Bell nodded. He saw no profit in challenging that cold-eyed lie until he learned Yamamoto’s intention. “If you didn’t murder Langner and we are not enemies, why are you pointing a gun under the table at my belly?”

“To hold your attention while I explain what is going on and what I can do to help you.”

“Why would you want to help me?”

“Because you can help me.”

“You are offering to deal.”

“I am offering to trade.”

“Trade what?”

“The spy who arranged Langner’s murder and the murder of Lakewood, the fire-control expert, and the murder of the turbine expert, MacDonald, and the murder of Gordon, the armorer in Bethlehem, and the attempt to sabotage the launch of the Michigan, which you so ably thwarted.”

“Trade for what?”

“Time for me to disappear.”

Isaac Bell shook his head emphatically. “That makes no sense. You’ve demonstrated that you could disappear already.”

“It is more complicated than simply disappearing. I have my own responsibilities-responsibilities to my country-which have nothing to do with you because we are not enemies. I need to get clean away and leave no tracks to haunt me or embarrass my country.”

Bell thought hard. Yamamoto was confirming what he had suspected-that a spy other than he was the mastermind who had recruited not only the Japanese murderer but the German saboteur and who knew how many others.

Yamamoto spoke urgently. “Discretion is survival. Defeats, and victories, should be observed quietly, after the fact, at a distance.”

To save his own skin-and who knew for what other motives-Yamamoto would betray the mastermind. As the treacherous Abbington-Westlake had put it so cynically at this same table, “Welcome to the world of espionage, Mr. Bell.”

“How can I trust you?”

“I will explain two reasons why you should trust me. First, I have not killed you, and I could have. Agreed?”

“You could have tried.”

“Second, here is my pistol. I am passing it to you under the table. Do what you will.”

He handed Bell the pistol, butt first.

“Is the safety on?” asked Bell.

“It is now that it’s pointed at me,” replied Yamamoto. “Now I will stand up. With your permission.”

Bell nodded.

Yamamoto stood up. Bell said, “I will trust you more after you hand me that second pistol hidden in your side pocket.”

Yamamoto smiled faintly. “Sharp eyes, Mr. Bell. But in order to deliver the goods, I may need it.”

“In that case,” said Bell, “take this one, too.”

“Thank you.”

“Good hunting.”

LATE THAT NIGHT, Yamamoto Kenta confronted the spy in his Alexandria, Virginia, waterfront warehouse. “Your plan to attack the Great White Fleet at Mare Island,” he began in the formal, measured phrases of a diplomat, “is not in the interest of my government.”

It had been raining for two days, and the Potomac River was rising, swelled by the vast watershed that drained thousands of square miles of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. The powerful current made the floor tremble. The rain drummed on the ancient roof. Leaks dripped into a helmet turned upside down on the spy’s desk, splashed on the old searchlight behind him and streamed down its lens.

The spy could not hide his astonishment. “How did you find out?”

Yamamoto smiled thinly. “Perhaps it is my ‘natural aptitude for spying, and a cunning and self-control not found in the West.’ His smile froze in a hard line, his lips so tight that the spy could see his teeth outlined against them.

“I will not permit this,” the Japanese continued. “You will drive a wedge between Japan and the United States at precisely the wrong time.”

“The wedge is already in motion,” the spy said mildly.

“What good would come of it?”

“Depends on your point of view. From the German point of view, embroiling Japan and the United States in conflict would open up opportunities in the Pacific. Nor will Great Britain mourn if the U.S. Navy is forced to concentrate its battleships on its West Coast. They might even seize the opportunity to reoccupy the West Indies.”

“It does nothing for Japan.”

“I have German and British friends willing to pay me for their opportunities.”

“You are even worse than I thought.”

The spy laughed. “Don’t you understand? The international dreadnought race presents splendiferous opportunities to a man with the intestinal fortitude to seize them. The rival nations will pay anything to stop each other. I’m a salesman in a seller’s market.”

“You are playing both ends against the middle.”

The spy laughed louder. “You underestimate me, Yamamoto. I am playing every end against the middle. I am building a fortune. What will it cost me to keep you out of my game?”

“I am not a mercenary.”

“Oh, I forgot. You’re a patriot.” Idly, he picked up a thick black towel that had been draped over the arm of his chair. “A gentleman spy with high morals. But a gentleman spy is like a pistol that shoots blanks-good for starting bicycle races, but little else.”

Yamamoto was coldly sure of his position. “I am not a gentleman spy. I am a patriot like your father, who served his Kaiser as I serve my Emperor. Neither of us would sell out our country.”

“Will you leave my poor dead father out of this?” the spy asked wearily.

“Your father would understand why I must stop you.” Yamamoto drew from his coat his Nambu semiautomatic pistol, deftly pulled the cocking knob, and pointed the short barrel at the spy’s head.

The spy looked at him with a thin smile. “Are you serious, Kenta? What are you going to do, turn me in to the U.S. Navy? They may have questions for you, too.”

“I am sure they would. Which is why I’m going to turn you over to the Van Dorn Detective Agency.”

“What for?”

“The Van Dorns will hold you until I am safely out of the country. They will turn you over to the U.S. Navy.”

The spy shut his eyes. “You’re forgetting one thing. I don’t have a country.”

“But I know where you came from, Eyes O’Shay. Mr. Brian ‘Eyes’ O’Shay.”

The spy’s eyes popped open. He stared at the towel that he had been raising to his face. It lay in his hands like an offering.

Yamamoto gloated. “Surprised?”

“I am very surprised,” the spy admitted. “Brian O’Shay has not been my name for a very long time.”

“I told you, I was playing this game before you were born. Put your hands where I can see them or I’ll give the Van Dorns your corpse instead.”

The spy squeezed his eyes shut again. “You frighten me, Kenta. I am merely trying to mop the perspiration from my face.” He dabbed his forehead, then pressed the black towel as tightly as he could to his eyes. Hidden at his feet was a thick electrical cable that connected the public-utility main to a knife switch in the open position. The switch’s hinged metal lever was poised inches above its jaw. He stomped down on the lever’s insulated handle, closing the circuit. A fat blue spark cracked like a pistol shot.

From behind him, the 200,000,000-candlepower searchlight capable of illuminating enemy ships at six miles shot a beam like white fire into Yamamoto’s eyes. It was so bright that the spy could see the bones in his hands through his eyelids, the thick towel, and his skin and flesh. It seared Yamamoto’s retinas, blinding him. The Japanese spy fell backward, screaming.

The spy kicked the switch open again and waited for the light to fade before he dropped the towel and stood up, blinking at the pink circles spinning before his eyes.

“Navy captains tell me that searchlights fend off destroyers better than guns,” he said conversationally. “I can report that they work just as well on traitors.”

From his desk drawer, he took a folded copy of the Washington Post and removed from it a twelve-inch length of lead pipe. He circled the desk and stepped around the fallen chair. He was only a few inches taller than the tiny Yamamoto, who was writhing on the floor. But he was as strong as three men and he moved with the concentrated purpose of a torpedo.