"And would Japan have attacked Pearl if they had really known all our secrets — known the secret of our tremendous industry, our terrible science?"
The stranger's voice showed that he walked cheerfully into the trap. Perfectly quietly and blandly, he said, "No, sir, they would not have attacked if they had known what we could do."
Coppersmith pounced; Sarah's pencil raced across the page as she took the words down—"Then, why, Major, if you are the super-spy they said you were, why in the name of suffering humanity didn't you betray enough American secrets to the Japanese to scare them off? You could have saved your country the agony of war. You were, I am told, the only man whom the U.S. had planted in the Imperial Japanese Headquarters."
Sarah waited, pencil poised, for the answer. But the next voice was Coppersmith's again:
"Well, speak up, Major!"
"I had no instructions."
"You mean to say that you let Pearl Harbor happen when you might have prevented it, just because you did not have instructions?"
Sarah had trouble getting the major's voice. It was low, even, and rapid, "…a spy. My duty was to report Japan's plans whenever I could get them, not to interfere. I was not in a position to persuade the Japanese that America had secrets of such magnitude. I was not told about—" He mentioned the code names so rapidly that she did not recognize them and could not get them down.
Coppersmith spoke again, and his voice held a note of satisfaction. "Let me say it again. You let the world burn up in war because you did not have instructions to stop the fire?"
Defiance entered the major's voice. It was keyed to a note of respect, but articulated far more plainly than necessary: "General, I never presumed that I could have stopped the war. I was pretending to be a Japanese officer. How could I have betrayed enough American secrets to prevent Pearl Harbor, without giving my own identity away? Our ambassador here was one of the most popular foreign diplomats ever to stay in Tokyo. If even he could not scare off the Japanese, how should I?"