Hunt for the Bamboo Rat Page 7

  He jammed his hands into his pockets.

  Get used to it. It’s your duty.

  The warehouse was similar to the one he’d worked in at home. A man was waiting for him. Just a regular-looking guy in a beige suit.

  “Bamboo Rat?”

  “I heard they live underground.”

  He pulled Zenji to a private corner and spoke fast. “If anyone asks, you work here moving inventory. But it’s just a front. Show up around nine each weekday. Enter by the front door, hang around for an hour or so, and sneak out the back.”

  “Then what?” Zenji asked.

  The guy looked over his shoulder. They were alone. “Educate yourself. Roam the city. Learn your way around. Check in at the post office and follow the instructions you get. Most of all, learn to notice things. Notice everything.”

  “What about training? I didn’t even go to boot camp.”

  The guy snorted. “This is boot camp. Listen, we’re learning as we go. You’re the Bamboo Rat, right? Creep around at night, live underground? That’s what you do.”

  Be invisible. Sure.

  “The bottom line is we need information about what Japan’s up to,” the guy went on. “Be aware of what’s around you at all times. If we’re spying on them, then we have to assume they’re spying on us. If you’re in a restaurant, sit with your back to a wall, with a clear line of sight to the entrance and exits. Don’t ever go to your destination directly. Always take a confusing route—that’s why you need to learn the city. Your job is to keep an eye on Japanese nationals, see what they do, where they go. Listen in on conversations. Stay in the background. Notice anything out of place. You’ll get the hang of it. Pretty basic. If you hear anything out of the ordinary, especially anything military, we need to know about it. But never contact G2 directly. Never go there unless you’re told to. Always use the post office.”

  “Like write a report?”

  “Just note your observations, slip it into your mailbox, and get out of there. Got it?”

  “Uh … yeah.”

  The guy nodded and left.

  Zenji was on his own.

  Zenji worked on his cover by using his allowance to buy clothes, shoes, and other things necessary to a young foreigner settling into a new job in Manila.

  The guys at the Momo enjoyed hearing about what life was like in Hawaii so much that they often corralled him and bought him dinner. Now, when they talked about their lives back home, he listened with new ears.

  It’s your duty, he kept repeating to himself.

  One evening, the subject of China came up. It was after dinner, and there were eight of them sitting around the table drinking rice wine.

  “It’s all about natural resources,” one guy, Usui, said, explaining Japan’s situation to Zenji. “We just don’t have them. We need oil, steel, and rubber. We have to buy that stuff.”

  “What does that have to do with China?” Zenji asked, wanting to keep the conversation alive, and also, he was curious. He truly didn’t know.

  “Well,” Usui said, “they wouldn’t sell those resources to us. They think we’re getting too strong. So we had to go out and get them. That’s why we’re in China.”

  “You mean, you just went in and took them?”

  The men looked at Zenji.

  “What?” he said.

  Usui steepled his fingertips. “You can be forgiven. After all, you are American.”

  The other men laughed, and Zenji breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing he needed to do was raise suspicion.

  “What else were we going to do?” Usui went on. “China doesn’t want us to grow stronger, so they keep their resources to themselves. Meanwhile, we suffer.”

  He leaned forward and looked closely at Zenji. “You guys don’t like us getting stronger, either, so you also limit what we can buy. I mean, really, you’re forcing us to fight for our existence.”

  Zenji nodded, as if he saw the sense in what Usui was saying. He wanted to ask about Nanking, but thought better of it. But he did mention his encounter with the three guys in Chinatown.

  “Buddhism saved me,” he said. “I refused to fight, but I also refused to grovel my way out.”

  This they liked.

  “Your parents have taught you well, Zenji. They’ve retained the values of their homeland. I’m sure they see the necessity of Japan’s expansion for its own survival.”

  Zenji nodded. He wanted to add: Sure, I see that you need resources, but killing innocent Chinese to get them is not the way.

  He listened as the men went on about scrap steel, oil, and rubber, and the problems in French Indochina. “Your President Roosevelt is making our lives very difficult,” Usui said.

  “I see,” Zenji commiserated. “But we’re talking, right? The U.S. and Japan?”

  Usui nodded. “There is some small hope for an understanding. But I fear we’re too far apart.”

  The other men mumbled, nodding.

  Zenji could not see the sense of going into another country and taking what you couldn’t buy. It was not the way he had been taught. It was not … Japanese. Where was the respect and honor in it?

  He was beginning to see that there was a great difference between how Japanese in Japan saw the world and how Japanese living in the U.S. saw things.

  “Well,” he said. “I really hope our countries can work things out.”

  “Yes,” Usui said.

  He studied Zenji, his head cocked to one side. “Have you ever thought about moving back to Japan?”

  “Well, not actually moving back, since I’ve never been there … but I did once think about studying Buddhism in Kyoto. I was considering becoming a priest.”

  “Noble,” Usui said, and the rest of the men nodded in agreement. “Why did you change your mind?”

  Zenji grinned. “I need more action.”

  The men roared with laughter and raised their glasses.

  For the rest of the evening, Zenji just listened, praying that he hadn’t said anything he shouldn’t have.

  Zenji walked Manila with new intent, watching people, listening in on conversations, asking innocent questions of store clerks, slowly picking up information.

  One day it rained harder than usual, and he found himself under an awning with six chatty Japanese businessmen. Zenji pretended to be new to the city and they were more than happy to share their thoughts and opinions.

  He learned that there were currently around two thousand Japanese nationals living in Manila. Most of them were shop owners and entrepreneurs, and it seemed that they got along fine with both Filipinos and Americans. They should, he thought, considering there was a huge American military presence in the Philippines. If any of the nationals he came across were secret agents, Zenji sure couldn’t tell.

  But one day he met a man who made him uneasy.

  Zenji was eating a sandwich, sitting on a park bench in the shade when the guy passed by. He stopped, and came back.

  Zenji looked up.

  “American?” the guy asked.

  Zenji hesitated, then nodded.

  “Thought so. Me too. Name’s John Jones.”

  He stuck his hand out.

  Zenji reached up and shook. “Zenji Watanabe. Why did you think I was American?”

  “Don’t see nationals eating sandwiches. You military?”

  Zenji shook his head. “Civilian.” He looked at his lunch. Lesson learned: sandwiches give you away.

  Jones grinned. “I lived in Japan for a while. I know the people, the language, and what they eat.”

  Zenji nodded.

  “You sure you’re not military? Hey, it’s fine with me if you are.”

  “No, I just work here.”

  “Doing what?”

  Zenji shrugged. “Warehouse.” He lifted his sandwich. “Lunch break.”

  Jones raised his eyebrows.

  He doesn’t believe me, Zenji thought. “How about you?” he asked. “Are you military?”

  “Ha!” John Jones barked
. “Not on your life.”

  Weird answer.

  Zenji went back to his sandwich.

  “Hey,” the guy said after a beat. “Gotta run. Good to meet you, Zenji. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

  “Yeah. See you around.”

  Zenji watched the man walk away, not sure what to think of him.

  In the afternoon he strolled around trying to increase his feel for the city and the people. Most Filipinos spoke English, along with Tagalog, their first language. The fact that Zenji was from Hawaii lit them up with questions. Many had relatives there or knew people who’d gone to the islands to work on the plantations.

  Zenji took an immediate liking to the Filipinos. Ma would be surprised at how friendly they were. Manila was a busy, and peaceful, place.

  Still, there were rumors.

  Looming war was in every conversation.

  One night after dinner at the Momo, Zenji sat with eleven Japanese businessmen and Tadeo, the owner of the hotel.

  “I have a bad feeling,” Tadeo said.

  Another man, Takahashi, asked why.

  “I’m not very optimistic about the diplomatic talks.”

  Usui joined in. “Did you know that Ambassador Kurusu is replacing Nomura?”

  “I heard.” Tadeo thought a moment. “That’s hopeful, I suppose. If anyone can negotiate with the Americans it would be Kurusu.”

  Usui turned to Zenji. “What do you think? As an American?”

  Zenji sat up straighter and cleared his throat. “Well … all I know is what I read in the papers. Both sides seem to be communicating well enough, I guess.” He had no idea if that was true or not.

  “There you go,” Takahashi said. “From America itself.”

  They laughed.

  Tadeo held up a hand. “But you forget, America likes England, and the English are getting hammered by the Germans. The Americans might come to England’s aid … and remember, Japan and Germany formed the 1936 alliance. Crazy.”

  “True, true.”

  They looked at Zenji, who shrugged and said, “I don’t know much about politics and military stuff. But anything could happen, I guess.” He shook his head thoughtfully.

  His deception weighed on him more and more. If only he could dish answers out as easily as Freddy, like nothing was a big deal.

  “Hey,” he said, to change the subject. “You got a chessboard here? Anyone know how to play?”

  For a moment no one spoke.

  Then Tadeo slapped his knees and stood. “Of course. Why don’t we see who has the better strategy? American or Japanese? You up for a game?”

  Zenji smiled. What a relief! “Bring it on,” he said, trying to remember the rules of chess. Lucky he used to play with Henry, although that was a few years ago.

  Tadeo went to get the chess set.

  Takahashi winked at Zenji. “I hope you know what you’re doing. He takes his chess seriously.”

  “I used to be pretty good.”

  It would be a massacre.

  But anything was better than questions.

  All through the rest of September and October 1941, Zenji roamed the city. If any Japanese nationals were doing anything out of the ordinary, he sure couldn’t tell.

  I’m so bad at this, he thought. They want a good spy, they should have trained me.

  He tried to get information from reading Japanese newspapers in the hotel lobby, but he didn’t find much that Colonel Olsten didn’t already know.

  However, the colonel was very interested in the conversations at the Momo hotel. “It’s interesting that they seem perfectly fine with their occupation of Chinese territory. It’s almost as if they feel they have a right to do whatever they want.”

  Zenji nodded. “I get that feeling, too.”

  “They believe they’re racially superior to us, and all other races,” Colonel Olsten said. “At least, their militaristic leaders do.”

  Zenji hesitated, thinking of how, in Hawaii, Japanese immigrants were looked poorly upon by those in power. And by other immigrants, too. “Don’t … don’t Americans also feel … you know, superior?”

  “I suppose there’s an ounce of truth to that, Zenji, but it doesn’t drive us to attack other countries.”

  “True.” He paused, trying to recall everything he’d learned by roaming around Manila. “Oh, there’s something else. There was this guy a while back. He was American, so I didn’t think to add him to my report … but I can’t get him out of my mind.”

  Zenji told Colonel Olsten about his strange conversation with John Jones. “It felt like he was following me. I was uncomfortable around him. It was kind of creepy.”

  “Uncomfortable?”

  “He kept asking me if I was in the military. I told him no, of course. And when I asked if he was in the military, he seemed offended. A very strange response.”

  Colonel Olsten studied Zenji a long moment. “Probably just curious. But if you run into him again, and he asks the same questions, I want to know about it. John Jones … sounds like a fake name.”

  Zenji was grateful that he had nothing significant to report about the friends he’d made at the hotel. “They seem to be exactly what they’re supposed to be, Colonel Olsten. Businessmen with families back home. I can’t even imagine them as spies.”

  “Don’t let your feelings about these men get in the way of your judgment. If we go to war with Japan, everything changes.”

  “Right.”

  That night, Zenji lay awake. War with Japan? For what reason?

  In the days that followed, his curiosity began to steer him farther and farther from the Momo hotel. He wanted to know more about Manila’s people and its history. There was so much to see, so much to learn.

  One day he found himself lost on an obscure backstreet packed with fruit and vegetable carts, open-backed trucks, and temporary booths bulging with goods of every kind. A river of people flowed in and out of the passageways, looking for bargains.

  Zenji wasn’t worried that he was lost. All he had to do was head toward the bay and he’d be able to find his way back to the hotel. Boy, he thought, moving along in the flow of human traffic, if I ever need to hide, this would be the place.

  Around midafternoon he began to get a weird feeling. He didn’t know why. He glanced around.

  Nothing but everyday people cramming the streets.

  Still, he felt as if he was being watched.

  Or followed.

  The hair on the back of his neck prickled.

  Stop thinking! Who would follow you? You’re nobody.

  I’m the Bamboo Rat, he thought with an uneasy chuckle.

  He worked his way to the edge of the flow, glancing back every once in a while to see if he could notice anything.

  Nothing.

  He decided to step into a shaded alcove and wait to see if anyone followed him in, or if anyone stopped when he stopped.

  Minutes passed.

  Nothing unusual.

  This is nuts.

  He was just about to head out when a hood fell over his head from behind. Somebody grabbed him and kicked the backs of his knees.

  Zenji dropped like a stone.

  A man shouted something that he didn’t understand. Someone jammed a knee into his back and slammed him to the ground.

  When he hit, the hood raised up enough for his exposed cheek to press into grit and oily pavement.

  A man got down close to his ear and whispered something to him. Zenji didn’t understand.

  He tried to speak, but could only grunt. The pain in his back was excruciating.

  Someone stole his watch. He could feel hands in his pockets, taking everything he had—money, hotel key, post office key, and the note Ma had given him on the day he left, which he carried with him at all times.

  The guy spoke again.

  “I don’t understand you!” Zenji yelped, grimacing.

  The guy punched his ear. Pain shot through his head like a lightning bolt.

  There was a pause.<
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  “English?” the man said, letting up on the pressure on Zenji’s back.

  Zenji gasped for air. “Amer … American.”

  The man slapped Zenji’s head, once, twice. “No ID. Where ID?”

  “I don’t … have … one!”

  The man slapped his head again.

  Two men pulled him to his feet. They yanked the hood off. Zenji blinked, his scratched cheek stinging.

  Four men surrounded him, coming in close, so close he could smell their sweat and see the blood vessels in their eyes.

  Filipinos.

  “What you doing here? American army?”

  Zenji caught his breath. “No. I’m a civilian. I was just … walking around.”

  The leader grabbed Zenji’s stuff from the guy who’d rifled through his pockets. The two other guys took over holding Zenji. “Where ID? You army?”

  “No, not army. Civilian.”

  The guy counted the money, and looked at Ma’s note. “American civilian?” he asked, still looking at the note. “This is Japanese? From your mama?”

  “Yeah … I’m from Honolulu. You read Japanese?”

  “Little bit.” The guy jerked his chin at the two guys holding Zenji.

  They let up on Zenji.

  “Stupid, you come in here, English. You could die. Dangerous.”

  Zenji rubbed his face, trying to look grateful for the advice. He’d gotten the point. “Sorry.”

  The guy grunted and gave Zenji his stuff back, the keys, Ma’s note … but not the money. He took that, counted it, kept half and waved the other half in Zenji’s face. “You make me promise, I let you live. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Zenji said.

  The guy jammed the money into Zenji’s shirt pocket. “Send that home to your mama.”

  One of the other guys took a step closer and said something in a low voice.

  The leader grinned. “He say he like carve his name in you belly. You smart, you go, fast.”

  Zenji’s arms and legs buzzed with adrenaline. “I’m out of here. Gone.”

  The leader shoved him toward the street.

  Zenji stumbled out of the alley into the sunlight. No one on the street looked at him. Zenji could tell that they were scared of the guys behind him.