"I am sorry," he said, with just the faintest semblance of a bow. "Of course your only interest in me is why I am here. I will tell you. It is interest in your remarks to that one, Kato, who stands behind you ... and is most eager to take your lives. You told him your job was completed. I am amused, but a little puzzled, too. We three know that your—er—job, was to identify a certain Navy ensign. But you did not identify him. We did not permit you to do that. So there must have been some other job you spoke of to Kato? I should like to have you tell me what it was."
"You probably would, Yammanato," Dawson said evenly. Then with a tight smile, and a shake of his head, "But we're not telling you, and you know it!"
The little Jap did not get angry. Not even the light in his eyes changed. He simply smiled and made a waving motion of one hand as though to indicate that the little joke was on him this time.
"I do not expect you to tell me, voluntarily," he said. "I simply asked, just in case, let us say. To be perfectly frank, I really am not so terribly interested in this mysterious job. Rather, merely curious. Neither of you has been out of our sight since the moment you landed your Flying Fortress on Hickam Field. Several times we could have killed you, and with little effort. But we did not consider such measures necessary. It was obvious that you had not overheard as much as was at first feared. However, it would be foolish to let you be free when the carrier task force arrived, and so ..."
Yammanato paused and smiled slowly.
"And so, thoughtless as you Americans are continually, you gave us an excellent chance to kidnap you," he went on. "To kidnap you, and hold you until the carrier force had come and gone, as it has."
The last made Dawson gasp, and sort of bend over as though the little Jap had kicked him in the stomach.
"Gone?" he blurted out. "The carrier force has ... has sailed?"
"But of course!" the Jap replied, and looked at him in surprise. "Did you...? But naturally. I am being stupid. I am forgetting that only this morning you awoke from the drugs. I am sorry that I assumed that you knew and understood. The carrier force has been at sea, now, for two days."
Dawson's throat contracted so that he could hardly breathe. He gaped at the Jap in dumbfounded disbelief.