"Yes. Now what is this business about murder, and espionage?"
They filled him in slowly, and the admiral listened, absorbed, frequently nodding. Burroughs and Sterling exchanged occasional glances, both men feeling they were getting through to Kimmel.
But in the end, the admiral's reaction mirrored the general's.
"This begs prompt action," Kimmel said. "First thing Monday morning."
"Admiral Kimmel," Burroughs said, "Sunday is the perfect time for an invasion…."
The admiral's clear blue eyes seemed tranquil. "The Japs may indeed invade, tomorrow-somewhere in Southeast Asia, that is."
"What about here? In Hawaii?"
"No one gives that possibility much credence. Just last week I asked my operations officer what the chances were, of a surprise attack on Oahu, and he said, 'None.' I hope you won't mind if I rely on the advice of our leading military minds and not… forgive me … the creator of Tarzan?"
The admiral thanked both men for their diligence, and returned to the terrace and the single cocktail he was conservatively making last all evening.
Soon the writer and the FBI man were back at the Niumalu, in their respective bungalows; when he took his leave, Sterling seemed weary and defeated. Burroughs felt about the same, but was relieved and even energized to find Hully at home. They had company: Hully had hauled his inebriated and somewhat battered friend, Bill Fielder, to sleep it off, which he was doing, on a pallet on the floor.
Father and son sat on the couch and exchanged their tales of the evening's investigations, each surprising, occasionally delighting, the other with revelations and adventures.
But finally it was left to Hully to ask, "What does it all add up to, O. B.?".
His father shrugged. "Harry Kamana is innocent-and so, most likely, are Bill and Stanton and the other 'jealous lovers.' Pearl Harada was killed for a classic motive: she knew too much."
"But what did she know, Dad?"
"I can't tell you, Son-and neither can Pearl."
Hully sighed. "I guess our investigation is over."
"Ours is-but when Sterling and Jardine get together with Colonel Fielder of Army intelligence, Morimura and Kuhn won't stand a chance."
"And when does this happen?"
"Monday."
"Monday." Hully stretched, yawned. "I guess it can wait that long."
And-with Bill snoring on his pallet on the floor-Hully folded out the couch into a bed, while his father trundled off in hopes of a good night's sleep, minus any nightmares or other rude awakenings.
THREE: December 7, 1941
THIRTEEN
After the midnight closing of the Navy's new Bloch Recreation Center-where the Arizona's dance band had come in second to the Pennsylvania, a much-contested decision-and with the dimming of the clubs and bars of the city, garish Hotel Street included, the blush in the sky over Honolulu began to fade, until the heavens again belonged to the stars. Oahu itself seemed to slumber, with only the slowly turning hands of the Aloha Tower's quartet of clock faces to mark the passing of another tropical night.
By three a.m., the darkness was broken chiefly by stoplights pulsing red, and mute, deserted streets twinkling with Christmas lights. A few pleasure palaces in Chinatown ignored the curfew, their entryways scarlet with the neon promise of sin, beckoning foolish tourists and fearless servicemen. And offshore, to the west, at the entrance to Pearl Harbor, red and green buoy lights winked in the dark, as if they and the night shared a secret.
In these deceptively peaceful hours before dawn, out in the blackness beyond the reef, destiny was bearing down upon Oahu. Three hundred miles north of Honolulu, an armada charged through heavy seas at a clip of twenty knots-destroyers and cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers, bombers and torpedo planes-while, much closer to Oahu, a small fleet of submarines already had the island surrounded, and five midget submarines were even now gliding toward their targets.
A little before four a.m., a minesweeper signaled the destroyer Ward of the sighting of a possible periscope three-quarters southwest of the harbor's blinking entrance buoys. General quarters were sounded by Lieutenant William Outerbridge, captain of the Ward-summoned to the bridge in his pajamas, over which he wore a kimono-and for half an hour, the destroyer searched the restricted waters outside the harbor, and saw nothing, their sonarmen hearing nothing.
Then at 6:30 a.m., a Ward crewman spotted the half-submerged midget sub trailing the supply ship Antares toward the harbor entry, whose torpedo nets-usually blocking the channel-were wide open. Lieutenant Outerbridge sounded general quarters again, and took chase, quickly closing to within a hundred yards, firing and missing, then-with a point-blank hit-nailing the sub at the juncture of its conning tower, sinking the seaweed-shrouded sub, then pounding it with depth charges until the wounded ship bled oil.
The Ward, little realizing it, had just fired the first shots of the Pacific War.
Though this encounter had taken place within five miles of Battleship Row, Oahu continued to slumber-Lieutenant Outerbridge, who of course promptly radioed a coded message of the sinking to the commander of the Fourteenth Naval District at Pearl Harbor-did not receive a request for "additional details" until 7:37 A.M.
Just before dawn, atop a ridge on the northern shore of Oahu, one of Colonel Teske's mobile radar stations was scheduled to be shut down at seven a.m. General Short had these half-dozen trailer-mounted units in operation only a few hours a day, primarily for training purposes. Private George Elliot and Private Joe Lock-ard were working a four-hour graveyard shift, three in the morning till seven; but the track that was supposed to pick them up for breakfast was late, and Private Elliot left the equipment on after seven, merely for the practice.
And just as dawn was threatening to break, a notably strong wave pattern blipped on Elliot's five-inch-diameter oscilloscope, indicating dozens of aircraft, about 130 miles north, heading toward Oahu-at a speed, they soon estimated, of around 180 mph.
Elliot called this in to the Air Warning Service at Fort Shafter, where Lieutenant Kermit Tyler-assuming these blips represented some B-17s expected in from the mainland-told the radarman, "Well, don't worry about it."
Lockard suggested they shut down the radar set, but Elliot wanted some more practice: he watched until the swarm of planes was only twenty-two miles north of Oahu, at which point the patterns disappeared. Unaware that this meant the planes were lost in the dead zone of the hills, as they crossed the shoreline, Elliot switched off the set and logged his final report, at 0740…
… content that he'd had enough practice for one day.
The blips on his screen had been forty-three Zeros, forty torpedo bombers, and one hundred bombers, the first wave of planes launched at six a.m. by the Japanese battle fleet 275 miles due north of the radar station. Their shadows racing across the checkerboards of sugarcane and pineapple fields, the 183 silver planes streaked over the lushly tropical, dreamily peaceful island, where a harbor as still as a millpond awaited, part of a golden landscape basking in the tranquillity of a Sunday dawn.
At around 7:30 a.m., Hully Burroughs and his father sat at a round wicker table on the Niumalu patio, having breakfast. Hully was in bis tennis whites, O. B. in a short-sleeved woven tan shirt and khaki slacks, an ensemble that looked vaguely military; both men were in sneakers. The plan was to play tennis after breakfast, so they again ate light-orange juice and coffee and muffins and fresh fruit.