“A fascinating system. Limited, of course. But I was very interested to see where you were taking it.” He looked at Smith as though he were a gifted child. “I greatly regret that you weren’t born Japanese, Colonel. You would have done very well on my staff.”

Smith accepted the compliment with a respectful nod. The endless pages of information he’d gone through on Takahashi had painted a picture of an extremely formidable soldier. But sitting there across from him, Smith realized they hadn’t captured the full extent of the man.

“So you weren’t as impressed by the Merge as I was,” Smith said, trying to draw him into saying more about the technologies his people had developed. Surprisingly, Takahashi seemed completely unguarded on the subject.

“What you were working on was already obsolete, Colonel. There’s no way to improve the soldier. No matter how well equipped he is, he’s still flesh and blood, driven by unpredictable and unstable emotions.”

“Obsolete,” Smith repeated, thoughtfully. “Like your battleship?”

From his expression, it was clear that Takahashi knew he was being baited. He just didn’t seem to care. “The Izumo was just a piece of military theater. Something for our people to rally around and to keep the Chinese off balance.”

“But you’ve obviously done better.”

“Unquestionably. My predecessor started with a blank page. He threw out everything we thought we knew about warfare and brought in philosophers and scientists who’d never had anything to do with the battlefield. Together they imagined something completely new.”

“And you managed to find the talent to build it.”

“Young people in America are quite self-absorbed, don’t you think? The Japanese are nationalistic by their very nature. Most of the people I approached were honored to be asked to serve their country. The rest were convinced by my financial resources.”

“Convinced to do what, though, sir? Start a war with China?”

Takahashi’s face became a mask. “At your country’s insistence, the Japanese people gave up their right to project power militarily. We made up for that somewhat with the strength of our economy, but a superpower needs both. Certainly you understand that. You’re a soldier serving the second-most-powerful military in history.”

Smith ignored the sudden demotion to runner-up. “I can’t help thinking that you’re telling me a great deal, General.”

It was likely that it didn’t matter because he was going to be tortured for information and then killed afterward, but it seemed sensible to bring up the subject.

“Our countries are allies, Colonel. Nothing I’ve done is intended to harm our close relationship.”

Smith noticed the lack of emotion in Takahashi’s voice. At best, he saw the United States as a necessary evil. At worst, a problem that he hadn’t yet figured out how to solve.

“Can I assume, then, that I’m free to go?”