Dragon dp-10

by Clive Cussler

  “I should have knocked.”

  “No need. I knew you were on the premises.”

  “Are you hyperperceptive or do you have eyes in the back of your head?” asked Jordan, moving slowly into Pitt’s peripheral vision.

  Pitt looked up and grinned. He lifted and tilted the old headlight’s reflector that revealed Jordan’s image on its silver surface. “I observed your tour of the hangar. Your entry was most professional. I’d judge it didn’t take you more than twenty seconds.”

  “Missed spotting a back-up video camera. I must be getting senile.”

  “Across the road on top of the telephone pole. Most visitors spot the one hanging on the building. Infrared. It activates an alert chime when a body moves near the door.”

  “You have an incredible collection,” Jordan complimented Pitt. “How long did it take you to build it?”

  “I began with the maroon forty-seven Ford club coupe over there in the corner about twenty years ago, and collecting became a disease. Some I acquired during projects with NUMA, some I bought from private parties or at auctions. Antique and classic cars are investments you can flaunt. Far more fun than a painting.” Pitt finished screwing the headlight rim around its lens and rose to his feet. “Can I offer you a drink?”

  “A glass of milk for an overstressed stomach sounds good.”

  “Please come up.” Pitt gestured toward the stairs leading to his apartment. “I’m honored the head man came to see me instead of sending his deputy director.”

  As Jordan reached the first step, he hesitated and said, “I thought I should be the one to tell you. Congresswoman Smith and Senator Diaz have been smuggled out of the country.”

  There was a pause as Pitt slowly turned and glared at him through eyes suddenly filled with relief. “Loren is unharmed.” The words came more as a demand than a question.

  “We’re not dealing with brain-sick terrorists,” Jordan answered. “The kidnap operation was too sophisticated for injury or death. We have every reason to believe she and Diaz are being treated with respect.”

  “How did they slip through the cracks?”

  “Our intelligence determined she and Diaz were flown out of the Newport News, Virginia, airport in a private jet belonging to one of Suma’s American corporations. By the time we were able to sift through every flight, scheduled or unscheduled, from airports within a thousand-square-kilometer area, trace every plane’s registration until we nailed one to Suma, and track its path by satellite, it was heading over the Bering Sea for Japan.”

  “Too late to force down on one of our military bases by a military aircraft?”

  “Way too late. It was met and escorted by a squadron of FSX fighter jets from Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force. Aircraft that were built in partnership between General Dynamics and Mitsubishi, I might add.”

  “And then?”

  Jordan turned and gazed at the gleaming cars. “We lost them,” he said tonelessly.

  “After they landed?”

  “Yes, at Tokyo International. Little need to go into details why they weren’t intercepted or at least followed, but for reasons known only to the idiot mentality at the State Department, we have no operatives in Japan who could have stopped them. That’s all we have at the moment.”

  “The best intelligence minds on the face of the earth, and that’s all you have.” Pitt sounded very tired. He went into his kitchen, opened the refrigerator and poured some milk, then handed the glass to Jordan. “What about all your big specialty teams in Japan? Where were they when the plane touched down?”

  “With Marvin Showalter and Jim Hanamura murdered—”

  “Both men murdered?” Pitt interrupted.

  “Tokyo police found Hanamura’s body in a ditch, decapitated. Showalter’s head, minus the body, was discovered a few hours ago, impaled on our embassy’s fence. To add to the mess, we suspect Roy Orita is a sleeper. He sold us out from the beginning. God only knows how much information he’s passed to Suma. We may never be able to assess the damage.”

  Pitt’s anger softened when he read the sadness along with the frustration in Jordan’s face. “Sorry, Ray, I had no idea things had gone so badly.”

  “I’ve never had a MAIT team take a battering like this.”

  “What put you onto Orita?”

  “A couple of broad hints. Showalter was too clever to be snatched without inside help. He was betrayed by someone who had his confidence and knew his exact movements. And there was Jim Hanamura—he expressed bad vibes on Orita but had nothing solid to go on. To add to the suspicion, Orita has dropped out and gone undercover. He hasn’t reported to Mel Penner since Showalter vanished. Kern thinks he’s hiding under Suma’s skirts in Edo City.”

  “What of his background?”

  “Third-generation American. His father won the Silver Star in the Italian campaign. We can’t figure what bait Suma used to recruit him.”

  “Who handled the execution of Hanamura and Showalter?”

  “The evidence isn’t in yet. It appears a ritual killing. A police pathologist thought their heads were taken off by a samurai sword. Suma’s chief assassin is known to be a lover of ancient martial arts, but we can’t prove he did it.”

  Pitt sank slowly into a chair. “A waste, a damned waste.”

  “Jim Hanamura didn’t go out a loser,” Jordan said with sudden doggedness. “He gave us our one and only lead to the detonation control center.”

  Pitt looked up expectantly. “You have a location?”

  “Nothing to celebrate yet, but we’re half a step closer.”

  “What information did Hanamura turn up?”

  “Jim penetrated the offices of Suma’s construction designers and found what looks to be rough drawings of an electronic control center that fits the layout we’re looking for. Indications suggest it’s an underground installation reached by a tunnel.”

  “Anything on the whereabouts?”

  “The brief message he wrote on the back of an envelope that was delivered to the embassy by the driver of an auto parts delivery truck is too enigmatic to decipher with any accuracy.”

  “The message?”

  “He wrote, ‘Look on the island of Ajima.’ “

  Pitt made a slight shrug. “So what’s the problem?”

  “There is no Ajima Island,” Jordan answered defeatedly. He held up the glass and examined it. “This is skim milk.”

  “It’s better for you than whole milk.”

  “Like drinking water,” Jordan muttered as he studied a glass case of trophies. Most were awards for outstanding automobiles at concours shows, a few were old high school and Air Force Academy football trophies, and two were for fencing. “You a fencer?”

  “Not exactly Olympic material, but I still work out when I get the time.”

  “Epée, foil, or saber?”

  “Saber.”

  “You struck me as a slasher. I’m into foil myself.”

  “You prefer a deft touch.”

  “A pity we can’t have a match,” said Jordan.

  “We could compromise and use the epée.”

  Jordan smiled. “I’d still have the advantage, since touches by the foil and epée are made with the points, while the saber is scored by hits on the edges.”

  “Hanamura must have had a good reason for suggesting Ajima as the control center site,” said Pitt, returning to business.

  “He was an art nut. His operation to plant bugs in Suma’s office was designed around his knowledge of early Japanese art. We knew Suma collected paintings, especially works by a sixteenth-century Japanese artist who produced a series on small islands surrounding the main isle of Honshu, so I had one forged. Then Hanamura, posing as an art expert, sold it to Suma. The one island painting Suma does not own is Ajima. That’s the only link I can think of.”

  “Then Ajima must exist.”

  “I’m sure it does, but the name can’t be traced to any known island. Nothing on ancient or modern charts shows it. I can only
assume it was a pet name given by the artist, Masaki Shimzu, and listed as such in art catalogs of his work.”

  “Did Hanamura’s bugs record any interesting talk?”

  “A most informative conversation between Suma, his butcher Kamatori, old Korori Yoshishu, and a heavy hitter named Ichiro Tsuboi.”

  “The financial genius behind Kanoya Securities. I’ve heard of him.”

  “Yes, he was in a heated debate with the senator and congresswoman during the select subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill a few days before they were seized.”

  “And you say he’s tied to Suma?”

  “Tighter than a banjo string,” answered Jordan. “Thanks to Jim’s bugs in Suma’s office, we learned Tsuboi juggled the funding for the construction of the nuclear arsenal behind the backs of Japan’s political leaders, and most certainly their people. We also heard the code name Kaiten Project for the first time.”

  Pitt poured a cup of old, cold coffee and stuck it in the microwave. He stared through the glass window at the cup as it revolved, his eyes narrowed in thought.

  Jordan broke the spell. “I know what you’re thinking, but I haven’t been given the manpower to rescue Diaz and Smith and break up the Kaiten Project in one operation.”

  “I can’t believe the President is turning his back on them.”

  “He’s not about to go public and threaten a war over the abductions when he’s at a distinct disadvantage. Our first priority is to dismantle the Kaiten Project. Once we’ve accomplished that matter, only then will the President give us his blessing to use whatever force it takes to free Smith and Diaz.”

  “So we’re back to mystical Ajima Island,” Pitt said harshly. “You say it’s the only painting of the series Suma doesn’t own?”

  “Yes,” Jordan replied. “Hanamura said he acted almost desperate to get his hands on it.”

  “Any clue to where it might be?”

  “The Ajima painting was last seen in the Japanese embassy in Berlin just before Germany fell. Old OSS records claim it was included with art the Nazis plundered from Italy, and transported by train to northwestern Germany ahead of the advancing Russian Army in the last weeks of the war. Then it disappeared from history.”

  “No record at all of it having been recovered?’

  “None.”

  “And we have no idea as to the island’s general location or its appearance?”

  “Not a scrap.”

  “Unfortunate,” Pitt commented. “Find the painting, match the shape of the shoreline portrayed by the artist, and you have the location of Hideki Suma’s extortion hideaway, or so it says in a bedtime story.”

  Jordan’s eyes narrowed. “It happens to be the best lead we’ve got going for us.”

  Pitt wasn’t convinced. “Your spy planes and satellites should easily detect the installation.”

  “The four main islands of Japan—Honshu, Kyushu, Hokkaido, and Shikoku—are surrounded by nearly a thousand smaller islands. Finding the right one can hardly be called easy.”

  “Then why not isolate only those that can be connected by a tunnel to any of the four main islands?”

  “Give us some credit for brains,” Jordan said irritably. “We’ve already eliminated any island farther than ten miles offshore and concentrated on the rest. First of all, no suspicious activities or structures appear above their surfaces. Not unusual when we assume the entire installation must be deep underground. And lastly, almost all the islands’ geology is made up of volcanic rock our sensors can’t penetrate. Have I answered your question?”

  Pitt dug in. “No one can excavate a tunnel without hauling away dirt and rock.”

  “Apparently the Japanese have. Analysis of our satellite photos shows no signs of a coastal tunnel excavation or roads leading into an entrance.”

  Pitt shrugged his shoulders and waved the white flag. “So we’re back to a painting somewhere in the great beyond.”

  Jordan suddenly leaned forward in his chair and stared hard at Pitt. “This is where you earn your pay.”

  Pitt could see it coming, but not quite. “You’re going to send me to Japan to dive around islands, is that the pitch?”

  “Wrong,” said Jordan with a patronizing smile Pitt didn’t like one bit. “You’re going to Germany and dive in a Luftwaffe bunker.”

  36

  “THEY SIMPLY DOVE in and vanished.”

  Pitt crouched on one knee and stared past the half-submerged tractor into the black ominous water. He was tired from jet lag, and he’d barely slept a couple of hours on the plane from Washington. How rotten not to have time to enjoy a good breakfast at a local inn and sleep past noon, he wallowed in self-pity.

  “Their safety lines were sliced apart.” The young officer who led the German naval dive team held up a nylon line whose end appeared razor-severed. “By what? We can’t begin to guess.”

  “Communication line too?” Pitt slowly sipped at a cup of coffee. He picked up a small stone with his free hand and idly tossed it in the water, observing the ripples that spread from the splash.

  “The phone line connected to the lead diver was also cut,” admitted the German. He stood tall and well muscled. His English carried only a slight trace of an accent. “Soon after the two man team dropped into the pond, they discovered an underwater tunnel leading to the west. They swam a distance of ninety meters before reporting the tunnel ended at a small chamber with a steel door. A few minutes later the phone and safety lines went slack. I sent another team in to investigate. They disappeared like the others.”

  Pitt turned his head and looked at the men of the German Navy dive team who stood helpless and saddened at the loss of their friends. They were clustered around the folding tables and chairs of a portable command post manned by a group of police underwater rescue divers. A trio of men in civilian clothes, who Pitt assumed were government officials, questioned the divers in low voices.

  “When did the last man go in?” Pitt asked.

  “Four hours before you arrived,” said the young dive officer, who had introduced himself as Lieutenant Helmut Reinhardt. “I had a devil of a time keeping the rest of my men from following. But I’m not about to risk another life until I know what’s going on in there.” He paused and tipped his head toward the police divers, who were attired in bright orange dry suits. “Those idiot police, however, think they’re invincible. They’re planning to send one of their teams inside.”

  “Some people are born for suicide,” said Giordino with a yawn. “Take me for example. I wouldn’t go in there without a nuclear submarine. No daredevil ventures by Mrs. Giordino’s boy. I intend to die in bed entwined with an erotic beauty from the Far East.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to him, ” said Pitt. “Put him in a dark place and he hallucinates.”

  “I see,” murmured Reinhardt, but obviously he didn’t.

  Finally Pitt rose and nodded in Frank Mancuso’s direction. “Booby-trapped,” he said simply.

  Mancuso nodded. “I agree. The entrances to the treasure tunnels in the Philippines were packed with bombs rigged to go off if struck by digging equipment. The difference is the Japs planned to return and retrieve the treasure, while the Nazis intended for their booby traps to destroy the loot along with the searchers.”

  “Whatever trapped my men in there,” said Reinhardt bitterly, unable to say the word “killed,” “was not bombs.”

  One of the official-looking men walked over from the command post and addressed Pitt. “Who are you, and whom do you represent?” he demanded in German.

  Pitt turned to Reinhardt, who translated the question. Then he refaced his interrogator. “Tell him the three of us were invited.”

  “You are American?” the stranger blurted in broken English, his face blank in astonishment. “Who gave you authorization to be here?”

  “Who’s this mook?” Giordino inquired in blissful ignorance.

  Reinhardt couldn’t suppress a slight grin. “Herr Gert Haider, Minister of Historic W
orks. Sir, Herr Dirk Pitt and his staff from the American National Underwater and Marine Agency in Washington. They are here at the personal invitation of Chancellor Lange.”

  Haider looked as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He quickly recovered, straightened to his full height, half a head short of tall, and attempted to intimidate Pitt with a superior Teutonic demeanor. “Your purpose?”

  “We’ve come for the same reason as you,” replied Pitt, studying his fingernails. “If old interrogation records of Nazi officials in your Berlin archives and our Library of Congress are correct, eighteen thousand works of art were hidden in excavated tunnels under a secret airfield. This could very well prove to be that secret airfield with its art depository chamber extending somewhere beyond the water barrier.”

  Haider wisely realized he couldn’t bluster the tough, purposeful-looking men dressed in loose blue-green Viking dry suits. “You know, of course, any art that is found belongs to the German Republic until it can be traced and returned to the original owners.”

  “We’re fully aware of that,” said Pitt. “We’re only interested in one particular piece.”

  “Which one?”

  “Sorry, I’m not allowed to say.”

  Haider played his last card. “I must insist the police dive team be the first to enter the chamber.”

  “Fine by us.” Giordino bowed and gestured toward the dark water. “Maybe if one of your deputies is lucky enough to make it in and back, we’ll find out what’s eating people in that hell hole down there.”

  “I’ve lost four of my men.” Reinhardt spoke solemnly. “They may be dead. You cannot allow more men to die through ignorance of the unknown.”

  “They are professional divers,” Haider retorted.

  “So are the men I sent in there. The finest divers in the Navy, in superior condition and more extensively trained than the police rescue team.”

  “May I suggest a compromise,” said Pitt.

  Haider nodded. “I’m willing to listen.”

  “We put together a seven-man probe team. The three of us because Mancuso here is a mining engineer, an expert on tunnel construction and excavation, while Al and I are experienced in underwater salvage. Two of Lieutenant Reinhardt’s Navy men, since they’re trained in defusing any demolitions we might encounter. And two of the police divers as rescue and medical backup.”