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the old man fired back.
    Again, Bell framed his skepticism cautiously. “Some people say they have trouble telling the two races apart.”
    “Some people ain’t been to Japan.”
    “And you have?”
    Eddison straightened up in his chair. “I sailed into Uraga Harbor with Commodore Matthew Perry when he opened Japan to American trade.”
    “That’s sixty years ago!” If this wasn’t an ancient mariner’s tall tale, Eddison was even older than he looked.
    “’Fifty-seven. I was a main topman on Perry’s steam frigate Susquehanna . And I pulled an oar in the commodore’s launch. Rowed the Old Man into Yokosuka. We had Japs coming out of our ears.”
    Bell smiled. “It does sound as if you are qualified to distinguish Japanese from Chinese.”
    “As I said.”
    “Could you tell me where you caught the prowler?”
    “Almost caught him.”
    “Do you recall how far that was from the Gun Factory?”
    Eddison shrugged. “Thousand yards.”
    “Half a mile,” Bell mused.
    “Half a sea mile,” Eddison corrected.
    “Even farther.”
    “Sonny, I’ll bet you’re speculating if the Jap had something to do with the explosion in Mr. Langner’s design loft.”
    “Do you think he did?”
    “No way of knowing. Like I say, the Jap I saw was a full thousand yards from the Gun Factory.”
    “How big is the navy yard?” Bell asked.
    The old sailor stroked his chin and looked into the middle distance. “I’d imagine that between the walls and river, the yard must take up a hundred acres.”
    “One hundred acres.” Nearly as big as a northeastern dairy farm.
    “Chockful of mills, foundries, parade grounds. Plus,” he added with a meaningful look, “mansions and gardens—where I intercepted him prowling.”
    “What do think he was doing there?’
    John Eddison smiled. “I don’t think. I know. ”
    “What do you know he was doing there?”
    “He was right close by the officers’ mansions. The commandant’s daughters are comely young ladies. And your Japs, they like the l adies.”

5
    T HERE WERE DAYS WHEN EVEN A BOY GENIUS LIKE GROVER Lakewood was glad for time off from the laboratory to clear his head of the intricacies of aiming a gun at a moving target from a moving ship. The fire-control expert spent most days and many nights inventing myriad calculations to counter the effects of roll, pitch, yaw, and trajectory curves. It was absolutely fascinating work, made all the more intense by the fact that Lakewood had to devise ways for ordinary minds to apply his calculations in the midst of battle when guns were thundering, seas breaking, and steel splinters howling through the smoke.
    In his spare time he toyed with futuristic formulas to tackle the challenges of cross-rolling—where he imagined his ships firing ahead instead of broadside—and tried to take into account the ever-increasing ranges of big guns and the ever-flattening trajectories of high-velocity shells. Sometimes he had to turn himself upside down like a saltshaker to empty his brain.
    Rock climbing offered such a break.
    A day of rock climbing started with the train ride to Ridgefield, Connecticut, then a drive across the New York state line in a rented Ford auto to Johnson Park in the Westchester estate country, then a two-mile hike to a remote hill called Agar Mountain, all leading to a slow, hard climb up a rock wall to the top of a cliff. The train ride was a chance to just stare out the window for two hours and watch the land change from city to farm. Driving the auto required his full attention to the rutted roads. The hike filled his lungs with fresh air and got his blood going. The climb demanded complete concentration to avoid falling off the cliff and landing a long, long way down on his skull.
    This unusually warm weekend for early spring had brought walkers to the park. Striding purposefully in his tweed jacket, knickers, and boots, Lakewood passed an old lady on her “constitutional,” exchanged hearty “Good morning!”s