of Spanish. Then she paused, said “Si” and hung up.
Eyes hooded, body perfectly still, Kestrel sat a few feet away, watching her. He had not intended
to involve her so deeply in his actions. She was born American, not Japanese, and was alien to
the samurai tradition. He doubted that she had ever seen more than her monthly blood. He
hoped she would not be there when Refugio killed Masarek. He hoped she would not have to
see those agonizing minutes when sweat dulled the English woman’s bright hair and the woman
screamed and begged until finally answers tumbled out of her bleeding lips, words and sense and
nonsense, anything to stop the pain….
Kestrel sighed, regretting General Arisue’s orders. But perhaps the bomb test would not be for
several days. Then he would have time to go to Hunters Point and Alamo-gordo both. He must
find out the test date soon. But first he must give Ana something more to hold on to than vague
yearnings for Japan. She was too American to die for something she could not touch.
He held out his hand. His voice was gentle. “Will you sit beside me?”
Ana’s fingertips brushed Kestrel’s palm. Her nails were smooth quarter-moons, as gently curved
as her body. When she sat down, the hem of her silk kimono settled across his thigh. She moved
to gather in the cloth, but his hand stopped her.
“Beautiful,” said Kestrel, stroking the rose-colored silk that glowed against the black fabric of
his trousers. He looked up suddenly, holding her with his dark Asiatic eyes. “I don’t want you to
go to Hunters Point, Ana. I don’t want you to be hurt. But I may have no choice.”
Kestrel’s voice was as gentle as his fingers touching Ana’s robe, but the truth of his words was
not gentle at all.
“Unless,” his fingers moved from the silk of her kimono to the silk of her skin, “there is time for
me to go to San Francisco and get back before the test. But I don’t know when the test is.”
“I’ve tried to find out,” Ana said quickly.
“I know. It’s not your fault. It’s karma.” Kestrel’s smile was genuine and sad.
“I don’t mind going back to San Francisco,” Ana said, running the words together, hoping to
cover the lie and knowing it lay in the middle of her words like a stone. “I’m just… frightened.”
Kestrel gathered Ana into his lap as he would a child. He felt the warmth of her hands through
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his shirt as she held on to him fiercely, as though she could share his strength just by touching
him.
“You’re very brave. Yes,” he repeated, sensing argument in her suddenly stiff body, “brave. You
gave up everything you knew out of loyalty to a country that lives only in your mind.”
Ana said nothing. In the silence came the sound of wind chimes turning in a slow stirring of air.
“When I was a child – “ Ana’s voice trembled, then broke.
“Yes, Ana?”
“I didn’t belong anywhere.” Ana spoke quickly. “My playmates were Mexican, not Nisei,
because my father was a field worker. But I wasn’t Mexican. When I was older we lived in San
Francisco, but by then I was more Mexican than Nisei. In school they told me I was American
and I believed them until – until – “
“Pearl Harbor.”
“Yes!” Ana looked up at Kestrel, her eyes deep with tears and rage. “A country I’d never seen
bombed a place I’d never heard of and suddenly I was a criminal! AJap\”
Ana closed her eyes, shuddering with the effort of controlling herself. When she spoke again, her
voice was calm. “They were right about one thing. I am Japanese.”
Kestrel shook his head, knowing Ana was never more American than when she defied the
American government and fled. The true Japanese were still scattered across America in prison
camps, accepting their karma with the unflinching loyalty and stoicism of their Japanese heritage.
But Kestrel did not tell Ana his thoughts; he could not, for she would not understand that
slanted eyes and silk kimonos did not make her Japanese. Yet she had courage, and she was a
sweet warmth in his lap.
Kestrel bent his head until his lips rested on Ana’s neck. She pressed more closely to his chest.
The phone rang. Ana made an involuntary sound of rebellion. Kestrel’s lips brushed the curve of
her ear.
“There is time,” he said. “I’ve waited since I first saw you.”
The phone rang, demanding.
Ana shifted in Kestrel’s lap. Through the silk of her kimono she felt his heat and desire.
Reassured, she smiled and leaned across him to pick up the phone.
“Bueno,” said Ana, settling comfortably against Kestrel.
“Bueno, se?orita. Como esta?”
Ana’s hand tightened on the phone as she recognized the clean, unaccented Spanish of the man
who always made her feel like a child. The world and the war returned to her in a cold rush. Her
rebellion showed in her voice and in the tension of her body.
“Finn.”
A momentary tightening went through Kestrel’s body, followed by a deep relaxation that
permitted him to focus only on the instant that was before him. He was wholly alert in the
presence of his enemy, alive in a way Ana would never understand. He had no doubt that Finn
was his enemy. When he had described the man in the Green Parrot to Ana, she had immediately
identified Finn. She hated the American, but they met anyway, whenever Takagura had
misleading half-truths or cunning lies to pass on to U.S. intelligence agents. Although Ana had
not admitted it, Kestrel sensed she was afraid of Finn.
Kestrel listened with Ana as Finn spoke. “I thought you might like to tell me more about why
Japan will win the war. Fifteen minutes? Same place?”
“Wait,” said Ana. “I’ll have to see if Takagura needs me.”
Ana covered the phone and waited for Kestrel’s response. Her expression was neutral.
Kestrel knew that it was his choice – send Ana to Finn or keep her here and make love to her as
she wanted. He needed Ana’s cooperation, but even more, he must have her allegiance. Yet he
must also have more information about Alamogordo, quickly, and the man called Finn was
reputed to know many secrets.
Kestrel lifted Ana out of his lap as if she weighed no more than the telephone she held. Although
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her expression did not change, Kestrel sensed first her stiffness, then her resignation.
“Yes,” said Ana into the phone, her voice flat, “I’m not wanted here.”
Kestrel’s hand closed over the mouthpiece of the phone. “Tell him one hour.” His fingers
caressed the nape of her neck, then slowly withdrew.
“Momentito,” Ana said, her voice light, almost breathless. “Takagura Omi’s friend needs a
translator. An hour, Finn. I will meet you in an hour.”
Ana hung up before Finn could either agree or object. Behind her, buttons clicked lightly against
wood as Kestrel laid his shirt across the table. He unrolled his sleeping mat with a single quick
movement.
Juarez
38 Hours Before Trinity
The newspaper rattled as Finn folded it, glanced at his watch, and then at the street. The town
square was dulled beneath the weight of heat and time, a weight that dragged on the buildings,
blunting adobe corners.
A melange of smells floated through the open café door. Sun and dust, refried beans laced with
chiles, fruit ripe and rotten, an open sewer thick with grit and human excrement, roses in a
concealed garden. Finn smelled none of those odors unless he made a special effort. Juarez had
toughened his nose in the same way that the sun had thickened his skin. Nor did he notice the
flics that skated lazily down shafts of yellow light. Flies and heat and yapping dogs, Juarez in July.
Where was Ana?
Finn stared down the gloomy alley that paralleled the café, dividing it from other businesses.
The alley seemed to pause, then unravel itself into paths that twisted around the intricate
societies enclosed by eight tong temples, center of Juarez’s Oriental colony.
Viewed from the front, the temples were clean, blank and forbidding. They showed nothing of
their interior nature. Their only identification was their oddly elegant architecture and the
keystones or cornerstones that displayed each temple’s name and founding date.
From the outside, Colonia Chino appeared monolithic, but inside it was a warren of factions,
rival tongs and nationalities. It whispered its own intrigues, lived its own lies and truths inside the
body of Juarez like a benign tumor that had been encapsulated but would never be absorbed by
its host.
The self-enclosed Oriental colony had provided Japan with a secure staging area for infiltration,
sabotage and spying. It also precluded Finn from entering the colonia to search for Ana. His
presence would trip alarms throughout the neighborhood, spreading the word more silently but
just as surely as birds in a jungle. It would have been the same if he were Mexican. Outsider.
“Uno más, por favor,” said Finn, holding up his empty beer bottle.
“Sí, se?or,” said the waitress. “The heat, she is terrible, no? Like the burning red hell the Padre
talks about.”
Finn smiled and nodded and silently disagreed. He knew that hell was every shade of green.
Where was Ana? Takagura ‘s house was less than a hundred yards away.
She had kept him waiting before, a way of showing her contempt for all things American. He
had not been bothered by her disdain. She was Takagura’s secretary and confidante, and
Takagura ran the Oriental population of Mexico. She was worth waiting for, even though much
of what she told him was lies. To him, lies were valuable; they told him what the Japanese
considered important enough to try to hide.
The beer was icy against Finn’s teeth, a sizzling coldness in his throat. He savored the flavor and
chill as he watched the narrow shadows in the alley where Ana would appear. And then she was
there, walking toward him, her brilliant silk dress shimmering and lifting like a butterfly in a
breeze.
When Ana stepped into the full sun, her face looked startlingly pale, the result of rice powder
rather than natural pallor. Her eyebrows were like black arrows slanted above her dark eyes. Her
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lips were scarlet.
Ana’s makeup was less severe, less stylized than that of a Kabuki dancer, although Finn could
see that was her model. Her defiant accentuation of racial traits spoke of defensiveness rather
than pride or theatrical necessity. Like the Japanese dancers she emulated, she was constrained,
dissonant and humorless.
But watching Ana’s easy American stride, Finn sensed the irony of her allegiance to Japan, a
country where women moved with mincing steps and downcast eyes. Ana moved from dense
shadow to brilliant sun with certainty, almost defiance. She was being watched, and knew it.
Finn smiled. Today he would shred that certainty. He would begin by speaking in Japanese, a
language he had never used with her.
“Welcome,” Finn said, walking out through the café door. His brief bow was as graceful as his
Japanese. “Follow me, please. This café cannot equal your elegance, but the tables are clean and
the beer is as cold as a winter moon.”
Reflexively, Ana began to return Finn’s courtesy in the same language he had used. Then she
realized that it was Japanese, not Spanish he had spoken. Startled by the purity and fluency of his
speech, she stared at Finn, almost expecting to see Kestrel’s dark eyes looking back at her. But
this was Finn, not Kestrel. Finn’s pale eyes, catlike in their predatory appraisal, watching her. At
first she thought his eyes expressionless. Then, gradually, she realized that expression was there,
very controlled, a shadow in the depths of his round Western eyes. Emotion so completely
controlled was more unsettling than no emotion at all.
Finn saw Ana’s discomfort. His smile did not make her feel more at ease. Off-balance, she
allowed him to lead her into the café and seat her.
“What do you want?” she demanded in English.
“My words are for you, not for the Mexicans across the aisle drinking beer. Speak Japanese
unless you’d prefer the privacy of my house.” Finn smiled again. “Of course, no one would be
surprised if we went there, just two lovers wanting to spend a little time between the sheets,
talking about the softness of a bud’s inmost petals.”
Ana’s flush showed even beneath her white powder. When she tried to stand, to leave, Finn
moved so quickly she had no time to resist. His hands held her in the chair. As he bent across the
table toward her, he saw that her lips were slightly swollen. There were rosy shadows on her
throat. It was obvious that she had come to the café from a lover’s bed. No wonder she had
been late.
“Which will it be?” said Finn. “English at my house or Japanese here?”
“Here,” whispered Ana.
Finn’s hand moved with surprising quickness. His fingertip brushed her lips. “Tell your lover
not to be so rough next time.”
Ana flushed so completely that Finn felt the heat on the skin of her arms. He let go of her,
thinking how ill-suited she was for her chosen role as spy. Hatred of America and fluency in five
languages had made her invaluable to Taka-gura Omi. But she needed more discipline to be a
good covert agent or more cunning to survive being a bad one.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Finn gently. “The last petal is unfolding. The game is almost over.”
“I don’t know what you mean about petals and games,” said Ana, her voice as rigid as her body.
“It’s a shame you aren’t a samurai, Ana, or a sparrow hawk. Then you could fly north with me
and watch the war end just after midnight tomorrow. Then America, not Japan, will be the true
Land of the Rising Sun. Two dawns will come, two dawns within the space of a few hours. What
samurai would not kill or die to see that? What sparrow hawk could resist flying there?”
“I don’t know what – “
“ – I’m talking about?” finished Finn, smiling. “Then listen very carefully, Little Blossom. Listen
as though Japan’s life depended on it. America has a new ally – the sun. Our sunrises will shake
the earth and change the face of the world. I’ll think of you when unscheduled dawns rise over
Japan and cities vanish in one white instant of fire. Are you listening, Little Blossom?”
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Ana was still except for the slight trembling of her lips. “Yes,” she whispered, wondering why at
this moment Finn should remind her of Kestrel. Then she realized it was Finn’s uncanny ability
to focus himself completely on the moment that reminded her of her lover. “Yes, I’m listening.”
Finn smiled and switched to English. “Don’t comfort yourself by thinking I’m crazy. I’m not.
