Arnie Arnett took few chances. Even as a low level non-diplomatic employee of the United States Department of State at its embassy in Tokyo, he enjoyed the satisfaction of having some inside information rarely seen by ordinary U.S. citizens. Just working at the embassy made him feel important. Arnie always played his cards close to the vest. A furtive man, he frequently looked for openings, weaknesses and flaws in other people and openings, weaknesses and flaws in systems and situations. Since childhood he had managed to convert some of these things to his own advantage.

The embassy employed Arnie as a clerical worker. He had retired from serving as a yeoman in the U.S. Navy while in Japan. Arnie had no family except a much younger brother, Alfred, who lived quietly in San Francisco. Arnie did not care much about advancement. He carried out his work in a satisfactory way, but not exceptionally. Arnie tried to stay “under the radar“, somewhat like the Ensign Pulver character in the U.S. Navy story, Mister Roberts. With no pressing reasons to return to the States, Arnie stayed on in Japan, liking the country and its food, and in his own way, the people of Japan. Arnie got out and about in Japan enjoying sight seeing, and carousing with some of his Japanese friends. He had become reasonably conversant in the Japanese language.

In Japan, as in any country, low level clerks do not enjoy very much prestige. Still, most Japanese people do not seriously engage in moral turpitude of the sort Arnie now was about to consider. His early education in the parochial school system of the Diocese of San Francisco taught him well the pitfalls of temptation and greed. As the years went by Arnie drifted away from the Church and he had become amoral, particularly when it came to seemingly “victimless” acts of sinfulness.

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As he prepared to leave the general office area of the Citizen Services Section of the embassy, he noticed another, more senior employee pushing a two-tiered office trolley. The trolley, stacked with blank passport stock moved towards the secure cage where sensitive documents such as these were stored for safe keeping during off hours. As the employee whisked past a cubicle, another person suddenly stepped out into the cart’s path. The cart bumped the person exiting the cubicle in the hip. As this happened, a bound packet of forty blank passports tumbled off the cart and bounced under the desk just inside the cubicle. Neither employee noticed this. They were too preoccupied with the end of the day and getting on with the evening. Arnie did notice…..and with great interest.