Forrestal was nodding. “And these are among the reasons that we would like to extract Miss Earhart from Japanese hands, before the war begins.”
“Why the hell didn’t the Japs tell the world they had her in the first place?” I asked. “And embarrass us then?”
Somewhere a dog was barking.
“Amelia Earhart is a beloved figure around the world,” Miller said. “That admiration, particularly among young women, crosses all borders. That means the Japs would have to release her, at some point.”
I frowned at this logic. “Even if they painted her as a spy?”
Miller gazed at the gray curtained window, as if he were taking in the scenery. “I believe so. And therein lies one of the reasons they’ve held her, and it’s a time-honored one: she knows too much. She knows the nature and the extent of the military build-up by the Japs in the Pacific, particularly on Saipan, if indeed she’s being held there. Acts of war that she could and no doubt would report.”
A nasty thought formed and I reluctantly expressed it: “Then why haven’t they quietly killed her and buried her on that hellhole?”
“Because of the factors we mentioned before,” Miller said with a small, inappropriate smile. “Her propaganda value, her worth in a prisoner exchange... but also there’s the wealth of aviation knowledge in her mind. What she and Noonan know about the Electra.”
Forrestal frowned at Miller. “I don’t believe it’s necessary to get into that.”
“Into what?” I asked. “If you want my cooperation, gentlemen, you’ll need to be as forthcoming as possible. I have one motivation here: getting Amelia back from the Pacific where you lost her.”
Forrestal shook his head, no, but Miller sighed and said, “One of the reasons we know she’s alive... or at least why we know that she was kept alive, for a time...”
Forrestal gripped Miller’s arm. “Bill, no.”
Miller lifted Forrestal’s hand off, as if it were something distasteful that had landed there, and gave him a smile that was really a frown; then his face turned sober as he looked at me and said, “The Japanese fighter plane is known as a ‘Claude’... also as a ‘Zero.’ A well-designed, successful plane, particularly up against the Chinese, who were notoriously lousy pilots, by the way. But the Claude, the Zero, has had, chronically, a drawback... it’s inclined to crash.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I’d call that a drawback in an airplane.”
“This is due to its underpowered engine. That’s one of the things, I believe, that’s prevented Japan from moving against us, up till now.”
I was in over my head, but I asked, “What is?”
“Our aircraft far surpass theirs... to go up against us, they needed to improve the handling and the rate of climb, in their fighter planes. A company called Mitsubishi has been developing the new Zero...”
“I’d prefer you didn’t continue,” Forrestal said to Miller, petulantly.
“Christ... I think I’m ahead of you.” I sat forward. “By sending Amelia and her ‘Flying Laboratory’ into enemy territory, we handed those bastards a schematic for a better plane!”
Miller nodded once, almost a bow. “You are a perceptive individual, Mr. Heller. A true detective. Our intelligence reports indicate that the new Zero incorporates many of the Electra’s best features... retractable landing gear, double radial engine, automatic carburetor, and the embarrassing list goes on.”
My brain reeled. “You’re telling me we handed the Japs the specs for a plane they can use to invade us?”
Outside, silence, the limo moving through sleeping streets.
Miller shifted uncomfortably in his comfortable seat. “Worse than that — we managed to do that by way of Amelia Earhart’s plane. And, to add to the potential embarrassment and crushing indignity that implies, very possibly they’ve induced her to share her knowledge of that aircraft with them.”
“What, she’s working with the Japs?”
Miller blinked several times, a fairly rare occurrence. “She may have felt somewhat... misused by her government.”
“Oh, really? Whyever would she think that?”
He ignored the sarcasm and gave me a straight answer: “Because she wasn’t made aware of the flight over Japanese waters until the very last minute.”
That fit the Myers kid’s story of what he’d heard on his Philco, Noonan handing Amy an envelope with a change of “flight plan.”
“What did she think the cameras in the fuselage bay were for?” I asked Miller. “Home movies?”
He held up two hands, as if in surrender. “We told Miss Earhart — and it was absolutely true — that her mission was to take reconnaissance photos over Italian-held Eritrea’s military and commercial airfields... at Massawa, Assam, and Asmara.”
“Where the fuck is that?”
Forrestal reared back slightly, as if offended by my harsh language. Fuck him.
“Africa,” Miller said. “I met her personally at Darwin, Australia, and took home the film she’d shot up to that point.”
“Yeah, and handed Noonan his new secret orders behind Amelia’s back. Hell, if I was her, I’d be drawing blueprints of the White House for those Japs.”
And I let the gray curtain up next to us, to show them what I thought of their secrecy. The palm trees of Beverly Hills were gliding by, a tropical dream in the moonlight.
Miller only smiled the meaningless smile. “No you wouldn’t... Are you going to help us?”
I snorted a laugh. “If Amelia’s stuck in some military prison on... where?”
“Saipan.”
“Saipan... then what the hell good does it do me to go along with Captain Johnson on his wild-goose chase through the What’s It Islands?”
“That’s only your cover, or at least part of it. You need to understand the high opinion we have developed of you, where your special... qualities are concerned.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re good with your fists, you’re good with a handgun, you’re smart, resourceful, and you know the ins and outs of this delicate situation as no other civilian does.”
“If you’re looking to head up my fan club, Miller, there’s an opening.”
“In addition, you have a personal stake here, by way of your... relationship with Miss Earhart. You need also to understand that, while a private citizen, Captain Johnson is also a Naval reserve officer.”
“So you’ve recruited him, too.”
“In a word — yes. He’ll help you prepare your reports for Dimity’s Foundation, as if you’d been with the Johnson cruise all the while.”
That got my attention. “What do you mean, as if?”
Miller’s baritone was calm, soothing; he’d missed his calling — he should have been a hypnotist. “You’ll only go partway with Johnson, Nate,” he was saying. “You’ll really be working for us, for the Office of Naval Intelligence, not ‘Dilly-Dally’ Dimity, as we call him... though you can keep the money he pays you, which we intend to match with our funds. This adventure should prove as lucrative as it is interesting.”
“Why do I think I’m going to be signing another contract?”
“Because you are,” Miller said, leaning forward to pat me on the knee. “You see, we’ve arranged a separate expedition for you... to Saipan.”
Chapter 16
I sat on a netting-shaded cement verandah, sipping a rum and Coke, outside a Quonset-hut “hotel” rented by the Navy to Pan American Airlines. The naval base on this scruffy, hot, humid island — Guam, the sole U.S. territory in the midst of the Japanese-controlled Mariana Islands — was on Commar Hill, where the evening had turned out surprisingly cool. The floor show consisted of small, cat-eyed, long-tailed lizards chasing flies in the pools of light that spilled here and there from our corrugated-tin Hilton.