Chapter 18
I HAD VERY FEW POINTS of comparison at the time, but now I’d describe our hotel room, which was on the third floor of the Excelsior, as only adequate.
On one wall was a full-size bed that sagged in the middle.
The bed was flanked by a pair of nightstands, and on the other wall stood a small wardrobe.
I looked around for a dresser, but there wasn’t one to speak of—just a couple of drawers at the bottom of the wardrobe.
“I guess we really will be living out of our suitcases,” I said.
The room had an adjoining bathroom, which was a relief, but there was no shower this time, just a bathtub with one of those stretchy nozzles you could hold over your head.
“Do people really use these?” Paul asked as he twisted one of the valves of the bidet.
“Don’t!” I squeaked, but it was too late. A stream of water shot out of the faucet and onto his jeans.
“Motherfucker,” he muttered under his breath as he shook himself off.
While Paul rooted through his suitcase for a change of clothes, I kicked off my shoes and stretched out across the bed. Then I asked him what Tom had been talking about in the lobby.
“You mean the stuff about our TLA?”
“No,” I said. “Japan.”
Paul tossed a pair of slacks onto the bed and began to strip. “It’s not that interesting.”
“I’ll be the judge.”
He gave me that look, like It’s your funeral, then said, “Japan kicked our nuclear fleet out of their ports.”
“What do you mean, kicked out?”
“They said we’re not allowed within twelve miles of a population center.” He shook out the pair of pants and stepped into them. “And a port is, by definition, a population center.”
I rolled onto my side. “Does this kind of thing happen a lot?”
“Never,” said Paul. “But there was an audit, and it came out that one of Japan’s big research institutes had been forging a bunch of radiometric data.”
“To make our numbers look bad?”
“No, to make them look good.”
“Aren’t they already good?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure,” said Paul as he buttoned his pants. “But I think the assumption is always that we’ve got something to hide.”
“So, wait, I’m confused. It comes out that this data’s been forged, and we get kicked out, even though we’re not the ones who forged the data?”
“Japan wants time to do more independent testing. And the government’s convinced we’re trying to exert undue influence on them, which is obviously bullshit.”
My understanding of U.S.–Japanese diplomatic relations was completely inadequate for this conversation.
I could have told you that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and that a few years later the United States had dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But I had no idea what the postwar years had looked like in Japan.
I couldn’t have told you that the U.S. had occupied Japan until 1952; that we’d written their new constitution, which included a clause specifically forbidding them from making war; or that in 1960, when we’d signed the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, resuming official diplomatic relations, we’d granted ourselves the inalienable right to keep U.S.
troops in the country until the end of time.
If I’d had even a fraction of that background knowledge, I’d have known that Paul was wrong and this idea that the U.S.
government might exert undue influence on the Japanese government… well, it wasn’t bullshit.
“Is it possible the subs really were leaking something?” I asked.
Paul had been checking out his reflection in the narrow mirror affixed to the wardrobe door, but he turned around to face me. “Absolutely not.”
“But that’s why the Italians are up in arms? Because they think they’ve got proof that the subs are dangerous and the U.S. is covering it up?”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t say.”
Couldn’t or wouldn’t? With his security clearance, I never knew for sure.
Every couple of years, Paul got hooked up to a polygraph and asked questions like Have you ever disclosed classified information to an unauthorized person?
The only way to guarantee he passed the test—and got to keep his job—was to be able to answer each and every question with a definite no, which meant giving me these intentionally evasive answers to questions that, at least on the surface, seemed totally benign.
“Well, can I ask this?” I said. “And I’m really not trying to be dense here.”
He was repocketing his wallet and keys. “You can ask, doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”
“Why are we on this island?”
“Like you and me?”
“No, like the U.S. Navy. The Gilmore. Whatever.”
“I told you,” he said, not impatiently. “The tender’s here to repair and resupply subs.”
“Yeah, but why do it here if we’re pissing everyone off? Aren’t we already set up to do this kind of thing in Naples?”
Paul gave me another shrug. “It’s strategically advantageous.”
See what I mean?