Not counting Jesus and Ramon, of course, who were behind us about a half a block; they were so fat, only one could walk on the boardwalk—the other had to trod along kicking up dust in the hard-dirt street, making an obstacle for bikes. The billy clubs were stuck in their belts like pirate swords; Jesus had the sheathed machete stuck there, too—all he lacked was the parrot and eyepatch.
“Oh, I’m old hat around here,” she said with a little smile. “They call me ‘Tokyo Rosa.’”
“Why?”
“Tokyo because I attract so much official attention. Rosa because it’s a female name in English they know from somewhere.”
I gestured toward the little park where the sugar baron’s statue loomed and we headed over there.
“It’s usually prettier here,” she said, as we sauntered along. We were close enough to the waterfront that we could see gray patches of ocean between trees and buildings. “Saipan sunsets are amazing, and the waters are so many different, clear shades of blue.”
“It almost sounds like you like it here,” I said.
A tiny grimace tightened her face. “I guess I deserve that. But I’m always aware of what Fred’s going through.”
We could see the prison, on its little jungle side street, as we walked. The boardwalk had given over to a simple well-worn grassy path.
“According to Chief Suzuki,” I said, “your navigator’s been pretty uncooperative, even belligerent.”
“Fred’s never given them a shred of information, never admitted to anything…but he’s been through a living hell for it.”
That made sense. Leaning on Noonan and taking it easy on Amy wasn’t chivalry on the part of the Japanese, rather their chauvinist supposition that the male team member would be the leader, and would hold the military secrets. To some degree, they may have been right—after all, Noonan had been working for the Navy, all along.
I asked, “Do they let you see him?”
“Once a week or so we talk, when he’s allowed out into the exercise yard.” She looked in that direction and I could see the area she meant, a grassless parcel beside the larger, boxcar-like cellblocks. “He’s very strong. Resolute. I admire him terribly….”
She wiped tears from her eyes with her short sleeve and smiled bravely and I looped my arm through hers and walked her into the little park, where we settled onto a stone bench, alone in the shadow of the baron’s statue and sheltering palm trees.
“I’m going to get you out of here tonight,” I said.
Her eyes widened with hope and alarm. “You can do that?”
Jesus and Ramon were watching from across the street, sitting on the stone steps out in front of the hospital, like a couple of gargoyles who’d fallen off the roof.
“You need to understand something,” I said. “My mission to Saipan was defined by such patriots as William Miller and James Forrestal as ‘intelligence gathering.’ They didn’t send me in here to rescue you, just to find out whether you and Fred were here or not. Alive and well, or hung by your thumbs, it didn’t matter—are our missing people in Saipan or aren’t they? That was the extent of why I was sent.”
She nodded. “I follow you.”
“Trust me, you don’t. I was told, if you were here, not to ‘play hero,’ but to leave you behind, with the assurance that your pal FDR and naval and military intelligence would decide what to do about it…whether to negotiate the release of the American prisoners, or mount a full-scale rescue operation.”
Wincing in thought, she said, “I guess that makes sense….”
“No it doesn’t. I played along with them, so they’d send me in here, but baby, my sole point in taking this seagoing safari was to bring you home with me. You think I got a particle of confidence in the government’s ability to negotiate your release? How have they done so far?”
She sighed a laugh. “Not wonderfully well…and I guess they did figure there was a pretty good chance I was on Saipan, in Japanese custody, or they wouldn’t have sent you in here, looking.”
“Now you’re gettin’ your head out of the clouds.” I gently touched her arm. “Do you really think FDR would send some kind of full-scale military raiding team into Saipan, to save his wife’s canasta partner in what would clearly be an act of war?”
Her eyes seemed suddenly empty. “…No.”
“Yes—
“Continued detention? Imprisonment…?”
I let out a heavy sigh. “I’m going to say this, and you’re going to have to be strong. I don’t want our audience to detect any undue reaction.”
Jesus and Ramon had brought their shopworn deck of cards with them; Ramon was dealing, on the hospital steps.
“Say what you have to,” she said.
“Faced with the knowledge that the United States military has confirmed your presence in their custody, your Japanese hosts would take steps to remove any and all signs that you’d ever been here.”
She said nothing, her expression blank. I didn’t have to spell it out. She knew. She and Noonan would be
