Clive Cussler - Black Wind

“Sometimes, I can just be brutally efficient,” she replied, throwing her nose in the air.

“What's the connection?” Dirk asked, still confused. “Your father and Al traced a toxic arsenic leak to an old cargo ship that apparently sank on a coral reef near Mindanao during World War Two. The arsenic was leaking from a shipment of artillery shells carried in the ship's hold,” Yaeger explained.

“One-hundred-five-millimeter shells, to be precise,” Max added. “Ammunition for a common artillery gun used by the Japanese Imperial Army. Only the contents weren't arsenic, per se.” “What did you find?” Yaeger asked.

"The actual contents were a mixture of sulfur mustard and lewisite. A popular chemical munitions concentrate from the thirties, it acts as a fatal blistering agent when released as a gas. Lewisite is an arsenic derivative, which accounts for the toxic readings found in the Philippines. The Japanese produced thousands of mustard lewisite shells in Manchuria, some of which were deployed against the Chinese. Some of these old buried chemical munitions are still being dug up today.

“Was the Japanese Navy connected with the deployment of these weapons?” Dirk asked.

“The Japanese Imperial Navy was actively involved with chemical weapons production at its Sagami Naval Yard, and was believed to have had four additional storage arsenals at Kure, Yokosuka, Hiroshima, and Sasebo. But the Navy possessed only a fraction of the estimated 1.7 million chemical bombs and shells produced during the war, and no records indicate they were ever used in any naval engagements. The biological weapons research was funded through the Imperial Army and, as I mentioned, centered in occupied China. A primary conduit for the research activity was the Army Medical School in Tokyo. It is unknown whether the Navy had any involvement through the medical school, as the college was destroyed by wartime bombing in 1945.”

“So no wartime records exist that show chemical or biological weapons were ever assigned onboard Navy vessels?”

“None that were publicly released,” Max said, shaking her holographic head. “The bulk of the captured Japanese wartime records, including those of the Navy Ministry, were consigned to the National Archives. As a gesture of goodwill, most of the documents were later returned to the Japanese government. Only a fraction of the records were copied, however, and even a smaller portion have ever been translated.”

“Max, I'd like to explore the Naval Ministry records for information on the mission of a particular Japanese submarine, the I-403. Can you determine whether these records might still exist?”

“I'm sorry, Dirk, but I don't have access to that portion of the National Archives' data records.”

Dirk turned to Yaeger with an arched brow and gave him a long, knowing look.

“The National Archives, eh? Well, that should be a lot less dangerous than tapping into Langley,” Yaeger acceded with a shrug.

“That's the old Silicon Valley hacker I know and love,” Dirk replied with a laugh.

“Give me a couple of hours and I'll see what I can do.”

“Max,” Dirk said, looking at the transparent woman in the eye, thank you for the information."

“My pleasure, Dirk,” she replied seductively. “I'm happy to be at your service any time.”

Then, in an instant, she vanished. Yaeger already had his nose against a computer monitor, fingers flying over a keyboard, completely engrossed in his subversive mission at hand.

At promptly ten o'clock, Dirk entered a plush executive conference room, still carrying the large duffel bag over his shoulder. Thick azure carpet under his feet complemented the dark cherrywood conference table and matching wood paneling on the walls, which were dotted with ancient oil paintings of American Revolutionary warships. A thick pane of glass stretched the length of one wall, offering a bird's-eye view of the Potomac River and the Washington Mall across the water. Seated at the table, two stone-faced men in dark suits listened attentively as a diminutive man in horn-rimmed glasses discussed the Deep Endeavor's recent events in the Aleutian Islands. Rudi Gunn stopped in mid-sentence and popped to his feet as Dirk entered the room.

“Dirk, good of you to return to Washington so quickly,” he greeted warmly, his bright blue eyes beaming through the thick pair of eyeglasses. “Glad to see your ferry landing injuries were minor,” he added, eyeing Dirk's swollen lip and bandaged cheek.

“My companion broke her leg, but I managed to escape with just a fat lip. We fared a little better than the other guys,” he said with a smirk, “whoever they were. It's good to see you again, Rudi,” he added, shaking the hand of NUMA's longtime assistant director.

Gunn escorted him over and introduced him to the other two men.

“Dirk, this is Jim Webster, Department of Homeland Security special assistant, Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection,” he said, waving a hand toward a pale-skinned man with cropped blond hair, "and Rob Jost, assistant director of Maritime and Land Security)

Transportation Security Administration, under DHS.“ A rotund, bearish-looking man with a flush red nose nodded at Dirk without smiling ”We were discussing Captain Burch's report of your rescue of the CDC team on Yunaska Island," Gunn continued.

“A fortunate thing we happened to be in the area. I'm just sorry we weren't able to reach the two Coast Guardsmen in time.”

“Given the apparently high levels of toxins that were released near the station, they really didn't have much of a chance from the beginning,” Webster said.

“You confirmed that they died from cyanide poisoning?” Dirk asked.

“Yes. How did you know? That information hasn't been made public.”

“We recovered a dead sea lion from the island, which a CDC team in Seattle examined after we returned. They found that it had been killed by cyanide inhalation.”

“That is consistent with the autopsy reports for the two Coast Guardsmen.”

“Have you uncovered any information on the boat that fired at us, and presumably released the cyanide?”

After an uncomfortable pause, Webster replied, “No additional information has been obtained. Unfortunately, the description provided matches a thousand other fishing boats of its kind. It is not believed to have been a local vessel, and we are now working with the Japanese authorities to investigate leads in their country.”

“So you believe there is a Japanese connection. Any ideas on why someone would launch a chemical attack on a remote weather station in the Aleutians?”

“Mr. Pitt,” Jost interrupted, “did you know the men who tried to kill you in Seattle?”

“Never saw them before. They appeared to be semiprofessionals, more than just a pair of hired street hoods.”

Webster opened a file on the table before him and slid over a crinkled photograph in the form of a small postcard. Dirk silently looked at the black-and-white image of a hardened Japanese woman of fifty glaring violently into the camera lens.

“An homage card of Fusako Shigenobu, former revolutionary leader of the JRA,” Webster continued. “Found it in the wallet of one of your would-be assassins after we fished them out of the sound.”

“What's the JRA?” Dirk asked.

“The Japanese Red Army. An international terrorist cell that dates to the seventies. Believed to have been broken up with the arrest of Shigenobu in 2000, they appear to have staged a deadly resurgence in activity.”

“I've read that the prolonged weakness in Japan's economy has spawned renewed interest in fringe cults by the Japanese youth,” Gunn added.

“The JRA has attracted more than a few bored youths. They have claimed responsibility for the assassinations of our ambassador to Japan and deputy chief of mission, as well as the explosion at the SemCon plant in Chiba. These were all very professional hits. The public outrage, as you are no doubt aware, is straining our relations with Tokyo.”