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“That’s so true! You know, there were times when I seriously thought of leaving the sea and becoming a full-time gambler. Not cards. Roulette. I had a very encouraging experience once at Monte Carlo. Also I like dice.”

“We could try that.” Harry fished a pair from his jacket.

“Oh, I don’t I think I should play with someone who carries dice just in case.”

“I extend credit.”

“Even more dangerous. Lieutenant, your friend is as good as advertised.” The man rubbed his hands together. “Excellent!”

From his corner, Gen beamed with pride.

“Do you have a system?” the man asked Harry.

“No, I let the other man have a system, and I try to figure it out.”

“You bet on anything?”

“Cards, cars, dogs, horses, pigeons, about anything.”

“The lieutenant told me about the car race at Tamagawa.”

Tamagawa was a track on the way to Yokohama.

“They have good races,” Harry said. “Bentleys, Bugattis, Mercedeses.”

“Is it true that you entered a car with an airplane engine?”

“A Curtis thirteen-cylinder engine.”

“It stayed on the ground?”

“Barely, but it won.”

“That’s what matters. I wish I could have seen that.”

Gen said, “Some of the other competitors were upset.”

“Too bad,” the man said. “The losing side is always upset.” He returned to Harry. “But you are also a businessman with an interest in oil.”

“I help the government develop sources of oil,” Harry said.

“From…?”

“Shale, mostly, but also looking at alternative sources.”

“What does that mean?”

There was something about the man that suggested bullshit wouldn’t do. “Pine trees.”

The man grinned in wonder. “As a boy, I understand, you sold cat skins. I suppose you will be squeezing them for oil, too.”

“Let’s say Japan doesn’t have the usual sources of oil.”

“You don’t have to tell me.” The man’s smile folded. “I used to drink, a little. Then I encountered the most sobering sight in my life. It was a Texas oil field. Oil rigs as far as you could see in any direction. One Texas oil field that outproduced all of Japan. I visited assembly lines in Detroit and skyscrapers in New York City, but the last thing I see when I close my eyes at night is that oil field. Whenever I mention oil, the army says not to worry because we Japanese have Yamato spirit. Yamato spirit, Yamato spirit, that’s all the army knows. They say Japan is so different, so superior, we will necessarily win. You know, I have seen the cherry trees in Washington, and they are just as beautiful. The army talks about the incomparable Japanese character. Well, you can tell a lot about character and intelligence by how a man approaches a woman. A Japanese goes up to a woman and demands, ‘Give me a lay.’ Even a prostitute would say no. An American shows up with flowers and presents and gets what he wants. So much for moral superiority, and so much for results. The army can have Yamato spirit, give me oil.”

The man spoke with such intensity that it took Harry a moment to find the air to answer. “I can’t get you Texas.”

“No, I understand, but it seems to me that you have exactly the sort of skeptical eye and varied experience we need for a certain situation. You are unique. The lieutenant was right, you are just the man.”

Harry didn’t know how flattered to be. “For what?”

“Do you do card tricks?”

“I just play cards, I’m not a magician.”

“You know magicians?”

“Dozens. Magicians with doves, rabbits, scarves, saws, feats of mental telepathy, whatever you want.”

“Are you free tomorrow night?”

“For a magic show?”

The man developed a smile. “That’s the problem, we don’t know quite what it is. It’s magic or a miracle. I’m hoping you will tell us.”

A NAVY CAR with an anchor insignia picked Harry up at the Paris the following night. Gen was inside behind window curtains. He wore navy blues, and his easygoing manner of the previous evening was replaced by a somber mood.

“Where’s our friend with the cards?” Harry asked.

“He’ll be there. No names,” Gen warned Harry.

“Whatever you say.”

It didn’t matter. Harry knew the player’s name. Anyone who read a newspaper or saw newsreels knew the dour face and blunt manner of the commander in chief of the Combined Fleet. Although no names had been exchanged, Harry had recognized Yamamoto as soon as the admiral shuffled the deck of cards with the famous eight fingers instead of ten. Harry also understood that the meeting had been engineered for invisibility, at midnight in the back room of a willow house with no witnesses but the loyal acolyte Gen. Could Harry claim that he had even been introduced to Yamamoto? No. That was okay. A lot of people didn’t want to be associated with Harry.

Gen said, “This is a very sensitive situation.”

“You mean your career is on the line. Magic or miracle, what is that supposed to mean? The Great Man has looked me over and approved, but I’m still kept in the dark. Give me a clue.”

“You have to see it to believe it.”

“That’s a good clue. Are we talking about the resurrection? Water to wine? A burning bush?”

“On a par.”

“On a par? Wow. Like parting the sea and just marching where you want to go?”

“Sort of. This is very big, but…” Gen lowered his voice. “But there is also a risk of embarrassment.”

“Losing face?”

“Not face. Enormous, disastrous embarrassment.”

That sounded intriguing to Harry, but Gen shook his head to indicate the end of the conversation. South of the palace, the driver swung into an alley behind the Navy Ministry and stopped. Gen studied the shadows, then rushed Harry out of the car and down a flight of stairs as if delivering a prostitute. Inside, they followed a trail of dusty lights through a tunnel of steam and water pipes to a door that admitted them to a basement hall of office doors. Harry wondered who would be working at one in the morning. Someone was, judging by the sound of voices and haze of light down the hall. Gen went almost on tiptoe and, when they were nearly on top of the voices, slipped Harry though a door into what was more a tight space than a proper room, a catchall crammed with scales, sterilizing trays, bedpans. At eye level was an inset pane of glass.

Gen whispered, “On the other side, it’s a mirror. This used to be a medical clinic where we examined pilots. Sometimes that demanded discreet observation.”

Harry observed a room dominated by a metal table supporting a tank of water about eight feet wide and four feet high, a good-size aquarium that contained, instead of sand and fish, six bottles of blue glass. Each bottle was sealed and connected via an overhead electrical line to a battery big enough for a submarine. It had to be like moving a piano to get it in. V-shaped wands wrapped in copper wire stood around the tank, and over it hung a copper sphere. A small but impressive audience had been gathered: four navy officers, no grade less than a commander, and two unhappy civilians. Harry noticed a couple of petty officers with pistols standing at the door. He also saw Yamamoto, with so many rings around his sleeves they looked as if he had dipped his cuffs in gold. The uniform seemed to weigh on him, and his attention, like everyone else’s, was anxiously focused on a gaunt man in a white lab coat jotting numbers from a bank of gauges individually wired to the copper wands. Welder’s goggles hung around everyone’s neck. By Harry’s watch, five minutes elapsed before the man in the lab coat raised his head and declared. “Progress, definite progress.”

“Progress in what?” Harry asked Gen. “What is he doing?”

Gen couldn’t get the words out right away. “He’s making oil.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s turning water into oil.”

Harry actually took a step back. He wasn’t dazzled by much, but this was blinding. “Water into oil?”

“You can smile, but I’ve seen him do it.”