The faint swish of a descending Bokken was the last sound he heard before his arm shattered with a blast of blinding white-hot pain. The scream building in his throat had no time to emerge. He sensed, rather than saw, the briefest glimmer of a shadow, or a silhouette, or just a flicker of negative space, as the hiss of a wooden sword, swung with inhuman speed, presaged the end of his life. The leading edge of the hard wooden blade crushed his larynx, choking off the cry and the last breath he would ever draw.

As he twitched and shuddered on the wet cobblestones, clutching at his throat, desperately trying to drag air in through the crumpled windpipe, his eyes, bulging and bloodshot, darted everywhere for sign of his assailants. But he died without ever truly seeing them.

Chapter 32

32

HIJMS YAMATO, HASHIRAJIMA ANCHORAGE, 1324 HOURS, 10 JUNE 1942

Isoroku Yamamoto did not look up when he had finished studying the paper. Brasch and Hidaka sat as quietly as they had during the hour and a half it had taken the admiral to read the document. Yamamoto did not speak. He exhaled a long, slow breath, as though he had been holding it all along. He closed his heavy lidded eyes, and they remained closed for many minutes.

Brasch ventured an inquiring look at Hidaka, who shook his head wordlessly.

“You have exceeded my expectations, gentlemen,” Yamamoto said at last.

The two officers, near exhaustion after a marathon work session, thanked him quietly.

Yamamoto held the ninety-page laser-printed document aloft. “As I predicted, this is worth more than your lives.”

Hidaka remained motionless. Brasch sketched a sardonic lift of the eyebrows.

“Our lives aren’t worth that much anyway, Admiral.”

“Well put, Major. You would not like more time for research?”

“No point,” Brasch said without embellishment. “We might flesh out the details and the argument, but the line of reasoning that lies at the core would remain unchanged. We weren’t really undertaking original research. One of the ship’s systems operators was able to direct us to a wealth of material prepared by scholars who had been picking over the rubble of this war for three generations. They wrote with the value of hindsight; we merely harvested their labor.”

Hidaka leaned forward. “If I might, Admiral. This system’s operator, a junior lieutenant named Damiri, has proved much more cooperative and useful than Moertopo. He seems to have a genuine hatred of the Americans. I suspect he may prove a more willing collaborator. Moertopo is trying to play us for fools.”

Yamamoto held the paper with his deformed hand and flicked through it again, stopping here and there to reexamine a particular point or argument.

“I agree with you about Moertopo,” he said without looking up. “But we need his skills for now. If you wish to cultivate this other barbarian, go ahead. You have done great service to the emperor so far, Hidaka.”