Dragon

“You’d better swing clear. I’d hate to see this brute run over them.”

Pitt smiled and took manual control, turning the DSMV to avoid the strange colony of exotic sea life that thrived without sunlight. It was like a lush oasis in the desert, covering nearly a square kilometer of seafloor. The wide tracks of the intruding monster skirted the spewing vents and the entwining thickets of giant tube worms that gently leaned with the current as though they were marsh reeds swaying under a breeze.

Plunkett gazed in awe at the hollow stalks as the worms inside poked their delicate pink and burgundy plumes into the black water. “Some of them must be a good three meters in length!” he exclaimed.

Also scattered around the vents and the tube worms were huge white mussels and clams of varieties Plunkett had never seen before. Lemon-colored creatures that looked like puff balls and were related to jellyfish mingled with spiny white crabs and bluish shrimp. None of them required photosynthesis to survive. They were nourished by bacteria that converted the hydrogen sulfide and oxygen overflow from the vents into organic nutrients. If the sun was suddenly snuffed out, these creatures in their pitch-black environment would continue to exist while all other life forms above them became extinct.

He tried to etch the image of the different vent inhabitants in his brain as they disappeared into the silt cloud trailing behind, but he couldn’t concentrate. Sealed tight in the lonely cabin of the mining vehicle, Plunkett experienced a tremendous wave of emotion as he stared into the alien world. No stranger to the abyssal deep, he suddenly felt as isolated as an astronaut lost beyond the galaxy.

Pitt took only a few glimpses of the incredible scene outside. He had no time for distractions. His eyes and reflexes depended on his reaction to the dangers shown on the monitor. Twice he almost lost Big John in gaping fissures, stopping at the brink of one with less than a meter to spare. The rugged terrain often proved as impassable as a Hawaiian lava bed, and he had to rapidly program the computer to chart the least treacherous detour.

He had to be especially careful of landslide zones and canyon rims that could not support the vehicle. Once he was forced to circle a small but active volcano whose molten lava poured through a long crack and down the slope before turning solid under the frigid water. He steered around scarred pits and tall cones and across wide craters, every type of texture and contour one would expect to find on Mars.

Driving by the sonar and radar probes of the computer instead of relying on his limited vision under the DSMV’s lights did not make for a joy ride. The strain was beginning to arrive in aching muscles and sore eyes, and he decided to turn temporary control over to Plunkett, who had quickly picked up the intricacies of operating Big John.

“We’ve just passed the two-thousand-meter mark,” Pitt reported.

“Looking good,” replied Plunkett cheerfully. “We’re better than halfway.”

“Don’t write the check just yet. The grade has steepened. If it increases another five degrees, our tracks won’t be able to keep their grip.”

Plunkett forced out all thoughts of failure. He had complete confidence in Pitt, a particular that irritated the man from NUMA to no end. “The slope’s surface has smoothed out. We should have a direct path to the summit.”

“The lava rocks hereabouts may have lost their sharp edges and become rounded,” Pitt muttered wearily, his words coming slow with the edge of an exhausted man, “but under no circumstance can they be called smooth.”

“Not to worry. We’re out of the abyssal zone and into midwater.” Plunkett paused and pointed through the viewing window at a flash of blue-green bioluminescence. “Porichthys myriaster, a fish that lights up for two minutes.”

“You have to feel sorry for him,” Pitt said tongue-in-cheek.

“Why?” Plunkett challenged. “The porichthys has adapted very well. His luminescence is used to frighten predators, act as bait to attract food, as a means to identify his own species and, of course, attract the opposite sex in the total blackness.”

“Swimming in a cold black void all their lives. I’d call that a real drag.”

Plunkett realized he was being had. “Very clever observation, Mr. Pitt. A pity we can’t offer midwater fish some sort of entertainment.”

“I think we can give them a few laughs.”

“Oh, really. What have you got in mind?”

“They can watch you drive for a while.” He gestured to the control console. “She’s all yours. Mind you keep a tight eye on the monitor’s geological display and not on jellyfish with neon advertising.”

Pitt slouched in his seat, blinked his eyes closed, and looked to be asleep in a moment.

Pitt came awake two hours later at the sound of a loud crack that came like a gunshot. He immediately sensed trouble. He came erect and scanned the console, spying a flashing red light.

“A malfunction?”

“We’ve sprung a leak,” Plunkett informed him promptly. “The warning light came on in unison with the bang.”

“What does the computer say about damage and location?”

“Sorry, you didn’t teach me the code to activate the program.”

Pitt quickly punched the proper code on the keyboard. The readout instantly swept across the display monitor.

“We’re lucky,” said Pitt. “The life-support and electronic equipment chambers are tight. So is the shielded reactor compartment. The leak is below, somewhere around the engine and generator compartment.”

“You call that lucky?”

“There’s room to move around in that section, and the walls are accessible for plugging the entry hole. The battering this poor old bus has taken must have opened a microscopic casting flaw in the lower hull casing.”

“The force of the outer water pressure through a hole the size of a pin can fill the interior volume of this cabin in two hours,” Plunkett said uneasily. He stirred uncomfortably. The optimism had gone out of his eyes as he stared bleakly at the monitor. “And if the hole widens and the hull collapses…” His voice dropped off.

“These walls won’t collapse,” Pitt said emphatically. “They were built to resist six times the pressure of this depth.”

“That still leaves a tiny shaft of water coming in with the power of a laser beam. Its force can slice an electric cable or a man’s arm in the wink of an eye.”

“Then I’ll have to be careful, won’t I?” Pitt said as he slipped out of his chair and crawled toward the aft end of the control cabin. He had to maintain a constant handhold to keep from being thrown about by the swaying and pitching of the vehicle as it lurched over the broken terrain. Just before reaching the exit door, he leaned down and lifted a small trapdoor and switched on the lights, illuminating the small confines of the engine compartment.

He could hear a sharp hiss above the hum of the steam turbine but couldn’t see where it was coming from. Already there was a quarter meter of water covering the steel walk matting. He paused and listened, trying to locate the sound. It wouldn’t do to rush blindly into the razor-slashing stream.

“See it?” Plunkett shouted at him.

“No!” Pitt snapped nervously.

“Should I stop?”

“Not for anything. Keep moving toward the summit.”

He leaned through the floor opening. There was a threatening terror, a foreboding about the deadly hissing noise, more menacing than the hostile world outside. Had the spurting leak already damaged vital equipment? Was it too strong to be stopped? There was no time to lose, no time to contemplate, no time to weigh the odds. And he who hesitated was supposed to be lost. It made no difference now if he died by drowning, cut to ribbons, or crushed by the relentless pressure of the deep sea.

He dropped through the trapdoor and crouched inside for a few moments, happy to still be in one piece. The hissing was close, almost within an arm’s length, and he could feel the sting from the spray as its stream struck something ahead. But the resulting mist that filled the compartment prevented him from spotting the entry hole.

Pitt edged closer through the mist. A thought struck him, and he pulled off a shoe. He held it up and swung it from side to side with the heel out as a blind man would sweep a cane. Abruptly the shoe was nearly torn from his hand. A section of the heel was neatly carved off. He saw it then, a brief sparkle ahead and to his right.

The needlelike stream was jetting against the mounted base of the compact steam turbine that drove the DSMV’s huge traction belts. The thick titanium mount withstood the concentrated power of the leak’s spurt, but its tough surface had already been etched and pitted from the narrow onslaught.

Pitt had isolated the problem, but it was far from solved. No caulking, no sealant or tape could stop a spewing jet with power to cut through metal if given enough time. He stood and edged around the turbine to a tool and spare parts cabinet. He studied the interior for a brief instant and then pulled out a length of high-pressure replacement pipe for the steam generator. Next he retrieved a heavy sledge-type hammer.

The water had risen to half a meter by the time he was ready. His makeshift scheme just had to work. If not, then all hope was gone and there was nothing he and Plunkett could do but wait to either drown or be crushed by the incoming pressure.

Slowly, with infinite caution, he reached out with the pipe in one hand and the hammer in the other. He lay poised in the rapidly rising water, inhaled a deep breath, held it a moment, and then exhaled. Simultaneously he shoved one end of the pipe over the entry hole, careful to aim the opposite end away from him, and immediately jammed it against the angled slope of the thick bulkhead shield separating the turbine and reactor compartments. Furiously he hammered the lower end of the pipe up the angle until it was wedged tight and only a fine spray escaped from both top and bottom.

His jury-rigged stopgap may have been clever, but it wasn’t perfect. The wedged pipe had slowed the incoming flood to a tiny spurt, enough to get them to the summit of the guyot, hopefully, but it was not a permanent solution. It was only a matter of hours before the entry hole enlarged itself or the pipe split under the laserlike force.

Pitt sat back, cold, wet, and too mentally drained to feel the water sloshing around his body. Funny, he thought after a long minute, how sitting in ice water he could still sweat.

Twenty-two grueling hours after struggling from its grave, the faithful DSMV had climbed within sight of the seamount’s summit. With Pitt back at the controls, the twin tracks dug, slipped, then dug their cleats into the silt-covered lava rock, struggling up the steep incline a meter at a time until finally the great tractor clawed over the rim onto level ground.

Only then did Big John come to a complete stop and become silent as the surrounding cloud of ooze slowly settled on the flattened top of Conrow Guyot.

“We did it, old man,” laughed Plunkett excitedly as he pounded Pitt on the back. “We jolly well did it.”

“Yes,” Pitt agreed tiredly, “but we’ve still one more obstacle to overcome.” He nodded at the digital depth reading. “Three hundred and twenty-two meters to go.”

Plunkett’s joy quickly vaporized. “Any sign of your people?” he asked seriously.

Pitt punched up the sonar-radar probe. The display revealed the ten-kilometer-square summit as empty and barren as a sheet of cardboard. The expected rescue vehicle had failed to arrive.

“Nobody home,” he said quietly.

“Hard to believe no one on the surface heard our blasting music and homed in on our movement,” said Plunkett, more irritated than disappointed.

“They’ve had precious little time to mount a rescue operation.”

“Still, I’d have expected one of your submersibles to return and keep us company.”

Pitt gave a weary shrug. “Equipment failure, adverse weather, they might have encountered any number of problems.”

“We didn’t come all this way to expire in this hellish place now.” Plunkett looked up toward the surface. The pitch-black had become a twilight indigo-blue. “Not this close.”

Pitt knew Giordino and Admiral Sandecker would have moved heaven and earth to save him and Plunkett. He refused to accept the possibility they hadn’t smelled out his plan and acted accordingly. Silently he rose, went aft, and raised the door to the engine compartment. The leak had enlarged and the water level was above a meter. Another forty minutes to an hour and it would reach the turbine. When it drowned, the generator would die as well. Without functioning life-support systems, Pitt and Plunkett would quickly follow.

“They’ll come,” Pitt said to himself with unwavering determination. “They’ll come.”

17

TEN MINUTES PASSED, twenty, as the dread of loneliness fell over them. The sense of being lost on the sea bottom, the unending darkness, the bizarre sea life that hovered around them—it was all like a ghastly nightmare.

Pitt had parked Big John in the center of the seamount and then programmed the computer to monitor the leak in the engine compartment. He peered warily at the display screen as the numbers showed the water level creeping to within a few centimeters of the generator.

Though the climb to a shallower depth sharply relieved the outside water pressure, the entry flaw had enlarged, and Pitt’s further efforts could not stem the growing flood. He evacuated air to offset the increased atmospheric compression caused by the rising flood.

Plunkett half turned and studied Pitt, whose strong craggy face was quite still, as firmly set as the eyelids that never seemed to flicker. The eyes seemed to reflect anger, not at any one person or object, but anger simply directed at a situation he could not control. He sat frighteningly remote from Plunkett, almost as if the British oceanographer was a thousand kilometers away. Pitt’s mind was armored against all sensation or fear of death. His thoughts sifted through myriad escape plans, calculating every detail from every angle until one by one they were all discarded in the shredder inside his brain.

Only one possibility stood a remote chance of success, but it all depended on Giordino. If his friend didn’t appear within the next hour, it would be too late.

Plunkett reached over and thumped Pitt’s shoulder with one big fist. “A magnificent try, Mr. Pitt. You took us from the deep abyss to almost within sight of the surface.”

“Not good enough,” Pitt murmured. “We came up a dollar long and a penny short.”

“Mind telling me how you planned to do it without the convenience of a pressure lock to escape the vehicle and a personnel transfer capsule to carry us to the surface?”

“My original idea was to swim home.”

Plunkett raised an eyebrow. “I hope you didn’t expect us to hold our breath.”

“No.”

“Good,” Plunkett said, satisfied. “Speaking for myself, I’d have expired before ascending thirty meters.” He hesitated and stared at Pitt curiously. “Swim, you can’t be serious?”

“A ridiculous hope bred of desperation,” Pitt replied philosophically. “I know better than to believe our bodies could survive the onslaught of extreme pressure and decompression.”

“You say that was your original idea. Do you have another—like trying to float this monster off the bottom?”

“You’re getting warm.”

“Lifting a fifteen-ton vehicle can only be accomplished in a vivid imagination.”

“Actually, it hinges on Al Giordino,” Pitt answered with forbearance. “If he’s read my mind, he’ll meet us in a submersible equipped with—”

“But he let you down,” said Plunkett, sweeping an arm over the empty seascape.

“There has to be a damn good reason for it.”

“You know and I know, Mr. Pitt, no one will come. Not within hours, days, or ever. You gambled on a miracle and lost. If they do come to search, it’ll be over the wreckage of your mining community, not here.”

Pitt did not reply but gazed into the water. The lights of the DSMV had drawn a school of hatchetfish. Silver with deep bodies and flattened on the sides, slender tails wavered in the water as rows of light organs flashed along their lower stomachs. The eyes were disproportionately large and protruded from tubes that rose upward. He watched as they swirled gracefully in lazy spirals around the great nose of Big John.

Slowly he bent forward as if listening, then sank back again. “Thought I heard something.”

“A mystery we can still hear over that blaring music,” Plunkett grunted. “My eardrums have ceased to function.”

“Remind me to send you a condolence card at a later date,” said Pitt. “Or would you rather we give up, flood the cabin, and end it?”

He froze into immobility, eyes focused on the hatchetfish. A great shadow crept over them, and as one they darted into the blackness and vanished.

“Something wrong?” asked Plunkett.

“We have company,” Pitt said with an I-told-you-so grin. He twisted in his seat, tilted his head, and looked through the upper viewing window.

One of the NUMA Soggy Acres submersibles hung suspended in the void slightly above and to the rear of the DSMV. Giordino wore a smile that was wide as a jack-o’-lantern’s. Next to him, Admiral Sandecker threw a jaunty wave through the large round port.

It was the moment Pitt had wished for, indeed silently prayed’, for, and Plunkett’s great bear hug showed how gladly he shared the moment.

“Dirk,” he said solemnly, “I humbly apologize for my negative company. This goes beyond instinct. You are one crafty bastard.”

“I do what I can,” Pitt admitted with humorous modesty.

There were few times in his life Pitt had seen anything half as wonderful as Giordino’s smiling face from inside the submersible. Where did the admiral come from? he wondered. How could he have arrived on the scene so quickly?

Giordino wasted little time. He motioned to a small door that shielded an exterior electrical receptacle. Pitt nodded and pressed a button. The door slipped open into a hidden slot, and in less than a minute one of the articulated robotic arms on the submersible connected a cable.

“Am I coming through?” Giordino’s voice burst clearly over the speakers.

“You don’t know how good it is to hear your voice, pal,” answered Pitt.

“Sorry we’re late. The other submersible swamped and sank on the surface. This one shorted its batteries and we lost time in repairs.”

“All is forgiven. Good to see you, Admiral. I didn’t expect your honored presence down here.”

“Cut the apple-polishing,” Sandecker boomed. “What’s your status?”

“We have a leak that will close down our power source within forty or fifty minutes. Beyond that we’re in good shape.”

“Then we’d better get busy.”

With no more wasted conversation, Giordino maneuvered the submersible until its bow was on the same level and facing the lower broadside of the DSMV. Then he engaged the manipulator arms mounted on the front below the control sphere. They were much smaller than the arm system on Big John and more intricate.

The sub’s modular arms were designed to accommodate several types of hand mechanisms and operate them hydraulically. The left hand was attached to the arm by a rotating wrist, which in turn was connected to three fingers with sensors in their tips that could identify any material from wood and steel to plastic, cotton, and silk. Under the operator’s delicate touch, enhanced by a computer sensory system, the fingers could dexterously thread a small needle and tat lace or, if the occasion demanded, crush rock.

Smoothly the robotic arm unraveled a hose running from a small tank to a large rod with a hole running through its center core.

The right arm’s wrist was fitted with a series of four circular metal-cutting discs. Each disc was serrated with a different edge and could be interchanged depending on the hardness of the material it was slicing.

Pitt peered at the left-hand assembly curiously. “I knew the discs were stored on board the submersible, but where did you find the oxygen cutting equipment?”

“I borrowed it from a passing submarine,” Giordino answered without elaboration.

“Logical.” There was a tired acceptance in Pitt’s voice, unsure whether his friend was stroking him.

“Beginning separation,” said Giordino.

“While you’re cutting us free I’ll pump up our air volume by a couple of atmospheres to compensate for the extra weight from the leakage flow.”

“Sound idea,” agreed Sandecker. “You’ll need all the buoyancy you can build. But mind your pressure safety limits or you’ll run into decompression problems.”

“Decompression schedules will be monitored by our computer,” Pitt assured him. “Neither Dr. Plunkett nor I look forward to a case of the bends.”

As Pitt began pumping compressed air into the control and engine compartments, Giordino jockeyed the submersible so that both arm and hand manipulators could operate independently. The hand with the three articulated fingers positioned the fat welding rod against a bolt that ran through a mounting brace. The rod held a positive charge while the DSMV was negative. A bright arc suddenly flared when contact was made between the rod and bolt. As the metal glowed and melted, oxygen spurted through the hole in the rod, dispersing the buildup.

“Arc gouging,” Pitt explained to Plunkett. “They’re going to sever all mounts, drive shafts, and electrical connections until the control housing breaks free of the main frame and track mechanism.”

Plunkett nodded in understanding as Giordino extended the other arm until a spray of sparks signaled the cutting discs were attacking their target. “So that’s the ticket. We float to the surface as pretty as an emptied bottle of Veuve Cliquot-Ponsardin Gold Label champagne.”

“Or a drained bottle of Coors beer.”

“First pub we hit, Mr. Pitt, the drinks are on me.”

“Thank you, Dr. Plunkett. I accept, providing we have enough buoyancy to take us up.”

“Blow the guts out of her,” Plunkett demanded recklessly. “I’d rather risk the bends than certain drowning.”

Pitt did not agree. The excruciating agony divers had suffered over the centuries from the bends went far beyond man-inflicted torture. Death was a relief, and survival often left a deformed body racked with pain that never faded. He kept a steady eye on the digital reading as the red numbers crept up to three atmospheres, the pressure at roughly twenty meters. At that depth their bodies could safely endure the increased pressure squeeze, he estimated, in the short time remaining before nitrogen gas began forming in their blood.

Twenty-five minutes later, he was about to rethink his estimate when a growing creaking noise reverberated inside the compartment. Then came a deep grinding that was magnified by the density of the water.

“Only one mount and a frame brace to go,” Giordino informed them. “Be prepared to tear loose.”

“I read you,” replied Pitt. “Standing by to close down all power and electrical systems.”

Sandecker found it insufferable that he could plainly see the faces of the men across the thin gap separating the two vehicles and know there was every likelihood they might die. “How’s your current air supply?” he asked anxiously.

Pitt checked the monitor. “Enough to get us home if we don’t stop for pizza.”

There came a screech that set teeth on edge as the control compartment shuddered and tilted upward, nose first. Something gave then, and suddenly the structure acted as if it wanted to break free. Pitt quickly shut off the main generator power and switched over to the emergency batteries to keep the computer and speaker phone operating. But all movement abruptly stopped, and they hung frozen above the tractor’s huge frame.

“Hold on,” came Giordino’s reassuring voice. “I missed some hydraulic lines.” Then he added, “I’ll try to stay close if I can, but should we spread too far apart, the phone cable will snap and we’ll lose voice contact.”

“Make it quick. Water is gushing in through some of the severed lines and connections.”

“Acknowledged.”

“See to it you open your exit door and get the hell out fast when you hit the waves,” Sandecker ordered.

“Like geese with diarrhea,” Pitt assured him.

Pitt and Plunkett relaxed for a few seconds, listening to the sound of the cutting discs chewing through the tubing. Then came a heavy lurch followed by a ripping noise, and they began slowly rising from the top of the seamount, leaving the tractor chassis with Big John’s torn cables and melted debris dangling behind them like mechanical entrails.

“On our way!” Plunkett roared.

Pitt’s mouth tightened. “Too slow. The incoming water has lowered our positive buoyancy.”

“You’re in for a long haul,” said Giordino. “I judge your rate of ascent at only ten meters a minute.”

“We’re lugging the engine, reactor, and a ton of water with us. Our volume barely overcomes the excess weight.”

“You should rise a little faster as you near the surface.”

“No good. The water intake will offset the decrease in pressure.”

“No worry over losing the communication cable,” Giordino said happily. “I can easily match your ascent rate.”

“Small consolation,” Pitt muttered under his breath.

“Twenty meters up,” said Plunkett.

“Twenty meters,” Pitt echoed.

Both pairs of eyes locked on the depth reading that flashed on the display screen. Neither man spoke as the minutes crawled past. The twilight world was left behind and the indigo-blue of deep water paled slightly from the approaching filtered light from above. The color green made its first appearance, and then yellow. A small school of tuna greeted them before flashing away. At 150 meters Pitt could begin to make out the dial on his wristwatch.

“You’re slowing,” Giordino warned them. “Your rate of ascent has dropped to seven meters a minute.”

Pitt punched in the water leakage numbers. He didn’t like what he read. “Our flood level is redlined.”

“Can you increase your air volume?” asked Sandecker, concern obvious in his voice.

“Not without a fatal dose of the bends.”

“You’ll make it,” Giordino said hopefully. “You’re past the eighty-meter mark.”

“When our ascent drops to four meters, grab on with your hand assembly and tow us.”

“Will do.”

Giordino moved ahead and angled his vessel until the stern was pointing toward the surface and he was looking down on Pitt and Plunkett. Then he set his autopilot to maintain a reverse speed to maintain the same ascent speed as Big John’s housing. But before he could extend the robotic arm, he saw that the DSMV was falling back and the gap was increasing. He quickly compensated and closed the distance.

“Two meters a minute,” Pitt said with icy calm. “You’d better link up.”

“In the process,” Giordino anticipated him.

By the time the sub’s articulated hand system had managed a viselike grip on a protruding edge of wreckage, the compartment had come to a complete halt.

“We’ve achieved neutral buoyancy,” Pitt reported.

Giordino jettisoned the sub’s remaining iron ballast weights and programmed full reverse speed. The thrusters bit into the water and the sub, with the DSMV housing in tow, began moving again with tormented slowness toward the beckoning surface.

Eighty meters, seventy, the fight to reach daylight seemed as if it would never end. Then at twenty-seven meters, or about ninety feet, their progress stopped for the final time. The rising water in the engine room was coming in through new openings from newly ruptured pipes and cracks with the force of a fire hose.

“I’m losing you,” Giordino said, shaken.

“Get out, evacuate!” cried Sandecker.

Pitt and Plunkett didn’t need to be told. They had no wish for Big John to become their tomb. The manned housing began to descend, pulling the submersible with it. Their only salvation was the inside air pressure, it was nearly equalized with the outside water. But what fate gave them, fate snatched back. The flood couldn’t have picked a worse time to short out the emergency battery system, cutting off the hydraulic power for the exit hatch.

Plunkett frantically undogged the hatch and fought to push it out, but the slightly higher water pressure was unyielding. Then Pitt was beside him, and they put their combined strength into it.

In the submersible, Giordino and Sandecker watched the struggle with mounting fear. Negative buoyancy was rapidly increasing and the compartment was beginning to drop into the depths at an alarming rate.

The hatch gave as though it was pushed through a sea of glue. As the water surged around the frame and into the compartment, Pitt shouted, “Hyperventilate, and don’t forget to exhale on the way up.”

Plunkett gave a brief nod, took a quick series of deep breaths to eliminate the carbon dioxide in his lungs, and held the last one. Then he ducked his head into the water gushing through the hatch and was gone.

Pitt followed, overventilating his lungs to hold his breath longer. He flexed his knees on the threshold of the hatch and launched himself upward as Giordino released the robotic hand’s grip, and the final remains of the DSMV fell away into the void.

Pitt couldn’t have known, but he made his exit at forty-two meters, or 138 feet, from the surface. The sparkling surface seemed to be ten kilometers away. He’d have given a year’s pay for a pair of swim fins. He also wished he was about fifteen years younger. More than once, when he was in his late teens and twenties, he’d free-dived to eighty feet while snorkeling the waters off Newport Beach in California. His body was still in good physical shape, but time and hard living had taken their toll.

He swam upward, using strong, even strokes with hands and feet, exhaling in tiny spurts so the expanding gases in his lungs would not rupture the capillaries and force bubbles directly into his bloodstream, causing an air embolism.

The glare from the sun was dancing on the surface, sending shafts of light into the shallows. He discovered he was in the shadows of two vessels. Without a face mask, his blurred vision through the water could only discern vague outlines of their bottoms. One seemed like a large boat, while the other looked absolutely mammoth. He shifted his course so he’d surface between them and save a crack on the head. Below him, Giordino and Sandecker followed in the submersible, like a crew cheering on a channel swimmer.

He stroked alongside Plunkett, who was clearly in trouble. The older man looked as though all strength had drained from his muscles. It was obvious to Pitt that Plunkett was on the verge of blacking out. He grabbed him by the collar and pulled the Britisher behind him.

Pitt expelled the last of the air from his lungs. He thought the surface could never be breached. Blood was throbbing in his ears. Then suddenly, just as he was gathering all his physical resources for the final effort, Plunkett went limp. The Britisher had made a brave try before falling unconscious, but he was not a strong swimmer.

Darkness was circling Pitt’s vision, and fireworks began to burst behind his eyes. Lack of oxygen was starving his brain, but the desire to reach the surface was overwhelming. The seawater was stinging his eyes and invading his nostrils. He was within seconds of drowning and he damn well wasn’t going to give in to it.

He put his rapidly fading strength into one last thrust for the clouds. Pulling Plunkett’s dead weight, he kicked furiously and stroked with his free hand like a madman. He could see the mirrorlike reflection of the swells. They looked tantalizingly near, and yet they seemed to keep moving away from him.

He heard a heavy thumping sound as if something was pounding the water. Then suddenly, four figures in black materialized in the water on both sides of him. Two snatched Plunkett and carried him away. One of the others pushed the mouthpiece of a breathing regulator into Pitt’s mouth.

He sucked in one great gasping breath of air, one after another until the diver gently removed the mouthpiece for a few breaths of his own. It was plain old air, the usual mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and a dozen other gases, but to Pitt it tasted like the sparkling dry air of the Colorado Rockies and a forest of pine after a rain.

Pitt’s head broke water and he stared and stared at the sun as if he’d never seen it before. The sky never looked bluer or the clouds whiter. The sea was calm, the swells no more than half a meter at their crests.

His rescuers tried to support him, but he shrugged them off. He rolled over and floated on his back and looked up at the huge sail tower of a nuclear submarine that towered above him. Then he spotted the junk. Where on earth did that come from? he wondered. The sub explained the Navy divers, but a Chinese junk?

There was a crowd of people lining the railings of the junk, most he recognized as his mining crew, cheering and waving like crazy people. He spotted Stacy Fox and waved back.

His concern swiftly returned to Plunkett, but he need not have worried. The big Britisher was already lying on the hull deck of the submarine, surrounded by U.S. Navy crewmen. They quickly brought him around, and he began gagging and retching over the side.

The NUMA submersible broke the surface almost an arm’s length away. Giordino popped from the hatch through the sail tower, looking for all the world like a man who had just won the jackpot of a lottery. He was so close he could talk to Pitt in a conversational tone.

“See the havoc you’ve caused?” He laughed. “This is going to cost us.”

Happy and glad as he was to be among the living, Pitt’s face was suddenly filled with wrath. Too much had been destroyed, and as yet unknown to him, too many had died. When he replied, it was in a tense, unnatural voice.

“Not me, not you. But whoever is responsible has run up against the wrong bill collector.”

Part 2

The Kaiten Menace

18

October 6, 1993

Tokyo, Japan

THE FINAL FAREWELL that kamikaze pilots shouted to each other before scrambling to their aircraft was “See you at Yasukuni.”

Though they never expected to meet again in the flesh, they did intend to be reunited in spirit at Yasukuni, the revered memorial in honor of those who died fighting for the Emperor’s cause since the revolutionary war of 1868. The compound of the shrine sits on a rise known as Kudan Hill in the middle of Tokyo. Also known as Shokonsha, or “Spirit Invoking Shrine,” the central ceremonial area was erected under the strict rules of Shinto architecture and is quite bare of furnishings.

A cultural religion based on ancient tradition, Shinto has evolved through the years into numerous rites of passage and sects cored around kami, or “the way of divine power through various gods.” By World War II it had evolved into a state cult and ethic philosophy far removed from a strict religion. During the American occupation all government support of Shinto shrines was discontinued, but they were later designated as national treasures and honored cultural sites.

The inner sanctuary of all Shinto shrines is off limits to everyone except for the chief priest. Inside the sanctuary, a sacred object representing the divine spirit’s symbol is enshrined. At Yasukuni the sacred symbol is a mirror.

No foreigners are allowed to pass through the huge bronze gateway leading to the war heroes’ shrine. Curiously overlooked is the fact that the spirits of two foreign captains of ships sunk while supplying Japanese forces during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 are deified among the nearly 2,500,000 Nipponese war heroes. A number of villains are also enshrined at Yasukuni. Their spirits include early political assassins, underworld military figures, and the war criminals led by General Hideki Tojo who were responsible for atrocities that matched and often went beyond the savagery of Auschwitz and Dachau.

Since the Second World War, Yasukuni had become more than simply a military memorial. It was the rallying symbol of the right-wing conservatives and militants who still dreamt of an empire dominated by the superiority of Japanese culture. The annual visit by Prime Minister Ueda Junshiro and his party leaders to worship on the anniversary of Japan’s defeat in 1945 was reported in depth by the nation’s press and TV networks. A storm of impassioned protest usually followed from political opposition, leftists and pacifists, non-Shinto religious factions, and nearby countries who had suffered under Japanese wartime occupation.

To avoid open criticism and the spotlight of adverse opinion, the ultranationalists behind the resurrected drive for empire and the glorification of the Japanese race were forced to clandestinely worship at Yasukuni during the night. They came and went like phantoms, the incredibly wealthy, high government dignitaries, and the sinister manipulators who skirted the shadows, their talons firmly clutching a power structure that was untouchable even by the leaders of government.

And the most secretive and powerful of all was Hideki Suma.

A light drizzle fell as Suma passed through the gate and walked the gravel path toward the Shokonsha shrine. It was well after midnight, but he could see his way by the lights of Tokyo that reflected from the low clouds. He paused under a large tree and looked around the grounds inside the high walls. The only sign of life was a colony of pigeons nestled under the disks that crowned the curved roof.

Satisfied that he would not be studied by an observer, Hideki Suma went through the ritual of washing his hands in a stone basin and rinsing his mouth with a small ladle of water. Then he entered the outer shrine hall and met the chief priest, who was awaiting his arrival. Suma made an offering at the oratory and removed a sheaf of papers wrapped in a tissued scroll from the inside pocket of his raincoat. He gave them to the priest, who laid them on the altar.

A small bell was rung to summon Suma’s specific deity or kami, and then they clasped their hands in prayer. After a short purification ceremony, Suma spoke quietly with the priest for a minute, retrieved the scroll, and left the shrine as inconspicuously as he’d arrived.

The stress of the past three days fell from him like glistening water over a garden fall. Suma felt rejuvenated by the mystical power and guidance of his kami. His sacred quest to purify Japanese culture from the poison of Western influences while protecting the gains of financial empire was guided by divine power.

Anyone catching a glimpse of Suma through the misty rain would have quickly ignored him. He looked quite ordinary in workman’s overalls and a cheap raincoat. He wore no hat, and his hair was a great shock of brushed-back white. The black mane common to almost all Japanese men and women had lightened at an early age, which gave Suma a look much older than his forty-nine years. By Western standards he was short, by Japanese ideals he was slightly on the tall side, standing at 170 centimeters.

It was only when you looked into his eyes that he seemed different from his native cousins. The irises were of a magnetic indigo blue, the legacy, possibly, of an early Dutch trader or English sailor. A frail youth, he’d taken up weight lifting when he was fifteen and labored with cold determination until he had transformed his body into a muscled sculpture. His greatest satisfaction was not in his strength but the molding of flesh and sinews into his own creation.

His bodyguard-chauffeur bowed and locked the heavy bronze gate after him. Moro Kamatori, Suma’s oldest friend and his chief aide, and his secretary, Toshie Kudo, were sitting patiently in a backward-facing seat of a black custom-built Murmoto limousine powered by a twelve-cylinder 600-horsepower engine.

Toshie was much taller than her native sisters. Willowy, with long legs, jet-black hair falling to her waist, flawless skin enhanced by magical coffee-brown eyes, she looked as if she’d stepped out of a James Bond movie. But unlike the exotic beauties who hung on fiction’s bon vivant master spy, Toshie possessed a high order of intellectual ability. Her IQ bordered on 165, and she operated at full capacity on both sides of the brain.

She did not look up as Suma entered the car. Her mind was focused on a compact computer that sat in her shapely lap.

Kamatori was speaking over a telephone. His intellect may not have been on a level with Toshie’s, but he was meticulous and deviously clever at managing Suma’s secretive projects. He was especially gifted at behind-the-scenes finance, pulling the strings and fronting for Suma, who preferred to isolate himself from public view.

Kamatori had a stolid, resolute face flanked by oversized ears. Beneath heavy black brows, the dark lifeless eyes peered through a pair of thick-lensed rimless glasses. No smile ever crossed his tight lips. He was a man without emotions or convictions. Fanatically loyal to Suma, Kamatori’s master talent was hunting human game. If someone, no matter how wealthy or high in government bureaucracy, presented an obstacle to Suma’s plans, Kamatori would shrewdly dispatch them so it seemed an accident or the blame could be fixed on an opposing party.

Kamatori kept a ledger of his killings with notes detailing each event. Over the course of twenty-five years the tally came to 237.

He rang off and set the receiver in an armrest cradle and looked at Suma. “Admiral Itakura at our embassy in Washington. His sources have confirmed the White House is aware the explosion was nuclear and originated with the Divine Star.”

Suma gave a stoic shrug. “Has the President launched a formal protest with Prime Minister Junshiro?”

“The American government has remained strangely silent,” answered Kamatori. “The Norwegians and British, however, are making noises about the loss of their ships.”

“But nothing from the Americans.”

“Only sketchy reports in their news media.”

Suma leaned forward and tapped Toshie’s nyloned knee with his forefinger. “A photo, please, of the explosion site.”

Toshie nodded respectfully and programmed the necessary code into the computer. In less than thirty seconds a colored photo rolled out of a fax machine built into the divider wall separating the driver from the passenger compartment. She passed it to Suma, who turned up the interior car lights and took a magnifying glass from Kamatori.

“The enhanced infrared photo was taken an hour and a half ago during a pass by our Akagi spy satellite,” explained Toshie.

Suma peered through the glass without speaking for a few moments. Then he looked up questioningly. “A nuclear hunter-killer submarine and an Asian junk? The Americans are not acting as I expected. Odd they didn’t send half their Pacific fleet.”

“Several naval ships are steaming toward the explosion point,” said Kamatori, “including a NUMA ocean survey vessel.”

“What about space surveillance?”

“American intelligence has already gathered extensive data from their Pyramider spy satellites and SR-Ninety aircraft.”

Suma tapped a small object in the photo with a finger. “A submersible floating between the two vessels. Where did that come from?”

Kamatori peered over Suma’s finger at the photograph. “Certainly not the junk. It must have come from the submarine.”

“They won’t find any sunken remains of the Divine Star, ” Suma muttered. “She must have been blown into atoms.” He tossed the photo back to Toshie. “A readout, please, of auto carriers transporting our products, their current status and destinations.”

Toshie looked up at him over her monitor as if she’d read his mind. “I have the data you requested, Mr. Suma.”

“Yes?”

“The Divine Moon finished off-loading her auto cargo last night in Boston,” she reported, reading the Japanese characters on the display screen. “The Divine Water… she docked eight hours ago in the Port of Los Angeles and is off-loading now.”

“Any others?”

“There are two ships in transport,” Toshie continued. “The Divine Sky is scheduled to dock in New Orleans within eighteen hours, and the Divine Lake is five days out of Los Angeles.”

“Perhaps we should signal the ships at sea to divert to ports outside the United States,” said Kamatori. “American agents may be alerted to search for signs of radiation.”

“Who is our undercover agent in Los Angeles?” asked Suma.

“George Furukawa directs your secret affairs in the western states.”

Suma leaned back, obviously relieved. “Furukawa is a man. He will be alert to any hardening procedure.” He turned to Kamatori, who was speaking into the phone. “Divert the Divine Sky to Jamaica until we have more data, but allow the Divine Lake to proceed to Los Angeles.”

Kamatori bowed in acknowledgment and reached for phone.

“Aren’t you running the danger of detection?” asked Toshie.

Suma tightened his lips and shook his head. “American intelligence agents will search the ships, but they’ll bombs. Our technology will defeat them.”

“The explosion on board the Divine Star came at a bad time,” said Toshie. “I wonder if we’ll ever know what caused it.”

“I am not interested nor do I care,” Suma said coldly. The accident was unfortunate, but it won’t delay completion of our Kaiten Project.” Suma paused, his face etched in a brutal expression. “Enough pieces are set in place to destroy any nation which threatens our new empire.

19

VICE PRESIDENT GEORGE FURUKAWA took the phone call from his wife in his plush office at the prestigious Samuel J. Vincent Laboratories. She reminded him of his dental appointment. He thanked her, said a few words of endearment, and hung up.

The woman on the other end of the line was not his wife but one of Suma’s agents who could imitate Mrs. Furukawa’s voice. The dental appointment story was a code he’d received on five prior occasions. It meant a ship transporting Murmoto automobiles had arrived in port and was preparing to unload.

After informing his secretary that he would be having his teeth worked on the rest of the afternoon, Furukawa stepped into the elevator and punched the button for underground parking. Walking a few paces to his private stall, he unlocked the door to his mid-engined Murmoto sports car and sat behind the wheel.

Furukawa reached under the seat. The envelope was there, placed in his car after he came to work by one of Suma’s people. He checked the contents for the proper documents to release three automobiles from the unloading dock area. The papers were complete and correct as usual. Satisfied, he turned over the potent 400-horsepower, 5.8-liter, 32-valve V-8. He drove up to the thick steel barrier that rose from the cement drive and slanted menacingly at the front end of the Murmoto.

A smiling guard came out of the gatehouse and leaned down. “You checking out early, Mr. Furukawa?”

“I have a dental appointment.”

“Your dentist must own a yacht that’s been paid for by your teeth.”

“How about a villa in France,” Furukawa joked back.

The guard laughed and then asked the routine question. “Taking any classified work home tonight?”

“Nothing. I left my attaché case in the office.”

The guard stepped on a switch to lower the barrier and gestured down the double drive leading to the street. “Swish a shot of gin around your mouth when you get home. That’ll deaden the pain.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Furukawa, shifting the six-speed transmission into first. “Thank you.”

Situated in a tall glass building hidden from the street by a grove of eucalyptus trees, Vincent Labs was a research and design center owned by a consortium of space and aviation companies. The work was highly classified and the results carefully guarded, since much of the funding came from government contracts for military programs. Futuristic advances in aerospace technology were conceived and studied, the projects with the highest potential going on to design and production, while the failures were put aside for future study.

Furukawa was what is known in intelligence circles as a sleeper. His parents were two of the many thousands of Japanese who immigrated to the United States shortly after the war. They quickly melted in with the Japanese-Americans who were picking up the pieces of their interrupted lives upon release from the internment camps. The Furukawas did not come across the Pacific because they’d lost their love of Japan. Far from it. They hated America and its multicultures.

They came as solid, hardworking citizens for the express purpose of raising their only son to become a leader of American business. No expense was spared to give their child the finest education the nation could offer, the money arriving mysteriously through Japanese banks into family accounts. Incredible patience and long years of maintaining the facade paid off when son George received a Ph.D. in aerodynamic physics and eventually achieved a position of power with Vincent Labs. Highly respected among aviation designers, Furukawa was now able to amass enormous quantities of information on America’s finest aerospace technology, which he secretly passed to Suma Industries.

The classified data Furukawa had stolen for a country he had yet to visit saved Japan billions of dollars in research and development costs. Almost single-handedly, his traitorous activities had given Japan a five-year shortcut to becoming a world leader in the aerospace market.

Furukawa had also been recruited for the Kaiten Project during a meeting with Hideki Suma in Hawaii. He was honored to be chosen by one of the most influential leaders of Japan for a sacred mission. His orders were to discreetly arrange for specially colored cars to be collected at the dock and transported to undisclosed destinations. Furukawa did not ask questions. His ignorance of the operation failed to bother him. He could not be deeply involved for fear of compromising his own mission of stealing U.S. technology.

The traffic had thinned between rush hours as he made his way onto Santa Monica Boulevard. Several kilometers later he swung south on the San Diego Freeway. With a bare touch of his shoe on the accelerator, the Murmoto wove through the slower stream of cars. His detector beeped, and Furukawa slowed to the speed limit three hundred meters before entering the range of a parked police radar unit. He cracked a rare smile as he speeded up again.

Furukawa worked into the right-hand lane and curled around the off-ramp down onto the Harbor Freeway. Ten minutes later he reached the shipping terminal area and cut into an alley, where he passed a huge truck and semitrailer parked behind an empty warehouse. The doors of the cab and the sides of the trailer were painted with the logo of a well-known moving and storage company. He hit his horn twice. The driver of the big rig tooted his air horn three times in reply and pulled behind Furukawa’s sports car.

After dodging a heavy crowd of trucks backing in and out of the loading docks, Furukawa finally stopped at one of the gates to a holding yard for cars imported from foreign manufacturers. Other nearby yards were filled with Toyotas, Hondas, and Mazdas that had already come off ships before being loaded on twodeck auto transporters that would haul them to dealer showrooms.

While the guard checked the receiving documents from the envelope, Furukawa gazed at the sea of cars already driven off the Divine Water. Over one-third had been off-loaded and were sitting in the California sun. He idly counted the flow, as an army of drivers drove them through several gaping hatches and down ramps into the yard, and came up with a rate of eighteen a minute.

The guard handed him the envelope. “Okay, sir, three SP-Five Hundred sport sedans. Please give your papers to the dispatcher down the road. He’ll fix you up.”

Furukawa thanked him and motioned for the truck to follow him.

The ruddy cigar-smoking dispatcher recognized Furukawa. “Back for more of those putrid brown cars?” he asked cheerfully.

Furukawa shrugged. “I have a customer who buys them for his sales fleet. Believe it or not, that’s his company’s color.”

“What does he sell, Kyoto lizard crap’?”

“No, imported coffee.”

“Don’t tell me the label. I don’t want to know.”

Furukawa slipped the dispatcher a hundred-dollar bill. “How soon before I can take delivery?”

The dispatcher grinned. “Your cars are easy to find in the cargo holds. I’ll have them for you in twenty minutes.”

An hour had passed before the three brown automobiles were safely tied down inside the enclosed trailer and released from the holding yard. Not once did the driver and Furukawa exchange words. Even eye contact was avoided.

Outside the gate, Furukawa pulled his car to the side of the road and lit a cigarette. He watched in stony curiosity as the truck and semitrailer turned and headed for the Harbor Freeway. The license on the trailer was California, but he knew it would be switched at some desert truck stop before crossing the state line.

Despite his practiced detachment, Furukawa unconsciously found himself wondering what was so special about the brown cars. And why was their final destination so secret?

20

“FIRST WE’LL BODY SURF under the sunrise at Makapuu Point,” said Pitt, holding Stacy’s hand. “Later, it’s snorkeling around Hanauma Bay before you rub suntan oil all over my body, and we spend a lazy afternoon dozing on a warm white sand beach. Then we’ll soak up the sunset while sipping rum collins on the lanai of the Halekalani Hotel, and afterward it’s off to this intimate little restaurant I know in the Manoa Valley.”

Stacy looked at him in amusement. “Have you ever thought of forming an escort service?”

“I don’t have it in me to charge a woman,” said Pitt amicably. “That’s why I’m always broke.”

He paused and looked out the window of the big twin-engine Air Force helicopter as it drummed through the night. In the early evening of Pitt and Plunkett’s rescue, the big bird had appeared and plucked the entire Soggy Acres mining team and the crew of Old Gert off the deck of the Chinese junk. But not before everyone profusely thanked Owen Murphy and his crew for their hospitality. The final act was the removal of Jimmy Knox. Once his canvas-wrapped body was hoisted on board, the great craft rose above Shanghai Shelly and the Tucson and beat its way toward Hawaii.

The sea below shimmered under a bright three-quarter moon as the pilot flew almost directly over a cruise ship. Ahead to the southeast, Pitt caught sight of the lights on the island of Oahu. He should have been sound asleep like Sandecker, Giordino, and the others, but the exhilaration of escaping the bony character with the scythe kept his blood stirred up. That and the fact Stacy stayed awake to keep him company.

“See anything?” she asked between yawns.

“Oahu on the horizon. We should be passing over Honolulu in fifteen minutes.”

She looked at him teasingly. “Tell me more about tomorrow, especially the after-dinner part.”

“I didn’t come to that.”

“Well?”

“Okay, there are these two palm trees—”

“Palm trees?”

“Of course,” said Pitt, looking surprised that she asked. “And between them is this carnal hammock built for two.”

The helicopter, its ultramodern Ferrari-like body lacking the familiar tail rotor, hovered momentarily above a small grass field on the outskirts of Hickam Field. Unseen in the darkness, the perimeter was patrolled by an Army special combat platoon. A lighted signal from the ground informed the pilot the area was secure. Only then did he lightly drop the huge craft onto the soft grass.

A small bus with KAWANUNAI TOURS painted on the sides immediately drove up and stopped just outside the radius of the rotor blades. It was followed by a black Ford sedan and an Army ambulance to carry Jimmy Knox’s body to Tripler Army Hospital for autopsy. Four men in civilian clothes stepped from the car and stationed themselves at the helicopter’s door.

As the weary NUMA people debarked, they were ushered into the bus. Pitt and Stacy were the last to exit. A uniformed guard held out his arm, blocking their way, and directed them to the car where Admiral Sandecker and Giordino were already standing.

Pitt pushed aside the guard’s arm and walked over to the bus. “Goodbye,” he said to Plunkett. “Keep your feet dry.”

Plunkett fairly mashed Pitt’s hand. “Thank you for my life, Mr. Pitt. When next we meet, the drinks are on me.”

“I’ll remember. Champagne for you, beer for me.”

“God bless.”

When Pitt approached the black car, two men were holding up their gold shields to Sandecker’s face, identifying themselves as agents of the federal government.

“I am operating under presidential order, Admiral. I’m to backstop and transport you, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Giordino, and Ms. Fox to Washington immediately.”

“I don’t understand,” said Sandecker irritably. “What’s the rush?”

“I can’t say, sir.”

“What about my NUMA team? They’ve been working on an underwater project under extreme conditions for four months. They deserve time to rest and relax with their families.”

“The President has ordered a news blackout. Your NUMA people, along with Dr. Plunkett and Salazar, will be escorted to a safe compound on the windward side of the island until the blackout is lifted. Then they’re free to go at government expense wherever you direct.”

“How long will they be cooped up?” Sandecker demanded.

“Three or four days,” replied the agent.

“Shouldn’t Ms. Fox be going with the others?”

“No, sir. My orders are she travels with you.”

Pitt stared at Stacy shrewdly. “You been holding out on us, lady?”

A strange little smile came to her lips. “I’m going to miss our tomorrow in Hawaii.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “We’ll have another time, perhaps in Washington.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, his voice suddenly turning cold. “You conned me, you conned me up and down the line, beginning with your phony plea for help in Old Gert.”

She looked up at him, a curious mixture of hurt and anger in her eyes. “We’d have all died if you and Al hadn’t shown up when you did.”

“And the mysterious explosion. Did you arrange that?”

“I have no idea who was responsible,” she said honestly. “I haven’t been briefed.”

“Briefed,” he repeated slowly. “Hardly a term used by a freelance photographer. Just who do you work for?”

A sudden hardness came into her voice. “You’ll find out soon enough.” And then she turned her back on him and climbed in the car.

Pitt only managed three hours sleep on the flight to the nation’s capital. He drifted off over the Rocky Mountains and woke as the dawn was breaking over West Virginia. He sat in the back of the Gulfstream government jet away from the others, preferring his thoughts to conversation. His eyes looked down at the USA Today paper on his lap without really seeing the words and pictures.

Pitt was mad, damned mad. He was irritated with Sandecker for remaining close-mouthed and sidestepping the burning questions Pitt had put to him about the explosion that caused the earthquake. He was angry with Stacy, certain now the British deep-water survey was a combined intelligence operation to spy on Soggy Acres. The coincidence of Old Gert diving in the same location defied all but the most astronomical odds. Stacy’s job as a photographer was a cover. She was a covert operative, pure and simple. The only enigma left to solve was the initials of the agency she worked for.

While he was lost in his thoughts, Giordino walked to the rear of the aircraft and sat down next to him. “You look beat, my friend.”

Pitt stretched. “I’ll be glad to get home.”

Giordino could read Pitt’s mood and adroitly steered the talk to his friend’s antique and classic car collection. “What are you working on?”

“You mean which car?”

Giordino nodded. “The Packard or the Marmon?”

“Neither,” replied Pitt. “Before we left for the Pacific, I rebuilt the engine for the Stutz but didn’t install it.”

“That nineteen thirty-two green town car?”

“The same.”

“We’re coming home two months early. Just under the wire for you to enter the classic car races at Richmond.”

“Two days away,” Pitt said thoughtfully. “I don’t think I can have the car ready in time.”

“Let me give you a hand,” Giordino offered. “Together we’ll put the old green bomb on the starting line.”

Pitt’s expression turned skeptical. “We may not get the chance. Something’s going down, Al. When the admiral clams up, the cow chips are about to strike the windmill.”

Giordino’s lips curled in a taut smile. “I tried to pump him too.”

“And?”

“I’ve had more productive conversations with fence posts.”

“The only crumb he dropped,” said Pitt, “was that after we land we go directly to the Federal Headquarters Building.”

Giordino looked puzzled. “I’ve never heard of a Federal Headquarters Building in Washington.”

“Neither have I,” said Pitt, his green eyes sharp and challenging. “Another reason why I think we’re being had.”

21

IF PITT THOUGHT they were about to be danced around the maypole, he knew it after laying eyes on the Federal Headquarters Building.

The unmarked van with no side windows that picked them up at Andrews Air Force Base turned off Constitution Avenue, passed a secondhand dress store, went down a grimy alley, and stopped at the steps of a shabby six-story brick building behind a parking lot. Pitt judged the foundation was laid in the 1930s.

The entire structure appeared in disrepair. Several windows were boarded shut behind broken glass, the black paint around the wrought-iron balconies was peeling away, the bricks were worn and deeply scarred, and for a finishing touch an unwashed bum sprawled on the cracked concrete steps beside a cardboard box full of indescribably mangy artifacts.

The two federal agents who escorted them from Hawaii led the way up the steps into the lobby. They ignored the homeless derelict, while Sandecker and Giordino merely gave him a fleeting glance. Most women would have looked upon the poor man with either compassion or disgust, but Stacy nodded and offered him a faint smile.

Pitt, curious, stopped and said, “Nice day for a tan.”

The derelict, a black man in his late thirties, looked up. “You blind, man? What’d I do with a tan?”

Pitt recognized the sharp eyes of a professional observer, who dissected every square centimeter of Pitt’s hands, clothes, body, and face, in that order. They were definitely not the vacant eyes of a down-and-out street dweller.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Pitt answered in a neighborly tone. “It might come in handy when you take your pension and move to Bermuda.”

The bum smiled, flashing unblemished white teeth. “Have a safe stay, my man.”

“I’ll try,” Pitt said, amused at the odd reply. He stepped past the disguised first ring of protection sentry and followed the others into the building’s lobby.

The interior was as run down as the exterior. There was the unpleasant smell of disinfectant. The green tile floors were badly treadworn and the walls stark and smudged with years of overlaid handprints. The only object in the dingy lobby that seemed well maintained was an antique mail drop. The solid brass glinted under the dusty light fixtures hanging from the ceiling, and the American eagle above the words “U.S. Mail” was as shiny as the day it was buffed out of its casting. Pitt thought it a curious contrast.

An old elevator door slid open soundlessly. The men from NUMA were surprised to find a gleaming chrome interior and a U.S. marine in dress blues who was the operator. Pitt noted that Stacy acted as though she’d been through the drill before.

Pitt was the last one in, seeing his tired red eyes and the grizzly beginnings of a beard reflected in the polished chrome walls. The marine closed the doors, and the elevator moved with an eerie silence. Pitt could not feel any movement at all. No flashing lights over the door or on a display panel indicated the passing floors. Only his inner ear told him they were traveling very rapidly down a considerable distance.

At last the door opened onto a foyer and corridor that was so clean and orderly it would have done a spit-and-polish ship captain proud. The federal agents guided them to the second doorway from the elevator and stood aside. The group passed through a space between the outer and an inner door, which Pitt and Giordino immediately recognized as an air lock to make the room soundproof. As the second door was closed, air was pushed out with an audible pop.

Pitt found himself standing in a place with no secrets, an enormous conference room with a low ceiling, so dead to outside sounds the recessed fluorescent light tubes buzzed like wasps, and a whisper could be heard ten meters away. There were no shadows anywhere, and normal voice levels came almost like shouts. The center of the room held a massive old library table once purchased by Eleanor Roosevelt for the White House. It fairly reeked of furniture polish. A bowl of Jonathan apples made up the centerpiece. Underneath the table lay a fine old blood-red Persian carpet.

Stacy walked to the opposite side of the table. A man rose and kissed her lightly on the cheek, greeting her in a voice laced with a Texas accent. He looked young, at least six or seven years younger than Pitt. Stacy made no effort to introduce him. She and Pitt had not spoken a word to each other since boarding the Gulfstream jet in Hawaii. She made an awkward display of pretending he was not present by keeping her back turned to him.

Two men with Asian features sat together next to Stacy’s friend. They were conversing in low tones and didn’t bother to look up as Pitt and Giordino stood surveying the room. A Harvard type, wearing a suit with a vest adorned with a Phi Beta Kappa key on a watch chain, sat off by himself reading through a file of papers.

Sandecker set a course to a chair beside the head of the table, sat down, and lit one of his custom-rolled Havana cigars. He saw that Pitt seemed disturbed and restless, traits definitely out of character.

A thin older man with shoulder-length hair and holding a pipe walked over. “Which one of you is Dirk Pitt?”

“I am,” Pitt acknowledged.

“Frank Mancuso,” the stranger said, extending his hand. “I’m told we’ll be working together.”

“You’re one up on me,” Pitt said, returning a firm shake and introducing Giordino. “My friend here, Al Giordino, and I are in the dark.”

“We’ve been gathered to set up a MAIT.”

“A what?”

“MAIT, an acronym for Multi-Agency Investigative Team.”

“Oh, God,” Pitt moaned. “I don’t need this. I only want to go home, pour a tequila on the rocks, and fall into bed.”

Before he could expand on his grievances, Raymond Jordan entered the conference room accompanied by two men who wore faces with all the humor of patients just told by a doctor they had Borneo jungle fungus of the liver. Jordan made straight for Sandecker and greeted him warmly.

“Good to see you, Jim. I deeply appreciate your cooperation in this mess. I know it was a blow to lose your project.”

“NUMA will build another,” Sandecker stated in his usual cocksure way.

Jordan sat down at the head of the table. His deputies took chairs close by and laid out several document files on the table in front of him.

Jordan did not relax once he was seated. He sat stiffly, his spine not touching the backrest of the chair. His composed dark eyes moved swiftly from face to face as if trying to read everyone’s thoughts. Then he addressed himself directly to Pitt, Giordino, and Mancuso, who were still standing.

“Gentlemen, would you care to get comfortable?”

There was silence for a few moments as Jordan spread the files before him in order. The atmosphere was reflective and heavy with the kind of tension and concern that brought about ulcers.

Pitt sat expressionless, his mind elsewhere. He was not mentally geared for heavy talk, and his body was tired from the strain of the last two days. What he desperately wanted was a hot shower and eight hours of sleep, but he forced himself to go along for the ride out of respect for the admiral, who was, after all, his boss.

“I apologize,”

Jordan began, “for any inconvenience that I may have caused, but I’m afraid we are dealing with a critical emergency that can affect the security of our nation.” He paused to peer down at the personnel files on the desk in front of him. “A few of you know me and some of you have worked with me in the past. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Giordino, I have you at a disadvantage as I know something about you and you know very little about me.”

“Try zilch,” Giordino challenged him, avoiding Sandecker’s angry stare.

“I’m sorry,” said Jordan graciously. “My name is Ray Jordan, and I am empowered by direct presidential order to direct and manage all matters of national security, both foreign and domestic. The operation we’re about to launch covers both sides. To explain the situation and your presence here, I will turn this discussion over to my Deputy Director of Operations, Mr. Donald Kern.”

Kern was bony-thin, small, and lean. His intensely cool bluegreen eyes seemed to reach into everyone’s inner thoughts. All, that is, except Pitt’s. It was as if two bullets had met in midair, neither passing through the other, both stopped dead.

“First off,” Kern opened in a surprisingly deep voice while still trying to read Pitt, “we are all about to become part of a new federal organization consisting of investigators, specialists, support personnel, case review analysts, and field agents assembled for the purpose of defusing a serious threat to a great number of people here and around the world. In short, a MAIT team.” He pressed one of several buttons on a desk console and turned to one wall that was back-lit and displayed an organizational chart. There was a circle at the top and a larger one beneath. Four smaller circles extended from the bottom one like spider legs.

“The top circle represents the Command Center here in Washington,” he lectured. “The lower one is our Information Gathering and Collection Point on the Pacific island of Koror in the Palau Republic chain. The Resident, who will act as our Director of Field Operations, is Mel Penner.” He stopped and glanced pointedly at Penner, who had entered the room with him and Jordan,

Penner nodded a red corduroy-wrinkled face and lazily raised a hand. He neither looked around the table at the others nor smiled.

“Mel’s cover is acting as a UCLA sociologist studying native culture,” Kern added.

“Mel comes cheap.” Jordan smiled. “His home and office furnishings include a sleeping cot, a phone, a document shredder, and a work desk that also serves as a dining table and a counter for his hotplate.”

Bully for Mel, Pitt thought to himself, fighting to stay awake while half wondering why they took so long to state a case.

“Our teams will carry code names,” Kern carried on. “The code will be different makes of automobiles. For example, we at Central Command will be known as ‘Team Lincoln.’ Mel Penner is ‘Team Chrysler.’ ” He paused to tap the appropriate circles on the chart before carrying on. “Mr. Marvin Showalter, who by the way is Assistant Director of Security for the U.S. Department of State, will work out of our embassy in Tokyo and handle any diplomatic problems from the Japanese end. His team code is ‘Cadillac.’ “

Showalter stood, fingered his Phi Beta Kappa key, and bowed his head. “A pleasure to work with you all,” he said politely.

“Marv, you’ll inform your critical personnel that our MAIT operatives will be in the field should they spot what may appear to be unauthorized activity. I do not want our situation compromised through embassy cable traffic.”

“I’ll see to it,” Showalter promised.

Kern turned to Stacy and the bearded man sitting next to her. “Miss Stacy Fox and Dr. Timothy Weatherhill, for those of you who haven’t been introduced, will head the domestic end of the investigation. Their cover will be as journalist and photographer for the Denver Tribune. They will be ‘Team Buick.’ ” Next he motioned at the two men of Asian ancestry. ” ‘Team Honda’ consists of Mr. Roy Orita and Mr. James Hanamura. They’re in charge of the most critical phase of the investigation—Japan proper.

“Before Don continues the briefing,” said Jordan, “are there any questions?”

“How do we communicate?” asked Weatherhill.

“Reach out and touch someone,” answered Kern. “Telephone behavior is routine and does not arouse suspicion.” He touched another button on the console, and a series of digits appeared on the screen. “Memorize this number. We’ll give you a safe line that will be monitored twenty-four hours a day by an operator who is fully briefed and knows where to reach any of us at any given moment.”

“I might add,” said Jordan, “that you must check in every seventy-two hours. If you miss, somebody will be dispatched immediately to find you.”

Pitt, who was balancing his chair on the rear legs, held up a hand. “I have a question.”

“Mr. Pitt?”

“I’d be most grateful if someone will please tell me just what in hell is going on around here.”

There was a moment’s frozen and incredulous silence. Predictably, everyone around the table with the exception of Giordino stared at Pitt in narrow-eyed disapproval.

Jordan turned to Sandecker, who shook his head and said testily, “As you requested, Dirk and Al were not informed of the situation.

Jordan nodded. “I’ve been remiss by not having you gentlemen briefed. The fault is mine. Forgive me, gentlemen. You have been treated most shabbily after all you’ve been through.”

Pitt gave Jordan a penetrating gaze. “Were you behind the operation to spy on NUMA’s mining colony?”

Jordan hesitated, then said, “We don’t spy, Mr. Pitt, we observe, and yes, I gave the order. A British ocean survey team happened to be working in the Northern Pacific, and they cooperated by moving their operation into your area.”

“And the surface explosion that blew away the British ship and crew and triggered the earthquake that leveled eight years of intense research and effort, was that your idea too?”

“No, that was an unforeseen tragedy.”

“Maybe I missed something,” Pitt said harshly. “But I had this crazy idea that we were on the same side.”

“We are, Mr. Pitt, I assure you,” Jordan answered quietly. He nodded at Admiral Sandecker. “Your facility, Soggy Acres as’ you called it, was built under such tight secrecy that none of our intelligence agencies were aware that it was authorized.”

Pitt cut him short. “So when you got wind of the project, your nose was bent out of joint and you had to investigate.”

Jordan was not used to being on the defensive, yet he did not meet Pitt’s stare. “What’s done is done. I regret the tragic loss of so many people, but we cannot entirely be blamed for putting our operatives in an unfortunate position at the wrong time. We had no advance warning of a Japanese auto transport that was smuggling nuclear bombs across the ocean, nor could we predict those bombs would accidentally explode almost on top of two innocent ships and your mining colony.”

For a moment Pitt was stunned by the revelation, then his surprise was gone as quickly as it came. Pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. He stared at Sandecker and sensed hurt as he spoke. “You knew, Admiral, you knew before you left Washington and said nothing. The Tucson wasn’t on station to rescue Plunkett and me. It was there to record radioactivity and search for debris.”

It was one of the few times Pitt and Giordino ever witnessed Sandecker redden with chagrin. “The President asked that I be sworn to secrecy,” he said slowly. “I’ve never lied to you, Dirk, but I had no choice but to remain mute.”

Pitt felt sorry for the admiral, he knew it must have been difficult to be evasive with two close friends, but he made no effort to disguise his resentment of Jordan. “Why are we here?” he demanded.

“The President has personally approved of the selection of each individual to the team,” replied Jordan. “You all have a background and expertise that is indispensable for the success of this operation. The admiral and Mr. Giordino will put together a project to search the ocean floor and salvage any evidence from the ship that blew up. For the record, their code is ‘Mercedes.’ “

Pitt’s tired eyes squinted at Jordan steadily. “You only half answered the question.”

Jordan obliged him by saying, “I’m coming to it. You and Mr. Mancuso, who I believe you met, will act as a support team.”

“Support for what?”

“For the phase of the operation that requires an underground or underwater search.”

“When and where?”

“Yet to be determined.”

“And our code name?”

Jordan stared at Kern, who shuffled through a file of papers and then shook his head. “They haven’t been assigned one yet.”

“May the condemned create their own code?” asked Pitt.

Jordan exchanged looks with Kern, and then shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

Pitt smiled at Mancuso. “You have a preference?”

Mancuso lowered the pipe from his lips. “I leave it to you,” he said affably.

“Then we’ll be ‘Team Stutz.’

Jordan cocked his head. “I beg your pardon.”

“I never heard of it,” growled Kern.

“Stutz,” Pitt pronounced distinctly. “One of America’s finest classic automobiles, built from nineteen eleven until nineteen thirty-five in Indianapolis, Indiana.”

“I like it.” Mancuso nodded agreeably.

Kern squinted at Pitt, and his eyes took on a ferrety look. “You don’t strike me as taking this operation seriously.”

Jordan made an acquiescent shrug. “Whatever makes them happy.”

“Okay,” Pitt said steadily, “now that vital item of the agenda is settled, I’m going to get up and walk out of here.” He paused to read the orange dial on his old Doxa dive watch. “I was dragged here against my will. I’ve slept three hours out of the last forty-eight, and only eaten one meal in that time. I have to go to the bathroom. And I still don’t know what’s going down. Your plainclothes security guards and your detachment of marines can stop me, of course, but then I might get hurt and can’t play on the team. Oh, yes, there is one other point that no one has thought toy bring up.”

“What point is that?” asked Kern, his anger rising.

“I don’t recall that Al and I were officially requested to volunteer.”

Kern acted as if he’d swallowed a jalapeno pepper. “What are you talking about, volunteer?”

“You know, one who offers himself for a service of his own free will,” Pitt defined stonily. He turned to Giordino. “Were you formally invited to the party, Al?”

“Not unless my invitation was lost in the mail.”

Pitt stared defiantly into Jordan’s eyes as he spoke. “That’s the old ball game.” Then he turned to Sandecker. “Sorry, Admiral.”

“Shall we go?” said Giordino.

“Yes, let’s.”

“You can’t walk out,” Kern said with deadly seriousness. “You’re under contract to the government.”

“I’m not under contract to play secret agent.” Pitt’s voice was calm, quite unperturbed. “And unless there’s been a revolution since we’ve returned from the bottom of the sea, this is still a free country.”

“One moment, please,” said Jordan, wisely accepting Pitt’s viewpoint.

Jordan held an incredible range of power, and he was used to holding the whip hand. But he was also very astute and knew when to drift with the current, even if it flowed upstream. He stared at Pitt with curious interest. He saw no hatred, no arrogance, only a weary man who had been pushed too far. He had studied the file on NUMA’s Special Projects Director. Pitt’s background read like an adventure tale. His accomplishments were celebrated and honored. Jordan was smart enough not to antagonize a man he was damned lucky to have on the team.

“Mr. Pitt, if you will be patient a few more minutes I will tell you what you need to know. Some details will remain classified. I don’t think it wise you and certain people present at this table should have full knowledge of the situation. I don’t care a damn myself, but it is for your protection. Do you understand’?”

Pitt nodded. “I’m listening.”

“Japan has the bomb,” the chief of the National Security Service revealed. “How long they’ve had it or how many they’ve built is unknown. Given their advanced nuclear technology, Japan has had the capability to build warheads for over a decade. And despite their highly touted adherence to the nonproliferation treaty, someone or some group within their power structure decided they needed a deterrent force for its blackmail value. What little we know comes after the fact. A Japanese ship carrying Murmoto automobiles and two or more nuclear devices detonated in the middle of the Pacific, taking a Norwegian passenger-cargo liner and the British survey ship and their crews with her. Why were nuclear bombs on a Jap ship’? They were smuggling them into American ports. For what purpose? Probably nuclear extortion. Japan may have the bomb, but she doesn’t have a missile force or the long-range bombers to deliver it. So what would we do in their shoes to protect a financial power structure that reaches into every pocket of every country of the world? We smuggle nuclear weapons into any nation or combination of nations such as Europe that pose a threat to our economic empire and hide them in strategic locations. Then, if a particular country, say the U.S., gets mad after our Japanese leaders attempt to dictate policy to the White House and Congress and the business community, the Americans retaliate by refusing to pay back hundreds of billions of dollars loaned to their Treasury by our Japanese banks. They also threaten boycotts and trade barriers on all Japanese goods. Extreme measures that Senator Diaz and Congresswoman Loren Smith are proposing over at the Capitol as we speak. And maybe, just maybe, if the President gets riled up enough, he orders his superior military forces to blockade the Japanese islands, cutting off all our oil and vital raw materials, shutting down all our production. Follow me so far?”

Pitt nodded. “I’m with you.”

“This backlash scenario is not farfetched, especially when the American people will someday realize they work one month out of the year to pay off debts owed to foreign, for the most part Japanese, creditors. Are the Japs worried? Not when they have the power to push buttons and blow up any city in the world in time for the six o’clock news. Why are we here? To stop them by finding where the bombs are hidden. And stop them before they discover we’re onto them. That’s where Team Buick comes in. Stacy is an operative with the National Security Agency. Timothy is a nuclear scientist who specializes in radioactivity detection, Team Honda, led by James and Roy, agents, will concentrate on discovering and the command center that controls the detonations. Is this frightening nightmare? Absolutely. The lives of five hundred million people in nations that compete with Japan depend on what we around this table can accomplish in the next few weeks. In a wisdom bred more of ignorance, our State Department does not allow us covert observation of friendly nations. As the front line of this nation’s early warning system, we are forced to run in the shadows and die in obscurity. The alarm bells are about to be rung, and believe it or not, Mr. Pitt, this MAIT team is the last resort before a full-scale disaster. Do you get the picture?”

“Yes…” Pitt said slowly. “Thank you, Mr. Jordan. I get the picture.”

“Now will you officially join the team?”

Pitt rose, and to the astonishment of everyone present except Giordino and Sandecker, he said, “I’ll think it over.”

And then he left the room.

As he walked down the steps into the alley beside the squalid old building, Pitt turned and gazed up at the dingy walls and boarded windows. He shook his head in wonderment, then looked down at the security guard in the ragged clothes sprawled on the steps and muttered to himself, “So that’s the eyes and ears of the great republic.”

Jordan and Sandecker remained in the conference room after the others had filed out.

The crusty little admiral looked at Jordan and smiled faintly. “Do you mind my cigar?”

Jordan made a look of distaste. “A little late in asking, aren’t you, Jim?”

“Nasty habit.” Sandecker nodded. “But I don’t mind blowing smoke on someone, especially when they hard-ass my people. And that’s exactly what you were doing, Ray, hard-assing Pitt and Giordino.”

“You know damn well we’re in a state of crisis,” said Jordan seriously. “We don’t have time to cater to prima donnas.”

Sandecker’s face clouded. He pointed to Pitt’s packet that was on the top of the stack before Jordan. “You didn’t do your homework, or you’d know that Dirk Pitt is a bigger patriot than you and I put together. Few men have accomplished more for their country. There are few of his breed left. He still whistles ‘Yankee Doodle’ in the shower and believes a handshake is a contract and man’s word is his bond. He can also be devious as the devil if he thinks he’s helping preserve the Stars and Stripes, the American family, and baseball.”

“If he knows the urgency of the situation,” said Jordan, puzzled, “why did he stall and cut out?”

Sandecker looked at him, then looked at the organization chart on the backlit screen where Kern had written in “Tea Stutz.”

“You badly underestimated Dirk,” he said almost sadly. “You don’t know, you couldn’t know, he’s probably brewing up scheme to reinforce your operation this minute.”

22

PITT DID NOT GO directly to the old aircraft hangar on the edge of Washington’s International Airport that he called home. He gave Giordino a set of instructions and sent him off in a cab.

He walked up Constitution Avenue until he came to a Japanese restaurant. He asked for a quiet booth in the corner, sat down, and ordered. Between the clear clam soup and a medley of sashimi raw fish, he left the table and walked to a pay phone outside the rest rooms.

He took a small address book from his wallet and flipped through the phone numbers until he found the one he was looking for, Dr. Percival Nash (Payload Percy), Chevy Chase, Maryland. Nash was Pitt’s uncle on his mother’s side. The family character, Nash often bragged how he used to spike Dirk’s baby formula with sherry. Pitt inserted the change and dialed the number under the name.

He waited patiently through six rings, hoping Nash was in. He was, answering half a second before Pitt was about to hang up.

“Dr. Nash here,” came a youthful resonant voice (he was crowding eighty-two).

“Uncle Percy, this is Dirk.”

“Oh, my goodness, Dirk. About time I heard your voice. You haven’t called your old uncle in five months.”

“Four,” Pitt corrected him. “I’ve been on an overseas project.”

“How’s my beautiful sister and that dirty old politician she married? They never call me either.”

“I haven’t been over to the house yet, but judging from their letters, Mom and the senator are as testy as ever.”

“What about you, nephew? Are you in good health?”

“Fit and ready to race you around Marinda Park.”

“You remember that, do you? You couldn’t have been much older than six at the time.”

“How could I forget? Every time I’d try and pass, you’d throw me in the bushes.”

Nash laughed like the jolly man that he was. “Never try to better your elders. We like to think we’re smarter than you kids.”

“That’s why I need your help, and was wondering if you could meet me at the NUMA Building. I need to pick your brain.”

“On what subject?”

“Nuclear reactors for race cars.”

Nash knew instantly Pitt was dodging the real issue over the telephone. “When?” he asked without hesitation.

“As soon as convenient.”

“An hour okay?”

“An hour will be fine,” said Pitt.

“Where are you now?”

“Eating Japanese sashimi.”

Nash groaned. “Ghastly stuff. God only knows what pollutants and chemicals fish swim through.”

“Tastes good, though.”

“I’m going to speak to your mother. She didn’t raise y right.”

“See you in an hour, Percy.”

Pitt hung up and went back to his table. Hungry as he was, he barely touched the sashimi. He idly wondered if one of the smuggled bombs might be buried under the floor of the restaurant.

Pitt took a cab to the ten-story NUMA Building. He paid the driver and gazed briefly up at the emerald-green solar glass that covered the walls and ended in a curving pyramidal spire at the top. No lover of the classical look of the capital’s government buildings, Admiral Sandecker wanted a sleek contemporary look, and he got it. The lobby was an atrium surrounded by waterfalls and aquariums filled with exotic sea life. A huge globe rose from off the center of the sea-green marble floor, contoured with the geological furrows and ridges of every sea, large lake, and primary river on the earth.

Pitt entered an empty elevator and pressed the button marked 10. He skipped his fourth-floor office and rode up to the communications and information network on the top level. Here was the brain center of NUMA, a storehouse of every scrap of information ever recorded on the oceans—scientific, historical, fiction, or nonfiction. It was in this vast room of computers and memory cores where Sandecker spent a goodly percentage of NUMA’s budget, a constant source of criticism from a small company of his enemies in Congress. Yet this great electronic library had saved enormous sums of money on hundreds of projects, led the way to numerous important discoveries, and helped avert several national disasters that were never reported in the news media.

The man behind this formidable data supermarket was Hiram Yaeger.

“Brilliant” was the compliment most often paid to Yaeger’s mind, while “rumpled” distinguished his appearance. With his graying blond hair tied in a long ponytail, a braided beard, granny spectacles, and frayed, patched Levi’s, Yaeger exuded the aura of a hippie relic. Strangely, he had never been one. He was a decorated, three-tour Vietnam veteran who served as a Navy SEAL. If he had remained in computer design in California and launched his own company, he might have eventually headed a booming corporation and become a very wealthy man. But Yaeger cared nothing for being an entrepreneur. He was a class-act paradox, and one of Pitt’s favorite people.

When Admiral Sandecker offered him the job of command over NUMA’s vast computer data complex with nearly unlimited funding, Yaeger took it, moved his family to a small farm in Sharpsburg, Maryland, and set up shop all within eight days. He put in long hours, running the data systems twenty-four hours a clay, using three shifts of technicians to accumulate and disperse ocean data to and from ongoing American and foreign expeditions around the earth.

Pitt found Yaeger at his desk, which sat on a raised stage and revolved in the center of the vast room. Yaeger had it specially constructed so he could keep an all-seeing eye on his billion dollar domain. He was eating a pizza and drinking a nonalcoholic beer when he spied Pitt and jerked to his feet with a broad smile.

“Dirk, you’re back.”

Pitt climbed the stairs to Yaeger’s altar, as his staff called it behind his back, and they shook hands warmly. “Hello, Hiram.”

“Sorry to hear about Soggy Acres,” Yaeger said seriously, what I’m real happy to see you’re still among the living. God, you look like a felon just out of solitary. Sit down and rest yourself.”

Pitt gazed longingly at the pizza. “You couldn’t spare a slice, could you?”

“You bet. Help yourself. I’ll send out for another. Like a fake beer to wash it down? Sorry I can’t give you the real stuff, but you know the rules.”

Pitt sat and put away a large pizza plus two slices from Yaeger’s, and three beers without alcohol the computer genius kept in a small refrigerator built into his desk. Between bites, Pitt filled Yaeger in on the events leading up to his rescue, stopping short of his flight to Hawaii.

Yaeger listened with interest and then smiled like a skeptical judge on a divorce trial. “Made a quick trip home, I see.”

“Something’s come up.”

Yaeger laughed. “Here we go. You didn’t rush back to eat my pizza. What’s swirling in that evil mind of yours?”

“I’m expecting a relative of mine, Dr. Percy Nash, to arrive in a few minutes. Percy was one of the scientists on the Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic bomb. A former director on the Atomic Energy Commission, now retired. Together with your supercomputer intelligence and Percy’s knowledge of nuclear weaponry, I want to create a scenario.”

“A conceptualization.”

“A rose, et cetera.”

“Involving what?”

“A smuggling operation.”

“What are we smuggling?”

“I’d rather spell it out after Percy gets here.”

“A tangible, a solid object, maybe like a nuclear warhead?” Yaeger asked smugly.

Pitt looked at him. “That’s one possibility.”

Yaeger lazily rose to his feet and started down the stairs. “While we’re waiting for your uncle, I’ll warm up my CAD/CAM.”

He was gone and away on the computer floor before Pitt thought to ask him what he was talking about.

23

A GREAT WHITE BEARD flowed down Payload Percy’s face and covered half his paisley necktie. He had a knuckle for a nose and the set brows and squinting eyes of a wagon master intent on getting the settlers through Indian country. He beamed at the world from a face that belonged in a TV beer commercial, and seemed far younger than his eighty-two years.

He dressed natty for Washington. No regimented gray pinstripe or blue suit with red tie for Percy. He entered NUMA’s computer complex in a lavender sport coat with matching pocket kerchief and tie, gray slacks, and lizard-skin cowboy boots. Sought and intimately entertained by half the attractive widows within a hundred miles, Percy had somehow managed to remain a bachelor. A wit who was in demand as a party guest and speaker, he was a gourmand who owned a wine cellar that was the envy of every society party thrower in town.

The serious side of his character was his tremendous knowledge of the deadly art of nuclear weaponry. Percy was in on the beginning at Los Alamos and stayed in harness at the Atomic Energy Commission and its succeeding agency for almost fifty years. Many a third-world leader would have given his entire treasury for Percy’s talents. He was one of a very small band of experts who could assemble a working nuclear bomb in his garage for the price of a power lawn mower.

“Dirk my boy!” he boomed. “How good to see you.”

“You look fit,” Pitt said as they hugged.

Percy shrugged sadly. “Damned Motor Vehicle Department took away my motorcycle license, but I can still drive my old Jaguar XK-One-twenty.”

“I appreciate your taking the time to help me.”

“Not at all. Always prime for a challenge.”

Pitt introduced Percy to Hiram Yaeger. The old man gave Yaeger a shoe to headband examination. His expression was one of benign amusement.

“Can you buy faded and prewashed clothes like that off the rack?” he asked conversationally.

“Actually my wife soaks them in a solution of camel urine, liverwort, and pineapple juice,” Yaeger came right back with a straight face. “Softens and gives them that special air of savoir-faire.”

Percy laughed. “Yes, the aroma made me wonder about the secret ingredients. A pleasure to meet you, Hiram.”

“The same.” Hiram nodded. “I think.”

“Shall we begin?” said Pitt.

Yaeger pulled up two extra chairs beside a computer screen that was three times the size of most desk models. He waited until Pitt and Percy were seated and then held out both hands as if beholding a vision.

“The latest state-of-the-art,” he instructed. “Goes by the name CAD/CAM, an acronym for Computer-Aided Design/Computer-Aided Manufacturing. Basically a computer graphics system, but also a supersophisticated visual machine that enables draftsmen and engineers to make beautifully detailed drawings of every mechanical object imaginable. No dividers, compasses, or T-squares. You can program the tolerances and then simply sketch a rough outline with an electronic pen on the screen. Then the computer will render them in precise and elaborate solid forms, or in three dimensions.”

“Quite astounding,” Percy murmured. “Can you separate different sections of your drawings and enlarge details?”

“Yes, and I can also apply colors, alter shapes, simulate stress conditions, and edit the changes, then store the results in its memory to be recalled like a word processor. The applications from design to finished manufactured product are mind staggering.”

Pitt straddled his chair and rested his chin on the backrest. “Let’s see if it can lead us to the jackpot.”

Yaeger peered at him over his granny glasses. “We in the trade refer to it as conceptualization.

“If it’ll make you happy.”

“So what are we looking for?” asked Percy.

“A nuclear bomb,” Pitt answered.

“Where?”

“In an automobile.”

“Expecting one to be smuggled across the border?” inquired Percy intuitively.

“Something like that.”

“By land or by sea?”

“Sea.”

“This have anything to do with the explosion in the Pacific couple of days ago?”

“I can’t say.”

“My boy, I’m unbeatable at Trivial Pursuit. I also keep up on nuclear affairs. And you know, of course, that, except for the President, I’ve carried the highest security clearance they’ve got.

“You’re trying to tell me something, uncle?”

“Would you believe I was the first one Ray Jordan consulted after the Pacific detonation?”

Pitt smiled in defeat. “Then you know more than I do.”

“That Japan is hiding nuclear weapons around the country in automobiles, yes, I know that much. But Jordan didn’t see fit to enlist an old man for his operation, so he merely picked my brains and sent me packing.”

“Consider yourself hired. You’ve just become a dues-paying member of Team Stutz. You too, Hiram.”

“You’ll catch hell when Jordan finds out you’ve taken on reinforcements.”

“If we’re successful, he’ll get over it.”

“What’s this about Japanese bombs in cars?” asked an incredulous Yaeger.

Percy put a hand on his shoulder. “What we’re about to attempt here, Hiram, must be held in strict security.”

“Hiram carries a Beta-Q clearance,” said Pitt.

“Then we’re ready to begin the hunt.”

“I’d appreciate a little background,” said Yaeger, looking at Percy steadily.

The old atomic expert met his eyes. “In the nineteen-thirties, Japan went to war to build a self-reliant economic empire. Now, fifty years later, they’re willing to fight again, only this time to protect it. With utmost secrecy they built their nuclear weapons arsenal long before anyone thought of verifying its existence. The weapons-grade plutonium and uranium were spirited from civilian nuclear facilities. The fact they had the bomb was also overlooked because they didn’t have a delivery system such as long-range missiles, cruise systems, bombers, or missile-carrying submarines.”

“I thought the Japanese were committed to nuclear nonproliferation,” said Yaeger.

“True, the government and the majority of the people are totally against atomic weapons. But forces deep beneath the mainstream of their bureaucracy clandestinely constructed a nuclear force. The arsenal was built more for defense against economic threat than as a military deterrent. Their concept was the bombs could be used as extortion in the event of an all-out trade war and a ban on their export goods into the United States and Europe. Or if worse came to worse, a naval blockade on the home islands.”

Yaeger was disturbed. Pitt could see it.

“You’re telling me we may be sitting on a nuclear bomb?”

“Probably within a few blocks of one,” said Pitt.

“It’s unthinkable,” Yaeger muttered angrily. “How many have they smuggled into the country?”

“We don’t know yet,” Pitt replied. “It could be as many as a hundred. Also, we’re not the only country. They’re spread all over the world.”

“It gets worse,” said Percy. “If the bombs have indeed been smuggled into major international cities, the Japanese possess total assured destruction. It’s an efficient setup. Once the bombs are in place, the chance of accidental or unauthorized launch of a missile is voided. There is no defense against them, no time to react, no star wars system to stop incoming warheads, no alert, no second strike. When they push the button, the strike is instantaneous.”

“Good God, what can we do?”

“Find them,” said Pitt. “The idea is the bombs are brought in by auto ship carriers. I’m guessing hidden inside the imported cars. With your computer smarts, we’re going to try and figure out how.”

“If they’re coming in by ship,” Yaeger said decisively, “customs inspectors searching for drugs would pick them out.”

Pitt shook his head. “This is a sophisticated operation, run by high-tech professionals. They know their business. They’ll design the bomb to be an integral part of the car to throw off an elaborate search. Customs inspectors are wary of tires, gas tanks, upholstery, anyplace where there’s an air space. So it has to be secreted in such a way that even the wiliest inspector would miss it.”

“Totally foolproof to known discovery techniques,” Yaeger agreed.

Percy thoughtfully stared at the floor. “All right, now let’s talk about size.”

“That’s your department.” Pitt smiled.

“Give me a break, nephew. I at least have to know the model of the car, and I’m not a follower of Japanese machinery.”

“If it’s a Murmoto, it’s probably a sport sedan.”

The jovial look on Percy’s face went dead serious. “To sum up, we’re looking at a compact nuclear device in the neighborhood of ten kilograms that’s undetectable inside a medium-sized sedan.”

“That can be primed and detonated from a great distance,” Pitt added.

“Unless the driver is suicidal, that goes without saying.”

“What size bomb are we thinking about?” asked Yaeger innocently.

“They can vary in shape and size from an oil barrel to a baseball,” answered Percy.

“A baseball,” Yaeger murmured incredulously. “But can one that small cause substantial destruction?”

Percy stared up at the ceiling as if seeing the devastation. “If the warhead was high yield, say around three kilotons, it could probably level the heart of Denver, Colorado, with huge conflagrations ignited by the explosion spreading far out into the suburbs.”

“The ultimate in car bombings,” said Yaeger. “Not a pretty thought.”

“A sickening possibility, but one that has to be faced as more third-world nations possess atomic weapons.” Percy gestured toward the empty display screen. “What do we use as a model to dissect?”

“My family’s eighty-nine Ford Taurus,” replied Yaeger. “As an experiment I inserted its entire parts manual into the computer’s intelligence. I can give you blown-up images of specific parts or the completed solid form.”

“A Taurus will make a good match-up,” Pitt agreed.

Yaeger’s fingers flew over the keyboard for several seconds, and then he sat back with his arms folded. An image appeared on the screen, a three-D rendering in vivid color. Another command by Yaeger and a metallic burgundy red Ford Taurus four-door sedan revolved on different angles as if on a turntable that went from horizontal to vertical.

“Can you take us inside?” asked Pitt.

“Entering,” Yaeger acknowledged. A touch of a button and they seemed to flow through solid metal into sectioned views of the interior chassis and body. Like ghosts floating through walls, they clearly viewed every welded seam, every nut and bolt. Yaeger took them inside the differential and up the driveshaft through the gears of the transmission into the heart of the engine.

“Astonishing,” Percy muttered admiringly. “Like flying through a generating plant. If only we’d had this contrivance back in forty-two. We could have ended both the European and Pacific theaters of war two years early.”

“Lucky for the Germans you didn’t have the bomb by nineteen forty-four,” Yaeger goaded Percy.

Percy gave him a stern stare for a moment and then turned his attention back to the image on the screen.

“See anything interesting?” Pitt put to him.

Percy tugged at his beard. “The transmission casing would make a good container.”

“No good. Can’t be in the engine or drivetrain. The car must be capable of being driven normally.

“That eliminates a gutted battery or radiator,” said Yaeger. “Maybe the shock absorbers.”

Percy gave a brief shake of his head. “Okay for a plastic explosive pipe bomb but too narrow a diameter for a nuclear device.”

They studied the cutaway image silently for the next few minutes as Yaeger’s keyboard skills took them on a journey through an automobile few people ever experience. Axle and bearing assemblies, brake system, starter motor, and alternator, all were probed and rejected.

“We’re down to the optional accessories,” said Yaeger.

Pitt yawned and stretched. Despite his concentration, he could hardly keep his eyes open. “Any chance of it being in the heating unit?”

“Configuration isn’t right,” replied Percy. “The windshield washer bottle?”

Yaeger shook his head. “Too obvious.”

Suddenly Pitt stiffened. “The air conditioner!” he burst out. “The compressor in the air conditioner.”

Yaeger quickly programmed the computer to illustrate an interior view. “The car can be driven, and no customs inspector would waste two hours dismantling the compressor to see why it didn’t put out cold air.”

“Remove the guts and you’ve got an ideal casing to hold a bomb,” Pitt said, examining the computer image. “What do you think, Percy?”

“The condenser coils could be altered to include a receiving unit to prime and detonate,” Percy confirmed. “A neat package, a very neat package. More than enough volume to house a device capable of blasting a large area. Nice work, gentlemen, I think we’ve solved the mystery.”

Pitt walked over to an unoccupied desk and picked up the phone. He dialed the safe-line number given out by Kern at the MAIT team briefing. When a voice answered on the other end, he said, “This is Mr. Stutz. Please tell Mr. Lincoln the problem lies in his car’s air conditioner. Goodbye.”

Percy gave Pitt a humorous look. “You really know how to stick it to people, don’t you?”

“I do what I can.”

Yaeger sat gazing at the interior of the compressor he’d enlarged on the display screen. “There’s a fly in the soup,” he said quietly.

“What?” asked Percy. “What is that?”

“So we piss Japan off and they punch out our lights. They can’t eliminate all of our defenses, especially our nuclear submarines. Our retaliation force would disintegrate their entire island chain. If you want my opinion, I think this thing is unfeasible and suicidal. It’s one big bluff.”

“There’s one small problem with your theory,” Percy said, smiling patiently at Yaeger. “The Japanese have outfoxed the best intelligence brains in the business and caught the world powers in their Achilles’ heel. From their viewpoint the consequences are not all that catastrophic. We contracted with the Japanese to help research the strategic defense system for the destruction of incoming missile warheads. While our leaders wrote it off as too costly and unworkable, they went ahead with their usual hightech proficiency and perfected a working system.”

“Are you saying they’re invulnerable?” asked Yaeger in a shocked voice.

Percy shook his head. “Not yet. But give them another two years and they’ll have a working in-place ‘Star Wars’ system, and we won’t.”

24

Behind closed doors in the Capitol building a select subcommittee was meeting to investigate and evaluate Japanese cultural and economic impact upon the United States. The fancy words were a nice way of saying that certain members of Congress were mad as hornets over what they perceived as a United States held hostage by the ever tightening screws of Japanese capital.

Ichiro Tsuboi, chief director of Kanoya Securities, the largest security company in the world, sat at a table below the long, curved counterlike desk in front of the congressional committee. He was flanked by four of his chief advisers, who irritated the committee members with their jabbering consultations before Tsuboi answered each question.

Tsuboi did not appear as a financial giant who led a securities company that had enough capital to swallow Paine Webber, Charles Schwab, Merrill Lynch, and the rest of Wall Street’s honored brokerage houses without so much as a burp. He had, in fact, already purchased heavy interest in several of them. His body was short and slender, and he had a face that some likened to that of a jolly proprietor of a geisha house.

Tsuboi’s looks were deceiving. He could easily hold his own against a protectionist Congress with fire in their eyes. His competitors in Japan and abroad hated and feared him with reasons bred from experience. Tsuboi was as ruthless as he was shrewd. His canny financial manipulations had elevated him to the level of a cult figure whose contempt for America and the European nations was hardly a well-guarded secret. Wall Street’s cleverest investment brokers and corporate raiders were pigeons next to the guru of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Almost single-handedly he possessed the power to knock the props from under the American economy.

He sat and politely fielded the questions of the select committee, smiling with maddening courtesy throughout the questioning, speaking as comfortably as if he was conversing with guests over a dinner table.

“For the esteemed members of Congress to pass legislation forcing Japanese companies to sell our majority rights in our United States businesses to your companies at a fraction of their value is nothing less than nationalization. American business credibility will be shattered around the world. There will be chaos. Banking systems will collapse along with international currencies. Industrial nations will be bankrupted. And for what purpose? In my humble opinion, Japanese investors are the best thing that ever happened to the American people.”

“There is no such legislation in the works,” snapped Senator Mike Diaz. “What I said was ‘Those of your companies operating and showing a profit on American soil should be subject to the same regulations and tax standards as ours.’ Your capital markets remain closed to us. Americans are restricted from buying real estate and ownership in your businesses, while Japanese interests are getting away with financial murder in this country, Mr. Tsuboi, and you damn well know it.”

The one man who was not intimidated by Tsuboi was New Mexico Democrat Michael Diaz, chairman of the committee, the driving force behind a movement to not only limit but roll back foreign investment in American government, business, and real estate, and if he had his way, raise trade embargoes on all imported Japanese products.

A widower in his late forties, Diaz was the only senator who lived full time in his office. He kept a small private bath and a side room with a bed, refrigerator, stove, and sink. Over the twenty-five years he had been called the hardest-working politician on the hill, his work patterns had remained unchanged. His wife had died of diabetes shortly after he was elected to his first term. They were childless, and since her death he never gave a thought to remarrying.

His hair was pure black and swept back in a high pompadour, the face round and brown with dark umber eyes and a mouth that easily flashed white perfect teeth. As an Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam he had been shot down and wounded in the knee. Captured and carried to Hanoi, he spent two years as a POW. His jailers had never properly attended to his leg, and he limped, walking with the aid of a cane.

A hard-liner against foreign influence and involvement in American affairs, Diaz had fought for trade restrictions and high tariffs, and against what he saw as unfair trade and investment practices by the Japanese government. He saw the fight with Japan as more than an economic battle but as a financial war, with the United States already the loser.

“Mr. Chairman?”

Diaz nodded at an attractive female member of the committee. “Yes, Congresswoman Smith, go right ahead.”

“Mr. Tsuboi,” she began, “you previously stated that the dollar should be replaced with the yen. Don’t you think that’s a bit extreme?”

“Not when you consider Japanese investors finance fifty-five percent of your budget deficit,” replied Tsuboi with an airy wave of one hand. “Conversion of your currency to ours is only a matter of time.’

Congresswoman Loren Smith of Colorado couldn’t believe she was hearing such talk. Tall, striking, with cinnamon hair cut long to frame her prominent cheekbones and violet eyes, she represented a district west of the continental divide. Tight-packed with energy, she was as elegant as a lynx and daring as a tomboy. Respected for her political cunning, she carried a great degree of clout in the house.

Many powerful men in Washington had tried to win her favors on and off the House floor, but she was a private person and dated only men who had nothing to do with business and politics. She carried on a loose secret affair with a man she deeply admired, and was comfortable with the thought that they could never live together as intimate friends or as husband and wife. They both went their separate ways, meeting only when it was convenient.

“How can we become closer than we are now?” asked Loren. “The assets of Japanese branch banks in the United States far outnumber the combined assets of American banks. Over a million Americans already work for Japanese employers in this country. Your lobbyists have for all practical purposes bought our government. You own eighty billion dollars’ worth of prime U.S. real estate. What you mean, Mr. Tsuboi, is that our two nations become even closer so yours can dictate our economy and foreign policy. Am I correct? Please answer.”

Tsuboi was not used to being talked down to by a woman. The feminist movement is almost nonexistent in Japan. Women are dealt out of the business reward system. No Japanese man will take orders from a woman. His composure began to crack, and his advisers sat openmouthed.

“The President and Congress can begin with assurances that you will never close your markets to our products or investments,” Tsuboi answered evasively. “Also, you should allow us to enter your country without the inconvenience of a visa.”

“And if we don’t entertain such suggestions?”

Tsuboi shrugged and smiled venomously. “We are a creditor nation. You are a debtor, the largest in the world. If threatened, we will have no option but to use our leverage in favor of our interests.”

“In other words, America has become subservient to Japan.”

“Since the United States is in a state of decline and my nation is rising at an incredible rate, perhaps you should consider accepting our methods over yours. Your citizens should study our culture in depth. They might learn something.”

“Is that one reason why your vast operations outside of Japan are staffed by your own people and not by workers in the guest country?”

“We hire local personnel,” Tsuboi replied as if hurt.

“But not for top positions. You hire low-end managers, secretaries, and janitors. I also might add, very few women and minorities. And you’ve been very successful at excluding unions.”

Congresswoman Smith had to wait for an answer while Tsuboi conversed in Japanese with his people. They were either unknowing or uncaring that their hushed voices were being recorded and translated. A constant stream of transcriptions was laid in front of Senator Diaz within minutes.

“You must understand,” Tsuboi finally answered. “We are not prejudiced, we simply do not consider it good business practice to permit Westerners who are not versed in our methods, and who have no loyalty toward our native customs, to hold highlevel positions in our foreign facilities.”

“Not a wise course, Mr. Tsuboi,” said Loren tersely. “I think I speak for most Americans when I say we don’t care to be treated with contempt by foreign nationals in our own backyard.”

“That is unfortunate, Congresswoman Smith. Speaking for my people, I do not condone such interference as you imply. We merely wish to turn a profit without stepping on toes.”

“Yes, we’re well aware of Japanese business’s blatant selfinterest. The selling of strategic military and computer technology to the Soviet Bloc. To corporate executives like yourself, the Soviet Union, East Germany, Cuba, Iran, and Libya are merely customers.”

“International ideological and moral issues do not concern us. To put them ahead of practical matters concerning economic trade makes little sense to our way of thinking.”

“One more question,” said Loren. “Is it true you have proposed that your government buy the entire State of Hawaii so they can balance United States trade deficits with Japan?”

Tsuboi did not consult with his aides but fired right back. “Yes, I proposed that measure. Japanese people make up the majority of the population of Hawaii, and our business interests now own sixty-two percent of the real estate. I’ve also suggested that California be turned into a combined economic community shared by Japan and America. We have a vast labor pool we can export, and our capital can build hundreds of manufacturing facilities.”

“I find your concepts most distasteful,” said Loren, fighting back a rising anger. “The rape of California by the Japanese business community will never happen. Unfortunately, many of Hawaii’s residential neighborhoods are already for Japanese only, and a number of resort and golf clubs are off limits to American citizens.” Loren paused to stare Tsuboi in the eye, before continuing through tight lips. “I for one am going to fight further encroachment with every means of my office.”

A murmur of approval ran through the room. A few hands clapped as Diaz smiled and lightly tapped his gavel for quiet.

“Who is to say what lies in the future.” Tsuboi smiled patronizingly. “We do not have a secret plan to take over your government. You have lost the economic game by forfeit.”

“If we have lost, it is to corporate body snatchers backed by Kanoya Securities,” snapped Loren.

“You Americans must learn to accept the facts. If we buy America, it’s because you’re selling it.”

The few spectators allowed in the session and the numerous congressional aides shuddered at the veiled threat, hostility growing in their eyes. Tsuboi’s strange mixture of arrogance and humility, politeness and strength, gave a disturbing and frightening atmosphere to the room.

Diaz’s eyes were hard as he leaned over the desk counter toward Tsuboi. “At least there are two benefits for our side in this unhappy situation.”

For the first time Tsuboi’s expression turned puzzled. “What benefits are you speaking of, Senator?”

“One, step too far and your investments, which are mostly words on paper and computer monitors, will be erased. Two, the ugly American is no more,” Diaz said, his voice cold as an Arctic wind. “He’s been replaced by the ugly Japanese.”

25

AFTER HE LEFT Pitt at the Federal Headquarters Building, Giordino took a cab to the Department of Commerce on Constitution Avenue. Leaning on a friend, who was Assistant Secretary of Domestic and International Business, he borrowed a file on Murmoto auto import inventories. Then he taxied to Alexandria, Virginia. He stopped once to check an address in a phone book. The building he was looking for housed the distributing network of the Murmoto Motor Corporation for a five-state district. He called the number and asked the operator for directions.

It was late afternoon, and already a chilly breeze of early fall swept through the trees and began tearing away the leaves. The cab stopped at the curb in front of a modern redbrick building with large bronze glass windows. A sign with copper letters on the lawn identified it as the Murmoto Motor Distribution Corp.

Giordino paid off the cabbie and stood for a moment studying the parking lot. It was filled entirely with Murmoto cars. Not one American or European make was in sight. He walked through the double front doors and stopped before a very pretty Japanese receptionist.

“May I help you?” she asked sweetly.

“Albert Giordino, Commerce Department,” he answered. “I’d like to talk to someone regarding new car shipments.”

She thought for a moment, and then checked a book of personnel. “That would be Mr. Dennis Suhaka, our director of transportation. I’ll tell him you wish to see him, Mr. Giordano.”

“Giordino, Albert Giordino.”

“I’m sorry, thank you.”

Less than a minute later a tall, attractive secretary of Asian parentage but with a surgical job to remove the eye folds came out to the lobby and escorted Giordino to Suhaka’s office. As he walked down a long, richly carpeted hallway, Giordino was amused at the titles on the doors. No manager, no superintendents, no vice presidents, everyone was a director of something or other.

Suhaka was round and jolly. He wore a grand smile as he came from behind his desk and shook Giordino’s hand. “Dennis Suhaka, Mr. Giordino. What can I do for the Commerce Department?”

To Giordino’s relief, Suhaka didn’t question his unshaven appearance or ask him for identification. “No big deal. Typical bureaucratic paper shuffling for statistical records. My supervisor asked me to stop by on my way home and check the number of cars imported and shipped to your dealers against the figures given by your headquarters in Tokyo.”

“For what period of time? We bring in an enormous number of cars.”

“The past ninety days.”

“No problem,” said Suhaka, going out of his way to be accommodating. “Our shipment lists are all computerized, and I can have them for you in ten minutes. They should tally. Tokyo almost never makes mistakes. Would you care for a cup of coffee while you wait?”

“Yes,” said a weary Giordino. “I could use one.”

Suhaka ushered him into a small empty office, the pretty secretary brought the coffee, and while he was sipping it, she returned with a neat stack of inventory sheets.

Giordino found what Pitt had sent him to find in less than half an hour. He sat back then and dozed, killing time to make it appear he was simply a drone in the great bureaucracy doing his job.

Precisely at five o’clock Suhaka entered the room. “The staff is going home, but I’ll be working late. Is there anything I can help you with?”

“No,” Giordino replied, closing the files. “I’d like to get home too. I’ve put in my seven hours. Now I’m on my time. Thank you for being so helpful. Your import unit figures will be programmed into that great government computer in the sky. For what purpose? Only some little clerk in a basement office knows for sure.” He picked up the file from the Commerce Department and was halfway through the door when he turned as if something had occurred to him, in perfect Peter Falk-Columbo fashion. “There is one thing.”

“Yes?”

“A small inconsistency hardly worth mentioning.”

“Yes?”

“I happened to run across six cars that are shown on your incoming inventory list as having been off-loaded in Baltimore from two different ships, but they’re not accounted for on the export list from your Tokyo headquarters.”

Suhaka genuinely looked to be at a loss. “It was never called to my attention. May I compare it against your figures?”

Giordino spread out the accounting sheets he’d borrowed from his friend at the Department of Commerce and placed them next to the ones given him by Suhaka’s secretary. He underlined the cars itemized on his list but missing on the one from Tokyo. All six were SP-500 sport sedans.

“Speaking officially, we’re not concerned with the discrepancy,” said Giordino indifferently. “As long as you accounted for them upon entry into the country, your company is clean with the government. I’m sure it’s only an error in your Tokyo accounting department that’s since been cleared up.”

“An unforgivable oversight on my part,” Suhaka said, as though he’d dropped the crown jewels down a sewer. “I put too much faith in the home office. Someone on my staff should have caught it.”

“Just out of curiosity, what dealers received those particular cars?”

“One moment.” Suhaka led Giordino to his office, where he sat down at his desk and poked at the keys on his desk computer. Then he sat back and waited. As the data flashed across the screen, his smile abruptly vanished and a paleness showed in his face.

“All six cars were hauled to different dealers. It would take several hours to track each down. If you’d care to check with me tomorrow, I’ll be glad to give you their names.”

Giordino turned up his palms in a lukewarm gesture. “Forget it. We both have more pressing business to worry about. Me, I’ve got to fight the rush hour traffic, get cleaned up, and take my wife out to dinner. It’s our anniversary.”

“Congratulations,” said Suhaka, relief obvious in his eyes.

“Thank you. And thanks also for your cooperation.”

Suhaka’s grand smile was back. “Always glad to help. Goodbye.”

Giordino walked four blocks to a gas station and dialed a pay phone. A male voice answered with a simple hello.

“This is your friendly Mercedes salesman. I have a model I think you’d be interested in.”

“You’re out of your district, sir. You should be selling closer to the waterfront or, better yet, out in the Pacific Ocean.”

“Big deal,” grunted Giordino. “If you can’t afford a good German car, try a Murmoto. I have a lead on six SP-Five Hundred sport sedans that are specially discounted.”

“One moment.”

A voice came over the line that Giordino immediately recognized as Donald Kern’s. “Despite the fact you’ve stepped out of your territory, I’m always in the market to save money. Tell me where I can see your special discounts.”

“You have to get that information out of the Murmoto distributorship in Alexandria. Their computer records show six cars that came into the country but didn’t leave the factory. I suggest you hurry before word gets out and someone else beats you to them. Half the cars were off-loaded at the customs dock in Baltimore on August fourth. The other three came in on September tenth.”

Kern quickly translated Giordino’s meaning. “Hold on,” he ordered. He turned to his deputy, who was listening on the speaker. “Get on it. Gain access to Murmoto’s computer system and dig out their shipping records for the whereabouts of those six cars before they get wise and erase the data.” He returned to Giordino. “Nice work. All is forgiven. By the way, how did you happen to stumble onto the bargains?”

“The idea came from Stutz. Have you heard from him?”

“Yes, he called half an hour ago,” replied Kern. “He discovered the source of the problem.”

“I sort of thought if anyone could troubleshoot a riddle, he could,” said Giordino, referring to Pitt’s canny talent for discovering an unknown. “It takes a devious mind to know one.

26

IT WAS DARK when Yaeger dropped Pitt off at the old hangar on the far corner of Washington’s International Airport. The structure was built in 1936 and once covered the planes of an old air carrier long since purchased by American Airlines. Except for the headlights of Yaeger’s Taurus, the only other illumination came from the glow of the city across the Potomac River and a solitary road lamp fifty meters to the north.

“For someone who hasn’t been home for four months, you sure travel light.” Yaeger laughed.

“My luggage lies with the fishes,” Pitt mumbled through halfclosed eyes.

“I’d love to see your car collection again, but I have to get home.”

“It’s bed for me. Thanks for the lift. And thank you for this afternoon. A fine job as always.”

“Love doing it. Finding the key to your brain twisters beats solving the mysteries of the universe any day.” Yaeger waved, rolled up his window against the cold night air, and drove off into the darkness.

Pitt took a spare transmitter from his pants pocket that he kept in his NUMA office and punched in a series of codes that shut down the hangar’s security system and turned on the interior lights.

He unlocked the old, badly weathered side door and entered. The polished concrete floor of the hangar looked like a transportation museum. An old Ford trimotor airplane was parked in one corner next to a turn-of-the-century railroad Pullman car. Over fifty automobiles covered the remaining 10,000 square meters. European exotica such as a Hispano-Suiza, a Mercedes-Benz 540K, and a beautiful blue Talbot-Lago were sitting across from magnificent American classics like a Cord L-29, a Pierce-Arrow, and a stunning turquoise-green Stutz town car. The only piece that seemed oddly out of place was an old cast-iron bathtub with an outboard motor attached to the backrest.

He tiredly walked up a circular iron stairway to his apartment overlooking the collection. What had once been an office, he had redecorated into a comfortable one-bedroom apartment with a large combination living room-study whose shelves were filled with books and glass-encased models of ships Pitt had discovered and surveyed.

An appetizing aroma drifted from the kitchen. He found a note hanging on a bird of paradise rising from a vase on the dining table. A smile crossed his face as he read it.

Heard you had sneaked back into town. Cleaned out the alien slime that invaded your refrigerator a month after you were gone. Thought you might be hungry. A salad is on ice and the bouillabaisse is warming in a pot on the stove. Sorry I couldn’t be there to greet you, but must attend a dinner at the White House.

Love.

L

He stood for a moment trying to urge his sleep-fogged mind to’ come to a decision. Should he eat and then take a shower? Or jump in the shower first? He decided a hot shower would knock him out and he’d never make it back to the table. He undressed and slipped on a short robe. He ate the salad, a Waldorf, and almost the entire pot of bouillabaisse along with two glasses of Smothers Brothers 1983 Cabernet Sauvignon from a bottle that came from a closet wine rack.

He finished and was rinsing the dishes in the sink when the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Pitt?”

“Yes, Mr. Jordan,” Pitt answered, recognizing the voice. “What can I do for you?”

“I hope I didn’t interrupt your sleep.”

“My head is still ten minutes away from the pillow.”

“I wanted to call and learn if you heard from AI.”

“Yes, he called right after he talked to you.”

“Despite your unauthorized project, the information was quite useful.”

“I know I shouldn’t have stepped out of bounds, but I wanted to play out a hunch.”

“You’re not much of a team player, are you, Dirk?” said Jordan, using Pitt’s given name for the first time. “You’d rather play your own game.

” ‘Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best ends by the best means.’ “

“Your words?”

“No, they belong to Francis Hutcheson, a Scot philosopher.”

“I give you credit for quoting in the exact form,” said Jordan. “Most of official Washington would have plagiarized the original and quoted ‘The ends justifies the means.’ “

“What do you want?” asked Pitt, desperately eyeing his bed.

“I thought you’d also like to know that we found the bomb carriers.”

“All six cars?” Pitt asked, astonished.

“Yes, they’re hidden in a Japanese bank building in downtown Washington. Sealed in an underground basement until the day they’re dusted off and driven to their scheduled targets and detonated.”

“That was fast work.”

“You have your methods, we have ours.”

“Have you placed them under surveillance?”

“Yes, but we have to tread softly. We don’t dare tip our hand yet, not before we terminate those responsible for this horror and destroy their command center,” said Jordan. “As it was, Giordino came within a hair of blowing the operation this afternoon. Somebody at Murmoto Distributors was scared. We got in and out of their accounting system only minutes before they erased their imported shipping data.”

“The data led you to the cars?”

“We were able to track and penetrate a known Japanese owned freight company whose trucks picked them up. They programmed no mention of destination in their records, of course, but we did manage to ‘borrow’ a copy of the driver’s delivery log. It revealed the number of kilometers the truck traveled after leaving the dockyard. The rest involved solid investigation and fancy footwork.”

“Like breaking and entering.”

“We never break when we enter,” said Jordan.

“Should it leak out that our good citizens are sitting on nuclear bombs belonging to a foreign power, the country will be torn apart by panic.”

“Not a healthy situation, I agree. The public uproar and the demand for revenge might scare the Japs into moving the cars to strategic positions and pressing the ‘fire’ button before we can find and neutralize them.”

“An across-the-board search could take twenty years to find them all.”

“I don’t think so,” said Jordan calmly. “We know how they do it, and thanks to you and Giordino, we know what to look for. The Japanese are not half the pros we are in the intelligence business. I’ll bet we’ll find every Murmoto and its bomb within thirty days.”

“I applaud optimism,” said Pitt. “But what about our allies and the Russians? The Japanese may have hidden bombs under them too. Is the President going to warn their leaders of the possibility?”

“Not yet. The NATO nations can’t be trusted not to leak a secret this critical. On the other hand, the President may feel that letting the Kremlin in on it might tighten relations. Think about it. We’re both in the same boat now, both threatened suddenly by another superpower.”

“There is one other frightening threat.

“There’s so many, what have I missed?”

“Suppose Japan set off a few of the bombs in either the U.S. or Russia? We’d each think one attacked the other, go to war, and leave the crumbs for the wily Japs to pick over.”

“I don’t want to go to bed with that in my head,” said Jordan uneasily. “Let’s just take things as they come. If our operation is successful, then it’s in the hands of the politicians again.”

“Your last thought,” said Pitt, feigning apprehension, “would keep anyone awake nights.”

He was just dozing off when the security chime alerted him to the presence of someone trying to enter the hangar. Forcing himself from his comfortable bed, he walked into the study and turned on a small TV monitoring system.

Stacy Fox was standing at the side entrance door staring up and smiling into what Pitt thought was his well-camouflaged hidden security camera.

He pressed a switch, and the door opened. Then he walked out and stood on the stairway balcony.

She stepped into the hangar looking sexy yet demure in a blue collarless jacket, a matching slim skirt, and a jewel-neck white blouse. She moved slowly amid the array of grand machinery in reverent amazement. She stopped at a beautiful 1948 metallic blue Talbot-Lago Grand Sport coupe with special coachwork by a French body maker known as Saoutchik and lightly ran her fingers over one fender.

She was not the first. Almost every woman who ever visited Pitt’s unusual living quarters was drawn to the Talbot. He saw it as a masterpiece of mechanical art, but women felt a sensual attraction when they gazed upon it. Once they saw the sleek, almost feline, flow of the body, sensed the fierce power of the engine, and smelled the elegant leather of the interior, the car became an erotic symbol.

“How did you find me?” he asked, his voice echoing around the vast interior.

She looked up. “I studied your packet for two days before I flew out to the Pacific and boarded the Invincible.”

“Find anything interesting?” he asked, annoyed that his life was laid bare for anyone with the authority to break his privacy.

“You’re quite a guy,

“Flattery indeed.”

“Your car collection is breathtaking.

“There are many larger collections with more expensive models and makes.”

She turned back to the Talbot-Lago. “I love this one.”

“I prefer the green town car next to it.”

Stacy turned and peered at the Stutz as if she was studying a manikin modeling a dress at a fashion show. Then she shook her head. “Handsome but massive, too masculine for a woman’s taste.”

Then she stared up at him again. “Can we talk?”

“If I can stay awake. Come on up.”

She climbed the circular stairs, and he gave her a brief tour of the apartment. “Can I get you a drink?” Pitt asked.

“No thanks.” She stared at him, and compassion came to her eyes. “I shouldn’t have come. You look like you’re about to collapse.”

“I’ll bounce back after a good night’s sleep,” he said ruefully. “What you need is a good back rub,” she said unexpectedly.

“I thought you came to talk.”

“I can talk while I rub. Swedish or shiatsu? What method of massage do you prefer?”

“What the hell, do both.

She laughed. “All right.” She took him by the hand and led him into the bedroom and pushed him facedown on the bed. “Take off your robe.”

“Can’t I keep my modesty with a sheet?”

“You have something I haven’t seen before’?” she said, pulling the sleeves of the robe from his arms.

He laughed. “Don’t ask me to turn over.

“I wanted to apologize before Tim and I leave for the West Coast,” she said seriously.

“Tim?”

“Dr. Weatherhill.”

“You’ve worked together before, I assume.

“Yes.”

“Will I see you again sometime?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Our missions may take us in different directions.” She hesitated a moment. “I want you to know I feel badly about the trouble I’ve caused. You saved my life, and because I took up extra space in the last submersible, you almost lost yours.”

“A good massage and we’ll call it even,” Pitt said, flashing a tired smile.

She looked down on his outstretched body. “For living underwater for four months, you have a good tan.”

“My gypsy blood,” he slurred in a sleepy voice.

Using finger pressure of the basic shiatsu technique, Stacy pressed her fingers and thumbs into the sensitive areas of Pitt’s bare feet.

“That feels great,” he murmured. “Did Jordan brief you on what we learned about the warheads?”

“Yes, you threw him a curve. He thought you had walked out on him. Now that Tim and I know exactly where to target our investigation, we should make good progress at pinpointing the bomb cars.”

“And you’re going to probe the West Coast ports.”

“Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles are the ports where the Murmoto auto carriers dock.”

Pitt went silent as Stacy worked up his legs, combining shiatsu with Swedish kneading methods. She massaged his arms, back, and neck. Then she lightly slapped him on the buttocks and ordered him to turn over, but there was no response.

Pitt was dead asleep.

Sometime during the early morning hours he came awake, feeling her body wildly entangled with his. The movements, the sensations, the soft cries of Stacy’s voice, came through the mist of exhaustion like a dream. He felt as though he was soaring through a thunder and lightning storm before it all faded and he plunged into the black void of deep sleep again.

“Surprise, sleepyhead,” said Congresswoman Loren Smith, trailing a finger down Pitt’s back.

Pin’s mind brushed away the cobwebs as he rolled onto his side and looked up at her. She was sitting cross-legged in bare feet on the empty side of the bed wearing a flowered cotton knit top with a crew neckline and sage-green sailcloth pants with pleats. Her hair was tied back with a large scarf.

Then suddenly he remembered and shot an apprehensive look at the opposite side of the bed. To his lasting relief, it was empty.

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing wondrous deeds in Congress?” he asked, secretly pleased Stacy had left before Loren arrived.

“We’re in recess.” She held a cup of coffee out of his reach, tempting him.

“What do I have to do for the coffee?”

“Cost you a kiss.”

“That’s pretty expensive, but I’m desperate.”

“And an explanation.”

Here it comes, he thought, quickly focusing his thoughts. “Concerning what?”

“Not what but who. You know, the woman you spent the night with.”

“What woman was that?” he asked with practiced innocence.

“The one who slept in this bed last night.”

“You see another woman around here?”

“I don’t have to see her,” said Loren, taking great delight in teasing him. “I can smell her.”

“Would you believe it was my masseuse’

She leaned down and gave him a long kiss. When she finally pulled back, she handed him the coffee and said, “Not bad. I’ll give you an A for creativity.”

“I was conned,” he said, hoping to change the flow of the conversation. “This cup is only half full.”

“You didn’t want me to spill it all over your blankets, did you?” She laughed as if actually enjoying Pitt’s indiscretion. “Drag your great hairy bod out of bed and wash off that perfume. Not a bad odor, I admit. Rather expensive. I’ll start breakfast.”

Loren was standing at the counter slicing the grapefruit as Pitt came out of the shower for the second time in eight hours. He wrapped a towel around his hips, stepped up behind her, and circled his arms around her waist. He nuzzled her neck.

“Long time, no see. How did you ever get along without me for so long?”

“I buried myself in legislation and forgot all about you.”

“You didn’t find time to play?”

“I was a good girl. Not that I’d have been bad if given half the chance, especially if I knew you weren’t wasting any time since coming home.”

Loren bore up quite well, Pitt thought. There was only a slight flush of jealous anger. But she knew better than to crowd the issue. Pitt was not the only man in her life. Neither dictated to the other or displayed undue jealousy, situations that made their affair all the more desirable.

As he nibbled her earlobe, she turned and put her arms around his neck. “Jim Sandecker told me about the destruction of your project, and how you barely escaped.”

“That’s supposed to be secret,” he said as they brushed noses.

“Congresswomen do have privileges.”

“You can have privileges with me any time.”

Her eyes turned dark. “Seriously, I’m sorry the facility was lost.”

“We’ll build another.” He smiled down at her. “The results of all our tests were saved. That’s what counts.”

“Jim said you came within seconds of dying.”

Pitt grinned. “Water under the bridge, as they say.” He released her and sat down at the table. It seemed just another Sunday morning domestic scene between a comfortably married man and his wife, yet neither Loren nor Dirk had ever been married.

He picked up a newspaper she’d bought along with the groceries and scanned the stories. His eyes stopped at one article, and after scanning its contents he looked up.

“I see you made the Post again,” he said, grinning. “Getting nasty with our friends in the Orient, are we?”

Loren expertly flipped an omelet onto a dish. “Ownership of a third of our businesses has been transferred to Tokyo. And with it went our prosperity and independence as a nation. America no longer belongs to Americans. We’ve become a financial colony of Japan.”

“That bad?”

“The public has no idea how bad,” said Loren, setting the omelet and a plate of toast in front of Pitt. “Our huge deficits have created an open door for our economy to flow out and Japanese money to rush in.”

“We have only ourselves to blame,” he said, waving a fork. “They underconsume, we overconsume, burying ourselves deeper in debt. We gave away or sold out our lead in whatever technology that wasn’t stolen. And we stand in line with open pocketbooks and tongues hanging in greedy anticipation to sell them our corporations and real estate to make a fast buck. Face the facts, Loren, none of this could have happened if the public, the business community, you people in Congress, and the economic cretins in the White House had realized this country was engaged in a no-quarter financial war against an enemy who looks upon us as inferior. As it stands, we’ve thrown away any chance of winning.”

Loren sat down with a cup of coffee and passed Pitt a glass of orange juice. “That’s the longest speech I’ve ever heard you give. You thought of running for the Senate?”

“I’d rather have my toenails torn out. Besides, one Pitt on Capitol Hill is enough,” he said, referring to his father, Senator George Pitt of California.

“Have you seen the senator?”

“Not yet,” Pitt said, taking a bite of egg. “I haven’t had a chance.”

“What are your plans?” Loren asked, staring wistfully into Pitt’s opaline green eyes.

“I’m going to putter on the cars and take it easy for the next couple of days. Maybe if I can tune up the Stutz in time, I’ll enter it in the classic car races.”

“I can think of something more fun than getting greasy,” she said, her voice throaty.

She came around the table, reached down and took a surprisingly strong grip of his arm. He could feel desire flowing from her like nectar, and suddenly he wanted her more than he ever had before. He only hoped he was up to a second round. Then as if drawn by a magnet, he allowed himself to be pulled to the couch.

“Not in the bed,” she said huskily. “Not until you change the sheets.”

27

HIDEKI SUMA STEPPED out of his private Murmoto tilt-rotor executive jet followed by Moro Kamatori. The aircraft had landed at a heliport beside a huge solar plastic dome that rose fifty meters into the sky. Centered in a densely landscaped park, the dome covered a vast atrium that comprised the inner core of a subterranean project called “Edo” after the city renamed Tokyo during the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

The first unit of Japan’s new underground frontier, Edo, City was designed and built by Suma as a scientific research and think-tank community that supported 60,000 people. Shaped like a great cylinder around the atrium, the twenty-story circular complex contained living quarters for the scientific community, offices, public baths, convention halls, restaurants, a shopping mall, library, and its own thousand-man security force.

Smaller underground cylinders connected by tunnels to the main core held the communications equipment, heating and cooling systems, temperature and humidity controls, electrical power plants, and waste processing machinery. The elaborate structures were constructed of ceramic concrete and reached 1500 meters deep in the volcanic rock.

Soma funded the project himself without any government involvement. Any laws or restrictions that hindered construction were quickly resolved by the enormous power wielded by Soma’s corporate and underworld tentacles.

He and Kamatori boarded a concealed elevator that took them to a suite of his corporate offices covering the entire fourth floor of the outer cylinder. His secretary, Toshie Kudo, stood waiting as the doors opened to his heavily guarded private office and apartment. The spacious three-tiered rooms were decorated with delicately painted screens and murals and showcases of beautiful ceramics and sixteenth-century robes of ornately woven brocades, satins, and crepe. Paintings of land and seascapes covered most of the walls, some depicting dragons, leopards, tigers, and hawks that represented the martial prowess of the warrior class.

“Mr. Ashikaga Enshu is waiting,” announced Toshie.

“I don’t recall the name.”

“Mr. Enshu is an investigator who specializes in hunting down rare art and negotiating its sale for his clients,” explained Toshie. “He called and said he’d discovered a painting that fits your collection. I took the liberty of setting an appointment for him to display it for your approval.”

“I have little time,” said Suma, glancing at his watch.

Kamatori shrugged. “Won’t hurt to see what he’s brought you, Hideki. Maybe he’s found the painting you’ve been looking for.”

He nodded at Toshie. “All right, please send him in.”

Soma bowed as the art dealer stepped into the room. “You have a new acquisition for my collection, Mr. Enshu?”

“Yes, I hope so, one that I believe you will be most happy I was able to find for you.” Ashikaga smiled warmly beneath a perfect mane of silver hair, heavy eyebrows, and full mustache.

“Please set it on the stand in the light,” said Suma, pointing at an easel in front of a large window.

“May I draw the blinds open a little more’?”

“Please do so.”

Enshu pulled the draw lines to the slatted blinds. Then he set the painting on the easel but kept it covered by a silk cloth. “From the sixteenth-century Kano school, a Masaki Shimzu.”

“The revered seascape artist,” said Kamatori, displaying a rare hint of excitement. “One of your favorites, Hideki.”

“You know I am a devotee of Shimzu?” Suma asked Enshu.

“A well-known fact in art circles that you collect his work, especially the paintings he made of our surrounding islands.”

Suma turned to Toshie. “How many of his pieces do I have in my collection?”

“You presently own eleven out of the thirteen island seascapes and four of his landscape paintings of the Hida Mountains.”

“And this new one would make twelve in the island set.”

“Yes.”

“What Shimzu island painting have you brought me?” Suma asked Enshu expectantly. “Ajima?”

“No, Kechi.”

Suma looked visibly disappointed. “I had hoped it might be Ajima.”

“I’m sorry.” Enshu held out his hands in a defeatist gesture. “The Ajima was sadly lost during the fall of Germany. It was last seen hanging in the office of the ambassador in our Berlin embassy in May of nineteen forty-five.”

“I will gladly pay you to keep up the search.”

“Thank you,” said Enshu, bowing. “I already have investigators in Europe and the United States trying to locate it.”

“Good, now let’s have the unveiling of Kechi Island.”

With a practiced flourish, Enshu undraped a lavish painting of a bird’s-eye view of an island in monochrome ink with an abundant use of brilliant colors and gold leaf.

“Breathtaking,” murmured Toshie in awe.

Enshu nodded in agreement. “The finest example of Shimzu’s work I’ve ever seen.”

“What do you think, Hideki?” asked Kamatori.

“A masterwork,” answered Suma, moved by the genius of the artist. “Incredible that he could paint an overhead view with such vivid detail in the early sixteen-hundreds. It’s almost as if he did it from a tethered balloon.”

“Legend says he painted from a kite,” said Toshie.

“Sketched from a kite is more probable,” corrected Enshu. “And painted the scene on the ground.”

“And why not?” Suma’s eyes never left the painting. “Our people were building and flying kites over a thousand years ago.” He turned finally and faced Enshu. “You have done well, Mr. Enshu. Where did you find it?”

“In a banker’s home in Hong Kong,” Enshu replied. “He was selling his assets and moving his operations to Malaysia before the Chinese take over. It took me nearly a year, but I finally persuaded him to sell over the telephone. I wasted no time and flew to Hong Kong to settle the transaction and return here with the painting. I came directly to your office from the airport.”

“How much?”

“A hundred and forty-five million yen.”

Suma rubbed his hands in satisfaction. “A very good price. Consider it sold.”

“Thank you, Mr. Suma. You are most gracious. I shall keep looking for the Ajima painting.”

They exchanged bows, and then Toshie escorted Enshu from the office.

Suma’s eyes returned to the painting. The shores were littered with black rock, and there was a small village with fishing boats at one end. The perspective was as precise as an aerial photo.

“How strange,” he said quietly. “The only painting of the island collection I don’t possess is the one I desire the most.”

“If it still exists, Enshu will find it,” Kamatori consoled him. “He strikes me as being tenacious.”

“I’ll pay him ten times the Kechi price for the Ajima.”

Kamatori sat in a chair and stretched out his legs. “Little did Shimzu know when he painted Ajima what the island would come to represent.”

Toshie returned and reminded Suma, “You have a meeting with Mr. Yoshishu in ten minutes.”

“The grand old thief and leader of the Gold Dragons.” Kamatori smiled mockingly. “Come to audit his share of your financial empire.”

Suma pointed through the huge curved windows overlooking the atrium. “None of this would have been possible without the organization Korori Yoshishu and my father built during and after the war.”

“The Gold Dragons and the other secret societies have no place in the future Nippon,” said Kamatori, using the traditional word, meaning “source of the sun.”

“They may seem quaint alongside our modern technology,” Suma admitted, “but they still share an important niche in our culture. My association with them through the years has proven most valuable to me.”

“Your power goes beyond the need for fanatical factions or personality cults or underworld syndicates,” Kamatori said earnestly. “You have the power to pull the strings of a government run by your personal puppets, and yet you are chained to corrupt underworld figures. If it ever leaked out that you are the number two dragon it will cost you dearly.”

“I am not chained to anyone,” said Suma in a patient explaining tone. “What the laws call criminal activity has been a tradition in my family for two centuries. I’ve honored the code by following in my ancestors’ footsteps and building an organization on their foundation that’s stronger than many nations of the world. I am not ashamed of underworld friends.”

“I’d be happier if you showed respect for the Emperor and followed the old moral ways.”

“I’m sorry, Moro. Though I pray at Yasukuni Shrine for the spirit of my father, I feel no urge to venerate the myth of a Godlike Emperor. Nor do I take part in tea ceremonies, meet with geishas, attend Kabuki plays, watch sumo wrestling, or believe in the superiority of our native culture. Nor do I subscribe to the new theory that we are superior in our customs, intelligence, emotions, language, and particularly the design of our brains to people in the West. I refuse to underestimate my competitors and indulge in national conformity and group thinking. I am my own god, and my faith is in money and power. Does that anger you?”

Kamatori looked down at his hands that lay open in his lap. He sat silent, a growing look of sadness in his eyes. Finally he said, “No, it saddens me. I bow to the Emperor and our traditional culture. I believe in his divine descent and that we and our islands are also of divine origin. And I believe in the blood purity and spiritual unity of our race. But I follow you too, Hideki, because we are old friends, and despite your sinister operations you have greatly contributed to Nippon’s new claim as the most powerful nation on earth.”

“Your loyalty is deeply appreciated, Moro,” said Suma honestly. “I’d expect no less from one who takes pride in his samurai ancestry and his prowess with the katana.

“The katana, more than a sword, but the living soul of the samurai,” Kamatori said with reverence. “To be expert in its use is divine. To wield it in defense of the Emperor is to ensure my soul’s rest in Yasukuni.”

“Yet you’ve drawn your blade for me when I’ve asked you.”

Kamatori stared at him. “I gladly kill in your name to honor the good you do for our people.”

Suma looked into the lifeless eyes of his hired killer, a living throwback to the times when samurai warriors murdered for whatever feudal lord offered them security and advancement. He was also aware that a samurai’s absolute loyalty could be reversed overnight. When he spoke, his voice was pleasantly firm.

“Some men hunt wild game with a bow and arrow, most use a firearm. You are the only one I know, Moro, who hunts human game with a sword.”

“You’re looking well, old friend,” said Suma as Korori Yoshishu was ushered into his office by Toshie. Yoshishu was accompanied by Ichiro Tsuboi, who had just arrived from the United States after his debate with the congressional select subcommittee.

The old man, a devout realist, smiled at Suma. “Not well but older. A few more passings of the moon and I’ll sleep with my esteemed ancestors.”

“You’ll see a hundred new moons.”

“The prospect of leaving all these age-inflicted aches and pains behind makes my exit an event I look forward to.”

Toshie closed the door and left as Suma bowed to Tsuboi. “Good to see you, Ichiro. Welcome home from Washington. I’m told you gave the American politicians another Pearl Harbor.”

“Nothing so dramatic,” said Tsuboi. “But I do believe I put a few cracks in their Capitol building.”

Unknown but to a select few, Tsuboi became a member of the Gold Dragons when he was only fourteen. Yoshishu took an interest in the young boy and saw to his advancement in the secret society and taught him the art of financial manipulation on a grand scale. Now as head of Kanoya Securities, Tsuboi personally guarded Yoshishu and Suma’s financial empires and guided their secret transactions.

“You both know my trusted friend and adviser, Moro Kamatori.”

“A swordsman almost as good as me in my youth,” said Yoshishu.

Kamatori bowed to his waist. “I’m sure your katana is still swifter than mine.”

“I knew your father when he was fencing master at the university,” said Tsuboi. “I was his worst pupil. He suggested I buy a cannon and take up elephant shooting.”

Suma took Yoshishu by the arm and led him to a chair. Japan’s once most feared man walked slow and stiffly, but his face wore a granite smile and his eyes missed nothing.

He settled into a straightbacked chair and looked up at Suma and came directly to the point of his visit. “What is the state of the Kaiten Project?”

“We have eighteen bomb vehicles on the high seas. They are the last. Four are destined for the United States. Five for the Soviet Union, and the rest divided up among Europe and the Pacific nations.”

“The time until they’re concealed near targets?”

“No later than three weeks. By then our command center will come on-line with its defense-detection and detonation systems.”

Yoshishu looked at Suma in surprise. “The untimely explosion on board the Divine Star did not set back the project?”

“Fortunately I planned for a possible ship loss due to storm, collision, or other maritime accident. I held six warheads in reserve. The three that were lost in the explosion I replaced. After installation in the autos, they were shipped to Veracruz, Mexico. From there they will be driven across the Texas border into the U.S. to their target areas.”

“The remainder are safely deposited, I hope.”

“On a surplus tanker anchored fifty miles off a desolate shore of Hokkaido.”

“Do we know what caused the detonation on board the Divine Star?”

“We’re at a loss to explain the premature explosion,” answered Suma. “Every conceivable safeguard was in place. One of the autos must have become thrown about in rough seas and damaged the warhead container. Radiation then leaked and spread throughout the cargo decks. The crew panicked and abandoned ship. A Norwegian ship discovered the derelict and sent over a boarding party. Shortly after, the Divine Star mysteriously blew up.”

“And the escaped crew?”

“No trace. They vanished during the storm.

“What is the total number of cars in the system?” asked Yoshishu.

Suma stepped to his desk and pushed a button on a small handheld control box. The far wall rose into the ceiling, revealing a large transparent screen. He pressed another command into the box and a holographic image of the global earth appeared in pulsating neonlike colors. Then he programmed the detonation sites that burst into tiny points of gold light at strategic locations around nearly twenty countries. Only then did Suma answer Yoshishu’s question.

“One hundred and thirty in fifteen countries.

Yoshishu sat silent, staring at the little beams as they flashed around the room with the rotation of the globe like reflections on a mirrored ball above a dance floor.

The Soviet Union had more light clusters than any other nation, suggesting a greater threat to Japan than her trade rivals in Europe and the United States. Strangely, no military installations or major cities were targeted. All of the lights appeared to emanate from barren or lightly populated areas, making the Kaiten menace all the more mysterious as an extortion tool.

“Your father’s spirit is proud of you,” Yoshishu said in quiet awe. “Thanks to your genius we can take our rightful place as a world power of the first magnitude. The twenty-first century belongs to Nippon. America and Russia are finished.”

Suma was pleased. “The Kaiten Project could not have been created and built without your support, my dear old friend, and certainly not without the financial wizardry of Ichiro Tsuboi.”

“You are most kind,” said Tsuboi with a bow. “The Machiavellian intrigue of arranging secret funding to build a clandestine nuclear weapons plant came as a great challenge.”

“Soviet and Western intelligence know we have the capacity,” Kamatori said, bringing a realistic bent into the conversation.

“If they didn’t know before the explosion,” added Suma, “they do now.”

“The Americans have suspected us for several years,” said Suma. “But they have been unable to penetrate our security rings and confirm the exact location of our facility.”

“Lucky for us the fools keep searching horizontal instead of vertical.” Yoshishu’s voice was ironic. “But we must face the very real possibility that sooner or later the CIA or KGB will track the site.”

“Probably sooner,” said Kamatori. “One of our undercover agents has informed me that a few days after the Divine Star explosion, the Americans launched an all-out covert operation to investigate our involvement. They’ve already been sniffing around one of Murmoto’s automotive distributors.”

A worried crease appeared on Yoshishu’s face. “They are good, the American intelligence people. I fear the Kaiten Project is in jeopardy.”

“We’ll know before tomorrow just how much they’ve learned,” said Kamatori. “I meet with our agent, who has just returned from Washington. He claims to have updated information.”

The worry in Yoshishu’s mind deepened. “We cannot allow the project to be endangered before the command center is fully operational. The consequences could spell the end of our new empire.

“I agree,” said Tsuboi grimly. “For the next three weeks we are vulnerable while the warheads sit useless. One leak and the Western nations would band together and strike us from all sides, economically as well as militarily.”

“Not to worry,” said Suma. “Their agents may stumble onto our nuclear weapons manufacturing plant, but they will never discover the whereabouts of the Kaiten Project’s brain center. Not in a hundred years, much less three weeks.”

“And even if fortune smiled on them,” said Kamatori, “they can never neutralize it in time. There is only one way in, and that’s fortified by massive steel barriers and guarded by a heavily armed security force. The installation can take a direct hit by a nuclear bomb and still function.”

A tight smile cut Suma’s lips. “Everything is working to our advantage. The slightest hint of an attempted penetration or an attack by enemy special forces, and we could threaten to detonate one or more of the auto warheads.”

Tsuboi wasn’t convinced. “What good is an empty threat?”

“Hideki makes a good point,” said Kamatori. “No one outside this room or the engineers in the command center knows our system is three weeks away from completion. Western leaders can easily be bluffed into thinking the system is fully operational.”

Yoshishu gave a satisfied nod of his head. “Then we have nothing to fear.”

“A guaranteed conclusion,” Suma stated without hesitation. “We’re making too much out of a nightmare that will never happen.”

Silence then in the richly decorated office, the four men sitting, each one with his own thoughts. After a minute, Suma’s desk interoffice phone buzzed. He picked up the receiver and listened a moment without speaking. Then he set it down.

“My secretary informs me that my chef has dinner prepared in the private dining room. I would be most happy if my honored guests will dine with me.”

Yoshishu came slowly to his feet. “I happily accept. Knowing the superb culinary qualities of your chef, I was hoping you’d ask.”

“Before we break off,” said Tsuboi, “there is one other problem.”

Suma nodded. “You have the floor, Ichiro.”

“Obviously we can’t go around exploding nuclear bombs every time an unfriendly government rattles a saber over trade restrictions or increased import tariffs. We must have alternatives that are not so catastrophic.”

Suma and Kamatori exchanged looks. “We’ve given that very situation considerable thought,” said Suma, “and we think the best solution is abduction of our enemies.”

“Terrorism is not the way of our culture,” objected Tsuboi.

“What do you call the Blood Sun Brotherhood, my son?” asked Yoshishu calmly.

“Crazy fanatical butchers. They cut down innocent women and children in the name of some vague revolutionary dogma that makes no sense to anyone.”

“Yes, but they’re Japanese.”

“A few, but most are East Germans, trained by the KGB.”

“They can be used,” Suma said flatly.

Tsuboi was not sold. “I do not advise the slightest association with them. Any suspected connection, and outside probes will be launched into areas we dare not have opened.”

“Hideki is not advocating assassination,” elaborated Kamatori. “What he is suggesting is that abduction of unharmed hostages be blamed on the Blood Red Brotherhood.”

“Now that makes more sense.” Yoshishu smiled. “I think I understand. You’re advocating the silken prison.”

Tsuboi shook his head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“From the old days,” explained Yoshishu. “When a shogun did not want an enemy assassinated, he had him abducted and placed secretly in a prison of luxury as a sign of respect. Then he set the blame for the disappearance on his prisoner’s jealous rivals.”

“Exactly.” Suma nodded. “I have built such a facility on a small but modern estate.”

“Isn’t that a bit risky?” inquired Tsuboi.

“The obvious is never suspected.”

Kamatori looked at Tsuboi. “If you have candidates for oblivion, you need only give me their names.”

Tsuboi’s eyes turned down, unseeing. Then he looked up. “There are two people in the United States who are causing us much grief. But you must be most careful. They are members of Congress, and their abduction will certainly cause a storm of outrage.”

“A Blood Red Brotherhood kidnapping and ransom situation should make a good cover for their sudden disappearance,” said Suma as if he was describing the weather.

“Who precisely do you have in mind?” asked Kamatori.

“Congresswoman Loren Smith and Senator Michael Diaz.”

Yoshishu nodded. “Ah, yes, the pair who are promoting a total trade barrier against us.”

“Despite our lobbying efforts, they’re gathering enough votes to force their legislation through both houses. Eliminate them and the drive would fall apart.”

“There will be great outrage in their government,” Suma warned. “It may backlash.”

“Our lobby interests have acquired a powerful influence on Congress and will direct the outrage toward a terrorist conspiracy.” Tsuboi’s anger at his treatment by the select subcommittee had not cooled. “We have lost enough face at the hands of American politicians. Let them learn their power no longer protects them from harm.”

Yoshishu stared out the window unseeing for a few moments. Then he shook his head. “A great pity.”

Suma looked at him. “What is a great pity, old friend?”

“The United States of America,” Yoshishu spoke “She’s like a beautiful woman who is dying of cancer.”

28

MARVIN SHOWALTER SAT on a train traveling through Tokyo’s clean and efficient subway. He made no attempt to act as if he was reading a newspaper or a book. He calmly stared at his fellow passengers, “making,” as they say in the trade, the two Japanese secret service agents who were keeping him under surveillance from the next car.

Showalter had walked from the U.S. embassy shortly after a boring meeting with junketing congressmen over Japan’s refusal to allow American construction equipment to be used on a new building ready to go up for an American oil company. It was simply another case of throwing up protectionist barriers, while the Japanese could freely enter the United States and raise buildings with their architects, foremen, materials, and equipment without major problems over government restrictions.

“Fair is fair” did not apply to two-way trade with Japan.

He appeared to be on his way to the small condominium his wife and two young children called home during his assignment in Japan. The building was owned by the American government and housed most of the embassy workers and their families. The construction cost of the entire ten-story building was less than a third the price of the land it stood on.

His shadows had fallen into his travel routine, which never varied except when he put in an hour or two overtime. He smiled to himself as his stop came up and the two agents rose in anticipation of his getting off. He stepped to the door with the rest of the crowd, waiting for it to open onto the platform. It was the oldest trick in the world, one shown in the movie The French Connection.

As the door opened, Showalter flowed with the crowd to the platform and began counting. He hesitated and casually glanced at the two Japanese agents. They had stepped from the middle door in the next car and were walking slowly in his direction, shielded by a group of departing passengers.

When he hit twenty-five, he swiftly turned around and stepped back inside the car. Two seconds later the door closed and the train began moving. Too late, the Japanese secret service agents realized they’d been duped. Frantically they attempted to pry the doors apart and reboard the train. But it was useless. They leaped back on the platform as the train picked up speed and disappeared into the tunnel.

Showalter wasn’t overly pleased with the simple dodge. Next time his tails would be wary and make his evasive moves more intricate. He transferred to a connecting line at the next stop and rode to Asakusa, an atmospheric area northeast of Tokyo in a section known as Shitamachi. Asakusa was part of the old city of Tokyo that had preserved much of its past.

Showalter sat and studied the people around him as he had done so many times. Some of his fellow passengers studied him in return. They called anyone who did not share their thick black straight hair, dark eyes, and skin coloring a gaijin, literally translated as an “outside person.” He theorized that the close similarity in their physical looks was perhaps the basis for their unity and conformity. That and the isolation of their island home.

Their society evolved around the family and expanded to include everyone who worked around them. Lives were lived in a complicated quilt of obligations, contentedness, duty, and accomplishment. They accepted a regimented lifestyle as if all others were a waste to be pitied.

The uncohesive melting pot of the United States could not be conceived, nor would it be tolerated in Japan, a country with the toughest immigration laws to be found in the world.

The train stopped at the Tawaramachi subway station, and he stepped off and joined the crowd that rose to the busy street of Kappabashi. He hailed a cab and rode past the restaurant wholesale supply stores that sold the plastic food replicas seen in eatery windows. He directed the driver to a several-square-block section crowded with craftsmen’s shops, ancient temples, and old houses.

He got out and paid the driver at an intersection, and then walked down a narrow flower-lined lane until he came to a Japanese inn known as a ryokan.

Although rustic and worn on the outside, the ryokan was quite neat and attractive inside. Showalter was met at the door by one of the staff, who bowed and said, “Welcome to the Ritz.”

“I thought this was the Asakusa Dude Ranch,” Showalter replied.

Without another word, the muscular doorman with arms and legs like railroad ties showed him over the smooth flattened river stones of the entry. They stepped onto the polished oak floor of the reception area, where Showalter was politely asked to remove his shoes and put on a pair of plastic slippers.

Unlike most slippers that are too small for large Anglo feet, Showalter’s fit like they were custom-ordered, which indeed they were, since the ryokan was secretly owned and operated by an American intelligence agency that specialized in covert and safe retreats.

Showalter’s room had a sliding shoji paper door that opened onto a small veranda overlooking a formal garden with water trickling restfully onto rocks through bamboo tubes. The floor was covered by the traditional tatami straw matting. He had to take off the slippers and walk in his socks while on the fragile mats.

There were no chairs or furniture, only cushions on the floor, and a bed made up of many pillows and heavy cushions the Japanese called “futons.” A small fire pit sat in the center of the guest room with warm glowing coals.

Showalter undressed and donned a light cotton yukata, a short robe. Then a maid in a kimono led him to the inn’s communal bathing facilities. He left the yukata and his wristwatch in a wicker basket, and shielded by only a washcloth-size towel, he entered the steamy bath area. He stepped around the low stools and wooden pails and stood under a simple faucet. He lathered up and rinsed off. Only then was he ready to sink slowly into the hot water of a huge wooden pool-like tub.

A shadowy figure was already sitting chest deep in the water. Showalter greeted him.

“The Honda Team, I presume.”

“Only half of it,” answered Roy Orita. “Jim Hanamura should be along any time. Like a saki?”

“Against orders to drink during an operation,” said Showalter, easing into the steaming water. “But what the hell. I’m colder than ice cream. Pour me a double.”

Orita filled a small ceramic cup out of a bottle sitting on the edge of the pool. “How’s life at the embassy?”

“The usual dung one would expect from the State Department.” Showalter took a long sip of the saki and let it settle into his stomach. “How goes the investigation? Any information on the leads we received from Team Lincoln?”

“I checked out the company management of Murmoto. I can’t uncover a direct link between the corporate executive officers and the warheads. My own opinion is they’re clean. They haven’t the slightest idea of what is going on beneath their noses.”

“Some of them must know.”

Orita grinned. “Only two assembly line workers have to be in on it.”

“Why only two?”

“All that are required. The assembly line worker who oversees the installation of the air conditioners. He’s in a position to select specific cars to get the warheads. And the inspector who checks out the units to make sure they work before the cars are shipped to the dealers. He okays the phony units that don’t operate.”

“There has to be a third man,” disagreed Showalter. “An agent in the factory’s computerized shipping department who erases all trace of the bomb cars, except on the bill of lading which is required to satisfy foreign customs officials.”

“Have you followed the thread from factory to air conditioner supplier to nuke plant?”

“To the supplier, yes. Then the trail vanishes. I hope to pick up a scent and follow it to the source in the next few days.”

Orita’s voice became silent as a man came from the dressing room and walked toward the heated pool. He was short with silver hair and mustache and held the small wash towel in front of his groin.

“Who the hell are you?” demanded Showalter, alarmed that a stranger had broken the security of the ryokan.

“My name is Ashikaga Enshu.”

“Who?”

The man stood there without answering for several seconds. Showalter began frantically looking around, wondering why no security sentries were present.

Then Orita began laughing. “Great disguise, Jim. You fooled hell out of both of us.”

James Hanamura removed the silver-haired wig and pulled off the eyebrows and mustache. “Not bad if I do say so. I faked out Hideki Suma and his secretary as well.”

Showalter exhaled a great breath and sank in the water up to his chin. “Jesus, you gave me a scare. For all I knew you had penetrated the security rings and were about to dispatch Orita and me.”

“That saki looks good. Any left?”

Orita poured him a cup. “There’s a whole case of it in the kitchen.” Then suddenly a surprised expression swept his face. “What was that you just said?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Hideki Suma.”

“My half of the operation. I traced ownership of the Murmoto Automotive and Aircraft Corporation and the Sushimo Steamship Company through a string of phony business fronts to Hideki Suma, the recluse tycoon. Murmoto and Sushimo are only a drop in the bucket. This guy has more assets than the entire State of California, with Nevada and Arizona thrown in.”

“Didn’t the ship that blew up, the Divine Star, belong to Sushimo Steamship?” asked Showalter.

“Yes indeed. A neat package, wouldn’t you say? It looks to me like Hideki Suma is up to his ears in this mess.”

“Suma is a very powerful man,” said Showalter. “He prospers in strange and devious ways. They say that if he commands Prime Minister Junshiro and his cabinet ministers to flap their arms and fly, they’d fight over who jumps out the window first.”

“You actually got in to see Suma?” Orita asked in amazement.

“Nothing to it. You should see his office and secretary. Both very choice.”

“Why the disguise?”

“Team Lincoln’s idea. Suma collects paintings by a sixteenth century Japanese artist named Masaki Shimzu. Jordan hired an expert forger to paint what is called in art circles an undiscovered Shimzu, one it was known Suma didn’t have in his collection. Then, as the reputable finder of lost art, Ashikaga Enshu, I sold it to him.”

Showalter nodded. “Clever, clever. You must have studied your Japanese art.”

“A crash course.” Hanamura laughed. “Suma elaborated on how Shimzu painted islands from a balloon. He’d have ordered me drawn and quartered if he knew he was laying out a hundred and forty-five million yen for a fake painted from a satellite photo.”

“For what purpose?” asked Orita, his face oddly taut.

“To plant bugs in his office, naturally.”

“How come I wasn’t in on this?”

“I thought it best you two didn’t know what the other was doing,” Showalter answered Orita, “so you couldn’t reveal anything of importance if either of you were compromised.”

“Where did you set the bugs?” Orita asked Hanamura.

“Two in the frame of the painting. One in an easel he’s standing in front of a window, and another inside the draw handle for the blinds. The latter two are in perfect alignment with a relay transmitter I placed in a tree outside the atrium dome of the city.”

“What if Suma has hidden sweep equipment?”

“I ‘borrowed’ the electrical blueprints to his floor of the building. His detection equipment is first rate, but it won’t pick up our bugs. And when I say bugs, I’m talking in the literal sense.”

Orita missed Hanamura’s implication. “You lost me.”

“Our miniature receiving and sending units are not designed with the look of tiny electronic objects. They’re molded to look like ants. If discovered, they’ll either be ignored or simply mashed without suspicion.”

Showalter nodded. “That’s pretty slick.”

“Even our Japanese brothers have to take a back seat to our home-grown eavesdropping technology.” Hanamura smiled widely. “The relay transmitter, which is about the size of a golf ball, sends all conversations, including telephone or intercom calls from the office bugs, to one of our satellites, and then beams them down to Mel Penner and his Team Chrysler on Palau.”

Orita stared into the water. “Do we know for certain if they’re picking up Suma’s conversations?”

“The system is fully operational,” Showalter assured him. “I contacted Penner before I left for our meeting. He’s receiving the signals loud and clear. And so are we. A member of my team at the embassy is also tuned in on Jim’s listening gear.”

“You’ll alert us, I hope, if any information comes through that we can use in the investigation.”

“Absolutely.” Showalter poured himself another saki. “As a matter of interest, there was an intriguing conversation going on between Suma and Korori Yoshishu when I left the embassy. Too bad I only caught the first couple of minutes of it.”

“Yoshishu,” muttered Hanamura. “Good lord, is that old crook still alive?”

“Ninety-one and rotten as ever,” answered Showalter.

Hanamura shook his head. “The master criminal of the age, personally responsible for more than a million deaths. If Yoshishu is behind Suma and a worldwide organization of hidden nuclear warheads, we’re all in deep, deep trouble.”

An hour before dawn a Murmoto limousine pulled to a stop and a figure stepped from the shadows and quickly ducked through the opened door. Then the car crawled slowly through the narrow back streets of Asakusa.

“Mr. Suma’s office is bugged,” said Orita. “One of our agents posing as an art dealer hid sophisticated listening devices in the frame of a painting, an easel, and the draw pull of the window blinds.”

“Are you certain?” demanded a stunned Kamatori. “The dealer produced an original Shimzu.”

“A fake painted from a satellite photo.”

Kamatori hissed. “You should have informed me sooner.”

“I only learned of it a few hours ago.”

Kamatori said nothing but stared at Orita’s face in the semi darkness of the limousine as if reinforcing his trust.

Like George Furukawa, Roy Orita was an intelligence sleeper, born in the United States of Japanese parents and groomed for employment in the CIA.

Finally Kamatori said, “Much was said this afternoon that could prove damaging to Mr. Suma. There can be no mistake about this?”

“Did the dealer say his name was Ashikaga Enshu?”

Kamatori felt shock mingled with shame. His job was to protect Suma’s organization from penetration. He had failed miserably and lost much face.

“Yes, Enshu.”

“His real name is James Hanamura. The other half of my team whose job is to investigate the source of the nuclear car bombs.”

“Who fathomed the tie between the cars and the warheads?”

“An amateur by the name of Dirk Pitt. He was borrowed from the National Underwater and Marine Agency.”

“Is he dangerous to us?”

“He might cause trouble. I can’t say for sure. He’s not assigned to the investigative operations. But he does have an awesome reputation for successfully carrying through impossible projects.”

Kamatori sat back and idly stared out the window at the darkened buildings. At last he turned to Orita.

“Can you give me a list of names of the agents you’re working with and provide updates on their activities?”

Orita nodded. “The list of names, yes. The activities, no way. We all work separately. Like a magical act, no one knows what the other hand is doing.”

“Keep me informed as best you can.”

“What do you intend to do about Pitt?”

Kamatori looked at Orita with venom in his cold eyes. “If a safe opportunity arises, kill him.”

29

GUIDED BY LOREN SMITH on one side and Al Giordino on the other, Pitt backed the Stutz town car down the ramps of a trailer and parked it between a red 1926 Hispano-Suiza, a big cabriolet manufactured in France, and a beautiful 1931 Marmon V-16 town car. He cocked an ear and listened to the engine a minute, revving the rpm’s, satisfying himself it was turning over smoothly without a miss. Then he switched off the ignition.

It was an Indian summer day. The sky was clear and warm for early fall. Pitt wore corduroy slacks and a suede sport coat, while Loren looked radiant in a dusty rose jumpsuit.

While Giordino moved the pickup truck and trailer to a parking lot, Loren stood on the running board of the Stutz and gazed at the field of over a hundred classic cars arranged around the infield of the Virginia Memorial racetrack. The concours d’elegance, a show where the cars were judged on appearance, was combined with one-lap races around the track between classic vehicles designed and built as road and tour cars.

“They’re all so gorgeous,” Loren said wonderingly. “I’ve never seen so many exotic cars in one place.”