Charlie Kaapu’s shadow swooped and dipped along the rough black basalt of the tunnel wall as he nodded. “No huhu, Jim,” he answered. “I get it.”

But he and the rest of the newcomers still did a lot more work than any of the POWs who’d been there for a while. That wasn’t because they were more diligent-Jim Peterson thought they’d all got the message about not pushing too hard. With the worst will in the world toward the Japs, though, they couldn’t help themselves. They were so many Charles Atlases alongside the skeletally thin, malnourished prisoners of war. Of course a man with real muscles could outdo somebody who had nothing left between his skin and his bones.

After an eternity, the shift ended. Charlie Kaapu had got hit a couple of more times for not working fast enough to suit the guards. “You did good,” Peterson told him as they stumbled back toward the camp and what would be their meager evening meal.

“Oh, yeah?” Charlie said. “How long till I look like you?”

Peterson had no real answer for that, but he knew it wouldn’t be long.

ACCOMPANIED BY A PAIR of stalwart petty officers, Commander Mitsuo Fuchida bicycled through the streets of Honolulu. The petty officers weren’t so much bodyguards as men who could get out in front of him and yell, “Gangway!” to clear traffic. Most places, he would have gone by car, and his driver would have leaned on the horn. That he didn’t here was a telling measure of how tight fuel had got in Honolulu.

Panting a little, he stopped in front of the building where Minoru Genda had his office-stopped so abruptly that his tires drew black lines on the pale concrete of the sidewalk. “Wait for me,” he told the petty officers. “I won’t be very long.” They nodded and saluted.

Fuchida charged up the stairs to Genda’s office-and then had to charge down again when a young officer said, “So sorry, Commander-san, but he’s not here this morning. He’s gone to Iolani Palace.”

“Zakennayo!” Fuchida snarled.

When he turned to go without another word, the junior officer said, “Sir, you’re welcome to use a telephone here to call him.”

“I’d better go see him,” Fuchida said. If he’d wanted to telephone Genda, he could have done it from Pearl Harbor. Some things, though, were too important to trust to wires-or to junior officers. The youngster raised an eyebrow. When Fuchida ignored him, he sighed and went back to work.

“That was fast, sir,” one of the petty officers remarked when Fuchida emerged from the building.

“We’re not done yet-that’s why,” Fuchida answered. “Genda-san’s not here. We’ve got to head back west, over to Iolani Palace. Run interference again for me, if you’d be so kind.”

“Yes, sir,” they chorused. If they sounded resigned, then they did, that was all. What choice had they but obedience? None, and they knew it as well as Fuchida did. They got back onto their bicycles and started bellowing, “Gangway!” some more. That, at least, seemed as if it ought to be fun. The way civilians scattered before them clearly declared who the conquerors were.

Fuchida skidded to another stop in front of the palace. The big Hawaiian soldiers at the bottom of the front stairs came to attention and saluted as he hurried by them. So did the Japanese troops at the top of the stairs. He paused for a moment to ask them, “Where’s Commander Genda?”

They looked at one another with expressions he found unfathomable. After a longish pause, their sergeant said, “Is it very urgent, sir?”

“You bet your life it’s urgent!” Fuchida exclaimed. “Would I be here like this if it weren’t?”

Stolidly, the noncom gave back a shrug. “You never can tell, can you, sir? You’ll likely find him in the basement.”

“The basement?” Fuchida echoed in surprise. The Japanese soldiers nodded as one. Fuchida had assumed Genda was here to talk with General Yamashita, who had his office on the second floor. Admiral Yamamoto had used a basement office here, but the commander of the Combined Fleet was long since back in Japan.

To make things more annoying, the front entrance didn’t offer access to the basement. Fuming, Fuchida had to go down the stairs, past the Hawaiian soldiers again, and pedal around the palace so he could go downstairs into the lower level. What the devil was Genda doing here? And where in the basement was he likely to be? That damned sergeant hadn’t said.

Hawaiian bureaucrats were using some of the rooms down there. Fuchida prowled past those. The brown men-and the white-gave him curious looks; since Admiral Yamamoto departed, Japanese officers were seldom seen down here. He looked into those open rooms, and did not see Commander Genda.

Fuming, he yanked open the first door to a windowless room he found-and almost got buried by an avalanche of dustpans and brooms and other cleaning gear. The Americans called a place like that Fibber McGee’s closet; Fuchida thought the phrase came from a radio show.

He went down the hall and tried another closed door. This time, he was rewarded by a whiff of perfume, a startled female gasp, and a muttered obscenity. He shut the door in a hurry, but he didn’t go away-the obscenity had been in Japanese.

Maybe I’m wrong, he thought. But he wasn’t. Commander Genda came out of the small, dark room a couple of minutes later, still hastily setting his uniform to rights. He looked put upon. “What wouldn’t wait till I got back to the office?” he demanded irritably.

“Nothing I can talk about till we’re out of this place,” Fuchida said, and then, with irritation of his own, “If you have to lay one of the maids here, couldn’t you do it when you’re not on duty?”

Genda didn’t talk about that till they were out of Iolani Palace. Even then, he waved the petty officers who’d come along with Fuchida out of hearing range before saying, “I’m not laying one of the palace maids. I’m laying Queen Cynthia.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” Fuchida had, from time to time, thought of converting to Christianity. That wasn’t what brought out the oath, though. A lot of Japanese who’d been exposed to Western ways used it whether they took the religion of Jesus seriously or not.

“You’re my friend. I hope you’ll keep your mouth shut. Life would get more… more complicated if you didn’t,” Genda said: a commendable understatement. Occupying the islands was one thing, occupying King Stanley Laanui’s wife something else again. Fuchida could imagine nothing better calculated to show what a false and useless regime the restored Kingdom of Hawaii really was. Before he could express his horror, Genda asked, “And what’s the news that made you come over here and hunt me down? By the Emperor, it had better be important.”

That brought Fuchida back from disasters hypothetical to disasters altogether too real. He also made sure the petty officers couldn’t overhear before he answered, “The Americans put two fish into Zuikaku a couple of hours ago.”

“What? That’s impossible!” Genda exclaimed. Sadly, Fuchida shook his head. Genda went on more moderately: “That’s terrible!” Fuchida could and did nod. “How did it happen? Will she sink?” Genda asked.

“How? They don’t know how. They were getting close to Oahu, and wham!” Fuchida said. “They don’t think she’ll go down-she hasn’t lost power, and the pumps are working. But she’s not going to sail against the Americans with Akagi and Shokaku, either. She’s limping in to Pearl Harbor for emergency repairs, and she may have to go back to Japan again.”

“How could the Americans have got a sub in the right place to torpedo her?” Genda wasn’t really asking Fuchida-he was asking an uncaring world.

Fuchida only shrugged. “Dumb luck,” he said. “Shigata ga nai.”

“Obviously it can’t be helped,” Genda said. “It wouldn’t have happened if it could be. But I’ll tell you something, Fuchida-san: it almost makes me wonder if the Yankees are reading our codes.”