Flying Blind

executed. Buried anonymously on this island, or dumped as chum into the ocean to attract bonito.

“You’d be part of an incident that never happened,” I said. “Which, at the end of the day, would suit both governments just fine.”

Her eyes and nostrils flared. “Nathan, I can’t believe…”

“That FDR would rather have you dead, than a Japanese propaganda tool? That he’d rather have you in an unmarked grave, than living evidence that the United States committed an act of espionage and war? Didn’t they tell you what you were getting into, baby? If you’re captured, you’re on your own. That’s the cardinal rule, the unwritten law of espionage: your government never fucking heard of you.”

She looked as though I’d struck her a hard blow in the stomach; and hadn’t I?

“Maybe,” I said, “if our ambassador told their ambassador that we knew for a certainty that Amelia and Fred were in Japanese hands, maybe the Japs would quietly return the two of you. Very damn doubtful, though. It makes more sense that you would simply disappear. That’s the Japanese face-saving way, in which case America saves face, too—the U.S.A. wouldn’t have to see Amelia Earhart’s mug turning up on Jap recruiting posters.”

“Then…” she began, in halting horror. “Then…why did you come? If you knew—”

“Amy, full-scale war is around the next corner. Your death sentence has been passed already; it just hasn’t been carried out yet. No, I knew going in that I had to bring you back with me, or leave you to die. You said it yourself: that hotel room may be pretty damn nice for a prison cell, but a prison cell is exactly what it is.”

“Yes,” she admitted. “Yes it is.”

“Now—are you ready for where this really turns nasty?”

She laughed hollowly. “You’re kidding, right?”

I nodded up toward the mustached statue of the sugar baron. “Don’t let ’em kid you, baby. Garapan isn’t a boom town ’cause of sugar; Saipan isn’t thriving ’cause of dried fish, or sheds full of copra. The chief product here is war…they haven’t harvested it yet, but they’re planting, and the yield is gonna be something fierce.”

She thought that over, and swallowed, and said, “And how does that affect me?”

“Understand, they’ve kept you here because Saipan’s been a suitably out-of-the-way pimple on Nowhere’s ass; not a bad place at all to keep a famous person like you under wraps. But with the fortification of this floating fly speck, and its advantageous position in the Pacific—perfectly located for either side, where long-range bombers are concerned—Saipan’s going to be a major target of the coming war. So, I gather from my new best friend Chief Suzuki, a decision has to be made about you and Fred Noonan.”

“A decision.”

“Yeah—about finding you a new home. One possibility is Tokyo. The imperial government, the chief tells me, is impressed by your propaganda value. They feel you might possibly be…turned. That you might come over to their side, and became a major embarrassment to your homeland.”

“But I’ve only cooperated to keep Fred and me alive,” she said, half-enraged, half-defensive. “I mean, of course I felt betrayed and abandoned, by G. P. and Franklin…but that didn’t turn me into some kind of traitor!”

It had to be asked: “How exactly have you cooperated?”

She smiled nervously, shrugging. “Well, you know, they fished the Electra out of the waters…they put her in slings and hauled her up onto the deck of that battleship that picked us up, Fred and me. I don’t exactly know how they got the plane to Saipan…Fred said on a barge, though I heard later someone actually flew it here, and badly, crash-landing through some trees onto the beach near the harbor…. Anyway, Chief Suzuki, who’s been very nice to me, said that things would be better for me, and for Fred too, if I would answer a few simple questions about my ship.”

“Did you?”

“Yes, out at Aslito field. Over a period of several months, I spoke with pilots and engineers, about the plane and its various capabilities. I mean, it wasn’t a fighter plane, what was the harm? These engineers were from a Tokyo firm called, uh…Mits-something.”

“Mitsubishi?”

“Maybe…. Anyway, they made all sorts of repairs, and we took the ship up a few times…that was the last time I was in a plane. Just a passenger, though. Far as I know, the Electra’s still sitting in a hangar out at Aslito airfield. It’s certainly not going anywhere without its engines.”

I blinked. “Without…its engines?”

“Yes, the last time I saw the ship, maybe six months ago, the engines’d been removed.”

Shipped off to Tokyo for further study.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that her flying laboratory had become the blueprint for the revamped Japanese fighter plane, the new and improved Zero. Her own disdain for war, and her love for flying, had created in her a deadly naivete. On the other hand, it had helped keep her alive.

“Is, uh, Fred aware of how you’ve cooperated?”

The idea of that seemed almost to frighten her. “No! Oh my goodness, no—I’ve never admitted any of this to him. I know he wouldn’t approve, and it would just agitate him. He has it so terrible, as it is….”

“I’m afraid, Amy, that Fred’s problems are going to be over very soon. That ‘nice’ Chief Suzuki informs me that the imperial government has approved Fred Noonan’s execution.”

I’d hit her with so many blows, she was almost punchy; she could barely reply. “W-what?”

“There’s no way to sugar-coat this. I heard it from Suzuki’s own lips. Fred Noonan is considered a dangerous prisoner, uncooperative, belligerent, but most important, he’s a spy, and as such will be executed…and Chief Suzuki feels that you, despite being a fine and beautiful human being, are also a spy, and should face the same fate.”