The chancery, down the hill, was the center of mayhem, where staff spilled as many files as they carried down the stairwells. Harry found Hooper’s office, a room with woodblock prints of Tokyo. Again no Hooper, but Harry shut the door behind himself.

The office safe was wide open and empty, but what he was after wasn’t particularly secret. The desk drawers that opened easily were stuffed with economic analyses and clippings from Japanese magazines and journals. He forced a locked drawer by hammering in a letter opener with his flask and found what he was after, a master list of American citizens residing in Japan: Foreign Service officers and staff, businessmen and agents, teachers and instructors, medical doctors and nurses, missionaries, military on liaison duty, foreign correspondents, American employees of either non-Japanese or Japanese companies, sailors or ships’ officers, Japanese wives of Americans, women and children, invalids or anyone requiring medical care, a list for every category, hundreds of names in all. “Harry Niles” was entered vaguely under “Self-employed.” A second list was of Americans for whom the embassy would request repatriation or safe internment. It was identical to the master list except for one name crossed out, Harry’s.

The smell of smoke insinuated itself into the office. Harry joined the traffic on the stairwell and asked, “Where’s Hooper?”

A man negotiating a carton around a corner asked, “Who are you?”

Harry began to tip the carton. “Where?”

“Jesus, fellow. Below, in the code room.”

Harry pushed ahead to the basement and followed the smoke to an open door where Hooper directed a bucket brigade. Inside the room, desks had been pushed aside to make space for iron-wire wastebaskets set on metal chairs. Files and codes had been stuffed into the baskets and set on fire, flames wrestling like torches and spewing smoke that collected under the ceiling and snowed black confetti. A nervous circle of diplomats stood ready with their pails.

“Was I right?” Harry asked.

Hooper almost dropped his pail from surprise. “Get out. You’re the last person who should be here.”

“Was I right about the attack? Did you ever tell the ambassador? I saw him trying to repel boarders. A little late.”

“He did everything he could. You have no idea of the efforts he made.”

“On the golf course?”

“Look, this is a top-secret area.”

“Was. It’s a firetrap now.” Harry peered in. The staff that wasn’t feeding the baskets were dismantling what looked like hooded, oversized typewriters.

“This is secret material, and you, Harry, are the most notorious collaborator in Japan.”

“First, how could I collaborate, when we haven’t been at war until today? Second, I warned you about the attack on Pearl.”

“That just proves it, in the eyes of some people.”

“So you did tell someone.”

“I passed it on to the experts.”

“Who ignored it.”

“Harry, we’ve been getting ten warnings a day.”

“But this was from me. You knew me, Hoop. You knew it was the real deal, and you let it sit.”

“Harry, I don’t have time to argue.”

“I don’t warn you, I lose. I warn you, I lose. What kind of game is that?”

“It’s not a game. We weighed your information with all the rest. We treated you like anyone else.”

“Bullshit. I’m not on the list, Hoop. I’m the only American in Japan who’s not on the list for repatriation.”

“I wouldn’t-”

Harry pulled out the list. “From your office.”

“That’s a preliminary-”

“Don’t lie to me. I always tell you, ‘The Lord hates a lying tongue.’ Don’t do it.”

“People do feel that you have associated too closely with the Japanese. Maybe even switched allegiance. There are all the scandals and shady activities you’ve been involved in. The fact is, for a lot of people, you’re not the kind of citizen we necessarily want back.”

“Suddenly you have standards? George Washington had slaves. Look around, not a slave on me.”

“I get it. But, just for your information, I did have your name down on the original list for repatriation.”

“Who took it off? The ambassador? The British leaned on you? Was it Beechum?”

“You should have left Beechum’s wife alone. It’s a small community.”

“Beechum, then? How can you let a hairless limey run American-Japanese affairs?”

“That’s the funny part. It wasn’t the British and it wasn’t us. It was the Japanese. I’m sorry. No negotiations, they want you right here.”

The smoke thickened and lowered. Pages that floated half aflame were doused with water. Harry took a step back, not from the heat of the wastebasket but from the staggering flush of his own error. The Japanese? The Japanese had taken away first the plane and now the boat. There weren’t many other ways off an island.

Hooper asked, “What did you do, Harry? You did something they want to hold you for. How did you know about the attack, really? Because you were absolutely right.” As the baskets turned to bonfires, staff threw precautionary dashes of water. Hooper smiled at the scene. “Remember being kids the first time we were here? The fireworks, the fireflies? Lord, we had fun. I always wondered why the Japanese didn’t kick you out. Now I wonder why they won’t let you go. Got a cigarette?” Harry tapped out a couple and gave one to Hooper, who spit loose tobacco toward the fire and gazed at the flames. “Remember, you once bet me five dollars you could get a fish in and out of a sake bottle without breaking the glass, then you switched the fish with an eel. In and out, slick as butter. The high cost of education, you said.” He pulled Harry close enough to whisper. “I used that trick the whole summer. Made fifty dollars. Thought my old man would have a stroke.”

In and out like an eel in a bottle? Not a bad trick, Harry thought. He wished he could do it now.

“I’ll miss you, Harry,” Hooper said.

“See you, Hoop.”

Which wasn’t likely, both men knew.

Hooper went back to the delicate task of incinerating papers in a closed room, but he got inspired before Harry cleared the door. “The reason they want you is that you screwed them, didn’t you? Somehow you screwed them.”

HARRY GATHERED MICHIKO at the café, and they walked back toward the car, a stylish couple on a sunny day, ignoring the constant bombardment of military music from loudspeakers.

“So, I’m set,” he said. “They figure one month, two at the most, and they’ll ship us home on the President Cleveland. They’ll put me in steerage, but I’ll start a card game and make a fortune. Serve them right. What about you? I’ll get back here as soon as I can, but you’ll want to do something in the meantime.”

“During the war?”

“That’s right.”

“Don’t you think it will be over soon?”

“I wouldn’t bet on it.”

She edged infinitesimally closer, tantamount to touching. “I’ll wait.”

“But what will you do?”

“That is inconsequential. I’ll be here.”

They walked for a while.

“Okay.”

The street was like Park Avenue, with plane trees and canopies and people with little dogs, so Harry was unprepared for a fracas as the American manager of First National City was hustled out of his apartment house and into a car full of military police in plainclothes. He waved and shouted, “Hey, Harry, stand me a drink now?” The attention of the Kempeitai turned to Harry. Of the different arms of the law a person could be seized by, the Kempeitai were the worst. The officer in charge had a face that was creased down the middle with the sides slightly mismatched.

“Identity papers? American? We’re taking in all Americans.”

“You may want to radio in my name.”

“Why would I bother?”

“You may.”

The officer pressed Harry against the marble facing of the building. He riffled through Harry’s papers, then again, and took them to the radio operator in the car. It wasn’t the big punch you saw coming that hurt you, Harry thought, but the little punch you didn’t see. The officer returned and nodded toward the sound of the loudspeaker.