Clive Cussler - Dragon

Showalter exhaled a great breath and sank in the water up to his chin. “Jesus, you gave me a scare. For all I knew you had penetrated the security rings and were about to dispatch Orita and me.”

“That saki looks good. Any left?”

Orita poured him a cup. “There’s a whole case of it in the kitchen.” Then suddenly a surprised expression swept his face. “What was that you just said?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Hideki Suma.”

“My half of the operation. I traced ownership of the Murmoto Automotive and Aircraft Corporation and the Sushimo Steamship Company through a string of phony business fronts to Hideki Suma, the recluse tycoon. Murmoto and Sushimo are only a drop in the bucket. This guy has more assets than the entire State of California, with Nevada and Arizona thrown in.”

“Didn’t the ship that blew up, the Divine Star , belong to Sushimo Steamship?” asked Showalter.

“Yes indeed. A neat package, wouldn’t you say? It looks to me like Hideki Suma is up to his ears in this mess.”

“Suma is a very powerful man,” said Showalter. “He prospers in strange and devious ways. They say that if he commands Prime Minister Junshiro and his cabinet ministers to flap their arms and fly, they’d fight over who jumps out the window first.”

“You actually got in to see Suma?” Orita asked in amazement.

“Nothing to it. You should see his office and secretary. Both very choice.”

“Why the disguise?”

“Team Lincoln’s idea. Suma collects paintings by a sixteenth century Japanese artist named Masaki Shimzu. Jordan hired an expert forger to paint what is called in art circles an undiscovered Shimzu, one it was known Suma didn’t have in his collection. Then, as the reputable finder of lost art, Ashikaga Enshu, I sold it to him.”

Showalter nodded. “Clever, clever. You must have studied your Japanese art.”

“A crash course.” Hanamura laughed. “Suma elaborated on how Shimzu painted islands from a balloon. He’d have ordered me drawn and quartered if he knew he was laying out a hundred and forty-five million yen for a fake painted from a satellite photo.”

“For what purpose?” asked Orita, his face oddly taut.

“To plant bugs in his office, naturally.”

“How come I wasn’t in on this?”

“I thought it best you two didn’t know what the other was doing,” Showalter answered Orita, “so you couldn’t reveal anything of importance if either of you were compromised.”

“Where did you set the bugs?” Orita asked Hanamura.

“Two in the frame of the painting. One in an easel he’s standing in front of a window, and another inside the draw handle for the blinds. The latter two are in perfect alignment with a relay transmitter I placed in a tree outside the atrium dome of the city.”

“What if Suma has hidden sweep equipment?”

“I ‘borrowed’ the electrical blueprints to his floor of the building. His detection equipment is first rate, but it won’t pick up our bugs. And when I say bugs, I’m talking in the literal sense.”

Orita missed Hanamura’s implication. “You lost me.”

“Our miniature receiving and sending units are not designed with the look of tiny electronic objects. They’re molded to look like ants. If discovered, they’ll either be ignored or simply mashed without suspicion.”

Showalter nodded. “That’s pretty slick.”

“Even our Japanese brothers have to take a back seat to our home-grown eavesdropping technology.” Hanamura smiled widely. “The relay transmitter, which is about the size of a golf ball, sends all conversations, including telephone or intercom calls from the office bugs, to one of our satellites, and then beams them down to Mel Penner and his Team Chrysler on Palau.”

Orita stared into the water. “Do we know for certain if they’re picking up Suma’s conversations?”

“The system is fully operational,” Showalter assured him. “I contacted Penner before I left for our meeting. He’s receiving the signals loud and clear. And so are we. A member of my team at the embassy is also tuned in on Jim’s listening gear.”

“You’ll alert us, I hope, if any information comes through that we can use in the investigation.”

“Absolutely.” Showalter poured himself another saki. “As a matter of interest, there was an intriguing conversation going on between Suma and Korori Yoshishu when I left the embassy. Too bad I only caught the first couple of minutes of it.”

“Yoshishu,” muttered Hanamura. “Good lord, is that old crook still alive?”

“Ninety-one and rotten as ever,” answered Showalter.

Hanamura shook his head. “The master criminal of the age, personally responsible for more than a million deaths. If Yoshishu is behind Suma and a worldwide organization of hidden nuclear warheads, we’re all in deep, deep trouble.”

An hour before dawn a Murmoto limousine pulled to a stop and a figure stepped from the shadows and quickly ducked through the opened door. Then the car crawled slowly through the narrow back streets of Asakusa.

“Mr. Suma’s office is bugged,” said Orita. “One of our agents posing as an art dealer hid sophisticated listening devices in the frame of a painting, an easel, and the draw pull of the window blinds.”

“Are you certain?” demanded a stunned Kamatori. “The dealer produced an original Shimzu.”

“A fake painted from a satellite photo.”

Kamatori hissed. “You should have informed me sooner.”

“I only learned of it a few hours ago.”

Kamatori said nothing but stared at Orita’s face in the semi darkness of the limousine as if reinforcing his trust.

Like George Furukawa, Roy Orita was an intelligence sleeper, born in the United States of Japanese parents and groomed for employment in the CIA.

Finally Kamatori said, “Much was said this afternoon that could prove damaging to Mr. Suma. There can be no mistake about this?”

“Did the dealer say his name was Ashikaga Enshu?”

Kamatori felt shock mingled with shame. His job was to protect Suma’s organization from penetration. He had failed miserably and lost much face.

“Yes, Enshu.”

“His real name is James Hanamura. The other half of my team whose job is to investigate the source of the nuclear car bombs.”

“Who fathomed the tie between the cars and the warheads?”

“An amateur by the name of Dirk Pitt. He was borrowed from the National Underwater and Marine Agency.”

“Is he dangerous to us?”

“He might cause trouble. I can’t say for sure. He’s not assigned to the investigative operations. But he does have an awesome reputation for successfully carrying through impossible projects.”

Kamatori sat back and idly stared out the window at the darkened buildings. At last he turned to Orita.

“Can you give me a list of names of the agents you’re working with and provide updates on their activities?”

Orita nodded. “The list of names, yes. The activities, no way. We all work separately. Like a magical act, no one knows what the other hand is doing.”

“Keep me informed as best you can.”

“What do you intend to do about Pitt?”

Kamatori looked at Orita with venom in his cold eyes. “If a safe opportunity arises, kill him.”

29

GUIDED BY LOREN SMITH on one side and Al Giordino on the other, Pitt backed the Stutz town car down the ramps of a trailer and parked it between a red 1926 Hispano-Suiza, a big cabriolet manufactured in France, and a beautiful 1931 Marmon V-16 town car. He cocked an ear and listened to the engine a minute, revving the rpm’s, satisfying himself it was turning over smoothly without a miss. Then he switched off the ignition.