Carter, however, stared at his friend in surprise and ran his fingers through his shorn blond hair. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s rethinking things.” Bernard took the gaunt man’s arm and pulled him toward the table. “Both of you sit. I need to see message number eighty-three from September 24th.”
“Richards already sent it to Washington to be decrypted.” Carter sat at the desk and pulled Richards into the chair beside his, gently prying the gun from his friend’s hand and laying it on the desktop. “Why do you want it anyway?”
“If we can get the decrypted information to your commander, the island will be on high-alert and take the necessary precautions to stop an attack. Isn’t that why you work here?”
“Yes, sir, it is. I’m good with languages and my grandmother was Japanese. Being assigned here was the obvious choice for me. It doesn’t come as easy for Richards, though. He must work harder at the translations. His forte is Italian, but they needed people here.” Carter’s gaze slid to the silent soldier, then back to Bernard. “He isn’t a bad sort.”
“Can you convince him not to call in the MPs?”
Carter nodded. With a hopeful prayer he could figure out how to wake him up, Bernard leaned forward and, with two fingers, touched the back of the man’s hands, which were splayed on the desktop.
Richards blinked a couple of times, then shook his head. His gaze moved from Bernard to Carter, then back to Bernard. Before he could say anything, Carter covered the man’s mouth with his hand.
“Shut it, Richards. Bernard is an ally, and we need all the help we can get. Where’s the message you sent to Washington this morning? Number eighty-three. It’s too important, and we can’t wait a month for the War Department to decode it. Who knows how long it’ll take them to get it back here?”
Richards’ tanned skin blanched as he pinched his lips together, clearly torn about what his next step should be, but Bernard decided to make that decision easier. “How about I agree that you can keep your pistol trained on me while I help translate the message?”
Richards’ black brows rose as he seemed to consider the option. Finally, he nodded and reached for his standard-issue M1911, his fingers wrapping around the grip and sliding the gun across the desk toward him. With a jerk of his head toward a filing cabinet on the far wall, he said, “I put the original message in the top tray.”
Bernard held the soldier’s gaze a moment longer. “Thank you for your trust.” He rose and walked the few feet to the cabinet and picked up the entire tray, then carried it back to the table, setting in between them.
Richards sifted through the papers until he found the one he wanted and pulled it from the pile. “This is message eighty-three,” he said and pushed the piece of paper toward Bernard.
He held the missive and closed his eyes, feeling the cool material between the pads of his finger and thumb. Clearing his mind, he concentrated on the well of languages that resided deep inside of him. He had always been able to translate and speak any language with quickness and relative ease, amazing his teachers in school. This, though, a coded Japanese message, could be his undoing. He had no idea if he even could figure out the secret coding used by the military leaders.
Before he could talk himself out of changing history, his eyes snapped open, and he studied the writing. After about fifteen minutes of silence, the only sounds were the breaths of the two soldiers sitting across from him. He laid the missive down on the desk with a smile. “Do you have a pen and paper?”
Carter nodded and rummaged through the drawer, pulling out both items and sliding them across the desktop while Richard stared at him in wonder. Bernard took the blank sheet and wrote down the decoded message. When he finished, he read it through a couple of times, comparing it to the original and making sure he hadn’t made a mistake, then handed it to Richards.
“Make sure your commander sees this as soon as possible. I’m certain he will take it directly to Admiral Stark.”
Richards read the message, his eyes widening. “The Japs are requesting a grid of exact ship locations in the harbor—and if there are any side by side?” He met Bernard’s gaze. “That’s all but a declaration of war. The only reason they’d need to know this is if they plan on bombing Pearl.”
“That’s exactly what they are planning,” Bernard said, not wanting to say too much and change events here more than he already had. Hopefully, this would be enough to warn the Navy and the Army stationed in Honolulu. He still had his doubts, though, if this one warning would be enough to put both branches of the United States military on high alert.
Carter reached across the desk, and Bernard shook the proffered hand. “Thank you, sir. If this hadn’t gotten into the admiral’s hands in time...”
“Glad to help.” Bernard straightened and pulled on the hem of his jacket, then saluted both men, who saluted him back. “I have an important appointment to get to, but good luck in this horrific war.”
“Good luck to you, too, sir,” they said.
Bernard strode from the room and, without meeting anyone else, made his way outside and back to the grove of trees, where he transported to one more place. This time, he knew where he was going and who he was going to meet. He was about to see the one person who could stop the carnage that would become Pearl Harbor.
Standing across the street from the Japanese Embassy, Bernard turned his head southeast, looking down Massachusetts Avenue and the dozen or so embassies along the route toward Dupont Circle, many blocks away.
He had always liked Washington D.C. and its austere marble buildings, the young, yet exciting, history. Days like this one, where the sky was a clear blue and not a single cloud marred its perfection, for him, were the best. The Founding Fathers had laid the foundations of a capital city for the people. Less so than the grandeur of Paris, which was fit more for kings and nobility, but he liked the simplicity here better...and the weather.
Turning back to the Neo-Georgian-styled building in front of him, he noticed touches here and there of Japanese elegance in the teahouse and the gardens, which were barely visible from his current position. After glancing up and down the street once more, he crossed and made his way along the grand, bricked rectangular drive, the patch of grass in the center turning brown as winter set in.
He stopped under the porch cover and knocked on the dark-green door, noticing the matching window shutters. The doorframe and window surrounds were all painted a pristine white. It was a bit stark for his taste, which leaned toward more natural earth tones.
The door opened and a petite man appeared. Dressed in a dark suit, his white shirt stood out in sharp contrast, but it was the man’s almost-black eyes that drew his attention. They seemed to look right through him.
With his arms straight at his sides, Bernard pushed back his shoulders and straightened his spine as he bowed, bending at a thirty-degree angle as a sign of respect. “Good day. Is Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura available? I have an important proposition for him,” Bernard said in fluent Japanese. With his gaze lowered, he could still see the other man bow. Only when the man returned upright, did Bernard straighten.
The man stepped back and opened the door a bit wider, allowing Bernard to enter. Inside, the western-style design surprised him, but they were in the United States and not Japan. He couldn’t help but wonder, though, what the ambassador thought about it and if he would rather have the familiar comforts of home surrounding him. Bernard knew he would.