Dragon dp-10 Page 13

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Part 2

  The Kaiten Menace

  18

  October 6, 1993

  Tokyo, Japan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “But nothing from the Americans.”

  “Only sketchy reports in their news media.”

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

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

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

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

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

  “What about space surveillance?”

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

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

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

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

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

  “Yes?”

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

  “Any others?”

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

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

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

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

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

  Kamatori bowed in acknowledgment and reached for phone.

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

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

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

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

  19

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

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

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

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

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

  “I have a dental appointment.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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