Dragon

by Clive Cussler

  "We're here and we have no alternatives," said Mancuso, glancing at his watch. "If Pitt and Giordino were successful in landing on the island's surface and diverting Suma's security systems, we should have time enough to plant the plastic and escape back through the tunnel to Edo City."

  Weatherhill looked at Stacy and Mancuso, then looked at the elevator panel. He knew exactly how they felt-- nerves tense, minds alert, their bodies honed and ready to act. They had come this far and now it all depended on their decisions in the next few minutes. He punched the button marked 6.

  "Might as well try the middle floor," he said with practical logic.

  Mancuso raised the briefcase that camouflaged two automatic weapons and clutched it under his arm.

  Immobile, he and Stacy and Weatherhill stood quietly in uneasy apprehension. A few seconds later there was an audible bong, the digital light for the sixth floor flashed, and the doors spread apart.

  Mancuso went through with Stacy and Weatherhill at his heels. When he stopped dead after two steps, he hardly felt the others bump into him. They all stood and stared like village idiots on a space journey to Mars.

  Everywhere inside a vast domed gallery there was a bustling purposeful confusion one would expect from an army of efficient assembly line workers, except there were no spoken orders or shouts or group conversations. All of the specialists, technicians, and engineers working on a great semicircle of computers and instrument consoles were robots in myriad different sizes and shapes.

  They'd struck gold on the first try. Weatherhill had unwittingly pushed the floor button that took them directly to the electronic brains of Suma's nuclear command center. There were no human helpers anywhere in the complex. The entire work force was totally automated and made up of sophisticated hightech machines that worked twenty-four hours a day without coffee breaks, lunch, or sick leave. An operation inconceivable to an American union leader.

  Most rolled on wheels, some on tractor treads. Some had as many as seven articulated arms sprouting like octopus tentacles from wheeled carts, a few could have passed as the familiar multipurpose units found in a dentist's office. But none walked on legs and feet, or remotely resembled C3P0 from Star Wars or Robby from Forbidden Planet. The robots were immersed in their individual work programs and went about their business without taking notice of the human intruders.

  "Do you get the feeling we've become obsolete?" whispered Stacy.

  "Not good," said Mancuso. "We'd better get back inside the elevator."

  Weatherhill shook his head. "Not a chance. This is the complex we came to destroy. These things don't even know we're here. They're not programmed to interfere with humans. And there are no robotic security guards around. Pitt and Giordino must have saved our ass by distracting them. I say we send this automated anthill to the moon."

  "The elevator has moved on," said Stacy, pressing the "down" button. "For the next minute we've got nowhere else to go.

  Mancuso wasted no more time in discussion. He set the briefcase on the floor and began tearing the packets of C-8 plastic explosives attached by tape from around his lower legs. The rest did the same from under their jumpsuit uniforms.

  "Stacy, the computer section. Tim, the nuclear bomb prime systems. I'll tackle the communications gear."

  They had moved less than five steps toward their given targets when a voice boomed and echoed through the concrete walls of the chamber.

  "Remain where you are! Do not move or you will surely die!" Perfect English, with barely a trace of a Japanese accent, and the voice cold, menacing.

  The surprise was complete, but Mancuso bluffed it out, trying to find a target for the automatic weapons inside his briefcase.

  "We are test engineers on an inspection and test program. Do you wish to see and hear our pass code?"

  "All human engineers and inspectors along with their codes were discontinued when the fully autonomous vehicles could perform their programs without intervention and human supervision," the disembodied voice rumbled.

  "We were not aware of the change. We were instructed by our superior to inspect the fiberoptic communications," Mancuso persisted as his hand pressed a button disguised as a cleat on the bottom of his briefcase.

  And then the elevator door opened and Roy Orita stepped out onto the control center floor. He paused for a moment, his eyes staring with a certain respect at his former MAIT team members.

  "Spare the bravado," he said with a triumphant smile. "You've failed. Your covert operation to stop the Kaiten Project has failed, totally and absolutely. And you're all going to die for it."

  Jordan and Sandecker shared a light breakfast with the President at the executive retreat at Camp David. They sat at a table in a small cottage in front of a crackling hickory log fire. Jordan and the admiral found the room uncomfortably warm, but the President seemed to enjoy the heat, sipping a cup of Southern chicory-flavored coffee while wearing an Irish wool knit sweater.

  The President's special assistant, Dale Nichols, came in from the kitchen with a glass of milk. "Don Kern is outside," he reported, addressing Jordan.

  "I believe he has an update on Soseki Island," said Jordan.

  The President gestured at Nichols. "By all means, send him in." And as an afterthought, "Get him a cup of coffee and see if he'd like anything to eat."

  Kern only accepted the coffee and took a seat on a nearby sofa. The President stared expectantly at him, but Jordan gazed emptily into the fire.

  "They're in," Kern announced.

  "They're in," echoed the President. "Every one of them?"

  Kern nodded. "All three."

  "Any problems?" asked Jordan.

  "We don't know. Before our British contact's signal was mysteriously cut off, he said they'd made it safely through the tunnel."

  The President reached out and shook Jordan's hand. "Congratulations, Ray."

  "A bit premature, Mr. President," said Jordan. "They still have hurdles to clear. Penetrating the Dragon Center is only the first step in the plan."

  "What about my men?" demanded Sandecker testily.

  "They signaled a safe landing," answered Kern. "We have no reason to believe they were injured or harmed by Suma's security guards."

  "So where do we go from here?" inquired the President.

  "After placing their explosives and putting the Dragon Center temporarily out of commission, our people will attempt to effect a rescue of Congresswoman Smith and Senator Diaz. If all goes according to plan, we'll have breathing space to nail Hideki Suma to the nearest cross and send in our military for a wholesale destruction operation."

  The President's face took on a concerned look. "Is it possible for two men and a woman to accomplish all that in the next thirty-six hours?"

  Jordan smiled tiredly. "Trust me, Mr. President, my people can walk through walls."

  "And Pitt and Giordino?" Sandecker pressured Kern.

  "Once our people signal they're ready, a submarine will surface and launch a Delta One team to evacuate them from the island. Pitt and Giordino will be brought out too."

  "Seems to me you're taking an awful lot for granted," said Sandecker.

  Kern gave the admiral a confident smile. "We've analyzed and fine-tuned every phase of the operation until we're certain it has a ninety-six-point-seven-percent chance of success."

  Sandecker shot Kern a withering stare. "Better make that a ninety-nine-point-nine percentage factor."

  Everyone looked at Sandecker questioningly. Then Kern said uncertainly, "I don't follow you, Admiral."

  "You overlooked the capabilities of Pitt and Giordino," Sandecker replied with a sharp edge to his voice. "It wouldn't be the first time they bailed out a fancy intelligence agency carnival."

  Kern looked at him strangely, then turned to Jordan for help, but it was the President who answered.

  "I think what Admiral Sandecker is referring to are the several occasions Mr. Pitt has saved the government's ass. One in particular hits close to home." The Pre
sident paused for effect. "You see, it was Pitt who saved my life along with that of Congresswoman Smith four years ago in the Gulf."

  "I remember." Jordan turned from the fire. "He used an old Mississippi River paddle steamer to do it."

  Kern refused to back down. He felt his reputation as the nation's best intelligence planner was on the line. "Trust me, Mr. President. The escape and evacuation will go as planned without help from NUMA.

  We've taken into account every possible flaw, every contingency. Nothing but an unpredictable act of God can prevent us from pulling it off."

  <<46>>

  It wasn't an act of God that prevented Mancuso, Weatherhill, and Stacy from carrying through with Kern's exacting plan. Nor were they lacking in skill and experience. They could and occasionally did open any bank vault in the world, escape from the tightest security prisons, and penetrate the KGB

  headquarters in Moscow or Fidel Castro's private residence in Cuba. There wasn't a lock built or a security system created that would take them more than ten minutes to circumvent. The unpredictability of attack dogs could present a troublesome obstacle, but they were expert in a variety of methods to leave snarling hounds either dead or docile.

  Unfortunately their bag of well-practiced tricks did not include escaping from prison cells with no windows or with doors that could only be opened from the floor when the stainless steel ceiling and walls were lifted by a mechanical arm. And after being stripped of all weapons, their martial arts training was useless against sentry robots who felt no pain and whose computerized reaction time was faster than humans'.

  Suma and Kamatori considered them extremely dangerous and confined them in separate cells that held only a Japanese tatami mat, a narrow hole in the floor for a toilet, and a speaker in the ceiling. No lights were installed, and they were forced to sit alone and totally enclosed in pitch darkness, void of all emotion, their minds seeking a direction, no matter how small or remote, toward escape.

  Then came a bitter realization that the cells were escape-proof. Then numbed disbelief and chagrin that despite their almost superhuman skills there was no way out. They were absolutely and hopelessly trapped.

  Positive identification of Pitt and Giordino was made by Roy Orita after studying videotapes of their capture. He immediately reported his revelation to Kamatori.

  "Are you certain?"

  "Yes, there is no doubt in my mind. I sat across a table from them in Washington. Your security intelligence staff will bear me out after a genetic code check."

  "What is their purpose? They are not professional agents."

  "They were simply diversionary decoys for the team given the assignment for destroying the control center."

  Kamatori couldn't believe his luck in finding the man he'd been ordered to assassinate appear out of the blue into his own backyard.

  He dismissed Orita and went into solitary meditation, his mind meticulously planning a cat-and-mouse game, a sport that would test his hunting skills against a man like Pitt, whose courage and resourcefulness were well known, and who would make a worthy competitor.

  It was a contest Kamatori had played many times with men who had opposed Suma, and he had never lost.

  Pitt and Giordino were heavily guarded around the clock by a small crew of sentry robots. Giordino even struck up a friendship of sorts with one of the robots who had captured them, calling it McGoon.

  "My name is not McGoon," it spoke in reasonable English. "My name is Murasaki. It means purple."

  "Purple," Giordino snorted. "You're painted yellow. McGoon fits you better."

  "After I became fully operational, I was consecrated by a Shinto priest with food offerings and flower garlands and given the name Murasaki. I am not operated by telepresence. I have my own intelligence and decision-making capability and can control appropriate operations."

  "So you're an independent free agent," said Giordino, astounded at speaking to a mechanism that could carry on a conversation.

  "Not entirely. There are limits to my artificial thought processes, of course."

  Giordino turned to Pitt. "Is he putting me on?"

  "I have no idea." Pitt shrugged. "Why don't you ask him what he'd do if we made a run for it."

  "I would alert my security operator and shoot to kill as I have been programmed," the robot answered.

  "Are you a good shot?" Pitt asked, intrigued with conversing with artificial intelligence.

  "I am not programmed to miss."

  Giordino said succinctly, "Now we know where we stand."

  "You cannot flee the island and there is no place to hide. "You would only die by drowning, eaten by sharks, or be executed by beheading. Any escape attempt would be illogical."

  "He sounds like Mr. Spock."

  There was a knock from the outside, and a man with a permanently scowling face pushed the fusuma sliding door with its shoji paper panes to one side and came in. He stood silent as his eyes traveled from Giordino standing beside the robot to Pitt, who was comfortably reclining on a triple pile of tatami mats.

  "I am Moro Kamatori, chief aide to Mr. Hideki Suma."

  "Al Giordino," greeted the stocky Italian, smiling grandly and sticking out his hand like a used car salesman. "My friend in the horizontal position is Dirk Pitt. We're sorry to drop in uninvited but--"

  "We are quite knowledgeable of your names and how you came to be on Soseki Island," Kamatori interrupted Giordino. "You can dispense with any attempt at denials, self-defeating tales of misdirection, or counterfeit excuses of innocence. I regret to inform you that your diversionary intrusion was a failure.

  Your three team members were apprehended shortly after they exited the tunnel from Edo City."

  There was a hushed quiet. Giordino gave Kamatori a dark look, then turned to Pitt expectantly.

  Pitt's face was quite composed. "You wouldn't happen to have anything to read around here?" He spoke boredly. "Maybe a guide to the local restaurants."

  Kamatori looked at Pitt with pure antagonism in his eyes. After a lapse of nearly a minute he stepped forward until he was almost leaning over Pitt.

  "Do you like to hunt game, Mr. Pitt?" he asked abruptly.

  "Not really. It's no sport if the prey can't shoot back."

  "You abhor the sight of blood and death then?"

  "Don't most well-adjusted people?"

  "Perhaps you prefer to identify with the hunted."

  "You know Americans," Pitt said conversationally. "We're suckers for the underdog."

  Kamatori stared at Pitt murderously. Then he shrugged. "Mr. Suma has honored you with an invitation for dinner. You will be escorted to the dining room at seven o'clock. Kimonos can be found in the closet.

  Please dress appropriately." Then he spun about briskly and strode from the room.

  Giordino stared after him curiously. "What was all that doubletalk about hunting?"

  Pitt closed his eyes in preparation to doze. "I do believe he intends to hunt us down like rabbits and lop off our heads."

  It was the kind of dining room the most palatial castles of Europe still have to entertain royal and celebrity guests. It was of vast proportions, with an open heavy-beamed ceiling twelve meters high. The floor was covered by a bamboo carpet interwoven with red silk, and the walls were paneled in highly polished rosewood.

  Authentic paintings by Japanese masters hung precisely spaced as though each was in harmony with the other. The room was lit entirely with candles inside paper lanterns.

  Loren had never seen anything to match its beauty. She stood like a statue as she admired the startling effect. Mike Diaz walked around her. He also came to a halt as he gazed about the richly adorned walls.

  The only thing that seemed oddly out of place, that was not distinctly Japanese, was the long ceramic dining table that curled halfway across the room in a series of curves and appeared to have been fired in one giant piece. The matching chairs and place settings were spaced so that guests were not elbow-to-elbow but sitting partially i
n front of or in back of one another.

  Toshie, dressed in a traditional blue silk kimono, came forward and bowed. "Mr. Suma begs your forgiveness for being late, but he will join you shortly. While you wait, may I fix you a drink?"

  "You speak very good English," Loren complimented her.

  "I can also converse in French, Spanish, German, and Russian," Toshie said with eyes lowered as if embarrassed to tout her knowledge.

  Loren wore one of several kimonos she found in the closet of her guarded cottage. It beautifully draped her tall lithe body, and the silk was dyed a deep burgundy that complemented the light bronze of her fading summer tan. She smiled warmly at Toshie and said, "I envy you. I can barely order a meal in French."

  "So we're to meet the great yellow peril at last," muttered Diaz. He was in no mood to be polite and went out of his way to be rude. As a symbol of his defiance he had refused the offered Japanese-style clothing and stood in the rumpled fishing togs he wore when abducted. "Now maybe we'll find out what crazy scheme is going on around here."

  "Can you mix a Maiden's Blush?" Loren asked Toshie.

  "Yes," Toshie acknowledged. "Gin, curacao, grenadine, and lemon juice." She turned to Diaz.

  "Senator?"

  "Nothing," he said flatly. "I want to keep my mind straight."

  Loren saw that the table was set for six. "Who will be joining us besides Mr. Suma?" she asked Toshie.

  "Mr. Suma's right-hand man, Mr. Kamatori, and two Americans.

  "Fellow hostages, no doubt," muttered Diaz.

  Toshie did not answer but stepped lightly behind a polished ebony bar inlaid with gold tile and began mixing Loren's drink.

  Diaz moved over to one wall and studied a large painting of a narrative scene drawn in ink that showed a bird's-eye view onto several houses in a village, revealing the people and their daily lives inside.

  "I wonder what something like this is worth?"