Clive Cussler - Dragon

“Maybe someday…” Her voice died softly.

“Someday,” he said in understanding.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

61

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What… what was it you said?”

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

“That long?”

“It is not a quick and simple procedure.”

“What is the status of the robotic drivers?”

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

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

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

“Yes, Korori, Ichiro here.”

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

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

“It could be a bluff by the Americans.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Only too well,” agreed Tsuboi.

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

“I won’t fail your trust.”

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

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

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

“Yes, yes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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