Pearl at any given time.”
“You amaze me, Ito.” Tad surveyed the large room. Most of the servicemen drank, laughed, or made passes at the girls. Large Hawaiian bartenders poured beer and mixed drinks into bottomless glasses. The music blared. The dancers danced. No one paid any attention to Ito and him. “What were you this time? A garbage man, laborer, tourist…The Admiral knows by now the U.S. Fleet comes in every weekend.”
Ito smiled, put his arms around both girls.
“There’s a freighter leaving for Japan early in the morning,” Tad said. “I have a contact who will deliver your message.”
“Well enough. Now, how are you making out with American Naval Intelligence?”
“It’s a cinch. They don’t have many Japanese translators. I slipped right in.” The girl next to him moved closer. He felt the pressure on his leg. A rush of blood flushed his handsome face. “Ahhh... as far as the United States is concerned, Japan’s not interested in Naval movements around Hawaii any more than other places.” He settled back in the booth.
“That’s part of the cover,” Ito said. “The Americans get the same information from Tangier, Cape Town, Naples—you name it. When war comes, their Pacific Fleet must be destroyed at the outset.”
“My friend, Vincent, knows war will come. But, American stupidity helps us. His plants are so obvious.”
Ito’s thin lips tightened. “Make sure you keep him.”
“He thinks we’re like brothers.” Tad met Ito’s eyes.
Ito relaxed. “Now, it is time for enjoyment. An agent without a love life is an agent doomed.”
“You don’t look very doomed.” Tad grinned. “Too bad I didn’t bring a date.”
Ito hustled his two girls out of the booth. “You can pick up one and meet us at my place.”
“So, it is true.” Tad’s face flushed again. “You are Triangle of the Purple Code.”
“Toshio, you talk too much.” He ushered his escorts through the din of unsuspecting bodies dancing to swing music.
Honolulu, Hawaii
Saturday, December 6, 1941
Ito eased onto the wide futon, lit a cigarette, and lay on his back. In the dim light, two pretty girls put their purses on the dresser. He waved his finger. They took off their wedged-heeled shoes, unhooked garters, and rolled down silk stockings. Each unzipped the other’s dress, unsnapped brassieres, and slipped off black lace panties.
Ito smiled, took a long drag on his cigarette. The young Japanese girls unfolded before him, caressed each other with delicate fingers and lips. Moonlight rushed into the bedroom, exposed their naked bodies more deliciously than smooth ice cream on a hot day.
They knelt on the silk sheets, offered red painted lips to Ito. Soft black hair fell against his face. He squashed his cigarette into an ashtray without turning away from them. Their long hair swayed across his cheeks, tickled his skin, made him squirm.
The girls sat on their haunches, undid his flowered shirt one button at a time until they
ripped open his shirt. He shivered when their soft hands brushed across his chest, stripped off his shirt, loosened his belt buckle. Ito lay still. They inched off his trousers and shorts so slowly agony shot down to his toes. Naked, he braced against the wall, drew their hungry mouths to his loins, waited for the ultimate pleasure.
Loud banging struck his front door. “Ito! Ito!”
“Damn!” Ito took a deep breath, waved the girls off, and wrapped a black kimono around his lean body.
Peering through the door blinds into the still-dark morning he saw a small man in a striped suit wearing a felt hat. “This better be big.” He opened the door. “You were told never to come here.”
“The Tigers are launched.”
Ito looked at his watch. Hmmm... the night went fast. “0600... about two hundred miles out.”
“Reports say the Americans think our ships are still in home waters.” The little man smiled. “Agents dressed as sailors have paraded the streets of Tokyo and Yokohama for weeks. This will be a big victory.” He bowed.
Ito turned, forgetting what he abandoned in his bedroom. “Tora! Tora! Tora!”
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
December 7, 1941
Dr. Bernard Keuhn checked his watch in the attic of his large home overlooking Pearl Harbor. 8:30 a.m., Sunday morning. Japanese divebombers and torpedo planes had attacked the United States Pacific Fleet the past thirty-five minutes.
Explosions ripped around his house but no bombs landed on the roof where he had painted a large, bright-orange circle. Dr. Keuhn adjusted the special signal lamp and pointed it toward the mountains. He dashed across the room to the window facing the harbor. Wave after wave of Japanese “Kates,” “Vals,” and “Zeroes” shattered American battleships, cruisers, and destroyers moored together in pairs, like toys in a big bathtub.
Dr. Keuhn flashed code lights to fellow conspirators. They passed information to the Japanese Consul in Honolulu. These messages were relayed to the Japanese Naval Commander, Admiral Nagumo, aboard his carrier, the Akagi.
Tad Yamaguchi crouched in a tall bamboo field across from Keuhn’s house, watched light flashes soar from the attic window. He alerted the other Army Intelligence agents, rushed the house, kicked in the front and back doors.
Tad raced up the stairs, burst into the loft, leveled his .45 caliber automatic at the middle-aged professor’s forehead. Dr. Keuhn still operated the light flasher until Tad pulled back his weapon’s hammer. He looked at the young G-2 officer, raised his hands, but said nothing.
The operatives and their prisoner remained in the house until the last Japanese attack plane had disappeared to the north, leaving the Pacific Fleet in shambles.
Tad surveyed the devastation through binoculars. Tremendous uneven columns of heavy, black smoke poured from beaten ships. In the water, hundreds of dead men floated while others swam for their lives from twisted metal. Tad backed away from the window, set up his two-way radio. He called Vincent Carlson, his immediate superior, stationed in downtown Honolulu. “Toshio calling Electra. Come in Electra . . .”
“Electra here, go ahead.”
“The doc’s out of practice. How’s it going on your end?”
“Complete sweep here—began right after the initial attack. We’ve had all the spy name lists for months. But, we’re taking a bad beating. The military’s ass is really in a sling.”
“Yeah, can’t believe they didn’t receive the warning messages.”
“Something’s sure screwed up—oh, shit!”
Loud gunfire blasted over the receiver.
“Vince! Vince!” Tad’s grip tightened around the tarnished mouthpiece.
Honolulu, Hawaii
The Day After The Pearl Harbor Attack
“Hey you! Stop!”
Tad straightened up in front of his apartment house door, the key still in his hand.
“Turn around, slow like.”
Tad shifted his weight, eased around, faced two large MPs. “Oh.” He raised his right hand in greeting.
“That’s right, Jap, get that other hand up, too.” The sergeant unsnapped his holster.
“But, I’m— “
“You’re what?” The grim-faced soldier trained his .45 on the bewildered Japanese.
“My name’s Tad Yamaguchi. I’m with... “ He saw coldness in their eyes, never blinking, never altering their gaze from him. He was just a Jap to them. “Wait . . .” He changed his mind, said nothing more.
A Bar in Honolulu, Hawaii
Fall, 1947
“So that’s how you spent the war, in an Internment Camp?” Vincent asked.
“Not quite,” Tad said. “They took me to Sand Island Detention Center with hundreds of other Japanese just waiting to be sent to the West Coast. A lot of us were U.S. citizens.”
“Those were hard days right after the attack.” Vincent saw a flame rise in Tad’s eyes. “It had to be done. Japan could have walked right in if Nagumo’s task Force hadn’t beat it back to Yokohama. You know that.”
“No, I didn’t know it then. I was too busy trying to escape. I wasn’t sure if it was a set-up or not.”
“Well, how did you get out? Swim under Honolulu Harbor?” Vincent took a swig of his beer.
Tad cracked a bit of a smile. “It wasn’t amusing at the time. I slipped out in a garbage truck. Had to hold my breath under all that crap.”
“You probably needed a swim after that.” Vincent smiled.
Tad relaxed. “Guess I didn’t smell too good.”
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
“I thought you were dead. The gunfire, the last time we talked, remember?”
“Oh yeah, had to clear out fast. Finally secured the area. Then I went looking for you.”
“I turned Dr. Keuhn over to G-2—beat it down to Pearl, helped where I could. Got picked up by MPs the next day.”
“I didn’t know about that till later.”
“No matter now.” Tad rubbed his chin. “Whatever happened to Keuhn?”
A waitress set two more beer bottles on the table. Tad poured some into his glass. Vincent gripped the bottle.
“Well, the good doctor was sentenced to death.” Vincent took a swallow of beer. “But they commuted it to fifty years imprisonment, then released him last year.”
“What?”
“That’s right. All during the war he supplied us with so much intelligence about Japan and Germany.”
“That son of a bitch.” Tad blew foam off his beer. “What about Ruth?”
“Never got the whole story, but I think she and the doctor’s wife were deported back to Germany. You probably knew more about the Keuhns before the war than anyone.”
“Ah yes, the illustrious Ruth,” Tad said, “they passed her off as their daughter when they moved to Honolulu. Hess handpicked Dr. Keuhn after the Nazis took over. He’d been in the German Navy.”
“When did you meet him?”
“Thirty-nine. He chartered my sailboat every week, supposedly looking for Hawaiian remains and artifacts on the other islands. He also claimed to be interested in Japanese culture and language. Had all sorts of credentials.”
“He must’ve fed Germany and Japan plenty of info.”
“He was good,” Tad said, “but Ruth was something else. When they moved to Pearl City she opened a beauty parlor, catered to Navy officers’ wives. Turned their gossip over to Mrs. Keuhn, acting as a courier between Honolulu and Tokyo.”
“The Japanese had us by the balls that Sunday morning. If they only knew how down we were.”
Tad stretched in his chair. “But what Yamamoto feared, happened. The sleeping giant did awaken.”
“Sure did. Lucky for us. Go on with Ruth.”
“Such a beautiful woman. Really chose her men carefully. Squeezed out more classified info from Naval officers than we’ll ever know. Then she marries an American.”
“But we got her,” Vincent said. “I spent the war in an O.S.S. office dispatching agents behind enemy lines.�
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Tad played with his glass. “I hooked back up with Ito. He disguised himself as a diplomat. When the U.S. and Japan swapped consuls, Ito took me to Tokyo as an assistant. We worked for the Kempei Tai the rest of the war.”
“I had to pull a lot of strings to square that.”
Tad let out a big breath. “Thanks, but all those files I stole helped.”
“True,” Vincent said. “They’re still being decoded. Japan didn’t trust the Nazis. Berlin demanded a liaison between the SS and the Kempei Tai. They sent Meisinger, the ‘Butcher of Warsaw’, to run the prison camp at Karuizawa.”
“That camp was only a hundred miles from Tokyo. Held people from all over the world as spies. Even Ito said the Nazis gave new meaning to brutality.”
“I read reports about Manchuria, too.”
“Worse,” Tad said. “Japanese scientists experimented on Allied prisoners, worked on biological warfare.”
“And Japan gets away with only a few prosecuted war criminals.” Vincent finished his second beer. “That doesn’t ring right. They must’ve had something we wanted.”
“It didn’t save Tojo,” Tad said. “Funny thing about him, just before Pearl Harbor we thought the Imperial Fleet was in Tokyo and Yokohama—it was really north in the Kurile Islands.”
“I know that now. They left November 26th.”
“In those same islands, in thirty-one, Lindbergh and his wife were accused of spying by the Kempei Tai. And who do you think was head of the local military police? Yeah, Lieutenant General Hideki Tojo.”
“Then he becomes Premier, head of Japan’s war machine,” Vincent said. “Takes the Emperor off the hook. I think they struck some trade-off deal with MacArthur. Ito was probably in on it.”
Tad sat back in his chair, listened to the music. He set his glass on the table. “Ito was their best spy. He went to school in America, found out Howard Hughes tested a racing plane at 350 mph. Can you believe the Army didn’t buy it? In thirty-seven Japan invaded China. They needed a fast fighter. Ito infiltrated Hughes Aircraft, photographed the racer’s plans. You know the rest.”
Amelia Page 2
