The shock and the pain were slowly replaced with numbness and the haze that was seeping into his mind. The embassy was a hundred and sixty kilometers away in the heart of Tokyo. He’d never make it through the multitude of busy streets without being stopped by a policeman, curious about the bullet-riddled truck, or by Suma’s network of armed forces, who would block every major road leading into the city. Briefly he considered making for the safety of the MAIT team’s inn, but Asakusa was on the northeast of Tokyo, opposite Edo City on the west.
He looked up through the shattered windshield at the rainy sky. The low clouds would hinder an air hunt by helicopter. That was a help. Relying on the rugged Murmoto’s four-wheel traction, Hanamura decided to drive cross-country and travel the back roads before abandoning the pickup and hopefully stealing a car.
Hanamura drove on through the rain, detouring around streams and rice paddies, always headed toward the lights of the city, glowing dimly against the overcast sky. The closer he came to the metropolitan mainstream, the more densely populated it became. The open country ended almost immediately, and the small back roads soon widened into busy highways and expressways.
The Murmoto was faltering too. The radiator was damaged from the collision with the barrier, and steam hissed from under the hood in growing wisps of white. He glanced at the instrument panel. The heat gauge needle was quivering into the red. It was time to find another car.
Then he blacked out from the loss of blood and slumped across the wheel.
The Murmoto drifted off the road and sideswiped several parked cars before crashing through the thin wooden wall of a house. The jolt brought him back to consciousness, and he stared dazedly around a small courtyard the Murmoto had demolished. He was thankful the inhabitants of the house were away and he’d missed any furnished rooms.
The one headlight still threw a beam, illuminating a gate in back of the courtyard. Hanamura stumbled through it into an alley behind the house as the shouting of startled neighbors erupted behind him. Ten minutes later, after staggering across a small park, he dropped in exhaustion and hid in a muddy ditch.
He lay there listening to the sirens screaming toward his wrecked pickup truck. Once, after he felt strong enough, he began to move deeper into one of Tokyo’s secluded neighborhoods, but a security vehicle drove slowly up and down the road beaming searchlights into the park and surrounding narrow streets. It was then he lost consciousness again.
When the wet cold woke him, he fully realized he was too weak to steal a car and go on. Slowly, stiffly, and clenching his teeth against the pain that returned in agonizing waves, he swayed across the road and approached the man working on the engine of his truck.
“Can you please help me?” Hanamura begged feebly.
The man turned around and stared dumbly at the injured stranger weaving before him. “You’re hurt,” he said. “You’re bleeding.”
“I was in an accident up the street and need help.”
The man put his arm around Hanamura’s waist. “Let me get you in the house, my wife can aid you while I call an ambulance.”
Hanamura shook him off. “Never mind that, I’ll be all right.”
“Then you should go directly to a hospital,” the man said sincerely. “I will drive you.”
“No, please,” Hanamura evaded. “But I’d be most grateful if you will deliver a packet for me to the American embassy. It’s quite urgent. I’m a courier and was on my way from Edo City when my car skidded and ran off the road.”
The owner of the delivery truck stood uncomprehending as Hanamura scribbled something in English on the back flap of the envelope and handed it to him. “You want me to take this to the American embassy instead of taking you to the hospital?”
“Yes, I must return to the scene of my accident. The police will see to an ambulance.”
None of it made any sense to the delivery truck driver, but he accepted the request without argument. “Who do I ask for at the embassy?”
“A Mr. Showalter.” Hanamura reached in his pocket and pulled out his wallet and handed the driver a large wad of yen notes. “For any inconvenience. Do you know where to go?”
The driver’s face lit up at his unexpected windfall. “Yes, the embassy is near the junction of number three and four expressways.”
“How soon can you leave?”
“I have just finished rebuilding the truck’s distributor. I can leave in a few minutes.”
“Good.” Hanamura bowed. “Thank you very much. Tell Mr. Showalter that he is to double what I paid you upon receiving the envelope.” Then Hanamura turned and walked shakily into the rain and the black of the night.
He could have ridden with the truck driver to the embassy, but he dared not risk passing out or even dying. In either event the driver might have panicked and driven to the nearest hospital or hailed a policeman. Then the precious drawings would have probably been confiscated and returned to Suma’s headquarters. Better that he trust in luck and the delivery truck driver’s honor while he led the manhunt in another direction.
Hanamura, on little more than guts and willpower, hiked nearly a kilometer before an armored vehicle rolled out of the darkness inside the park, swung onto the street, and sped after him. Too exhausted to run, he sank to his knees beside a parked car and groped in his coat for a dispatch pill. His fingers had just closed around the poison capsule when the armored car with military markings and red lights flashing stopped with its headlights painting Hanamura’s shadow on the wall of a warehouse a few meters beyond.
A silhouetted figure stepped from the car and approached. Incongruously, he was wearing an odd-looking leather overcoat cut like a kimono and carrying a samurai katana sword whose polished blade glinted under lights. When he stepped around so his face was visible from the headlight beams, he looked down at Hanamura and spoke in a smug voice.
“Well, well, the famous art sleuth, Ashikaga Enshu. I hardly recognized you without your wig and false beard.”
Hanamura looked up into the rattlesnake face of Moro Kamatori. “Well, well, he echoed. “If it isn’t Hideki Suma’s waterboy.”
“Water boy’?”
“Stooge, you know, ass kisser, brown nose.”
Kamatori’s face went livid and his gleaming teeth bared in anger. “What did you find in Edo?” he demanded.
Hanamura didn’t give Kamatori the benefit of an answer. He was breathing quickly, his lips in a hard grin. Suddenly he popped the dispatch pill in his mouth and bit down on it with his molars to eject the fluid. The poison was instantly absorbed in the gum line through the tissue. In thirty seconds his heart would freeze and he’d be dead.
“Goodbye, sucker,” he muttered.
Kamatori had only a moment to act, but he raised the sword, gripping the long hilt with both hands, and cut a wide arc with every ounce of his strength. The shock of disbelief flashed in Hanamura’s eyes a brief instant before it was replaced with the glaze of death.
Kamatori had the final satisfaction of seeing his sword win the race with the poison as the blade sliced Hanamura’s head from his shoulders as cleanly as a guillotine.
34
THE FERTILIZER-BROWN MURMOTOS were parked in a loose line behind the ramp leading up to the cavernlike interior of the big semitrailer. George Furukawa was greatly relieved these four cars were the last shipment. The release documents he’d found as usual under the front seat of his sports car included a short memo notifying him that his part of the project was finished.
He also received new instructions to examine the cars for homing devices. No explanation was given, but he concluded that Hideki Suma had become belatedly worried his last shipment might be followed by some unspecified group. The thought that they might be federal investigators made Furukawa extremely uneasy. He walked quickly around each car while studying the digital readout of an electronic unit that detected transmitted radio signals.
Satisfied the sport sedans with their ugly brown paint schemes were clean, he gestured to
the truck driver and his helper. They bowed slightly without an acknowledging word and took turns driving the cars up the ramps into the trailer.
Furukawa turned and walked toward his car, happy to be rid of an assignment he felt was beneath his position as vice president of Samuel J. Vincent Laboratories. The handsome fee Suma had already paid him for his effort and loyalty would be wisely invested in Japanese corporations that were opening offices in California.
He drove to the gate and handed the guard copies of the release documents. Then he aimed the sloped nose of his Murmoto sports car into the busy truck traffic around the dock terminal and drove toward his office. There was no curiosity this time, no looking back. His interest in the auto transport’s secret destination had died.
Stacy zipped up her windbreaker, snapping it tight across her throat. The side door of the helicopter had been removed, and the cool air from the ocean whistled inside the control cabin. Her long blond hair whipped in front of her face, and she tied it back with a short leather band. A video camera sat in her lap, and she lifted it and set the controls. Then she turned sideways as far as her seat belt would allow and focused the telephoto lens on the tail of the Murmoto sports car exiting the dock area.
“You get the license number?” asked the blond-haired pilot as he held the copter on a level course.
“Yes, a good sharp shot. Thank you.”
“I can come in a little closer if you like.”
“Stay well clear,” ordered Stacy, speaking into her headset microphone while peering through the eyepiece. She released the trigger and laid the compact camera in her lap again. “They must be alerted to the fact somebody’s onto them, or they wouldn’t have swept the cars for homing devices.”
“Lucky for old Weatherhill he wasn’t transmitting.”
Bill McCurry made Stacy cold just looking at him. He only wore cutoff denim shorts, a T-shirt advertising a Mexican beer, and sandals on his feet. When they were introduced earlier that same morning, Stacy saw him more as a lifeguard than as one of the National Security Agency’s top investigators.
Long sun-bleached hair, skin dark-tanned by the Southern California sun, and his light blue eyes wide open behind red plastic rimmed sunglasses, McCurry’s mind was half on tailing the auto transport truck and half on a volleyball game he’d promised to play later that evening on the beach at Marina del Rey.
“The truck is turning onto the Harbor Freeway,” said Stacy. “Drop back out of the driver’s sight and we’ll follow on Timothy’s beam.”
“We should have better backup,” McCurry said seriously. “With no team following in vehicles on the ground, and no copter to replace us in case we have engine problems, we could lose the chase and endanger Weatherhill.”
Stacy shook her head. “Timothy knows the score. You don’t. Take my word for it, we can’t risk using ground vehicles or a flight of helicopters milling about. Those guys in the truck have been alerted and are watching for a surveillance operation.”
Suddenly Weatherhill’s Texas drawl came through their earphones. “You up there, Buick Team?”
“We read you, Tim,” answered McCurry.
“Safe to transmit?”
“The bad guys did a bug sweep,” replied Stacy, “but you’re okay to send.”
“Do you have visual contact?”
“Temporarily, but we’re dropping a few kilometers back so we won’t be spotted from the driver’s cab.”
“Understood.”
“Don’t forget to keep transmitting on the fixed frequency.”
“Yes, mamma,” said Weatherhill jovially. “I’m leaving this sweat box now and going to work.”
“Keep in touch.”
“Will do. I wouldn’t think of running out on you.”
Removing the false panel from behind and below the rear seat and unraveling his body from its contorted position, Weatherhill crawled into the enclosed luggage area of the third Murmoto loaded in the trailer. He sprung the lock from the inside and swung the rear hatch up and open. Then he climbed out, stood up, and stretched his aching joints.
Weatherhill had suffered in his cramped position for nearly four hours after a special team of customs agents helped conceal him in the car before Furukawa and the truck arrived. The sun beating on the roof and the lack of ventilation—the windows could not even be cracked for fear of arousing suspicion by the truck drivers—soon had him drenched in sweat. He never thought he would find himself sick of a new car smell.
The interior of the trailer was dark. He took a flashlight from a pouch he carried on the belt of a nondescript auto mechanic’s uniform and beamed it around the cars tied down inside the trailer. Two were on ramps above the two on the floor below.
Since the truck was traveling over a level California freeway and the ride in the trailer was smooth, Weatherhill decided to examine the Murmotos on the upper ramp first. He climbed up and quietly opened the hood of the one nearest the driver’s cab. Then he removed a small radiation analyzer from the pouch and studied the readout as he circled it around the auto’s airconditioning compressor unit.
He wrote the readings on the back of his hand. Next he laid out a set of compact tools on the fender. He paused and spoke into the radio.
“Hello, Team Buick.”
“Come in,” Stacy answered.
“Beginning exploratory operation.”
“Don’t slip and cut an artery.”
“Never fear.”
“Standing by.”
Within fifteen minutes, Weatherhill had disassembled the compressor case and examined the bomb. He was mildly disappointed. The design was not as advanced as he predicted. Clever, yes, but he could have devised and built a more efficient and destructive unit by himself.
He froze as he heard the sound of the air brakes and felt the truck slow. But it was only taking an off-ramp to another freeway and soon speeded up again. He reassembled the compressor and signaled Stacy.
“Still with me’?” he asked briefly.
“Still here,” answered Stacy.
“Where am I?”
“Passing through West Covina. Heading east toward San Bernardino.”
“I’ve withdrawn the account and have no more business at the bank,” he radioed. “What stop should I depart the bus?”
“One moment while I check the schedule,” Stacy acknowledged. After a few moments she came back. “There’s a weight station this side of Indio. It’s mandatory. The drivers will have to stop for inspection. If for some reason they turn off, we’ll plan on having them pulled over by a sheriff’s car. Otherwise you should arrive at the weight station in another forty-five or fifty minutes.”
“See you there,” said Weatherhill.
“Enjoy your trip.”
Like most undercover agents, whose adrenaline pumps during the critical stages of an operation, now that the difficult part was behind him, Weatherhill quickly relaxed and became bored with nothing to do. All that remained now was for him to climb through the fume ventilators on the roof and drop down behind the trailer out of view of the drivers’ side mirrors.
He opened the glove box and pulled out the packet containing the car’s warranty papers and owner’s manual. Switching on the interior lights, Weatherhill idly began thumbing through the manual. Though his prime expertise was nuclear physics, he was always fascinated by electronics. He turned to the page displaying the Murmoto’s electrical diagram with the intention of tracing out the wiring.
But the page in the manual was no electrical wiring diagram. It was a map with instructions for placing the cars in their designated positions for detonation.
Suma’s strategy became so boldly obvious to Weatherhill that he had to force himself to believe it. The car bombs were not simply part of a threat to protect Japan’s economic expansionist plans. The fear and the horror were real.
They were meant to be used.
35
AT LEAST TEN years had passed since Raymond Jordan forced an entry, certainly not sin
ce he worked up through the ranks as a field agent. On a whim he decided to see if he still had the touch.
He inserted a tiny computer probe into the wires on the security alarm system of Pitt’s hangar. He pressed a button and backwashed the combination into the probe. The alarm box recognized the code and gave it to him on an LED display. Then with a deceptive ease and nonchalance, he punched the appropriate combination that turned off the alarm, picked the lock to the door, and stepped soundlessly inside.
He spied Pitt kneeling in front of the turquoise Stutz, back toward him, at the far end of the hangar. Pitt seemed intent on repairing a headlight.
Jordan stood unobserved and gazed over the collection. He was astonished it was so extensive. He’d heard Sandecker speak of it, but verbal description failed to do it justice. Softly he walked behind the first row of cars, circled around, and approached Pitt from under the apartment side of the hangar. It was a test. He was curious as to Pitt’s reaction to an intruder who suddenly appeared within arm’s reach.
Jordan paused before he closed the final three meters and studied Pitt and the car for a moment. The Stutz was badly scratched in many areas and would require a new paint job. The windshield was cracked and the left front headlight seemed to be dangling by a wire.
Pitt was dressed casually, wearing a pair of corduroy pants and a knit sweater. His black hair was wavy and carelessly brushed. There was a decisive look about him, the green eyes were set under heavy black eyebrows and had a piercing quality that seemed to transfix whatever they were aimed at. He looked to be screwing the headlight lens into a chrome rim.
Jordan was in midstep when Pitt suddenly spoke without turning. “Good evening, Mr. Jordan. Good of you to drop in.”
Jordan froze, but Pitt went on with his work with the indifferent air of a bus driver expecting the correct change from a fare.
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