Jon Cleary - The Phoenix Tree

‘Within the next three months.’

Okada forgot all about being inscrutable; he let out a cough of laughter. ‘Commander, what sort of crap am I being fed? Did you bring me all the way from Saipan for something crazy like this?’

Embury looked at Reilly, who said, ‘I told you he had a reputation for speaking his mind. It’s all in his file.’

‘No bad thing,’ said Embury, and Reilly looked pained: Annapolis had never taught such heresy. That, of course, was a major problem of a war; one had to draw on the amateurs.

‘Yes, corporal, we did bring you all this way for exactly that. We think the idea is worth exploring. All we have to do is convince you.’

‘Fat chance.’ Okada was openly rebellious now, American all the way. ‘I’d like to be sent back to my outfit, sir. As far away from here as possible.’

‘Sit down, corporal.’ Embury resumed his own seat and after a moment Okada dropped into his chair. He eyed all three men like a trapped animal and he had the feeling that they were looking at him as animal trainers might have done. Clyde Beatty and his Japanese performing wild dog … Embury puffed on his pipe, which had now begun to look like a stage prop. ‘Let me tell you about the man in the next room. You know some of it, but not all of it. He was born in Japan and brought here when he was a year old. He went back to Japan in 1929, the year of your first visit – he was men 13 years old. Unlike you, he stayed on – he liked the Japanese way of life. You didn’t, we understand.’

‘I hated it.’

‘Well, Minato stayed on. He went to Echijima, the Naval Academy, then was posted to Naval Intelligence. He became a junior protégé of Admiral Tajiri, who was a senior member of the Navy General Staff. Minato’s parents, his only relatives, were both killed in General Doolittle’s air raid on Tokyo in March 1942.’

‘My father would be upset to hear that. He was a close friend of Old Man Minato. Where did you take Ken prisoner?’

‘Right here in the United States, at the Military Language School where you went. He’s never been in action, except as a spy.’

Okada frowned. ‘I find that hard to believe …’

The three officers waited for him to explain himself. Reilly fidgetted, but Embury and Irvine showed Oriental patience.

At last Okada said, ‘Ken was a good guy, my best friend in junior high school. We fell out later, when I saw him on my second visit to Japan, that was in 1937, but it wasn’t really serious. He just sounded like a younger version of his father. And my father too, I guess,’ he added, and regretted at once that he had done so. He was still batting for his father, though the Old Man didn’t deserve it.

‘We understand the division between you and your father is very serious.’

‘That came later,’ said Okada abruptly. ‘What about Minato?’

‘He’s been here in this country since March 1938. He came back here under the name Suzuki and enrolled as a student at Gonzaga University at Spokane in Washington State. He said he was a Catholic convert and they accepted him as such.’

‘Why up there? Why didn’t he come back to California?’

‘We assume he didn’t want to be recognized by you or any of the other Japanese he had gone to school with. Anyhow, within three months he had disappeared. He took on another identity, several in fact, and he’s been here ever since. He’s told us that he sent back to Tokyo enough information for the Japanese General Staff to know exactly the lay-out of all our West Coast shipyards, from Seattle down to here, San Diego, their capacity and our state of preparedness. Like the rest of you Japanese he was picked up at the time of the relocation order in February 1942 and he spent twelve months in a camp in Arizona. Then he volunteered for the Language School and was accepted – his idea, he’s told us, was to get sent to the Pacific theatre as an interpreter. He’d pick up more information there and then at the first opportunity he’d sneak back through the Japanese lines. He made one mistake – he tried to tell his contacts here in the States what he intended doing and we intercepted the message. Or rather, Army Intelligence did. He’s now volunteered to be turned around, as we say – to be sent back to Japan and spy for us. But we don’t trust him, not entirely. In Intelligence we tend not to trust anyone. Though, of course, at me beginning of any game, that’s all we can go on – trust. Right, gentlemen?’

The two gentlemen nodded, though Okada noticed that the Englishman smiled slightly, as if he thought trust were some sort of mild joke.

‘You said you want me to go back to Japan. With Minato? Why would you trust me?’

‘Why, indeed?’ said Embury and relit his pipe once again. Okada was becoming irritated by the routine, then he wondered if it was some sort of punctuation to keep him off-balance. Neither Reilly nor Irvine seemed impatient with Embury’s stop-go approach. ‘We’ll have to learn more about you, corporal, about your mental attitude. If you don’t come up to scratch …’

Okada saw a small red light winking at him out of the future. ‘If I don’t come up to scratch, what happens to me? Am I going to be sent back to my outfit?’

Embury shook his head. ‘No, we probably wouldn’t let you go. We may have to keep you in protective custody for the rest of the war. In better conditions than those relocation camps you were sent to, of course.’

‘Of course.’ Okada sat up straighter. His athlete’s body felt bruised, but it was really only his mind that was so. But this was still preferable to standing on the cliffs of Saipan, where his mind had almost suffered a knock-out blow. ‘Go on, sir.’

‘You’re interested?’

‘I’m interested, but that doesn’t mean I’m volunteering for anything. If I’m going to be kept in protective custody for the rest of the war, you’ve got nothing to lose by telling me more. You’ll have to tell me, if you want me to cooperate.’

Embury looked at Irvine. ‘Do you have guys like this in the British services?’

‘Occasionally. We exile them to the colonies or we send them out on commando raids and they become dead heroes.’ Irvine smiled at Okada, like an angler who always landed something from troubled waters.

‘I’ve heard of the British sense of humour, sir.’

‘It helps us muddle through,’ said Irvine, using a phrase that had become a British battle cry. Then he stopped smiling. ‘I wish you would help us in this little venture, corporal. It could mean a great deal to both our countries, America and Britain.’

For some reason he couldn’t fathom at the moment, Okada was suddenly receptive. Perhaps it was the friendliness in Irvine’s manner; the Englishman, of course, had no authority to be as demanding as Embury or Reilly. But it was obvious that, for some reason or other, Irvine had a personal interest in the matter. He did not have the bored, indifferent look of a liaison officer.

Okada looked back at Embury. ‘Tell me more, sir.’

Embury studied him for a moment through the smoke of his pipe. ‘Okay, corporal. But the more I tell you, the more you’re committed to going along with us … Admiral Tajiri was a leading member of the Strike-South faction in pre-war Japan. There were two factions – the Strike-South, the minority one, which had its eye on Southeast Asia and the Dutch East Indies, and the Strike-North faction, which thought it should prepare for an all-out war against communist Russia. Eventually the Strike-South lot won out. Admiral Tajiri knew the chances were high that America would come into the war if Japan struck south. So he set about preparing a spy ring. Minato was one of the first sent over here.’

‘Have you picked up any of the others?’