“How long will it take you to reprogram the codes?”
Kurojima stared at his staff again. They began muttering rapidly between themselves. Then, seemingly agreeing on something, one stepped forward and murmured so softly Tsuboi didn’t hear.
“What… what was it you said?”
Kurojima finally stared into Tsuboi’s eyes. “Three days, it will take three days minimum to erase Mr. Suma’s command codes and reprogram the systems.”
“That long?”
“It is not a quick and simple procedure.”
“What is the status of the robotic drivers?”
“The robot program is accessible,” replied Kurojima. “Mr. Suma did not insert the codes to set in motion their drive and destination systems.”
“Two days, forty-eight hours. That’s all you have to make the Kaiten Project fully operational.” Tsuboi tightened his mouth and clenched his jaws. He began to pace the control room of the Dragon Center. He cursed the serpentine mastermind who had outfoxed them all. Suma had trusted no one, not even his oldest and closest friend, Yoshishu.
A phone buzzed and one of the technicians picked it up. He went rigid and held out the receiver to Tsuboi. “Mr. Yoshishu in Tokyo for you.”
“Yes, Korori, Ichiro here.”
“Our intelligence people have intercepted a report from the American ship. They claim Hideki’s plane was shot down. Did our pilots actually see Hideki’s aircraft go into the sea?”
“Only one returned. I was informed the surviving pilot reported that he was too busy evading return fire from the ship to witness his missile strike the target.”
“It could be a bluff by the Americans.”
“We won’t know if that’s the case until one of our observer satellites can be programmed to pass over the ship.”
“And if it shows the plane is on board?”
Yoshishu hesitated. “Then we know we are too late. Hideki is lost to us.”
“And under tight security by American intelligence forces,” Tsuboi finished.
“We’re faced with a very grave situation. In the hands of American intelligence, Hideki can become an acute embarrassment to Japan.”
“Under drugged interrogation he will most certainly divulge the locations of the bomb cars.”
“Then we must act quickly to preserve the Kaiten Project.”
“There is another problem,” said Tsuboi grimly. “Only Hideki knew the operational codes to activate the prime and detonate signals.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Then Yoshishu said slowly, “We always knew he had a cunning mind.”
“Only too well,” agreed Tsuboi.
“Then I leave it to you to discover new directions.”
“I won’t fail your trust.”
Tsuboi set down the receiver and gazed out the observation window. A silence came over the control room as everyone waited on his word. There had to be another solution for delaying any retribution by the United States and other Western nations. Tsuboi was a smart man, and it only took him a few seconds to come up with alternate plans.
“How complicated is it to set off one of the bombs manually?” he asked the assembled engineers and scientists in the control room.
Kurojima’s eyebrows raised up questioningly. “To detonate without a coded signal?”
“Yes, yes.”
The technical brain who headed the Kaiten Project from start to finish bowed his head and answered. “There are two methods by which a mass of fissionable material can be made subcritical and forced to explode. One is to surround the mass by a ring of high explosives whose detonation will in turn set off the fissionable material. The other is to shoot together two masses by a cannon-type device.”
“How do we explode a bomb car?” Tsuboi demanded impatiently.
“Velocity,” Kurojima answered briefly. “The impact from a high-velocity bullet through the compressor shell and into the mass should do it.”
Tsuboi glared inquiringly. “Are you saying the bombs can be set off by nothing more than a shot from a rifle?”
Kurojima bowed his head. “At close range, yes.”
The effect on Tsuboi was just within the limits of credibility. “Then why don’t you simply program a robot to fire a high powered rifle into the air-conditioner shell?”
“There is the problem of time again.” replied Kurojima. “The robots that are programmed to drive the cars to their detonation sites are not constructed or programmed for anything else.”
“One of the roboguards, could it be modified?”
“The reverse. Security robots are designed for mobility and weapons fire. They are not designed to drive a car.”
“How long to make one that can do the job?”
“Weeks, no less than a month. You must realize we have to create a very complicated piece of machinery. We do not have one in production that can drive a car, climb out on articulated legs, open a hood, and shoot a gun. A robot with these built-in movements would have to be built from the ground up, and that takes time.”
Tsuboi stared at him. “We must detonate one within the next five hours to make the Americans think the system is operational.”
Kurojima’s confidence had returned. He was in control and his fear of Tsuboi had faded. He gave the financier a long steady look. “Well then, you’ll just have to find a human to do the job.”
It was about five in the evening, and the sky to the east was turning dark blue as the C-20 winged over the Pacific toward California. They were only two hours out of a refueling stop at Hickam Field in Hawaii. Loren looked down, straining her eyes to pick out the tiny shape and white wake of a ship, but she could see only the flat expanse of the sea and a few whitecaps.
She swiveled the executive chair she was sitting in and faced Suma. He sat arrogantly composed, sipping a glass of soda water. The shock of the hijacking and the distress at knowing Yoshishu had ordered his death had long since melted and he was now relaxed, supremely confident that he would regain the upper hand once he reached Washington.
He stared at her and smiled thinly. “So you intend to promote legislation to close all your markets to Japanese goods.”
“In light of what I’ve seen and experienced in the past few days,” said Loren, “do you blame me?”
“We Japanese have planned far into the future for just such a possibility. Our economy will survive because we have already invested heavily in the European and Asian markets. Soon we will no longer need the United States consumer. The closing of your market is merely another unfair tactic of you Americans.”
Loren laughed. “What do you know about fair trade practices?” Then she got down to serious business. “No foreigners can come into Japan to sell their products without being hassled to death by your trade barriers, stonewalled by your graft-ridden distribution system, and undermined by your home competition. All the while insisting that no outsider understands your culture.”
“Your behavior, Congresswoman Smith, is obviously motivated by racist anti-Japanese sentiments. We feel no guilt over expanding our international market shares. We started with nothing after the war. And what we have built, you want to take away.”
“Take what away? Your self-proclaimed right to rule the economic world?” Loren could just detect a hint of growing frustration in Suma’s eyes. “Instead of picking you up from the ashes and helping you build an enormously successful economy, perhaps we should have treated you the way you treated Manchuria, Korea, and China during your years of occupation.”
“Many of the postwar economic successes of those countries were due to Japanese guidance.”
Loren shook her head in wonderment at his refusal to acknowledge historical facts. “At least the Germans have demonstrated regret for the atrocities of the Nazis, but you people act as though your butchery of millions of people throughout Asia and the Pacific never happened.”