Clive Cussler - Dragon

He ushered them into a lab and pointed out a large open vat of crude oil. “You can’t see them, but eating away at the oil are second-generation genetically engineered microbes that actually digest the petroleum and multiply, launching a chain reaction and destroying the oil molecules. The residue can then be dissolved by water.”

“That could prove a boon for the cleanup of oil spills,” commented Diaz.

“One useful purpose,” said Suma. “Another is to deplete a hostile country’s oil reserves.”

Loren looked at him in disbelief. “Why cause such chaos? For what gain?”

“In time, Japan will be almost totally independent of oil. Our total generating power will be nuclear. Our new technology in fuel cells and solar energy will soon be incorporated in our automobiles, replacing the gasoline engine. Deplete the world’s reserves with our oil-eating microbes, and eventually all international transportation—automobiles, trucks, and aircraft—grinds to a halt.”

“Unless replaced by Japanese products,” Diaz stated coldly.

“A lifetime,” Loren said, becoming skeptical. “It would take a lifetime to dry up the billion-gallon oil reserve stored in our underground salt mines.”

Suma smiled patiently. “The microbes could totally deplete United States strategic oil reserves in less than nine months.”

Loren shook her head, unable to absorb the horrible consequences of all she’d been exposed to in the past few hours. She could not conceive of one man causing such a chaotic upheaval. She also could not accept the awful possibility that Pitt might already be dead.

“Why are you showing us all this?” she asked in a whisper. “Why aren’t you keeping it a secret?”

“So you can tell your President and fellow congressmen that the United States and Japan are no longer on equal terms. We now have an unbeatable lead, and your government must accept our demands accordingly.” Suma paused and stared at her. “As to generously giving away secrets, you and Senator Diaz are not scientists or engineers. You can only describe what you’ve seen in vague layman terms. I have shown you no scientific data but merely an overall view of my projects. You will take home nothing that can prove useful in copying our technical superiority.”

“When will you allow Congresswoman Smith and I to leave for Washington?” asked Diaz.

Suma looked at his watch. “Very soon. As a matter of fact, you will be airlifted to my private airfield at Edo City within the hour. From there, one of my executive jets will fly you home.”

“Once the President hears of your madness,” Diaz snapped, “he’ll order the military to blow this place to dust.”

Suma gave vent to a confident sigh and smiled. “He’s too late. My engineers and robotic workers are ahead of schedule. You did not know, could not have known, the Kaiten Project was completed a few minutes after we began the tour.”

“It’s operational?” Loren spoke in a shocked whisper.

Suma nodded. “Should your President be foolish enough to launch an attack on the Dragon Center, my detection systems will alert me in ample time to signal the robots to deploy and detonate the bomb cars.” He hesitated only long enough to flash a hideous grin. “As Buson, a Japanese poet, once wrote, ‘With his hat blown off/the stiff-necked scarecrow/stands there quite discomfited.’

“The President is the scarecrow, and he stands stymied because his time is gone.”

54

LIVELY, BUT NOT HURRIEDLY, Pitt led them into the building of the retreat that housed the elevator. He walked in the open while the others dodged from cover to cover behind him. He met no humans but was halted by a robotic security guard at the elevator entrance.

This one was programmed to speak only in Japanese, but Pitt had no trouble in deciphering the menacing tone and the weapon pointing at his forehead. He raised his hands in front of him with the palms facing forward and slowly moved closer, shielding the others from its video receiver and detection sensors.

Weatherhill and Mancuso stealthily closed in from the flanks and jabbed their statically charged hoses against the box containing the integrated circuits. The armed robot froze as if in suspended animation.

“Most efficient,” Weatherhill observed, recharging his length of hose by rubbing it vigorously against the silk.

“Think he tipped off his supervisory control?” Stacy wondered.

“Probably not,” Pitt replied. “His sensory capability was slow in deciding whether I was a threat or simply an unprogrammed member of the project.”

Once inside the deserted elevator, Weatherhill opted for the fourth level. “Six opens onto the main floor of the control center,” he recalled. “Better to take our chances and exit on a lower level.”

“The hospital and service units are on four,” Pitt briefed him.

“What about security?”

“I saw no sign of guards or video monitors.”

“Suma’s outside defenses are so tight he doesn’t have to concern himself with interior security,” said Stacy.

Weatherhill agreed. “A rogue robot is the least of his problems.”

They tensed as the elevator arrived and the doors slid open. Fortunately it was empty. They entered, but Pitt hung back, head tilted as if listening to a distant sound. Then he was inside, pressing the button for the fourth level. A few seconds later they stepped out into a vacant corridor.

They moved quickly, silently, following Pitt. He stopped outside the hospital and paused at the door.

“Why are you stopping here?” Weatherhill asked softly.

“We’ll never find our way around this complex without a map or a guide,” Pitt murmured. “Follow me inside.” He pushed the door button and kicked it back against its stops.

Startled, the nurse-receptionist looked up in surprise at seeing Pitt burst through the doorway. She was not the same nurse who aided Dr. Nogami during Pitt’s earlier visit. This one was as ugly and ruggedly constructed as a road grader. Even as she recovered, her arm snapped out toward an alarm button on an intercom communications unit. Her finger was a centimeter away when Pitt’s flattened palm struck her violently on the chin, catapulting her in a backward somersault onto the floor unconscious.

Dr. Nogami heard the commotion and rushed from his office, stopping abruptly and staring at Pitt and the MAIT team as they flooded through the door before pushing it closed. Oddly, the expression on his face was one of curious amusement rather than shock.

“Sorry for intruding, Doc, Pitt said, “but we need directions.”

Nogami gazed down at his nurse who was lying on the floor out cold. “You certainly have a way with women.”

“She was about to set off an alarm,” Pitt said apologetically.

“Lucky you caught her by surprise. Nurse Oba knows karate like I know medicine.” Only then did Nogami take a few seconds to study the motley group of people standing around the prostrate nurse. He shook his head almost sadly. “So you’re the finest MAIT team the U.S. can field. You sure don’t look it. Where in hell did Ray Jordan dig you people up?”

Giordino was the only one who didn’t stare back at the doctor in mute surprise. He looked up at Pitt. “Do you know something we don’t?”

“May I introduce Dr. Josh Nogami, the British deep cover operative who’s been supplying the lion’s share of information on Suma and his operation.”

“You figured it out,” said Nogami.

Pitt made a modest hands-out gesture. “Your clues made it elementary. There is no St. Paul’s Hospital in Santa Ana, California. But there is a Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London.”

“You don’t sound British,” said Stacy.