Barracuda: Final Bearing mp-4

by Michael Dimercurio

  * * *

  Inside the cockpit Namuru felt the aircraft shake, then tremble violently as the wings and tail liquefied and vaporized, the module encasing him spinning toward the earth. The g-forces of the spin knocked Namuru about the cockpit, straining his five-point harness, threatening to break his neck. Namuru wondered if the computer were still active. If it had malfunctioned in the breakup of the airframe, the cockpit module would fall dumbly into the ground below, shattering at terminal velocity of 160 kilometers per hour. He fought the dizziness of the spinning cockpit and the massive g-forces to reach his gloved hand for the manual parachute lever. He had just managed to brush it with his fingers when the explosive bolts blew off the drogue chute panel, ejecting a streamer from the rear of the cockpit module, stabilizing the wildly spinning egg until one second later the main chute blew out, luffing in the slipstream gale until it filled, the cockpit module settling below it. The cockpit egg now drifted gently down to the slope of a craggy hill a hundred meters below. Namuru had only a moment to inhale to clear his head before the module hit the mountainside, the impact considerable even under the canopy of the main chute.

  Namuru hurried to punch the cockpit rupture button, knowing that the computer would wait only two minutes for him to activate it before self-destructing. The worst thing that could happen on this mission was his capture, and if he had arrived unconscious, the computer would kill him before allowing him to be taken. He pulled the cover from the rupture command switch and toggled it down and the cockpit module split in half, opening cleanly along a prescored material weld. The top of the module pulled up and away from the bottom on pneumatic cylinder struts, allowing a cold wind and diffuse but glaring winter light into the module. Namuru unlatched a case from the bulkhead of the capsule and hauled himself out into the cold of the outside and stepped away from the cockpit. Seconds later the module began to smoke and sizzle, burning until there was nothing left but a black molten pool of carbon, melted fiber optics and singed liquid crystal.

  Namuru opened the case he had withdrawn and revealed a thick vest, full of pockets, heavy with explosives and the automatic pistol. He put on the vest and took out equally heavy pocketed pants that he strapped onto his thighs and fastened with Velcro seams. He kept his helmet on, since it contained two cameras, one that gave Yokosuka Center a view of what he himself saw, a second with a fisheye lens focused on his face. He pulled a small folding spade from a utility pocket and covered the smoking ruin of the cockpit and the parachute with earth dug from the rocky frozen ground. He stepped back after a few minutes, sweating despite the chill, realizing the job was far from perfect but still would only be noticed by someone stepping on top of it.

  He ditched the shovel, pulled the pistol out of his vest, screwed on the long silencer and snapped a large clip into the gun. He then thrust the piece into a soft holster set into his vest and withdrew high-powered binoculars and a black rubber box with rounded edges about the size of a steno pad. The pad had heavy elastic straps on the back and a removable cover on the front that now revealed a liquid crystal display. Namuru strapped the pad onto his left forearm, then ran a small wire between his watch and the pad, switching the watch into digital compass mode, its satellite receiver turned to the orbiting Galaxy geostationary multipurpose satellite. A thumb pressure on the display turned the unit on, the display flashing a question mark. He raised the pad to his lips and whispered his password, which this hour was “blue.” The display flashed to life, bright and colorful, although the light from it faded to black if the screen were observed even slightly off from directly in front of it at a distance of thirty centimeters. “Nav display, vector to Tamga weapons depot,” Namuru whispered to the pad. An overhead satellite photograph view of a hilly rocky region flashed onto the display, the scene showing an eerie depth from the three-dimensional effect. The green of the trees and ground cover were broken by several roads, a winding rail track and the roofs of several small buildings, with what appeared to be an expansive flat plateau among the buildings. A yellow grid flashed up over the landscape, with a blinking circle on the crest of a hill to the south of the compound. Namuru noted that the circle was within two kilometers of the center of the complex — and since the circle was his own position, he would have an easy hike to the base perimeter. He looked up into the cloudy sky for any sign of the sun, but it was buried in thick overcast.

  He made a full turn, looking and listening for observers in the scrubby growth around him. All was quiet. The pad computer aural sensors were tuned to pick out man-made noises and would alert Namuru by buzzing the flesh of his forearm, but until that function proved itself it was not to be assumed that it worked. After a last glance at the pad display, Namuru set off in the direction of the compound.

  YOKOSUKA CENTER

  “So how will he get through the perimeter fence and security?” Prime Minister Kurita asked, watching raptly as the screen display jiggled and showed Major Namuru walking through the thick trees on the downslope of a mountain leading to the Tamga valley. The view on one panel of the display showed the trees and underbrush approaching the camera; a second panel showed a fisheye-lens view of a puffy-looking face beaded with sweat, the eyes wide and hyper alert; the third panel revealed a grid superimposed on a bird’s-eye view of the valley with a flashing circle nearing a fenceline surrounding a military compound.

  “Not a problem,” General Gotoh replied, glancing from the screen to Kurita’s lined face, then back to the display. “Namuru has gas for dogs, a silenced automatic for human guards, shorting cables for electrified fences. We’ve spent six months training him in the use of every security measure we know. He’s consistently penetrated them 78 percent of the time.”

  “Seventy-eight percent doesn’t sound like it’s passing.”

  “That is against Japanese technology perimeter security,” Gotoh said, typing into a keyboard in front of his control console. “Against gaijin methods, he will be more than the equal of a security detail.”

  “Tell me again how he is going to get inside the bunker, if that is what it is.”

  “He’ll shoot the guards,” Gotoh said simply, his eyes still on the display, careful not to let a flicker of annoyance cross his face at Kurita’s insistence on covering briefing material over and over.

  “Does he have to do that? It would seem to imperil the mission, draw attention to the breakin.”

  “True, Prime Minister. But guards of nuclear weapons are trained — conditioned is perhaps a better term — to shoot intruders. They call it Deadly Force Authorization. It means shoot first and forget the questions. The quickest way to penetrate the security around a nuclear weapon is to surprise the guards and kill them. Even then, one’s life expectancy is numbered in the minutes, perhaps only seconds. That’s why Namuru has the cameras. If he’s shot we’ll still have the data.”

  “What about the time delay? They might disconnect and destroy his camera before we know what happened.”

  “Unavoidable, I’m afraid, sir. But it is unlikely that if Namuru and his gear is captured that the gaijin Greater Manchurians could understand that he is transmitting. By the time they realized it, we would know all that Namuru knew.”

  In the panel monitoring Namuru’s view a bush flashed close to the camera, then rolled away to reveal a length of fencing between two trees. The right panel showing the navigation display changed, a graph replacing the aerial photograph, the graph pulsing with circular curves.

  “The fence is electrified with high voltage,” Gotoh announced. The view from Namuru’s helmet blurred as he approached the fence. Namuru’s hands flashed in and out of view, attaching a cable to the fence, just before the fireball exploded and the screens again went blank.

  * * *

  Namuru looked at the fence as his computer pad flickered with the electromagnetic signature of 11,000 volts surging through the aluminum cable braided through the fence. What could be seen through the fence was limited, since there were more trees there and litt
le else.

  Namuru snaked out the electrical cables that were in the back of the heavy vest, uncoiled the heavy insulated wires, withdrew the lengths of copper rods half a meter at a time. He screwed the copper rod lengths together, until there was a two-meter-long copper rod, then attempted to force the rod into the ground. It went in halfway, then had to be tapped with a rubber mallet from another vest pocket until the rod was buried in the ground with only five centimeters protruding.

  Namuru hid the mallet under a bush. At least after this, he thought, much of the weight he’d carried in would be left behind. He took a cable and attached it to the top of the copper rod with a heavy copper clamp.

  The other end of the cable he attached to a large alligator clip, then stepped back to inspect his work. He unfastened the computer pad and digital receiver watch, his vest and his utility leggings so that most of the metal objects were removed from his body. He put on the thick 100,000-volt rubber gloves. His boots were already wrapped in insulating material, one of the reasons his feet were so uncomfortably hot.

  He took a deep breath, studying the cable winding through the aluminum mesh fence. The idea was to get his cable attached to the live electrical cable in the fence, thereby grounding the voltage to the copper rod in the earth. The live wire would then short its potential to ground, either tripping the electrical circuit at the generator or melting the wire at the connection to the rod. If he did this right the power would blast through the grounding mechanism and disrupt the entire circuit so that he could cut through the fence. But if he mishandled the operation 11,000 volts of power would pass through his body. That had happened to one of the Divine Wind officers in penetration training. The high voltage had blown off the man’s legs and one of his arms, stopped his heart and left him a smoking wreck. The training chief had cut the power, and the ambulance crew had revived the man, and he had actually lived for two days, the incredible pain of those days carved on his terrified burned features when they had buried him. A horrible way to die, a worse way to live. Namuru prayed, just don’t let it leave me burned and maimed.

  He lunged with the alligator clip and hit the high voltage fence cable with it. The fireball had no sound, only a fist of pressure. Namuru saw the light expand to the size of a zeppelin and surround him as it smashed into him and blew him off his feet and sent him flying into the woods.

  * * *

  “What happened?”

  “Looks like he took a shock,” Gotoh said, his voice a monotone. The screens remained blank.

  “And he’s dead?”

  “Too early to say, sir.” Gotoh had risen to hover over another younger officer at a neighboring console. The officer tapped furiously at a keyboard, stopping occasionally to manipulate a mouse, then typing again.

  “We’re addressing the satellite now trying to get Major Namuru’s cameras to work again. If we can reestablish a link with his instrumentation we might be able to determine what is going on.”

  The screen flashed a momentary broken image, then went dark again. Gotoh and Kurita waited.

  “How long do we wait?”

  “The mission brief calls for a four-minute delay before the satellite signals the chip with the poison canister in the major’s abdomen,” Gotoh said.

  “How long has it been?”

  “We were already on a five-minute delay from real time when the major got hit with the electricity. We saw it three minutes ago. I’d say Major Namuru has another sixty seconds before the computer aborts the mission and calls down to the chip to inject the poison.”

  The screen flashed, then held. The camera view from Namuru’s helmet stared straight up at the sky, the boughs of two trees breaking the featureless clouds. The face-monitoring camera came up next. Namuru’s face was burned on the left side, his eye gone, the flesh seared and melting. His right eye was shut and swollen.

  “Prime Minister, I don’t think we should wait for the mission computer. We should abort now. Namuru’s gone.”

  Kurita stared at Namuru’s burned and disfigured face.

  “I agree. General.”

  Gotoh gave the order to the officer on the control console, who nodded and made the commands as if they had nothing to do with killing a fellow officer.

  “The signal is out, sir,” the officer reported.

  “He’ll be dead in thirty seconds if he isn’t already,” Gotoh said.

  Kurita looked up at the screen. “We need another plan. We still must find out if Len Pei Poom has nuclear weapons. He could be targeting Tokyo even now.”

  * * *

  Namuru was burned from the inside out. His flesh felt hot and running on his left side, his face aching and puffy. His whole body ached, he couldn’t move. He concentrated for what seemed hours trying to move his right hand, finally able to move it upward. In the next ten minutes he used the hand to lift himself so that he was sitting up. He couldn’t see out of his left eye. He reached for his face and felt the burned flesh, hard and crumbling.

  He crawled through the brush to find his watch and the computer pad. When he found them, the computer pad had melted into a puddle of plastic. The watch was also destroyed, the satellite above having given the signal to abort the mission. Which meant that his poison capsule should have been released and he should be dead.

  Except that the electrical fireball must have fried the chip inside him. But if there had been enough power to kill the chip, there might have been enough to fracture the poison canister. It could be leaking even now, he thought. He had only hours to live — but then that was the whole idea of this mission.

  He managed to stand, shaking when he finally made it. He took some water from his vest, then tried to put it on. It was too heavy and he was too weak. He would have to go in without it. He bent over the vest and pulled out the pistol, a spare clip, the two gas bottles, a small collection of electronic boxes and a small pack of film, then adjusted his helmet, wondering if the cameras were still operating. The circuits checked out — he should still be transmitting. He wondered if there was anyone on the other end. He stepped slowly toward the fence, saw the blackened hole the fireball had blown in it. He crouched down, walked through and limped to the trees, his strength coming and going erratically.

  With the computer pad gone, he was operating on memory. The satellite photo had pictured a wide flat mound of earth, the kind used to conceal an underground bunker. The earth mound would be behind two rows of outbuildings from where he was, just beyond the trees. Moving through the trees to the far edge, he saw the outbuildings and began walking unsteadily through the exposed ground to the cover of the buildings. If the cameras weren’t working, the mission was over.

  The two black dogs running silently toward him were within ten meters before he saw them with his one eye.

  * * *

  “Prime Minister! General!”

  The lieutenant from the command center, Gotoh saw.

  “Sir, the major. He’s alive. He’s inside the compound—”

  “General, what happened to the poison?” Kurita asked.

  “I’m not sure, sir. Perhaps the electrocution damaged it.”

  “What else could fail on this day,” Kurita mumbled.

  The two men hurried back to the command center, returning to the control corner they had abandoned minutes before. The left screen was unsteady with the blur of movement, the transmission fading in and out, the software freezing the image rather than allowing the display to go black during the short transmission interruptions.

  During one short interruption Kurita saw the frozen image of the exposed fangs of a large black dog leering angrily at the camera as it lunged. The eyes were red and furious, the mouth hungry and lethal. Kurita unconsciously felt his throat.

  * * *

  The dogs had gotten too close. If he had still been able to use the computer pad, the motion detector would have alerted him to the animals ten seconds before, but that was in the past. In an adrenaline rush he grabbed a gas bottle with each hand, aiming as b
est he could with only one good eye, the streams of gas jetting out at the dogs in a loud blast, a white cloud forming around him. He clamped his mouth shut, hoping he could keep from inhaling the gas. The lab techs had assured him the nerve gas was active only on animals, not humans, but after seeing it demonstrated, he wondered. The dogs, already flying through the air to get to his throat, were dead before they hit him, the two bodies knocking him to the ground, the sounds of the dogs’ gasping expulsions of breath in his ears as their bodies spasmed through reflex nerve actions.

  Namuru got up, replaced the bottles in his belt and withdrew the automatic pistol. He was within ten meters of the objective now, the hump of earth covering the suspected bunker rising over his head. The slope of the dirt was too regular to be natural. There was definitely something buried here. Namuru closed the clump of trees at the edge of the earth embankment and had a momentary impression of the two armed guards in their helmets and flak jackets. Namuru sprayed them with a single silenced burst from the pistol, more than two dozen Teflon-jacketed rounds exploding inside their bodies. He had shoved the pistol into his belt, the barrel scalding hot, while the guards were still on their feet, slowly collapsing to the ground. As the two liquid thumps came from their impact with the earth, Namuru cradled the keypad entry box in his hands.

  The keypad required a password numeric sequence be entered to open the blast doors of the bunker. Namuru pulled the cover off, reached into his belt for the electronic boxes, none of them bigger than a matchbook, and selected, the proper one. He placed the box over the number pad, hit a button on the face of the box and waited. Twenty seconds later a small crystal display blinked as the box talked to the keypad. Finally the keybox surrendered, the heavy steel blastdoor groaning as it moved its rusted mass, one panel sliding right, the other left, opening into the darkness of the bunker. As it opened, Namuru pulled the pistol from his belt and dropped the electronic box, which was already sizzling and melting into a self-destruct sequence.