Again, his answers brought no measurable response from Yamamoto or his staff. Moertopo had been hoping that they might tip a couple of flexipads onto the table, maybe a history book or two and couple of pirate video sticks—he’d even managed to locate a copy of Tora Tora Tora—after which the locals would offer him a nice warm sake and couple of horny geisha girls to welcome their new best friend to the original axis of evil.

Yamamoto purred in a deceptively friendly tone, “Tell me, Lieutenant, what was supposed to happen, before the interference of you and your friends.”

“The . . . they’re not my friends,” Moertopo stammered. “I copied files to these flexipads if you want to read them, or watch them,” he hurried on. “I have documentaries. There are some good ones there. The World at War. And Victory at Sea. I have the Tom Cruise miniseries. I could—”

“I am not interested in your toys, Moertopo,” growled the Admiral. “I want you to tell me what was supposed to happen next.”

Hidaka leaned over to whisper something, but Yamamoto cut him dead with a glare.

Moertopo had studied the archival material on the flight down. He was well enough acquainted with a scratch history of the Pacific War to deliver the briefing that had been asked of him. But he was certain these arrogant dogs would tear him apart as soon as he spoke. The way he understood it, they wouldn’t—didn’t—believe they could lose until well after their butts had been well and truly kicked. It was hopeless. He was trapped. Until a thought occurred to him.

“You were right,” he said.

Yamamoto’s wide, Buddha-like face regarded him dispassionately. “What do you mean?”

Moertopo picked up the flexipad that sat on the table in front of him and quickly brought up a bookmarked page. “When you spoke to Prime Minister Konoye in nineteen forty,” he explained, “just after he had signed the treaty with Hitler and Mussolini, you said, If I am told to fight, regardless of consequences, I shall run wild for the first six months or a year. But for the second and third years I have utterly no confidence. You always thought that war against the United States was national suicide.

“And you were right. It was. Three years from now the Americans will drop a bomb on Hiroshima, where you attended the Naval Institute, if I remember correctly.”

Yamamoto nodded.

“This was, or will be, a special bomb. There was only one dropped that day, but it exploded with a force of more than fifteen thousand tonnes of TNT. Not kilograms, Admiral. Tonnes. It killed seventy thousand people instantly and destroyed most of the city. It was called an atomic bomb. They dropped another on Nagasaki, two days later, and Japan surrendered unconditionally. You didn’t live to see it, though. The American’s shot down a plane carrying you on . . .”