White House

EIGHTEEN

Eight minutes after Murphy put in the call, McGarvey scrambled aboard a Bell Super Cobra Marine ground attack helicopter which touched down on the White House lawn. A half-dozen fully armed marines had come along in addition to the crew. Even as McGarvey buckled in and donned his helmet, the chopper lifted off and headed northwest, the tremendous acceleration of the twin Pratt & Whitney turboshaft engines shoving him against his restraining straps. The marines were all young and grim-faced. They didn’t know exactly what they were heading for, except that there’d been a lot of casualties and there was no telling if any of the bad guys were still out there waiting for them to show up.

“Mr. McGarvey, this is Captain Don Casey,” the pilot radioed back. “Our ETA to the target is seven minutes. Can you tell me what we’re heading into, sir?”

“Probably just a mop-up operation along the perimeter.” McGarvey spoke into his headset. “The Bureau and the state have people on the ground, but this is a determined group, so keep your eyes open.”

“Yes, sir, we got that on the way over.”

McGarvey was having trouble keeping on track. Starting with the attack in Georgetown, the situation had developed faster than he could keep up with. The bastards had a definite timetable, and there was no doubt that whoever was behind it was afraid that he’d screw them up. They wanted to get to him, to stop him from doing his job however they could. It didn’t matter who got in their way or how many innocent people they had to kill. The worst part of it was that someone in Washington besides Tony Croft was feeding them information. It was as if half the city had been bought and paid for, though probably most of them had no idea what effect they were having, and that people were dying because of them.

“Captain, I need to make a couple of calls to the Agency. Can I do that from here?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

McGarvey gave him the first number, and seconds later he was connected with Adkins in the DO’s Operations Center.

“I’m on my way out to Cropley. Do we have people en route?”

“There are two teams just ahead of you,” Adkins said. “I wanted them in motion before I talked to you. I figured they were more important. But the place has been secured, and your wife and daughter are okay.”

“What the hell happened, Dick?”

“Looks like they came in from the air. Fred Rudolph is on the way out there too. His people on the ground found several parachutes or hang gliders. Probably dropped them from a plane somewhere upwind.”

“Who’s left on the ground?”

“Todd Van Buren, but he’s already being medevaced to Bethesda. He was shot up pretty badly, Mac.”

“Paul Isaacson?”

“Dead, along with all the others,” Adkins said. “I’m still getting a lot of contradictory shit, but it looks like he fought a delaying action inside the house while Todd, along with your wife and daughter, held them off from the upstairs corridor until the cops showed up.”

“What happened to the terrorists?”

“Four down, but a helicopter picked up the rest of them. We’re looking for it now. It was a professional job, Mac. The bastards knew what they were doing.”

“Can we keep a lid on this?”

“Not a chance in hell. The media is already screaming bloody murder for answers.” Adkins hesitated a moment. “The good news is that no one is making the connection between this attack and the bombing in Georgetown or the incident on the Canal Bridge, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last.”

McGarvey closed his eyes for a minute. The attack was meant for him, of course, which meant whoever was directing it was desperate. “I’ll be on the ground in a few minutes. Keep me posted. In the meantime send someone out to Dulles. I want Joseph Lee’s jet staked out. They might try to get out of the country that way.”

“Will do.”

McGarvey’s second call was to Otto Rencke, and it went through as they crossed the Potomac just east of CIA headquarters.

“Oh, boy, Mac, I’m already on it,” an excited Rencke blurted. “I’m in every Washington area LE system including the Bureau’s.”

“Have they found the helicopter?”

“Not yet, but it won’t be long. There’s not that many civilian choppers out there, and the Bureau has already accounted for more than half of them.”

“It would have been chartered through Far East or some dummy organization they set up.”

“I’m on it,” Rencke said. “Liz and Mrs. M. are okay.”

“That’s what I’m being told.”

“We’ll get the fuckers, Mac. I swear to God, we’ll get them and hang them by their balls.”

“You can count on it,” McGarvey said tightly.

All hell was breaking loose, and Maryland Prince Georges County deputy sheriff Dale Zuber figured he wasn’t going home anytime soon. Listening to the chatter on the radio in his police cruiser, it sounded as if every cop from Baltimore to D.C. had been called out. There’d been some sort of terrorist attack up in Montgomery County and the feds were hot to bag the bad guys. Every inch of the state was being searched with a fine-toothed comb, and he figured the cop who got lucky would get an extra stripe. It was a promotion he desperately needed because of the new house. The payments were killing him.

He’d been heading south on Ritchie Road parallel with I-95 toward Forestville, where he usually stopped for coffee around this time of night, when he decided to take a quick pass through the park. Sometimes on slow nights he made the panty run to roust out the kids parked up there, but as he came around a curve in the park road, his mouth dropped open and he pulled up short.

“Prince Georges, Zuber. I have a helicopter down in Walker Mill Park,” he radioed. “Looks empty. Stand by.”

“Roger,” the dispatcher replied. “Approach with extreme caution. Backup units are en route.”

Zuber got out of his car, put on his campaign hat and drew his service pistol and flashlight as he stepped off the road and headed across the grassy field. The chopper was parked about fifty yards away at the edge of a stand of trees. It was dark, but he could see that the side doors were open and no one seemed to be inside.

In the distance he could hear sirens, but other than that the night was very quiet.

He stopped twenty feet from the helicopter and shined his flashlight into the main compartment, then let the beam slide forward to the windshield as he slowly walked around to the front of the machine.

Something had splashed on the Plexiglas window. He spotted that at the same moment he saw a figure slumped forward in the pilot’s seat. He shined the light on the figure and his stomach did a slow roll. The pilot, dressed in a light-colored shirt, was obviously dead. The entire side of his head and forehead were gone, nothing but a mass of blood. He’d probably been shot in the back of his head at point-blank range.

Zuber keyed his shoulder mike. “Prince Georges, Zuber, requesting a medical unit. The helicopter pilot appears to have been shot in the head.”

He stepped around to the opposite side of the helicopter and shined his light in the main compartment again. It was empty, except for what appeared to be black uniforms or jumpsuits. “Jesus,” he said out loud. The pilot had brought them here, they’d killed him for his efforts on their behalf, changed clothes and then took off.

Zuber shined his light on the ground around the helicopter, and immediately picked out several sets of footprints leading across the field toward the road.

This is going to be a long night, indeed, he told himself.

Otto Rencke was in his element, finally doing something that had real meaning. But he was frightened, because for every answer he found, a dozen questions popped up, spreading outward faster than even he could keep up with.

The computers up here were even better than those down at Archives in Fort A.P. Hill, because he had designed much of the system. And yet there wasn’t a decent computer that could do what even a stupid human was capable of doing, and that was think intuitively.

He sat back and idly stuffed a Twinkle in his mouth as his eyes roamed to each of the three screens and three printers that were pulling up information his specially designed search engine was looking for. Anomalies, McGarvey called them. The questions — answered or unanswered — that seemed to stick out. The ones that didn’t seem to fit a pattern. Obvious questions, like where the thimble was hidden when it was in plain sight.

Three minutes ago he’d monitored the deputy sheriff’s call about the downed helicopter and the dead pilot. He stared at one of the printers. Never mind how the terrorists got into the air to fly their paragliders to the safe house; he would find out about that later. They made their attack and got away aboard a helicopter which took them to a park southwest of Washington. But what happened next? Either someone was waiting with a getaway car, or they’d left an escape vehicle there. They killed the pilot and drove where? A hideout? In Rencke’s mind he could see a car or van racing through the night, using back roads and deserted streets, finally pulling into a parking garage behind some abandoned factory somewhere.

He sat forward. The cars or vans they used and the hideout they escaped to, as well as the helicopter, had to have been arranged by Sandy Patterson and the Far East Trade Association.

He pulled up the file he’d been working with. Among the dummy groups Far East had set up were three on the Beltway: Digital Systems Engineering, the Quantum Research Group and Microchip Applications, Inc., all of them with lucrative government contracts.

He cleared the screen and began with Digital Systems. Two questions needed answering: Where did the escape vehicles come from, and where had the terrorists stored their equipment, planned the attack and bunked?

Since taking over the DO, McGarvey had gotten very little sleep and almost no rest. The position wasn’t so much of a job as it was a way of life. No wonder so many Agency people had deep personal problems. The Company was a human meat grinder; steak in, hamburger out.

Coming in low from the southeast, he could see the flashing lights of a lot of vehicles on the highway and the driveway and bobbing lights crisscrossing the open fields and woods surrounding the house. It looked like a carnival, and from the air he couldn’t see any outward signs that anything bad had happened. But it had. Paul Isaacson and a lot of good people had died down there. Giving their lives to protect his family, who’d been attacked simply because of what he was, because of what he did for a living. The same black rage he’d felt on the Canal Bridge after the Georgetown bombing threatened to block out his sanity, but he struggled to fight it. This time he was going to have to be much stronger. He needed to keep his head until he found the bastards and killed them. This time there would be no mistakes.

The marine helicopter touched down on the lawn in front of the house, completely surrounded by police cruisers, some unmarked government cars and a half-dozen ambulances. Bodies were being brought from the woods behind the house, and dozens of uniformed cops stood around with little or nothing to do.

McGarvey unbuckled and started to get out, but the six marines were faster. They jumped to the ground and formed a tight half circle in front of the door, their weapons at the ready.

“Clear,” their sergeant said. He turned back. “Okay, Mr. McGarvey.”

“What the hell?” McGarvey mumbled, but then he realized that Murphy would have ordered the marine guard for him in case there were any terrorists left behind in the woods who’d take the suicide shot in order to kill the DDO. It was a chilling thought, even for McGarvey.

Fred Rudolph came over from a knot of men who’d been having a conference in front of an evidence van. The marines kept a close watch on him.

He and McGarvey shook hands. “Nobody thought they’d come in from the air.”

“Wouldn’t have happened if this place wasn’t on your Website,” McGarvey said.

A pained look crossed Rudolph’s face. He was under a lot of strain and it showed. “We have a place set up for them—”

McGarvey cut him off. “They’re coming with me.”

“Where are you taking them?”

McGarvey said nothing, and after a moment Rudolph nodded.

“Can’t blame you, Mac. We screwed it up for your guys, but I’m not going to worry about that right now. First we have to catch the people who did this. Has the CIA come up with anything?”

“Not yet. But we’re working on it. Have you found Sandy Patterson?”

Rudolph shook his head glumly. “She’s disappeared without a trace. But we found the helicopter that pulled them out of here, which means they’re still in the area.” His jaw tightened. “We’ll find them.”

“Any IDs on the bodies they left behind?”

“Asians. Maybe Japanese, but hell, there’s no way of knowing that for sure yet. They were well equipped. Night glasses, radios, silenced weapons. They knew the layout here, and they timed their attack to take out every outside guard at the same moment. Some of your guys just got lucky and shot back.”

“Yeah,” McGarvey said. “Real lucky. Now they’re dead.” He turned away from the FBI special investigator and walked across the lawn, his marine contingent surrounding him.

The house smelled like a gunpowder factory, and blood was splashed against the stairhall wall and the destroyed remnants of the front door. It was where Isaacson had died.

Kathleen and Elizabeth were seated at the dining room table in the makeshift operations center, drinking coffee. Several Company men were standing by with them. McGarvey motioned for them to get out and join his marine guard in the hall. Kathleen and Liz looked up, and they both managed to smile. Outwardly they looked no worse for the wear, but Kathleen had been crying and Liz looked shell-shocked.

“Hi, Daddy,” she said in a small voice.

McGarvey kissed his daughter on the cheek, then sat down and took Kathleen’s hand. “Are you okay?” he asked his wife.

She looked into his eyes, and he could feel her strength. She nodded almost imperceptibly. “We were lucky this time,” she said simply. She studied his face as if she’d not seen it for a long time. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe again. But as long as I have you and our daughter, I’ll be able to live with it.”

“I’m sorry, Katy.”

She squeezed his hand, a new intensity in her eyes. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It’s going to be okay now,” McGarvey said. “They won’t be coming after you again. We’re very close to catching them.”

“They were good, Daddy,” Liz blurted. “Better than we expected. But if it wasn’t for Paul we wouldn’t have made it. And Todd — the medics say he’ll be okay — God, he was fantastic. He saved our lives too.”

Kathleen reached out and touched her daughter’s cheek. “You were rather fantastic yourself.”

Liz smiled, then started to cry, big tears that slid down her cheeks. Kathleen began to cry, and McGarvey’s eyes filled as he held his family, the black rage inside him doing a slow fade to a temporary corner of his mind where he could pull it out when it was time to pay back the people who were responsible. And that would happen very very soon, he promised himself.

Rencke was set up in a small office down the hall from the DDO’s suite that was used by temporary research assistants the CIA brought in from time to time. He’d been going without sleep or anything decent to eat for a couple of days himself, but he was feeling no fatigue now.

“Bingo,” he said, staring at one of the computer monitors that showed a stream of information scrolling up on a lavender background. Whoever had set up what amounted to a triple blind was very good, but not nearly good enough, Rencke told himself, grinning from ear to ear. “The magic,” he whispered, excitedly tapping his feet like a kid getting a birthday present. “Oh, boy. I got the magic.”

He activated a search program that would find and telephone McGarvey wherever he was. Five days ago Far East had given Digital Systems Engineering a contract to gather and collate information on the worldwide development of new satellite data transmission technologies. Digital Systems in turn subcontracted to Quantum Research the task of purchasing the latest equipment for study and evaluation. In turn Quantum subcontracted the job of transportation and storage of the equipment to Microchip Applications, which had done exactly that. At least for the record. The only flaw was that companies like Quantum and Microchip didn’t do that kind of work, renting vans and arranging for warehouses.

The call went through to McGarvey. He was still at Cropley. “Can you talk?”

“Just a minute,” McGarvey said. He said something indistinct in the background, and half a minute later he came back. “Okay, have you found something?”

“They’re using two Dodge vans and a Ford Taurus. Government surplus. I came up with the license plate numbers, but what’s better than that is where they’re staying. It used to be a Kmart store in Morningside, Maryland.”

“Did Far East set it up?”

“Last week, through a triple blind. But they used their own dummy organizations. Dumb, dumb, dumb.”

McGarvey was silent for a moment. When he came back his voice was changed, lower, more precise. “I’m bringing Katy and Liz to my office for a couple of hours, maybe for the night. My secretary will take care of them until I get back.”

“Do you want to talk to her?”

“No, I’ll take care of it,” McGarvey said. “In the meantime I want you to load everything you’ve come up with on a disk and give it to Liz. Everything, do you understand, Otto?”

“Gottcha,” Rencke said. “Do you want me to tell the Bureau about Kmart?”

“No,” McGarvey said flatly.

“Come on, Mac—”

“No, Otto. I’m going to take care of this myself.”

“Oh, boy,” Rencke whispered. “Oh, boy, Mac. Watch your ass. Big time, watch your ass.”

“Now tell me exactly where this place is,” McGarvey said.

“Okay, there’s nobody aboard,” the FBI special agent radioed.

“Maybe it broke loose from its dock and drifted downriver,” Rudolph replied. He was outside at his car.

“No, sir. They definitely ran her up on the bank. Looks like our perps. Some civilian clothes below. They probably changed into their black gear down there. And there’s some kind of a cable tow arrangement on the stern. Could have been used to lift them airborne on their hang gliders.”

“Secure the site and don’t touch anything. I’m sending the second evidence van down.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rudolph turned to look as McGarvey, surrounded by his contingent of marines, came out of the house with his wife and daughter and headed toward the helicopter. He tossed the microphone on the seat and walked over to them.

“Are you going into town?” he asked.

“We’re heading to Langley,” McGarvey said. “Won’t be very comfortable, but it’s safe.”

Rudolph nodded. “We found a boat pulled ashore just across the highway. Looks like they might have come in that way and then got out by helicopter.”

“Any idea where they got the helicopter?” McGarvey asked, and there was something in the way he asked the question that bothered Rudolph. He suspected that McGarvey knew something he wasn’t telling. And Rudolph already knew the man well enough not to bother asking.

“We’re checking on it.”

McGarvey glanced toward the end of the driveway, which was lined with television vans, satellite dishes on their roofs. “Keep us out of it,” he said.

Rudolph followed his gaze. “I’ll do what I can.”

McGarvey gave him a last look. “Keep me posted.”

“You too,” Rudolph said.

NINETEEN

It was 0500 GMT, which made it two in the afternoon local. Harding was finally getting to sleep after tossing and turning in his bunk for three hours when his growler phone buzzed angrily.

He turned on the light and grabbed the phone. “This is the captain.”

“Hate to bother you, but we’ve got a problem,” Paradise reported.

Harding sat up. He felt like hell, and he wanted to bite off his XO’s head. “What is it?”

“In the past two hours he’s cleared his baffles three times. He just did it again, and he’s slowed down. I think he knows we’re back here.”

“What’s our range?”

“Five thousand yards.”

“Okay, come to all stop and rig for silent running,” Harding said. “I’m on my way.” If the MSDF submarine they’d been following knew someone was behind them, rigging for silent running would either confuse the Japanese skipper or confirm that he was being followed by a submarine with hostile intent. Either way, the situation was one that Harding had wanted to avoid. But now that they were apparently in the middle of it, he wasn’t going to back off.

Forcing himself to slow down, he splashed some cold water on his face, combed his hair, put on a fresh shirt and stopped by the officers’ wardroom to get a cup of coffee before going forward to the control center. By the time he arrived he was his usual calm, collected self. It was good for the crew to see their captain unruffled.

Paradise was at the door to the sonar compartment. He came aft and joined Harding at one of the plotting tables. He looked worried and dragged out. None of the officers had been getting enough sleep since the Natsushio sank the Chinese submarine and Seawolf had been ordered to give chase.

“What’s the situation?” Harding demanded.

“We’re still clear aft, but something evidently spooked him into finding out if he had a tail.” Paradise made a mark on the chart east of Goto Island at the entrance to the East China Sea. “He made his first turn to starboard here. We figured he was heading for the Korean coast after all. But when he shut down his diesels and I figured out what he was really doing, it was too late.”

“He probably had us on the first pass,” Harding said.

Paradise nodded glumly. “My fault—”

“Don’t worry about it, Rod, I would have done the same thing,” Harding said, although he wouldn’t have. It was a major error that could mean the end of Paradise’s career as a submarine officer.

Paradise nodded his thanks, though he would beat himself up over his mistake for a long time. “Since then he’s made the same turn three more times.”

“He’s still holding the same course?”

“Definitely heading south. But each time he made his turn we managed to shut down ahead of him.”

Harding studied the chart. If the Natsushio was heading for Tokyo Bay after all, it would take two days to get there, so they still had a little time to figure out what was happening. But it made no sense to him. Why pull a submarine from these waters, especially that boat?

“Should we call this home?” Paradise asked.

Harding looked up and shook his head. “Not yet. I want to see how far he’s going to take this.”

“He killed the Chinese submarine without warning.”

“I know,” Harding said. “Let’s go to battle stations, torpedo. Load tubes one and two, but don’t flood them just yet.”

“Kan-cho, the submarine has disappeared,” Seaman Mizutami reported from sonar.

“He’s not disappeared. He knows we’ve detected him, and he’s gone silent,” Captain Tomita replied. “Were you quick enough to confirm his class?”

“No, sir. But what we do have indicates a strong possibility that he’s a Seawolf.”

Tomita glanced across the control room at his XO, Lieutenant Uesugi. “Keep a close watch now.” He released the comms button.

“Does the American know where we’re heading?” Uesugi asked.

“Not unless the Americans are intercepting and decrypting our communications,” Tomita said. That was not likely, but certainly a possibility which he knew he had to consider. And it was more than possible that the American submarine had witnessed the attack on the Chinese submarine. Flotilla Headquarters had informed him that the Seventh Fleet had entered the Sea of Japan from the north, which was one of the reasons that the Natsushio was ordered out of the area. Not the only reason, however.

“Turn one hundred eighty degrees to port,” he ordered. “We’ll clear our baffles from a new direction this time.”

Uesugi came over. “We are no match for them, kan-cho,” he said, respectfully lowering his voice.

“That is correct,” Tomita agreed. “Nevertheless I mean to deal with them here and now. Send up a slot buoy, and we’ll call for help.”

Admiral James Hamilton hunched over a chart in the busy Combat Information Center one level below the bridge. “What’s the situation, Dave?”

“Well, if Harding stayed on his projected track, it looks to me like they’re trying to box him in.” Captain Merkler spread several 50 X 50 cm satellite images on the plotting table. “They suddenly got real interested in a spot just west of Goto Island about an hour ago. The destroyer Myoko and frigates Noshiro and Yubetsu are already closing in, and a half-dozen other surface ships are within a couple of hours. Take that together with at least four Orion sub-hunters circling the same piece of ocean, and it looks to me like an all-out hunt for Seawolf.”

“Seven hundred miles,” Hamilton said. “It’d take us twenty-four hours to get down there. Way too long.”

“We can send aircraft. At least it would counter the threat the Orions are posing. And if we tell our pilots to kick the pig we could be in the middle of it in under thirty minutes.”

Hamilton looked at the chart and the photographs. “Okay, send a pair of Hornets. I want them down there as soon as possible, then I want them right down on the deck. Wave-top level.”

“They won’t be able to defend themselves effectively.”

“That’s the point, Dave.” Hamilton’s expression hardened. “God help the sonofabitch who takes advantage.”

Merkler looked at the satellite images. “What the hell are they up to?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out. I want the entire fleet moved south at best possible speed. In the meantime I want an ELF message sent to Harding. He needs to be warned that he’s heading into trouble.”

“If he doesn’t already know,” Merkler said, and he turned to issue the orders, leaving Hamilton to wonder exactly what the Japanese were up to this time. They weren’t simply defending against a possible nuclear threat from North Korea. Or were they?

“Sonar, conn. Have the bearings to the three surface targets changed?” Harding asked.

“Negative, skipper,” Fischer reported excitedly. “They’re all within twenty-five thousand yards and closing fast. Still spread out over a twenty-degree arc. They know we’re here, or at least in the vicinity.”

“How about the Natsushio?”

“He shut down after his last turn to port. He’s out there, but I’m still getting nothing.”

Harding released the phone button and studied the main tactical display on the overhead CRT next to the periscopes. Paradise was at the rail.

“Looks like he doesn’t want us to follow him,” Harding said.

“It’s my fault he knows we’re here—”

“Belay that,” Harding said sharply. He knew what the Japanese sub driver was about to do and couldn’t believe it. Right now he needed all the help he could get, because he didn’t want to precipitate an all-out shooting war with the MSDF.

“He’s not going to shoot at us,” Paradise said.

Harding looked at his XO. “I think that’s exactly what he means to do as soon as the help he called for arrives. And that’s going to be soon.”

“He’s a diesel-electric boat.”

“In his own waters, up against an allied warship. He’s counting that we won’t shoot.”

“We won’t,” Paradise said.

“Not unless we’re provoked,” Harding replied calmly. “Let’s start a TMA on his last known position, then send out a couple of noisemakers.”

“That’ll pinpoint our position.”

“Exactly,” Harding said carefully. He was losing his patience. “I want to see what he’ll do about us.”

Paradise lowered his voice. “Look, Skipper, as XO my job is to do more than follow orders. I’m supposed to give advice, which I can’t give unless I know what you want to do.”

“We followed him, he detected us and we both shut down. Then he called for help, which he knows we heard. Now, we can either bug out — which is what he wants us to do — or we can let him know that we’re still here and we plan on sticking around. The next move will be his.”

“If he shoots at us, he’s got to know he’d be committing suicide.”

“It’d sure tell us how serious they are,” Harding said. He keyed the growler phone. “Sonar, this is the captain. If he floods his tubes I want to know about it pronto.”

“Noisemakers in the water,” Seaman Mizutami reported. “Relative bearing zero-eight-zero, range, four-thousand five-hundred meters.”

“Stand by,” Tomita ordered. He called ESMs. “This is the captain. Has there been any response from our surface ships?”

“Iie, kan-cho.” No, the electronic support measures officer replied.

“Sonar, conn. What is the range to our surface ships?”

“All of them are within the twenty-five-thousand-meter ring and closing fast.”

“The American captain knows that our ships are closing in on his position,” Uesugi said from his position in front of the BSY-1 consoles. “It’s only a matter of time before they have him.”

“So it would seem,” Tomita said staring at the tactical display monitor.

“They mean to provoke us before we get help, knowing that we will not shoot.”

“Sonar, conn. Is the Seawolf’s aspect changing?”

“No, sir,” Mizutami said. “I was able to paint a partial picture because of the noisemaker bubbles. It looks as if he’s beam on to us.”

“Stand by,” Tomita said. The American captain not only told them that he was there, but he’d moved his boat in such a position that its flank was presented to the Natsushio. He’d given them the perfect shot.

Uesugi was looking at him.

The American would not shoot. It was unthinkable. But even if he did, he would find himself in serious trouble from the surface ships that would find and kill him within a matter of minutes.

“Conn, sonar. Give me one ping for range and bearing.”

Mizutami hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Hai, kan-cho.”

The sonar ping reverberated through the hull. Seconds later the return signal was entered into the BSY-1 computers.

“I have a shooting solution,” Uesugi said, trying to keep his voice even.

“Flood tubes one and two.”

Uesugi looked over at him.

“This is not a drill,” Tomita warned. “Flood one and two.”

“Hai, kan-cho.”

“Conn, sonar, he’s flooding his tubes,” Fischer called.

“Give me two pings for range, and a precise bearing to his propeller,” Harding ordered.

“Aye, Skipper.”

“Flood tubes one and two,” Harding told his XO. “And prepare to get us out of here.”

“Flooding tubes one and two.”

“Prepare to fire only one,” Harding said, fighting to remain totally calm, in control. “We’re going to take out his prop before he gets off a shot.”

Two active sonar pings reverberated throughout the ship. A second later the solution came up on the BSY-1 console.

“I have a firing solution,” Harding said.

“Fire one,” Harding ordered without hesitation.

The weapons control officer hit the button, and there was brief low-pitched vibration.

“Emergency crash dive, all ahead full, come right to course two-nine-zero.” Harding reached up for a handhold on the overhead as his orders were relayed. With gathering speed the Seawolf heeled over hard to starboard, the bows canted sharply down and they accelerated. Now it was going to start getting real interesting, he told himself.

TWENTY

McGarvey forced himself to go through the motions of getting his wife and daughter settled in with the help of his secretary, Ms. Swanfeld. They had brought along their things from the safe house, and while they were cleaning up, a couple of cots were brought from housekeeping and set up in the DO’s conference room. It might not be comfortable, but it was safe.

The doctor came out to where McGarvey was waiting with his secretary.

“They’re a little shook up. Other than that they’re fine, which is amazing considering the injuries your daughter suffered in the bombing. She’s a tough woman.”

“That she is.”

The doctor looked critically at him. “It looks as if you could use some rest yourself.”

“I’m going to take a couple of days off.”

“Make it soon,” the doctor said, and he left.

A little smile curled the corner of Ms. Swanfeld’s mouth. “For a Company doctor he certainly doesn’t know what goes on around here.”

McGarvey returned her smile despite the rage he was filled with. The heat had been turned up tonight and he was at the edge of boiling over. “Are you up to sticking around for another couple of hours? Just until they get settled in?”

“You couldn’t pry me out of here, Mr. McGarvey.” She glanced at the door. “Are you going to talk to Mr. Adkins before you go? He’s in the Operations center.”

“I’ll see him when I get back.”

Her left eyebrow rose. “Will Mr. Rencke know how to reach you — in an emergency?”

“Yes, he will,” McGarvey said. He walked across the hall to the conference room, knocked once and went in. Kathleen and Elizabeth had finished dressing and Kathleen was making up their cots.

“Daddy,” Elizabeth said brightly. She looked worn out.

“Hi, Liz,” McGarvey gave her a peck on the cheek, then took his wife in his arms. “The doctor said you’re both fine.”

“Good thing he wasn’t a psychologist,” Kathleen said.

“You’ll be okay here until morning. My secretary is going to stick around tonight, so if you need anything just ask her. She wants to help.”

“Then what?”

“I have to leave for a couple of hours.”

Elizabeth was watching them. “You found out where they went, didn’t you? And you’re going after them.”

McGarvey nodded. He should have realized that Liz would figure it out. But he didn’t have time to argue with them.

“I’m coming with you,” Elizabeth said.

“You’re staying here with your mother,” McGarvey said firmly. “Otto is loading some information on a disk for you, and your job is to make sure nothing happens to it. No matter what.”

Kathleen’s nostrils flared in anger. “I suppose it would be futile of me to try and talk you out of whatever you’re going to do this morning.”

“They tried twice, Katy. And both times a lot of good people got hurt. It’s not going to happen a third time.”

Kathleen touched his weather-beaten cheek. “Now that you’ve started to come back into my life, I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t,” McGarvey said, and they embraced. Mixed with his rage was a sense of wonder that he had allowed all these years to pass without her. Empty, senseless years.

“Take care of yourself, my darling,” Kathleen whispered in his ear.

He gave her an extra hug, kissed his daughter again, then walked down the hall to where Rencke was working on the computer.

“I’m going out to Morningside.”

“They might not be there,” Rencke said. He looked terrible, his eyes red and puffy.

“You’re probably right,” McGarvey said. He sincerely hoped that Rencke was wrong.

“I’m only giving you a couple hours, Mac. If I haven’t heard anything by then I’m telling Fred Rudolph about Kmart. I don’t care what you say.”

McGarvey had to smile. “Fair enough. Did you load the disk?”

“Yeah. I’ll bring it over to Liz as soon as I’m finished here. I set up a search program for Joseph Lee. Guys like him just don’t disappear. Sooner or later he’ll make contact with someone and I’ll find out about it.”

McGarvey nodded. “You know the score, Otto. Cover your tracks.”

Rencke grinned like a kid at Christmas. “They won’t even know I’ve been there.” He got serious. “It’s payback time, and I can’t blame you. But watch your ass, will ya?”

“Count on it.”

Kajiyama came back to the van in a big hurry and climbed in the front passenger seat. “Get us out of here,” he told the commando behind the wheel.

“What’s wrong?” Kondo demanded, though he’d half expected that something else would go wrong tonight. He sat in the back with the other commando, all that was left of his team.

“Somebody’s watching the airplane, that’s what.” Kajiyama was practically jumping out of his skin.

The driver glanced in the rearview mirror. Kondo nodded for him to do as Kajiyama asked, and they headed out.

“Calm down. Who is watching the airplane?”

“I don’t bloody well know,” Kajiyama blurted. “They’re parked on the apron just across from the Gulfstream. Government plates.” Kajiyama turned and looked back. “The woman knew your name. No wonder they know about the plane. They have you connected with Mr. Lee, so now there’s no way out for you. No way out for any of us, because of some stupid blunder you made. Someone probably saw you hanging around with Croft at the Hay Adams and made the ID.”

“We weren’t going to fly out until morning in any event.” Kondo needed time to think out their next moves. “We’ll go back to Morningside just as we planned—”

“You knew that something like this was going to happen,” Kajiyama shouted. “It’s why you wanted to come out here first, to see if they’d already made the connection.”

“That’s correct, Kajiyama-san,” Kondo said patiently. “That’s also why I didn’t kill Sandy Patterson when you wanted me to do it. The Gulfstream may no longer be an option for us. But she will provide us with another.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet. But we’ll work it out if you don’t lose your head like a stupid gai-jin.”

“It is you who are stupid. We failed, hasn’t that sunk in? Or have you already worked out who you will blame when you talk to Joseph Lee? If you have the chance to talk to him.”

Only a supreme effort of willpower and self-discipline stopped Kondo from pulling out his pistol and killing the man then and there. There was still an outside chance that they might get to the Gulfstream, and Kajiyama was their only remaining pilot. “We will work it out. And when we return home, both of us will make our reports to Mr. Lee. It is I who will take the blame, not you.”

“What’s your situation out there?” FBI Director Pierone demanded.

“The CIA got chewed up pretty badly this time,” Rudolph replied. “But they’ve agreed to let us take over the investigation.”

“Considering the circumstances, they don’t have much of a choice.”

“They’re blaming us because of the Web site screwup. But they had some of their best people out here, and still they missed guarding against the one thing that would have saved them. Frankly I don’t know if we would have done any better, but it’s in our lap now. And there’s a connection between this attack and the Georgetown bombing through the Far East Trade Association. Looks like one of their people arranged for the helicopter the State boys found on the other side of the river. And I’m pretty sure that we’ll come up with IDs on some of the terrorists tying them to Joseph Lee or one of his companies.”

“What’s the point, Fred?” Pierone asked. “Are you any closer to finding out why they want Kirk McGarvey dead? I’ve got to tell the President something. Presumably the CIA has kept him up to speed on its investigation. But I’ve got nothing to report. In the meantime the media is flooding our switchboard.”

“I don’t think McGarvey knows much more than we do,” Rudolph said. “At least he’s not saying anything to me, if he does. I guess the key is finding Joseph Lee and interviewing him. But as long as he remains in hiding in Japan there isn’t much we can do except run down every lead we come across. We might get lucky and find the rest of the terrorists before they get out of the country.”

“If they’re Lee’s people they might use his private jet.”

“It’s being watched,” Rudolph said.

“Okay. I want to see you in my office at nine o’clock, along with Jack Hailey and Tom Moulton. Maybe we can start making some sense of this.” Hailey was SAC for the District of Columbia, and Moulton was chief of the Bureau’s Anti-Terrorism Unit. Both good men.

“See you then, Mr. Director,” Rudolph said, and he broke the connection. Almost immediately he got another call, this one from Otto Rencke at CIA headquarters.

“Do you have a pencil and paper?”

“Just a minute.” Rudolph cradled the cell phone and took out a notebook and pen. “Go ahead.”

“Have you traced the helicopter yet?”

“The helicopter was leased by someone at Far East Trade, but we’re still working on the boat. Did McGarvey ask you to call me?”

“Do you know about the car and two vans they’re using?”

“No.”

Rencke rattled off the makes and models of the car and vans, and the three license numbers. “Get that over to the Maryland Highway Patrol, maybe they’ll get lucky.”

“Where are they going? They must have a base of operations somewhere close. Do you know where it is?”

“Do you still have your pencil out?” Rencke asked.

“Yes, go ahead.”

Rencke gave him three names, one of whom Rudolph recognized as a Bureau computer programmer. “They’re all pals of Sandy Patterson’s. They all knew about the Cropley safe house. And they all had access to the Bureau’s Web site.”

“How the hell did you find that, Rencke?”

“There’ll be a few other names of Bureau people who fed information to Tony Croft. When this is over you should probably think about cleaning house.”

“I want to talk to McGarvey—” Rudolph said, but he was talking to no one. Rencke had broken the connection.

For a moment he stood there vexed, but then he tore off the slip with the three license numbers, walked over to one of the Maryland Highway Patrol officers and gave it to him.

“We think the terrorists may be using these vehicles to get around,” he told the officer. “Tell your people to take it easy. You saw what they did here.”

Five minutes later the van carrying Kondo, Kajiyama and the two commandos took the Andrews Main Gate exit off I-95 and headed north to the old Kmart. On the way over from Dulles, Kondo had counted six highway patrol cruisers, the last just ahead of them as they turned off. The FBI and CIA knew about Joseph Lee’s airplane, but they didn’t know about the vans, which meant they didn’t know about the warehouse yet. But they’d obviously pulled out all the stops.

It had been nothing but blind dumb luck that the whore had seen him at the Hay Adams with Tony Croft. It didn’t explain how the authorities knew his name, but it was possible they got it from some intelligence file even he didn’t know about. But, and this was the thought that caused him the most anger, it was more likely that the Bureau got his name in the raid on Sandy Patterson’s office. The codes and blinds she thought were foolproof might not have been. She had screwed up in Georgetown, and now it looked as if she’d screwed up again. If the Bureau hadn’t come up with something from the raid on her office, then the security agents out at the Cropley safe house would not have been alerted and the mission would have happened as planned.

Women in general were stupid. But gai-jin women were the worst because they didn’t know their place.

The commando drove to the rear of the Kmart and stopped in front of one of the loading bays. Kajiyama jumped out, opened the overhead door, waited for the van to pull inside, then closed and locked it.

Sandy Patterson was waiting by the stairs when Kondo came from the rear of the store. She was wide-eyed and breathless.

“How did it go?” she asked.

Kondo forced a cold smile. “Just fine.” He took her arm and they headed upstairs. “I’ll tell you all about it, and then we’ll make our plans for getting back to Japan.”

“I thought we were taking Mr. Lee’s jet—”

“Unfortunately the authorities are guarding it,” Kondo said reasonably. “Which means we must find another way. But we have plenty of time. Not to worry.”

McGarvey watched from his car across the street as the van pulled up and entered the old Kmart. The man in the front passenger seat had opened the service door, which probably meant that no one was inside. But there was no way of knowing how many other men in addition to the driver were in the vehicle. Possibly as many as a dozen, though he doubted it. They’d found seven paragliders and four bodies. Which meant that there were three terrorists unaccounted for, and possibly a fourth who had run the boat ashore. They could have left other men with the helicopter and the van, but he didn’t think they would have split their force. There was no reason for it.

He was guessing four men, all heavily armed. But he’d faced worse odds than that before. He checked the load in his Walther PPK, transferred the two spare magazines into his trouser pocket and pulled off his light-colored jacket. His trousers were dark, as was his short-sleeved Izod. He glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror. They had killed Jacqueline and two dozen others. They had seriously hurt his only child. And they had tried to kill his wife. There was no time now for anger, he had to remind himself. This was a tactical situation, nothing more, and he would rely on his training and experience.

He grinned viciously. “Bullshit,” he murmured. He slipped out of the car and headed across the street to the east side of the Kmart.

Kajiyama was in what had been Kmart’s cafeteria, which they’d used for a command center. He happened to look over at the bank of six closed-circuit television monitors in time to see a dark figure darting around the corner on the east side of the building. The other monitors showed nobody else. He put down the bottle of Evian he’d been drinking, switched off the lights and raced out into the main part of the store.

“There is someone out there,” he called to the two commandos who were over by their cots preparing to get some sleep. “One man. In front, on the east side,” he said gesturing toward the painted-over glass front doors.

The commandos reacted instantly, drawing their weapons and donning their night-vision oculars as they raced toward the front of the store.

Kajiyama grabbed a pair of Uzis and took the stairs up to the offices two at a time.

Sandy Patterson, her clothing in disarray, a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth, was backed up against the wall, Kondo, his hand raised, advancing toward her.

“Take your revenge later; someone is outside,” Kajiyama warned.

Kondo turned around in surprise. “Is it the police?”

“No. It looks like there is only one man.” Kajiyama tossed him one of the Uzis. “He came around the front from the east side.”

Kondo smiled. “It’s McGarvey,” he said triumphantly. He glanced at the woman. “Apparently you screwed up even this simple assignment, otherwise he would never have found us.” He turned back. “Just as well that the arrogant bastard is here. Our mission will be a success after all.”

“He’s not dead yet.”

“Even if he is twice as good as his file suggests, he cannot defeat four-to-one odds.”

McGarvey ducked under the last of the closed-circuit television cameras along the east side of the building and raced around to the loading docks in the rear. He’d spotted the cameras almost immediately and figured that if someone inside was watching, he would make them believe that he was coming in from the front. With only four people they would be hard pressed to watch every approach. The building was simply too big.

There were two cameras covering the back of the store, one at each corner. He studied the layout, then screwed the silencer on his pistol. The cameras only covered the loading docks and not the second-story windows. He ducked beneath the nearest camera, then reached up and fired one shot, taking out the lens. Even if someone had been staring at the monitor, they would have seen only an indistinct blur, and then nothing.

Stuffing the gun in his belt, McGarvey shoved a Dumpster a few feet up against the building beneath a canopy over one of the service entrances. Directly above was a window. He scrambled up the Dumpster, then up on the flimsy fiberglass awning that crackled and nearly buckled under his weight. He paused a moment to make sure it wouldn’t collapse, then looked in the window. Venetian blinds obscured his view, but he could see enough to determine that he was looking into an empty office. The door, to what appeared to be a corridor, was open. The only illumination seemed to come from outside the office, probably a security light at the stairs.

If they were on the ball it wouldn’t take them long to figure out that trouble was coming at them from the rear of the building, not the front. They would be coming to investigate.

A woman appeared in the doorway, and McGarvey ducked down as she looked over her shoulder. She wouldn’t be able to see outside, because of the light in the corridor, but she came across the room directly to the window. As McGarvey slid to the right, she undid the latch, slid the window aside, raised the venetian blinds and looked outside directly into the muzzle of McGarvey’s gun.

“I hope to God that you’re Kirk McGarvey,” she whispered urgently. She showed him her hands. “I’m not armed.”

McGarvey lowered his gun. “Sandy Patterson?”

She nodded. “That’s right. They’re waiting for you downstairs. They think that you’re coming in from the front.” She held the venetian blinds aside as McGarvey climbed through the window.

“I thought you were with them,” he said, hurrying silently to the door. Nothing moved in the corridor, and he could hear no sounds in the building. He turned back and looked at the woman. A bruise was forming on her right cheek, and she looked like she was on the verge of collapse.

“I was with them,” she whispered. “But after Georgetown …” She searched his face for understanding. “I didn’t know it’d be like that.”

“A lot of good people were hurt,” McGarvey said, amazed with himself that he hadn’t already put a bullet in her brain. She was at least indirectly responsible for the Georgetown bombing and the attack at the safe house. For what, he wondered?

“I know,” she said lowering her head. “But it’s gone too far.” She looked up. “He’s crazy. They all are.”

“Okay, take it easy, Sandy,” McGarvey said. He would have to make his judgments and decisions later. Right now he needed her help. “How many are there?”

“Kondo and Kajiyama, and I think only two of the commandos came back.”

“Weapons?”

“Sniper pistols, Uzis, grenades. And they’re all wearing night-vision equipment.”

“How’d you know I was at the window?”

“I was upstairs and heard something on the loading dock. When I looked out my window I spotted you climbing up.”

“They’re going to figure out real soon that I’m not out front. So you better find someplace to hide, and keep your head down until it’s over.”

“You’ll never make it that way.” Sandy shook her head. “They’re too good and too heavily armed.”

“You got any suggestions?”

“If I can get Kondo up here, you can take him. I don’t think the others will have a lot of enthusiasm once he’s down. They’ll probably run to save their own skins.”

“If he thinks it’s a trick he’ll kill you.”

Sandy looked into his eyes, and after a moment she shrugged. “You were thinking about it yourself when you came through the window.”

McGarvey looked out into the still empty corridor. “Okay, see if you can get him up here.”

“Don’t miss,” Sandy said. She brushed past him and went to the open office door across from the stairs. She glanced back at McGarvey, then stepped to the head of the stairs. “Kondo-san,” she called out.

McGarvey studied her. She held herself as if she were in a lot of mental anguish. She had made one too many mistakes, for whatever reason, and she was trying desperately now to make it up with one daring act.

“Kondo-san,” she called louder. “You must come up here now.”

“What is it?” someone called from the foot of the stairs.

“It’s Mr. Lee, on the telephone for Kondo-san.”

Someone came up the stairs, and Sandy stepped backwards into the office. McGarvey ducked back just as a figure dressed all in black, night-vision oculars pushed up on his forehead, appeared at the head of the stairs and crossed the corridor into the office where Sandy had disappeared.

McGarvey waited just a second before he slipped into the corridor and silently raced the twenty feet to the open office door.

“The call is for Kondo-san, and nobody else,” Sandy said.

McGarvey stepped around the corner into the office and laid the muzzle of the Walther’s silencer against the base of the man’s skull.

“This is Seijewa, one of their commandos,” Sandy said.

“Take his gun and goggles,” McGarvey told her. He shoved his pistol harder into the base of the terrorist’s skull. “How many more men downstairs?”

Siejewa said nothing, but his muscles bunched up as Sandy took his weapon and night-vision oculars.

“Was he involved in Georgetown?” McGarvey asked.

“No. But he was at Cropley. They were going to kidnap your wife and daughter and use them to get to you.”

“Some friends of mine died there,” McGarvey said. “So you either cooperate with me now, or I’ll kill you.”

“Americans don’t have the courage—” Seijewa said contemptuously. He started to turn, when McGarvey fired one shot directly into the base of his skull. He started forward, then crumpled like an empty sack.

Sandy let out a squeak and stepped back, nearly tripping over her own feet, her eyes and mouth open wide. “My God—”

“Seeing it first hand isn’t very pretty, is it,” McGarvey said harshly. “Where are the switches for the main floor lights?”

She couldn’t drag her eyes from the body. A puddle of blood was already pooling up beside the head.

“The light switches,” McGarvey demanded.

She looked up, trying to gather herself. “Downstairs. Around the corner. A door to the utility panel.”

“Is it locked?”

“No.”

“Okay, we’re going downstairs. As soon as I’m in position, you’re going to switch on every light in the building.” He glanced at the sniper pistol in her hand. “Unless you plan on shooting me in the back.”

She shook her head. “I’d have to go back to Japan with them. I want to stay here. Even if it means jail.”

McGarvey donned the dead terrorist’s night-vision oculars and went down the dark stairs. Everything in front of him was bathed in an unearthly green glow. He held up at the bottom to make sure no one was waiting for them in the corridor, then signaled for Sandy Patterson to go to the utility panel. He went left past some restrooms and then ducked down as the corridor opened onto what had been the main sales floor. It was littered with uneven stacks of desks, chairs, file cabinets, bookcases, lamps and other office equipment.

He scanned left to right, concentrating his attention toward the front of the store. But the building was huge. The only way he was going to find the remaining three terrorists was to make them come to him.

He glanced back at Sandy down the corridor. She had the utility panel door open and was looking directly toward him, but in his darkness he didn’t think she could see him. Kondo’s people had shut down all the security and fire exit lights, and now Sandy was waiting for some kind of a signal.

A pile of a dozen gray steel government-issue desks was stacked, some of them three high, just across from the corridor. Keeping low, McGarvey crept across to them, stuffed his pistol in his belt, climbed up on one of the desks and then putting his back to the effort, toppled one of the desks stacked on another, sending it crashing into a jumble of file cabinets with a tremendous crash.

He yanked off his night-vision oculars and pulled out his pistol, thumbing the safety off. “Now!” he shouted.

The lights came on, one long string after another, in quick succession. For a second or so the sudden light would completely destroy the vision of anyone caught wearing night-ocular equipment. All of the remaining three terrorists, McGarvey hoped.

Straight down the aisle a dark clad figure that had been crouched behind a pile of steel cabinets turned around as he yanked off his night-vision oculars. Compensating for the degradation in accuracy because of the silencer, McGarvey fired three shots left, on target and right, the third shot catching the figure in the chest and driving him backward into the cabinets.

Someone to his immediate left fired a long burst from an Uzi in his general direction, evidently still half blinded from the sudden light. McGarvey ducked right as a figure dressed in black appeared in the aisle. The terrorist started to swing his Uzi around when McGarvey fired two shots, both of them catching the man in the face and knocking him off his feet.

All the overhead lights went out, plunging the store into almost total darkness.

McGarvey stepped to the right and jumped down from the desk. Almost instantly the desks and cabinets piled above him were raked with automatic weapons fire. The weapon evidently was equipped with a flash suppressor, because McGarvey hadn’t been able to pick out the shooter’s position.

He pulled on his night-vision oculars in time to catch a movement at the end of the corridor as the last of the terrorists came out on the main floor. He fired a couple of shots, the rolled left. Sandy Patterson lay face down on the floor in front of the open utility panel door, her hands covering her head.

McGarvey held his breath and cocked his head to listen as he ejected his spent magazine and reloaded. There was no sound. Not even traffic noises from the highway a hundred yards away. The night was perfectly still.

“We can stay here all night until the FBI shows up.” McGarvey called out. He scrambled around the corner on all fours. Someone moved to his right, then stopped.

“I don’t think help is coming, Mr. McGarvey. I think that you are here this morning for revenge.”

McGarvey rose up above the level of the desktop and looked in that direction. He could see desks and chairs, but no movement. He ducked back down. “I’m not interested in revenge unless you’re Bruce Kondo.”

“Yes? Why this man specifically?”

“Because he’s not a Bu-shi. He’s a coward.”

The terrorist laughed, the sound coming from farther around the pile of desks McGarvey was crouched behind. “I’m Bruce Kondo, but I’m neither Bu-shi, as you call it, nor a coward.”

“What then?” McGarvey edged closer.

“Why, an intelligence officer, just like you.”

“Working for whom?” McGarvey switched directions and headed around the pile of desks from the back.

“Mr. Lee, of course.”

“MITI?”

“There are certain powers in the Japanese government that are involved.”

“With what?”

“You will not live long enough to learn about the plan, but the world will know all about it in a couple of days.”

“Is it going to be another Pearl Harbor?” McGarvey asked. “Is that what you crazy bastards are going to try? Is it Morning Sun again? The old men in the zaibatsu, looking for their moment of glory before they die?”

Kondo coughed, then laughed again. “Another Pearl Harbor will not be necessary—”

McGarvey had edged his way around the jumbled pile of desks and file cabinets to where Kondo was sitting on the floor, his back against one of the cabinets. McGarvey pointed his pistol at the man’s head, less than two feet from his right temple.

Kondo turned and faced the Walther’s muzzle. He smiled and slowly raised his left hand. He held a fragmentation grenade, the lever still attached but the safety pin gone. Blood seeped from a wound in his back. “Shall we get it over with now, or would you like to chat a bit longer?”

McGarvey stared at the man for several long seconds. In his mind’s eye he was seeing Jacqueline as she was leaving the sidewalk cafe, the oncoming Mercedes, the bomb, the tremendous explosion. And he was seeing the look of pain and helpless defiance on his daughter’s face as she lay in the hospital bed after the attack. And the look in his wife’s eyes after the Cropley attack.

He lowered his gun, eased the hammer down, flipped the safety catch back and stuffed the gun in his belt at the small of his back.

“You’re right. I came here for revenge.” McGarvey shook his head disparagingly. “But you’re not worth it.” He started to get to his feet.

“I’ll do it,” Kondo shouted wildly, and he thrust his grenade hand out.

It was exactly what McGarvey wanted to happen. He grabbed Kondo’s hand with his right, his powerful fingers curling about the man’s fist and the grenade.

“Iie,” Kondo screamed like a wild man. He pulled a stiletto out of a sheath strapped to his chest and stabbed at McGarvey’s heart.

McGarvey deflected the thrust, then grabbed Kondo’s wrist and bent the man’s arm and knife hand back toward his own throat.

The lights came on again, momentarily blinding McGarvey until his night-vision oculars slowly began to compensate for the overload. Kondo was very strong, and it took every ounce of McGarvey’s strength to force the point of the stiletto to the terrorist’s neck just below his chin.

“Kill him,” Kondo shouted. “Kill him!”

McGarvey looked over his shoulder. Sandy Patterson, a sniper pistol in her hand, stood five feet away, a determined look on her face.

“Kill him—” Kondo screamed hysterically.

Sandy didn’t move, and McGarvey turned back to the terrorist. Without a word, without emotion, drained now of his feelings of hate and rage and even contempt, McGarvey slowly forced the blade of the nine-inch stiletto into Kondo’s throat. The razor-sharp steel easily cut through the tissue and cartilage, the terrorist’s body convulsing, blood gushing over McGarvey’s hand and wrist. Then Kondo became still, his muscles slack.

McGarvey released his grip on the knife, then carefully pried Kondo’s dead fingers from the grenade.

“Get down,” he ordered Sandy. He tossed the grenade toward the front of the stairs then fell back behind the pile of furniture. A second later a tremendous explosion rocked the store, blowing the glass out of the front windows and sending it spraying across the empty parking lot.

TWENTY-ONE

The gantry elevator bumped to a sudden stop ten feet below the open payload doors. Ripley pressed the button, but nothing happened; the power was evidently off.

“Hello,” he called up to the technicians.

One of them came to the rail and looked down at him. “Hai.”

“The power is off. I want to come up.”

The technician said something over his shoulder, and Hiroshi Kimura appeared at the rail. Like everyone else he wore spotlessly clean white coveralls, booties and a paper head cover with the NSDA logo. He looked surprised and irritated. If anything, he and all the Japanese at the center had gotten even cooler toward the Americans in the past twenty-four hours. Something was going on, all the more disturbing to Ripley because it was so close to launch.

“What are you doing here? You belong back at launch control.”

“I’m taking a last look before everything is buttoned up,” Ripley said. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Evidently you haven’t properly gone through sterile procedures. That is why the elevator stopped. It’s programmed to do that so we can avoid contamination.” Kimura said something to the technician, who disappeared from view. From his position Ripley could see the edge of the open payload hatch in the rocket’s nose and the open door to the clean room where the satellite had been prepped prior to loading.

“I’ll do the procedure again,” Ripley said.

“There is no need for that, Major. We are nearly finished here. As soon as we secure the hatch, this level will be cleared.”

Ripley shaded his eyes against the glare of the gantry lights. Something wasn’t right about the satellite nestled in its compartment just beneath the nose cone. He stepped to the left to get a better look. The hatch swung shut, but not before he caught a momentary glimpse of a bit of the satellite’s outer covering, and his eyes narrowed.

“I’ll restore the power. But you must return to the pad.”

The elevator lurched. “Wait a minute,” Ripley said. “It’s part of my job to see that everything is being done according to specs.”

“The launch clock is about to start. Would you delay it?”

“If need be I’ll not sign off my final compliance inspection form,” Ripley said. He was confused, and he was trying to sound normal. Kimura was looking at him with a strange expression. Unusual for a Japanese.

“Very well, Major. If you insist.”

The elevator went up the last ten feet, and Ripley stepped onto the steel mesh catwalk. The door to the empty clean room was open, but the rocket’s payload hatch was closed, and two technicians were finishing with the last flush fasteners.

“I want to see inside.”

“If you insist,” Kimura said. The technicians looked over their shoulders. “But since you are not clean, we will have to return the satellite to the payload building where it will be disassembled and sterilized. Since that procedure will take at least thirty days, you and your team will be returned home. A new team would be requested in that case. One that would work with us, not against us.”

Ripley weighed his options. He wasn’t quite so sure of what he’d seen after all. And their final inspection of the satellite in the clean room had turned up no anomalies. There was nothing to be worried about. Yet he could not shake the feeling of the unease.

“Major?” Kimura prompted.

“You have a point. I’ll meet you at launch control.” Ripley stepped back aboard the elevator.

“Very well.”

The rocket was being cleared, stage by stage, from the top down for launch. Once the final preparations were completed and each system signed for, the countdown clock would start at T-minus forty-eight hours. From this point he and his Tiger team would actually have very little to do. They would remain as observers. Theoretically they would answer questions if some critical problem were to arise for which the Japanese had little or no experience. It was unlikely, but possible.

At the bottom, he walked across the launch platform toward the ramp to ground level where a dozen vehicles were parked. At one point he stopped and looked back up the wall of the rocket rising above him. He wasn’t sure what he had seen in the payload compartment, but he was certain of one thing at least. What he did catch a glimpse of was definitely not gold foil. The outer skin of the satellite they had checked in the clean room was gold. The one in the rocket was black. He took off his paper head cover and went to his car.

McGarvey hadn’t known what he was going to accomplish by coming out here this morning. But looking back across the parking lot at the shattered front of the old Kmart store as the first of the tagged and bagged bodies were being wheeled out, he figured his mission had been a total failure. He’d wanted to strike back at the monsters who had tried to hurt his family and who had killed his friends, but he’d needed information more than revenge. As it stood now, he had neither.

Fred Rudolph broke away from a group of reporters and television people he’d been talking to and came over to where McGarvey leaned against a Maryland Highway Patrol cruiser smoking a cigaretee.

“Here we are again,” he said sharply, obviously having trouble keeping his anger and disgust in check. “Four more bodies, no answers.” He glanced toward the ambulances. “You knew they were here and you ordered your people to keep their mouths shut. Cute.”

“I thought I could take at least one of them alive,” McGarvey said. It was a lie, but it was better for Rudolph just now than the truth.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with a statement like that? From a high-ranking officer of the Central Intelligence Agency? Is that how our government is supposed to conduct business? I thought that’s what we hated about the Nazis and the Soviets.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice, Fred.”

“Yes, you did,” Rudolph shouted. “You find out about a crime, you call the cops. That’s how it works.”

“Tell that to the families in Georgetown, and to the families of my people at Cropley,” McGarvey shot back. He was tired and fed up with himself. It was hard to keep on track. A part of him wanted to run now, find a safe hole in which to crawl and pull the dirt over his head. You’re just like a dog, Katy had once told him. When you get hurt you don’t want anyone tending to your wounds. You just want to crawl under a porch somewhere and be left alone. But it wasn’t over yet. The hard parts were yet to come. He was beginning to seriously doubt if he was up to the challenge. Run, something inside his head nagged. Run. Run.

Rudolph looked over to one of the Maryland Highway Patrol cruisers where Sandy Patterson was sitting in the back. “What about her?”

“She wants a lawyer, but she says she’ll cooperate,” McGarvey said. He told Rudolph what she had done this evening.

“The odds were against her, so she switched sides when she figured it would do her the most good.” Rudolph shrugged.

“There were a couple of times when she could have had me. They would have gotten away clean by the time Otto blew the whistle. She realized that she was in way over her head, and she wanted out.”

“You have to admire her sense of timing.”

“I think it’s more complicated than that,” McGarvey said. “Billionaires have a way of hypnotizing people. And Lee had her, just like he has half of Washington.”

“Did she make the connection?”

“She doesn’t know the specifics. Just that Lee has been working on some project for at least five years, which includes campaign funding for the White House and a bunch of congressmen. But whatever he’s up to is supposed to happen very soon.”

“Is that why they came after you?”

“She didn’t know. Except that Tony Croft and I were their priority targets.”

“Croft, because he knew too much, and you, because you were in a position to learn too much,” Rudolph said. “But what? And what now?”

“I’m going to continue doing what they wanted to stop me from doing.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“I don’t have anything concrete to tell you—”

“Bullshit,” Rudolph exploded. A couple of cops nearby looked over. Rudolph lowered his voice. “You know exactly what’s going on, goddammit.” He was pissed off. “I’m in this investigation right up to my neck, and so far everything leads back to the White House. Am I wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t give me that, McGarvey. I’ve stuck my neck way out on this one, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to end up a scapegoat.” McGarvey didn’t look away. “Give me something. Anything.”

“It goes to the President.”

“Are you telling me that the President of the United States is a traitor? That he’s sold us out to Joseph Lee and the Japanese for money, or for whatever reason? Because if that’s what you really think is going on and you can prove that Lindsay was behind the Georgetown bombing and the attack on you and your family, then I quit. I’ll just get out of the Bureau and say the hell with everything.” Rudolph’s lips compressed as if he wanted to stop himself from going on. But he couldn’t help himself. “We’ve had some crooks occupying the Oval Office. But no one ever believed that they loved themselves more than they loved the country. Egotists, cocksmen, liars, bastards, but not traitors.” He shook his head and gave McGarvey a bleak look. “I refuse to believe it.”

“They’re just about finished buttoning up,” Ripley said in the gallery above launch control. The center was busy and would remain that way until launch.

“Did you see Kimura?” Maggie asked. They were keeping their voices conversational so they would not attract undue attention.

“Yeah, he was there. He all but kicked me out.”

“Why?”

“The elevator locked out just below the clean room. Kimura claimed it was because I hadn’t gone through sterile procedures. But that was a crock of shit. He could see I had done it.”

They glanced at the status boards. The clock, stopped at 48:00:00, would begin to count down as soon as Kimura acknowledged that the satellite was secured in the rocket.

“He’s risking the launch window and he knows it,” Maggie said. “So what the hell is he up to?”

“They’re hiding something,” Ripley said looking around to make sure they weren’t being overheard.

“No kidding—”

“I mean something big, Maggie. It’s not the H2C, it has something to do with the satellite. And they’re nervous as hell that we’re going to find out what’s going on. At first I thought it was nothing more than extrastringent security, but these guys are really uptight. Kimura wouldn’t let me up to the payload level until after the hatch was shut.”

“If he really thought you hadn’t gone through sterile procedures he was within his rights.”

“He knew damn well that I was clean. But I got a glimpse of the satellite before they closed the hatch. It wasn’t the same bird that we’ve been working on.”

Maggie’s eyes narrowed and she gave him a look of skepticism. “What do you mean?”

“Unless they painted the gold foil black for some reason, the satellite in the payload bay wasn’t Hagoromo II.”

“What about the lighting up there, Frank? Shadows?”

“Gold foil reflects everything. I would have seen it if it was there.”

The activity on the floor of the launch center was beginning to pick up. More than half the consoles were lit up and operational now, including the positions for the Tiger team.

“Okay, so what are we going to do about it?” she asked. “Do you want to call Hartley and blow the whistle? I’ll back you up. So will the others, you know that.”

Ripley had thought about that option. “I wouldn’t know what to tell him. But if we did stop the launch, providing the Japanese went along with us, and the satellite turned out to be legitimate, and it was just some shadow I saw up there, we’d be in some serious shit.”

Maggie had to smile. “What do you want to do?”

“We have forty-eight hours plus before launch,” Ripley said. “I’m going to spend the time doing a little research, and you and the others, my dear, are going to cover for me. I have a ton of paperwork to catch up with. A deluge.”

Maggie joined Hammarstedt and the others at the Tiger team’s consoles on the upper tier in launch control. They would stay at their positions until the forty-eight-hour countdown clock started. Afterward they would alternate shifts depending on what procedures and tests were scheduled. The whole team would be on duty once again for the last few hours before launch.

“Oh, hi, Maggie,” Hammerstedt said, looking up. “Where’s Frank?”

“He had to go back to the office. Paperwork.”

Hammerstedt smiled. “Better him than me.”

The guards were no longer posted around payload building one, and the facility was deserted now that the satellite had been taken away. Ripley paused a moment in the middle of the main assembly bay and listened for a sound, any sound. But the place was as silent as a mausoleum. The lights were on, but turned low in the offices upstairs, and unless Kimura suspected something, he would still be out on the launch pad.

Ripley crossed the floor of the bay and took the stairs up two at a time. He would not be missed at launch control for at least another hour. After that he would either have to get back or be at his office, because questions would be asked.

He didn’t really know what he was looking for. Evidence that the Japanese had switched satellites, perhaps. Or, at the very least, that they had removed or covered the gold foil on Hagoromo II. But for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why they would do the latter.

Kimura’s office was unlocked. Ripley let himself in and powered up the satellite engineer’s computer, pulling up the launch menu. He entered the Tiger team’s password, then brought up the database for the satellite. The language was Japanese, but the mathematics and engineering details were all in English, since the Japanese had no technical terms. Starting with the main frame on which the satellite’s component subassemblies were attached, he began looking for inconsistencies. Something that might at least give him a hint what the Japanese were really up to. But, not knowing what he was looking for, and searching a database that was partially in a foreign language, Ripley didn’t think he had much chance for success. But he had to try.

Joseph Lee was walking alone on the beach five miles from the launchpad when a Toyota Land Cruiser with NSDA markings pulled off the road and came toward him. He had come out to clear his mind of discordant thoughts. If Miriam were here she would have cut through his present difficulties with a word or two of advice. He missed her dearly.

Shinichi Hirota, Tanegashima’s chief of security, got out of the Toyota and came over. He was dressed, as usual, in a military-style uniform without insignia. He saluted.

“Is it about Ripley?” Lee asked.

“Just as you expected, he broke into Kimura’s office and is at this moment searching through the computer files. He may have seen something before the payload doors were closed, as Kimura suspected.”

“He will find nothing in the computer.”

“No, sir,” Hirota said, somewhat impatiently. He had come with more important news. “The other matter you asked me to check.”

Lee’s mouth tightened. “Yes?”

“Our Washington embassy has received no direct news. But there have been unconfirmed reports about an incident or incidents in Momingside and Cropley, Maryland. An explosion, gunfire and police, plus the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Hirota shrugged. “It may be nothing.”

Lee knew better, but he nodded and kept his true feelings of disappointment and rage from his face. Kondo should have called hours ago to report that the mission was a success. Once again his trusted aide had failed. The question uppermost in Lee’s mind was the extent of the failure. The countdown clock was about to begin. They needed forty-eight hours. Two days, no more. Time enough, he wondered. If Kondo’s mission had not been a complete failure he may have bought them enough time. However, the reverse could easily be true.

He glanced down the beach toward the launchpad lit blood red in the setting sun. “There is another problem that you may have to deal with,” he said.

“Here?”

“Yes, here,” Lee said. “His name is Kirk McGarvey, and there is an outside chance that he will be coming to us in time for the launch. You must be ready for him, because he is very deadly, and there is so much at stake here. Do you understand, Hirota?”

The security chief grinned. “Hai, Lee-san,” he replied.

TWENTY-TWO

The morning shift was just beginning to arrive when McGarvey finally got back and took the private elevator up to the seventh floor. Whatever was about to happen was going to break very soon, and he had at least one major hurdle to overcome before they were out of the woods.

Dick Adkins came out of an office as McGarvey emerged from the elevator. “Where were you? I’ve been trying to reach you all morning. Looks as if the Bureau might have got lucky down in Morningside.”

“I was there,” McGarvey said. He headed down the corridor to his office. His chief of staff fell in beside him, a look of exasperation on his face.

“Are you going to tell me about it? Or is it something else that you’re going to keep to yourself for my protection?”

“I’m sorry, Dick, but it was my show,” McGarvey explained. He felt bad that he was cutting Adkins out of the loop, but there had been no time to include him. Nor was there much time now.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Adkins responded angrily. “You’re the deputy director of Operations, for Christ’s sake. You’re not supposed to move out of this building without a bodyguard. Murphy’s having a fit every hour on the hour. He.expects me to keep track of you.”

“Otto found out where the guys who hit Cropley probably went. Wasn’t much time to tell you about it. As it was I got there about the same time they did.”

“Shit,” Adkins said. “What happened?”

“They’re dead.”

Adkins gave him a hard glance. “Why didn’t I think of that,” he said, resigned. He studied McGarvey. “You were right about one thing. You sure the hell aren’t an administrator.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. What do you want me to tell Murphy?”

“The truth,” McGarvey said, tiredly.

“He’ll fire you,” Adkins warned.

McGarvey stopped. “It was personal, Dick. They came after my wife and daughter. Twice. I wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be a third time.”

Adkins backed down. “Okay, Mac. I guess I can understand what you did. Doesn’t take much of a leap. But what’s next? If all the bad guys are dead, who do we go after now? Or are you going to hold that from me too?”

“What about Joseph Lee? Anything from our networks?”

“He hasn’t returned to his house in Taiwan, and he hasn’t come back here. But we’re still beating the bushes.”

“Is his wife still here?”

“So far as I know, she is,” Adkins said. “The Bureau is watching her.”

“I want to know the moment she leaves,” McGarvey instructed. “She’ll be taking the Gulfstream back to Taiwan. Probably in the next day or two.”

Adkins stared at him for a few moments. “I thought it would be different, somehow, with you as DDO.”

McGarvey smiled. “I can’t change now.”

Adkins shook his head. “No, I don’t expect you can. The Company is going to have to change, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

“Lean on our Taiwanese and Japanese networks. I’d like to know where Lee has gotten himself to.”

“I’ll double our assets out there. Beyond that there isn’t much we can do.”

“I appreciate that,” McGarvey said. “But we’ll have some kind of an answer one way or the other in the next couple of days.”

“Are you going to be here for the rest of the morning?”

“Probably not.”

Adkins smiled. “Keep me posted, Mac. Can you do that much? It’d make my job a hell of a lot easier.”

“Sure,” McGarvey said, but the answer convinced neither of them.

Ms. Swanfeld looked up from her computer when McGarvey walked in. He’d been on the job for nearly a week, yet he hadn’t spent more than a few hours behind his desk. The day-to-day operations of the DO were overseen by Adkins and Ms. Swanfeld, and the strain was showing on her face. He had warned them. Nevertheless he felt badly for her.

“Boy, am I glad to see you.” She gathered a stack of files and memos and got up. “Your phone’s been ringing off the hook, Mr. Murphy wants to see you immediately and you’ve got one problem you’re going to have to deal with first thing.”

McGarvey held her off. “Have you been here all night?”

She looked at him as if he’d just asked a stupid question. “Naturally. I had work to do.”

“Go home.”

“Not a chance, boss. We’re still swamped here.” She smiled. “Besides, I still don’t feel half as bad as you look.”

“I could fire you.”

“That you could.”

McGarvey shook his head. “Okay, but when we get past this, you’re taking a vacation, and that’s an order.”

“Right,” she said. “First off—”

“First off I want you to get the President’s appointments secretary Dale Nance on the phone. Then I want to see Otto.”

“He asked me to let him know the moment you arrived.”

McGarvey went to his office. “Oh, and see if you can rustle me up some breakfast. I’m starved. Lots of coffee.”

Ms. Swanfeld was already dialing the White House. “You’re going to want to see Mrs. McGarvey as soon as you can.”

“After I talk to Nance and Otto.” McGarvey took off his jacket, tossed it over a chair and went into the bathroom where he splashed some cold water on his face. He was haggard, but he’d looked and felt a lot worse. Killing the terrorists had done nothing for him. It was as if it had never happened. They’d made some stupid mistakes, and he’d taken advantage of them. Routine. Nothing out of the ordinary.

He studied his face and he tried to order his thoughts. Killing those four men was no more important to him than stepping on four bugs. And that frightened him to the bottom of his soul. He had seen the same lack of emotion in the eyes of one or two shooters he’d killed. Mokrie dela. Wet work, in the old KGB parlance. Department Viktor had attracted men, and some women, who were completely devoid of emotion when it came to taking human lives.

Not a night went by, however, when McGarvey did not see the last look of surprise on the faces of every person he’d assassinated. The number wasn’t huge, but each night they came to him in his sleep, haunting his dreams, so that each morning when he awoke it was as if he was returning from a graveyard.

But he didn’t feel that way about the men he’d killed on the bridge, or the four tonight. And he studied his eyes to make sure that he wasn’t seeing the same utter lack of emotion he’d seen in the eyes of at least two of the shooters he’d killed. Bad men. Sociopaths. Emotionless killing machines.

Staring back at him in the mirror was the reflection of a man who’d done so much that he was hurting and frightened. Somehow, just now, those emotions were comforting.

He went to his desk and lit a cigarette as his telephone rang.

“It’s Mr. Nance,” his secretary called from the outer office.

McGarvey picked up his phone. “Mr. Nance, this is Kirk McGarvey. I’d like to have a couple of minutes with the President this morning to finish last night’s briefing.”

“Good morning, Mr. McGarvey. That won’t be necessary. The general will be briefing the President this afternoon at two.”

“I have some new information—”

“I’m sorry about the attack on your family; it was an outrageous act. The President asked me to pass along his concern is well. Everything is being done to find the people responsible.”

“He’ll either see me this morning, or I’ll go to Sam Blair.”

“That’s your prerogative,” Nance said coolly. “Although it would probably mean your position.”

“Tell the President that I have some new information.”

“We’re busy over here just now.”

“Do it,” McGarvey said. “He’ll want to know about this right now. I’ll hold.”

“Send it over.”

“I don’t think so. And neither would you. Now tell him, goddammit. I’ll hold.”

“Very well,” Nance said after a moment. He was gone for about a minute and when he came back he sounded angry. “Ten o’clock.”

“Thank you,” McGarvey said.

“Don’t be late.”

McGarvey hung up and went to the door. Otto was just coming in. He looked like he’d been put through the wringer, his out-of-control red hair practically standing on end. But he had a gleeful look in his eyes.

“Oh, boy, you did it again,” he said, his boyish voice hoarse.

“Have you eaten anything this morning?” McGarvey asked. “Other than Twinkies?”

Rencke shrugged indifferently, as if the thought of food was the farthest thing from his mind.

“There’s enough breakfast coming for both of you,” Ms. Swanfeld said. “But Mr. Murphy called again, and you have to speak with Mrs. McGarvey.”

“Is she awake already?”

“She didn’t get much sleep last night,” Ms. Swanfeld explained. “But she insisted on speaking to you the moment you arrived.”

“Okay. Stall the general for as long as you can, and tell my wife I’ll be right there.”

“What about Mr. Adkins?”

“I’ve already seen him,” McGarvey told her. “And if anyone else calls, I’m out.”

Ms. Swanfield gave her boss a faintly amused look. “Yes, sir.”

McGarvey took Rencke back into his office and closed the door. Standing next to the computer expert was like being near high voltage lines. A low-pitched hum of energy seemed to radiate from him.

“Maryland H. P. put on the wire that they had gunfire, an explosion and four unidentified males down at Morningside,” Rencke said. “Since your name wasn’t mentioned, I figured you’d done okay.”

“Sandy Patterson was out there with them. But she decided to switch sides.”

“Good thinking,” Rencke said. “Did you get anything useful from her?”

“This is all some Joseph Lee plot that’s been in the works for a couple of years,” McGarvey explained. “After Croft killed himself I was their number-one target. She was sure about that part.”

“Lee thought you could hurt him somehow,” Rencke said dreamily. “Something out of your past.”

“Lindsay is the only connection I can see,” McGarvey said. “But I still don’t know how deeply he’s involved with Lee, or what they’re up to.”

Rencke blinked. “Tanegashima,” he said. “Joseph Lee is at the Japanese space launch center.”

“How do you know that?”

“NSA recorded a portion of a phone message before the encryption device was activated. The call originated at the space center and was directed to MITI headquarters in Tokyo. The computer said there was a ninety-six percent probability of a match between the voice calling from Tanegashima and a file recording of Lee.”

McGarvey turned that over in his mind. Lee was at Tanegashima for the upcoming launch of the space station module. So what? Security at the center was very tight, so he could simply have gone there to lay low. But that didn’t seem right. “There’s still no tie between Joseph Lee and myself.”

“Not directly. But there is a connection between you and President Lindsay, who has, in turn, a strong connection with Lee.”

“And the space shot?” McGarvey wondered out loud.

“Could be Lindsay arranged a transfer of technology to the Japanese in exchange for campaign funds. Lee could have been the intermediary. It’s happened before.”

McGarvey shook his head. “It has to be something more than that. I don’t think they’d try to kill me merely because of some engineering advice or NASA trade secrets.”

“It’s got something to do with the launch,” Rencke said. “Lee’s being there isn’t a simple coincidence.”

“That only gives us a couple of days to figure it out.”

“Yeah,” Rencke said, resting his weight on one foot. He did that whenever he was deeply in thought. “We better not forget North Korea’s nukes,” he said softly. “That’s how all this started, you know.” Rencke blinked again. “The connection is there, Mac. I just don’t have it yet.”

“I’m going to see someone this morning who might have the answers. Or at least some of them. But you’re going to have to stick around to backstop me. In the meantime tell Adkins where Lee is hiding out.”

Rencke’s eyes focused on McGarvey. “David is going after Goliath? Storming the White House?”

“Something like that.”

“Nothing’s going to be the same.”

“It never is,” McGarvey said.

As a breakfast cart was being wheeled in from the executive dining room, McGarvey walked next door to the conference room where his wife and daughter had set up housekeeping last night. Kathleen, still dressed in the same clothing she’d been wearing at the safe house, her hair a mess, her makeup smudged, was pacing. She looked up in relief.

“I tried to stop her, Kirk. But she wouldn’t listen to me.”

McGarvey went around the long table to her, the same vise clamped around his heart. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s Elizabeth. She went over to Bethesda Hospital about an hour ago, and there wasn’t a thing I could say to talk her out of it.” Kathleen’s lower lip quivered but she was refusing to give in to her fear or her tiredness. “At least Dick Yemm is with her.”

“Is she hurt? Sick?”

“No. That’s where they took Todd Van Buren, and she wanted to be with him,” Kathleen said. “She figured that since you were going after the terrorists she didn’t have to stay here any longer. She was sure that you would take care of them, so she didn’t have to worry.”

McGarvey forced himself to calm down. In this instance his daughter was probably right. Lee had failed twice, his people here were all dead, Sandy Patterson, his stateside manager, had defected and he had hidden himself at Tanegashima. He wasn’t going to try again.

“You don’t need to stay here any longer, Katy,” he told her.

She looked at him, the expression on her face a mixture of relief and uncertainty. “You caught them?”

“Yeah.” McGarvey thought of everything his family had gone through because of him. It was over for them, and he was grateful for at least that much.

“There’s no possibility they’ll escape?”

McGarvey shook his head. “They’re dead.”

Kathleen shivered, as if a cold draft had come from somewhere.

“Get your things and I’ll drive you home.”

“Will you be able to stay—”

“My part’s not over with yet, Katy,” McGarvey said. “Could be a couple more days.”

“In that case you’d better take me over to Bethedsa. I want to be with our daughter.”

“I’ll have our people keep an eye on both of you. Just in case.”

“Good idea, Kirk.”

McGarvey arrived at the White House from Bethesda a couple of minutes before ten, assured that Dick Yemm would keep a close eye on his wife and daughter for as long as it took to straighten this out. But he had no idea how long that might take, because what he was about to do this morning was nothing short of challenging the Constitution. He was about to go farther out on a limb than he’d ever been before, and he was still clutching at straws, because he didn’t know the entire story. He couldn’t even guess at some of it yet, yet he was going up against the President of the United States.

Dale Nance came from his office, a look of contempt on his face. “Is this really necessary, McGarvey?”

“Yeah.”

“Stay here. I’ll see if he’s ready for you.” Nance went into the Oval Office, and came out a half minute later. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said. “Go on in.”

President Lindsay was seated at his desk, while Harold Secor poured a cup of coffee at the sideboard. One of four television screens in a bank of monitors was on and turned to CNN, but the sound was low. Two co-anchors were talking about something, their voices just audible.

“We were happy to hear that your family came out of the attack unharmed,” Secor said, bringing his coffee and sitting down across from the President. “Dr. Pierone has been instructed to pursue the investigation with the utmost vigor.”

“It won’t be necessary,” McGarvey told them. “We found the rest of them.”

“They’re in custody?” Secor asked his face lighting up.

“They’re dead. But we arrested Sandy Patterson, who worked for Joseph Lee. She’s agreed to tell us everything.” McGarvey looked directly at the President. “She and I had quite a talk this morning. About Tony Croft and me, and about Joseph Lee and his connection with the Japanese space program. We found him. He’s at their space center now.”

“You know this for a fact?” the President asked.

McGarvey nodded. “Yes, sir. NSA monitored some of his telephone conversations with MITI in Tokyo.”

“CNN is doing a piece on the launch right now,” Secor said indicating the television. An aerial view of the space launch facility could have been taken from above Kennedy Space Center. Tanegashima was a miniature version of the Cape.

“Our satellite pictures are better,” McGarvey said.

“I’m sure they are,” the President said. “But I wasn’t aware that we were monitoring them so closely.”

“You need hard intelligence, Mr. President. Not guesswork. Especially with what’s going on over there right now.”

“Harold, could you leave us alone for a few minutes? There’s something I’d like to say to Mr. McGarvey in private.”

Secor gave the President a look of surprise, but then left the room, closing the door softly.

The President touched a button on his telephone console, then looked at McGarvey standing in front of his desk like a principal might look at a student in trouble.

“Okay, mister. We’re alone, and I’ve switched off the digital recorder. Obviously you have something to say to me. Well, now’s your chance.” The President sat back in his leather chair.

“I don’t have everything yet, but I do have enough to know that at the very least you are a liar and a fool. At worst you’re a traitor.” McGarvey had psyched himself up for this moment, but now he wasn’t so sure he was doing the right thing. But Lindsay reacted about the way McGarvey thought he would.

“You can’t talk to me that way, McGarvey. Not even in private.”

“I sincerely wish I didn’t have to, sir. But a lot of very good people are dead either because of you directly, or because you allowed your staff to do it for you. And the hell of it is, when the heat was turned up, you let your friends like Tony Croft take the fall for you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” the President said angrily. His face was red.

“Croft was in direct contact with Joseph Lee not only to accept payments to your campaign fund, but to pass along information which made its way to the Japanese government.”

“No secrets were passed.”

“That’s up to a congressional review committee to decide, Mr. President. And there will be an investigation when I turn over what I know. But besides trading information for cash, and allowing Croft to kill himself for your sake, why come after me and my family?”

“I had nothing to do with any of that,” Lindsay said shaking his head. Most of his anger had dissipated. He seemed numb. “I swear to you.”

“Are you still holding a grudge against me after all these years?”

A puzzled look came over the President. “What are you talking about?”

“Santiago,” McGarvey said. “You were on the Senate watchdog committee that withdrew authorization for my assignment to kill General Paolo. Do you remember that?”

“I remember serving on the Senate Subcommittee on Central Intelligence. But no specific incident.”

“I have the file, Mr. President. You were the senator who was supposed to inform the Agency about the decision to pull me out. But you waited until you knew it was too late for me. Why?”

The President shook his head again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“How about New Year’s Day, nineteen seventy? Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie.”

The President’s jaw tightened.

“I probably saved your life, Mr. President, but I embarrassed you in front of your friends. Made you look like a fool.”

“What’s your point?”

Out of the corner of his eye McGarvey noticed that CNN was displaying a cutaway model of a launchpad gantry at Tanegashima.

“The Japanese have no love for me, but Lee had no reason to order my assassination simply because I had been appointed to head the Directorate of Operations.”

“Do you honestly think that I ordered your death because of some incident that supposedly happened thirty years ago?”

“I think that in discussions with your staff about Joseph Lee and what you and he were doing for each other, the fact that he was connected with the Japanese government, and not Taiwan, came up. As did anything that could possibly hurt your arrangement, such as my appointment.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Not on the surface. But you knew from past experience all about me, and Lee was told. Your people may even have told him about Berlin and Santiago, and he made the decision on his own to have me killed. Maybe he was concerned that if I started snooping around as DDO, I might uncover your real connection with him. And his actual agenda.”

McGarvey glanced again at the television screen. The various parts of the launch gantry were being labeled and their functions explained. He could just make out the newsman’s words.

“What do you think that agenda is?”

A large, enclosed elevator ran up the outside of the gantry to a sealed chamber at the top, opposite the rocket’s payload section. As the announcer continued to talk a label appeared beside the chamber: The White House.

The bottom dropped out from beneath McGarvey. He turned back to the President and looked at the man in amazement. Lindsay was not a traitor, McGarvey had been wrong about that part. But the President had been manipulated, as had the twenty or thirty senators and congressmen who Joseph Lee had bought. They had given him exactly what he had wanted to buy when he came to Washington. The incredible part of the entire affair was that it was completely out in the open. It had been from the start.

McGarvey looked at the TV screen again. Japan had been awarded a bigger slice of the international space station than it had been previously awarded at the behest of Lindsay and a group of senators and congressmen paid for by Lee. This, despite the fact Japan’s economy was nearly in shambles and building and launching the bigger module was straining their financial abilities to the breaking point.

Was it simply for a space station module? McGarvey didn’t think so. Whatever the Japanese were about to put into orbit would have nothing to do with Freedom, and Tony Croft knew or guessed something about it. According to the call girl he’d been sleeping with, his biggest worry was the white house. But not the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He was worried about the one at Tanegashima. And whatever the Japanese were going to launch also had something to do with North Korea’s nuclear capability and the explosion at Kimch’aek. He could think of a number of possibilities, none of them very comforting because Lee was willing not only to suborn a U.S. President, he was willing to assassinate a deputy director of CIA Operations, no matter what the cost or political fallout might be.

“I asked what you think that agenda is,” the President said.

“Mr. President, I owe you an apology, sir,” McGarvey said.

Lindsay gave him a wry smile. “Yes?”

“You’re not a traitor, sir, but your people are guilty of murder, or at least complicity to murder. A stink goes all the way back to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan. Your foreign policy is a joke. And you’ve unwittingly made a lot of questionable deals because of it.” McGarvey shook his head. “But no, Mr. President, you’re no traitor. You’re a fool.”

“You’re fired,” the President shouted, enraged. “You’re finished. If I can arrange it, and I think I can, you’re going to jail for a very long time.”

McGarvey turned and walked out of the Oval Office.

“You sonofabitch,” Lindsay shouted after him. “You sonofabitch!”

TWENTY-THREE

“Conn, sonar. Sierra seventeen is turning inboard to port,” Seaman Fischer reported excitedly.

“Does he have positive contact on us yet?” Harding demanded.

“I don’t think so, Skipper. The current is probably messing up his sonar, but he suspects something. And if he keeps it up he’s going to find us.”

The problem was they lay on the bottom in three hundred feet of water at the southwestern extremity of the Eastern Channel below Tsushima Island. They weren’t deep enough to enjoy the protection of a thermocline, and they didn’t have much maneuvering room. The only things going for them were the fierce current in the channel, ten foot seas on the surface and the fact that when Seawolf was rigged for ultrasilent operations she was extremely quiet. In addition, it was thirty minutes past midnight. Despite radar and collision avoidance systems, operations like this in which so many ships were in close proximity to each other — sonar had identified eleven surface targets — the darkness of night made everything all the more dangerous. Accidents could and often did happen.

On the surface their most immediate threat was from the MSDF destroyer Myoko, which had been running a grid pattern search for the past two hours, the legs of which kept getting smaller and smaller. Seawolf was being effectively boxed in. And when Myoko found them it would be an uneven fight that Seawolf couldn’t possibly win. Despite her awesome nuclear capability, she simply could not prevail against eleven-to-one odds, not counting the threat from however many ASW Orion aircraft that were circling overhead and however many MSDF submarines that were lurking about.

Paradise handed the captain a cup of coffee. “We need another ten hours and the George Washington will be here.”

“We’re probably not going to get that much time.” The ELF message they had received ten hours ago was sketchy. But Admiral Hamilton had warned them about the trouble they were heading into and promised a pair of Hornets on scene within thirty minutes and the entire fleet in twenty hours.

“Then the jets are going to have to hold them off.” Paradise gave Harding a worried look. “We’re not going to fire again, are we?”

Harding shook his head. “The moment we did, they would come after us with everything.”

Paradise looked relieved. “We can make a case for shooting at Natsushio. All we did was disable her. She’s up there on the surface now, her skipper mad as hell. But I think he had every intention of shooting first. And not merely to cripple us.”

“I agree,” Harding said. “But the Myoko won’t have to start it. Once they find us, they’ll send one of their choppers out to wherever their submarines are hiding, drop a dipping buoy and give them our position. If we’re fired on and we either move or retaliate, then the surface ships can make a case for declaring us hostile, possibly a Chinese submarine, and they’ll come after us and win.”

“I see,” Paradise said after a moment. “But we’re not just going to wait here until it happens.”

“We might have to, Rod. But we’re not beat yet.” Harding picked up the growler phone and called sonar.

“Sonar, aye.”

“Mel, I want you to feed us the position of every surface ship within fifty thousand yards. I’ll need constant updates as fast as you can get to me.”

“Ah, yes, sir,” Fischer said. “Skipper, it might help if I knew what you wanted. Help me come up with the right numbers, in the right sequence.”

“We’re going to start a TMA on every ship up there. I want continuous shooting solutions on each of them. Simultaneously.” Harding let that sink in. “Can you handle that?”

“Yes, sir. But it’s going to get a little busy back here. How long do you want to keep it up?”

“Maybe as long as ten hours. But probably a lot less than that.”

Fischer hesitated only a moment. “You’ve got it, Skipper,” he said.

There were lights all around him. Captain Tomita, standing on the bridge, studied the lights of the ocean-going tug connected to his boat by a three-hundred-meter steel tether. His orders were to return to Maizuru at all possible speed for repairs, but for the first time in his naval career Tomita was not obeying a direct order. He wanted to stay here to witness the destruction of the American submarine that had bested him. He’d ordered the tug to maintain steerage way in the three-meter seas, nothing more.

Thinking about the incident that had sent his boat limping to the surface made him tighten his grip on the binoculars so hard that the knuckles on his fingers turned white.

“Bridge, communications.”

Tomita lowered his binoculars and answered the growler phone. “This is the captain.”

“Kan-cho, I have the captain of the Myoko for you.”

“Very well.” Tomita raised his binoculars with one hand and searched for and found the 2+2 Kongo class destroyer about two miles off his starboard bow. “Kurosawa-san, how is the search going? Have you found him yet?”

Shintaro Kurosawa, captain of the Myoko, sounded rushed. “We may have picked up something with the sidescan sonar on our last pass. We’re doubling back now for another set of sweeps.”

“He’s there, listening to us.”

“How can you be certain?”

“I know this captain,” Tomita said. “He’s a cowboy, waiting for the fleet to arrive.”

At that moment one of the two F/A-18 Hornet fighter/interceptors screamed low overhead from the north, the tremendous roar drowning out all sound. Tomita lowered his binoculars and raised a fist to the sky in a perfectly futile gesture.

“ … shoot them out of the sky,” Kurosawa was saying.

“It would be a mistake to destroy them.”

“That’s what I said. But we have other resources. If we find him, Tomita-san. If he’s down there.”

“He’s there. I’d stake my life on it.”

“You should start for base.”

“Not yet.”

“I understand,” Kurosawa said. “But now let me get back to my work. If we can pinpoint his exact position perhaps we can flush him out of hiding.”

“Better to kill him without warning, lest he fire on us again. The fact is, he’s probably a Chinese submarine. Perhaps even North Korean. We don’t know for sure who he is, simply that he fired on my boat.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Kurosawa said.

“Good hunting,” Tomita replied.

Flying an operation so low and slow in restricted visibility, the ASW aircraft’s two radar operators were the most important crew members aboard. The pilot, Lieutenant Hitoshi Kuroda, a slight line of sweat on his narrow upper lip, was flying by the numbers. He had to trust his radar people because the slightest mistake could send them crashing into one of the other two Orions out here on patrol or the two American jet fighters. In fact, he was surprised that an accident hadn’t already happened with so many ships and aircraft so concentrated in so small an area.

“Captain, ELINT. Ready to deploy on your mark.”

“Stand by,” the pilot said.

Their search pattern was being coordinated by the Combat Information Center aboard the Myoko.

“Home plate, this is aircraft eleven. We’re ready to make our turn now and deploy on your mark.”

“Turn left to new heading one-eight-zero … now.”

Kuroda hauled the big four-engine turboprop ASW aircraft in a tight turn to the left. When he was on his new heading, the Myoko’s CIC operations officer was back. “Deploy on my mark … now.”

“ELINT, deploy now,” the pilot relayed the order.

“Deploying now, hai.”

“Radar, this is the captain, how are we looking?”

“Clear on this heading, kan-cho,” the chief radar operator reported.

“Sensor is wet,” the ELINT operator Kuminori Godai advised.

They were flying at five hundred feet, trailing a one-meter-long fin-shaped sensor connected to the aircraft’s sensitive computer system by a titanium/ceramic composite cable. Since the American submarine was not moving, presumably sitting quietly on the bottom, their magnetic anomaly detector would not work to pick it up. However, a new laser-detection device had been developed in the past year that solved such a problem. Sea water was all but opaque past two hundred feet, except in the blue/green spectrum. The sensor, trailing five meters beneath the surface, sent out a beam of blue-green laser light, and sensor-head detectors watched for a reflection of the light off a metallic object.

Almost immediately an excited Godai came back. “Positive laser contact. Definitely a submarine, identified as probably American Seawolf class. Bearing one-nine-nine. Position has been transmitted.”

“Bridge, CIC, we have a confirmed target,” Myoko’s executive officer Lieutenant Commander Tono Ogawa reported. “Range five thousand meters relative, bearing zero-seven-zero.”

Captain Kurosawa snatched the growler phone. “This is the captain. Do we have an independent confirmation from our own sonar?”

“Iie, kan-cho. Aircraft eleven and seventeen have both reported positive B/G L-1 contacts. It’s a Seawolf.”

“We’re not sure of the type,” Kurosawa said. “Conditions are too difficult. It could be another Chinese submarine.”

“Hai, kan-cho,” Ogawa responded.

Kurosawa turned to his first officer on the bridge. “Sound battle stations, submarine. This is not a drill.”

“Hai, kan-cho. Sound battle stations, submarine.”

“Turn to course zero-seven-zero, make your speed twenty-five knots.”

“Turn to course zero-seven-zero, make my speed twenty-five knots, hai, kan-cho.”

Kurosawa turned back to the growler phone and his XO in the CIC as the nine-thousand-four-hundred-ton destroyer heeled sharply to starboard and the battle stations klaxon sounded throughout the ship. “Get this off to the Noshiro, but hold your active sonar search until we’re within one thousand meters of their reported position. I don’t want to alert them.”

“Hai, kan-cho,” Ogawa said. “But, kan-cho, this is an American submarine,”

“You are mistaken, Ogawa-san. But I will not hold that against you. Now carry on.”

“Hai, kan-cho!”

The continually changing positions of every surface target in their vicinity was being worked out in the computers. Nevertheless, Harding made a paper plot at the starboard chart table. It helped him visualize what he was going to try to do if all his other options ran out.

“Conn, sonar, I think they’re on to us,” Fischer called the control room.

Harding pulled a phone from the overhead. “This is the captain, what have you got, Mel?”

“We had that unidentified dipping buoy about three minutes ago, and now all of a sudden the Myoko and the Noshiro are heading right for us and beatin’ feet.”

“We heard nothing from the buoy?”

“Negative, Skipper. But it found us. Maybe they worked out that blue-green laser detector we were briefed on back at Pearl.”

“Give me ranges and bearings.”

“Sierra seventeen, range four thousand eight hundred meters, bearing two-five-zero, making turns for twenty-one knots and accelerating. Sierra twenty-five, seven thousand three hundred meters, bearing one-five-zero, making turns for eighteen knots and definitely accelerating.”

“Stand by,” Harding said. He quickly plotted the new positions, courses and speeds, projecting their tracks, which intersected directly over the Seawolf.“Okay, good job, Mel. Keep a sharp watch now. We’re almost there.”

Harding wrote out a brief message to CINCPAC in Pearl outlining their present situation, the possibility that the MSDF had developed the blue-green laser system after all and what he was doing.

He motioned Paradise over and handed him the message. When his XO finished reading it he looked up in appreciation. “I would never have thought of it.”

“Get that back to comms and tell them to send it in the clear as soon as the antenna breaks the surface.”

For a moment Paradise wanted to discuss the order, but suddenly it dawned on him what the captain was trying to do. Everything the captain was trying to do, and he grinned. “Yes, sir,” he said, and he headed forward.

The XO, Tono Ogawa, rushed up from the Combat Information Center, a confused, urgent expression on his round face. “Kan-cho, we have a definite sonar contact.”

Kurosawa gave him an amused look. “Is the ship’s communications system inoperative?”

“No, sir. May I speak to you frankly, and in confidence?”

Kurosawa pursed his lips, but nodded. They stepped onto the port wing deck. “We’re in the middle of a hunt, Ogawa-san. We have found our prey, and we are about to engage it. What troubles you?”

“That is an American submarine. If we attempt to destroy it, there’s no telling what the American captain will do in retaliation. I urge caution, kan-cho, until we can sort out the reason that the American fired on Captain Tomita.”

“In the first place, you are mistaken about the nationality of that warship sitting on the bottom beneath us. It is definitely a Chinese nuclear submarine. An improved Han class, as a matter of fact. It violated our waters despite repeated urgent warnings to the contrary.” His eyes narrowed. “Now we shall kill it. But if we fail, then our comrades will take up the fight until it is finished.” He nodded. “Is this clear to you?”

“It is the reason the American jet fighters are here, kan-cho. If we fire our weapons they will fire on us—”

Kurosawa silenced him with a gesture. “One further word and I shall place you under arrest pending a court-martial.”

Ogawa was clearly struggling with what he knew to be the truth versus his sworn duty to uphold the orders of his commanding officer.

“Let us finish this operation, and then we’ll talk. There are certain aspects that you are not aware of.” Kurosawa gave him a friendly smile. “Can we do this together? Do I have your support?”

Ogawa bowed. “Hai, kan-cho.”

“Very well. Return to your duties.”

“Hai.”

The sound of the sonar pulse hammering the hull was unmistakable to everyone aboard. Nonetheless Fischer called the control room.

“Conn, sonar, they have us.”

“We heard it, Mel,” Harding said dryly. He switched to the ship’s intercom. “This is the captain, stand by for an emergency blow.”

A horn sounded through the boat.

Harding glanced at the chart. He had one opening in the pack of ships above. “Come right to three-four-zero degrees, make your speed five knots.”

“Come right three-four-zero, make my speed five knots, aye, Skipper,” the diving officer responded.

Paradise was positioned at the ballast control station, his hands hovering above a pair of small handles at the top of the panel. They controlled the manual emergency blow valves which, when opened, would send high-pressure air into the ballast tanks all at once. The boat would head to the surface like a rocket.

“Blow all tanks,” Harding said gently. “Emergency blow all tanks.”

Paradise turned the levers with both hands, and the Seawolf came off the bottom, started to accelerate, then suddenly came alive.

“Bridge, CIC,” Ogawa’s excited voice reported. “The target is on the way up. Very fast.”

This wasn’t what Captain Kurosawa expected. “What is his depth?”

“He’s already passing fifty meters and accelerating. Bearing still zero-seven-zero, but his range is opening, six thousand meters now.”

“He’s making an emergency blow,” Kurosawa said. “Go to battle stations, surface.” He stepped over to the radar screen and pulled a phone from the overhead as battle stations, surface, was announced throughout the ship. The moment the American submarine broke the surface he would give the order to destroy it.

The Seawolf broke the surface two hundred meters off Natsushio ’s port bow, two-thirds of its hull shooting out of the water like a breaching whale. For a second Captain Tomita stood watching as a huge phosphorescent wave spread outward from the submarine. “Fantastic,” he said softly.

“Bridge, ESMs.”

Tomita snatched the phone. “This is the captain.”

“That submarine just sent a burst transmission. But it’s going to take at least a half hour to decode it, if at all.”

“Never mind that,” Tomita shouted. “Uesugi, this is the captain. Open torpedo doors one and two and target that submarine. I want two snap shots as soon as possible.”

“Hai, kan-cho,” Lieutenant Uesugi replied instantly.

With the submarine on the surface and illuminated by many radars, there was no doubt that it was an American Seawolf.

“Bridge, CIC. We have a confirmation of submarine type—”

Captain Kurosawa angrily overrode him. “I want a positive lock on that target now,” he shouted.

“Kan-cho, that is no longer advisable,” Lieutenant Commander Ogawa came back.

“Prepare to open fire—”

“Kan-cho, we have an incoming air-launched missile now,” Ogawa shouted.

Before Kurosawa could react, a tremendous flash seemed to rise up from the sea fifty meters dead ahead. An instant later the sharp bang of the explosion hammered the bridge windows, and a second after that the American jet fighter/interceptor that had fired the shot roared overhead from the starboard.

Captain Tomita was about to give the fire one, fire two order, when a similar flash/bang erupted off his bow between him and the Seawolf. Two seconds later the second F/A-18 Hornet screamed overhead less than a hundred meters above the Natsushio ’s sail, and Tomita ducked down beneath the steel coaming, his insides seething like a boiling cauldron.

TWENTY-FOUR

The countdown clock had been restarted a few hours ago, around 9:00 P.M. Ripley looked up from his console as the numbers changed to T-minus 40:00:00, then 39:59:59. After searching Kimura’s computer and finding nothing, he’d come back to his console at launch control. If nothing else at least he’d be with his own team, although Johnson and Wirth had gone back to the guest quarters for a bite to eat and a few hours’ sleep around midnight and Maggie and Hilman were busy at their consoles. Ripley flipped a switch to show him a view of the launchpad. There was still a lot of activity out there and would be until a few minutes before launch.

Maggie slid over beside him and looked over his shoulder at the monitor. “I’m about finished with my stage. Do you want to leave Hilman here? We could get something to eat and go over to my room.”

Ripley looked up at her and smiled tiredly, but shook his head. “Nothing I’d like better.”

“Well, you didn’t get anything from Kimura’s system, so what’s next?”

“Unless my eyes were playing tricks on me last night, the answers are out there on the pad.”

“Short of shutting down the clock and unbuttoning the payload hatch, there’s not much you can do about it, Frank.”

Ripley glanced back at the monitor, his brows knitting in sudden concentration. “We don’t need to do that, at least not yet. But you just gave me an idea. If I was right, and what I saw in the payload section wasn’t the satellite we worked on, where is it?”

“Do you think they switched satellites?”

“It’s possible.”

“Why?”

Ripley tore his eyes away from the screen. “That’s the million-dollar question. But if I can find the bird that we worked on, it’ll prove that what’s loaded aboard the H2C isn’t what we signed for.” A look of triumph crossed his face. “In that case you better believe I’ll blow the whistle.”

“Where are you going to start?”

“We saw the original satellite being moved to the launchpad and taken up to the white house on the elevator. At least one of us has been on duty out there or here at the monitors at all times since then. The only place the original satellite could be is somewhere near the launchpad.”

“So what, Frank? They’re not going to let you wander around out there.”

“Why not?” Ripley asked. “I still have my pass. I’d simply be doing my job.”

Maggie leaned a little closer and lowered her voice. “Think about it. If they are hiding something and they think that you’re on to them, they’ll stop you.”

Ripley smiled again. “That’d be just about as good as finding the old satellite, because if they did it I’d shut down this launch in a New York minute.”

“He’s making the connection,” Hirota said.

“As we expected he might,” Joseph Lee said. They were in the Tanegashima security chief’s office listing to Ripley’s conversation with Margaret Attwood. Despite the late hour, Lee was keyed up because of the events in Washington and the possibility that McGarvey might be putting it together too. Nothing his remaining Washington contacts were telling him warned that McGarvey was on the way, but he had gut feelings about these matters. As he did with the chief astronaut on the American Tiger team. “But he hasn’t actually found anything yet.”

“If he does, he could delay the launch, Lee-san,” Hirota said respectfully. He looked like a compact, hard-muscled Buddha, except his eyes were cruel and calculating. Lee had more respect for him than he had for Kondo.

“If we interfere with his movements he could also cause trouble,” Lee suggested, wanting to hear Hirota’s answer.

The security chief nodded sagely. “There are ways around that.”

“At all costs the launch must not be delayed, except for technical reasons. It must not fail.”

“If I am given a free hand in this, the launch will go off on schedule and Major Ripley will cause no further trouble.”

They were the answers that Lee wanted to hear. He smiled inwardly. “With a delicate touch, Hirota-san. There are four others on the Tiger team, among them his lover, Captain Attwood.”

Hirota flushed slightly with pleasure at Lee’s use of the polite form of address. He nodded again. “With delicacy, Lee-san, I assure you. But accidents do happen.”

The launchpad was a beehive of activity. Technicians were going over every square centimeter of the rocket and its launch gantry. The guard at the last checkpoint stepped out of his box and held up a hand for Ripley to stop. He came around to the driver’s side of the Toyota, a fake smile on his round face.

“Good evening, Major Ripley.”

“I need to take a look at something.” Ripley handed out his pass. He had the uneasy feeling that the guard had expected him.

The man took a perfunctory look at the pass, then handed it back. “Yes, of course. Let Mr. Kato know that you are on site, please.” Akio Kato was the launchpad director. He smiled again, stepped back and raised the barrier.

For a second Ripley was nonplussed. The guard should have checked with the launchpad director first. Ripley’s name wasn’t on the prelaunch directory. Technically he wasn’t supposed to be out here at this stage of the countdown except by permission. He’d been expecting to do some quick talking to get himself admitted.

He flashed the guard a smile, waved and then drove the last couple of hundred yards to the pad, where he parked on the west side of the loading ramp. The H2C rocket, bathed in hundreds of lights, towered 230 feet into the night sky, taller now in its final configuration than even the huge vehicle assembly building. The lower service towers and umbilical cord gantries were still in position, but the payload service tower had been swung on its central core out of the way to the right. Its primary purpose was to secure the payload to the upper stage of the rocket. Since that task was completed there was no further use for the tower, most of which was now in shadow.

Something was definitely wrong. This launch was very important to the Japanese — more so for some reason than Ripley could not figure out yet — so they were being superfastidious with their inspection routines and their security. Nothing was going to get past them. Nothing. And yet the guard had not raised so much as an eyebrow when he’d shown up at the gate.

Ripley was an engineer. Every effect had a cause, every action a reaction. He did not believe in spiritualism, touchy-feely group encounters, going with the flow and all that karma bullshit that some of his old college friends, now working in California, were into these days. Everything for him had a clear-cut reason, and therefore a clear-cut, understandable cause.

For some reason the Japanese no longer wanted Americans involved with this shot. During the last week they had made the Tiger team’s job almost impossible. The reason had to be a very good one, because the freeze-out was universal. Nobody was talking to them. Nobody.

He’d come to understand if not the actual reason, at least the effect, and so much as possible he and the others had managed to work around it. They had a job to do here, and they were doing it.

This morning, however, was completely out of character. If the Japanese were true to their recent form he would not have gotten past the first checkpoint, let alone this far. Even last week, before the dramatic shift in attitude, he would not have been allowed out here without a lot of questions being raised.

So what the hell was going on, he asked himself. If their console had been bugged and his conversation with Maggie recorded, they wouldn’t have let him out of the building. At least he didn’t think they would, because there’d be no reason for it. If they were hiding something out here, they’d want to keep it from him. If they weren’t hiding something, they’d still keep him away from the launchpad because he had no reason to be out here now. It bothered his sense of orderliness. He didn’t like unexplained mysteries, and this one was starting to piss him off.

He put on his hard hat and headed over to the payload gantry. A dozen other vehicles were parked around the pad, and twenty or thirty technicians were busy at work. At this stage of the countdown they were concentrating on mechanical glitches: loose screws or fasteners, missing access plates, disconnected launch cables or hoses, rust, metal fatigue — any of hundreds of little problems that could have a serious effect on the mission. The inspections would not end until the rocket lifted off the pad. It was the same at the Cape.

No one paid any attention to him. He was expecting someone to come after him, or at least shout for him to stop or ask him what the hell he was doing here. Kato ran a tight crew, nothing escaped his attention. But nobody did.

At the base of the tower, Ripley glanced over his shoulder; still nobody was coming after him. It was incredible. He ducked inside the big service elevator, half expecting to see that the power was down and he would have to climb the stairs to the white house. But the buttons were lit. For just a moment he had the feeling that he was being set up, being led by the nose exactly where they wanted him to go. But that made no sense either.

He closed the gate and pressed the button for the top level. On the way up he looked across at the activity on the other tower and umbilical gantry. He could see the technicians because they were bathed in light, but they could not see him because the payload tower was in darkness. Which was another bothersome thing. The power was on, but there were no lights other than the red warning lights on top.

He tried to work out all the possibilities in his mind, to find an innocent, logical explanation. But no matter how he looked at the information he had available, he came back to the satellite in the rocket. Whatever he’d seen wasn’t covered with gold foil. He knew that much. So why hadn’t he brought it up with Kimura, he asked himself. Kimura would have told him something, and he could have made his decision then and there on the spot. He had held back, he decided, because of everything else that had happened in the past seven days. Something wasn’t right. He didn’t know what it was, but he damned well was going to find out tonight, or he’d stop the launch clock, and the hell with the consequences if he was wrong.

At the top, the tower swayed a little in the light sea breeze. The red warning lights above in the scaffolding flashed pink against the stark white walls of the empty clean room, the tall door to which was clipped in the open position.

He stepped off the elevator and stood a few moments in the flashing red lights, still debating with himself. He was on a wide catwalk across from the clean room which capped the tower’s enclosed central core. The room was empty, except for test equipment mounted on the walls, and the low-slung titanium dolly on which the satellite had been moved. No one was up here with him, and yet he had the feeling that he wasn’t alone.

Four closed-circuit television cameras were mounted overhead on the scaffolding, but the lights were off indicating that the circuits were not in use. The nearest technicians were seventy-five or eighty feet away on the service tower. He looked over the rail, but no one had come to check out his car or to find out why the elevator wasn’t at the ground level. Kato would notice sooner or later, so he didn’t have a lot of time to screw around. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching him.

“Nerves,” he muttered, hesitating a moment longer, then he stepped across the catwalk and went into the white house.

The flashing red lights acted like strobes; they were disconcerting. Ripley went back out, unclipped the dust-proof door and pulled it closed. Lights came on automatically, and the test equipment powered up.

He stood, head cocked, listening for any sounds, for an intruder alarm to pop off or for someone to call on the phone to demand what the hell he was doing up here.

He stepped over the dolly and moved cautiously to the center of the circular room. White plastic padding covered the walls, and the floor was covered with spotless white tiles.

He let his eyes move from one piece of test equipment and power point to the other. But there was nothing wrong here. Nothing.

The floor lurched slightly. For a second Ripley thought a sudden gust of wind had rocked the tower or that something had hit them, but he suddenly realized that the floor was sinking.

The room, or at least the floor, was an elevator. For some reason his coming inside the white house and closing the door had activated it, and he was heading down, slowly and silently.

“The bastards,” he said, suddenly understanding what was going on. The original satellite had been brought up to the white house, and after his Tiger team had completed their final checks, it had been moved below the tower, where it had been switched for the satellite he’d spotted in the rocket’s payload. It had been done in secret through the enclosed central core. It was something the Japanese had planned for when the tower had been designed. This wasn’t some last minute add-on.

The question in his mind was, why? The NSDA was publicly getting set to launch a module up to the Freedom space station. That’s what they wanted the world to believe. Instead, they had switched the satellite for something else. Something as massive as a Greyhound bus, ten metric tons, sheathed not in gold foil, but in some black material.

There were no longer any innocent explanations, as far as Ripley was concerned. For the first time since coming to Tanegashima he was worried about his safety and the safety of his team. Whatever the Japanese were doing here was not meant for outsiders to see.

Five minutes after the floor of the white house started down, the smooth walls of the shaft suddenly opened on a large, white-tiled room that was almost the twin of the clean room at the top of the tower. Sitting on a dolly in the middle of the room was the original satellite, its gold foil gleaming in the dim lights.

The room was empty, except for the satellite. A huge door, the twin of the one above, was closed, and test equipment like above lined the walls.

Ripley tried to take it all in, to made some sense of it. Whatever was going on here had to be stopped. There would have to be explanations, full disclosure, before whatever was strapped aboard the rocket was lifted up to the space station.

He stepped off the elevator and started toward the satellite when the floor silently began to rise again. He caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, and without thinking, jumped back on before it got out of reach. He did not want to be stuck down here. He had to get topside and use his satellite phone to call Houston. It was coming up on eleven in the morning over there, and Hartley would be in his office. There was no other option, Ripley decided, because the plain fact was that he and his Tiger team were strangers in a strange land, outnumbered and outgunned. They were astronauts, not spies.

McGarvey walked into his office a couple of minutes after twelve. He’d stopped first at Bethesda Hospital to make sure that Kathleen and Liz were doing okay, then had gone back to his apartment where he packed an overnight bag with a few items of dark clothing and a pair of soft boots. He tossed in his passport and cash, along with a Belgian passport, credit cards and IDs under the work name Pierre Allain.

Ms. Swanfeld’s mouth dropped open. “Heavens. You’re the last person I expected to see again today.”

“Grab your notebook. I want you to sit in on a meeting,” McGarvey told her. He glanced in his office. His desk was piled with files and memos, and the light on his voice-mail was blinking furiously. “When we’re finished, you haven’t seen me since this morning.”

Ms. Swanfeld looked dubious. “Mr. Murphy is screaming for your hide—”

“I need your help, Dahlia, more than I’ve ever needed anybody’s help,” McGarvey said urgently. “I’m doing nothing wrong. In fact I may be the only person in Washington who’s doing anything right. But I need you to trust me a little longer.”

“And cover for you?”

He smiled wryly, and nodded. “You should have gone home when you had the chance.”

“No way, boss,” she said, grinning. She grabbed a steno pad and pencils.

McGarvey checked the busy corridor to make sure that Murphy wasn’t charging his way, then led his secretary down to Rencke’s cubicle. The room was a mess, papers strewn everywhere, two wastepaper baskets overflowing with computer printouts, milk cartons and empty Twinkies packages littering the floor. Otto, his fingers flying over a keyboard, streams of numbers flashing across a lavender-hued monitor, didn’t bother looking up.

“Just a second,” he said excitedly. “Just a second.” He stopped typing, and the data stream on the monitor began to speed up, so fast that the numbers became an indistinct blur. He hesitated a moment, then pointed a finger at the screen. “Bang,” he cried in triumph. The numbers flashing across the screen stopped, leaving only one. “There,” he said.

“What is it?” McGarvey asked.

Otto looked up, an odd, frightened expression on his face. “I know what you’re thinking, Mac, and it won’t work. This time you gotta listen to me. No shit, you’re going to get your ass shot off this time.”

“We’re running out of options. The White House isn’t going to do a thing to stop it, and convincing someone down in Houston without proof isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

“That’s right. But NASA’s got five people out there to help with the launch. Technical support, you know. That kind of shit. The head guy is Frank Ripley and I came up with his satellite cell phone number.”

“He’s probably just as much in the dark as everyone else,” McGarvey said. “They sure as hell aren’t in on it.”

“Call him and ask.”

“Excuse me,” Ms. Swanfeld broke in. “Would you two mind telling me what’s going on?”

“Mac wants to stop the Japanese from launching their satellite, and he thinks the only way to do that is to go over there and do it himself. But if you can convince Ripley that something’s rotten in Jap-land, maybe he can come up with the proof — something we can take to Houston. There’s only thirty-nine hours left, but maybe Ripley could buy us some time.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Whatever the Japanese are going to launch has nothing to do with the space station. I don’t know what it is, but it has something to do with the nuclear explosion in North Korea. Maybe an orbiting laser weapon or something to knock out a missle attack. You know, Star Wars?”

“Mr. Murphy can take this to the President—” Ms Swanfeld said. Then she got a funny look on her face. “Mr. Nance … oh. You already told him.” Her eyes widened as she took the thought to the next step. “They didn’t believe you, and the President fired you. That’s why Mr. Murphy is screaming bloody murder.”

“Exactamundo,” Otto said. “What your boss wants to do is fly over there, sneak onto the base past all their security — and by now you gotta figure they know he’s going to try something like that — find Papa-san Lee and twist his arm.”

“That’s crazy,” Ms. Swanfeld said, then her face dropped. “I’m sorry, Mr. McGarvey, but Mr. Rencke’s right, you’d never get away with it. You’ll get yourself killed.”

McGarvey couldn’t face them. He looked at the number on the computer monitor. A CIA psychologist had once told him that he was a man with unrealistic expectations, not only for himself, but for everyone around him. He judged the world through his own viewpoint, which was distorted by the things he had done in his life. Soldiers returning from a war took years to come back to normal, to see the world around them in noncombat terms so that they wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and blind panic thinking the noise they heard wasn’t an enemy soldier sneaking up on their position. It was called battle fatigue. The psychologist had kindly suggested that McGarvey quit the Company before his battle fatigue killed him. What the psychologist didn’t understand was that McGarvey could not change. It was who he was, right to the core. In old-fashioned terms, he was simply a man who when faced with a job to do, got on with it in whatever way he could. Nothing could dissuade him. His problem was that the jobs he picked always seemed to be the impossible ones.

“Call him,” he told Otto.

“All right,” Rencke said, relieved, and he turned back to his keyboard.

McGarvey turned to his secretary. “I’m still going to need you to cover for me here.”

A look of genuine anguish crossed her face. She shook her head, but then girding herself, finally nodded. “I can stall Murphy at least long enough for you to get out of here, but I’m going to have to tell Mr. Adkins something.”

“Use your own judgment.”

She nodded again. “We have a lot of military traffic heading east just now. Some of it out of Andrews. I know that because my nephew is a squadron commander over there.” Her lips compressed. “I can get you a ride at least to Okinawa without having to go through channels. And as DDO you carry a lot of weight.”

McGarvey smiled. “Will he keep quiet about it?”

“He will if I tell him to,” Ms. Swanfeld said. “Do you want Tokyo station alerted?”

“No,” McGarvey said.

She shook her head. “I think you’re being a foolish, reckless man,” she blurted.

“Aren’t we all?”

Otto looked up. “The call is going through.”

As soon as he got back up top Ripley knew that he was in trouble. The clean room’s lights were off and the door was open.

He jumped up onto the platform and flattened himself against the padded wall, feeling silly even as he did it. But his heart was beginning to pound, and he had the strong feeling again that he wasn’t alone up here. The only illumination came from the flashing red tower lights, which left most of the loading bay platform in shadow.

He took a quick peek around the corner. The elevator was gone. In the ten minutes he’d taken to ride down to the old satellite and return someone had been up here and then left again. That’s why the payload lift had been recalled to the clean room. They knew his car, and now they knew that he’d seen the old satellite.

But what’s the worst that could happen, he asked himself. Kimura would be pissed off, but he wouldn’t be surprised. He once told them that nothing about Americans surprised him now that he was working with a Tiger team. At the time Ripley and the others had been amused, but now he wasn’t so sure exactly what the payload manager had meant by the remark. Like the shadows up here, everything was beginning to seem ominous to him.

The fact that he was on his own and no one, not even Maggie, knew exactly where he was or what he’d just seen was getting to him. He took his satellite phone out of his pocket, extended the antenna and was about to enter Hartley’s number, when the display lit up and the phone chirped. No telephone number came up on the screen.

Ripley pushed the Talk button. “Hello?”

“Is this Major Frank Ripley?”

“Yes, it is. Who the hell are you, and how did you get this number?”

“Are you someplace right now where you can talk freely?”

“Who is this?”

“Listen to me, Frank, you could be in some danger. Can you talk?”

Ripley looked out again at the empty payload platform, trying to keep calm. “I can talk.”

“My name is Kirk McGarvey. I’m the deputy director of Operations for the CIA. I don’t know how I can prove that to you right now. But we think that something is going on over there that the Japanese government is trying to keep secret from us. And probably from you. It has something to do with the satellite they’re getting ready to launch.”

Ripley felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. This could be a Japanese trick, of course. He had to make sure. He forced himself to calm down, to concentrate. He sure as hell wasn’t going to tell what he knew to someone on the phone who identified himself as CIA.

“Okay, hold on,” Ripley said, getting his mental bearings. “Are you at the CIA now?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Hang up. I’ll call the switchboard, and ask for you—”

“Tell them you want Yellow Light,” McGarvey said, and the connection was broken.

For a moment Ripley stood there, his heart racing. Goddammit, he was an astronaut, not a spy. He entered the international numbers for the U.S., then the area code for Washington, D.C., and the number for information.

“What city, please,” an operator answered.

“I’m trying to call the Central Intelligence Agency. I don’t know if that’s a Washington listing.”

“No, sir, that’s Virginia. I have an 800 number for you.” The operator was replaced by a mechanical voice which gave the CIA’s 800 number.

Ripley broke the connection and dialed the number. It was answered on the first ring by a recorded woman’s voice. “You have reached the Central Intelligence Agency. If you want employment information please call—” She gave another 800 number. “If you have information of an intelligence value, please give your name and number.”

“Wait,” Ripley said. “I want Yellow Light. Yellow Light.”

Three seconds later McGarvey was on the phone. “Okay, Frank, at least you know that I work in the building. And since you called back, something’s going on over there that has you bothered.”

“You can say that again,” Ripley said, relieved that he was finally talking to someone from his own government. “What do you mean, I could be in some danger?”

“Where are you right now?”

“On top of the payload gantry, across from the rocket. But they know that I’m up here, so I’ve got to get back right now.”

“Go someplace where there are a lot of people, we’ll talk on the way,” McGarvey said.

Ripley stepped out of the clean room and pressed the elevator’s call button. “They switched satellites,” he said.

“How do you know that?”

“I saw the one we worked on. It’s hidden in a room beneath the payload tower. The one they loaded in the rocket was a different color.” The elevator started up. He could hear it. His eyes happened to light on the railing where two of the bolts holding it in place were missing. His heart went bump and he stepped back.

“What do you mean, a different color?”

“The one we worked on is gold, the one I saw in the rocket was dark. Black maybe.” Ripley looked around. Someone was up here with him. He could almost feel the other presence.

“Anechoic tiles,” McGarvey said, and that caught Ripley’s attention.

“It would make the satellite invisible to radar.”

“That’s right. Whatever they’re going to launch tomorrow won’t rendezvous with Freedom—”

A dark figure shot from the deeper shadows at the back of the catwalk. Ripley reared back and raised his left hand to ward off a blow. “No,” he cried.

“Frank?” McGarvey shouted.

The man, dressed all in black, his face covered by a balaclava, batted the phone from Ripley’s hand, sending it flying out over the rail. Before Ripley could defend himself, the man shoved him backward, his hip catching the disconnected railing, which gave way with a metallic bang. Suddenly Ripley was falling backward off the catwalk in utter disbelief. It couldn’t be happening! He was an astronaut, goddammit, not a spy.

TWENTY-FIVE

“We have a firing solution now on four targets, but there’re just too many of them,” Paradise said. There was a lot of tension in the control room.

“Nobody’s going to shoot at us,” Harding told him calmly. He was swinging the search periscope in a complete 360-degree circle. There were slowly moving navigation lights in every direction, but at the moment none of the ships was heading toward him. He picked out the stacked lights of an ocean-going tug, and moving the periscope left he found the Natsushio wallowing in the three-meter seas. He could imagine the captain on the bridge, fuming that he had lost this time.

He stepped back and called the comms shack. “This is the captain. Did you get the message off?”

“Aye, Skipper. We have confirmation, but there’s been no reply so far.”

Paradise gave him a questioning look from across the control room where he hovered over the BSY-1 computer displays. Harding shook his head.

He’d taken a big chance, surfacing like that, not only risking crashing into a ship but having some excited, trigger-happy weapons officer fire off a snap shot in the heat of the moment. After the first couple of minutes, however, the situation had settled down. Sonar was painting a picture of eleven surface ships, plus the damaged Natsushio, slowly circling, while electronically illuminating the Seawolf with everything they had. It was exactly what Harding had hoped for. Now there could be no doubt in anyone’s mind what type of submarine the Seawolf was and what country she belonged to. The Japanese could no longer maintain a pretense that they thought the Seawolf was a Chinese submarine.

“Conn, ESMs.”

“This is the captain.”

“Skipper, I’m receiving four airborne radar units. Two of them are Japanese Orions, but the other two are ours. Hornets.”

“What are they doing, Ballinger?”

“Sir, it looks like our guys are just flying back and forth right over us. They’re putting themselves between us and the Japanese navy.”

“Very well,” Harding said. They were maintaining steerage way, but nothing else. The entire flotilla with the Seawolf in the middle was slowly moving south.

He switched back to the communications shack. “This is the captain. See if you can raise the George Washington. I want to talk to Admiral Hamilton. In the clear.”

“Aye, Skipper. We’re picking up some of their signals now.”

“Have any of the Japanese ships tried to communicate with us?”

“Negative, Captain.”

“Okay, get me the admiral.”

“Stand by, sir.”

Harding gave Paradise a faint smile. The hard part had been getting his boat and crew out of immediate harm’s way. But the next step wasn’t going to be very easy either. He was just glad that poker hadn’t caught on with the Japanese as big as American baseball had. It was going to put the MSDF at a definite disadvantage. But he needed every edge he could get just now.

“Skipper, the admiral is on the open channel for you.”

Harding switched phones. “Admiral, thanks for the help. The timing couldn’t have been better.”

“Glad to do it, Tom,” Hamilton said. “I’m told that you made quite a big splash. What’s your situation now?”

“Did you get my flash traffic?”

“Just in time to give you a little assist.”

“We’re right in the middle of it here,” Harding said, letting a note of desperation creep into his voice. The admiral knew him well enough to understand why he’d called on a nonen-crypted circuit and pick up the completely out-of-character tone of voice.

“Okay, take it easy. We’re less than six hours out. Can you hang on that long?”

“I’m not sure, Admiral. I have half the Japanese fleet staring down my throat and the Chinese flotilla not too far away either.” He gave a big grin for the benefit of his control room crew. “But I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve got every one of them targeted, and all my tubes loaded. If one of those ships so much as farts, I’m going to fire everything I have. I won’t get them all, but I sure as hell will make a serious dent in their fleet.”

“Take it easy, Tom,” Hamilton said. “There’s going to be no further gun play down there.”

“If I’m threatened, I’ll shoot.”

“Not unless someone fires first.”

“I hear you, Admiral. But, goddammit, the Japanese are supposed to be our allies.”

“They are, and we’re working on getting this straightened out, you have my word on it. In the meantime I’m sending you some more air assets.”

“Very well.”

“Tom, can you hold out just a little longer?” Hamilton asked. “I want you to be part of the solution, not the problem.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do what I can for as long as I can.”

“I know you will. And we’re with you.”

Captain Tomita, his rage nearly uncontrollable, played the powerful beam of the spotlight along the length of the American submarine less than two hundred meters away.

His fleet was arrayed all around him, but they were impotent to do a thing against the bastard. These were Japanese waters, and he’d been sent to defend them against any and all intruders — that included Americans. Now he was being ordered again, in most emphatic terms, to stand down, and the shame was nearly unbearable. He was glad that his young son was not here to see it.

Two figures appeared on the bridge of the Seawolf. Tomita locked the spotlight on them, then raised his binoculars. The shorter one on the left was Capt. Thomas Harding. Tomita could not make out the man’s facial features from this distance, but he’d studied his entry in the Foreign Warship Personnel Profiles on the computer below, and he was certain now that the men he was looking at were Harding and his executive officer Rod Paradise.

He gripped the binoculars so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

“Kan-cho,” his third officer prompted respectfully at his elbow. “Tug three-one-two advises they are ready to get underway.”

Tomita continued studying Harding and Paradise.

“Kan-cho—”

Tomita’s jaw tightened, and he gripped the binoculars even harder. He counted slowly to five, then nodded. “Proceed,” he said.

“Hai, kan-cho,” the relieved officer replied.

When the Natsushio’s spotlight was extinguished, Harding studied the bulk of the MSDF submarine through his light-intensifying binoculars. He could make out two ghostly green figures on the bridge as the warship’s bows turned slowly to port.

Paradise was doing the same thing. “Looks like he’s heading out.”

Harding shifted to the ocean-going tug well out ahead of the submarine. The sea at her square stern boiled with phosphorescence as her massive propellers dug in against the strain of getting underway with a two-thousand-ton tow.

“He wanted to stay and fight,” Paradise said. “His two forward tubes were loaded and flooded.” He lowered his binoculars. “He would have lost.”

“We all would have lost,” Harding replied tiredly, relieved that the tough part was over with. No one was going to open fire now.

The ship’s com buzzed, and Harding answered it. “This is the captain.”

“Skipper, this is the radio shack. We just received a for-your-eyes-only encrypted message for you.”

“From who?”

“The Joint Chiefs, Captain. An Admiral O. Rencke.”

“On my way,” Harding said, and put the phone back. “Ever heard of Admiral Rencke, Joint Chiefs?”

Paradise shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Well, he just sent me an eyes-only. God knows what they’ve cooked up now.” Harding glanced again toward the departing Japanese submarine. “Stay here, I’ll go see what he wants.”

“Say that again?” Captain Merkler shouted into the phone. He nodded again and turned to Admiral Hamilton. “Harding bugged out.”

They were on the bridge, and Hamilton gave the captain a hard stare: “Bugged out where?”

“One of our Hornet drivers said the Seawolf submerged.”

“Did we try to make contact?”

“There was no time.”

“What the hell is going on down there now?” Hamilton said, an angry set to his features. He did not like surprises.

“I don’t know, but I sure as hell think we ought to find out.”

“Sonar, conn, are they still looking for us?” Harding asked.

“Aye, Skipper. They’re all over the place up there. I’m counting at least nine active sonars. They’re stepping all over each other.”

Harding glanced over at Paradise, who gave him an uncertain grin. Their latest orders from Admiral Rencke were crazy, considering what was going on out here, but not quite as crazy as the sonofabitch they were ordered to pick up. It seemed to Harding the the entire world had gone nuts, and he didn’t think it was going to change for the better anytime soon.

“Sooner or later they’re going to figure out what we’ve done,” Paradise said. They could hear the rhythmic swish of the tug boat above them. They had sugmerged in the confusion and had tucked in under the Natsushio under tow. Hopefully by the time the MSDF ships searching for them figured out what had happened, they would be in the clear and be able to submerge deeper and slip away.

Harding looked again at the message flimsy. He had no idea who Admiral O. Rencke was, but in a way he was grateful to the man, because he much preferred rescue missions to peacetime battles.

TWENTY-SIX

McGarvey was trying to get some sleep. His seat was reclined in the nearly empty cabin of the air force VIP Gulfstream V jet, the steady hum of the engines fading to a dull rush, like water running in a small river. His head was turned toward the window, the early afternoon western sun blasting on the thick cloud cover below.

Getting out of CIA headquarters with everything he needed had been relatively simple. The only people who knew he was back weren’t talking to Murphy, and it had taken his staff less than an hour to work up his legend and the necessary paperwork to match his Pierre Allain Belgian passport.

He was a journalist with the Associated Press, currently on assignment as a travel writer in Japan. Using a news service as a CIA cover was sharply frowned upon by the media, and was rarely done. But if some curious Japanese official called either AP Tokyo, or AP’s world headquarters in New York,his background would hold up. There was, for the record, a Belgian journalist by the name of Allain currently on assignment in Japan. Rencke had inserted his personnel file in the AP’s computer system without their knowing about it. When the assignment was over, Rencke would quietly extract the file. As long as there was no trouble, no one would be the wiser.

His secretary’s nephew, Captain Elias Swanfeld, had been happy to help out. Traffic going west was heavy, and in fact the Gulfstream was heading to Japan via Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska with a full bird colonel and two majors. The officers had been briefed not to ask McGarvey any questions. The only problem was that the Gulfstream was going to Misawa Air Force Base on the far northern coast of Honshu, three hundred fifty miles from Tokyo and a farther seven hundred miles to the south coast of the Japanese island of Kyushu. McGarvey had checked the flight ops schedule to see if anything was going over in the next few hours that would put him closer to Tanegashima, which was fifty miles off the coast of Kyushu, but there was nothing.

“We can get you there, sir, but after that you’re on your own,” Captain Swanfeld said. McGarvey could see the family resemblance with his secretary.

“Sounds like a B movie, but I was never on this flight,” McGarvey told him.

The captain grinned just like his spinster aunt. “You got it.”

His staff had briefed him on Japan’s transportation and communications systems and had supplied him with the guides, maps and phrase books that a journalist might carry. But the difficult part was going to be the Japanese officals he came in contact with. At the moment anti-American sentiment was running high. The rumor had swept across Japan that somehow the U.S. had been involved in the Korean underground nuclear explosion. It was the same rumor that had gone around when India exploded its nuclear weapons: The United States had supposedly encouraged India to go ahead to counter the threat that China’s alliance with Pakistan was causing instability in the region. It was nonsense of course, but McGarvey could only hope that the sentiment did not include all westerners, especially Belgians.

The other difficult bit was the timing. The launch window opened in a little more than thirty-six hours. It would take at least twelve hours to get to Misawa, leaving him only a day and a night to make it nearly the entire length of the two main islands, somehow get across the fifty miles of sea to Tanegashima, penetrate the heavily guarded space center and somehow stop the launch.

On top of that they were expecting him. Any doubts he’d had on that score had been dashed when his call to Frank Ripley had been abruptly cut off. Otto had tried to get through again, but Ripley’s phone was out of service.

The smart thing would have been to convince Murphy of what he suspected and put pressure on NASA to somehow stop, or at least delay, the launch until an investigation could be mounted.

McGarvey’s lips compressed. He’d blown that option by confronting the President. He’d been charged up. Twice he’d nearly lost his life and his family put in harm’s way, so he’d not been thinking straight. Stupid. The President had undoubtedly called Murphy and demanded McGarvey’s removal as DDO. He might even have ordered McGarvey’s arrest. So this was his last shot at figuring out what was going on and stopping it. If he failed this time his effectiveness would be zero.

The steward, Sergeant Wilkes, touched him on the shoulder, and he looked up.

“Sir, we’re at cruising altitude now. The captain says it’s okay for you to use your phone. Or, if you want, you can use our comms equipment.”

“Mine’s encrypted,” McGarvey said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Can I get something to eat? Maybe breakfast?”

Sergeant Wilkes smiled. “It’ll take ten minutes. In the meantime how about a cup of coffee?”

“Sounds good.”

The lieutenant colonel glanced back at McGarvey, but then turned away.

McGarvey straightened his chair and then phoned Rencke, who picked up on the first ring. A moment later the encryption circuits cut in, and reception cleared.

“Still no word from Ripley,” Rencke said.

“Have you talked to anyone in Houston?” McGarvey asked.

“A guy by the name of Hartley. He’s in charge of the Tiger team, and he admitted that he hasn’t been able to get through to his people over the last few hours either.”

“What are the Japanese telling him?”

“Nothing that makes any sense,” Rencke said. “I didn’t tell him what Ripley told us, because I didn’t think it would make any difference down there. They’re all hung up on their own bureauacracy. And we’re talking about beaucoup bucks here.”

“Okay, what about Murphy?”

Rencke chuckled. “He knows I’m lying through my teeth. I told him that I didn’t know where you were — which strictly speaking was the truth right then. But he just gave me a smile, and said to tell you to watch your ass, because the big dogs were gunning for you.”

McGarvey was surprised by the DCI’s apparently soft attitude. But then he’d been floored when Murphy first offered him the job as DDO and accepted Rencke back into the fold. “Keep an eye on my wife and Liz, would you?”

“Will do, Mac,” Rencke said with conviction. “Just take care of yourself and get back home. There’re a lot of people depending on you.”

“Count on it,” McGarvey said, and he broke the connection.

Sergeant Wilkes came back with the coffee and set it on the pull-down table. “Not exactly regulation, but I think this’ll hold you until breakfast, sir.”

McGarvey took a sip of the coffee and smiled. It was laced with brandy. “This’ll do just fine.”

“I think you should try to get some sleep. It’s a long slog to Misawa.” Sergeant Wilkes looked out the window. “At least it’s not bumpy.” He went forward to the tiny galley.

McGarvey was too fired up to sleep, thinking about Ripley. He did his homework, studying the Japanese guides and maps his missions and programs people had supplied him with. Sometime after two in the morning local, they touched down at Elmendorf Air Force Base outside Anchorage for refueling, the apron harshly lit by violet lights. He went into the base terminal cafeteria where he ate another breakfast, the only meal they were serving at that time of night, and an hour later he was back aboard the Gulfstream. This time the aircraft was nearly full with seventeen of the twenty seats occupied by air force officers, none of them below the rank of major. They’d been briefed too, and left McGarvey to himself at the rear of the plane. A half hour out he finally managed to drop off, his mind back in Katy’s Chevy Chase house the night they made love for the first time in years. He wanted to get back from this operation more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. There was so much he wanted to tell her, so much lost, uselessly wasted time to catch up on.

McGarvey woke up, a gummy taste in his mouth, his muscles cramped, and he looked out the window. The sun was low on the hazy horizon, which meant it was late afternoon already. For a second he was confused about the time, until he realized he was seeing land ahead of them, which meant they were approaching the coast of Japan. Flying time combined with their westerly direction meant, in effect, he’d lost a day, although his body clock was still on U.S. Eastern time, five in the morning.

Sergeant Wilkes came back with another cup of brandy-laced coffee. “The time change screws everybody up,” he said with a chuckle.

McGarvey took the coffee. “When do we land?” Now that he was coming awake he felt rested.

“About twenty minutes. You okay, sir? Because I talked to Captain Palmer. He says we can put you up at the BOQ for a day and a wakeup.”

McGarvey quickly did the arithmetic in his head. When he’d left CIA headquarters the launch clock was around thirty-six hours. Now it stood at twenty-one. He shook his head. “I’d like to take a shower somewhere and then catch a ride into town, if that’s possible.”

“No problem, sir. I’ll take you over to the crew ready room, and when you’re ready I’ll run you out to the main gate. There’s a cab stand there.”

“Do the locals treat you guys okay?”

Sergeant Wilkes gave him an odd look, but he shrugged. “We pump a lot of money into the economy. Business is business.”

McGarvey nodded. That’s what was so weird about what had been going on between Japan and the U.S. over the past few years. They were major trading partners. Their economies were so closely linked that when the Dow Jones twitched, the Nikkei average did a nose dive. And when the value of the yen took off, the American economy felt the effects almost instantly. Of course the situation had been nearly the same in the twenties and thirties. It wasn’t a very comforting thought.

The Gulfstream touched down at Misawa Air Force Base at 8:00 P.M. local, and coming in McGarvey had a chance to study the layout of the coastal city of 100,000 people. The chief industry was fishing, of course; sardines, if he remembered his briefing book correctly, although there were a few very small copper mines to the south.

He waited until everybody else was off the aircraft before he rode with Sergeant Wilkes over to flight operations housed in a low, concrete block building. He had the shower room to himself, and when he had finished and gotten dressed, Wilkes was waiting in the day room with a couple of hamburgers, french fries and a can of Budweiser.

“I don’t know how long you’re going to be in-country, but I figured you might like a home-cooked meal while it was available.”

McGarvey dug in as Wilkes watched him, an expectant look on his face.

“I know I’m not supposed to say anything, but you’re a spy, aren’t you?”

McGarvey took a drink of beer, and grinned. “Let me guess, you’re a James Bond fan.”

“Le Carré, Clancy, Cussler, Flannery, all of them.”

McGarvey shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint you, Wilkes. What I’m doing here is secret, but I’m not James Bond.”

Wilkes shrugged good-naturedly. “Oh well. Even if you were you wouldn’t be able to tell me.”

After the meal, Wilkes drove McGarvey across the bustling base to the main gate. The guards were dressed in combat fatigues and wore sidearms in addition to the M16 riffles they carried. But there didn’t seem to be much tension. In fact as they approached the gate, a half-dozen airmen walked around the barriers and climbed into two cabs waiting on the narrow road. It was a Saturday night, and, as Wilkes explained, they were heading into town just like GIs did wherever they were stationed.

“When do you go back?” McGarvey asked.

“In the morning,” Wilkes said. They shook hands. “Have a good trip.”

“You too, Sergeant. Thanks for the burgers.”

Shinichi Hirota pulled up in front of the living quarters of the space center director, hurried up the walk and went inside. Lee and Tomichi Kunimatsu were having dinner together with several pretty young women. It took Hirota several minutes to get the attention of one of the girls, who came out to the front hall to him. It would not have done for him to barge in and thus interrupt their peace.

The girl bowed respectfully.

“Tell Mr. Lee that I am here.”

She hesitated, her eyes lowered.

“It is most urgent.”

“Hai, Hirota-san,” she said demurely, and she turned and shuffled back inside.

Hirota stepped back out of sight. His daughter, in school in Tokyo, was about the same age as the young women with Lee and Kunimatsu. He felt an instant of shame thinking what it would be like if she were doing this instead of studying chemistry, but then his heart hardened. Nippon was under attack. Difficult and problematic steps were necessary, sometimes even for the most innocent.

Lee, wearing a hand-embroidered silk kimono, came out a minute later, a neutral expression of his face. “What is it?”

“It’s him. Kirk McGarvey. He is here in Japan.”

Lee’s expression did not change. “Where?”

“Misawa. It is a small fishing city in Aomori Prefecture on Honshu’s far northern coast.”

“I know where it is,” Lee said, showing the first sign of impatience. “What is he doing there?”

“I alerted all the prefecture police captains to watch for him. He was spotted less than an hour ago leaving the American air force base.”

“In uniform?” Lee asked incredulously.

“No, Lee-san, the man is dressed in civilian clothes,” Hirota replied. “He took a taxi to the train station, where he purchased tickets on a local futsu train to Hachinobe, from there to Morioka on a limited express tokkyu and then the shinkansen bullet train to Tokyo.”

Lee considered this information for a moment. “Was he seen actually boarding the train?”

“Hai. I can have two men meet it at Morioka where they can intercept him before he gets the shinkansen.”

“Why did you come to me with this?”

“I must know if the man is to be arrested.”

A faint smile curled the corners of Lee’s narrow mouth. “Two men, you say?”

“Hai,” Hirota replied respectfully.

“Very bad odds.”

“I wanted to make sure there were no mistakes—”

“I meant for your men,” Lee said. He thought again. “Does the Hachinobe train make any stop before Morioka?”

Hirota consulted his notebook. “At Ichinobe. About halfway.”

“Have your men intercept Mr. McGarvey there. It is a smaller city, with fewer people and less opportunity for him to make an escape.”

“Hai.”

“Get him away from the train and then kill him no matter what it takes. That must be your only priority.”

Hirota bowed. “He will not reach Morioka alive.”

The futsu train was old and small, but spotlessly clean. There was only one class of seats, most of them occupied by families. Everyone was quiet and very polite, and although McGarvey was the only westerner aboard his car, no one so much as stole a glance his way, although his presence was unusual.

The local followed the coastline south fifteen miles to the slightly larger city of Hachinobe, stopping at every tiny hamlet, finally pulling in the small railroad station at 10:45 P.M., where almost everybody transferred to the larger, newer, faster tokkyu train which had just pulled in on an adjoining track.

This time McGarvey sat in a rear seat near the connecting door to another second-class car. The one forward was a green car, for first-class passengers. Although westerners might be expected to travel first class, McGarvey had decided against it for exactly that reason. If the authorities were looking for him, they might start there. It would give him a slight leeway.

As the train pulled smoothly out of the station precisely on time, McGarvey sat back. Lee’s people might suspect that he was coming, but they couldn’t know about his Allain identity, nor was it likely they knew he would be entering Japan at one of the air force bases. Most likely they were watching Tokyo’s Narita Airport with his name, passport number and photograph. Of course, if they were watching Dulles too, they might not even know that he’d already left the States. It wasn’t much to count on, but it was something.

The night was pitch black, but the lights in the car were turned low so that McGarvey could see the lights of distant farms and villages. Morioka, the capital of Iwate Prefecture, was surrounded by mountains, and he could feel that they were steadily climbing away from the coastal plain, sometimes slowing down for the steeper grades.

Just like aboard the train from Misawa, the passengers on this train were very polite, mostly families, many of them with small children who slept in their parents’ laps. A few people were eating snacks, and across the aisle from McGarvey two old men played a game with colored tiles, the board set up between them on their knees. Although they made their moves with lightning speed, they made no noise. Everyone looked happy.

The train pulled into the station at Ichinobe at 11:15 P.M. McGarvey looked out the window. A few passengers were waiting on the platform to board, but there seemed to be some sort of a delay. A minute later the lights in the car came on. A uniformed conductor wearing white gloves came to the door and made an announcement in Japanese and then in English that there was trouble with the engine and that everybody would have to leave the train until it was repaired.

It struck McGarvey all at once that although the Japanese were very efficient they would not make such an announcement in English for the sake of only one passenger. They could not possibly know that the foreigner spoke English. In fact at Misawa he’d used a French-Japanese phrase book to make himself understood with the ticket clerk.

The passengers got up, good-naturedly, and shuffled to the front of the car. McGarvey glanced over his shoulder. A conductor stood blocking the rear door. He considered taking out the man, who looked old and not very fit, and jumping off the wrong side. But there would be an immediate manhunt for him. And it was just possible that there really was trouble with the engine and his imagination was getting away from him.

But he had to figure on the worst-case scenario, that they were somehow on to him, and figure out how to deal with it.

He followed the passengers off the train and looked around. There were several dozen people on the platform, most of them milling around in confusion. He started toward the exit gate when two men in suits and ties who’d been speaking with a uniformed police officer broke away and came over to him. They looked like cops; their eyes missed nothing, and one of them held back a couple of paces, his hand in his jacket pocket.

There was no place to go now. Whatever happened in the next few minutes, McGarvey decided, would depend on how well he kept his composure and what their orders were.

The one cop bowed warily. “Mr. McGarvey, if you would please come with us, there is a gentleman waiting to speak to you.”

“What are you talking about?” McGarvey said, feigning fear to cover his surprise. They knew his name!

A second uniformed police officer joined the other at the ticket barrier and they were looking this way.

The plainclothes cop took McGarvey’s arm at the elbow, his grip strong enough to cause pain. “Sir, there is no trouble here, I assure you. In fact you will be able to get the next train, and you will be in Tokyo only a half-hour later than your schedule.”

There it was, their first error. It was unlikely that Lee had come up from Tanegashima to talk to him. These two had been sent to make sure that he never got near the space center. Their orders were to kill him, but someplace private.

McGarvey willed himself to relax, a look of resignation on his face, a defeated note in his voice. “May I see some identification?”

“Yes, sir. If you will just come with us, we will identify ourselves. There should be no trouble here, among innocent people.”

The other cop took McGarvey’s bag, and he let himself be led away from the platform and into the nearly empty arrivals hall where they headed directly for the front doors.

Somehow they’d found out that he was on that train. The only explanation was that Lee had sent word to every possible entry point into Japan to be on the lookout for him. But they still didn’t know about his Pierre Allain identity, which gave him an opening, no matter how slight.

His second break came when they emerged from the station. A black Toyota Land Cruiser was parked at the curb, but there were only a few taxis, a city bus and a few passengers: no other policemen. Lee had sent his own people to take care of McGarvey. It was a mistake.

They crossed to the car.

“Hands on roof, feet spread,” the cop said. The other cop stood at a respectful distance, his right hand still in his coat pocket.

McGarvey did as he was told. The cop efficiently frisked him, coming up with his Walther and one spare magazine of ammunition, but leaving his wallet and passport. The silencer and a second spare magazine were packed in his leather overnight bag.

They put him alone in the backseat of the Toyota, which was isolated from the front by a heavy steel mesh. There were no inside door handles.

The city was very quiet and dark, all the shops and offices closed for the night. There was very little traffic, and as they headed away from the station, the cop riding shotgun looked back at McGarvey with a neutral expression on his face.

“Where are you taking me?” McGarvey asked politely.

The cop said something to the driver, who laughed, then he turned back. “You should not have come here.”

“My government ordered me to Japan. And I think that you should tell that to Mr. Lee. We know all about the launch.”

The cop said nothing.

McGarvey looked out the window. Ichinobe was not a large city, and within minutes they were away from the downtown section and into what looked like an industrial area of warehouses and buildings that could have been small factories. These gave way quickly to open countryside of farm fields dotted with stands of trees silhouetted in the night. In the distance McGarvey spotted moving lights along what was probably a major highway.

At any moment they would pull over to the side of the road and simply fire through the steel mesh, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. He was a rat caught in a cage waiting to be executed.

If he waited, which is exactly what they were counting on.

The cop looked away momentarily. McGarvey let out a cry, clutched his chest and threw himself on the floor behind the driver. He curled up in a fetal position, his feet against the driveshift hump, his legs cocked like springs. They could not shoot him from that angle.

The cop shouted something, and the Toyota immediately slowed down and pulled to a stop off the road. “Get up! Get up!” the cop screamed through the mesh.

McGarvey groaned and pretended to try to rise, but then he slumped back. “Help me,” he cried weakly.

He heard both front doors open, and then the rear door on his side was pulled open and hands were grabbing him. It was all he needed, but he knew that he would only get this one chance.

He suddenly uncoiled, driving upward and forward with every ounce of his strength. His head and right shoulder connected with the driver’s midsection, bowling the much slighter man backward onto the macadam. McGarvey landed on top of him and yanked the pistol out of his hand.

The second cop came around the front of the car, his pistol drawn. He stepped left and dropped into a crouch as he brought his gun hand up.

McGarvey rolled the momentarily stunned driver over on cop of him and fired three shots, the first missing the cop, but the next two hitting the man in the right thigh and his chest, flinging him backward.

The driver smashed a karate blow into the side of McGarvey’s neck and shoved him aside.

The blow knocked McGarvey on his back, and he dropped the gun. The driver scrambled for his pistol. McGarvey recovered, rolled up on his left hip and swung a roundhouse ight cross that connected with the driver’s chin, breaking it. Fhe man wasn’t expecting the blow, and his head snapped to the side as if he had been hit by a pile driver. He fell on his back, his head bouncing limply on the roadway.

McGarvey grabbed the pistol and covered the driver. But the man lay absolutely still, his head lolling at an impossible angle. His neck was broken.

The second cop lay on his side in front of the car, his eyes open and already glazed. His jacket was open, and there was a thin splotch of blood over his heart. He too was dead.

They had picked him up not to place him under arrest, but to kill him and dump his body somewhere out here in the countryside. So killing them had been a matter of self-defense. But it didn’t make it any easier for him, and bile rose up at he back of his throat. He looked at his hands in the darkness, certain he could see blood dripping from them. A river of blood. Wherever he went, whatever he started out to do, seemed always to end in bloodshed.

He didn’t want this. He knew it was inevitable, but he didn’t want it.

He glanced both ways up the road. No traffic was coming. [n that, at least, his luck was holding. He dragged the bodies back to the car and stuffed them on the floor in the back, covering them as best he could with their jackets. Someone casually looking through the window tonight might not be able to make out what was lying there. At least not with a cursory glance.

He recovered his own gun and spare magazine, then got behind the wheel and checked his watch. It was nearly mid-hight. If the countdown had not been delayed, the launch would take place in a little over sixteen hours.

He considered his options. They knew that he’d entered Japan at Misawa, and they were already coming after him. But they might not expect these two to call in for a while longer yet, which gave him a little time.

He unfolded a highway map and figured out where he was. The road to his right was one of the main north-south toll roads. Although it would be the fastest way to travel, the toll roads were highly regulated. It wouldn’t take long for this car to be spotted once the alert was raised.

His only real chance, he figured, was making it to Tokyo, or some other large city, where he could ditch this car and find another means of transportation to Kyushu’s south coast. But the south island was one thousand miles away. He was a foreigner in a stolen car with the bodies of two men he had killed, the authorities were looking for him and he was running out of time.

He pulled out and headed south. Driving on the left felt odd, but that was the least of his troubles. The fact of the matter was, he had no other choice and he no longer gave a damn. The blood lust was rising in him. They had hurt his family and it was payback time. He was going to have to find an airfield or a shinkansen station and start taking chances he didn’t want to take.

By four in the morning, Hirota knew that he had lost control of the operation to neutralize McGarvey. He had waited with mounting anxiety for his people in Ichinobe to telephone. They were to have met the train shortly after eleven last night, arrest McGarvey, drive him out into the countryside, kill him and then dispose of his body. But something had gone wrong, and he wasn’t ready to tell Joseph Lee that he had failed. Not until he was sure of his facts, though in his heart of hearts he knew that he was in trouble.

He got up from behind his desk in his office and went to a sideboard, where he poured another cup of tea. He turned back and looked at the photograph of his wife and daughter. His father had been too young to fight in the war, but his grandfather had been killed on Okinawa in some of the bloodiest fighting against the Americans. He wondered if his grandfather had taken out a photograph of his wife and son, who were back home in Kobe, before that final battle to reassure himself, as Hirota was doing now, that he was following the correct path, that what he was doing was not only for the emperor and Nippon, but for his family.

He glanced at the clock for the third time in the past ten minutes as the telephone rang. He rushed to his desk and picked it up. The caller was his contact on the Aomori Prefecture Police.

“Have they called yet?”

Hirota’s grip tightened on the phone. “No. Have you heard anything?”

“Nothing,” the police lieutenant said. “Something must have gone wrong.”

Hirota bit off a sharp reply. “Begin a search within thirty kilometers of Ichinobe.”

“There should be no problem finding the car—”

“You’re not looking for the car,” Hirota said, cutting him short. “You’re looking for two bodies.”

“Hai.”

Hirota calmed down. “You’re looking for the car as well, of course. I want you to look everywhere, including the train station in case our man doubled back and took the next train.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hirota broke the connection and dialed another number. This one rang seven times before it was answered by Shiego Shimoyama, chief of Tokyo Police, at his home.

“This must be bad news,” Shimoyama said.

“Our people at Ichinobe haven’t reported in.”

“Have you instituted a search of the immediate area?”

“Hai.”

“Very well then, we must assume the worst, that’s he is on the loose and heading south.”

“Yes, but time is on our side now. There are less than twelve hours to launch, which means he will have to take a shinkansen or an airplane. He can’t get here in time otherwise.”

“That’s helpful. It means his choices are limited, and we can concentrate our search efforts.”

“He must be found, Shimoyama-san. At all costs.”

“Yes,” the police chief replied dryly. “It is in the national interest.”

“Nothing has been so important since Pearl Harbor.”

Shimoyama laughed. “With different results this time, one would hope.”

McGarvey entered the Buddhist pilgrimage city of Nagano shortly before seven in the morning. It was a weekend and traffic was reasonably light. At first he didn’t know where he was because the few road signs that existed were difficult to understand, and often contradictory. He knew that he was south and west of the Tokyo megalopolis, and that he was in the mountains. But it wasn’t until he actually entered the city that he knew precisely where he was, and that he would never make it in time to stop the launch unless he could find an airplane and pilot to take him there.

The H2C was scheduled to lift off in a little more than nine hours, but the space center was seven hundred miles farther to the south. At least eighteen hours by car just to Kyushu’s south coast, plus however much longer it would take to cross the fifty miles or so of open water to the island.

He stopped at a roadside rest area that contained a Shinto shrine and studied his maps. The nearest airport was fifty miles south at Matsumoto where he was reasonably certain that he could find a plane and pilot. He had enough money to pay for the trip, but he would have to invent a plausible story that the air service would buy. That was providing private aviation hadn’t been grounded because of the military alert.

In addition, the two cops who’d come to kill him in Ichinobe would be missed by now, and the authorities would be searching for this car in ever widening circles. Sooner or later he would be caught in their net unless he got rid of the car very soon.

He decided that would have to be his first priority. He studied the Nagano city map, then drove into the city, careful to watch the speed limit and traffic that came from his right. It would be terrible to get a traffic ticket or get involved in a fender bender now, because once the civilian police had him he could not fight back. They were innocents in this.

He stopped for a red light a half block from the ornate railroad station at the end of a broad cul de sac. A bus had just pulled around the traffic circle and stopped in front of the station, ahead of a taxi rank with three cabs. As McGarvey waited for the light to change, a police car, its blue lights flashing, came through the intersection from the right, sped around the circle and pulled in behind the bus. Two cops jumped out of the car and rushed inside the station.

It was no coincidence. But even if it was, McGarvey felt that he would have to operate on the assumption that the authorities were guarding every train station between Ichinobe and the south island until after the launch. They would be looking for a tall, well-built westerner. They would stop all westerners, because there were so few of them traveling around Japan at any time, and especially now.

The light changed. McGarvey turned right and headed away from the station. If they were watching all the train stations, they were probably watching all the airports between Ichinobe and the south island, including Matsumoto. Lee’s people would have figured that McGarvey’s only way to Tanegashima in time for the launch was either a shinkansen or an airplane. Any other means of transportation would be too slow.

Of course he did have the option of doing something totally unexpected. He could turn around and drive back up to the air force base at Misawa, where he would be safe. But he would have failed in his mission. It was a bitter thought, but one that he knew he was going to have to consider very soon.

The solutions to both of his immediate problems — time and transportation — came ten minutes away from the railroad station near a magnificent Buddhist temple at the foot of which was a very old traditional ryokan, the Hotel Fujiya, when his satellite cell phone chirped. He answered the phone as he cruised slowly past the long pedestrian entrance to the temple. It was Rencke.

“Oh, boy, I can’t get a fix on you, Mac. Where are you?”

“Nagano. But I don’t think I’m going to make it in time.”

“Are you okay, Mac?”

“For the time being,” McGarvey said. He quickly ran through everything that had happened since he’d landed at Misawa. “I’m going to have to get rid of the car and try to make it back to the base.”

“You’ve got an extra thirty-one hours, if that’ll help,” Otto gushed. “They’re having trouble with one of the onboard guidance computers, so the launch has been pushed back until tomorrow night. The new window is from 11:02 to 11:24.”

McGarvey was passing the hotel entrance, and it suddenly occurred to him how he was going to make it at least to Kyushu in time for the delayed launch.

He headed back into the city.

“Okay, I’ve still got a shot at this,” he told Otto. “Has NASA made contact with their people yet?”

“No. Hartley wants to go over, but the Japs are dragging their feet. Nobody seems to know or care what the hell is going on.”

“Keep pushing on them,” McGarvey instructed. “I can use every extra hour you can give me.”

“Gotcha—”

“But you can’t call me again. This time we were lucky, I was alone. But if I’m in a tight spot and this phone pops off I could be in trouble.”

Otto didn’t like it. “I see your point. But keep in contact, willya?”

“Will do,” McGarvey said, paying attention to traffic, which was picking up. “Gotta go.”

“Hang in there, Mac. We need you.”

McGarvey broke the connection and tossed the phone in his bag on the passenger seat. He circled around the downtown area, approaching to within a couple of blocks of the railroad station from a different direction than before. Parking on a weekday would have been difficult, but McGarvey found a spot in the parking lot of a small shopping district two blocks away. He circled until there was no activity in the lot, then pulled in, grabbed his bag, locked the car doors and walked away without looking back and with the air of a man with all the time in the world.

There was some pedestrian traffic, but no one paid him any particular attention. A block from the parking lot he stopped to look at the cameras in a shop window and to check behind him. No one was tailing him. At this point they would be concentrating on the train station.

He walked another couple of blocks toward the railroad station, finally finding a taxi waiting in front of a department store, its vacant light on.

McGarvey got in, and the driver turned and smiled.

“L‘hôtel Fujiya, s’il vous plait,” McGarvey said.

“Fujiya?” the driver said, his smile widening.

“Hai.”

Joseph Lee was having trouble maintaining his composure in the wake of the launch delay and his security chief’s inability to find and deal with McGarvey. He sat in front of a low table, his back erect, an austere expression on his narrow features, as two girls served him his lunch.

Kunimatsu was busy at launch control and with the international news media at the media center five thousand meters from the pad, so he wasn’t available to explain the trouble with the rocket’s computer system. Nor was Miriam here to lend him her good counsel. He didn’t dare telephone her at their Washington home, because he knew the lines were bugged. He was alone with his thoughts, a rare occurrence that he did not enjoy.

Time was against them now. The extra thirty hours gave McGarvey a chance to somehow make it here, and the time gave the media that much more of an opportunity to find out about the death of Major Ripley, even though the rest of the American Tiger team had been isolated from the news people and were being denied access to outside telephone lines or cell phones.

Hirota telephoned from Nagano, and Lee dismissed the two young women.

“It was my people in the car,” the security chief said. “He shot one of them to death and somehow broke the other’s jaw and neck.”

Lee held himself in check. “Were there no witnesses?”

“Not after they arrested him at the train station in Ichinobe,” Hirota said. “Every shinkansen station and every airport in Japan is being watched, but so far he hasn’t shown up.”

“You should have sent more men. You underestimated him.”

“There was a need to keep this contained,” Hirota said, respectfully. “But flying across the Pacific and driving all night, he has to be tired. And without transportation he must be hiding somewhere here in Nagano.”

“No,” Lee said emphatically. “I disagree.”

“Hai,” Hirota replied immediately. Lee appreciated the security chief’s instant compliance; it was so much unlike Kondo.

“He is long gone from Nagano, and well on his way here by now. Come back and we will plan for his arrival.”

“But how will he get to the island?”

“He’s going to steal a boat,” Lee said. He looked out the window that faced the launchpad, the rocket standing tall in the azure sky, and he felt powerful, all-seeing, as if he could foretell the future. “You must admire this man, Hirota-san,” he said dreamily. “Before he dies I wish to talk with him. You will see to that.”

“Hai,” Hirota said, but this time his answer wasn’t so quick in coming.

It was dark by the time the congested four-lane highway crossed the narrow strait from Shimonoseki and McGarvey arrived on the south island of Kyushu. This was Japan’s most ancient region, and the feeling of the lush but volcanic countryside changed immediately from the hustle-bustle frenetic pace of the north, to the more rural, relaxed atmosphere of the south.

Traffic thinned out, and a light, gentle rain began to fall, with a mysterious mist rising from the Inland Sea. The main highway bypassed the coastal town of Kokura, splitting southeast toward Beppu and southwest to Kyusho’s largest city, Fukuoka. He headed southwest.

He had checked into the Fujiya Hotel in Nagano. The desk clerk at the three-hundred-year-old ryokan had been very helpful renting him the royal suite for three days at ¥30,000 per day and arranging for a rental car for the entire period. McGarvey had taken a long, leisurely bath, changed clothes and was on the road by 9:00 A.M.

The Lexus ES400 was supremely comfortable and very fast. Since he was driving a car with the proper paperwork, he got on the main north-south toll road and made excellent time, stopping only for something to eat when he refueled the car.

By noon, when he was well away from Nagano, he telephoned Rencke with his new plans.

“They’ll never expect that,” Rencke said. “It’ll take me about twenty minutes. Can I call you back?”

“Yes.”

Traffic had been very heavy on the toll road, but it moved fast, though not as fast as the interstates in the U.S.

Rencke was back a half hour later. “Okay, you want to go to Fukuoka. I’ve booked you a room at the Hotel New Otani Hakata under your Allain work name. Everything else should be set within the next couple of hours, and I’ll fax the package to you at the hotel.”

“You might take some heat for this, so cover yourself.”

“Don’t worry about me, just watch yourself,” Rencke warned. “It’s you with your ass hanging out in the wind, and when Lee looks up and sees you standing there, he’s going to be one unhappy camper.”

McGarvey had to laugh. “I hope so.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

When Maggie finished packing, it was coming up on 8:00 P.M. She looked out the window where two guards were waiting with the van that was to take them to the airstrip. The countdown clock was at T-minus three hours, and activity at the launchpad and in launch control was heating up. But she and the rest of the Tiger team would miss it.

She went back to the bed where she zippered up her B4 bag and folded it. She could not get the vision of Frank’s broken, bloodied body out of her mind. She’d lived with it for nearly forty-eight hours, going over and over the part where she’d bent down to touch his cheek, but then recoiled. She was frightened that she didn’t have better self-control. She was an engineer, a pilot, an astronaut, and yet she’d been afraid to touch the body of the man she’d loved.

She went into the tiny bathroom, where she splashed some cold water on her face, brushed her hair and then studied her haggard reflection in the mirror. They had murdered Frank for what he had seen, or thought he had seen, and for once in her life she didn’t know what to do. The enormity of it was staggering. And the past two days of house arrest had been surreal; her isolation made all the more complete because the one man she could have talked to about what was happening was dead.

Frank had made an unauthorized trip to the top of the payload service tower, where he apparently lost his balance and fallen over two hundred feet to his death. There were no witnesses. Kimura and another man who’d been identified as chief of security for the center were sympathetic but skeptical when Maggie and the others swore they didn’t know why Frank had gone out there.

Afterwards, when she had tried to telephone Hartley, her call had been blocked, and she and the others had been taken to their quarters where they were placed under house arrest. They had served her meals in her room, refusing to answer any of her questions about what was going on, why they were treating her like this and what was happening to Hilman and others. Her laptop had been taken away, the phone and television were dead and she had nearly lost her mind with fear, anger, boredom and guilt about Frank.

A half hour ago, one of the security people in white coveralls with the NSDA logo on the breast had come up and informed her that she must pack; she and the others would be leaving the space center sometime before the launch.

“Once we get back everything will come out, you bastard,” she blurted.

The security officer looked at her without blinking, then turned and left.

She sat down on the bed now, her hands clasped between her knees, and tears of rage and frustration slipped down her cheeks. She was being foolish; she knew that, but she didn’t think that she would ever trust a Japanese again. They had murdered Frank, and they were arrogant enough to send the rest of the team home without so much as a word of explanation.

“Bastards,” she said softly. “Bastards.”

Joseph Lee, dressed in a dark blue business suit, rode in the backseat of a Mercedes limousine from his quarters to launch control. In the distance, the giant H2C rocket was brightly lit on the pad, and the entire base was alive with last-minute activity. He looked out a window at a ten-passenger van which came from a connecting road and headed directly for the media center and viewing grandstands across a field from the vehicle assembly building. The decision to allow the international media to witness the launch had been made in Tokyo, overriding his strong suggestion that the center be placed strictly off-limits to the outside world. His driver pulled into the launch control building parking lot and went directly to the back entrance.

Miriam was on her way over finally. Once she was airborne she’d called to tell him that she’d been followed to Dulles but that no one had interfered with her movements. For at least that much he was relieved. He thought it might have been a mistake leaving her there. He’d considered the possibility that McGarvey might have gone after her in retaliation. But now that she was safely away he no longer had to worry about her. He could concentrate his complete attention on McGarvey, who had dropped out of sight as if he had never existed.

He’d seen a partial transcript of the man’s dossier, but until now he had dismissed most of the fantastic report as the probable figment of someone’s imagination. But after everything that had happened, he was no longer sure about his assessment. By all accounts McGarvey was an extraordinary man. He was in Japan at this very moment, of that there was no doubt. And on the drive over, Lee had trouble keeping his own imagination in check, wondering if the man had somehow gotten here to the space center and was lurking in the shadows or crawling up the beach like some nocturnal sea monster.

The countdown clock on the side of launch control switched to T-minus 1:28:00 as Lee got out of the limo and went inside. The armed guards knew him by sight. Hirota was upstairs in the security operations center. Three walls of the long narrow room were filled with television monitors that were connected to hundreds of lo-lux closed-circuit cameras around the space center. Every centimeter of the perimeter, and especially the approaches from the beaches, was covered, as was nearly every square meter of the entire sprawling base. Embedded in the security pass that everyone wore were computer chips that contained the personal data of the bearer, his or her specific job, as well as a transponder that radiated a locator signal. Anyone unauthorized anywhere on base would be detected immediately and the appropriate closed-circuit television camera would home in on them.

“Any sign of him yet?” Lee asked.

“He’s not here,” Hirota said, looking up from a bank of monitors he was standing in front of. “Everyone is accounted for, unless he somehow managed to steal a valid pass. But he would have had to get on base first. And that’s impossible.”

The center’s fourth wall was made of one-way glass that looked down on the launch control center, extremely busy now that the clock had reached and passed the T-minus-ninety-minute mark. Lee looked down at the launch director’s console, where Kunimatsu was holding a conference with a half-dozen people.

Hirota came over. “Even if he got as far as Kyushu, he’s simply run out of time.”

Lee looked at his security chief. He wanted to argue, but he couldn’t. The base was tight. And even if McGarvey was here, there was nothing he could do now to stop the launch short of blowing up the rocket or the launch control center, both of which were under heavy guard. For that he would need a substantial quantity of explosives. But something Hirota said suddenly struck him.

“What do you mean, ‘Even if he got as far as Kyushu’?”

Hirota’s lips compressed. “A man who roughly matches McGarvey’s description might have checked into a hotel in Nagano about the same time we found the missing men from Ichinobe.”

“Why wasn’t he arrested?” Lee demanded sharply.

“We didn’t find out about it until a couple of hours ago. He rented a car yesterday, and he never came back. But it wasn’t until this afternoon when the hotel reported it.”

“It’s him.”

“Possibly, Lee-san. But even if he made it to Kyushu, and we’re checking every hotel and parking lot on the island, he still had to face the problem of crossing eighty kilometers of open sea. No boats have been reported missing in the past forty-eight hours.”

“What about a light airplane?”

“None have been reported missing.” Hirota said. “In any event we would have picked him up on radar. And there aren’t that many places on the island where he could have landed. But even if he somehow had got that far, someone would have spotted the airplane.” Hirota shook his head. “McGarvey is not here, and the launch will go on as scheduled.”

Lee looked down at the tiers of consoles. Kunimatsu had finished his conference and had returned to his own desk on the upper level. Lee’s eyes strayed to the consoles reserved for the American Tiger team. The monitors were lit up, but no one was seated there.

“When does the American team leave?” he asked.

“They’re giving us some trouble, as we expected they would. But my people are with them, and they’ll be leaving at any minute.” Hirota looked more sure of himself than he sounded. “The problem will come afterward,” he went on. “They’ll demand an investigation.”

Lee managed a slight cruel smile. “By then it won’t matter.”

McGarvey climbed out of the airport van and hurried into the media service center with the half-dozen other last-minute reporters he’d joined in Fukuoka. His credentials were checked for the fourth time, and just inside the door he was issued a base pass, which hung around his neck. He went with the others to the briefing room where they were given media packets, watched a five-minute tape on the mission and were quickly advised on the use of the facility’s communications center.

On the short drive from the airstrip, he had pretended to be asleep in the backseat while through half-lidded eyes he watched out the window for an opening, anything that would help him. Tanegashima was very much like Kennedy an hour or so before a launch; there seemed to be traffic and activity everywhere, and they had to pass six security checkpoints in as many miles. Now that he was here, he needed to figure out how to stop the launch, and for that he needed more information.

The press credentials and launch invitation package that Otto had worked up and faxed to the hotel were perfect. The Japanese media officers and security people didn’t raise an eyebrow when he presented himself for this morning at the Tanegashima offices in the Fukuoka Prefecture Police Department. His name and description had to be posted in every police department in Japan, but they were looking for Kirk McGarvey, an American spy trying to steal a boat, not Pierre Allain, a Belgian journalist here to cover the launch.

He had missed the morning plane to Tanegashima, but he’d been told that a few reporters were coming down from Tokyo at the last minute and would be meeting at the Hotel New Otani. A final flight was being arranged to get them out to the space center in plenty of time for the launch.

Back at the hotel, McGarvey kept out of sight for most of the day, checking from time to time with the front desk for the latest information on the last flight to Tanegashima. He was committed to this course of action, and there was very little he could do except wait. It would have been practically impossible to steal a boat in the daylight hours and make it to the island without being spotted. And by the time it got dark it would be far too late for him to try, unless there was another delay in the launch, something he could not count on. Nevertheless, it had been a long, difficult afternoon for him with nothing to do but keep out of sight.

“You have a little less than twenty minutes to prepare your initial dispatches for filing,” Tsuginoni Moriyama, the media rep, was telling them. His English was impeccable, and he constantly smiled. “We would like you to move to the viewing stands no later than T-minus sixty minutes. Or, if you wish, you may elect to remain here and watch the launch on the television monitors. Tapes will be provided for you after the launch. But I must caution you that we have only a limited number of telephones and digital feeds off the island. Because of other sensitive equipment here, you may not use cellular or satellite equipment from now until T-plus thirty minutes.”

There were a number of groans, and several heads shot up.

The press officer looked around the room. He was still smiling. “If there are no questions, other than the use of cellular or satellite equipment, this will be your last briefing until after the launch when we will meet here at T-plus thirty minutes.”

An attractive, middle-aged woman raised her hand. “Judith Rawlins, New York Times. I would like to interview the American Tiger team before the launch.”

“I’m sorry, that is not possible,” the press officer said. “At this moment, as you might guess, they are extremely busy at the launch control center.”

McGarvey, who was sitting a few feet away from the New York Times reporter, heard her say, “Bullshit.”

“No more questions?” The press officer looked around the room, then nodded. “Well then, wish us luck, and we’ll see you back here once we’re in orbit.” He stepped away from the podium and disappeared through a door in the back.

The New York Times reporter remained seated and took some notes while the others headed down the corridor to the media communications center. A table was set with a coffee and tea service. McGarvey poured two cups of coffee and came back to where the reporter was seated. He held a cup out to her.

“I didn’t know if you used cream or sugar,” he said.

She looked up, smiled pleasantly, and took the coffee. “Black will do fine,” she said. “Thanks. Do I know you?”

“Pierre Allain, AP Brussels.”

“Judith Rawlins, New York Times.” They shook hands, and McGarvey sat down beside her.

“I had an ulterior motive bringing you coffee,” he said.

She laughed warily. “Most men do. What’s your story?”

“I’d like to get an interview with Frank Ripley too, or at least with one of his team members, before the launch. But if they’re in launch control I’m afraid I’m out of luck. But you didn’t seem to think the press officer was telling the truth.”

“They’re not there. They’ve been taken off the mission.”

“How do you know that?”

She eyed him speculatively, then shrugged. “I have a friend in Houston. What’s your interest in Ripley?”

“I have a friend in Houston too.”

“What’d he tell you?”

“He’s lost contact with his people and he’s worried. What did you get from your source?”

Her attitude suddenly got chilly when she realized that he knew nothing more than she did. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t share that with you,” she said. “You know how it is.” She got to her feet. “But it doesn’t matter if we’re stuck here until the launch.”

“If they’re not at launch control, where would they be?” McGarvey persisted, looking up at her.

“In their quarters, I imagine.”

“Where’s that?”

The woman was done with the conversation, but she put down her notes, took the briefing package from McGarvey and pulled out a map of the space center. She circled one of the buildings and handed it back. “Good luck.” She smirked, then left the briefing room and headed down the corridor to the communications center.

McGarvey studied the map until she was out of sight. He was going to need some information, and the only people here who would be willing to help him were the Americans on the Tiger team. It was worrisome that he would have to place them in danger, but he could see no other way around the problem. And he was going to have to get to them very quickly, because he was running out of time. It meant he was going to have to start taking some even bigger chances.

He put his coffee aside and stood up. Media reps, or information specialists as they were called at Kennedy, had the free run of the facility as part of their jobs. He hoped it was the same here.

He crossed the room and went through the door that the media rep had used. A short corridor led straight back to an exit door. Two empty offices were on the right, and two offices, both occupied, were on the left. He found Moriyama in the last office, talking to someone on the phone. The press officer held his hand over the mouthpiece. “Go back to the communications center, you do not belong here.”

“Ms. Rawlins had a problem. You must have seen her pass this way.”

Moriyama said something into the phone, then hung up and came over to McGarvey. He wasn’t smiling. “What are you talking about?”

“I thought she came to see you, but she must have gone outside.”

Moriyama sprinted down the corridor and out the exit door. McGarvey came right behind him. When they were outside in the parking lot, he pulled out his gun.

“I won’t kill you, if you do exactly as I say,” McGarvey told him.

Moriyama could hardly believe what was happening. He stepped back a pace. “What do you want?”

“I have to talk to someone on the Tiger team, and you’re going to drive me to their barracks.”

“Impossible—”

McGarvey raised his pistol directly at the man’s head. “I’ll shoot you right now if I must.”

Moriyama glanced at one of the Toyotas. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish.”

McGarvey cocked the Walther’s hammer.

Moriyama stepped back, his hands out. “Okay, okay, I’ll take you there,” he said. He got in the car and McGarvey hurried around to the passenger side and climbed in beside him.

The media rep started the car, pulled out of the parking lot and headed the few blocks over to the visitors’ housing building. “They’re being guarded. You’ll never get inside.”

“You’re going to get me in,” McGarvey said. “I’ll have my gun in my pocket, and if there’s any trouble you’re the first one I’ll shoot.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Yes, I am.”

They drove the rest of the way over in silence. A van was parked in front of the building. Moriyama pulled in beside it, and he and McGarvey got out of the car and went up to the two guards. Moriyama flashed his pass, and the guards waved them on without a word.

Inside, they found themselves in an empty dayroom. A corridor led to the back of the building, and there were stairs to the left.

“Okay, we’re here, now what?” Moriyama asked.

“I want to see Frank Ripley.”

Mariyama blanched. “You can’t,” he stammered. “He’s not here.”

McGarvey pulled out his gun. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He’s gone. He flew out this morning. Maybe he’s up in Sasebo.”

“What about the rest of the Tiger team?”

Moriyama hesitated just a second, and McGarvey raised his pistol, pointing it directly at the man’s face. Moriyama turned and took the stairs up to the second floor and down the corridor to the last room on the left.

“Who’s room is this?”

“Captain Attwood. She’s in charge now that … Major Ripley is gone.”

McGarvey screwed the silencer on the end of the Walther’s barrel, and keeping his eyes on the media rep, knocked on the door. “Captain Attwood?” he called softly. He tried the doorknob, but it was locked.

“Who is it?” a woman called.

“A friend. Do you have the door locked from the inside?”

“No, they locked me in.”

“Do you have the key?” he asked Moriyama, who shook his head. “Stand back, Captain, I’m going to shoot the lock off.”

“Okay,” she called hesitantly.

McGarvey fired one shot into the locking mechanism, the silenced shot nothing more than a dull pop. He pushed the door open, and waiting just a moment to make sure that no one was coming to investigate, he shoved Moriyama inside, went in himself and closed the door.

Maggie stood next to the bed, her suitcase packed and ready to go, a frightened, but determined expression on her narrow, pretty face. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

“I talked to Frank Ripley the day before yesterday. He was on top of one of the launch gantries. He told me they’d switched satellites.”

Maggie’s hand went to her mouth. “My God.”

“I’m here to stop the launch. Where’s Ripley?”

“He’s dead,” Maggie said. “They pushed him off the top of the launch gantry. Doesn’t anybody in Houston know about it?”

“No,” McGarvey said. “When did it happen?” He looked at Moriyama, who flinched.

“It must have been when you were talking to him. Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to stop the launch. How do I do it?”

“You don’t,” Moriyama blurted.

“Captain Attwood?” McGarvey prompted.

Maggie glanced at Moriyama. “The launch can be delayed if there’s a glitch somewhere in the system. Evidently they ran across something yesterday because it was pushed back until tonight.”

“Who makes that decision?”

“The launch director on advice from his systems controllers.”

“Can anyone else stop the launch?”

Maggie thought about it for a moment. “Someone in Tokyo, I suppose. The head of NSDA.”

“How about here at the center?”

“Other than Mr. Kunimatsu, I wouldn’t know.”

“There is no one else,” Moriyama said smugly. He was regaining some of his composure. “And unless you mean to take launch control center by storm, you can’t get to him.”

“How about Joseph Lee?” McGarvey asked. He watched Moriyama’s eyes very closely.

The media rep blinked, and fumbled. “Who?” He was lying.

McGarvey turned to Maggie. “Do you know how to reach the launch director by telephone?”

She nodded.

He took out his satellite phone and handed it to her. “I want you to call over there and demand to speak to Joseph Lee.”

“You can’t do this,” Moriyama objected.

McGarvey silenced him with a look. “When he comes on the line tell him that Kirk McGarvey called you from Fukuoka. Tell him that you know about Kimch’aek, and that I want to cut a deal, otherwise the launch will be stopped.”

Moriyama lunged for the door. McGarvey reached him before he could get out into the corridor and hauled him back. He lightly tapped the much slighter man on the temple with the butt of his pistol, and Moriyama went down like a felled ox.

“Call him now, Captain, we’re running out of time,” McGarvey said. She got on the phone as he shoved the suitcase off the bed, pulled the covers back and pulled off the top sheet, from which he tore several long strips.

He was just finishing tying and gagging the media rep, who was starting to come around, when Maggie motioned that she had Lee on the phone.

“Mr. Lee, this is Captain Attwood, and I think you and I have a serious problem. You’d better come over here right now so we can talk about it.”

McGarvey rolled Moriyama over on his side so he wouldn’t choke to death.

“Don’t hang up, Mr. Lee. I just spoke with Kirk McGarvey. I think you know that name.” Maggie’s face lit up and she flashed McGarvey a big smile. “No, sir. He called me from someplace in Fukuoka with a message for you.”

She nodded.

“Your security people missed this phone. The point is that we know what really happened at Kimch’aek, and Mr. McGarvey would like to cut a deal with you, through me.”

She laughed bitterly.

“You’ll have to come here alone to find that out, because I want my safety and that of my crew assured.”

She looked at McGarvey and shrugged then turned sharply back to the phone.

“No, sir. The launch will be stopped. And I can assure you that Mr. McGarvey has the means to do it unless you cooperate with us.” She smiled again, and broke the connection. “He’ll be here in five minutes.”

“How did he sound?”

“Shook up,” Maggie said. “Now, would you mind telling me who the hell you are, who Joseph Lee is and who or what the hell is Kimch’aek?”

“It’s a long story, Captain, and we don’t have the time.” He gave her a smile. “Besides you don’t want to know.”

He took the phone from her and pocketed it, then went to the window. The two guards were still by the van. One of them was speaking into a lapel mike.

“What about the others on my team?” Maggie asked after a couple of minutes.

“They’ll be better off staying out of this for now. When Lee shows up we’re going to go downstairs, get in his car and he’s going to take you over to the media grandstands. I want you to find a woman by the name of Judith Rawlins. She’s a reporter for the New York Times. Tell her that you believe that your life and the lives of your team are in danger. She’ll help you.”

“Just like that?”

McGarvey nodded. “Just like that.”

“What do I tell her about you?” She glanced at Moriyama on the floor. “About all this?”

“Nothing, she’ll work it out on her own.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?” she blurted. “What about Frank?”

McGarvey looked her in the eye. “Listen to me, Captain. There’s going to be a lot of confusion around here, and your life might depend on you keeping your cool. Do you understand?”

She nodded tentatively.

“You’re going to have to trust me, even though that sounds stupid.”

“If I don’t?”

McGarvey looked out the window again. A limousine was passing under a streetlamp at the entry to the parking lot. “He’s here.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

McGarvey turned to her. “Call me at the CIA.”

His reply took her breath away, and she was visibly staggered. “I think you’re right,” she said in a small voice. “I don’t think I want to know what happened here.”

“Are you ready?” McGarvey asked her. The limo was pulling into the driveway.

“Yes.”

“No matter what happens, don’t say anything to anybody, don’t answer any questions and keep moving until you reach the New York Times reporter.”

The corridor was clear, and by the time they got downstairs to the dayroom the limousine was parked next to the van. McGarvey took Maggie’s right elbow, and keeping his pistol out of sight behind his right leg, went outside and headed directly for the limo’s rear door which was starting to come open.

The two guards by the van, their attention distracted by the limousine, turned around. One of them started to raise his hand. The limo’s door was all the way open. McGarvey shoved Maggie into the arms of a startled Joseph Lee and then climbed in behind her, pulling the door shut behind him.

He jammed the muzzle of his silencer into the base of the chauffeur’s skull. “Drive right now, or I’ll put a bullet in your brain.”

The driver hesitated for a fraction of a second, and McGarvey pressed the gun harder into the man’s head. “Ima,” now.

The guards were dragging out their pistols when the chauffeur finally stomped on the gas and the limo shot across the parking lot.

McGarvey switched aim to Lee, who was just beginning to realize what was happening. “We’re dropping Captain Attwood at the media grandstands, and afterward we’re going to have a little chat.”

“You’re insane—”

“Tell your driver now, or I’ll kill you and worry about how to escape later.”

Lee was weighing his options. McGarvey could see it in his eyes. He glanced disdainfully at Maggie, then said something to the driver in Japanese.

“Hai,” the chauffeur responded, and he drove left out of the parking lot in the direction of the media center.

Lee had calmed down and it seemed that he had come to some decision. “What are you planning on doing?” he asked conversationally. “It was really quite clever of you to get this far, but you’re running out of time, you know.” He smiled pleasantly. “You can’t stop a rocket with a handgun, and I’m certainly not going to order such a thing, no matter what silly threats you make against me.”

McGarvey let his face sag a little. “If my government wanted to stop the launch they would have done it politically. I was sent to get information.”

“To spy on us,” Lee retorted sharply.

“We’re helping with your North Korean problem. But nobody in Washington knows what the hell is going on. Do you honestly want war?”

“Actually we want to prevent a war.”

“By sabotaging Kimch’aek?”

Lee laughed. “I understand that you have become an unpopular fellow in the White House. You don’t even have a job, so you’re here without your government’s sanction.”

“But it’s me with the gun pointed at you.”

Lee shrugged.

They had come to the media center, and the driver asked Lee something in Japanese.

Lee again seemed to weigh his options as he stared at McGarvey. But then he nodded. “Hai.”

The chauffeur drove around back and across to the media grandstands, which were filled to capacity. He pulled up at the gate where a guard turned and looked at them.

McGarvey gave Maggie his media pass and opened the door. “Lose yourself in the crowd and don’t let them get you alone until after the launch.”

Maggie gave him a significant look, then scrambled past him and got out of the limo. She flashed her pass at the gate guard, who waved her through, and she was gone.

The countdown clock in front of the grandstands read T-minus 00:28:00.

“Where do we go now?” Lee asked, indifferently.

“The launch control center.”

Hirota picked up the call from the guard at the visitors’ housing building.

“It was Captain Attwood and a man. They got into Mr. Lee’s car and drove off,” the guard said.

“Was it one of the other Americans?” Hirota demanded.

“I don’t know, sir. But he had a gun.”

Hirota crashed down the phone. At one of the consoles he brought up the video of the visitors’ building parking lot. The limousine was gone.

“Mr. Lee is on his way back here,” one of the security technicians said. “But his driver has keyed the emergency beacon.”

It was McGarvey. Somehow Hirota knew there was no other explanation, and he could see everything he had worked for, his entire career, this launch, all of it going up in smoke.

He telephoned his OIC of security downstairs. “McGarvey is on his way here in Mr. Lee’s car. I want you to stop him.”

“Is Mr. Lee with him?” the man asked uncertainly.

“That is not a consideration,” Hirota screamed. “McGarvey must not get within one hundred meters of this building, no matter what it takes! Do I make myself clear, Major!”

“Hai.”

“By now the guards at the visitors’ barracks will have notified security that I’m in trouble,” Lee said. “I should think that we’ll be picking up an escort at any minute.”

McGarvey had run through a short list of possible scenarios in his head: Somehow sabotaging the space center’s power plant, storming the launchpad and parking the car beneath the rocket or forcing his way into the launch center, with Lee at gunpoint, demanding that the launch be postponed, then holing up with Lee while he telephoned Murphy so that pressure could be brought to bear from Washington. But none of those plans were very satisfactory, and they depended upon how important Lee was to the launch. They also depended upon some kind of proof of what the Japanese were up to. Murphy would not move without it.

“They won’t do anything to this car, of course, but they won’t let us get near the launch control center,” Lee continued. “They’ll force us to stop, or to drive around in circles until the launch is over, and then it won’t really matter what you do. In fact, if you don’t shoot me, you’ll probably be allowed to return home.”

“You switched satellites,” McGarvey said. “The one that you’re launching is covered with anechoic tile. We know at least that much. Why?”

“You’re hardly in a position to demand anything from me,” Lee said. “You’re a very long way from home.”

“I came here to get some information. Either I get it from you or I’ll be forced to shoot you and get it from someone else. I think you know that I have the motivation.”

Lee shrugged. “What will you do with this information?”

“Send it back to the CIA, who will in turn inform the White House. It’s the way our system works.”

“All that will take time.”

McGarvey sat with his back against the door, his legs crossed and his gun pointed in Lee’s general direction. He took a moment to light a cigarette, even though time was what he didn’t have. But he had to be certain of what he suspected, and Lee had to believe that he cared more about information than about the launch. “Your satellite will not rendezvous with Freedom. I think I have that much figured out. Either that or it will approach Freedom, but since it’s covered in radar-absorbing tiles, they won’t see it coming. In fact it’ll be undetectable from our ground stations.” McGarvey smiled disparagingly. “Is that it? Are you going to attack the space station?”

“You’re correct about the satellite’s radar invisibility. But it won’t come anywhere near Freedom. Eight minutes after launch, the satellite will develop a problem and it will be destroyed.”

“But it’ll still be up there, in low Earth orbit.”

“Five hundred kilometers.”

“Okay, so you spent what, six years bribing some U.S. senators and congressmen, not to mention the President, into allowing Japan to put up a satellite in such a way that no one would ever question what you were doing. That was a pretty expensive operation, not to mention the actual cost of building a real Freedom module, plus the satellite you guys are putting into orbit tonight. Where’s the profit?”

“The survival of Japan.”

“The North Koreans have nuclear weapons and the Taepo Dong missiles to deliver them to the Japanese mainland. You’ve convinced the world, so now let us deal with it.”

“Like you dealt with India and Pakistan?” Lee shot back. He shook his head. “We can’t depend on the U.S. to defend us any longer. It’s up to us now if we’re going to continue to exist.”

“Is it a laser weapon? Something to shoot down incoming missiles?”

They came around the corner, and the chauffeur suddenly braked. One block away the launch control center building was ringed with the flashing blue lights of a lot of vehicles. The driver said something to Lee.

“Tell him to turn around right now,” McGarvey said. The launch clock on the side of the building read: T-minus 00:17:00.

Lee hesitated a moment but then gave the order, and the driver made a U-turn and headed back the way they had come.

“Is it a laser weapon?” McGarvey asked again.

“We considered that option,” Lee answered. “But you weren’t having much success with your Star Wars program, and we didn’t think it would work for us either.” Everything about Lee’s attitude, posture and bearing just then was supremely confident. “What we needed was a real deterrent. Not only against North Korea, but against India and Pakistan and China, all of them nuclear powers. We’re surrounded.”

“You’re putting nuclear weapons into orbit?” McGarvey asked, incredulously.

“We thought about ground-launched missiles, or perhaps air- or sea-launched rockets, but all those bases and ships and aircraft are subject to attack. A radar-invisible satellite is, for all practical purposes, invulnerable.”

“Once you fire your nuclear weapon on Pyongyang, you’ll be back to square one.”

“Four MIRVed missiles, each with three independently targetable warheads, moving at nearly thirty thousand kilometers per hour. Our enemies will have no defense against us. We’ll be truly safe for the first time in our history.”

“But the satellite won’t be in a geosynchronous orbit. It’ll take ninety minutes to make a complete orbit. Which means at any given moment, targets in North Korea could be an hour or more away.”

Lee nodded sagely. “Thirty-one minutes, actually, when the speed of the missiles’ rockets are taken into account. This is merely the first launch.”

McGarvey glanced out the window. They were on the main road that led from the launch control center to the launchpad. The H2C rocket, liquid oxygen fumes venting from its flanks, stood bathed in lights, poised to fire.

“At any given moment, your missiles would be thirty-one minutes from targets in the United States as well.”

Lee shrugged indifferently. “The U.S. is not our enemy.”

“Yet,” McGarvey said. “Why did you try to eliminate me?”

“Because you are a dangerous man. Everyone knows it.”

“Even the President?”

“He’s not in on this, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“Then why did you come after my family?”

Lee’s lips curled at the edges. “It was a mistake,” he said, arrogantly, obviously lying.

“Yes, it was,” McGarvey said. He raised his pistol a fraction of an inch and fired. The bullet caught Lee in the middle of his forehead. “A very big mistake.”

Hirota was watching the retreating limo on one of the monitors when the OIC called from downstairs.

“He turned around. Do you want us to go after him?”

“Send two units,” Hirota ordered. “Everyone else stays put. Nobody gets close to this building. Nobody.”

“Hai.”

Still watching the monitor, Hirota called down to Kunimatsu. “He might be heading to the launchpad.”

“He won’t get anywhere near it if you keep your security people there until the last minute,” the launch director replied. He sounded harried, but in control.

“I can’t hold my people past T-minus three minutes.”

“It won’t matter after that. He won’t be able to do anything to the rocket. And if he’s close when it lights off he’ll be incinerated.”

“So will Mr. Lee, you fool,” Hirota shouted.

Kunimatsu took a moment to reply. When he did his voice was hard. “The launch cannot be delayed. Our next window won’t be until tomorrow night. Mr. Lee’s life is not a consideration,” Kunimatsu said. “Have I made myself clear?”

Hirota stood up and glanced down at Kunimatsu’s position on the top tier. The launch director turned around and looked up. Their eyes met.

“Hai,” Hirota said.

McGarvey held the barrel of his pistol against the back of the chauffeur’s skull. “If you don’t speak English, we’re both going to be in a lot of trouble.”

They had slowed to a crawl, still two miles from the launchpad. The driver, his face a mask of rage, stared at McGarvey’s reflection in the rearview mirror. He nodded slightly.

“I have no reason to kill you, if you cooperate with me. Do you understand?”

Again the driver nodded.

“Drive to the launchpad.”

“The guards won’t let us pass. And the crash barriers will be down.”

“This is a heavy car, we’ll see what it’ll do.”

“It will get us killed,” the driver said tightly. He’d gotten his rage in check.

McGarvey stole a quick glance out of the rear window. Two vehicles with flashing blue lights had pulled away from the launch control building and were coming their way.

“You’d better speed up now, or I’ll pull the trigger.”

The chauffeur had seen the approaching cars, and he’d been stalling for time. He stepped on the gas and they accelerated.

“How many guards are out there?” McGarvey demanded.

“A squad. Thirteen or fourteen men, plus a sergeant and an officer.”

McGarvey didn’t like the odds. They’d be spread out around the perimeter, especially on the main approach road, but there were too many of them. “How soon before the launch do they pull out?”

“I don’t know.”

McGarvey jabbed him with the pistol.

“They lock the gates at the ten-minute warning and drive back to the security post.”

Ten minutes. It was coming up on that time. The rocket was fully fueled and ready to go right now. It was like a time bomb sitting on the pad. Even if the launch went without an accident, the heat radius would stretch a couple hundred yards; anything within that distance when the main engines lit off would be cooked or suffocated in the intense heat. If something went wrong, if the rocket exploded, the radius could extend a mile or more. The base of a launchpad was a very dangerous place to be.

A green sky rocket rose into the night from near the launchpad.

“What was that?” McGarvey asked.

“The ten-minute warning.” The driver glanced again in the rearview mirror. “You’re too late.”

Ahead there were several vehicles at the launchpad’s main gate. Their blue lights were flashing, and McGarvey could pick out several men standing in the middle of the road.

He looked over his shoulder. The blue lights from the launch control center had gotten much closer. They were boxing him in.

“You can’t stop a rocket with a pistol,” the driver said. He’d slowed down again.

McGarvey sat stock still. Ahead on the right was a low poured concrete building, a gravel parking lot in front. Behind it was a thick jungle of sea oats and tall grasses that led down to the beach. He had run out of options, but Japan, or any nation for that matter, in control of nuclear weapons in space was simply unacceptable, no matter what the personal costs were.

“Stop here and roll down your window,” he said.

The chauffeur did as he was told. As soon as the limo came to a halt, McGarvey opened the rear door and jumped out. The driver looked at him.

McGarvey pointed his gun at the man’s face. “Get out of here,” he ordered. “If you come after me I’ll kill you.”

The driver nodded.

McGarvey waited until the limo made a U-turn and headed back the way it had come, then sprinted across the road. He crossed the gravel parking lot in a dead run, raced around to the back of the building and plunged into the dense grass jungle.

Shinichi Hirota stared in disbelief at the monitor as a dark figure disappeared into the tall grass behind the maintenance vehicle storage building. It was McGarvey.

His excited OIC called from downstairs. “He shot Mr. Lee and he’s on the loose.”

“I have him on the monitor,” Hirota replied, trying to keep some semblance of calmness in his voice. But this was falling apart in front of his eyes.

“The ten-minute warning has passed. What do you want us to do?”

“Escort Mr. Lee’s driver back here and hold your position,” Hirota ordered. He called the squad leader at the pad. “He’s coming your way.”

“We saw him. What do you want us to do?”

Hirota glanced at the launch clock. It was passing T-minus nine minutes. “You have six minutes to find him before you have to pull out of there.”

“Hai.”

The launchpad guards weren’t doing what Lee’s driver said they should. McGarvey watched from the shadows behind a pair of unmarked steel storage tanks seventy-five yards from the base of the rocket. By now they should have locked the gates and headed away from the pad. But they had left their two trucks on the road and had spread out along a line that directly cut him off, their M16 rifles at the ready. If he moved out of the shadows they would spot him.

They knew that he was back here somewhere. They could not stay this close to the rocket until the launch. At some point they would have to pull out. But all they had to do was keep him at bay until it was too late for him to do any harm, or to get out of there himself.

Keeping the steel tanks between himself and the patrol, McGarvey ran back into the tall grasses. Crouching low, he worked his way another fifty yards around the far side of the launch gantry. He could see the top of the rocket from his vantage point, but not its base or any of the installations around it. He couldn’t see the patrol but neither could they see him.

A white sky rocket rose into the night to the west of the gantry. McGarvey checked his watch. It was five minutes before launch.

A sense of desperation welled up inside him. He was a David with a 9-millimeter pistol going up against a Goliath rocket that developed a million pounds of thrust from a main engine and two solid fuel boosters. A peashooter against a bazooka. Impossible. Yet he couldn’t allow himself to think about backing off now. Even if the odds were a million to one against doing any harm to the rocket engines or the satellite, he had to take that chance. There was no other way for him.

He popped up for an instant, then dropped back down. The launchpad was empty, the guards were gone. He got an impression of a low, bunkerlike structure, its steel door open, to the right, just off the pad. But there’d been no movement.

He checked the action on his pistol and made sure he still had the spare magazine of ammunition, then unscrewed the silencer and put it in his pocket. Switching the safety off, he ran in a low crouch directly toward the rocket, stopping every few yards to look up and check for the guards. But they were nowhere in sight.

The grass abruptly ended twenty yards from the bunker, and McGarvey held up just within its protection. The launchpad was empty. By leaning forward he could see the main gate. The two trucks were gone, and the steel barrier was down, blocking the access road.

A red sky rocket whistled into the sky, followed immediately by a klaxon. T-minus ninety seconds.

“There he is,” a technician at one of the monitors shouted.

Hirota spun around in time to see a man racing directly for the base of the rocket, his right hand up. He had a gun and he was shooting at the rocket. Hirota couldn’t believe it. He snatched the telephone and got the launch director’s direct line.

“He’s on the pad! He’s firing at the rocket!”

The countdown clock was approaching sixty seconds.

“Stand by,” Kunimatsu’s maddeningly calm voice came back.

“Don’t you understand, you idiot? Stop the launch!”

“We’re showing only a slight fluctuation in lox pressure in number two tank,” Kunimatsu shouted Hirota down. “The launch goes as scheduled.”

“No!”

The line went dead.

McGarvey ejected his spent magazine and rammed the spare one in the grip as he continued running directly toward the base of the launch gantry. But it wasn’t doing any good. He wasn’t doing any real damage to the giant rocket.

He fired three more shots, when something very hard slammed into his left shoulder, spinning him around and knocking him to his knees.

One of the guards had been left behind. He stood at the corner of the bunker, firing his M16 rifle, but he was taking too much time with each shot, trying to hit McGarvey and not the rocket. It was a mistake.

McGarvey fired two shots from a kneeling position. The first one missed, but the second took the guard in the chest, knocking him backward off his feet.

McGarvey jumped up, waves of dizziness and nausea coursing through his body. He stumbled back to the downed guard who was already starting to recover. The man was wearing a bullet-proof vest and had merely been stunned.

McGarvey pocketed his pistol and snatched the rifle out of the guard’s hands. Using it like a club he tapped the butt into the guard’s forehead, and the man fell back, unconscious.

His left arm nearly useless, McGarvey turned, raised the weapon awkwardly, and began firing at the rocket. His shots stiched up from the base toward the nose cone, having the same lack of effect his pistol had.

He stopped a moment, something coming to the back of his head. Challenger. The shuttle had been brought down because a simple seal in one of the solid fuel boosters had leaked.

A rush of water suddenly entered the trough beneath the pad. The rocket motors lit off at the same moment McGarvey fired the last of the M16’s rounds into one of the solid fuel booster rockets. All of a sudden a spurt of flame shot from the side of the booster, growing almost instantaneously into a huge bloom of exploding gasses.

McGarvey grabbed the downed guard by the collar and dragged him around the corner of the bunker and through the open steel door, while all around him the night came alive with flames, the heat rising so fast it sucked the oxygen out of the air, making all rational thought impossible.

Hirota picked up the phone again and was about to call the launch director with a last-minute plea to stop the launch, when his mouth dropped open. The entire base of the rocket was suddenly engulfed in flame, blotting out everything on the pad, including Kirk McGarvey and the downed guard. They had lost.

He carefully replaced the phone on its hook, turned and without a backward glance left the security operations center, his future up in flames, as pandemonium broke out all around him.

Margaret Attwood had been in the middle of explaining her plight to Judith Rawlins when the rocket exploded on the pad. Both women turned toward the glowing ball of flames.

Fifteen seconds later the deep-throated boom of a very large explosion reached them, and Maggie’s first thought was for Kirk McGarvey, who was out there, and she shook her head in wonder.

The lights were on in the emergency bunker. The guard, huddled in a corner, watched as McGarvey hurriedly pulled on a silver fire-retardant suit. He was having a great deal of difficulty with the task because of his shoulder wound and the burns on his back where his jacket was scorched. But it would only be a matter of minutes before the first squads reached the pad.

“Do you understand English?” McGarvey asked.

The guard nodded hesitantly. “Hai.”

“If you come after me, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

“Hai.” The guard’s entire body was trembling. Not only had he failed in his assignment, but the man he’d been left behind to kill had saved his life.

McGarvey pulled on the gloves, picked up the M16 and donned the helmet. The air inside the suit would have to last until he got clear, because he was in no condition to carry the extra weight of the bulky oxygen bottle.

He went to the door, took off one of his gloves and touched the steel. It was too hot to touch, but there was no other way out. Putting the glove back on, he drew back the latches, girded himself, then yanked open the door and stepped outside into an inferno, slamming the door behind him.

The launchpad was on fire. Puddles of fuel and flaming wreckage lay everywhere. Visibility was near zero.

McGarvey took a couple of steps away from the bunker, then stumbled and fell to one knee, dropping the rifle. The heat inside his suit was already almost impossible to bear. It was hard to think, to make himself get back up on his feet and move.

He had come this far, goddammit. He wasn’t going to stay here and die in the fire or return to the bunker where the Japanese authorities would take him.

He struck out blindly away from the core of the fire, not sure if he was heading in the right direction away from the flames, or what he was going to do if he made it to the beach.

Minutes or hours later, he stumbled and fell again, but this time he found himself in a wide patch of already burned grass. He looked over his shoulder. All the flames were behind him now. They shot up into the night sky, the core as bright as a welding torch, making his eyes water.

He got up again, and as he ran away, he pulled off his helmet and tossed it aside, drinking in the relatively cool air. He pulled off his gloves, dropping them by the wayside, and finally at the edge of the grass, just above the beach, he struggled out of the still smoldering fire suit, the outside of which was so hot it was impossible to touch.

He could hear a lot of sirens that sounded like air raid warnings wailing over the noise of the solid fuel in the boosters still cooking off.

Somewhere along the beach he would have to find a boat; it was the only way off the island for him. The manhunt would start the instant they found out he had not been killed in the explosion. He had the sinking sensation that he had forgotten something vital. Then he had it. There would have been a phone in the emergency bunker. He should have taken the time to destroy it, because by now the guard would have told his superiors what had happened.

He stumbled down to the beach, and headed to the right — the south, he thought — when several dark figures rose up from the ocean, pulling something behind them.

McGarvey stopped, his heart sinking. He fumbled for his pistol, but it was hard for him to make his burned hands work, or to remember if he had used all of his ammunition.

Two of the dark-clad figures rushed up the beach to him, and he raised his wounded left arm to ward off the blow. A wave of intense bitterness passed through him. He had come this far. All he wanted was one final piece of luck.

One of the figures pulled off a diving mask. “Mr. McGarvey?” he shouted. In English.

“What?” McGarvey tried to back away.

“Are you Kirk McGarvey?” the man insisted. The others had taken up what appeared to be a defensive position.

McGarvey managed to nod. “I’m McGarvey.”

“Thank God we found you, sir. I’m Ensign Demaris, sir. Navy SEALS, aboard the Seawolf. Admiral Rencke asked us to stop by and give you a lift.”

McGarvey looked at him. “Rencke?”

“Yes, sir.”

McGarvey could only smile, as they hustled him down the beach to the waiting rubber raft. “Rencke,” he said again. “Good man.”