Hunt for the Bamboo Rat Page 10

  For three days Zenji wandered around the Nippon Club, listening in on conversations, watching for anything unusual. But as far as he could tell, there were no spies among these people. If there were, they were very good ones.

  On the fourth day, Zenji was handcuffed and taken away by an officer from the Philippine Constabulary.

  “What’s this all about?” Zenji asked. “What did I do?”

  The Filipino officer did not respond.

  Zenji’s fear subsided somewhat when he remembered what Colonel Olsten had said: Make sure you get arrested by the Filipinos, not us.

  One of Zenji’s friends from the Momo saw what was going on and hurried over. He followed them out, speaking in Japanese so the officer couldn’t understand. “Why don’t you tell him you’re American? You don’t have to be here.”

  “Safer in here. Outside, they’d take me for … you know … somebody who just bombed them.”

  “Ah. So it is. Smart thinking.”

  Zenji tried to get the officer to stop a moment. “At least let me say goodbye.”

  The officer gave Zenji a few seconds.

  “Listen,” Zenji said to his friend, “please say goodbye to the others for me. Be well, all of you. I hope you get home safely, and soon.”

  He wished he could do something for them.

  The Filipino officer hauled Zenji out to a black car. Another officer stood waiting, and got in the back with Zenji.

  The car pulled away, leaving the Nippon Club.

  “Did Colonel Olsten send you?”

  Neither man answered.

  “How about these cuffs? Can you take them off?”

  Nothing.

  Zenji had to sit leaning forward, the cuffs pinching his wrists behind his back. He tried to relax. Colonel Olsten must have ordered this. Why else would he be here?

  Trust.

  Trust Colonel Olsten.

  He looked out the window as they drove.

  Manila was already changing—store windows crisscrossed with tape, sandbags piled into small bunkers on the streets, snarled and tangled traffic slowing the black car’s progress to a crawl, herds of people fleeing town, long lines outside of banks. Zenji felt bad for the citizens of Manila, caught in a mess they had no stake in creating.

  Fortunately, Japanese troops had not come ashore.

  But what about in Honolulu? Had they landed there?

  He’d have heard about it, wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t people be talking about that?

  Maybe not.

  Too much chaos.

  Was his family okay? His neighborhood wasn’t that far from Pearl Harbor. Was Henry all right? Where he worked was even closer.

  Maybe he was hurt.

  Stop! Don’t think!

  Zenji closed his eyes in relief when the arresting officers turned in to Fort Santiago and not a prison. They cleared the gate and stopped at Colonel Olsten’s building. The man in back helped Zenji out and removed the cuffs, still without a word.

  An American guard headed out to take charge. “This way,” he said.

  “Where are we going?”

  No answer.

  These guys don’t see an American, Zenji thought. They see an enemy.

  When they entered the G2 office, Colonel Olsten jumped to his feet. “Zenji!” He dismissed the guard and pointed to a chair.

  Zenji eased into it, rubbing his wrists.

  “Sorry you had to come over in cuffs,” Colonel Olsten said, sitting back down. “But it was better for your cover.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “I got—”

  “Colonel, have you heard anything about Honolulu? I’m worried about my family.”

  Colonel Olsten leaned back. “From what I’ve heard, the city itself suffered some, but overall it’s intact. Most damage was confined to military sites. Your family should be fine.”

  Zenji looked at his hands. Thank God.

  What about Mina? Had she heard about Manila? Was she worried, too? He wished he could get word home.

  “Such a tragedy,” the colonel said. “It was a complete surprise.”

  Zenji looked up. “Can I call home, Colonel?”

  Colonel Olsten shook his head. “Not possible. Not now, anyway.”

  Zenji pursed his lips.

  “Pearl Harbor and Clark Field weren’t the only places they hit. They bombed Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Wake Island, and Guam, as well.”

  Japan had been bold beyond measure. Beyond imagining. “Colonel—That’s crazy. They just smacked a beehive with a stick.”

  Colonel Olsten sat back. “I’m going to have you work for me here at the fort. There are coded radio intercepts to unravel and a few captured enemy documents to translate. We even have a few POWs already. We need you to interrogate them.”

  “POWs?”

  “Downed pilots.”

  Zenji stared at the colonel. “Wait. Did you say you want me to interrogate them?” He was incredulous. He could translate, but interrogate? “I have no training for that.”

  “Understood. But at the moment we have few choices. You speak the language, we don’t. We’ll help you as we can.”

  The colonel looked Zenji in the eye. “You and Freddy Kimura are all I have here. We need information and will do what we have to do to get it, because it’s going to get worse. Guam is in Japanese hands now.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Very. They’re coming here … soon … and when they do, we won’t be able to stop them.”

  A few days later, Zenji ventured outside the fort. He needed a break, a walk, some fresh air, anything to break the monotony of reading through stacks of paper and listening to jabbering radio transmissions.

  Where was Freddy? What did they have him doing?

  Zenji stood in the sun and took a deep breath. He’d been living in the barracks, eating in the mess hall, and hadn’t been outside the fort for days.

  He started walking, just a few blocks. He had only a half hour.

  Five minutes. That’s all it took before that creepy feeling in his neck kicked in. He glanced around, trying to be inconspicuous.

  They were easy to spot.

  Two young Filipinos, following him.

  Memories of Chinatown flooded his brain, but his experience with the four guys who’d attacked him in the alley made compassion sound ridiculous.

  His pursuers closed the distance between them.

  Zenji hurried across the street, cutting between honking cars. The two men stayed with him, closing fast.

  When Zenji stopped to look into a store window, the men mimicked him. When he moved on, so did they.

  Amateurs.

  But who were they? What did they want?

  For the first time he noticed people glaring at him. This is because I’m Japanese, he thought. Should have stayed inside the fort.

  He wasn’t paying attention, and soon found himself boxed into a dead-end alley.

  He turned back.

  The two men stood motionless at the alley’s entrance.

  “What do you want?”

  One guy pulled a switchblade and popped it open. The men started walking into the alley.

  Zenji backed up.

  “Hey!” someone shouted.

  The two guys stopped and looked behind them.

  Freddy!

  “Back off!” Freddy was holding a .45-caliber pistol, government issue.

  The guy folded the knife, his eyes saying, Next time.

  The two guys backed out of the alley and blended into the foot traffic on the street.

  Freddy holstered his pistol.

  Zenji breathed deeply. “Man, am I glad to see you!”

  Freddy grunted. “They think you’re a national.”

  “Figured that. Let’s get out of here.”

  They headed back to the fort. “Olsten just called me in,” Freddy said. “I came looking for you. Some guy told me you were going batty, stuck in that room.”

  “Yeah, I was. Lucky you came look
ing.”

  “I was tailing you and those guys. Practicing.”

  “Thanks for letting me suffer.”

  “Those punks were nothing.”

  “How’d you get the gun?”

  “Asked for it. Kind of dangerous where I am. I heard you visited.”

  “It was ugly.”

  “Not so bad once you get to know it.”

  They started back to the fort. “You saved me, Freddy.

  They would’ve cut me.”

  “No problem. What you been doing since last time I saw you?”

  “Mostly keeping an eye on some businessmen, but they don’t know anything. What about you?”

  “Not much. Helping out with a new intelligence program in San Francisco.”

  “Yeah, heard about that.”

  “Olsten said Pearl Harbor got it bad, but the rest of Honolulu is okay.”

  “You’re lucky. Maui was spared.”

  Freddy shook his head. “Nobody was spared, if you think about it. This war will be around awhile.”

  “Probably. Hey, I ran into another guy from Hawaii. You heard of Benny Suzuki?”

  Freddy nodded. “Little bit. On the wrong side, I take it.”

  “I’m not sure about that. He got a job in Japan and ended up in Manila.”

  “So you talked with him?”

  Zenji told him the story. “And get this—I worked for him.

  Undercover, of course. He’s a good guy.”

  “With bad timing.”

  “What’s worse is he had to evacuate his wife and kid to Japan when that ship came in. He stayed behind.”

  “I know,” Freddy said. “I think he’s a prisoner at Fort McKinley now. If it’s the same guy, we took him in with the rest of the embassy staff after the Japanese bombed Clark Field.”

  “But he’s American. How can they do that?”

  “Think about it.”

  Zenji frowned. “They think he’s on the wrong team?”

  “Bingo.”

  “We have to get him out, Freddy.”

  “Never happen.”

  “But he’s innocent.”

  “Working with the enemy is innocent?”

  “Working for the enemy, Freddy. There’s a difference.

  Japan wasn’t the enemy when he took the job.”

  Freddy shrugged. “Not my problem.”

  Zenji would talk to Colonel Olsten. He had to do something. Benny had the same problem he and Freddy did. If the Japanese took Manila they could easily think Benny was a spy, and the worst kind—an American inside their own embassy.

  He’d live about five minutes.

  At Fort Santiago, Zenji and Freddy worked long hours side by side at metal desks in a cave-like room. Since there was no need for cover, they wore khaki uniforms like any other soldier.

  For Zenji, this was a relief. If he were captured he’d be better off as an army clerk than an undercover spy, especially one of Japanese descent. At least, he hoped that would be the case.

  One day, six letters from home—all sent on different days, but delivered in a clump—arrived on his desk. Two were from Aiko and Ma, one was from Henry, two from Colonel Blake, and one from Mina.

  Only Henry’s was written after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

  Little Brother,

  It’s crazy here right now, and probably just as bad where you are. I can’t say much, because, as you may know, every piece of mail that leaves the islands is read and censored. So I’ll just say what I can and see what gets through.

  First, all the schools are closed. And we have to black out our windows at night. There’s a curfew, so no one can stay out late. The governor no longer runs the place. It’s martial law now. But the worst thing is that all Japanese are under suspicion. They think we had something to do with Pearl Harbor; which is nuts.

  The day after the attack I joined something called the Hawaii Territorial Guard. We were given a rifle and four bullets.. Our job was to guard bridges, schools, water wells, and things like that. Just yesterday, they kicked all Japanese guys out, calling us enemy aliens. I want to sign up, but can’t. They don’t want us. Anyway, what would Ma and Aiko do without my pay? It’s crazy.

  Someday somebody will feel dumb about having done this to us, but that’s how it is here. I hope you are safe.

  Write me when you can.

  Be brave, brother.

  For Pop.

  Henry

  Enemy aliens?

  Zenji wanted to write back. What Henry had written made his face hot, even what little was left in the letter to be read. But anything he wrote would be censored just like Henry’s. It was almost pointless to write at all.

  Hi, Ma. Doing fine. Wish I was there, not here.

  That kind of thing.

  Brainless.

  But he did write to let them know he was okay.

  One day Colonel Olsten showed up with a new work plan. Freddy would continue with the radio intercepts and captured documents. But for Zenji the colonel had a “change of pace.”

  He clapped a hand on Zenji’s shoulder. “We’re going to have you talk to a few tight-lipped men.”

  Freddy looked at Zenji and wiggled his eyebrows. “Interrogation.”

  Zenji stared at the colonel. “I—”

  “I know, you have no training. We’ll give you a few pointers beforehand.”

  Pointers.

  Sweat rolled down Zenji’s back as he sat waiting at the interview table in the stuffy, windowless basement room. Concrete floor, metal table with a pitcher of water and two glasses, four chairs, and one door. Above, a single bare bulb.

  The pointers were: sound friendly; be relaxed; pour him a glass of water; ask important questions more than once; act like you’re on his side, just trying to help.

  All useless, because the second a guard brought the first prisoner in, Zenji’s mind went blank.

  He rubbed his palms on his pants and stood.

  Something will come. Relax.

  The colonel had said, “Take charge of the room right away. Look and act confident. You’re the leader, he’s the follower. First impressions are very important.”

  But Zenji found it difficult just to look at the guy.

  He fingered the papers on the table between them.

  Colonel Olsten had prepared the questions. Most were easy, like where was the guy from and did he have a family, questions to make him relax and, hopefully, open up.

  But there were also questions about missions and the war. “Don’t be pushy and shut him down,” the colonel had warned. “It will be a fine line you walk.”

  You can do this.

  Zenji looked up.

  The prisoner was staring at him. He wasn’t bound or shackled, and it surprised Zenji that the guy was so young, only a couple of years older than he was.

  “Namae wa?” Zenji asked.

  The pilot took a breath as if to speak, but said nothing.

  “What is your name,” Zenji repeated.

  “Hamamoto,” the pilot said slowly, having trouble speaking.

  Zenji suddenly understood—the man was utterly stupefied to have found a Japanese among the enemy Americans. How could this be? No Japanese would ever side with them.

  After a few easy questions, Zenji took a moment to assemble his thoughts. Now for the important questions. He had to do this right.

  “You are a pilot?”

  A slight nod.

  “Your plane was shot down. You bailed out and were captured.”

  Hamamoto glared at Zenji.

  Zenji didn’t avert his eyes. “What was your mission?”

  Hamamoto turned away. “Kill me,” he said, his eyes tearing. “I must die.”

  Zenji knew that if there were a knife on the table Hamamoto would grab it, not to kill Zenji but to kill himself for the inexcusable shame of having been captured.

  Zenji sat back. He completely understood the pain. This was his own mother’s creed. Die before shame. For this pilot, after losing
the plane and being captured, it was better to die.

  Zenji studied the man, wondering how far he himself would go to atone for some perceived shame to his family name. Was he this kind of Japanese? Maybe.

  “You feel disgraced,” Zenji said.

  Hamamoto faced Zenji. His eyes were glazed over, as if he’d taken himself out of this world and into another.

  It might be impossible to get anything out of him now. He had most likely been irreversibly indoctrinated, and would never reveal even one word of useful information. It was the kind of thinking Zenji had learned at Japanese school as a kid.

  “There is no shame in having been captured,” Zenji said. “That’s only what you have been trained to believe. There is no dishonor here, none. To be taken prisoner is just part of war.”

  Hamamoto sat staring at the table.

  “You must accept that you are a prisoner now. With that come certain responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to tell us what you know. There is no disgrace in your honesty. Do you understand?”

  Zenji couldn’t believe what he’d just said. Where was this coming from? A responsibility to confess?

  Hamamoto blinked.

  Zenji studied him, slowly piecing it together. This pilot had never been trained to deal with interrogation. Capture wasn’t considered. One would never allow it. He would kill himself first.

  And now he was unable to.

  Hamamoto seemed to have no idea what to do.

  Except, perhaps, to follow Zenji’s lead. He sat ramrod straight and stumbled through the questions, obviously trying to hold back the important facts.

  “That’s all I know,” the pilot said.

  Zenji didn’t believe it, but he nodded. He had one more trick to try, something that would hit Hamamoto in the center of all he believed.

  “I will interrogate your companions,” Zenji said. “If you’re lying to me, I will know, and you will be in a very different situation.”

  Hamamoto looked down.

  “May I remind you of this most important fact,” Zenji added. He paused to give his next words their full weight. “There is no honor in dishonesty.”

  Which was when Hamamoto broke down and gave Zenji all that he’d been holding back.

  On December 24, General Douglas MacArthur, commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, ordered G2 to leave Fort Santiago immediately, which sent Colonel Olsten scrambling.