Dragon

“What next?” muttered Pitt in exasperation. “How soon before they intercept?”

“Our computers say they’ll be sitting in your lap twelve to fifteen kilometers before we rendezvous.”

“We’re dead meat if they attack,” Giordino said, tapping the fuel gauges.

“You’re not as bad off as you think,” Harper said slowly. “Our electronic countermeasures are already jamming their radar missile guidance systems. They’ll have to be almost on top of you to go on visual.”

“Got anything you can throw at them to spoil their aim?”

“Our only weapon is a thirty-millimeter Sea Vulcan.”

“Not much better than a peashooter,” Giordino complained.

“I’ll have you know that peashooter, as you call it, can spit forty-two hundred rounds a minute as far as eight kilometers,” Harper shot back.

“A good five kilometers too short, too late,” said Pitt. “Got any other ideas?”

“Hang on.” Two full minutes passed before Harper spoke. “You might make it under our fire cover if you put your craft into a dive and pull out on the deck. The increased speed during your descent will give you an extra four minutes of lead time.”

“No advantage I can see,” said Giordino. “Our pursuers will dive too.”

“Negative,” Pitt replied to Harper. “We’ll be like a helpless duck gliding over the waves. Better to remain at an altitude where I still have air space to maneuver.”

“They’re pretty smart fellas,” retorted Harper. “They’ve planned ahead. We track them closing at an altitude of twelve hundred meters, twenty-eight hundred meters below you. Looks to me like they figure to cut you off at the pass.”

“Keep talking.”

“If you use the tactics created by our computers, you increase your odds of making it under our umbrella of fire. Also, and this is a vital issue, once they come within range of our Vulcan we’ll have an open field of fire above you.”

“I’m persuaded,” said Pitt. “Will begin descent in forty seconds.” He turned to Loren, who was sitting in the seat directly behind the cockpit door. “See that everyone straps in good and tight. We’re going to rock and roll for a little while.”

Loren quickly made the rounds of the cabin, checking on Suma and Toshie, alerting the others. Any joy shared among the survivors of the MAIT team quickly faded as a dark mood settled over the cabin. Only the Japanese industrialist looked suddenly happy. Suma smiled the smile of a carved Buddha.

In the cockpit, Pitt briefly went through a stretching routine to relieve muscle tension and loosen his joints. He took a series of deep breaths and then he massaged his hands and fingers as if he was a concert pianist about to attack Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody.

“Eighteen kilometers and closing fast,” came Harper’s voice.

Pitt gripped the wheel on the control column and nodded at Giordino. “Al, read out the airspeed and altitude readings.”

“My pleasure,” Giordino said without the slightest note of excitement. His faith in Pitt was total.

Pitt pressed the transmit button on his radio. “Commencing dive,” he said in the tone of a pathologist announcing an incision on a corpse. Then he took a firm grip on the wheel and eased the control column forward, wondering what he would say when he met the devil. The aircraft nosed over and down, it’s jet engines screaming as it hurtled toward the vast blue sea that filled the entire expanse of the cockpit’s windshield.

58

TSUBOI PUT DOWN the phone and stared dolefully across his desk at Korori Yoshishu. “Our fighter aircraft have reported Hideki’s plane has taken evasive action. They have no time for an attempt to force it back to Soseki Island before it reaches the American naval ship. Their flight commander requests confirmation of our order to shoot it down.”

Yoshishu replied thoughtfully. Already he had mentally accepted Suma’s death. He inhaled a cigarette and nodded. “If there is no other way, Hideki must die to save what we have all struggled so long to build.”

Tsuboi looked into the old dragon’s eyes but saw only a flinty hardness. Then he spoke into the phone. “Order to destroy confirmed.”

As Tsuboi set down the phone, Yoshishu shrugged. “Hideki is only one of along line who sacrificed their lives for the new empire.”

“That is so, but the American government won’t be happy over sacrificing two of their legislators in the same incident.”

“The President will be pressured by our lobbyists and friends in his government to say little and do nothing,” Yoshishu said with shrewd certainty. “The uproar will swirl around Hideki. We will remain in the shadows, free of the storm.”

“And very quietly assume control of Hideki’s corporations.”

Yoshishu nodded slowly. “That is a law of our brotherhood.”

Tsuboi looked at the older man with renewed respect. He understood how Yoshishu had survived when countless other underworld leaders and Gold Dragons had fallen by the wayside. He knew Yoshishu was a master at manipulating others, and no matter who crossed him, no matter how strong his enemies, he was never defeated. He was, Tsuboi had come to realize, the most powerful man in the world who did not hold public office.

“The world news media,” Yoshishu continued, “is like a voracious dragon that devours a scandal. But quickly tiring of the taste, it moves on to another. Americans forget quickly. The death of two of their countless politicians will soon fade.”

“Hideki was a fool!” Tsuboi lashed out sharply. “He began to think he was a god. As with most men, when they become too powerful and self-worshipping, he made grave mistakes. Kidnapping American congressional members from their own soil was idiotic.”

Yoshishu did not immediately reply but looked across Tsuboi’s desk. Then he said quickly, “You are like a grandson to me, Ichiro, and Hideki was the son I never had. I must bear the blame. If I had kept a tighter rein on him, this disaster would not have happened.”

“Nothing has changed.” Tsuboi shrugged. “The attempt by American intelligence agents to sabotage the Kaiten Project was checked. We are as powerful as before.”

“Still, Hideki will be sorely missed. We owe him much.”

“I would have expected no less if our positions were reversed.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t hesitate to throw yourself on the sword if necessary,” Yoshishu said with a condescending smile.

Tsuboi was too sure of his abilities to even consider failing. He was of the new breed and would never have the slightest intention of stepping aside by sticking a knife in his gut. “Our financial and industrial empire will continue to expand without Hideki,” he said without remorse. “We must harden our hearts and push forward.”

Yoshishu saw the look of ambition in Tsuboi’s eyes. The young financial wizard was too anxious to step into Suma’s shoes. “I leave it to you, Ichiro, to arrange a fitting ceremony for our friend when we enshrine his spirit at Yasukuni,” said Yoshishu, referring to Suma as if he had been dead for days.

Tsuboi dismissed this with a wave of one hand. He rose to his feet and leaned across the desk. “Now, Korori, with the Kaiten Project operational, we must seize the moment to undermine European and American economic independence.”

Yoshishu nodded, his white hair falling forward over his brow. “I agree, we cannot allow Hideki’s death to delay our timetable. You must return to Washington immediately and dictate our demands to the President for the extension of our financial ventures in America.”

“And if he doesn’t accept our demands?”

“I’ve studied the man for years. He’s a realist. He will see that we are throwing a rope to his dying country. He knows of our Kaiten Project and what it can do. Have no fear, the President of the United States will deal, and so will Congress. What choice do they have?”

“Twenty-two hundred,” Giordino droned as he read aloud the altitude in meters and the airspeed in knots. “Speed five-twenty.”

The ocean was rising rapidly, the scattered whitecaps growing larger. They darted through a wisp of cloud. There was almost no sensation of speed except for the screaming engines that Pitt held on full power. It was next to impossible to judge ‘height above water. Pitt put his faith in Giordino, who in turn relied on the instruments to warn him when to pull level.

“Where are they?” he asked into his microphone.

“This is Ray Simpson, Dirk,” came the voice of the commander who had briefed them on the Ibis. “I’ll talk you in.”

“Where are they?” Pitt repeated.

“Thirty kilometers and closing fast.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Pitt. “They can’t be more than a thousand knots faster than this bus.”

“Fifteen hundred,” read Giordino. “Speed five-ninety.”

“I wish I’d read the flight manual,” Pitt muttered under his breath.

“Twelve hundred meters. Speed six-fifty. Looking good.”

“How do you know?”

“It seemed the thing to say.” Giordino shrugged.

At that instant, an alarm gong began sounding in the cockpit. They had taken the aircraft beyond its safety limits into the realm of the unknown.

“One thousand meters. Speed seven-forty. Wings, don’t fail us now.”

Now within visible range, the lead Japanese aircraft’s pilot centered the red dot that appeared in his targeting system’s TV monitor on the diving tilt-turbine. The optical computer took over the firing sequence and launched the missile.

“Air-to-air missile on the way,” Simpson warned them in an ominous voice.

“Alert me when it’s closed to within one kilometer,” ordered Pitt quickly.

“Six hundred meters,” Giordino warned Pitt. “Speed eight hundred. Now is the time.”

Pitt did not waste his breath on a reply but pulled back on the control column. The tilt-rotor responded as if it was a glider gripped by a giant hand. Smoothly, in a perfectly curved arc, it swooped into level flight perilously low, less than seventy meters above the water.

“Missile closing, three kilometers,” Simpson said, his voice flat and empty.

“Al, begin maximum tilt to engines.” Pitt hesitated.

Almost instantly, it seemed, Simpson called out, “One kilometer.”

“Now.”

Giordino shoved the levers that tilted the engines from horizontal to full vertical.

The aircraft seemed to shoot from level flight into a near ninety-degree angle upward. The tilt-turbine shuddered as everyone was thrown forward under the sudden change in momentum and the skyward pull of the engines still turning on full power.

The missile streaked beneath, missing the aircraft’s belly by less than two meters. And then it was gone, flashing away and eventually falling into the sea.

“Nice work,” complimented Simpson. “You’re coming within range of our Vulcan. Try to stay low so we have an open field of fire above you.”

“It’ll take time to swing this bus back to level flight on the deck,” Pitt told Simpson, frustration displayed on the furrowed lines of his face. “I’ve lost my airspeed.”

Giordino returned the jet turbines to horizontal as Pitt nosed the aircraft over. It leveled and screamed a scant twenty meters over the water toward the looming outline of the ship. From Pitt’s view, hurtling across the wave tops, it looked like a stationary paper ship on a plastic sea.

“Aircraft closing but no indication of a missile launch,” came Simpson’s anxious voice. “They’re delaying until the last second to compensate for your next maneuver. You’d better hit the deck and damned fast.”

“I’m surfing the waves now,” Pitt snapped back.

“So are they. One above the other so you can’t pull your flying saucer stunt again.”

“They must be reading our minds,” said Giordino calmly.

“Since you don’t have a scrambler to encrypt voice transmissions, they listen to your every move,” Simpson warned them.

“Now he tells us.”

Pitt stared through the windshield at the Ralph R. Bennett. He felt as if he could reach out and touch its giant radar array. “The next play action is yours, Bennett. We’ve run out of surprises.”

“The gate to the fort is open,” came the voice of Harper suddenly. “Swing five degrees to port and don’t forget to duck when the mail goes out.”

“Missile away,” Simpson called.

“I read,” said Pitt, “but have nowhere to go.”

Pitt and Giordino instinctively crouched in anticipation of the impact and explosion. They poised as helpless as homing pigeons under attack by a falcon. Suddenly their salvation erupted in a maelstrom of fire that flashed in front of the tilt-turbine’s bow and roared overhead and to the rear.

The Bennett’s thirty-millimeter Sea Vulcan had cut loose. The modern Gatling gun’s seven barrels rotated and spat 4,200 rounds a minute in a swath of fire so thick the shells could be followed by the naked eye. The stream cut across the sky until it met the incoming missile, blasting it into a mushroom of flame less than two hundred meters behind the fleeing tilt-turbine aircraft.

Then it walked toward the lead aircraft, caught up with it, and chewed away one wing like teeth through a potato chip. The Mitsubishi Raven jet fighter flipped into a series of contorted rollovers and smacked the water with a great splash. The second jet went into a steep bank, barely staying ahead of the river of shells that raced relentlessly toward its exhaust, and whirled around on a course back to Japan. Only then did the Sea Vulcan fall silent as the last of its rounds swept the blue and fell, spraying the crests of the swells into white foam.

“Bring her on in, Mr. Pitt.” Harper’s vast relief could be clearly distinguished in his voice. “Wind is off the starboard beam at eight knots.”

“Thank you, Commander.” said Pitt. “And thank your crew. That was nice shooting.”

“It’s all in knowing how to make love to your electronics.”

“Beginning final approach.”

“Sorry we don’t have a brass band and a proper reception committee.”

“The Stars and Stripes flapping in the breeze will do nicely.”

Four minutes later, Pitt set the tilt-turbine on the Bennett’s helicopter pad. Only then did he take a deep breath, sag in his seat, and relax as Giordino shut down the engines.

For the first time in weeks he felt safe and secure. There was no more risk or danger in his immediate future. His part of the MAIT team operation was finished. He thought only of returning home, and then perhaps going on a dive trip to the warm waters and tropical sunshine of Puerto Rico or Haiti, hopefully with Loren at his side.

Pitt would have laughed in absolute disbelief if anyone had walked into the cockpit and predicted that within a few short weeks Admiral Sandecker would be delivering a eulogy at his memorial service.

Part 4

Mother’s Breath

59

October 20, 1993

Washington, D.C.

“THEY’RE OUT!” JORDAN announced exuberantly as he slammed down a telephone in the National Security Council’s Situation Room deep under the White House. “We’ve just received a signal that our MAIT team has escaped Soseki Island.”

Dale Nichols stared at Jordan suspiciously. “Is that confirmed?”

Jordan nodded in tight confidence. “Solid information. They were attacked by Japanese Self-Defense fighters, but evaded and broke clear.”

The President came forward in his chair. “Where are they now?”

“Safely landed on board the Ralph R. Bennett, a naval surveillance ship stationed a hundred kilometers off the island.”

“Any casualties?”

“None.”

“Thank God for that.”

“There’s more, much more,” Jordan said, wound like a clock spring. “They brought Congresswoman Smith, Senator Diaz, and Hideki Suma out with them.”

The President and the rest stared at him in wordless astonishment. Finally Nichols murmured, “How was it possible?”

“The details are still sketchy, but Commander Harper, skipper of the Bennett, said Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino hijacked the aircraft that was to carry Smith and Diaz to Edo City. Somehow they also managed to snatch Suma and his secretary and take off during the confusion.”

“Suma,” muttered CIA Director Martin Brogan in awe. “Now there’s a gift out of the blue.”

The surprise and delight in the President’s eyes turned to thoughtfulness. “This puts a whole new face on the situation.”

“Under the circumstances, Mr. President,” said Defense Secretary Jesse Simmons, “I advise we cancel the nuclear strike against the Dragon Center.”

The President glanced at the big countdown clock on one wall of the situation room. It read nine minutes to launch. “Good lord yes, call it off.”

Simmons simply nodded at General Clayton Metcalf, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who immediately picked up a phone and began issuing orders. After a brief half minute, Metcalf nodded.

“They’re standing down at the launch site.”

Secretary of State Douglas Oates wore an expression of triumph. “A near thing, Mr. President. I was against a nuclear strike from the beginning.”

“The Dragon Center and the Kaiten Project haven’t gone away,” the President reminded Oates. “They still pose a dangerous threat. The crisis has merely moved from critical to temporary hold.”

“True,” Oates argued, “but with Suma in our hands, we’re holding the snake by the head, so to speak.”

“I can’t wait to hear what an expert interrogation team digs out of him,” muttered Brogan blissfully.

Oates shook his head in strong disagreement. “Suma is not some small fish in the pond. He’s one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. You can’t expect to use strong-arm tactics on him without grave consequences.”

“Fair is fair.” Jordan’s voice was filled with satisfaction. “I see no reason to show mercy with a man who kidnapped two members of Congress and was planning to detonate nuclear bombs on American soil.”

“I’m with you, Ray,” said Brogan, giving Oates an acid stare. “This guy is as rotten as they come. I’ll bet dinner for everyone in the room, the Japanese government will remain silent and issue no protest.”

Oates was adamant. “It is not in our national interest to act barbaric.”

“Nice guys finish last,” said Jesse Simmons. “If we’d played hardball like the Russians, we wouldn’t have hostages in Lebanon.

“Jesse is right,” Nichols agreed. “We’d be idiots to set him free to return to Japan and resume his private war against us.”

Brogan said, “Prime Minister Junshiro and his cabinet won’t dare create a fuss, or the whole sordid mess would leak to the international news media and come down on them like a ton of bricks. No, you’re wrong, Doug, the next step in removing this terrible threat against our people is to twist Suma’s arm until he reveals the exact locations of the bomb cars.”

The President looked around the table with an expression of weary patience. “Mr. Suma is no friend of this nation. He’s all yours, Martin. Make him sing like a canary. We’ve got to get to those bombs and neutralize them damned quick.”

“How soon can the Navy airlift Suma off the Bennett?” Brogan turned and asked Simmons.

“With no aircraft carrier in that part of the ocean,” answered the Defense Secretary, “we’ll have to wait until the ship is within helicopter range of Wake Island, the nearest pickup point.”

“The sooner we get Suma to Washington, the sooner we can extract data from him,” said Brogan.

The President nodded. “I’d be interested in hearing what Congresswoman Smith and Senator Diaz observed as well.”

Don Kern entered the room and spoke softly to Jordan, who nodded as he listened, and then looked up at the President. “It appears our friends from NUMA have solved another problem for us. Commander Harper has signaled that the tilt-turbine aircraft Pitt and Giordino hijacked for their flight from the island has been refueled on board the Bennett. They’re in the air and flying toward Wake Island as we speak.”

The President turned his attention to Metcalf. “General, I leave it to you to arrange military transportation for Suma and our legislators to the capital as quickly as humanly possible.”

“I’ll alert General Duke Mackay, commander of Anderson Air Force Base on Guam, to send his personal jet to Wake. It should be on the ground and waiting when Pitt sets down.”

The President then focused on Jordan. “What’s the status of the Dragon Center?”

“Sorry, sir,” replied Jordan. “Commander Harper’s signals were brief. There was no word from our MAIT team on whether their operation was a success.”

“Then we won’t know anything until they reach Wake.”

“No, sir.”

Oates thrust a hard stare at Jordan. “If your people failed in their mission to halt the Dragon Center from becoming operational, we could be facing a terrible calamity.”

Jordan stared back. “If they escaped in one piece, they accomplished what they set out to.”

“We don’t know that for certain.”

“Even so, we surely bought some breathing space, with the architect and builder of the Kaiten Project in hand,” said Simmons. “Suma’s co-conspirators will be demoralized. They won’t attempt any major aggression without their leader at the helm.”

“I’m afraid your theory won’t hold water,” Jordan said slowly. “We’ve overlooked Harper’s message from the Bennett.”

“What about it?” asked the President.

“The part about the aircraft surviving an attack by Japanese fighters,” Brogan pointed out.

Jordan nodded. “They must have known Suma was on board. And yet they tried to shoot the plane down.”

Simmons doodled on a notepad as he spoke. “Then we must assume they… whoever they are—”

“The old kingpin of the Japanese underworld, Korori Yoshishu, and his financial crony, Ichiro Tsuboi,” explained Jordan, interrupting. “They’re criminal partners in Suma’s industrial empire.”

“Then we must assume,” Simmons repeated, “that Hideki Suma is expendable.”

“It comes down to that,” said Kern, speaking for the first time.

“Which means Yoshishu and Tsuboi can step in and activate the detonation systems,” the President theorized.

Brogan’s expression of optimism was slowly collapsing. “With Suma in our hands, there’s no predicting how they’ll react.”

“Perhaps I should reorder the nuclear strike,” said the President halfheartedly.

Jordan shook his head negatively. “Not just yet, Mr. President. There’s another way we can buy time to reassess the situation.”

“What’s on your mind, Ray?”

“We let the Japanese tune in to Commander Harper’s signals reporting that the plane carrying Diaz, Smith, and Suma crashed into the sea with the loss of all on board.”

Brogan looked doubtful. “You really think Yoshishu and Tsuboi would buy that?”

“Probably not,” said Jordan with a canny look, “but I’ll bet they’ll think about it until we can put the Kaiten Project out of business for good.”

60

TRUE TO HIS WORD, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had General Mackay’s personal Air Force C-20 passenger jet sitting beside the runway that stretched across Wake Island as Pitt dropped the tilt-turbine on a marked pad in front of the small terminal building.

Mel Penner had flown up from Palau and was waiting, cupping his ears against the scream of the turbines as the wheels touched the concrete. The area was surrounded and cordoned off by nearly twenty air police. Penner moved toward the aircraft and stood expectantly at the doorway. It swung open and Weatherhill was the first out.

Penner stepped forward and they shook hands. “Glad to see you’re still in the land of the living.”

“That makes two of us,” said Weatherhill with a huge smile. He glanced around at the Air Force security ring. “We didn’t expect a welcoming committee.”

“You’re the hottest topic of discussion at the White House. Is it true you made it out with Suma?”

Weatherhill nodded. “And Diaz and Smith.”

“You made quite a haul.”

Stacy stepped down and was also surprised to see Penner and the guards. “Somehow I get the feeling we’re not going to refuel and continue to Hawaii,” she said, hugging Penner.

“Sorry, no. There’s an Air Force jet waiting to fly Suma and the legislators to Washington. They’ll be accompanied and guarded by a military intelligence team. The rest of us have been ordered to remain here on Wake for a meeting with a group of high-level hotshots sent by Jordan and the President.”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t have sent you more data,” explained Weatherhill, “but we thought it best if we stayed off the airwaves and made out a report in person.”

“Jordan agrees. You made the right decision.”

Weatherhill handed Penner a file folder filled with neatly typed sheets. “A full report.”

Penner stared at the report with a blank look. “How?”

Weatherhill gestured back inside the aircraft. “Suma had it, fully equipped to conduct business. We wrote it up during the flight on a word processor.”

Mancuso popped his head out the door. “Hi, Mel. Did you bring the party hats and champagne?

“Good to see you, Frank. When can I meet your passengers?”

“Sending them out now. You’ll have to wait a minute for our guests from Japan to disembark until I free them.”

“You had them under restraint?”

“They got a little testy at times.”

Loren and Diaz stepped squinting into the bright sun and were introduced to Penner, who related the flight procedure. Then Suma and Toshie were ushered out by Mancuso, his hands tightly gripping each by an arm.

Penner made a slight bow. “Welcome to United States territory, Mr. Suma, but I don’t think you’re going to enjoy your stay.”

Suma gave Penner the offhand glance he reserved for underlings and acted as if the intelligence operative was invisible.

Toshie looked at Penner with uncontrolled hatred. “You will treat Mr. Suma with proper respect. He demands he be freed immediately and returned to Japan.”

“Oh, he will,” Penner said mockingly. “After he’s enjoyed an all-expense paid vacation in our nation’s capital, courtesy of the American taxpayer.”

“You are violating international law,” Suma said nastily. “And if you do not release us, vengeance shall be swift and many of your countrymen will die.”

Penner turned to Weatherhill. “Can he back up the threat?”

Weatherhill looked at Suma. “Sorry, you can forget about the Dragon Center. Its juice has been cut off.”

“You were successful?” asked Penner. “Ray Jordan and Don Kern are clawing the walls, waiting to hear.”

“A temporary fix. We only had enough explosive to blow out a fiber-optic bundle. They should be back in business in several days.”

Dr. Josh Nogami exited the plane and was greeted by Penner. “A real pleasure to meet you, Doc. We’re grateful for your efforts in getting information out to us. Your help was invaluable.”

Nogami shrugged modestly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have saved Jim Hanamura.”

“You might have given yourself away and been murdered too.”

“Mr. Pitt did his best to prevent that.” Nogami glanced around, but saw no familiar faces. “It looks as though I’m an agent without an assignment.”

“When our Deputy Director of Operations, Don Kern, learned you were on board, he requested that you be temporarily assigned to us. Your superior agreed. If you don’t mind working with a bunch of colonials for a few days, your knowledge of the Dragon Center’s layout would be very helpful.”

Nogami nodded. “The weather here beats rainy London any day.”

Before Penner could reply, Giordino leaped from the tilt-turbine and ran toward a squad of air police that were herding Suma and Toshie to the waiting C-20. He rushed over to the officer in charge and asked him to hold up the procession for a moment.

Giordino was only half a centimeter taller than Toshie. He looked straight into her eyes. “Dear heart, wait for me.”

She stared at him in angered surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“Courtship, amorous pursuit, nestling, endearment, proposal. As soon as I can catch up to you, I’m going to make you the happiest woman alive.”

“You’re mad!”

“Only one of my many charms,” said Giordino engagingly. “You’ll discover lots of others in the years to come.”

Amazingly, Toshie wavered. For a strange reason she couldn’t comprehend, she began to find Giordino’s very un-Japanese approach appealing. She had to struggle to suppress any friendliness she felt toward him.

Giordino recognized her uncertainty and grasped her slender shoulders in his beefy hands, kissed her briefly on the lips, and smiled. “I’ll catch up to you as soon as I can.”

She was still staring at him wordlessly over her shoulder as Penner took her by the elbow and brusquely led her away.

Pitt escorted Loren to the C-20 jet after Suma, Toshie, and Diaz were seated aboard. They walked in silence, feeling the warmth from the sun and the humidity stroke their skin.

Loren stopped several meters from the aircraft and stared into Pitt’s eyes. “It seems one of us is always coming and going.”

He nodded. “We lead busy, separate lives. Our schedules never mesh.”

“Maybe someday…” Her voice died softly.

“Someday,” he said in understanding.

“You’re not going back?” she asked hesitantly.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Al and I have been ordered to remain behind.”

“They can’t send you back to that island. Not now.”

“I’m a marine engineer, remember? I’m the last man they’d ask to assault the Dragon Center with six-shooters blazing.”

“I’ll talk to the President and request you and Al be sent home.”

“Don’t put yourself out,” he said easily. “We’ll probably be on the next flight east.”

She stood on her toes and kissed him gently on the mouth. “Thank you for everything.”

Pitt smiled. “Anything to please a pretty lady.”

Tears began forming in her eyes. Loren had a feeling of dread in her stomach. Somehow she knew he wouldn’t be following her anytime soon. Suddenly she turned and hurried up the boarding stairs into the aircraft.

Pitt stood there looking after her. Then he waved as her face appeared in a window, but when Loren looked for him again as the plane taxied to the runway he was gone.

61

TSUBOI COULD NOT believe it. After leaving Yoshishu and rushing from Tokyo to Edo City and then to the Dragon Center to take personal command, he stood in the control room tense with growing rage.

“What do you mean you cannot detonate any of the bomb cars?” he demanded.

Takeda Kurojima, the Dragon Center’s chief director, was stricken. He looked around helplessly at his small army of engineers and scientists for moral support, but they all stared at the floor as if hoping to be swallowed by it.

“Only Mr. Suma knows the codes,” Kurojima answered with a patronizing hands-out shrug. “He personally programmed the code system for the prime and detonate signals.”

“How long will it take you to reprogram the codes?”

Kurojima stared at his staff again. They began muttering rapidly between themselves. Then, seemingly agreeing on something, one stepped forward and murmured so softly Tsuboi didn’t hear.

“What… what was it you said?”

Kurojima finally stared into Tsuboi’s eyes. “Three days, it will take three days minimum to erase Mr. Suma’s command codes and reprogram the systems.”

“That long?”

“It is not a quick and simple procedure.”

“What is the status of the robotic drivers?”

“The robot program is accessible,” replied Kurojima. “Mr. Suma did not insert the codes to set in motion their drive and destination systems.”

“Two days, forty-eight hours. That’s all you have to make the Kaiten Project fully operational.” Tsuboi tightened his mouth and clenched his jaws. He began to pace the control room of the Dragon Center. He cursed the serpentine mastermind who had outfoxed them all. Suma had trusted no one, not even his oldest and closest friend, Yoshishu.

A phone buzzed and one of the technicians picked it up. He went rigid and held out the receiver to Tsuboi. “Mr. Yoshishu in Tokyo for you.”

“Yes, Korori, Ichiro here.”

“Our intelligence people have intercepted a report from the American ship. They claim Hideki’s plane was shot down. Did our pilots actually see Hideki’s aircraft go into the sea?”

“Only one returned. I was informed the surviving pilot reported that he was too busy evading return fire from the ship to witness his missile strike the target.”

“It could be a bluff by the Americans.”

“We won’t know if that’s the case until one of our observer satellites can be programmed to pass over the ship.”

“And if it shows the plane is on board?”

Yoshishu hesitated. “Then we know we are too late. Hideki is lost to us.”

“And under tight security by American intelligence forces,” Tsuboi finished.

“We’re faced with a very grave situation. In the hands of American intelligence, Hideki can become an acute embarrassment to Japan.”

“Under drugged interrogation he will most certainly divulge the locations of the bomb cars.”

“Then we must act quickly to preserve the Kaiten Project.”

“There is another problem,” said Tsuboi grimly. “Only Hideki knew the operational codes to activate the prime and detonate signals.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then Yoshishu said slowly, “We always knew he had a cunning mind.”

“Only too well,” agreed Tsuboi.

“Then I leave it to you to discover new directions.”

“I won’t fail your trust.”

Tsuboi set down the receiver and gazed out the observation window. A silence came over the control room as everyone waited on his word. There had to be another solution for delaying any retribution by the United States and other Western nations. Tsuboi was a smart man, and it only took him a few seconds to come up with alternate plans.

“How complicated is it to set off one of the bombs manually?” he asked the assembled engineers and scientists in the control room.

Kurojima’s eyebrows raised up questioningly. “To detonate without a coded signal?”

“Yes, yes.”

The technical brain who headed the Kaiten Project from start to finish bowed his head and answered. “There are two methods by which a mass of fissionable material can be made subcritical and forced to explode. One is to surround the mass by a ring of high explosives whose detonation will in turn set off the fissionable material. The other is to shoot together two masses by a cannon-type device.”

“How do we explode a bomb car?” Tsuboi demanded impatiently.

“Velocity,” Kurojima answered briefly. “The impact from a high-velocity bullet through the compressor shell and into the mass should do it.”

Tsuboi glared inquiringly. “Are you saying the bombs can be set off by nothing more than a shot from a rifle?”

Kurojima bowed his head. “At close range, yes.”

The effect on Tsuboi was just within the limits of credibility. “Then why don’t you simply program a robot to fire a high powered rifle into the air-conditioner shell?”

“There is the problem of time again.” replied Kurojima. “The robots that are programmed to drive the cars to their detonation sites are not constructed or programmed for anything else.”

“One of the roboguards, could it be modified?”

“The reverse. Security robots are designed for mobility and weapons fire. They are not designed to drive a car.”

“How long to make one that can do the job?”

“Weeks, no less than a month. You must realize we have to create a very complicated piece of machinery. We do not have one in production that can drive a car, climb out on articulated legs, open a hood, and shoot a gun. A robot with these built-in movements would have to be built from the ground up, and that takes time.”

Tsuboi stared at him. “We must detonate one within the next five hours to make the Americans think the system is operational.”

Kurojima’s confidence had returned. He was in control and his fear of Tsuboi had faded. He gave the financier a long steady look. “Well then, you’ll just have to find a human to do the job.”

It was about five in the evening, and the sky to the east was turning dark blue as the C-20 winged over the Pacific toward California. They were only two hours out of a refueling stop at Hickam Field in Hawaii. Loren looked down, straining her eyes to pick out the tiny shape and white wake of a ship, but she could see only the flat expanse of the sea and a few whitecaps.

She swiveled the executive chair she was sitting in and faced Suma. He sat arrogantly composed, sipping a glass of soda water. The shock of the hijacking and the distress at knowing Yoshishu had ordered his death had long since melted and he was now relaxed, supremely confident that he would regain the upper hand once he reached Washington.

He stared at her and smiled thinly. “So you intend to promote legislation to close all your markets to Japanese goods.”

“In light of what I’ve seen and experienced in the past few days,” said Loren, “do you blame me?”

“We Japanese have planned far into the future for just such a possibility. Our economy will survive because we have already invested heavily in the European and Asian markets. Soon we will no longer need the United States consumer. The closing of your market is merely another unfair tactic of you Americans.”

Loren laughed. “What do you know about fair trade practices?” Then she got down to serious business. “No foreigners can come into Japan to sell their products without being hassled to death by your trade barriers, stonewalled by your graft-ridden distribution system, and undermined by your home competition. All the while insisting that no outsider understands your culture.”

“Your behavior, Congresswoman Smith, is obviously motivated by racist anti-Japanese sentiments. We feel no guilt over expanding our international market shares. We started with nothing after the war. And what we have built, you want to take away.”

“Take what away? Your self-proclaimed right to rule the economic world?” Loren could just detect a hint of growing frustration in Suma’s eyes. “Instead of picking you up from the ashes and helping you build an enormously successful economy, perhaps we should have treated you the way you treated Manchuria, Korea, and China during your years of occupation.”

“Many of the postwar economic successes of those countries were due to Japanese guidance.”

Loren shook her head in wonderment at his refusal to acknowledge historical facts. “At least the Germans have demonstrated regret for the atrocities of the Nazis, but you people act as though your butchery of millions of people throughout Asia and the Pacific never happened.”

“We have freed our minds of those years,” said Suma. “The negative events were unfortunate, but we were at war.”

“Yes, but you made the war. No one attacked Japan.”

“It lies in the past. We think only of the future. Time will prove who has the superior culture,” he said with contempt. “Like all the other Western nations since ancient Greece, you will fall by decay from within.”

“Perhaps,” said Loren with a soft smile, “but then eventually, so will you.”

62

PENNER ROSE FROM a chair, turned, and faced the surviving members of the MAIT team who were seated in an office inside one of the commercial aircraft hangars. He tapped ashes from his pipe in a bucket of sand beside a desk and nodded at two men, one sitting, the other standing along the rear wall.

“I’m going to turn the briefing over to Clyde Ingram, the gentleman in the loud Hawaiian shirt. Clyde is blessed with the fancy title of Director of Science and Technical Data Interpretation. He’ll explain his discovery. Then Curtis Meeker, an old friend from my Secret Service days and Deputy Director of Advanced Technical Operations, will explain what’s circulating in his warped mind.”

Ingram walked over to an easel with a blanket thrown over it. He stared from blue eyes through expensive designer glasses attached to cord that dangled around the nape of his neck. His hair was a neatly combed brown, and he lived inside a medium-sized body whose upper works was covered by a black aloha shirt that looked as if it had been worn in a Ferrari driven around Honolulu by Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum.

He threw the blanket off the easel and gestured a casual thumb toward a large photograph of what appeared to be an old aircraft. “What you see here is a World War Two B-Twenty-nine Superfortress resting thirty-six miles from Soseki Island on the seabed, three hundred and twenty meters, or for those of you who have trouble converting to metrics, a little over a thousand feet below the surface.”

“The picture is so clear,” said Stacy. “Was it taken from a submersible?”

“The aircraft was originally picked up by our Pyramider Eleven reconnaissance satellite during an orbit over Soseki Island.”

“You can get a picture that sharp on the bottom of the sea from an orbiting satellite?” she asked in disbelief.

“We can.”

Giordino was sitting in the rear of the room, his feet propped on the chair in front of him. “How does the thing work?”

“I won’t offer you an in-depth description, because it would take hours, but let’s just say it works by using pulsating sound waves that interact with very low frequency radar to create a geophysical image of underwater objects and landscapes.”

Pitt stretched to relieve tense muscles. “What happens after the image is received?”

“The Pyramider feeds the image, little more than a smudge, to a tracking data relay satellite that relays it to White Sands, New Mexico, for computer amplification and enhancement. The image is then passed on to the National Security Agency, where it is analyzed by both humans and computers. In this particular case, our interest was aroused, and we called for an SR-Ninety Casper to obtain a more detailed picture.”

Stacy raised a hand. “Does Casper use the same imagery system as the Pyramider?”

Ingram shrugged in regret. “Sorry, all I can reveal without getting into trouble is that Casper obtains real-time imaging recorded on analog tape. You might say that comparing the Pyramider and Casper systems is like comparing a flashlight beam to a laser. One covers a large spread, while the other pinpoints a small spot.”

Mancuso tilted his head and stared at the blown-up photograph curiously. “So what’s the significance of the old sunken bomber? What possible connection can it have with the Kaiten Project?”

Ingram flicked a glance at Mancuso and then tapped a pencil on the photo. “This aircraft, what’s left of it, is going to destroy Soseki Island and the Dragon Center.”

Nobody believed him, not for an instant. They all stared at him as though he was a con man selling a cure-all elixir to a bunch of rubes at a carnival.

Giordino broke the silence. “A mere trifle to raise the plane and repair it for a bombing run.”

Dr. Nogami forced a smile. “It’d take considerably more than a fifty-year-old bomb to make a dent in the Dragon Center.”

Ingram smiled back at Nogami. “Believe me, the bomb inside this B-Twenty-nine has the punch to do the job.”

“The plot thickens.” Pitt nodded glumly. “I smell a snow job coming on.

Ingram did a neat sidestep. “That part of the briefing will come from my partner in crime, Curtis Meeker.”

Pitt’s sardonic stare went from Ingram to Meeker. “You two and Ray Jordan and Don Kern must all play in the same sandbox.”

“We have occasion to mix it up now and then,” Meeker replied without smiling.

Ingram turned again to the easel, removed the photograph, and propped it on a chair, revealing a close-up photo of a little devil painted on the side of the aircraft’s bow.

“Dennings’ Demons,” he said, tapping a pencil on the faded letters beneath the little devil. “Commanded by Major Charles Dennings. Please note the little demon is standing on a gold brick marked twenty-four karat. The crew enjoyed referring to themselves as goldbrickers after they were reprimanded for tearing apart a beer hall during training in California.”

“Obviously my kind of guys,” said Giordino.

“Unknown, forgotten, and buried deep in Langley files, until a few days ago when Curtis and I dug out the facts, was the story of a very courageous group of men who set out on a very secret mission to drop an atom bomb on Japan—”

“They what!” Weatherhill was incredulous, but no more so than the others.

Ingram ignored the interruption and went on. “At about the same time as Colonel Tibbets took off in the Enola Gay from Tinian Island in the Pacific with the bomb known as ‘Little Boy,’ Major Dennings lifted off Shemya Island far to the north in the Aleutians with his bomb, which was code-named ‘Mother’s Breath.’ What was left of the report on the mission was heavily censored, but we believe Dennings’ flight plan called for him to follow a one-way course, dropping his bomb on the target, probably Osaka or Kyoto, and then continuing to Okinawa to refuel before pushing on to Tinian. As we all know from the history books, Tibbets successfully dropped his bomb on Hiroshima. Dennings, unfortunately, vanished, and the entire event was covered over by presidential order.”

“Hold on a minute,” said Mancuso. “Are you telling us that we built more than three bombs in nineteen forty-five?”

Stacy cleared her throat. “Except for Little Boy, the first Trinity bomb at Los Alamos, and Fat Man, which was dropped on Nagasaki, no other bombs are recorded.”

“We still don’t have the exact count, but it appears there were at least six. Most were of the implosion type like Fat Man.”

Pitt said, “Dennings’ bomb makes four. That still leaves two.”

“A bomb with the code name of Mother’s Pearl was loaded aboard a superfort called Lovin’ Lil on Guam, not too long after the island was liberated from the Japanese. Lovin’ Lil was in the air flying toward Japan when Bock’s Car, piloted by Major Charles Sweeney, dropped Fat Man on Nagasaki. After word was received that the drop went off as planned, Lovin’ Lil and her crew were recalled back to Guam, where the bomb was dismantled and shipped back to Los Alamos.”

“That leaves one.”

“Ocean Mother was on Midway Island, but was never airborne.”

“Who came up with those awful names?” murmured Stacy.

Ingram shrugged. “We have no idea.”

Pitt looked at Ingram. “Were Dennings and the crews on Guam and Midway part of Colonel Tibbets’ Five-o-ninth Bomber Squadron?”

“Again, we don’t know. Eighty percent of the records have been destroyed. We can only guess that General Groves, the director of the Manhattan bomb project, and his staff came up with a complicated backup plan at the last moment because there was great fear the firing mechanisms on the bombs might not work. There was also the possibility, although unlikely, that the Enola Gay or Bock’s Car might crash on takeoff, detonating their bombs and wiping out the entire Five-o-ninth and leaving no trained personnel or equipment to deliver additional bombs. And on top of all that, there were a host of other dangers staring Groves and Tibbets in the face—the threat of Japanese bombing attacks on Tinian, mechanical failures during flight, forcing the crew to jettison their bombs in the sea, or being shot down by enemy fighters or antiaircraft fire during the mission. Only at the last minute did Groves see the dark clouds gathering around the bomb-delivery operation. In less than a month’s time, Major Dennings and the Demons, along with the crews on Guam and Midway, were given rush training and sent on their way.”

“Why was all this kept from public knowledge after the war?” asked Pitt. “What harm could the story of Dennings’ Demons cause nearly fifty years later?”

“What can I say?” Ingram made a baffled gesture. “After thirty years passed and it came up under the Freedom of Information Act, a pair of political hack appointees decided on their own that the American public, who paid their salaries by the way, was too naive to be entrusted with such an earth-shaking revelation. They reclassified the event as top secret and filed it away in the CIA vaults at Langley.”

“Tibbets got the glory and Dennings got deep-sixed,” Weatherhill said, waxing philosophical.

“So what does Dennings’ Demons have to do with us?” Pitt put to Ingram.

“Better you should ask Curtis.” Ingram nodded to Meeker and sat down.

Meeker stepped up to a blackboard on a side wall and took a piece of chalk in one hand. He drew a rough sketch of the B-29 and a long, uneven contour line representing the seafloor that stretched across the board’s surface and ended with a sudden rise that was Soseki Island. Thankfully to all in the room, he didn’t squeak the chalk. Finally, after adding in a few geological details on the sea bottom, he turned and flashed a warm smile.

“Clyde has only given you a brief peek at our satellite surveillance and detection systems,” he began. “There are others that have the capability of penetrating through an impressive distance of solid material and measuring a vast array of different energy sources. I won’t bother to get into them—Clyde and I aren’t here to teach a class—but will simply reveal that the explosive device you placed inside the electrical network of the Dragon Center did not do the job.”

“I’ve never laid an explosive that failed to detonate,” Weatherhill growled on the defensive.

“Your charge went off all right,” said Meeker, “but not where you set it. If Dr. Nogami was still in deep cover inside the command complex, he could tell you the explosion occurred a good fifty meters from the electrical junction center.”

“No way,” Stacy protested. “I watched Timothy set the charge behind a bundle of optical fibers in an access passage.”

“It was moved,” Dr. Nogami said thoughtfully.

“How?”

“The inspector robot probably observed a slight drop in the power pulse, searched, and found the charge. He would have removed it and notified his robotic control. The timer must have set off the charge while it was being carried through the corridors to robotic control for investigation.”

“Then the Dragon Center is fully operational,” Mancuso said with grave foreboding.

“And the Kaiten Project can be primed and detonated,” added Stacy, her face displaying lines of disappointment.

Meeker nodded. “We’re afraid that’s the case.”

“Then our operation to knock out the center was a bust,” Weatherhill said disgustedly.

“Not really,” Meeker explained patiently. “You captured Suma, and without him the cars can’t be detonated.”

Stacy looked confused. “What’s to stop his fellow conspirators from setting off the bombs?”

Pitt threw Nogami a bemused look. “I suspect the good doctor has the answer.”

“A small bit of information I picked up after becoming chummy with the computer technicians,” Nogami said with a wide smile. “They allowed me to wander freely in their data center. On one occasion I stood behind a programmer and looked over his shoulder when he punched in data concerning the Kaiten Project. I memorized the entry code, and at my first opportunity I entered the system. It gave the bomb car locations, which you had already obtained, but I became stymied when I attempted to insert a virus in the detonation system. I discovered only Suma had access to the detonation codes.”

“So no one but Hideki Suma can launch the Kaiten Project,” Stacy said in relieved surprise.

“A situation his henchmen are working like hell to correct,” answered Meeker. He glanced around at the MAIT team. “But congratulations are still in order, you pulled off a winner. Your efforts effectively shut down the Dragon Center, causing the Japanese to reprogram their prime and detonate systems, and giving us enough time to put together a plan to destroy it once and for all.”

“Which, if I’m not sidetracking your lecture,” said Pitt quietly, “brings us back to Dennings’ Demons.”

“You’re quite right,” acknowledged Meeker. He hesitated while he sat on a desk. Then he began cutting toward the heart of the briefing. “The President was willing to lay his political life on the line and sanction a nuclear strike against the Dragon Center. But he called it off when word came of your escape. Your operation bought him some time, not much, but enough to accomplish what we’ve planned in the few hours we’ve got left.”

“You figure on setting off the bomb inside the B-Twenty-nine,” Pitt said, his eyes half closed in weariness.

“Not exactly.” Meeker sighed. “It will have to be removed and placed a short distance away.”

“Damned if I can see what damage it will cause to an island almost forty kilometers away,” Giordino muttered.

“A group of the finest oceanographers and geophysicists in the business think that an underwater atomic blast can take out the Dragon Center.”

“I’d like to know how,” Stacy said as she swatted at a mosquito that had found one of her bare knees.

Meeker refaced the blackboard. “Major Dennings could not have known, of course, that his aircraft crashed into the sea and fell to the seafloor close to a perfect location to remove a serious threat to his country forty-eight years later.” He paused and drew another jagged line that traveled under the sea bottom from the plane to Soseki Island and then curved southward. “A section of a major Pacific seismic fault system. It travels almost directly beneath the Dragon Center.”

Nogami shook his head doubtfully. “The center was constructed to withstand a major earthquake and a nuclear strike. Exploding an old atomic bomb, providing it can still detonate after five decades under saltwater, to cause a shift in the fault would prove a wasted effort.”

“Dr. Nogami has a sound argument,” said Pitt. “The island is almost solid rock. It won’t sway and shift during a heavy shock wave.”

Meeker said nothing for a moment, only smiled. Then he swung the axe. “No, it won’t sway and shift,” he repeated with a fiendish smile, “but it will sink.”

63

ABOUT FIFTY KILOMETERS northeast of Sheridan, Wyoming, as the crow flies, just south of the Montana border, Dan Keegan sat on a buckskin quarter horse searching for signs of trespassing hunters. While washing up for supper he had heard the distant rumble of two gunshots and immediately told his wife to put his fried chicken in the oven to warm. Then he gathered up an old Mauser bolt-action rifle and saddled up his favorite riding horse.

Hunters who ignored his fences and no-trespassing warning signs were a constant source of irritation to Keegan. Less than two months back a stray shot had dropped one of his herd’s calves. The hunter had fired at a six-point buck and missed, his bullet carrying over a slight rise and striking the calf almost two kilometers distant. Since then, Keegan wanted no part of hunters. They could just damn well shoot on somebody else’s property.

Keegan followed a trail that ran along Hanging Woman Creek. He never knew where the name came from. The only woman he recalled being hanged in Wyoming was Ella Watson, known as “Cattle Kate.” Prominent ranchers under the guise of vigilantes had strung her up for rustling in 1889. But that event occurred along the Sweetwater River, three hundred kilometers to the southwest.

The rays of the setting sun were intensified by the biting cold air, painting the surrounding hills in glowing yellow-orange tones. He came out onto a flat plain and began studying the ground. Keegan quickly picked up the tire tracks, following them from a spent shell casing to a rash of booted footprints and a pool of blood soaking the sandy soil. The hunters and their fallen game were gone.

He was too late and mad as hell. To drive a car on his range, the trespassers must have either cut his fence or shot off the lock on the gate across his private road leading to the highway. It would be dark soon. He decided to wait until morning to send one of his ranch hands to ride fence and check the gate. He mounted up and turned the horse for home.

After riding a short distance, he reined up.

The wind carried the faint sound of an automobile engine. He cupped one ear and listened. Instead of retreating as he thought the hunters had done, the sound grew louder. Someone was approaching. He urged the horse up the slope of a small mesa and scanned the flatland below. A vehicle was speeding up the road, trailing a cloud of dust.

He expected to see a pickup truck or a four-wheel-drive emerge from the brush bordering the road. When it finally came close enough to recognize, Keegan was surprised to see it was an ordinary car, a brown four-door sedan, a Japanese make.

The driver soon braked and stopped at an open spot in the road. The car sat there for a few moments as the dust drifted over the roof and settled onto the range grass. The driver slipped from behind the wheel and opened the hood and leaned under for a few moments. Next he walked around to the rear of the car, raised the trunk lid, and lifted out a surveyor’s transit. Keegan watched in curiosity as the intruder set the transit on a tripod and aimed the lens at several prominent landmarks, jotting down the distance readings on a clipboard and comparing them on a geological map that he spread on the ground.

Keegan was experienced with a transit himself, and he’d never seen a survey conducted like this. The stranger seemed more interested in merely confirming his location than in establishing a baseline. He watched as the man casually tossed the clipboard into the underbrush and stepped to the front of the car and stared at the engine again as if hypnotized by it. Only when he seemed to shake himself from his thoughts did he reach inside the car and pull out a rifle.

Keegan had seen enough to know the trespasser was acting too strange for a county surveyor who was out to shoot a little game on the side, and certainly not while dressed in a business suit and knotted tie. He rode his horse closer, coming up quietly behind the stranger, who was intent on trying to insert a shell into the rifle, an act that seemed foreign to him. He didn’t hear Keegan approach from his rear. Any sound from the hooves of the horse was muffled by the soft earth and dry grass. Keegan reined in when he was only eight meters away and eased the Mauser from a leather case tied to his saddle.

“You know you’re trespassin’, mister?” he said, resting the gun in the crook of one arm.

The driver of the brown car jumped and wheeled around, dropping a shell and banging the gun barrel on the door. Only then did Keegan recognize him as an Asian.

“What do you want?” the startled man demanded.

“You’re on my property. How did you get in here?”

“The gate was open.”

It was as Keegan thought. The hunters he’d missed had forced the gate. “What are you doin’ with a surveyor’s transit? Who do you work for? You with the government?”

“No… I’m an engineer with Miyata Communications.” The English was heavily Japanese-accented. “We’re scouting a site to set up a relay station.”

“Don’t you fellas ever get permission before you run around private property? How in hell do you know I’ll let you build one?”

“My superiors should have contacted you.”

“Damn right,” Keegan muttered. He was anxious to return home for supper before daylight faded. “Now you better move along, mister. And the next time you want to drive on my land, you ask first.”

“I deeply regret any inconvenience.”

Keegan was a pretty good judge of character and could tell by the man’s voice he wasn’t the least bit sorry. His eyes warily kept focusing on Keegan’s Mauser, and he seemed edgy.

“You plan on doing any shootin’?” Keegan nodded at the highpowered rifle the man still awkwardly gripped in one hand, muzzle wavering toward the darkening sky,

“Target shooting only.”

“Well, I can’t allow that. I have cattle roamin’ this section. I’d appreciate it if you’d pack up your gear and leave by the way you came in.”

The intruder acted agreeable. He quickly broke down the surveyor’s transit and tripod, placing them in the trunk of the car. The rifle he placed in the back seat. Then he came around to the front of the car and peered under the open hood.

“The engine is not running properly.”

“Will it start?” Keegan asked.

“I believe so.” The Japanese surveyor leaned in the window and turned the ignition key. The engine fired and idled smoothly. “I go,” he announced.

Keegan failed to notice the hood was lowered but not latched. “Do me a favor and close and wrap the chain around the gate behind you.”

“I will gladly do so.”

Keegan threw him a wave, slipped the Mauser back in its case, and began riding off toward his ranch house, a good four kilometers away.

Suburo Miwa gunned the engine, turned the car around, and headed down the road. Meeting up with the rancher in such desolate country was unforeseen, but in no way jeopardized his mission. As soon as he put two hundred meters between the car and Keegan, Miwa suddenly slammed on the brakes, leaped out, snatched the gun from the back seat and raised the hood.

Keegan heard the engine revolutions die and he turned and stared over his shoulder, wondering why the car had abruptly halted.

Miwa held the gun tightly in sweating palms and aimed the muzzle until it was only a few centimeters from the compressor of the air conditioner. He had volunteered for this suicidal mission without reservation when asked because he felt it was an honor to give his life for the new empire. Other considerations were his loyalty to the Gold Dragons, the promise made by Korori Yoshishu himself that his wife would be well taken care of financially for the rest of her life, and the guarantee his three sons would be accepted and funded through the finest university of their choice. The inspiring words of Yoshishu as Miwa departed for the United States ran through his mind one last time.

“You are sacrificing for the future of a hundred million of your country’s men and women. Your family will honor you for untold generations. Your success is their success.”

Miwa pulled the trigger.

64

IN A MILLISECOND, Miwa, Keegan, the car, and the horse were vaporized. An enormous brilliance of yellow light flashed and then became white as it burst across the rolling ranch land. The shock wave followed like a vast invisible tidal wave. The fireball expanded and seemed to grow and lift from the ground like the sun rising over the horizon.

Once the fireball broke free of the ground and surged into the sky, it became fused with the clouds and turned purple from glowing radiation. It sucked behind a great swirling stem of radioactive soil and debris that soon formed into a mushroom cloud that soared to thirteen kilometers, only to eventually fall wherever the winds carried the pulverized dust.

The only loss of human life was Keegan and Miwa. Scores of rabbits, prairie dogs, snakes, and twenty of Keegan’s cattle were killed, most of them by the shock wave. Four kilometers away, Mrs. Keegan and three hired hands suffered only cuts from flying glass. The hills shielded the buildings from the worst of the blast, and except for a few shattered windows, there was little damage.

The fiery explosion left behind a huge crater a hundred meters wide and thirty meters deep. The dry brush and range grass ignited and began to spread in a great circle, adding black smoke to the brown dust cloud.

The dying shock wave echoed through the hills and canyons. It shook houses and swayed trees in the small surrounding cattle and farm towns before rumbling over the Custer battlefield at the Little Bighorn, 112 kilometers to the north.

In a truck stop outside Sheridan an Asian man stood beside a rental car, ignoring the people talking excitedly and wildly gesturing toward the rising mushroom cloud in the distance. He peered intently through binoculars trained on the cloud that had risen out of the evening gloom and was now high enough to be illuminated by the glow of the sun fallen below the horizon.

Slowly he lowered the glasses and walked to a nearby telephone booth. He inserted a coin, dialed a number, and waited. He spoke a few soft words in Japanese and hung up. Then, without even a glance at the cloud boiling through the upper atmosphere, he got in his car and drove off.

The blast was recorded at seismograph stations located around the world. The closest to the epicenter was the National Earthquake Center on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. The seismographic tracings abruptly bounded back and forth across the graph recorders, alerting geophysicist Clayton Morse to an earth movement as he was about to knock off for the day and drive home.

He frowned and then ran the data through a computer. While his eyes remained locked on the computer monitor, he dialed Roger Stevenson, the director of the center, who had called in sick that day.

“Hello.”

“Roger?”

“Yes, speaking.”

“God, you sound terrible. I didn’t recognize your voice.”

“The flu has really knocked me out.”

“Sorry to bug you, but we just received a strike.”

“California?”

“No, the epicenter is somewhere around the Wyoming-Montana border.”

There was a brief silence. “Odd, that area is hardly classed as an active quake zone.”

“This one is artificial.”

“Explosion?”

“A big one. From what I can tell on the intensity scale, this one reads like it’s nuclear.”

“God,” Stevenson muttered weakly, “are you sure?”

“Who can be sure about these things,” said Morse.

“The Pentagon never held tests in that part of the country.”

“They haven’t alerted us to any underground testing either.”

“Not like them to conduct testing without alerting us.”

“What do you think? Should we check it out with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?”

Stevenson may have been laid low with the flu, but his mind was perfectly healthy. “Leapfrog the system and go to the top. Call Hank Sauer, our mutual friend at the National Security Agency, and find out what in hell is going on.”

“And if Sauer won’t tell?” asked Morse.

“Who cares? The main thing is we’ve dumped the mystery in his lap, and now we can go on watching for the next big one due in California.”

Sauer didn’t tell what he didn’t know. But he recognized a national emergency when he heard one. He asked Morse for additional data and immediately passed on the information to the Director of Central Intelligence.

The President was aboard Air Force One flying to a political fund-raising dinner in San Francisco when he received the call from Jordan.

“What’s the situation?”

“We have reports of a nuclear explosion in Wyoming,” answered Jordan.

“Damn!” the President cursed under his breath. “Ours or theirs?”

“Certainly not ours. It has to be one of the bomb cars.”

“Any word of casualties?”

“Negligible. The blast took place in a lightly populated part of the state, mostly ranch land.”

The President was fearful of posing the next question. “Are there indications of additional explosions?”

“No, sir. At the moment, the Wyoming blast is the only one.”

“I thought the Kaiten Project was on hold for forty-eight hours.”

“It is,” Jordan said firmly. “There hasn’t been enough time for them to reprogram the codes.”

“How do you see it, Ray?”

“I’ve talked to Percy Nash. He thinks the bomb was detonated on site with a high-powered rifle.”

“By a robot?”

“No, a human.”

“So the kamikaze phenomenon is not dead.”

“It would seem so.”

“Why this suicidal tactic now?” asked the President.

“Probably a warning. They’re reasonably certain that we have Suma, and they’re hedging their bets by trying to fake us out of a nuclear strike while they desperately struggle to reprogram the detonation codes for the entire system.”

“They’re doing a darn good job of it.”

“We’re sitting in the driver’s seat, Mr. President. We now have every excuse in the world to retaliate with a nuclear strike.”

“All too true, but what solid proof do you have that the Kaiten Project isn’t operational? The Japs might have pulled off a minor miracle and replaced the codes. Suppose they’re not bluffing?”

“We have no hard evidence,” Jordan admitted.

“If we launch a warhead missile on Soseki Island and the Dragon Center controllers detect its approach, their final act will be to signal the bomb cars to be detonated before the robots can drive them to isolated destinations around the country.”

“A horrible thought, Mr. President. Made even more so by the known locations of the bomb cars. Most of them are hidden in and around metropolitan cities.”

“Those cars must be found and their bombs neutralized as quickly and quietly as possible. We can’t afford to have this horror leak to the public, not now.”

“The FBI has sent an army of agents out in the field to make a sweep.”

“Do they know how to dismantle the bombs?”

“Each team has a nuclear physicist to handle that job.”

Jordan could not see the worry lines on the President’s face.

“This will be our last chance, Ray. Your new plan is the last roll of the dice.”

“I’m fully aware of that, Mr. President. By this time tomorrow morning we’ll know if we’re an enslaved nation.”

At almost the same moment, Special Agent Bill Frick of the FBI and his team were converging on the vault that held the bomb cars in the underground parking area of the Pacific Paradise hotel in Las Vegas.

There were no guards and the steel doors were unlocked. A bad omen, thought Frick. His apprehension increased when his electronics men found the security systems turned off.

Cautiously he led his team through doors into what looked to be an outer supply room. On the far side was a large metal door that was rolled into the ceiling. It yawned wide and high enough to pass a highway semitrailer.

They entered a huge vaultlike space and found it completely empty, not even a scrap of trash or a cobweb was evident. It had been scrubbed clean.

“Maybe we’re in the wrong area,” said one of Frick’s agents hopefully.

Frick stared around the concrete walls, focused on the ventilator Weatherhill had wormed through, then looked down at the barely discernible tire marks on the epoxy-coated floor. Finally he shook his head. “This is the place, all right. It matches the description from Central Intelligence.”

A short nuclear physicist with a full beard pushed his way past Frick and stared at the emptiness. “How am I supposed to disarm the bombs if they’re not here?” he said angrily, as if the disappearance of the cars was Frick’s fault.

Without answering, Frick walked swiftly through the underground parking area to a command truck. He entered, poured himself a cup of coffee, and then opened a frequency on the radio.

“Black Horse, this is Red Horse,” he said in a tired voice.

“Go ahead, Red Horse,” answered the Director of the FBI’s field operations.

“We’ve struck out. The rustlers got here first.”

“Join the club, Red Horse. Most of the herd has come up dry too. Only Blue Horse in New Jersey and Gray Horse in Minnesota found steers in the corral.”

“Shall we continue the operation?”

“Affirmative. You’ve got twelve hours. Repeat, twelve hours to track your herd to a new location. Additional data is being faxed to you, and all police, sheriff, and highway patrol units have been alerted to stop any trucks and semitrailers matching descriptions provided by Central Intelligence.”

“I’ll need a helicopter.”

“You can sign for an entire fleet if that’s what it takes to find those bomb cars.”

Frick switched off his radio and stared at his coffee. “Too bad they don’t fax instructions on how to find a needle in a million square kilometers of desert in twelve hours,” he mumbled to himself.

As Yoshishu emerged from the Maglev train at the end of the tunnel from Edo City, Tsuboi was waiting on the platform to greet him.

“Thank you for coming, old friend,” said Tsuboi.

“I want to be here at your side when we are ready to play our hand,” said the old man, his step more sprightly than Tsuboi had seen in months.

“The blast went off in a midwest state as planned.

“Good, good, that should send a shiver of fear through the American government. Any signal of reaction at the White House?”

Tsuboi’s face had a concerned expression. “Nothing. It’s as if they’re trying to cover it up.”

Yoshishu listened impassively. Then his eyes brightened. “If the President hasn’t ordered a nuclear warhead against us, then he has a great fear of what he sees in his future.”

“Then we have won the gamble.”

“Perhaps, yet we cannot celebrate the enormity of our triumph until the Kaiten Project is ready.

“Takeda Kurojima promises to have the program on-line sometime tomorrow evening.”

Yoshishu placed his hand on Tsuboi’s shoulder. “I think it’s time we opened a direct line of communication to the President and informed him of our terms for the new Japan.”

“And a new America,” Tsuboi said pompously.

“Yes, indeed.” Yoshishu looked proudly at the man who had become his chief disciple. “A new Japanese America.”

65

THE LOCKHEED C-5 GALAXY, the largest cargo plane in the world, settled with all the awkward grace of a pregnant albatross onto the Wake Island airstrip and rolled to a stop. A car approached and braked under the shadow of one enormous wing. Pitt and Giordino left the car and entered the aircraft through a small hatch just aft of the aircraft wheel wells.

Admiral Sandecker was waiting inside. He shook hands and led them through the cavernous cargo bay that could fit six highway buses and seat a hundred passengers. They walked past a NUMA Deep Sea Mining Vehicle that was tied down on a pair of wide stainless steel tracks. Pitt paused in his stride and ran his hand over one of the great tractor treads and stared for a moment at the huge machine, recalling his narrow escape in Big John. This DSMV was a later model and was given the nickname of Big Ben.

The two big articulated arms with the excavation scoop and claw that were normally installed on the deep-sea vehicles had been removed and replaced with extensions fitted with a variety of remote manipulators for grasping and cutting through metal.

The other modification, Pitt noticed, was an immense nylon pack that rested on top of the upper body and control cabin. Heavy lines ran from the pack and were attached at numerous points around the vehicle.

Giordino shook his head sadly. “I’ve got that old feeling we’re about to be used again.”

“They aim to really stick it to us this time,” Pitt said, wondering how the aircraft could lift off the ground with such a massive weight in its belly.

“We’d better get forward,” said Sandecker. “They’re ready for takeoff.”

Pitt and Giordino followed the admiral into an officelike compartment with a desk and chairs bolted to the floor. They were connecting the buckles on their seat belts when the pilot pushed the throttles forward and sent the great aircraft and the twenty-eight wheels of its landing gear rolling down the runway. Affectionately called the Gentle Giant, the huge C-5 Galaxy lifted into the tropical air with a thundering roar and slowly climbed in an easy bank toward the north.

Giordino glanced at his watch. “Three minutes, that was a quick turnaround.”

“We haven’t time to throw away,” Sandecker said seriously.

Pitt relaxed and stretched out his legs. “I take it you have a plan.”

“The best brains in the business have put in a lot of last-minute homework on this one.”

“That’s obvious by this aircraft and Big Ben arriving here with less than twenty-four hours’ notice.”

“How much did Ingram and Meeker tell you?” Sandecker asked.

“They enlightened us on the secret history of the B-Twenty-nine resting on the seabed,” Pitt answered, “and gave a brief lecture on the geology and seismic fault system around Soseki. Meeker also claimed that by detonating the atomic bomb still inside the aircraft, the shock waves could cause the island to sink beneath the sea.”

Giordino pulled out a cigar he’d already stolen from Admiral Sandecker by sleight-of-hand and lit it up. “A cockamamie idea if I ever heard one.”

Pitt nodded in agreement. “Then Mel Penner ordered Al and me to enjoy a holiday on the sandy beaches of Wake Island while he and the rest of the team flew off into the blue for the States. When I demanded to know why we were being left behind, he clammed up, revealing only that you were on your way and would explain everything.”

“Penner didn’t fill in the cracks,” said Sandecker, “because he didn’t know them. Nor were Ingram and Meeker briefed on all the updated details of ‘Arizona.’ “

“Arizona?” Pitt asked curiously.

“The code name of our operation.”

“Our operation?” Giordino questioned guardedly.

“It wouldn’t, of course,” Pitt said sarcastically, “have anything to do with Big Ben, or the fact that Arizona is the name of a state, or more precisely the name of a battleship at Pearl Harbor.”

“It’s as good as any. Code names never make any sense anyway.”

Sandecker stared at his friends closely. A day’s rest had helped, but they looked dead tired and worn out. He felt a gnawing sense of guilt. It was his fault they had already endured so much. And now once more he had recommended their services to Jordan and the President, knowing full well that no other two men alive could match their skills and talents in a deep-ocean environment. How terribly unfair to throw them into another deadly maelstrom so quickly. But there was no one else on God’s earth he could turn to. Sandecker could taste the remorse in his mouth. And he felt guilt at knowing Pitt and Giordino would never refuse to attempt what he asked of them.

“All right, I won’t hand you a lot of crap or sing ‘America the Beautiful.’ I’ll be as straightforward as I can.” He broke off and laid a geological chart on the desk that showed the seafloor for fifty kilometers around Soseki Island. “You two are the best qualified to make a last-ditch effort to finish off the Dragon Center. No one else has as much hands-on experience with a Deep Sea Mining Vehicle.”

“It’s nice to feel needed,” Giordino said wearily.

“What did you say?”

“AI was wondering what exactly it is we’re supposed to do.” Pitt leaned over the chart and stared down at the cross marking the location of Dennings’ Demons. “Our assignment is to use the DMSV to blow up the bomb, I assume.’

“You assume correctly,” said Sandecker. “When we reach the target site, you and Big Ben will exit the plane and drop into the water by parachute.”

“I hate that word,” Giordino said, holding his head in his hands. “The mere thought of it gives me a rash.”

Sandecker gave him a curt look and continued. “After landing in the sea, you’ll settle to the bottom, still using the chutes to slow your descent. Once you are mobile, you drive to the B-Twenty-nine, remove the atomic bomb from inside its fuselage, carry it to a designated area, and detonate it.”

Giordino went as rigid as a man seeing a ghost. “Oh, God, it’s far worse than I thought.”

Pitt gave Sandecker a glacial stare. “Don’t you think you’re asking a bit much?”

“Over fifty scientists and engineers in universities, government, and high-tech industries joined together on a crash program to develop Arizona, and take my word for it, they’ve created a perfect diagram for success.”

“How can they be so sure?” said Giordino. “No one has ever dumped a thirty-five-ton deep-sea vehicle out of an aircraft and into the ocean before.”

“Every factor was calculated and evaluated until all probability of failure was worked out,” said Sandecker, eyeing his expensive cigar in Giordino’s mouth. “You should hit the water as lightly as a falling leaf on a sleeping cat.”

“I’d feel more comfortable jumping from a diving board into a dish rag,” grumbled Giordino.

Sandecker gazed at him with forbearance. “I am aware of the dangers, and I sympathize with your misgivings, but we can do without your Cassandran attitude.”

Giordino looked at Pitt questioningly. “What attitude?”

“Someone who predicts misfortune,” explained Pitt.

Giordino shrugged moodily. “I was only trying to express honest feelings.”

“Too bad we can’t ease Big Ben down a ramp off a ship and let it drift to the bottom with variable pressure tanks, as we did with Big John over Soggy Acres.”

Sandecker said indulgently, “We can’t afford the two weeks it took to get your DSMV here by sea.”

“May I ask just who the hell is going to instruct us how to remove an atomic bomb from tangled wreckage and detonate it?” demanded Pitt.

Sandecker handed them both folders holding forty pages of photos, diagrams, and instructions. “It’s all in here. You’ll have plenty of time to study and practice procedures between now and when we reach the drop zone.”

“The bomb has been under water inside a mangled aircraft for fifty years. How can anyone be certain it’s still in any condition to be detonated?”

“The photos from the Pyramider imaging system show the fuselage of the B-Twenty-nine to be intact, indicating the bomb was undamaged during the crash. Mother’s Breath was designed to be jettisoned in water and recovered. The armored components of its ballistic casing were precision cast with machine finishing and fit together with tolerances that were guaranteed to keep the interior waterproof. The men still living who built it swear it could remain on the bottom of the sea and be detonated five hundred years from now.”

Giordino wore a very sour look. “The explosion will be set with a timer, I hope.”

“You’ll have an hour before detonation,” Sandecker answered. “Big Ben’s top speed has been increased over Big John’s. You should be well away from any effects of the blast.”

“What’s well away?” Pitt pursued.

“Twelve kilometers.”

“What is the end result?” Pitt put to Sandecker.

“The concept is to induce a submarine earthquake with the old atomic bomb and cause a set of circumstances similar to the one that destroyed Soggy Acres.”

“A totally different situation. The explosion on the surface may have caused a sub-bottom quake, but our habitat was wiped out by a resulting avalanche combined with thousands of kilograms of water pressure. Those forces don’t apply on ground above the surface.”

“The water pressure, no. The avalanche, yes.” Sandecker tapped his finger on the chart. “Soseki Island was formed millions of years ago by a long extinct volcano that erupted just off the coast of Japan and spewed a river of lava far out into the sea. At one time this immense lava bed was an arm of the Japanese mainland, rising above the water to a height of two hundred meters. It rested, however, on soft layers of ancient sediment. Gradually, gravity forced it down into the softer silt until it fell beneath the water surface with only its lighter and less massive tip remaining above sea level.”

“Soseki?”

“Yes.”

Pitt studied the chart and said slowly, “If I get this right, the bomb’s shock waves and resulting submarine quake will shift and weaken the underlying sediment until the weight of the island pushes it under the sea.”

“Similar to standing in the surfline while the wave action slowly buries your feet in the sand.”

“It all sounds too simple.”

Sandecker shook his head. “That’s only the half of it. The shock waves alone aren’t enough to do the job. That’s why the bomb must be moved ten kilometers from the plane before it’s detonated.”

“To where?”

“The slope of a deep trench that travels parallel to the island. Besides producing a subocean shock, the magnitude of the atomic explosion is expected to tear loose a section of the trench wall. The tremendous energy, as millions of tons of sediment avalanche down the side of the trench in unison with the shock waves from the bomb, will create one of the most destructive forces of nature.”

“A tsunami,” Pitt anticipated the admiral. “A seismic sea wave.

“As the island begins to sink from the seismic shocks,” Sandecker continued, “it will be dealt a knockout blow by the wave, which will have achieved a height of ten meters and a speed between three and four hundred kilometers an hour. Whatever is left of Soseki Island above the surface will be completely forced under, inundating the Dragon Center.”

“We are going to unleash this monster?” Giordino asked suspiciously. “The two of us?”

“And Big Ben. It was a rush job, no way around it, but the vehicle has been modified to do whatever is demanded.”

“The Japanese mainland,” Pitt said. “A heavy quake followed by a tsunami smashing into the shore could kill thousands of people.”

Sandecker shook his head. “No such tragedy will occur. Soft sediments out to sea will absorb most of the shock waves. Nearby ports and cities along the coast will feel no more than a few tremors. The seismic wave will be small on the scale of most tsunamis.”

“How can you be sure of the ten-meter crest? Tsunamis have been known to go as high as a twelve-story building.”

“Computer projections put the wave crest that strikes the island at less than ten meters. And because Soseki is so close to the epicenter, its mass will act as a barrier and blunt the effects of the wave’s momentum. By the time the first mass of water reaches the coast, at low tide I might add, its crest will have diminished to only one and a half meters, hardly enough for serious damage.”

Pitt mentally measured the distance from the bomber to the spot marked on the slope of the underwater trench for the detonation. He judged it to be about twenty-eight kilometers. An incredible distance to drag an unstable forty-eight-year-old atomic bomb across rugged and unknown terrain.

“After the party,” wondered Pitt, “what happens to us?”

“You drive Big Ben onto the nearest shore, where a Special Forces team will be waiting to evacuate you.”

Pitt sighed heavily.

“Do you have a problem with any part of the plan?” Sandecker asked him.

Pitt’s eyes reflected an undercurrent of doubt. “This has to be the craziest scheme I’ve ever heard in my life. In fact it’s worse than that. It’s damn right suicidal.”

66

RUNNING AT ITS MAXIMUM cruising speed of 460 knots per hour, the C-5 Galaxy ate up the kilometers as darkness fell over the North Pacific. In the cargo bay, Giordino ran through a checklist of Big Ben’s electronic and power systems. Sandecker worked in the office compartment, providing updates on information and responding to questions raised by the President and his National Security Council, who were sweating out the operation in the Situation Room. The admiral was also in constant communication with geophysicists who supplied new data on seafloor geology, along with Payload Percy, who answered Pitt’s inquiries on the bomb removal from the aircraft and its detonation.

To anyone observing Pitt during the final hour of the flight, his behavior would have seemed most peculiar. Instead of a final attempt to cram a thousand and one details into his head or inspecting the DSMV with Giordino, he collected all the box lunches he could beg and buy from the crew. He also borrowed every drop of available drinking water, thirty liters, and the entire production of the aircraft’s coffee maker, four liters, and stashed it all in Big Ben.

He huddled with the Air Force flight engineer, who knew the C-5 better than anyone on board. Together they rigged up a cable used for tying down cargo and a small electric winch above the small compartment that held the crew’s toilet. Pleased with his unscrupulous handiwork, he entered the DSMV and sat in the operator’s chair and silently contemplated the almost hopeless mission ahead of him.

Cutting the bomb free of the B-29 and detonating it was bad enough, but attempting to drive twelve kilometers over unknown terrain to escape the blast was a very iffy proposition indeed.

Less than a minute after the Air Force transport landed at Langley Field, Loren and Mike Diaz were quickly swept away by a limousine with an armed escort and driven to the White House, while Suma and Toshie were hustled into a bland-colored sedan and driven to a secret destination in Maryland.

Upon arrival, Loren and Diaz were ushered down to the Situation Room. The President rose from his end of the table and came forward.

“You don’t know how glad I am to see you,” he said, beaming. He gave Loren a light hug and a kiss on the cheek, then embraced Diaz as if the senator was a close relative.

The tense atmosphere lightened as everyone greeted the recently escaped hostages. Jordan moved in and softly asked them to step into an adjoining office. The President accompanied them and closed the door.

“I apologize for rushing you like this,” he said, “and I realize you must need a good rest, but it’s extremely vital for Ray Jordan to debrief you while an operation is underway to eliminate the threat of the Kaiten Project.”

“We understand,” Diaz said, happy to be back amid the tumult of political action. “I’m sure I speak for Congresswoman Smith when I say we’re only too glad to help.”

The President courteously turned to Loren. “Do you mind?”

Loren felt in desperate need of a good soaking bath. She wore no makeup, her hair was tousled, and she was dressed in pants and slacks a size too small that she had borrowed from an aircraft maintenance man’s wife on Wake Island. Despite that and the exhaustion, she still looked remarkably beautiful.

“Please, Mr. President, what would you like to know?”

“If we can skip the details of your abductions, your treatment by Hideki Suma, and your incredible escape until later,” said Jordan with quiet firmness, “we’d like to hear what you can tell us about Suma’s operations and the Dragon Center.”

Loren and Diaz silently exchanged tense glances that conveyed more fearfully than words the spectrum of menacing horrors that were being created in Edo City and under Soseki Island. She nodded in deference to Diaz, who spoke first.

“From what we saw and heard, I’m afraid that the threat from Suma’s bomb-car program is only the tip of the iceberg.”

“Fifteen minutes to drop, gentlemen,” the pilot’s voice came over the cargo bay speakers.

“Time to mount up,” said Sandecker, his face taut.

Pitt put his hand on Giordino’s shoulder. “Let’s hit the john before we go.”

Giordino looked at him. “Why now? There’s a waste system on Big Ben.”

“A safety procedure. No telling how hard we’re going to strike the water. Formula One and Indianapolis Five Hundred drivers always drain their bladders before a race to prevent internal injury in case they’re in an accident.”

Giordino shrugged. “If you insist.” He walked over to the closetlike toilet for the crew that was stationed behind the cockpit and opened the door.

He had no sooner entered when Pitt made a gesture to the flight engineer. A brief nod in reply and several strands of cable dropped and encircled the toilet and were then winched tight, sealing the door.

Giordino sensed immediately what had happened. “Dirk, no! God, don’t do this!”

Sandecker also realized what was happening. “You can’t make it alone,” he said, grasping Pitt’s arm. “The procedures call for two men.”

“One man can operate Big Ben. Stupid to risk two lives.” Pitt winced as Giordino’s efforts to escape the privy became more frenzied. The little Italian could have easily kicked out the aluminum, but the wrapped steel cable bound it tight. “Tell AI I’m sorry and that someday I’ll make it up to him.”

“I can order the crew to release him.”

Pitt smiled tightly. “You can, but they’d have to fight me to do it.

“You realize you’re jeopardizing the operation. What if you were injured during impact? Without Al, you have no backup.”

For a long moment Pitt stared at Sandecker. Then finally he said, “I don’t want the fear of losing a friend on my mind.”

Sandecker knew there was no moving his Special Projects Director. Slowly he took Pitt’s hand in both of his. “What would you like waiting for you when you get back?”

Pitt gave the admiral a warm smile. “A crab louis salad and a tequila on the rocks.” Then he turned and climbed through the DSMV’s hatch and sealed it.

The C-5 had been specially modified for aerial drops. In the cockpit the co-pilot pulled a red handle on his side of the instrument panel, activating the electric motors that swung open a large section of the cargo deck.

Sandecker and two crew members stood in front of the DSMV, their bodies harnessed to safety straps that clipped to tie-down rings. They leaned forward against the wind that swept through the massive opening, their eyes drawn to Pitt seated in Big Ben’s control cabin.

“Sixty seconds to drop zone,” the pilot’s voice came over the headsets clamped on their heads. “Surface wind holding at five knots. Skies clear with a three-quarter moon. Sea maintaining a slight chop with four-foot swells. No surface ships showing on radar.”

“Conditions acceptable,” Sandecker confirmed.

From his position in front of the DSMV, all Sandecker could see was a yawning black hole in the cargo deck. A thousand meters below, the sea was sprinkled in silver from the moon. He would have preferred a daylight drop with no wind and a flat sea, but he felt lucky there was no typhoon.

“Twenty seconds and counting.” The pilot began the countdown.

Pitt gave a brief wave through the transparent bow of the great vehicle. If he was concerned, no trace of it showed on his face. Giordino still beat on the door of the toilet in a rage of frustration, but the sounds were drowned by the wind howling through the cargo bay.

“Five, four, three, two, one, drop!”

The forward ends of the big rails were raised suddenly by hydraulic pumps, and Big Ben slid backward and through the opening into the darkness in a movement lasting only three seconds. Sandecker and the crewmen were temporarily stunned at seeing the thirty-ton behemoth disappear so smoothly out of sight. They cautiously moved to the edge of the deck and gazed behind and below.

The great mass of the DSMV could just be seen in the moonlight, hurtling toward the sea like a meteor from space.

67

THE MULTIPLE CHUTE system automatically derigged, the night air tugging fiercely as three huge canopies streamed into the dark sky. Then they filled and burst open, and the monster vehicle slowed its express-train descent and began drifting at greatly reduced speed toward the waves.

Pitt looked up at the reassuring spectacle and began to breathe more easily. First hurdle behind, he thought. Now all the DSMV had to do was strike the sea on an even keel and fall through 320 meters of water without mishap before landing on the seafloor in one piece, right side up. This part of the operation, he reflected, was entirely beyond his control. He could do nothing but sit back and enjoy the ride with a small degree of trepidation.

He looked upward and easily distinguished the C-5 Galaxy under the light from the moon as it slowly circled the DSMV. He wondered if Sandecker had released Giordino from the toilet. He could well imagine his friend turning the air blue with choice expletives.

God, how long ago was it when he and the N U MA team set up housekeeping in Soggy Acres? Three months, four? It seemed an eternity. And yet the disaster that destroyed the deep-sea station seemed like yesterday.

He stared up at the parachutes again and wondered if they would provide the necessary drag through water as they did in air.

The engineers who dreamed up this insane mission must have thought so. But they were thousands of miles from where Pitt was sitting, and all they relied on were a lot of formulas and physical laws governing the fall of heavy objects. There were no experiments with models or a full-scale test drop. It was win in one quick gamble or lose at Pitt’s expense if they miscalculated.

Judging distance above water is extremely difficult by day and almost impossible at night, but Pitt caught the moonlit sparkle of spray tossed from the wave crests by the light breeze. Impact was less than fifteen seconds away, he judged. He reclined his seat and settled into the extra padding some thoughtful soul had provided. He gave a final wave at the circling aircraft, stupidly he realized. They were too far away to make him out in the darkness. The pilot was maintaining a safe distance to keep Pitt’s canopies free of turbulence from the plane.

The sudden jarring impact was followed by a great splash as the DSMV struck in the trough between two swells. The vehicle carved a sizable crater in the sea, throwing up a circular wall of water in a blazing display of phosphorescence. Then it sank out of view and the sea closed over Big Ben as if healing a giant pockmark.

The blow was not as bad as Pitt had expected. He and Big Ben had survived the parachute drop without a bruise or a fracture. He returned his seat to the upright position and immediately began a check of all his power systems, considerably happy to see green lights sweep across the instrument console while the computer monitor reported no malfunctions. Next he switched on the exterior lights and swiveled them upward. Two of the parachutes had remained flared, but the third was twisted and tangled in its own shroud lines.

Pitt quickly turned his attention to the computer screen as he punched the appropriate keys to monitor his descent. The numbers traveled across the screen and flashed a warning. The DSMV was dropping into the black void at sixty-one meters per minute. The maximum descent speed had been calculated at forty-two. Big Ben was falling nineteen meters a minute too fast.

“Too busy to talk?” Sandecker’s voice came slurred through Pitt’s earphones.

“I have a small problem,” Pitt replied.

“The parachutes?” Sandecker asked, fearful of the answer.

“One of the chutes tangled and I’ve lost drag.”

“What’s your descent speed?”

“Sixty-one.”

“Not good.”

“Tell me about it.”

“The event was considered. Your landing site was selected because the terrain is flat and layered with soft sediment. Despite your excessive rate of descent, impact will be less than what you encountered on the water surface.”

“I’m not worried about impact,” Pitt said, warily eyeballing the TV monitor whose camera was aimed below the rapidly sinking DSMV. “But I am worried about a thirty-ton machine burying itself in ten meters of ooze. Without a scoop Big Ben can’t dig its way out of the muck like Big John.”

“We’ll get you out,” Sandecker promised.

“And what of the operation?”

Sandecker’s voice dropped off so low that Pitt could hardly hear him. “We close the play—”

“Hold on!” Pitt snapped abruptly. “The bottom has come into viewing range.”

The ugly brown of the seabed rose up out of the blackness. He watched apprehensively as the desolate terrain burst toward the camera. The DSMV struck and sank into the silt like a fist into a sponge cake. A huge cloud billowed into the cold black water and curtained off all visibility.

On board the aircraft, as if triggered by a mutual fear, the eyes of Giordino and Sandecker lifted and met across the top of the communications equipment. Their faces were taut and grim as they waited for Pitt’s next voice contact.

All anger had vanished from Giordino after he was released from his latrine prison. Now there was only intense concern as he waited for news of his friend’s fate in the depths of the sea.

Far below, Pitt could not immediately tell if the DSMV had buried itself under the seabed. His only sensation was of being pressed into his chair by a firm weight. All vision was gone. The cameras and exterior lights only recorded brownish ooze. He had no way of knowing whether the control cabin was covered by a thin coating of silt or entombed by five meters of quicksandlike muck.

Fortunately the parachute canopies were caught in a three-knot current and drifted off to the side of the DSMV. Pitt pulled a switch releasing the hooks attached to the chutes’ thick lines.

He engaged the nuclear power systems and shifted Big Ben into “forward.” He could feel the vibration as the great tractor belts dug their cleats into the silt and began to turn. For close to a full minute nothing happened. The belts seemed to spin on their gear wheels with no indication of forward traction.

Then Big Ben lurched to starboard. Pitt adjusted the controls and turned the DSMV back to port. He could feel it edge ahead slightly. He repeated the process, careening the great vehicle back and forth until centimeter-by-centimeter it began to gain headway, picking up momentum and increasing its forward movement.

Suddenly it broke the suction and lunged up and ahead, traveling over fifty meters before breaking out of the silt cloud into clear visibility.

Long seconds passed and a vague feeling of triumph began to seep into Pitt’s body. He sat there quietly relaxed, allowing the DSMV to travel across the seafloor under its own control. He switched on the automatic drive and set a computerized navigational course to the west, then waited a few moments to be certain the DSMV was operating smoothly. Thankfully, Big Ben soon reached its maximum speed and was rolling over the barren underwater plain as effortlessly as if it was plowing under a cornfield in Iowa.

Only then did Pitt contact Sandecker and Giordino and report that he was on his way toward Dennings’ Demons.

68

IT WAS MIDMORNING in Washington when Jordan took the message from Sandecker, ten time zones to the west. The President had returned to his bedroom in the upstairs White House for a shower and a change of clothes. He was standing in front of a mirror knotting his tie when the call came from the Situation Room.

“Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. President,” said Jordan respectfully, “but I thought you’d like to know the drop was successful. Pitt and the Deep Sea Mining Vehicle are in motion.”

“Nice to start the day with some good news for a change. How soon before they reach the bomber?”

“An hour, less if the seafloor is flat and doesn’t hold any geological surprises.”

“And detonation?”

“Two hours to remove the bomb and another three to reach the explosion site, set the detonators, and give the DSMV enough time to get safely out of the area.”

“There were no problems?” asked the President.

“Admiral Sandecker reported the fall through water was a bit hairy for a while, but the DSMV survived the impact in good shape. The only other hitch, if you want to call it that, is Pitt somehow arranged to leave Giordino behind and is conducting the operation on his own.”

The President was secretly pleased. “That doesn’t surprise me. He’s the kind of man who would sacrifice himself before endangering a friend. Any late developments on the bomb cars?”

“The task force engaged in the search have turned up twenty-seven.”

“Yoshishu and Tsuboi must know we’re breathing down their necks. If they had the code to explode the bombs, we’d have heard from them.”

“We’ll know shortly if we’ve won the race or not,” Jordan said soberly.

The President’s special assistant, Dale Nichols, rushed up to the President as he stepped out of the elevator. The President immediately recognized a look of urgency on Nichols’ face.

“You look like you’re standing barefoot on an anthill, Dale. What’s going down?”

“You’d better step into the communications lounge, Mr. President. Ichiro Tsuboi has somehow entered our safe system and opened up communications on the video entry.”

“Is he on view now?”

“Not yet. He’s on hold, demanding he talk only to you.”

“Alert the Situation Room so they can tune in the conversation.”

The President entered a room down the hall from the Oval Office and sat in a leather chair on one end of a small stage backed by a giant rectangular opening in the far wall. He pressed a button on a console in the armrest and waited. Suddenly time and space melted into one place, one moment, as a life-sized three-dimensional image of Ichiro Tsuboi materialized on the other side of the stage.

Thanks to the magic technology of photonics—fiber-optic transmission—and computer wizardry, the two men could sit and converse as though they were in the same room. The detail was so amazing that Tsuboi’s image appeared sharply defined and solid without the faintest indication of fuzzy transparency.

Tsuboi was kneeling stiffly on his knees on a bamboo mat, his hands loosely clenched and resting on his thighs. He was dressed in an expensive business suit but wore no shoes. He bowed slightly as the President’s image appeared on his end of the transmission.

“You wish to establish dialogue, Mr. Tsuboi?” said the President for openers.

“That is correct,” replied Tsuboi, rudely refusing to address the President by title.

The President decided to shoot from the hip. “Well, you certainly got my attention with that nuclear blast in Wyoming. Was that supposed to constitute a message?”

The impact of the President’s words was heightened by his seeming indifference. The consummate politician, the President was a shrewd judge of human character. He quickly detected a perceptible tenseness in Tsuboi’s eyes and deduced the Japanese was not dealing from a solid power base.

The international financial wizard and heir apparent to Suma’s underworld and industrial empire tried to appear calm and in control, but the President’s prior silence on the explosion had produced an unsettling effect. He and Yoshishu could not understand why the chief executive had virtually ignored it.

“We can save many words, Mr. President,” said Tsuboi. “You know of our technical advances and superiority in defensive technology, and by now Senator Diaz, Congresswoman Smith, and your intelligence people have provided you with information on our facility on Soseki Island.”

“I’m quite aware of your Dragon Center and the Kaiten Project,” the President countered, mindful that Tsuboi failed to mention Hideki Suma. “And if you believe I won’t order massive retaliation should you insanely detonate any more of your bomb cars, you’re sadly mistaken.”

“Our original intent was not to kill millions of people,” Tsuboi insisted.

“I know what you intended, Mr. Tsuboi. Try it and Armageddon is yours.”

“If you wish to go down in history as the greatest monster since Adolf Hitler for a totally irrational act, then there is little more to say.”

“You must have wanted to say something, or why else did you contact me?”

Tsuboi paused, then pressed on. “I have certain proposals to throw on the table.”

“I’m willing to hear them.”

“You will call off your search of the cars. If any more are seized, the signals will be sent to detonate. And since you once dropped such a weapon on my people, I assure you I will not hesitate to explode the remaining bombs in populated cities.

The President fought hard to suppress his growing anger. “A standoff then. You kill a few million of us, we decimate your entire population.”

“No, you won’t do that. The people of the great White Christian American nation will not condone such butchery.”

“We’re not all white or Christian.”

“The minorities that undermine your culture will never back your stand.”

“They’re still Americans.”

“Nevertheless, my people are committed and prepared to die for the new empire.”

“That’s a damned lie,” the President shot back. “Until now, you and Suma and the rest of your gangland mob have operated in secret. The Japanese people have no idea you’ve placed their lives on the line for world economic dominance. They won’t risk the devastation of their nation for a cause based on greed by a few criminals. You don’t speak for them or your government.”

The barest trace of a smile crossed Tsuboi’s face, and the President knew he had been sucked in. “You can avoid this horrible holocaust on both our countries by simply accepting my proposals.”

“You mean demands.”

“As you wish.”

“State your case,” said the President, his voice beginning to sound strained. He’d lost his edge and was angry with himself.

“There will be no nationalization or takeover of Japanese owned companies, nor judicial interference with any of our projected corporate or real estate buy-outs.”

“That’s no big deal. Nationalization has never been in the interests of the United States. No legislation has ever been considered on such an unconstitutional premise in our two hundred years. As to the latter, no Japanese firm that I know of has been barred by law from purchasing a business or land in the United States.”

“Japanese citizens will not be required to present visas when entering the United States.”

“You’ll have to battle Congress on that one.”

Tsuboi coldly continued. “No trade barriers or increased tariffs on Japanese products.”

“What about your end?”

“Not negotiable,” said Tsuboi, obviously prepared for the question. “There are sound reasons why many of your products are not welcome in Japan.”

“Go on,” ordered the President.

“The State of Hawaii becomes a territory of Japan.”

The President had been forewarned of that unreasonable demand. “The good people of the island are already madder than hell over what you’ve done to their real estate prices. I doubt if they’d be willing to exchange the Stars and Stripes for the rising sun.”

“Also the State of California.”

“Impossible and outrageous are words that come to mind,” the President said cynically. “Why stop now? What else do you want?”

“Since our money keeps your treasury afloat, we expect representation in your government, which includes a seat on your cabinet and our people highly placed in your State, Treasury, and Commerce departments.”

“Who makes the selection of your people, you and Yoshishu or the leaders of your government?”

“Mr. Yoshishu and myself.”

The President was aghast. It was like inviting organized crime to participate in government at the highest levels. “What you ask, Mr. Tsuboi, is absolutely unthinkable. The American people will never allow themselves to become economic slaves to foreign nationals.”

“They’ll pay a heavy price if you ignore my terms. On the other hand, if we have a say in the operation of the American government and business community, your whole economy will turn around drastically and provide a higher standard of living for your citizens.”

The President’s teeth clenched. “With a monopoly, prices and profits on Japanese products would skyrocket.”

“You’d also have lower unemployment, and the national debt would diminish,” Tsuboi went on as if the President was impotent.

“I don’t have it in my power to make promises that Congress won’t keep,” said the President, his anger stilled, his mind jockeying for an upper hand. He lowered his eyes to appear perplexed. “You know your way around Washington, Mr. Tsuboi. You have an understanding of how our government works.”

“I am quite aware of your executive limits. But there is much you can do without congressional approval.”

“You must excuse me for a few moments while I digest the enormity of your demands.” The President paused to gather his thoughts. He could not lie and pretend to cave in to all of Tsuboi’s ridiculous demands. That would indicate an obvious ploy, a stall for time. He had to put up a brusque front and appear agitated. He looked up and stared directly at Tsuboi. “I cannot in good conscience accept what has to be unconditional terms of surrender.

“They are better terms than you offered us in nineteen forty-five.”

“Our occupation was far more generous and benevolent than your people had any right to expect,” the President said, his nails digging into the armrests of his chair.

“I am not here to discuss historic differences,” Tsuboi stated bluntly. “You’ve heard the terms and know the consequences. Indecision or procrastination on your part will not delay tragedy.”

There was no sign of a bluff in Tsuboi’s eyes. The President well realized the threat was made more horrible by the cars hidden in heavily populated cities and the suicidal maniacs waiting for the signal to set off the bombs.

“Your extortion demands don’t leave much room for negotiation.”

“None whatsoever,” Tsuboi replied in a tone that defied debate.

“I can’t just snap my fingers and produce a miracle of cooperation with the political opposition,” said the President, feigning exasperation. “You damned well know I can’t dictate to Congress. Senator Diaz and Congresswoman Smith carry heavy weight in both houses, and they’re already inflaming their fellow legislators against you.”

Tsuboi shrugged indifferently. “I fully realize the wheels of your government grind in a swamp of emotions, Mr. President. And your elected representatives vote along party lines, irrespective of the national good. But they will be persuaded to accept the inevitable once you inform them that two of the bomb cars are being driven around Washington as we talk.”

Not good. The ball was back on the President’s side of the court. He made a monumental effort to remain impassive and show strains of anger. “I’ll need time.”

“You have until three o’clock this afternoon, your time, to appear on national television with your advisers and the leaders of Congress standing behind you in a show of support as you announce the new cooperation agreements between Japan and the United States.”

“You’re asking too much.”

“That is the way it must be,” said Tsuboi. “And one more thing, Mr. President. Any indication of an attack on Soseki Island will be answered with the bomb cars. Do I make myself clear?”

“As crystal.”

“Then, good morning. I shall look forward to watching you on television this afternoon.”

Tsuboi’s image swiftly dissolved and vanished.

The President looked up at a clock on one wall. Nine o’clock. Only six hours remained. The same time sequence Jordan projected for Pitt to set off the old atomic bomb and launch the submarine quake and tsunami.

“Oh, God,” he whispered to the empty room. “What if it all goes wrong?”

69

BIG BEN MOVED across the vast seascape at fifteen kilometers an hour, almost lightning speed for an immense vehicle traveling underwater through the abyssal mud. A great cloud of fine silt swirled in its wake, blossoming into the yawning blackness before dissipating and slowly settling back to the bottom.

Pitt studied a viewing screen connected to a laser-sonar unit that probed the seafloor ahead and enhanced it into three dimensions. The submarine desert held few surprises, and except for a detour around a narrow but deep rift, he was able to make good time.

Precisely forty-seven minutes after he detached the parachutes and set Big Ben in motion, the hard outline of the B-29 appeared and grew until it filled the monitor. The coordinates from the Pyramider satellite that were programmed into the DSMV’s navigation computer had put him right on the target.

Pitt was close enough now to see wreckage creeping under the far edges of the exterior lights. He slowed Big Ben and circled the bleak and broken aircraft. It looked like a cast-off toy on the bottom of a backyard pond. Pitt stared at it with the rapture experienced by divers the first time they approach a manmade object in the sea. To be the first to see or touch a sunken automobile, a missing plane, or a lost shipwreck is a fearful yet melancholy experience, only shared by those who daringly walk through a haunted house after midnight.

Dennings’ Demons had sunk a little over a meter in the silt. One engine was missing and the starboard wing was twisted backward and up like a grotesque arm reaching for the surface. The blades of the remaining three propellers had folded back from the impact with the water like drooping petals on a dying flower.

The three-story-high tail section showed the effects of shell fire. It had broken away and lay several meters behind the main fuselage and slightly off to one side. The tail gunner’s section was shattered and riddled, the rusting barrels of the 20-millimeter cannons dipped into the mud.

The aluminum surfaces of the 30-meter-long tubular fuselage were covered with slime and encrustations, but the framed glass windows encircling the bow were still clear. And the little demon painted under the pilot’s side window was surprisingly clean and free of scale and growth. Pitt could have sworn the beady little eyes stared back at him and the lips pulled back in a satanic grin.

He knew better than to let his imagination run wild and envision skeletons of the crew still at their stations, skulls with jaws dropped in deathly silence, eye sockets empty and unseeing. Pitt had spent enough time under the sea swimming through sunken vessels to know the soft organic substances of the human body were the first to go, quickly consumed by bottom-dwelling sea creatures. Then the bones, eventually dissolving in the icy cold of saltwater. Strange as it seems, clothing would be the last to disintegrate, especially leather flight jackets and boots. In time, even those would disappear, as well as the entire aircraft.

“I have visual on the target,” he announced to Sandecker in the C-5, flying overhead in the night.

“What is the condition?” Sandecker’s disembodied voice came back quickly.

“One wing is heavily damaged. The tail is broken off, but the main fuselage is intact.”

“The bomb is in the forward bomb bay. You’ll have to position Big Ben at an angle where the leading edge of the wing joins the fuselage. Then make your cut across the aircraft’s roof.”

“Luck was a lady tonight,” said Pitt. “The starboard wing is torn back, offering easy access. I can move into perfect position to slice through the bulkheads from the side.”

Pitt maneuvered the DSMV until its manipulator arms reached over the forward bomb bay of the aircraft. He inserted his hand into a glovelike actuator that electronically controlled the mechanical arms and selected a multidirectional metal-cutting wheel from one of three tools coupled to the wrist of the left manipulator. Operating the system as if it was an extension of his hand and arm, he laid out and measured the cut on a monitor that projected interior cutaway views of the aircraft’s structural components. He could perform the difficult operation by observing it on video from several close-up angles instead of relying on direct sight through the transparent bow. He positioned the wheel against the aluminum skin of the plane and programmed the dimensions and the depth of the cut into the computer. Then he switched on the tool and watched it attack the body of Dennings’ Demons as precisely as a surgeon’s scalpel.

The fine teeth of the whirling disk sliced through the aged aluminum of the airframe with the ease of a razor blade through a balsa-wood model glider. There were no sparks, no heated glow from friction. The metal was too soft and the water too icy. Support struts and bundled wiring cables were also efficiently severed. When the cut was finally completed fifty minutes later, Pitt extended the opposite manipulator. The wrist on this one was fitted with a large gripper assembly sprouting pincerlike fingers.

The gripper bit through the aluminum skin and into a structural bulkhead, the pincers closed, and the arm slowly raised up and back, ripping away a great piece of the aircraft’s side and roof. Pitt carefully swung the manipulator on a ninety-degree angle and very slowly lowered the torn wreckage into the silt without raising a blinding cloud of silt.

Now he had an opening measuring three by four meters. The Fat Man-type bomb, code-named Mother’s Breath, was clearly visible from the side, hanging securely and eerily from a large shackle and adjustable sway braces.

Pitt still had to carve his way through sections of the crawl tunnel that traveled above the bomb bay, connecting the cockpit with the waist-gunner compartment. Part of it had already been partially removed, as were the bomb-bay catwalks, so the immense bomb could be squeezed inside the bowels of the plane. He also had to cut away the guide rails that were installed to insure the bomb’s fins didn’t snag during the drop.

Again the operation went smoothly. The remaining barriers were soon dropped in a pile on top of the wreckage already sliced away. The next part of the bomb’s removal was the trickiest.

Mother’s Breath seemed festered with death and destruction. Nine feet in length and five feet in diameter, the dimensions given when it was built, it looked like a big fat ugly egg dyed in rust with boxed fins on one end and a zipper around its middle.

“Okay, I’m going for the bomb,” Pitt reported to Sandecker.

“You’ll have to use both manipulators to remove and transport it,” said Sandecker. “She weighed close to five tons by the old weight measurement.”

“I need one arm to cut away the shackle and sway braces.”

“The stress is too great for one manipulator. It can’t support the bomb without damage.”

“I’m aware of that, but I have to wait until after I sever the shackle cable before I can replace the cutting disk with a gripper. Only then do I dare attempt the lift.”

“Hold on,” Sandecker ordered. “I’ll check, and be right back to you.”

While he waited, Pitt put the cutting tool in place and clamped the gripper on the lifting eye beneath the shackle.

“Dirk?”

“Come in, Admiral.”

“Let the bomb drop.”

“Say again.”

“Cut through the shackle cables and let the bomb fall free. Mother’s Breath is an implosion-type bomb and could survive a hard shock.”

All Pitt saw as he stared at the horrific monstrosity dangling only a few meters away was the erupting fireball repeated constantly in documentary films.

“Are you there?” Sandecker inquired, the nervousness detectable in his voice.

“Is that a fact or a rumor?” Pitt came back.

“Historical fact.”

“If you hear a big underwater boom, you’ll know you spoiled my day.”

Pitt took a long breath, exhaled, unconsciously closed his eyes, and directed the cutting disk to slash the shackle cables. Half rusted through after nearly fifty years beneath the sea, the strands quickly parted under the onslaught of the disk’s teeth, and the great bomb fell onto the closed bomb-bay doors, the only explosion coming from the silt that had seeped in and accumulated.

For an eerie, lonely minute Pitt sat there numb, almost feeling the silence as he waited for the sediment to fade and the bomb to reappear.

“I didn’t hear a boom,” Sandecker notified him with infuriating calm.

“You will, Admiral,” Pitt said, catching up and corralling rational thought, “you will.”

70

HOPE WAS HANGING in and rising. Slightly less than two hours to go, and Big Ben was barreling over the seabed with Mother’s Breath securely gripped in the pincers of its manipulators. Like the final minutes of a ball game when the outcome and score are still in doubt, the tension inside the C-5 Galaxy and in the White House was becoming heavier as the operation approached its peak.

“He’s eighteen minutes ahead of schedule,” said Giordino softly, “and looking good.”

” ‘Like one that on a lonesome road doth walk in fear and dread,’ ” Sandecker quoted absently.

Giordino looked up quizzically. “What was that, Admiral?”

“Coleridge.” Sandecker smiled apologetically. ” ‘The Ancient Mariner.’ I was thinking of Pitt down there, alone in the deep with millions of lives riding on his shoulders, centimeters away from instant cremation—”

“I should have been with him,” Giordino said bitterly.

“We all know you’d have locked him up if only you’d thought of it first.”

“True.” Giordino shrugged. “But I didn’t. And now he’s staring at death while I sit here like a store-window dummy.”

Sandecker gazed at the chart and the red line showing Pitt’s course across the seafloor to the B-29, and from there to the detonation site. “He’ll do it and come out alive,” he murmured. Dirk is not the kind of man to die easily.”

Masuji Koyama, Suma’s expert technician in defense detection, stood behind the operator of a surveillance radar display and pointed out a target to Yoshishu, Tsuboi, and Takeda Kurojima, who were grouped around him.

“A very large American Air Force transport,” he explained. “Computer enhancement shows it as a C-Five Galaxy, capable of carrying an extremely heavy payload for great distances.”

“You say it is acting most strangely?” said Yoshishu.

Koyama nodded. “It approached from the southeast along a course toward the American Air Force Base at Shimodate, an air traffic corridor used by their military aircraft that passes within seventy to a hundred kilometers of our island. While tracking it, we observed an object detach itself and fall into the ocean.”

“It dropped from the aircraft?”

“Yes.”

“Could you identify it?” asked Tsuboi.

Koyama shook his head. “All I can tell you is it appeared to fall slowly, as if attached to a parachute.”

“An underwater sensing device perhaps?” mused Kurojima, the Dragon Center’s chief director.

“A possibility, although it looked too large for a sonic sensor.”

“Most odd,” mused Yoshishu.

“Since then,” Koyama continued, “the aircraft has remained over the area in a circular holding pattern.”

Tsuboi looked at him. “How long?”

“Almost four hours.”

“Have you intercepted voice transmissions?”

“A few brief signals, but they were electronically garbled.”

“Spotter plane!” Koyama snapped as if seeing a revelation.

“What,” inquired Yoshishu, “is a spotter plane?”

“An aircraft with sophisticated detection and communications equipment,” Koyama explained. “They’re used as flying command centers to coordinate military assaults.”

“The President is a vicious liar!” Tsuboi hissed suddenly. “He laid a smoke screen and falsified his position to stall for time. It is clear now, he intends to launch a manned attack on the island.”

“But why be so obvious?” Yoshishu said quietly. “The American intelligence knows well our capacity to detect and observe targets of interest at that range.”

Koyama stared at the reflection of the plane on the radar display. “Could be a mission to electronically probe our defenses.”

Tsuboi’s face was hard in anger. “I will open communications with the President and demand he remove it from our waters.”

“No, I have a better plan.” Yoshishu’s lips parted in a bleak, wintry smile. “A message the President will understand.”

“Your plan, Korori?” Tsuboi inquired respectfully.

“Quite simple,” answered Yoshishu with emotionless candor. “We destroy it.”

Within six minutes, two Toshiba infrared surface-to-air missiles spewed from their launchers and homed in on the unsuspecting crew of the C-5. The defenseless, frighteningly vulnerable aircraft did not carry attack warning systems. It went about its business of monitoring Big Ben’s progress, circling the sea in blissful ignorance of the destructive terror streaking toward its great bulk.

Sandecker had stepped into the communications compartment to send a status report to the White House while Giordino remained in their office. Giordino stood hunched over the desk studying the marine geologist’s report on the undersea trench Pitt had to cross to reach the safety of the Japanese coast. He was plotting the distance for perhaps the fifth time when the first missile struck the aircraft and burst with a great roar. The shock and pressure wave knocked Giordino to the deck. Stunned, he had barely hoisted himself to his elbows when the second missile smashed into the lower cargo hold and tore a huge gaping hole in the belly of the fuselage.

The end should have been swift, spectacular, but the first missile did not explode on immediate contact. It passed through the upper waist of the aircraft between bulkheads and shot across the cargo bay, bursting as it penetrated the airframe ribs on the opposite wall. The major force of the explosion was thrust into the night air outside, saving the aircraft from tearing apart.

Even as he fought off the shock, Giordino thought, She must go down now. She can’t stay in the air. But he was wrong on both counts. The big Galaxy was not about to die. She was miraculously free from flames, and only one of her flight control systems was damaged. Despite her gaping wounds, she remained solidly in the air.

The pilot had put the crippled aircraft into a shallow dive before leveling out less than thirty meters above the sea on a southern course away from Soseki Island. The engines were running normal, and except for the vibration and restraining drag from the holes in the fuselage, the pilot’s primary concern was the loss of the elevator control.

Sandecker came aft, accompanied by the flight engineer to assess the damage. They found Giordino picking his way gingerly on his hands and knees across the cargo bay. Clutching a bulkhead support for dear life, he cast a jaundiced eye out the gaping opening at the sea that swept past like quicksilver.

“I’ll be damned if I’ll jump,” he shouted over the roar of the chaotic wind that pounded through the aircraft.

“I don’t fancy it either,” Sandecker shouted back.

The flight engineer stared in frightened awe at the damage. “What in hell happened?”

“We took a pair of hits from ground-to-air missiles,” Giordino yelled at him.

Giordino motioned to Sandecker and pointed forward to get out of the wind blast. They made their way to the cockpit while the flight engineer began a damage inspection of the shattered lower belly. They found the pilots calmly struggling with the controls, quietly conversing as though they were conducting a textbook emergency in a flight simulator.

Giordino sank wearily to the floor, thankful to still be alive. “I can’t believe this big bird is still flying,” he mumbled gladly. “Remind me to kiss the designers.”

Sandecker leaned over the console between the pilots and gave a brief accounting of the damage. Then he asked, “What’s our chances?”

“We’ve still got electrical and some hydraulic power and enough control to maneuver,” answered the chief pilot, Major Marcus Turner, a big ruddy-featured Texan, usually cheerful and humorous but now tense and grim. “But the blast must have cut the lines running from the main fuel tank. The needles on the gauges have made a drastic drop in only two minutes.”

“Can you stay on station beyond the range of the missiles’?”

“Negative.”

“I can make that an order from the chief executive,” said Sandecker gruffly.

Turner did not look happy, nor did he cave in. “No disrespect, Admiral, but this aircraft may come apart at the seams any second. If you have a death wish, that’s your business. My duty is to save my crew and my aircraft. As a professional Navy man, you know what I’m talking about.”

“I sympathize, but my order stands.”

“If she’ll stick together and we nurse the fuel,” said Turner unperturbed, “we might make it to Naha Airfield on Okinawa. That’s the nearest long runway that isn’t in Japan proper.”

“Okinawa’s out,” Sandecker announced curtly. “We get clear of the island’s defense systems and we stay within communication range with my man on the bottom. This operation is too vital to national security to abandon. Keep us in the air as long as you can. If worse comes to worst, ditch her in the sea.”

Turner’s face was red, and perspiration was beginning to drip from it, but he managed a taut smile. “All right, Admiral, but you’d better plan on a long swim to the nearest land.”

Then, as if to add insult to injury, Sandecker felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned quickly. It was the communications operator. He looked at Sandecker and shook his head in a helpless gesture that signaled bad news.

“I’m sorry, Admiral, but the radio’s knocked out. We can’t transmit or receive.”

“That tears it,” said Turner. “We can’t accomplish anything by flying around with a dead radio.”

Sandecker gazed at Giordino, sorrow and anguish showing clearly in every deeply etched line in the admiral’s face. “Dirk won’t know. He’ll think he’s been abandoned.”

Giordino looked impassively through the windscreen to a point somewhere between black sea and black sky. He felt sick at heart. This was the second time in the past few weeks he felt he had failed his closest friend. At last he looked up, and strangely he was smiling.

“Dirk doesn’t need us. If anyone can damn well explode that bomb and park Big Ben on the shore, he will.”

“My money is on him too,” Sandecker said with total conviction.

“Okinawa?” Turner asked, his hand tightly gripping the controls.

Very slowly, with much difficulty, as if he were fighting the devil for his soul, Sandecker looked at Turner and nodded. “Okinawa.”

The big aircraft banked on a new course and limped into the darkness. A few minutes later the sound of its engines faded, leaving behind a silent sea, empty but for one man.

71

WITH THE BOMB hanging grotesquely from its manipulators, Big Ben sat poised on the edge of the great submarine trench that yawned ten kilometers wide and two deep. Inside, Pitt stared grimly down the slope that trailed off into the gloom.

The geophysicists had selected a point about twelve hundred meters below the rim of the trench wall as the optimum location for the blast to set off a landslide that would in turn launch the seismic sea wave. But the grade was a good five percent steeper than the satellite photos had suggested. And worse, much worse, the upper layer of sediment that formed the sides of the trench was the consistency of oily clay.

Pitt had activated a telescoping probe into the silt and was far from overjoyed at the geological test results that read across the computer screen. He realized the danger of his position. It would be a battle to prevent the heavy vehicle from slithering through the slick muck all the way to the bottom of the trench.

And once he was committed and plunged Big Ben over the edge, there was no turning back. The cleats on the drive tracks could never gain a grip solid enough to pull the DSMV back up the slope and over the ridge to safety before the explosion. After priming the bomb, he decided to continue on a diagonal course downward along the side of the slope, much like a skier traversing a snow-packed hill. His only chance, and a slightly less than nonexistent one, was to use gravity to increase his speed and push Big Ben beyond the clutches of the avalanche before they were both caught up in its force, swept away, and buried for the next ten million years.

Pitt appreciated how narrow the fine dividing line was between survival and death. He thought wryly that Murphy’s Law never took a holiday. He missed having Giordino at his side and wondered why all communications had ceased from the C-S Galaxy. There had to be a good reason. Giordino and Sandecker would never desert him without cause. It was too late now for explanations and too early for final farewells.

It was eerie and lonely with no human voice to prop up his morale. He felt the fatigue sweeping over him in great woolly waves. He slumped in his seat, any optimism drained away. He examined the coordinates for the detonation site and peered at his watch for the last time.

Then he took manual control of Big Ben, engaged the forward drive, and plunged the huge tractor vehicle down the steep slope.

The momentum rapidly increased after the first hundred meters, and Pitt began to doubt he could stop DSMV before it barreled to the bottom of the trench. He quickly discovered that braking the treads failed to check his speed. Friction did not exist between the cleats and the slick mud. The great mechanical beast began to slide over the slick surface like a runaway truck and semitrailer hurtling down a steep road grade.

The rotund bomb swung wildly in the grip of the manipulators. Because it hung directly in front of his forward view, Pitt could not avoid glancing at the evil thing without conceding it in his mind’s eye as the instrument of his own impending death.

Suddenly another terrifying thought mushroomed in his mind. If it broke free and rolled down the slope, he might never be able to retrieve it. He stiffened in desperate fear, not of death, but that he might falter in the home stretch.

Pitt moved quickly now, uncaring that he had taken a risk no sane man would ever have contemplated. He slipped the drive into reverse and applied extra power. The cleats wildly thrashed through the slippery ooze backward, and Big Ben sluggishly slowed to a crawl.

A wall of silt engulfed the vehicle as he brought it to a full stop. He waited patiently for visibility to return before easing forward for fifty meters, then engaging reverse and drawing the DSMV to a halt again. He continued this series of maneuvers until he regained firm control and had a feel for the interaction between the drive track and the mire.

His movements at the controls became hurried now. Each passing minute increased his desperation. At last, after nearly thirty minutes of intense effort to move the big DSMV where he directed it, the navigational computer signaled that he had reached his destination. Thankfully, he found a small level shelf protruding from the slope. He disengaged the power systems and parked.

“I have arrived at the detonation site and will begin to arm the bomb,” he announced through his communications phone in the forlorn hope Sandecker and Giordino might still be listening in somewhere above.

Pitt lost little time in lowering the manipulator arms and setting the bomb in the soft sediment. He released the grippers and interchanged the pincers for working tools. Once more he inserted his hand into the manipulator control and very carefully used a sheetmetal shear to cut away the panel on the tapered tail assembly that covered the main fusing compartment.

The housing inside contained four radar units and a barometric pressure switch. If the bomb had been dropped as planned, the radar units would have bounced their signals off the approaching ground target. Then, at a predetermined altitude, an agreed reading by two units would send the firing signal to the fusing system mounted on the front of the implosion sphere. The second arming system was the barometric switch that was also set to close the firing circuit at a preset altitude.

The firing signal circuits, however, could not be closed while the plane was in flight. They had to be triggered by clock-operated switches that were not bypassed until the bomb had dropped well clear of the bomb bay. Otherwise Dennings’ Demons would have gone up in a pre-detonated fireball.

After the panel was removed, Pitt swiveled a miniaturized video camera on the end of the left manipulator. He quickly found the barometric arming switch and focused on it. Constructed of brass, steel, and copper, it showed signs of corrosion but was still intact.

Next, Pitt coupled a slender three-pincer hand to one manipulator. The arm was flexed back toward the front of the DSMV, where the pincers opened the heavy mesh lid of a tool crib and removed a strange ceramic object that looked like a small deflated soccer ball. A copper plate was imbedded in the concave bottom, surrounded by a pliable bonding material. The appearance was deceiving. The object was actually a very sophisticated pressurized container filled with an inert puttylike compound composed of plastic and acid. The ceramic cover surrounding the caustic substance had been contoured to fit snugly over the barometric firing switch and form a watertight seal.

Pitt worked the manipulator hand and positioned the container around the switch. Once it was firmly in place, he delicately pulled a tiny plug that allowed the sea to seep very slowly into the container. When the inert compound inside came in contact with saltwater, it chemically turned active and became highly caustic and corrosive. After eating through the copper plate—the thickness governed a delayed sequence of one hour—the acidic compound would then attack the copper in the barometric switch, eventually creating an electrical charge that would set off the firing signal and detonate the bomb.

As Pitt retracted the manipulators and gently backed Big Ben away from the hideous monstrosity lying like a fat, slimy bulge in the mud, he stole a quick glance at the digital clock on his instrument console.

He had run a tight race. Mother’s Breath would explode forty-eight years late but within a new deadline in another time.

“Any word?” asked the President anxiously from the Oval Office.

“We have an unexplained communications breakdown,” Jordan reported from the Situation Room.

“You’ve lost Admiral Sandecker?”

“I’m afraid so, Mr. President. We’ve tried every means at our disposal but have been unable to re-establish contact with his aircraft.”

The President felt a numbing fear spread through him. “What went wrong?”

“We can only guess. The last pass of the Pyramider showed the aircraft had broken off with the Deep Sea Mining Vehicle and was headed on a course toward the island of Okinawa.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would Sandecker abort the mission after Pitt had successfully removed the bomb from Dennings’ Demons?”

“He wouldn’t, unless Pitt had a serious accident and was unable to complete the detonation.”

“Then it’s over,” the President said heavily.

When Jordan replied, there was the hollow ring of defeat in his voice. “We won’t know the full story until the admiral makes contact again.”

“What is the latest on the search for the bomb cars?”

“The FBI task force has uncovered and neutralized another three, all in major cities.”

“And the human drivers?”

“Every one a diehard follower of Suma and the Gold Dragons, ready and willing to sacrifice their lives. Yet they put up no resistance or made any attempt to detonate the bombs when FBI agents arrested them.”

“Why so docile and accommodating?”

“Their orders were to explode the bombs in their respective vehicles only when they received a coded signal from the Dragon Center.”

“How many are still out there hidden in our cities?”

There was a tense pause, and then Jordan answered slowly, “As many as ten.”

“Good God!” The wave of shock was followed by an intolerable fear and disbelief.

“I haven’t lost my faith in Pitt,” said Jordan quietly. “There is no evidence that he failed to prime the firing systems in the bomb.”

A small measure of hope returned to the President’s eyes. “How soon before we know?”

“If Pitt was able to adhere to the timetable, the detonation should occur sometime within the next twelve minutes.”

The President stared at his desktop with an empty expression. When he spoke, it was so softly Jordan could barely make out the words.

“Keep your fingers crossed, Ray, and wish. That’s all that’s left for us.”

72

AS THE ACID COMPOUND reacted on contact with the saltwater, it slowly ate through the timing plate and attacked the barometric pressure switch. The action of the acid on the copper switch soon created an electrical charge that shorted across the contacts and closed the firing circuit.

After waiting nearly five decades, the detonators at thirty-two different points around the core of the bomb then fired and ignited the incredibly complicated detonation phenomenon that resulted in neutrons penetrating surrounding plutonium to launch the chain reaction. This was followed by fission bursting in millions upon millions of degrees and kilograms of pressure. The underwater gaseous fireball bloomed and shot upward, breaking the surface of the sea and spearheading a great plume of water that was sprayed into the night air by the shock wave.

Because water is incompressible, it forms an almost perfect medium for transmitting shock waves. Traveling at almost two kilometers a second, the shock front caught and overtook Big Ben as the vehicle forged across the trench slope only eight kilometers distant, a good four kilometers short due to the vehicle’s agonizingly slow passage through the mud. The pressure wave pounded the huge DSMV like a sledgehammer against a steel drum, but it took the blow with the unyielding toughness of an offensive lineman for the Los Angeles Rams blocking a tackler.

Even then, as the energy shock and raging wall of swirling silt washed over the DSMV, shuttering all visibility, Pitt felt only jubilation. Any fear of failure was swept aside with the explosion. Relying blindly on the sonar probes, he drove through the maelstrom of sediment on a juggernauting course into the unknown. He was running on a long ledge that ran midway down the long slope, but his progress was only a few kilometers faster than it had been on the steeper grades. Adhesion between the tractor belts and the mud was only marginally improved. Any attempt to drive the great mechanical monster in a straight line became impossible. It skidded all over the slope like a truck on an icy road.

Pitt fully realized his life hung by an unraveling thread, and that he was in a losing race to escape the path of the coming landslide. The chance of his being overtaken was a bet no self-respecting bookmaker would turn down. All fear was detached, there was only his stubborn determination to survive.

On the surface, unseen in the darkness, the plume of spray rose to 200 meters and fell back. But deep in the fault zone below the bottom of the trench, the shock waves forced a vertical slippage of the earth’s crust. Shock followed shock as the crustal fracture rose and fell and widened, creating a high-magnitude earthquake.

The many layers of sediment laid down for millions of years shifted back and forth, pulling the heavy lava of Soseki Island downward as though it was a rock in quicksand. Cushioned by the soft, yielding sediment, the great mass of the island seemed to be immune to the initial shock waves during the first minutes of the quake. But then it began to sink into the sea, the water rising up the palisade walls.

Soseki Island continued to fall until the underlying layers of silt compressed, and the floating rock mass slowed its descent and gradually settled on a new level. Now the waves no longer crashed against the base of the cliffs, but broke over the jagged edges and lapped into the trees beyond.

Seconds after the explosion and the ensuing seismic blows, an enormous section of the eastern trench wall shuddered and bulged menacingly. Then with a great thundering roar, hundreds of millions of tons of mud slid away and plunged to the bottom of the trench. An incredible pressure wave of energy was generated that rushed toward the surface, forming a mountainous wall of water below the surface.

The indestructible tsunami was born.

Only a meter in height on the open surface of the sea, it quickly accelerated to a speed of 500 kilometers an hour and rolled westward. Irresistible, terrifying in its destructive power—there is no more destructive force on earth. And only twenty kilometers away, the sinking Soseki Island stood directly in its path.

The stage was set for disaster.

The death of the Dragon Center was imminent.

Tsuboi, Yoshishu, and their people were still in the defense control room tracking the southerly course of the crippled C-5 Galaxy.

“Two missile strikes, and it’s still flying,” Yoshishu said in wonder.

“It may crash yet—” Tsuboi suddenly broke off as he sensed rather than heard the distant rumble as Mother’s Breath exploded. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

“Yes, very faintly, like the faraway sound of thunder,” said Koyama without turning from the radar display. “Probably from a lightning storm echoing down the ventilators.”

“You feel it too?”

“I feel a slight vibration,” replied Yoshishu.

Kurojima shrugged indifferently. The Japanese are no strangers to earth movement. Every year more than a thousand seismic quakes are recorded on the main islands, and a week never passes when Japan’s citizens do not notice the ground tremble. “An earth tremor. We sit near a seismic fault. We get them all the time. Nothing to worry about. The island is solid rock, and the Dragon Center was engineered to be earthquake resistant.”

The loose objects in the room rattled faintly as the bomb’s dying energy passed through the center. Then the shock wave from the shift in the suboceanic fault slammed into the island like a gigantic battering ram. The entire Dragon Center seemed to shake and sway in all directions. Everyone’s face registered surprise, then the surprise gave way to anxiety, then the anxiety to fear.

“This is a bad one,” Tsuboi said nervously.

“We’ve never felt one this intense,” Kurojima uttered in shock as he pushed his back and outstretched arms against a wall for support.

Yoshishu was standing quite still as if angered by what was happening. “You must get me out of here,” he demanded.

“We are safer here than in the tunnel,” Koyama shouted above the growing tumult.

Those who were not holding on to something were thrown to the floor as the shock wave tore beneath the lava rock, undulating the deep sediment below. The control center was jolted more savagely now as the island shifted back and forth during its descent into the mud. Equipment that wasn’t bolted down began to topple over.

Tsuboi pushed himself into a corner and stared numbly at Kurojima. “It feels like we’re falling.”

“The island must be settling,” Kurojima cried in fright.

What the horrified men in the Dragon Center did not know, could not have known, was that the titanic bulk of the tsunami was only two minutes behind the shock waves.

With Pitt on manual drive, Big Ben slugged tortuously through the mud, sliding ever closer toward the floor of the trench. The tractor belts constantly lost their hold, sending the DSMV sideways down the grade until their leading edges piled up the silt, dug in, and regained their grip.

Pitt felt like a blind man driving the tractor in a blind world, with only a few dials and gauges and a screen with little colored words to guide him. He weighed his chances, sizing up the outside situation as it was revealed by the sonar-laser scanner, and came to the conclusion that so long as he was still mired in sediment his only escape was by a miracle. According to the calculations by the geophysicists, he had not traveled nearly far enough to escape the predicted reaches of the landslide.

Everything depended on finding firm ground or rock structure that was stable and would resist tearing away from the wall of the trench. Even then, his toughest hurdle was the trench itself. He was on the wrong side. To reach the safety of the Japanese shore, he would have to drive the great vehicle down into the bottom and up the opposite slope.

He did not see, his scanner could not tell him, that there was no hard ground or shallow slopes for the DSMV to claw its way up to flat terrain. If anything, the great fracture in the seabed deepened and curved southeast, offering no chance of escape for over eight hundred kilometers. And too late, his scanner revealed the mighty seismic landslide flaring out across the eastern bank of the trench, much as sand spreads when falling through an hourglass, and closing on him at an incredible rate of speed.

Big Ben was still battling through the soft ooze when the avalanche caught up to it. Pitt felt the ground slipping away under the vehicle and knew he’d lost the race. The sound of it came like the roar of a cataract in a tiled room. He saw death’s finger reaching out to touch him. He just had time to tense his body before a great wall of mud engulfed the DSMV and swept it end over end into the black void far below, concealing it under a burial shroud of featureless ooze.

The sea looked as if it had gone insane as the mighty bulk of the tsunami towered into the night, forming a raging frenzy of destruction. It sped out of the darkness, rising ever higher as it came in contact with the island’s shoals, the sheer magnitude of its power beyond human belief.

As its front slowed from friction at meeting the rising bottom, the water in its rear piled up, lifting with fantastic speed to the height of an eight-story building. Blacker than the night itself, its crest bursting like fireworks with the fire of phosphorescence, its roar slashing across the sea like a sonic boom, the mammoth nightmare reared up like a mountain summit and flung itself against the defenseless island’s already sunken palisades.

The stupendous wall of death and devastation crushed and swept away every tree, every stick of organic growth, and the resort buildings above the island like toothpicks in a tornado. Nothing made by man or nature resisted the catastrophic force longer than an eye blink in time. Trillions of liters of water obliterated everything in their path. The island was pushed under even further as if by a giant hand.

Much of the tsunami’s astronomical power was sapped from the onslaught against the land mass. A counter surge was created in a kind of backlash that sent the major force of the wave back into the vastness of the ocean. What energy was left of the westward thrust passed on and struck Japan’s main island of Honshu, the wave having dropped to a one-meter coastal surge that caused some damage to several fishing ports but no deaths.

In its wake the tsunami born of Mother’s Breath left Soseki Island and its Dragon Center drowned under a turbulent sea, never to rise above the surface again.

From deep under the island the aftershocks went on. They sounded like the rumblings of heavy gunfire. At the same time, countless tons of black water gushed through the air vents and elevator shaft, pressured by the enormous weight from above. Rivers spurted from fractures opened in the concrete roof and by widening fissures in the overhead lava rock from the stress forces brought on by the sinking island.

The entire Dragon Center was suddenly filled with the noise of water cascading from above. And behind that noise was the heavier, deeper thunder of water exploding into the rooms and corridors of the upper levels. Impelled by fantastic pressure, the flood plunged into the heart of the complex, shoving a great blast of air ahead of it.

All was confusion and panic now. The full realization by the hundreds of workers that they all faced certain death came with sickening suddenness. Nothing could save them, there was no place to run to escape the inundation. The tunnel had been split apart as the island shifted downward, sending the sea pouring through the tube toward Edo City at the other end.

Tsuboi’s ears rang from the air pressure. A great roaring sound came from outside and he recognized it as a wall of water ramming its way toward the defense control room. He had no time to react. In that instant, a sudden torrent of water burst into the room. There was no time to run, to even shout. In his final moments he saw his mentor, the evil old archcriminal Yoshishu, shot away from the column he was clinging to like a fly from the spurt of a garden hose. With a faint cry he disappeared in a rush of water.

Rage dominated all of Tsuboi’s other emotions. He felt no fear of pain or death, only a rage directed against the elements for denying him the leadership of the new empire. With Suma and Yoshishu gone, it would have all belonged to him. But it was only the fleeting hallucination of a dying man.

Tsuboi felt himself being sucked out and swept into the flow of water rushing through the corridor. His ears stabbed with agony from the pressure. His lungs were squeezed to the bursting point. And then he was thrust against a wall, his body crushed.

Only eight minutes had elapsed since Mother’s Breath had exploded, no more. The destruction of the Dragon Center was terrifyingly complete. The Kaiten Project no longer existed, and the island the ancients knew as Ajima was now only a mound beneath the sea.

73

FOR THE PRESIDENT and the vastly relieved advisers on his National Security Council, the news of the total elimination of the Dragon Center was greeted with tired smiles and a quiet round of applause. They were all too exhausted for any display of unrestrained celebration. Martin Brogan, the CIA chief, compared it to waiting all night at the hospital for his wife’s first baby.

The President came down to the Situation Room to personally congratulate Ray Jordan and Don Kern. He was in a jubilant mood, and fairly beamed like an airport beacon.

“Your people did one hell of a job,” said the President, pumping Jordan’s hand. “The nation is in your debt.”

“The MAIT team deserves the honors,” said Kern. “They truly pulled off the impossible.”

“But not without sacrifice,” Jordan murmured softly. “Jim Hanamura, Marv Showalter, and Dirk Pitt—it was a costly operation.”

“No word on Pitt?” asked the President.

Kern shook his head. “There seems to be little doubt that he and his Deep Sea Mining Vehicle were swept away by the seismic landslide and buried.”

“Any sign of him from the Pyramider?”

“During the satellite’s first pass after the explosion and upheaval, there was so much turbulence the cameras couldn’t detect any image of the vehicle.”

“Maybe you can spot him on the next pass,” the President said hopefully. “If there is even the slightest chance he may still be alive, I want a full-scale rescue mission mounted to save him. We owe Pitt our butts, and I’m not about to walk away from him.”

“We’ll see to it,” Jordan promised. But already his mind was turning to other projects.

“What news of Admiral Sandecker?”

“His surveillance aircraft was struck by missiles launched from the Dragon Center. The pilot managed to make a safe wheels-up landing at Naha Air Field on Okinawa. From initial reports, the plane was shot up pretty badly and lost all communications.”

“Casualties?”

“None,” answered Kern. “It was a wonder they survived with little more to show than a few cuts and bruises.”

The President nodded thoughtfully. “At least we know now why they broke off contact.”

Secretary of State Douglas Oates stepped forward. “More good news, Mr. President,” he said, smiling. “The combined Soviet and European search teams have uncovered almost all of the bomb cars hidden in their territories.”

“We have MAIT team to thank for stealing the locations,” explained Kern.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t help much on our end,” said Jordan.

Kern nodded. “The United States was the main threat to the Kaiten Project, not the European alliance or the Eastern Bloc countries.”

The President looked at Jordan. “Have any more been found within our borders?”

“Six.” The Central Intelligence Director grinned slightly. “Now that we have some breathing space, we should track down the rest without further risk to national security.”

“Tsuboi and Yoshishu?”

“Believed drowned.”

The President looked pleased, and he felt it. He turned and faced everyone in the room. “Gentlemen,” he announced, “on behalf of a grateful American people, who will never know how narrowly you saved them from disaster, I thank you.”

The crisis was over, but already another had erupted. Later that afternoon, fighting broke out along the border of Iran and Turkey, and the first reports came in of a Cuban military Mig-25 shooting down a United States commercial airliner filled with tourists returning from Jamaica.

The search for one man quickly became lost in the shuffle. The imaging technology on board the Pyramider satellite was shifted toward world events of more importance. Nearly four weeks would pass before the satellite’s eyes were turned back to the sea off Japan.

But no trace of Big Ben was found.

Part 5

Obituary

74

November 19, 1993

The Washington Post

I

T WAS ANNOUNCED

today that Dirk Pitt, Special Projects Director for the National Underwater and Marine Agency, is missing and presumed dead after an accident in the sea off Japan.

Acclaimed for his exploits on land and under the sea that include his discoveries of the pre-Columbian Byzantine shipwreck Serapis off Greenland, the incredible cache from the Library of Alexandria, and the La Dorada treasure in Cuba, among others, Pitt also directed the raising of the Titanic.

The son of Senator George Pitt of California and his wife, Susan, Pitt was born and raised in Newport Beach, California. He attended the Air Force Academy, where he played quarterback on the Falcon football team, and graduated twelfth in his class. Becoming a pilot, Pitt remained in active service for ten years, rising to the rank of major. He then became permanently attached to NUMA at the request of Admiral James Sandecker.

The admiral said briefly yesterday that Dirk Pitt was an extremely resourceful and audacious man. During the course of his career, he had saved many lives, including those of Sandecker himself and the President during an incident in the Gulf of Mexico. Pitt never lacked for ingenuity or creativity. No project was too difficult for him to accomplish.

He was not a man you can forget.

Sandecker sat on the running board of the Stutz in Pitt’s hangar and stared sadly at the obituary in the newspaper. “He did so much, it seems an injustice to condense his life to so few words.”

Giordino, his face expressionless, walked around the Messerschmitt Me-262A-la Luftwaffe jet fighter. True to his word, Gert Halder had looked the other way when Pitt and Giordino had smuggled the aircraft out of the bunker, hauled it on a truck under canvas, and arranged for it to be hoisted on board a Danish cargo ship bound for the States. Only two days earlier the ship had arrived in Baltimore, where Giordino had waited to transport the aircraft to Pitt’s hangar in Washington. Now it sat on its tricycle landing gear amid the other classic machinery of Pitt’s collection.

“Dirk should have been here to see this,” Giordino said heavily. He ran his hand across the nose of the mottled green fuselage with its light gray underbelly and stared at the muzzles of the four thirty-millimeter cannon that poked from the forward cowl. “He’d have loved to get his hands on it.”

It was a moment neither of them had foreseen, could never imagine. Sandecker felt as though he’d lost a son, Giordino a brother.

Giordino stopped and stared up at the apartment above the classic autos and aircraft. “I should have been in the DSMV with him.”

Sandecker looked up. “Then you would be missing and maybe dead too.”

“I’ll always regret not being with him,” Giordino said vaguely.

“Dirk died in the sea. It’s the way he’d have wanted it.”

“He might be standing here now if one of Big Ben’s manipulators had been fitted with a scoop instead of cutting tools,” Giordino persisted.

Sandecker gave a weary shake of his head. “Allowing your imagination to run riot won’t bring him back.”

Giordino’s eyes lifted to Pitt’s living quarters. “I keep thinking all I have to do is yell for him, and he’ll come down.”

“The same thought has crossed my mind,” Sandecker admitted.

Suddenly the door of the apartment opened, and they momentarily stiffened, then relaxed as Toshie emerged carrying a tray with cups and a teapot. With incredible supple grace, she delicately wound down the iron circular stairway and glided toward Sandecker and Giordino.

Sandecker wrinkled his brows in puzzlement. “A mystery to me how you sweet-talked Jordan into having her committed into your custody.”

“No mystery.” Giordino grinned. “A trade-off. He made her a present to me in return for keeping my mouth shut about the Kaiten Project.”

“You’re lucky he didn’t encase your feet in cement and throw you in the Potomac.”

“I was bluffing.”

“Ray Jordan is no dummy,” Sandecker said dryly. “He knew that.”

“Okay, so she was a gift for services rendered.”

Toshie set the tray on the running board of the Stutz next to the admiral. “Tea, gentlemen?”

“Yes, thank you,” Sandecker said, rising to his feet.

Toshie smoothly settled to her knees and performed a brief tea ceremony before passing the steaming cups. Then she rose and admiringly stared at the Messerschmitt.

“What a beautiful airplane,” she murmured, overlooking the grime, the flattened tires, and the faded paint.

“I’m going to restore it to its original state,” said Giordino quietly, mentally picturing the dingy aircraft as it looked when new. “As a favor to Dirk.”

“You talk like he’s going to be resurrected,” Sandecker said tightly.

“He’s not dead,” Giordino muttered flatly. Tough though he was, his eyes grew moist.

“May I help?” asked Toshie.

Giordino self-consciously wiped his eyes and looked at her curiously. “I’m sorry, pretty lady, help me what?”

“Repair the airplane.”

Giordino and Sandecker exchanged blank glances. “You’re a mechanic?” asked Giordino.

“I helped my father build and maintain his fishing boat. He was very proud when I mended his ailing engine.

Giordino’s face lit up. “A match made in heaven.” He paused and stared at the drab dress Toshie was given when she was released from Jordan’s custody. “Before you and I start to tear this baby apart, I’m going to take you to the best boutiques in Washington and buy you a new wardrobe.”

Toshie’s eyes widened. “You have much, much money like Mr. Suma?”

“No,” Giordino moaned sorrowfully, “only lots of credit cards.”

Loren smiled and waved over the lunch crowd as the maître d’ of Washington’s chic restaurant Twenty-One Federal led Stacy through the blond wood and marble dining room to her table. Stacy had her hair tied back in a large scarf and was more informally dressed in an oatmeal cashmere turtleneck sweater under a gray wool shawl with matching pants.

Loren wore a plaid wool checked jacket over a khaki blouse with a taupe wool faille skirt. Unlike most women, who would have remained seated, she rose and offered her hand to Stacy. “I’m glad you could come.”

Stacy smiled warmly and took Loren’s hand. “I’ve always wanted to eat here. I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

“Will you join me in a drink?”

“That cold wind outside stings. I think I’d like a manhattan straight up to take the chill off.”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t wait. I already went through a martini.”

“Then you’d better have another to fight the cold when we leave.” Stacy laughed pleasantly.

Their waiter took the order and went off toward the elegant bar.

Loren replaced her napkin in her lap. “I didn’t have a proper chance to thank you on Wake Island, we were all so rushed about.”

“Dirk is the one we all owe.”

Loren turned away. She thought she had cried herself out after hearing the news of Pitt’s death, but she still felt the tears behind her eyes.

Stacy’s smile faded, and she looked at Loren with sympathy. “I’m very sorry about Dirk. I know you two were very close.”

“We had our ups and downs over the years, but we never strayed very far from each other.”

“Was marriage ever considered?” asked Stacy.

Loren gave a brief shake of her head. “The subject never came up. Dirk wasn’t the kind of man who could be possessed. His mistress was the sea, and I had my career in Congress.”

“You were lucky. His smile was devastating, and those green eyes—God, they’d make any woman melt.”

Suddenly Loren was nervous. “You’ll have to forgive me. I don’t know what’s come over me, but I have to know.” She hesitated as if afraid to continue and fidgeted with a spoon.

Stacy met Loren’s eyes evenly. “The answer is no,” she lied. “I came to his place late one night, but it was on orders from Ray Jordan to give Dirk instructions. Nothing happened. I left twenty minutes later. From that moment until we parted on Wake Island it was strictly business.”

“I know this must sound silly. Dirk and I often went our own ways when it came to seeing other men and women, but I wanted to be sure I was the only one near the end.”

“You were more deeply in love with him than you thought, weren’t you?”

Loren gave a little nod. “Yes, I realized it too late.”

“There will be others,” Stacy said in an attempt to be cheerful.

“But none to take his place.”

The waiter returned with their drinks. Stacy held up her glass. “To Dirk Pitt, a damned good man.”

They touched glasses.

“A damned good man,” Loren repeated, as the tears fell. “Yes… he was that.”

75

IN THE DINING ROOM of a safe house somewhere in the Maryland countryside, Jordan sat at a table having lunch with Hideki Suma. “Is there anything I can do to make your stay more comfortable?” asked Jordan.

Suma paused, savoring the delicate flavor of a noodle soup with duck and scallions accented by radish and gold caviar. He spoke without looking up. “There is one favor.”

“Yes?”

Suma nodded at the security agent standing guard by the door and at his partner who served the meal. “Your friends will not allow me to meet the chef. He is very good. I wish to offer him my compliments.”

“She apprenticed at one of New York’s finest Japanese restaurants. Her name is Natalie, and she now works with the government on special assignments. And no, I’m sorry but you cannot be introduced.”

Jordan examined Suma’s face. There was no hostility in it, no frustration at being isolated in heavily guarded confinement—nothing but a supreme complacency. For a man who had been subtly drugged and then forced to endure long hours of interrogation over four weeks, he showed almost no sign of it. The eyes were still as hard as onyx under the shock of graying hair. But that was as it should have been. Through post-hypnotic suggestion from Jordan’s expert interrogators, Suma did not recall, nor did he realize he had provided a team of curious engineers and scientists a wealth of technical data. His mind was probed and scrutinized as neatly as by professional thieves, who after searching a house left everything as they found it.

It had to be, Jordan mused, one of the few times American intelligence actually obtained foreign industrial secrets that could prove profitable.

“A sadness.” Suma shrugged. “I would have liked to hire her when I leave.”

“That won’t be possible,” Jordan said frankly.

Suma finished the soup and pushed the bowl aside. “You cannot continue holding me like a common criminal. I am not some peasant you arrested out of the gutter. I think you would be wise to release me without further delay.”

No hard demand, merely a veiled threat from a man who was not informed that his incredible power had vanished with his announced death throughout Japan. Ceremonies had been performed, and already his spirit was enshrined at Yasukuni. Suma had no idea that as far as the outside world was concerned, he no longer existed. Nor was he told of the deaths of Tsuboi and Yoshishu, and the destruction of the Dragon Center. For all he knew, the Kaiten Project’s bomb cars were still safely hidden.

“After what you attempted,” said Jordan coldly, “you’re lucky you’re not up before an international tribunal for crimes against humanity.”

“I have a divine right to protect Japan.” The quiet, authoritative voice came to Jordan as if it was coming from a pulpit.

Irritation flushed Jordan’s temples. “Besides being the most insular society on earth, Japan’s problem with the rest of the world is that your business leaders have no ethics, no principles of fair play in the Western sense. You and your fellow corporate executive officers believe in doing unto other nations as you would not allow others to do unto you.”

Suma picked up a teacup and drained it. “Japan is a highly honorable society. Our loyalties run very deep.”

“Sure, to yourselves, at the expense of outsiders, such as foreign nationals.”

“We see no difference between an economic war and a military war,” Suma replied pleasantly. “We look upon the industrial nations merely as competitors on a vast battlefield where there are no rules of conduct, no trade treaties that can be trusted.”

The lunacy, combined with the cold reality of the situation, suddenly seemed ridiculous to Jordan. He saw it was useless trying to make a dent in Suma. Perhaps the madman was right. America ultimately would become divided into separate nations governed by race. He brushed the uncomfortable thought from his mind and rose from the table.

“I must go,” he announced curtly.

Suma stared at him. “When can I return to Edo City?”

Jordan regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. “Tomorrow.”

“I would like that,” said Suma. “Please see that one of my private planes will be waiting at Dulles Field.”

The guy had gall, Jordan thought. “I’ll make arrangements through your embassy.”

“Good day, Mr. Jordan.”

“Good day, Mr. Suma. I trust you will forgive me for any inconvenience you’ve suffered.”

Suma’s lips compressed in a thin menacing line and he squinted at Jordan through half-closed eyes. “No, Mr. Jordan, I do not forgive you. Please rest assured you will pay a stiff price for my captivity.” Then Suma seemingly dismissed Jordan and poured another cup of tea.

Kern was waiting as Jordan stepped past the armored doors separating the entry hall from the living room. “Have a nice lunch?”

“The food was good but the company was lousy. And you?”

“I listened in while eating in the kitchen. Natalie made me a hamburger.”

“Lucky you.”

“What about our friend?”

“I told him he would be released tomorrow.”

“I heard. Will he remember to pack?”

Jordan smiled. “The thought will be erased during tonight’s interrogation session.”

Kern nodded slowly. “How long do you think we can keep him going?”

“Until we know everything he knows, unlock every secret, every memory in his gray matter.”

“That could take a year or two.” So.

“And after we’ve sucked him dry?”

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t keep him hidden from the world forever. And we’d be cutting our own throats if we set him free and allowed him to return to Japan.”

Jordan stared at Kern without a flicker of change in his expression. “When Suma has no more left to give, Natalie will slip a little something extra into his noodle soup.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. President, but in your Western idiom, my hands are tied.”

The President looked across the cabinet room conference table at the smiling little man with the short-trimmed white hair and defiant brown eyes. He seemed more a military commander of a tough infantry battalion than the political leader of Japan.

Prime Minister Junshiro, who had come to Washington on an official state visit, sat flanked by two of his ministers and five staff aides. The President sat opposite with only his interpreter by his side.

“I’m sorry too, Prime Minister, but if you think you’re simply going to sweep the tragedies of the past weeks under the rug, you’ve got another think coming.”

“My government was not responsible for the alleged actions of Hideki Suma, Ichiro Tsuboi, and Korori Yoshishu. If, as you accuse, they were indeed behind the nuclear bombs that exploded in your State of Wyoming and on the high sea, they acted for their own ends in secret.”

This meeting between the heads of state was not going to be pleasant. Junshiro and his cabinet had stonewalled any investigation and had indignantly reacted as if the Western intelligence services had fabricated the entire tragedy.

The President’s hard stare swept the other side of the table. The Japanese could never negotiate without a committee. “If you would be so kind as to ask your ministers and staff, with the exception of your interpreter, to leave the room, I would be grateful. Considering the delicate nature of our talk, I believe it will prove more beneficial if we hold it in private.”

Junshiro’s face darkened as the request was translated. He clearly did not like what he heard. The President was smiling, but there was no humor in his eyes. “I must ask you to reconsider. I’m certain we can accomplish more with my advisers present.”

“As you can see,” the President replied, gesturing around the kidney-shaped mahogany table, “I have no advisers.”

The Prime Minister was confused, as the President expected. He conversed in rapid-fire Japanese with the men who huddled around him voicing their objections.

The President’s interpreter smiled ever so slightly. “They don’t like it,” he murmured. “It’s not their way of doing business. They think you’re being unreasonable and very undiplomatic.”

“How about barbaric?”

“Only in their tone, Mr. President, only in their tone.”

At last Junshiro turned back to the President. “I must protest this unusual protocol, Mr. President.”

When he heard the translation, the President replied, his voice cold, “I’m through playing games, Prime Minister. Either your people leave or I do.”

After a moment of thought, Junshiro made a deep nod of his head. “As you wish.” Then he motioned his advisers to the door.

After the door closed, the President looked at his interpreter and said, “Translate exactly as I speak, no niceties, no syrup over the harsh words.”

“Understood, sir.”

The President fixed a hard stare on Junshiro. “Now then, Prime Minister, the facts are that you and members of your cabinet were fully aware and informally approved of Suma Industries’ manufacture of a nuclear arsenal. A project funded in part by an underworld organization known as the Gold Dragons. This program in turn led to the Kaiten Project, a hideous international blackmail plan, conceived in secrecy and now veiled by lies and phony denials. You knew of it from the beginning, and yet you condoned it by your silence and nonintervention.”

Once he heard the translation, Junshiro pounded the table with angered indignation. “This is not true, none of it. There is absolutely no foundation for these absurd charges.”

“Information from a variety of intelligence sources leaves little doubt of your involvement. You secretly applauded while known underworld criminals were building what they called the ‘new empire.’ An empire based on economic and nuclear blackmail.”

Junshiro’s face paled, but he said nothing. He saw the handwriting on the wall, and it spelled out political disaster and great loss of face.

The President kept his eyes locked on him. “What we don’t need here is a lot of self-righteous crap. There will always be a basic conflict between American and Japanese interests, but we can’t exist without each other.”

Junshiro recognized that the President had thrown him a rope, and he snatched at it. “What do you propose?”

“To save your nation and your people the shock and shame of scandal, you resign. The trust between your government and mine is shattered. The damage is irreparable. Only a new prime minister and a cabinet of honest, decent people with no connections to your underworld will bring about a renewed state of mutual cooperation between our two countries. Hopefully, we can then work in close partnership to resolve our cultural and economic differences.”

“The event will remain secret?”

“I promise all data on the Dragon Center and the Kaiten Project will remain classified from this end.”

“And if I do not resign?”

The President leaned back and spread his hands. “Then I’d have to predict that Japanese businessmen should prepare for a recession.”

Junshiro came to his feet. “Am I to understand, Mr. President, that you are threatening to close the United States market to all Japanese goods?”

“I don’t have to,” the President answered. His face took on a curious change. The blue eyes lost their glint of anger and assumed a pensive look. “Because if word leaks out that a Japanese nuclear bomb was smuggled into the United States and exploded where the deer and the antelope roam…” He paused for effect. “I doubt seriously the American consumer will look kindly on buying your products ever again.”

76

November 21, 1993

Marcus Island

FAR OFF THE beaten tourist track, 1,125 kilometers southeast of Japan, Marcus Island lies in pristine isolation. A coral atoll tucked away without island neighbors, its shores are formed in an almost perfect triangle, each measuring approximately one and a half kilometers in length.

Except for brief notoriety while being bombed by American naval forces during World War II, few people had ever heard of Marcus Island until a Japanese developer just happened to stumble upon its desolate beaches. He visualized its potential as a select destination for winter-weary Japanese and promptly constructed a luxury resort.

Designed in a contemporary Polynesian style, the villagelike atmosphere included a championship golf course, a casino, three restaurants with cocktail lounges and dance floors, a theater, a vast lotus-shaped swimming pool, and six tennis courts. The sprawling complex, along with the golf course and the airfield, covered the entire island.

When the resort was completed and fully staffed, the developer flew in an army of travel writers, who soaked up the free material comforts and returned home to report. The resort immediately proved popular with adventurous tourists who collect exotic and faraway locations. But instead of an influx of Japanese, the reservations flowed in from other areas of the Pacific rim, and soon the island’s satiny milk-white sands were littered with Australians, New Zealanders, Taiwanese, and Koreans.

The resort island also quickly became a playground for romance and a mecca for honeymooners, who indulged in the many sporting activities or simply lolled around and made love in their village bungalows scattered among the palm trees.

Brian Foster from Brisbane came out of the ice-blue water inside the outer reef and walked across the beach toward his bride, Shelly, who was dozing in a lounge chair. The fine sand felt hot against his naked feet, and the late afternoon sun glistened on the water drops streaming from his body. As he toweled away the dampness, he glanced back over the water.

A Korean couple, Kim and Li Sang, who stayed in the next bungalow, were taking windsurfing lessons from one of the resort’s attentive guest hosts. Beyond them, Edward Cain from Wellington snorkeled on the reef while his new bride, Moira, floated on a mat in his wake.

Foster gave his wife a light kiss and patted her tummy. He lay in the sand beside her, put on a pair of sunglasses, and idly watched the people in the water.

The Sangs were having a difficult time mastering the technique and coordination it took to pilot a sailboard. They seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time regaining the board and pulling up the sail after losing their balance and spilling in the water.

Foster turned his attention to the Cains, admiring Moira, who had rolled over on her back without falling off the mat. She was wearing a one-piece gold bathing suit that did very little to hide her lush contours.

Suddenly something caught Foster’s eye in the entrance of the channel that cut through the coral reef and led to the open ocean. Something was happening under the water. He was sure some thing or some sea creature was making a disturbance beneath the surface. He couldn’t see what it was, only that it appeared to be moving through the reef toward the lagoon.

“There’s something out there!” he snapped to his wife as he jumped to his feet. He ran to the water and began shouting and pointing toward the channel. His shouts and wild gesturing quickly drew others, and soon a crowd from the nearby pool and restaurants gathered on the beach.

The Sangs’ windsurfing instructor heard Foster, and his eyes followed the Australian’s pointing finger. He saw the approaching commotion in the water and swiftly herded the Sangs toward shore. Then he leaped on a sailboard and flew across the lagoon to warn the Cains, who were leisurely drifting into the path of the unknown apparition that was seemingly intent on invading the lagoon.

Edward Cain, with his wife floating close to him, swam blissfully unaware of any danger, viewing the sculptured garden of coral through his dive mask, enthralled by the vivid colors and the swarming schools of luminous fish.

He heard a humming sound in the distance but thought it was probably one of the guests bobbing over the water on a Jet Ski. Then, as if in a practiced precision movement, the surrounding fish abruptly darted away and vanished. Cain felt the breath of fear on his skin. The first thought that ran through his mind was that a shark had entered the lagoon.

Cain raised his head above the surface, searching for a telltale fin slicing the water. Thankfully, none was in sight. All he saw was a sailboard gliding in his direction and his wife dozing on the floating pad. He heard the shouting from the beach, turned, and spied the crowd of resort guests and employees frantically motioning toward the channel.

A rumbling vibration seemed to agitate the water, and he ducked his head back under the surface. What in God’s name was it? he wondered. Through the turquoise void, no more than fifty meters away, a great shapeless thing covered with green and brown slime crawled into view.

He grabbed a corner of his wife’s float and began madly paddling toward a rise in the coral where it broke through the surface of the water. She had no idea of what he was doing and hung on, thinking he was simply in a playful mood and wanted to roll her into the water.