To accommodate their passenger, Jed ripped out the rear seat, and laid the Colonel in the kayak with his head resting on Jenny's lap as she sat backwards to the bow. The dog, freed from his muzzle, was perfectly content to sit, while squashing Jed's legs, with his head laying upon the forward deck.

Jed cut willow branches and fitted the leaves across the craft so they would look like a floating, fallen tree to any high flying aircraft. This made the progress descending the gentler rapids of the lower river a bit slow, but it also gave them time to talk.

"Feeling comfortable, Colonel?" Jed began "What in the hell happened?"

"I'm not really sure. Up to the point where Buzz turned on me, I thought I had it all figured out."

"And it had nothing to do with MacArthur, right?"

"MacArthur, as in General?"

"Yes."

"What about him?"

"We received an envelope addressed in your handwriting. The only thing inside was a newspaper clipping which raised a question about a supposed half-million in gold requested by the General at the start of the war in the Philippines."

"I have never heard, nor seen, anything about Filipino gold. While checking out 'Hard Ass' Hendrickson, I came across information that linked him to 'Magic,' the decoder the U.S. used to break the Japanese red, and purple military codes at the start of World War II. You see, Jed, you and Jenny were right that this had something to do with Imperial Japan."

"And you, Colonel, are right about the connection to breaking the Japanese codes. After you left, I found a typewriter key that matches perfectly with the 'Magic' decoder IBM has on display in its museum. I'll fill you in on my research later. Go on."

"What I sent was a long letter telling you that in following up your lead I happened upon some of these top secret code interceptions, which is why I came up here to find Buzz. He had something to do with cryptology in 1940, and I hoped he could prove my conclusions were correct."

"Which are."

"I think that we accidentally have uncovered the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the American public. A conspiracy that allowed, or even helped, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor."