A soldier stuck his head into the room. Saluting, he said, “The prince is here.”
“Send him up,” Genda replied. With another salute, the soldier disappeared.
As soon as Minoru Genda saw the man who called himself Prince Stanley Owana Laanui, his hopes began to rise. The swag belly, the double chin, the shrewd eyes with dark patches beneath them-all spoke of a man who thought of himself first and everyone and everything else later if at all. That was exactly the sort of man Japan needed right now.
Genda spoke to the interpreter: “Tell his Highness we are glad to see him and pleased to make his acquaintance.”
After Shirakawa turned his words into English, the Hawaiian princeling muttered, “Took you long enough to get around to me.” Shirakawa politely shaded his translation of that. Genda followed it even so.
And Stanley Owana Laanui wasn’t wrong, even if he also wasn’t particularly polite. It had taken the Japanese a while to get around to him. The reason was simple: he had a much more tenuous connection to the old Hawaiian royal family than did Abigail Kawananakoa and several other men and women. But they’d all declined to be involved in reviving the monarchy. He was the best candidate left.
“We are sure you are a man who thinks first of your country and only afterwards of yourself,” Lieutenant Colonel Murakami said. Genda was sure of exactly the opposite, but hypocrisy was an essential part of this game.
“Yes, of course,” the Hawaiian nobleman said, preening a little. In fact, he had more Anglo-Saxon blood than native Hawaiian. That was not necessarily an impediment; it was true of quite a few in the Hawaiian community. Some so-called Americans, prominent ones included, were also part Hawaiian. Intermarriage had run rampant here.
A bigger problem was Laanui’s personality. If he were rendered for oil, he could go a long way toward replacing what the Japanese had destroyed in the third wave of attacks on December 8. (People here spoke of it as December 7, but Genda and the strike force had stayed on Tokyo time throughout.) Genda glanced at the photographic portraits of distinguished nineteenth-century Hawaiians on the walls of the library. Judging by Stanley Laanui, interbreeding hadn’t been altogether for the best.
But, inadequate as he was, he was what the Empire of Japan had to work with at the moment. Genda said, “You must be sorry, your Highness, that the United States has occupied these islands for so long and robbed them of their independence.”
“Yes, that is very unfortunate,” agreed Laanui, who’d probably still been making messes in his drawers when the Americans put an end to the Hawaiian monarchy, and who no doubt hadn’t lost a minute of sleep over what had happened from that day to this.
“You can help us set a historic injustice to rights,” Lieutenant Colonel Murakami said. He was smoother and more polished than his Army colleague.
Lieutenant Colonel Minami proved as much by adding, “You can give the Americans a good boot in the ass.”
Izumi Shirakawa looked pained. “How am I supposed to translate that?” he asked plaintively.
“Just the way I said it,” Minami snapped. Sighing, the interpreter obeyed.
And a broad smile spread over Stanley Owana Laanui’s greasy face. “By God, that’s just what I want to do!” he said. Genda and Fuchida exchanged faintly disgusted glances. Until the Japanese came, the useless noble’s main goal in life had surely been to suck up to the Big Five in every way he could.
“You could give the islands a powerful symbol of their restored freedom,” Genda said. What he was thinking was, I hope I can get through this without being sick. It’s worse than the North Atlantic in January.
“That would be good. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere sounds like a real smart idea to me,” Laanui said.
Now Genda eyed him in some surprise. That the nobleman knew the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere existed proved he wasn’t as dumb as he looked. But if he spoke well of it… “Hawaii will have its proper role to play, I assure you,” Lieutenant Murakami said: a promise that promised nothing. Hawaii’s proper place would be whatever Japan said it was. Would Stanley Laanui see that?
If he did, he didn’t show it. He said, “The Americans have had their boot heels on us for too long. It’s time for a change.” If that meant, It’s high time to put a crown on my head — well, what was the point of this exercise if not putting a crown on his head?
Commander Fuchida said, “You do understand, your Highness, that the restored Kingdom of Hawaii would still find it advisable to cooperate closely with the Empire of Japan?” That meant, You do understand you’ll be a puppet? Genda wanted to applaud. He couldn’t have put it so delicately himself.
Stanley Owana Laanui nodded. “Oh, yes,” he said. He might have been talking about the weather. “After all, you came all this way just to liberate us.”
Was he an idiot after all, or only an extravagant hypocrite? Genda would have bet on the latter, but how much did it really matter? Either way, he was a tool, and Japan needed a tool right now. Genda said, “Well, your Highness, before long your subjects will start calling you ‘your Majesty.’ ”
“Yes.” It was a whisper, Laanui talking to himself, but Genda heard the harsh hunger in it. Idiot or hypocrite, this man would definitely do.
Lieutenant Colonel Murakami must have thought the same thing, for he said, “We will arrange your coronation at a time convenient to you and to the Japanese Empire. I hope this is agreeable?”
“Oh, yes,” Laanui repeated, and nodded once more. Then he seemed to take courage, adding, “It could have happened a while ago if only you’d decided to talk to me before you had anything to do with those other people.”
Those people with better claims, he meant, though he probably didn’t think of it in those terms. No, he was bound to be the hero in his own story-as who was not? Minoru Genda was sad for him. Even with a crown on his head, he was most unlikely to be a hero in anyone else’s.
That didn’t matter, though, not to anyone but Laanui. Japan would do what it needed to do with him-and would do what it needed to do to him. He might have done better to decline the honor, as other Hawaiian nobles had before him. He might have… except he could no more help rising to it than a trout could help rising to a fly. What did a trout know of hooks? Nothing. Nothing at all.
“I think we have an agreement here-your Majesty,” Genda said. He gave Stanley Owana Laanui a seated bow. Fuchida, Murakami, and Minami followed suit. Maybe the Hawaiian thought that was the ceremony they would have shown the Emperor. If so, he only proved himself an ignorant trout indeed. The Emperor was hedged round with degrees of ceremony no other mortal even approached.
Let Laanui think what he wanted, though. As long as he sat on the throne and did as he was told, he served his purpose admirably.
XIV
WITH HAWAII IN their hands, with h8k seaplanes and with submarines to refuel them, the Japanese could keep an eye on the West Coast of the United States. The big flying boats didn’t have to carry bombs every time. Getting a look at what the Yankees were up to counted for just as much, maybe more.
Commander Mitsuo Fuchida wished he could go on more H8K missions. But he had a swarm of other duties, and that one flight had to suffice for him. He did attend every briefing by pilots coming back to the Pan Am Clipper berth in Pearl City.
“The Americans are more alert than they were the first time we visited them,” Lieutenant Kinsuke Muto reported. He paused to yawn, then said, “So sorry. Please excuse me.”
None of the officers who’d gathered to hear him could possibly have been offended. Even for an H8K, the round trip to the mainland took a long time. A pilot who did most of the flying had earned the right to be tired. “Go on, Muto-san,” Fuchida urged. “You can sleep soon.”