Things had quieted down outside the limo; perhaps we were rolling through a residential area now.
“Not really,” Miller admitted. “Except for a few details that we will in time share with you, you already know damn near as much as we do.”
“Then why are you so convinced Amelia is still alive?”
Forrestal responded to that one, the small dark eyes fixed on me like gunsights. “She would be a valuable propaganda pawn to the enemy, in the early days of the inevitable war…as evidence that we committed acts of espionage, of war, against Japan during peacetime.”
“Also,” Miller said, “she’d make a valuable prisoner for them to swap, should we have any Japanese envoy or ambassador or prominent citizens in our hands, after open hostilities begin.”
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
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
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
“What, she’s working
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?”
