No doubt, compared to my uncle, Abing’s skills were even greater.

As I’ve said, everyone in Unit 701 was eager for victory. But before Abing arrived, no one knew how victory could be achieved, and now they began to understand. On the first day, Abing sat in front of the radio equipment for eighteen hours. He smoked four packs of cigarettes, and identified three enemy radio stations and fifty-one frequencies. It worked out to about three frequencies per hour, more than the total Unit 701’s other operatives were able to identify in ten days.

Abing’s success caused incredible surprise, as well as disbelief.

As one can imagine, in the days that followed Abing continued in his own unique way to identify enemy broadcast stations. His most successful day was the eighteenth after he had begun his mission. On that day, he identified five stations and eighty-two frequencies. The strange thing was, after this most successful day, the number of frequencies Abing found grew less and less as the days passed until finally, on the twenty-fifth day, he identified none. The day that followed had the same outcome; his hard work seemed to be for nothing. In the afternoon of that day, Abing refused to enter the radio equipment room, believing that he had already completed his task.

Could this be true?

According to the progress chart that had been hung on the wall in our offices, it was clear to see that we had identified and catalogued eighty-six stations, using a total of 1,516 radio frequencies. Abing was responsible for identifying seventy-three of these stations, together with 1,309 frequencies, or about 87 per cent of the total. Whilst this seemed to be quite an accomplishment, according to our previous intelligence information, there were still twelve stations unaccounted for, and what’s more, these were the enemy’s stations dedicated to high-level military use.

These intelligence reports were unquestionable, and they demonstrated clearly that our job was not yet complete. But still we had total confidence and faith in Abing’s abilities; we believed that he could finish his task. How could this seemingly contradictory situation be resolved? Faced with such a predicament, the Director convened a special meeting of Unit 701’s operatives to go over the data. The conclusion reached was this: the enemy must possess a hitherto unidentified type of radio station that did not conform to any of the models we had already identified. This was the only explanation that fitted; the only reason that explained why Abing could not identify it.

The question that remained was: what kind of radio equipment was it?

Everyone was at a loss.

All we could do was adjourn the meeting.

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