cooling rapidly.
It was difficult for Dane to think of either Braun or Krause as spies and saboteurs. After the shooting, Harris had taken him on a tour of the two men’s quarters above their phony engineering company, and what Dane had seen was sad and banal. The two Nazi supermen had been living in a small two-bedroom flat above a nondescript shop filled with what could only be described as junk. An old truck was in the first-level garage, while the upper living level was filled with cheap furniture, dirty laundry, unmade beds, and littered floors. Nor did it look like they did any cooking. Carry-out food containers, much of it from local Chinese restaurants, filled stinking wastebaskets to overflowing.
Both Amanda and he had laughed over the so-called glamorous and dramatic life of a spy as seen in movies and written about in novels. Comparing it with the reality of dirty underwear on the floor of a small apartment was a letdown. The two Germans were slobs, not supermen.
A bedroom closet in the Germans’ apartment was stuffed with enough detonators and dynamite to blow up a city block if improperly handled. The two Germans did know what to do with the stuff, but Dane and Harris shuddered at the thought of someone breaking in, poking around, and causing a tragic accident.
When the phone finally did ring, it surprised Dane and he jumped. “Commander Dane,” he answered a trifle pompously.
“Krause, Commander. My sources have informed me that your president has concurred with my wishes.”
“Yes, and how did you find out?”
“Because my associate in the Swiss embassy was kind enough to phone me. He has in his possession a letter agreeing with my wishes, signed by Roosevelt and General Marshall, which he will retain on my behalf. You will receive another original if you haven’t already, and you will give me a photographic copy. All I have to do is make a good-faith attempt to divert the Japanese fleet to a location of your choosing and I can live my life at peace in the United States. Perhaps I’ll even become a citizen. Since battles are unpredictable, it is accepted that there is no guarantee that you will destroy or even defeat the Japanese, but that is your concern, not mine.”
The German’s confidence annoyed Dane. “Krause, you do realize that you will be incarcerated for the duration of the war so you cannot change your mind and possibly try to contact your old Nazi buddies, don’t you?”
Krause chuckled. “Of course. I never thought you would be so stupid as to let me go free just now. Goodness, wouldn’t it be awful if I changed my mind and tried to warn the slanty-eyed Japs? The letter from Roosevelt said I would be kept at a residence on the naval base at San Diego where I could monitor what is happening and where you could watch my every move. Remember, it might just take more than one contact with the fools Braun and I left behind in Mexico for things to happen.”
“Are you ready to turn yourself in?”
“Do I have a choice? Of course I am.”
“I’ll arrange to get you. Where are you?”
Krause laughed hugely, further annoying Dane. “I’m downstairs in your lobby. Your security is still pathetic.”
Two days later, Harry Hopkins flew in from Washington D.C., where he observed Krause from behind a one- way window. “Calm-looking bastard, isn’t he?”
“Why wouldn’t he be? He’s lived up to the first part of his agreement,” said Spruance. “He sent a message to Mexico by shortwave. Commander Dane here watched him.”
“What did he say and how did he say it?” Hopkins asked Dane.
“Sir, the message was sent shortwave and in Morse code. He told me he usually sent the messages since the now dead Braun was poor with telegraphing the code and made a lot of mistakes. He told his men in Monterrey that, quote—The customer you wish to contact is ill and will be recuperating at a spa in the Gulf of California in about three weeks and will be there for about a month. It is anticipated that several other family members will also be present. If you wish to make contact, please make plans immediately—unquote.”
“And this went out in plain English?” Hopkins asked, bemused.
“Yes, sir,” Tim responded. “A very simple, innocuous message that no one would give a second thought to.”
“Clever. Admiral, will the Germans in Mexico be picked up?”
Spruance turned to Dane who answered. “Not just yet, sir. We may have to send and receive other messages, and, also, picking them up might alert the enemy. However, the FBI has men down there watching them.”
Dane hoped that the agents in Monterrey would be a little smarter than the local cops who’d let themselves be discovered by Braun and Krause while watching Swenson Engineering.
“Very well,” said Hopkins. “Now we can begin planning at this end.”
Admiral Yamamoto read the message from the navy’s headquarters in Tokyo with a combination of delight and concern. The
He laughed at those concerns. Dangerous? War was dangerous. So too was crossing the street in downtown Tokyo. Doing nothing was even more dangerous and could even prove fatal. Danger was a chance to be taken.
As before, he was on board the
“Can we believe this?” the dour and somber Nagumo asked. “How can we risk our carriers on such flimsy information?”
Kurita nodded. “And it may well be a trap to get our carriers close to American planes and guns.”
Yamamoto took a deep breath. Neither of the other admirals had ever been a gambler, yet gambles were sometimes necessary. The Japanese Navy had to do something to break what had become a stalemate in the Pacific. Granted, the Imperial Japanese Navy had been victorious in so many battles, but, as he’d said earlier, the United States was getting stronger and smarter each day. It was not the time for caution. It was the time for aggression, and yes, for taking chances. However, taking chances and being reckless were not the same thing.
Yamamoto smiled. “We will seek out and destroy that carrier and, by doing so, we will send American hopes reeling. And I believe we can do it without risking our fleet.”
“How?” asked Kurita. He commanded the battleships and these were most vulnerable to American land- based planes. They had to get close to shore for their guns to be effective. Nagumo commanded the two carrier divisions.
“It is quite simple,” Yamamoto answered. “We will attack the Americans quickly and suddenly, and with overwhelming strength. We will conserve the fleet by risking it. Nor will we take half measures. It will be an all or nothing toss of the dice, just as we did at Pearl Harbor.”
Nagumo persisted. “And if it turns out that the Americans are too formidable?”
Yamamoto smiled and took a healthy swallow of his scotch. He openly hoped that the war would end soon so he could get some more. Perhaps he could arrange for a few cases to be sent to him as war reparations from the British.
“The Americans are in disarray,” he said. “They are trying to defend far too much. While I mourn for the men lost in Alaska, their defeat was ordained and has nothing to do with what we shall accomplish in the Gulf of California. The army made a terrible mistake in landing at Anchorage. We, the navy, will make no such mistakes.”
Nagumo shook his head. “I urge caution. Your plan is good, but I disagree as to the possible price. It may well be unacceptably high. One carrier for one of theirs is a fair price; even two of ours for their last one would be acceptable. But what if the price was higher? What if we lost three? And don’t forget that they don’t have to be sunk to be out of the war.”
