This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

ON A GRAY, drizzly morning in the first week of March 1941, an automobile pulled up in front of the great iron gates of the Imperial Naval Staff College in Tokyo. The young commander who got out was short even by Japanese standards-he couldn’t have been more than five feet three-and so slim he barely topped the hundred-pound mark. All the same, the two leading seamen on sentry duty at the gates (both of whom overtopped him by half a head) stiffened to attention at his approach.

“Your papers, sir, if you please.” The senior sentry slung his rifle so he could take them in his right hand.

The sentry studied them, nodded, and handed them back. “Thank you, sir. All in order.” He turned to his comrade. “Open the gates for Commander Genda.”

“Hai,” the second seaman said, and did.

Genda hurried to the eastern wing of the staff college. He hurried everywhere he went; he fairly burned with energy. He nearly slipped once on the wet pavement, but caught himself. The drizzle was not enough to wash the city soot from the red bricks of the building. Nothing short of sandblasting would have been.

Just inside the door to the east wing sat a petty officer with a logbook. Genda presented his papers again. The petty officer scanned them. Commander Genda to see Admiral Yamamoto, he wrote in the log, and, after a glance at the clock on the wall opposite him, the time. “Please sign in, Commander,” he said, offering Genda the pen.