Joe lay back on his bed in his underwear and relaxed as they stopped in front of him. "Gentlemen, what can I do for you?"
The two men appeared to be in their thirties. They were dressed as naval officers, commanders, and carried briefcases. While one was dark-haired and the other light, the two looked disarmingly like tall and well-muscled twins. The lighter-haired one spoke. "Sergeant Nomura, I am Commander Johnson and this is Commander Peters. We would like to speak with you for a few moments."
Nomura sat up. It was awkward because his left arm had been amputated at the elbow. "Has my discharge come through?"
Peters and Johnson looked at each other; slight confusion registered on their faces. "No," said Johnson, "we don't know anything about that."
Nomura waved his half an arm. "Do you mean that the army intends to keep me on as a one-armed soldier? That's ridiculous. There's nothing more I can do. I've given enough, don't you think?"
"I understand," said Peters.
"Do you?" Nomura sneered.
Johnson opened his briefcase and pulled out a sheet of paper. "Let's see. Sergeant Jochi Nomura, aged twenty-eight. You were born on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, in some town I can't pronounce. At age eight, your parents, who were employed by a shipping company, took you to Japan, where you lived until you were seventeen. At that point, you returned with them and lived in Honolulu, where you remained until the start of the war."
Johnson halted for a moment to see if Nomura would comment. He didn't. "Almost immediately after Pearl Harbor, you volunteered for the army and, after basic training, were assigned to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were later shipped over to Italy. You were wounded slightly and returned to combat. Then, while rescuing comrades who were pinned down by a Nazi machine gun, you were shot and suffered the loss of your left arm just below the elbow. You were awarded the Silver Star for that action. That, however, did not stop you, and you were voluntarily assigned as a translator to help the army convince Japanese civilians here on Saipan that they would not be harmed by us, and that they should surrender."
Joe Nomura laughed harshly. "Helluva great job I did. I stood there and yelled for them to come in, while all the time they were throwing themselves off the cliffs only a hundred feet away from me. I'm through. I want my discharge. One-armed soldiers with Silver Stars get to go home, and you goddamn well know it."
"Joe," Peters said, "we'd like to make you an offer."
Now it comes, Nomura thought. "Who are you guys? I know you're not navy."
"We're not?" asked Peters, looking a little hurt. "I'm disappointed. I rather thought we looked the part."
"Hell no. First of all, your insignias aren't correctly put on, and more important, I haven't said sir, haven't stood up, and haven't been very nice to you at all. Real officers would have eaten me alive for that, one-armed hero or not."
Johnson laughed. "Good call. We're from the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS, and we'd like you to help us."
Joe was momentarily puzzled, but then the light dawned as the bottom dropped out of his stomach. "Oh, shit, you want me to go into Japan, don't you?"
Both men nodded. "You're perfect," said Johnson. "You've lived there, you're of Japanese descent, and you're wounded, which means their secret police won't bother you."
"Fuck off."
"Joe," said Peters, "we have to know what's going on in there, and we desperately need the damn few people in the world like you. We don't have any spies in Japan and we can't land regular agents. To belabor the obvious, a white man in Japan would stand out."
Nomura had to laugh. "Well, ain't that the truth. Having a white skin ain't always an advantage, now is it?"
"Will you at least consider helping us?" Johnson asked.
"What's in it for me?"
Peters saw the small opening and responded quickly, "You'll be discharged, but kept on as a government employee with the equivalent pay and privileges of an army captain."
Joe stood slowly, his calm Japanese face suddenly an alien mask of scarcely controlled rage. The change in his bearing and demeanor startled the two OSS recruiters, and they stepped back quickly and in shock.
"God damn it!" Joe screamed. "You think you can buy me? Look, assholes, in the past couple of years a lot more has happened than my losing my arm for a country that doesn't give a shit for me! I'm alone in this fucking ward because, after spraining my ankle out on those cliffs, no one wanted to be around a Jap, not even one with a Silver Star. Y'know, in Italy I saw white Americans shoot Japanese Americans and ignore the fact that we were supposed to be fighting the Germans together. Whenever we went to a town in Italy, we were spit on and called yellow Japs and a helluva lot worse."
Jochi Nomura glared at them. "And that ain't all. My dad lost his job because of his skin and nobody cares that he's a naturalized citizen. And now my parents are living in squalor in some fucking concentration camp like convicts whose only crime is having a yellow skin. And do you know what's the worst?" A stunned Peters and Johnson shook their heads numbly. "A couple of weeks ago some white guys who'd busted into the camp grabbed my mom and raped her because she was a Jap. They fucked my mom! Anybody besides your daddy fuck your mom lately?" Nomura sat down heavily. "Now, try to tell me again why should I help you?"
Johnson lowered his head in embarrassment while Peters looked away. "I'm sorry. We had no idea," Johnson said softly. "Sergeant, we're both truly sorry. It was just our fervent hope that you and others like you would be able to go into Japan and provide us with the information we need to help stop the killing. Look, nothing can ever make the past good again, but we have to start somewhere building the future, and we can't do that until the war ends. I guess I don't blame you for telling us to kiss off. We'll go now. Good-bye, Sergeant." The two men turned to leave.
Joe sighed, "I'll go."
Both men blinked. "What?" Johnson managed.
Nomura smiled bleakly. "My parents are fine. They're living in Honolulu and not in some camp, and if somebody touched my mom, she'd cut their balls off. The rest of the shit I told you about the white soldiers picking on us is true, and it's also true that no one is in this ward with me so they don't get confused and think I'm one of Hirohito's boys who are still hiding out in the hills. In a way it's okay, though. I kind of like it being alone. Besides, despite the fact that me and people like me are getting fucked over royally, it sounds like I might actually be able to help end this fucking war, right? I want to prove once and for all to the government that Japanese Americans are not the enemy."
Johnson smiled, while Peters looked a little angry at being misled. "Mr. Nomura, you're a real bastard," Johnson said, "but we like that in an agent. When can you leave?"
Nomura looked around at the empty room, hostile in its silence. "Is right now soon enough?"
Chapter 9
President Truman could barely contain his anger and frustration. First, the destruction of the city of Kokura had elicited no response from the Japanese. It was inconceivable to him that the deaths of tens of thousands of Japanese civilians could be ignored by the Japanese government. What would it take for them to surrender? Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and now Kokura had ceased to exist, and so many Japanese civilians had been reduced to ashes. And all for nothing. Were the Japs even human? he wondered. At least their leaders weren't, he concluded. But this was not the only problem.
President Truman's voice tended to rise an octave when he was upset. "I thought I now understood at least a little of what I needed to know in order to be president, but now you're telling me there are still more deep, dark secrets that have been kept from me." He sagged in his seat. "This is beyond incredible."