The Royal Hawaiian Guards came to an even stiffer brace as Genda strode by them. He nodded back, politely acknowledging the compliment. He turned a corner and then another one, heading for the back of the palace. More guards, both Hawaiian and Japanese, stood there. Another stairway led up into the building. And a shorter, narrower set of steps led down into Iolani Palace. Genda chose that stairway.

In the nineteenth century, the basement had been the servants’ quarters. It had also housed the storerooms where the kahili-the feather-topped royal staffs-and the palace silver service, the wine, and other necessities were kept. Because at the last minute the architect had added a walled dry moat around the palace, the basement rooms had full-sized windows and weren’t nearly so dark and gloomy as they would have been otherwise.

In front of one of the rooms along the wide central corridor stood two Japanese sailors in landing rig: their usual blues modified by black-painted steel helmets; infantrymen’s belts, ammunition pouches, and canteens; and white canvas gaiters. Like the sentries outside, they carried Arisakas.

“Yes, sir? You wish…?” one of them asked when Genda stopped and faced them.

He gave his name, adding, “I have an eleven o’clock appointment with Admiral Yamamoto.” He didn’t need to look at his watch to know he was ten minutes early. Being late to a meeting with the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet was inconceivable.

Both men saluted. “Hai!” they said in unison. The sailor who’d spoken before opened the door for him. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto worked at a plain pine desk, nothing like the ornate wooden dreadnought in King David Kalakaua’s Library on the second floor of the palace, the one General Yamashita used. Genda thought that most unfair; Yamamoto outranked Yamashita, and should have taken over the finer work area. But he hadn’t done it. He was in Hawaii only temporarily, and hadn’t wanted to displace the permanent garrison commander.