“Tell me how?”
“I will ask you some questions,” he said. “If you answer as an American would, we will believe your story. If you speak wrongly, you will be held guilty.”
“Go ahead,” Kurt said confidently, “ask away.”
“What is the capital of New York State?” the judge asked.
“Albany,” Kurt said.
“Very good. But that was an easy one.”
“So ask a harder one.”
The judge knitted his dark brows together, squinting at Kurt, before asking the next question. “What is meant by the term the pitcher balked?”
Kurt was surprised. He’d expected another geography question or a history question, but in retrospect it made sense. History and geography were easy to learn, obscure rules of national sports were not. As it happened, Kurt had played baseball all his young life.
“A balk occurs many different ways,” he said, “but usually it’s when the pitcher doesn’t come to a complete stop before throwing the pitch to home base.”
The judges nodded in unison.
“Correct,” one said.
“Yes, yes,” another said, still nodding.
“Third question: Who was the sixteenth Roosevelt of the United States?”
Kurt assumed he meant the sixteenth President. “Abraham Lincoln.”
“And where was he born?”
Another good question, Lincoln so widely known as being from Illinois that most assumed he was born there. “Lincoln was born in Kentucky,” Kurt replied. “In a cabin made of logs.”
The judges nodded to one another. It seemed he was making progress.
“I feel like we’re on a bad game show,” Leilani mumbled.
“Too bad we don’t get any lifelines,” Kurt said, “I’d love to make a call right about now.”
“One more question,” the eighteenth Roosevelt said. “Tell us what is meant by The House That Ruth Built?”
Kurt smiled. His eyes fell on the old-style Yankees cap. Someone who’d influenced these men had loved baseball and had obviously been from New York.
“The House That Ruth Built is Yankee Stadium. It’s in the Bronx,” he said, and then added, to the judges hearty approval, “It was named for Babe Ruth, the greatest baseball player of all time.”
“He is correct,” the eighteenth Roosevelt said excitedly. “Only a true American would know these things.”
“Yes, yes,” the others agreed. “Now, what about the woman?”
“She’s with me,” Kurt said.
“And the man?”
Kurt hesitated. “He’s my prisoner.”
“Then he will be our prisoner,” one of the judges said.
“Our first prisoner,” the eighteenth Roosevelt proclaimed to the great excitement of those around the room. “Take him away.”
Ishmael looked shocked as two men with carbines rushed forward and grabbed him.
“He must be treated according to the Geneva convention,” Kurt said sternly.
“Yes, of course. He will be cared for. But he will be guarded night and day. We have never lost a prisoner on Pickett’s Island. Then again, we have never had one before. He will not escape.”
Without a chance to defend himself, Ishmael was dragged off. Kurt figured he would be okay. As the room emptied around him, he approached the bench.
The eighteenth Roosevelt extended a hand. “My apologies for your treatment,” he said. “I had to be sure.”
Kurt shook the hand. “Understandable,” he said. “May I ask your name?”
“I’m Tautog,” the judge said.
“And you’re the eighteenth Roosevelt of the island,” Kurt confirmed.
“Yes,” Tautog said. “Every four years, a new leader is chosen. I am the eighteenth. I have served for two years, defending the island and the Constitution of the United States of America.”
Kurt calculated backward. If each term lasted four years and Tautog had only served for two, that meant the first Roosevelt was chosen seventy years ago, in 1942.
World War Two. These islanders had come into contact with someone during World War Two and been turned into a small fighting force. It seemed like no one had bothered to tell them the war was over.
Kurt’s eyes traveled over the nautical equipment and the life vest. A faded name on it was impossible to read. “A ship landed here?” he said.
“Yes,” Tautog said. “A great ship of fire and steel. The S.S. John Bury.”
“What happened to it?” Kurt asked.
“The keel is buried in the sand on the east side of the island. The rest we took apart and used to build shelters and defenses.”
“Defenses?” Leilani asked. “Against what?”
“Against the Imperial Japanese Navy and the banzai charge,” Tautog said as if it were obvious.
Kurt caught her before she spoke. Tautog and his fellow islanders were extremely isolated and not just geographically. He didn’t know how they would respond to hearing that the war they and their fathers and their grandfathers had been hunkering down to fight had been over for six and a half decades.
“Who trained you?” Kurt asked.
“Captain Pickett and Sergeant First Class Arthur Watkins of the United States Marine Corps. They taught us the drills, how to fight, how to hide, how to spot the enemy.”
“Who was the Yankees fan?” Kurt asked.
“Captain Pickett loved the Yankees. He called them the Bronx Bombers.”
Kurt nodded. “And what happened when they left?”
Tautog looked as if he didn’t understand the question. “They did not leave,” he said. “Both men are buried here along with their crew.”
“They died here?”
“Captain Pickett died from his injuries eight months after the John Buryran aground. The sergeant was badly injured as well. He could not walk, but he survived for eleven months and taught us how to fight.”
Kurt found the story amazing and intriguing. He’d never heard of a cargo cult where the Americans had stayed behind. He only wished he could reach St. Julien Perlmutter and access his extensive history of naval warfare. The cargo ship had to be listed somewhere, probably labeled missing and presumed sunk, just another footnote to the huge war.
“I don’t understand,” Leilani said. “Why would you need to fight? I understand about the war and the Japanese, but this island is so small. It’s so far out of the way. I don’t think the Japanese were—I mean are—interested in taking it over.”
“It is not the island itself that we protect,” Tautog said. “It is the machine Captain Pickett entrusted to us.”
Kurt’s eyebrows went up. “The machine?”
“Yes,” Tautog said. “The great machine. The Pain Maker.”
CHAPTER 48
KURT AUSTIN HAD NO IDEA WHAT THE PAIN MAKER WAS, but with a name like that he had to find out. But first he had to deal with being a celebrity.
In a far cry from their initial reception, he and Leilani had become honored guests on Pickett’s Island. The fact that he was their first American visitor in seventy years was one thing, the fact that he knew the current Harry Truman had the tribesmen in their military fatigues treating him like MacArthur returning to the Philippines.
After giving Leilani and him fresh water to drink and allowing them to shower and change into fatigues like the other islanders wore, the men of Pickett’s Island treated them to a meal of fresh-caught fish along with mangoes, bananas and coconut milk from the trees that grew in abundance on the island.
While they ate, Tautog and three others regaled them with stories, explaining how all that they had and all that they knew had come from Captain Pickett and Sergeant Watkins. They didn’t say it in so many words, but it seemed like Pickett and Watkins had created their civilization out of thin air and were regarded almost like mythical spirits.
With dinner finished, Kurt and Leilani were taken on a tour of the island.