Yeah, sure, and all he had to do was click his heels and he'd be in Kansas with Dorothy and Toto.
Mackensen was looking at him funny. Had he been babbling out loud? "Any orders, sir?"
"Yeah," said Paul grimly. "Let's go kill some fucking Japs and get this over with."
Chapter 59
OSS agent Johnson didn't like working alone after all the time spent with Peters. The two men had established a rapport that was almost the same as two brains working in tandem, or perhaps being married, as some of the other OSS personnel teased. Teamwork was especially important because the puzzle he was working on wouldn't cooperate and divulge its solution. Thus, he was tickled when his partner in crime, Peters, walked through the door of their hut and hung his wet coat on a hook. Peters had caught the flu and had been on sick call for a couple of days. He still looked like shit, but Johnson had missed him.
Johnson looked down at the piece of paper whose meaning had been eluding him. "Got a very cryptic message from Nomura that I don't understand. Instead of using the emergency code, he's using a message within a message, only I don't know what it is. It's gotta be obvious, but not to me right now."
Peters knew what he meant. Sometimes messages were like crossword puzzles. Where one person might be stymied, a second would see the solution immediately. Johnson handed him the paper and Peters read the elusive message verbatim: "Sound of tall construction machinery adjacent. Cooperation expected from chief operator in moving it from the premises."
"What the hell?" Peters said.
Johnson laughed. "Now I don't feel so bad. It's been driving me nuts since it came in a few hours ago."
Peters thought hard. What did the phrase tall construction machinery really mean? Intuitively, he knew those words were the key to the solution. They also knew that it must have been extremely important for Joe to have sent the information in such a manner. Yet it was still not important enough for Nomura to have used the emergency code. He was still saving that.
"Quick, list all the types tall construction machinery you can think of," Peters ordered.
"Derrick, crane, steam shovel, hoist, windlass? Hell, I don't know. There's probably others I can't think of."
Something clicked in Peters's mind. An involuntary shiver went down his spine. He was afraid of the way his thoughts were proceeding. "Would voice be a synonym for sound?"
"Sure, are you onto something?"
"Yeah. Or maybe I am. Substitute voice for sound and crane for tall construction machinery and you have 'voice of the crane is adjacent.' "
Johnson's jaw dropped. "Voice of the Crane is one of Hirohito's titles. Jesus, is Nomura telling us that he is in direct contact with the emperor?"
Peters nodded. "It's hard to believe, but I think he is. And if I'm right on that count, he's also telling us that Hirohito wants to get out of wherever he is and we're expected to help."
"Hoo, boy," Johnson whistled. "This is way too big for us to handle. We better bring some brass on board with this. Do we tell Washington?"
"No," Peters said reluctantly, "For the time being, I think we'd better keep this right here on Okinawa. I don't want this secret to leave this island just yet. Besides, if our assessment is full of crap, I don't want that news off Okinawa either."
Peters and Johnson stood at attention as Lt. Gen. Matthew Ridgway entered the small conference room. Both agents were dressed in army uniforms, but without any indications of rank. Ridgway's crisp, strong-jawed appearance reinforced the impression of a can-do type of leader. He looked younger than his fifty years and had only recently transferred in from the European theater, where, as a major general, he had commanded the XVIII Airborne Corps, which had included the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions in the Battle of the Bulge, and the earlier and ill-fated Operation Market Garden. Ridgway's third star was only a few months old. He held no specific command; instead, he functioned as a troubleshooter for Gen. Omar Bradley. His presence was taken by Johnson and Peters as a good omen.
Ridgway took a seat and directed the others to do likewise. "Where's Hirohito and just why do you think we can snatch him away from his own people?" he snapped.
Peters answered, "He's being held by Anami's people in northern Kyushu. I don't know exactly where and our agent declined to give specifics. It's far too risky for him to divulge that he has that knowledge as we are fairly certain the Japs are picking up a lot of what he's sending and decoding it by now."
Ridgway grunted. "And you really believe your man is in contact with him?"
The general had their brief written report, but wanted to hear their answers verbally. Their fear that it would be laughed away was already dissipating. They had hoped to see either Bradley or Nimitz, but this conference with Ridgway meant that at least someone at the top thought it was worth pursuing.
"The message from Nomura is necessarily cryptic," Peters continued, "but we strongly believe that is the gist of it. Our agent has located Hirohito, who is likely a prisoner, and the emperor wants out of his captors' hands so he can bring peace."
"Why?"
It was Johnson's turn. "Intelligence analysis says the emperor was never that strong an advocate for war against America and was more than ready to surrender after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The subsequent overthrow of the Japanese government by Anami and his cohorts had nothing to do with Hirohito except to put him in personal jeopardy."
Ridgway shook his head. It was almost too incredible to believe. "And we're supposed to accept that this Nomura character of yours has landed on Japan, wandered around for months, somehow become Hirohito's best friend, and, as a result, the emperor will let us take him off Kyushu and out to an American warship? You know a few people on Bradley's and Nimitz's staffs think you guys are either drunk or hallucinating? Worse, there's the serious possibility that you've misread the message, or that the whole thing is a trap to kill anyone who tries to liberate Hirohito. For all we know, this Nomura character has either been captured and tortured or he's become a turncoat."
Johnson persisted, "General, Mr. Nomura has proven himself very resourceful. We do not believe he has been captured or is sending messages under any duress. There were key words to use and ways of phrasing things that would have tipped us off if that was the case. No, I believe he is dealing with Hirohito and that Hirohito wants to get somewhere so he can really and finally end this war. What we need is your approval and assistance in getting them out."
Ridgway cupped his chin thoughtfully. "I'm curious, gentlemen, just how had you planned on extracting Nomura in the first place when the time was right?"
"By submarine, sir," Peters answered. Inwardly, he exulted. Ridgway was still listening to them. He hadn't laughed them out of the office. "We were going to get him out the same way he got in. Only when the boat that landed him was sunk, we didn't think the navy would let us have another one."
"So you essentially wrote him off after that."
"Yes, sir. To be brutally frank, we wrote him off even before that," Johnson added with candor. "We thought he'd last maybe a week or so and really never expected to have to pull him off under any circumstances. We gave him some plans, but they were more like placebos to make him feel good. We never expected him to do this well or last all this time. We really thought he'd have been caught or killed a long time ago. What he's done for us has been nothing short of incredible."