He blinked hard, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him. Then he turned off his light and looked through the hatch again. He was not imagining what he saw.
In the inky bowels of the rusting warship, entombed at the bottom of the sea for over sixty years, Dirk was welcomed by a faint but distinct flashing green light.
Dirk pulled himself through the hatch and into the pitch-black darkness of the torpedo room, save for the penetrating beam of light. As his eyes adjusted to the blackness, the flashing green light became clearer. It appeared to be a pair of tiny lights, situated at eye level, and fixed at the far side of the room.
Dirk turned his own light back on and surveyed the room. He was in the upper torpedo room, one of two torpedo bays the I-403 had stacked vertically at the bow of the sub. Near the forward bulkhead, he could see the round chamber hatches for the four twenty-one-inch-diameter torpedo tubes. Lying in racks on either side of the room were six of the huge Type 95 torpedoes, large and deadly fish that were both more reliable and more explosive than the American counterpart during the war. Jumbled on the floor, Dirk shined his light on two additional torpedoes that had been jarred out of their racks when the submarine had slammed into the bottom. One torpedo lay flat on the floor, its nose angled slightly off bow from where it had rolled after hitting the deck. The second torpedo was propped on some debris near its tip, pointing its nose lazily upward. It was just above this second torpedo where the eerie green light flashed on and off.
Dirk floated over to the pulsating light, putting his face mask up close to the mystery beam. It was nothing more than a small stick-on digital clock wedged at the end of the torpedo rack. Fluorescent green block numbers flashed a row of zeroes, indicating an elapsed time that had run out more than twenty-four hours before. Days, weeks, or months before, it would be impossible to tell. But it certainly could not have been placed there sixty years earlier.
Dirk plucked the plastic clock and stuffed it in a pocket of his BC, then peered upward. His expended air bubbles were not gathering at the ceiling, as expected, but were trailing upward and through a shaft of pale light. He kicked up with his fins and found that a large hatch to the open deck had been wedged open several feet, easily allowing a diver access to and from the torpedo bay.
A crackly voice suddenly burst through his earpiece. “Dirk, where are you? It's time to go upstairs,” Dahlgren's voice barked.
“I'm in the forward torpedo room. Come meet me on the bow, I need another minute.”
Dirk looked at his watch, noting that their eight minutes of bottom time had expired, then swam back down to the torpedo rack.
Two wooden crates were crushed beneath one of the fallen torpedoes, split open like a pair of suitcases. Constructed of hardwood mahogany, the crates had amazingly survived the ravages of salt water and microorganisms and were in a minimal state of decay. He curiously noted that no silt covered the broken crates, unlike every other object he had seen on the submarine. Someone had recently fanned away the sediment to reveal the crates' contents.
Dirk swam over to the closest crate and looked inside. Like a half carton of eggs, six silver aerial bombs were lined up in a custom-fitted casemate. Each bomb was nearly three feet long and sausage-shaped, with a fin-winged tail. Half of the bombs were still wedged under the torpedo, but all six had been broken up by the torpedo's fall. Oddly, to Dirk, they appeared to be cracked rather than simply crushed. Running his hand over an undamaged section of one of the bombs, he was surprised to feel the surface had a glassy smoothness to the touch.
Kicking his fins gentry, Dirk then glided over to the other crate and found a similar scene. All of the bomb canisters had been crushed by the falling torpedo in the second crate as well. Only this time, he counted five bombs, not six. One of the casings was empty. Dirk shined his light around and surveyed the area. The deck was clear in all directions, and no fragments were evident in the empty slot. One of the bombs was missing.
“Elevator, going up,” Dahlgren's voice suddenly crackled.
“Hold the door, I'll be right there,” Dirk replied, glancing at his watch to see that they had overrun their bottom time by almost five minutes. Examining the smashed crates a last time, he tugged on one of the less mangled bombs. The ordnance slipped out of its case but fell apart into three separate pieces in Dirk's hands. As best he could, he gently placed the pieces into a large mesh dive bag, then, holding tight, he kicked toward the open hatch above. Pulling the bag through the hatch after him, Dirk found Dahlgren hovering above the sub's bow a few yards in front of him. Joining his dive partner, the two wasted no time in kicking toward their decompression stop.
Tracking their depth as they rose, Dirk flared his body out like a sky-diver at forty feet to slow his ascent and purged a shot of air out of his BC. Dahlgren followed suit and the two men stabilized themselves at a depth of twenty feet to help rid their bodies of elevated levels of nitrogen in their blood.
“That extra five minutes on the bottom cost us another thirteen of decompression time. I'll be sucking my tank dry before thirty-eight minutes rolls around,” Dahlgren said, eyeing his depleted air gauge. Before Dirk could answer, they heard a muffled metallic clang in the distance.
“Never fear, Leo is here,” Dirk remarked, pointing at an object forty feet to their side.
A pair of silver scuba tanks with attached regulators dangled at the twenty-foot mark, tied to a rope that ascended to the surface. At the other end of the rope, Delgado stood munching a banana on the back deck of the Grunion, tracking the men's air bubbles and making sure they didn't stray too far from the boat. After hovering for a fifteen-minute decompression stop at twenty feet, the men grabbed the regulators affixed to the dangling tanks and floated up to ten feet for another twenty-five-minute wait. When Dirk and Dahlgren finally surfaced and climbed aboard the boat, Delgado acknowledged the men with just a wave as he turned the boat for landfall.
As the boat motored into the calmer waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Dirk unwrapped the bomb canister fragments and laid them on the deck.
“No sign of one of these on the aircraft, or in the hangar?” Dirk asked.
“Definitely not. There was plenty of parts, tools, and other debris in the hangar, but nothing that looked like that,” Dahlgren replied, eyeing the pieces. “Why would a canister crack open like that?”
“Because it's made of porcelain,” Dirk replied, holding a shard up for Dahlgren's closer inspection.
Dahlgren ran a finger over the surface, then shook his head. “A porcelain bomb. Very handy for attacking tea parties, I presume.”
“Must have something to do with the payload.” Dirk rearranged the fragments until they fit roughly together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The payload armament had long since washed away in the sea, but several compartmentalized sections formed in the interior were clearly evident.
“Looks like different combustibles were to react together when detonated.”
“An incendiary bomb?” Dahlgren asked.
“Perhaps,” Dirk replied quietly. He then reached into the side pocket of his BC and pulled out the digital timer. “Someone went to a fair amount of trouble to retrieve one of these bombs,” he said, tossing the timer over to Dahlgren.
Dahlgren studied the device, turning it over in his hands.
“Maybe it was the original owner,” he finally said with seriousness. Raising his arm with the timer in his palm, he showed Dirk the backside of the clock. In raised lettering on the plastic case was an indecipherable line of Asian script.
Like A pack of hyenas fighting over a freshly killed zebra, the president's security advisers were biting and yipping at each other in a self-serving attempt to dodge responsibility over the events in Japan. Tempers flared across the Cabinet Room, situated in the West Wing of the White House.
“It's a breakdown of intelligence, clear and simple. Our consulates are not getting the intelligence support they need and two of my people are dead as a result,” the secretar
y of state complained harshly.
“We had no advance knowledge of an increase in terrorist activity in Japan. Diplomatic feeds from State reported that Japanese security forces were in the dark as well,” the deputy CIA director fired back.
“Gentlemen, what's done is done,” the president interjected as he attempted to light a large old-fashioned smoking pipe. Bearing the physical appearance of Teddy Roosevelt and the no-nonsense demeanor of Harry Truman, President Garner Ward was widely admired by the public for his common sense and pragmatic style. The first-term president from Montana welcomed spirited debate among his staff and cabinet but had a low tolerance for finger-pointing and self-serving pontification.
“We need to understand the nature of the threat and the motives of our opponent, and then calculate a course of action,” the president said simply “I'd also like a recommendation as to whether Homeland Security should issue an elevated domestic security alert.” He nodded toward Dennis Jimenez, sitting across the Cabinet Room conference table, who served as secretary of the homeland security department. “But first, we need to figure out who these characters are. Martin, why don't you fill us in on what we know so far?” the president said, addressing FBI Director Martin Finch.
An ex-Marine Corps MP, Finch still sported a crew cut and spoke with the blunt voice of a basic training drill sergeant.
“Sir, the assassinations of Ambassador Hamilton and Deputy Chief of Mission Bridges appear to have been performed by the same individual. Surveillance video from the hotel where Bridges was killed exposed a suspect dressed as a waiter who was not known to be an employee of the hotel. Photographs from the video were matched to eyewitness accounts of an individual seen at the Tokyo area golf course shortly before Ambassador Hamilton was shot.”
“Any tie-in to the killing of the executive Chris Gavin and the Sem-Con plant explosion?” the president inquired.
“None that we have been able to identify, although there is a potential indicator in the note left with Bridges's body. We are, of course, treating it as a related incident.”
“And what of the suspect?” the secretary of state asked.
“The Japanese authorities have been unable to make a match in their known criminal files, or provide a possible identification, for that Matter. He was not a previously recognized member of the Japanese Red Army cell. He is apparently something of an unknown. The Japanese law enforcement agencies are cooperating fully in the manhunt and have placed their immigration checkpoints on high alert.”
“Despite no prior connection, there would seem to be little doubt that he is operating under the auspices of the Japanese Red Army,” the CIA deputy added.
“The note left with Bridges. What did it say?” asked Jimenez.
Finch rifled through a folder, then pulled out a typewritten sheet.
“Translated from Japanese, it says: ”Be vanquished, American imperialists who soil Nippon with greed, or death will blow her cold, sweet breath to the shores of America. JRA.“ Classic fringe cult hyperbole.”
“What is the state of the Japanese Red Army? I thought they were essentially dissolved a number of years ago,” President Ward asked. Waiting for the reply, he tilted his head back and blew a cloud of cherry-scented tobacco smoke toward the paneled ceiling before Finch answered.
“As you may know, the Japanese Red Army is a fringe terrorist group that grew out of a number of communist factions in Japan during the seventies. They promote an anti-imperialist rant and have supported the overthrow of the Japanese government and monarchy by both legitimate and illegitimate means. With suspected ties to the Middle East and North Korea, the JRA was behind a number of bombings and hijackings, culminating in the attempted takeover of the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur in 1975. They seemed to lose support in the nineties, and by 2000 the known leadership of the organization had been largely apprehended. Though many believed the organization was dead, indications of the group's stirrings have been seen again in the last two years. Published doctrines and active media reporting in Japan have provided a new sounding board, gaining more reception in the country's declining economic climate. Their message has focused on anti-American and anticapitalist tenets, rather than the anarchistic overthrow of the government, which has found a degree of support within a fragment of the population's youth. Oddly, there is no visible front man, or poster child, for the group.”
“I can endorse Marty's comments, Mr. President,” the deputy CIA director offered. “Until the hits on our people, we've had no overt record of activity from these people in a number of years. The known leadership is behind bars. Quite frankly, we don't know who is now calling the shots.”
“Are we confident there is no Al Qaeda connection here?”
“Possible, but not likely,” Finch replied. “The method of assassination is certainly not their style, and there has been no real radical Islamic presence visible in Japan. At this juncture, we have absolutely no evidence to suggest a link.”
“Where are we with the Japanese on this?” the president asked.
“We have an FBI counterterrorist team in-country working closely with the Japanese National Police Agency. The Japanese authorities are quite cognizant of the nefarious nature of these assassinations in their country and have assigned a large task force to the investigation. There is little more in the way of assistance we could ask of them that they haven't already offered up.”
“I have initiated a request through State to the Japanese Foreign Ministry for an update to their profile of high-risk aliens,” Jimenez interjected. “We'll issue a border security alert watch, in coordination with the FBI.”
“And what are we doing elsewhere abroad to prevent any more target shooting?” the president asked, addressing the secretary of state.
“We have issued heightened security alerts at all of our embassies,” the secretary replied. “We have also assigned additional security protection to our senior diplomats, and placed a temporary travel restriction for all State Department personnel within their host country. For the time being, our ambassadors abroad are under lock and key.”
“Any opinion that there is an imminent threat domestically, Dennis?”
“Not at this time, Mr. President,” the homeland security director replied. “We've tightened our travel and immigration inspections on incoming traffic from Japan but don't feel it is necessary to raise the domestic security alert.”
“Do you concur, Marty?”
“Yes, sir. Like Dennis, all our indications suggest that the incidents are isolated to Japan.”
“Very well. Now what about the deaths of those two Coast Guard meteorologists in Alaska?” the president asked, drawing another puff on his pipe.
Finch rifled through some documents before responding. “That would be the island of Yunaska in the Aleutians. We have an investigative team presently on site working with local officials. They are also looking at the destruction of a NUMA helicopter as a related incident. Preliminary indications are that the acts were the result of rogue poachers who used cyanide gas to subdue a herd of sea lions. We're trying to track down a Russian fishing trawler that was known to be fishing the local waters illegally. Officials on-site appear confident that they will apprehend the vessel.”
“Cyanide gas to hunt sea lions? There are lunatics all over this planet. All right, gentlemen, let's give it our all to find these murderers. Allowing our diplomatic representatives to be gunned down without repercussion is not the message I want to be giving the world. I knew Hamilton and Bridges. They were both good men.”
“We'll find them,” Finch promised.
“Make sure,” the president said, tapping his downturned pipe bowl against a stainless steel ashtray for effect. “I fear these characters have more up their sleeve than we realize and I want none of what they're selling.” As he spoke, a glob of burned tobacco plopped unceremoniously into the ashtray, and nobody said a word.
Although Keith Catana had been in South Korea only three months, he had alr
eady identified his favorite off-base watering hole. Chang's Saloon appeared little different from the dozen or so other bars of “A-Town,” a seedy entertainment section on the fringe of Kunsan City that catered to the American servicemen stationed at Kunsan Air Force Base. Chang's skipped the loud blaring music that emanated from most of the other bars and offered a decent price for an OB beer, one of the local Korean brews. But perhaps more important, in Catana's eyes, Chang's attracted the best-looking working girls of A-Town.
Abandoned by two buddies who decided to pursue a group of American servicewomen headed to a dance club around the corner, Catana sat silently nursing his fourth beer, welcoming the early periphery of a warm buzz. The twenty-three-year-old master sergeant was an avionics specialist at the air base, supporting F-16 attack jets of the Eighth Fighter Wing. Located just a few minutes' flight time from the DMZ, his squadron stood in constant preparedness for an aerial counter strike should North Korea initiate an invasion of the South.
Sentimental memories of his family back in Arkansas were suddenly jolted from his brain when the door to the bar flung open and in strolled the most stunning Korean woman Catana had ever laid eyes on. Four beers were not enough to deceive himself; she was a genuine beauty. Her long, straight black hair accentuated a delicate, almost porcelain-skinned face that featured a petite nose and mouth but stunningly bold black eyes. A tight leather skirt and silk top accentuated her small build but magnified a distorted symmetry created by her large, surgically enhanced breasts.
Like a tigress searching for prey, the woman surveyed the crowded bar from front to back before focusing on the lone airman sitting alone in a corner. With her sights locked, she swiveled her way over to Catana's table and smoothly slipped into the chair facing him.
“Hello, Joe. Be a friend and buy me a drink?” she purred.
“Glad to,” Catana stammered in reply. She was definitely in a different league from the normal A-Town hookers, he thought, and not the type that caters to enlisted servicemen. But who was he to argue? If the heavens intended to drop this creature in his lap on payday, then good fortune was indeed smiling his way.
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