“The prospect of leaving all these age-inflicted aches and pains behind makes my exit an event I look forward to.”
Toshie closed the door and left as Suma bowed to Tsuboi. “Good to see you, Ichiro. Welcome home from Washington. I’m told you gave the American politicians another Pearl Harbor.”
“Nothing so dramatic,” said Tsuboi. “But I do believe I put a few cracks in their Capitol building.”
Unknown but to a select few, Tsuboi became a member of the Gold Dragons when he was only fourteen. Yoshishu took an interest in the young boy and saw to his advancement in the secret society and taught him the art of financial manipulation on a grand scale. Now as head of Kanoya Securities, Tsuboi personally guarded Yoshishu and Suma’s financial empires and guided their secret transactions.
“You both know my trusted friend and adviser, Moro Kamatori.”
“A swordsman almost as good as me in my youth,” said Yoshishu.
Kamatori bowed to his waist. “I’m sure your katana is still swifter than mine.”
“I knew your father when he was fencing master at the university,” said Tsuboi. “I was his worst pupil. He suggested I buy a cannon and take up elephant shooting.”
Suma took Yoshishu by the arm and led him to a chair. Japan’s once most feared man walked slow and stiffly, but his face wore a granite smile and his eyes missed nothing.
He settled into a straightbacked chair and looked up at Suma and came directly to the point of his visit. “What is the state of the Kaiten Project?”
“We have eighteen bomb vehicles on the high seas. They are the last. Four are destined for the United States. Five for the Soviet Union, and the rest divided up among Europe and the Pacific nations.”
“The time until they’re concealed near targets?”
“No later than three weeks. By then our command center will come on-line with its defense-detection and detonation systems.”
Yoshishu looked at Suma in surprise. “The untimely explosion on board the Divine Stardid not set back the project?”
“Fortunately I planned for a possible ship loss due to storm, collision, or other maritime accident. I held six warheads in reserve. The three that were lost in the explosion I replaced. After installation in the autos, they were shipped to Veracruz, Mexico. From there they will be driven across the Texas border into the U.S. to their target areas.”
“The remainder are safely deposited, I hope.”
“On a surplus tanker anchored fifty miles off a desolate shore of Hokkaido.”
“Do we know what caused the detonation on board the Divine Star?”
“We’re at a loss to explain the premature explosion,” answered Suma. “Every conceivable safeguard was in place. One of the autos must have become thrown about in rough seas and damaged the warhead container. Radiation then leaked and spread throughout the cargo decks. The crew panicked and abandoned ship. A Norwegian ship discovered the derelict and sent over a boarding party. Shortly after, the Divine Starmysteriously blew up.”
“And the escaped crew?”
“No trace. They vanished during the storm.
“What is the total number of cars in the system?” asked Yoshishu.
Suma stepped to his desk and pushed a button on a small handheld control box. The far wall rose into the ceiling, revealing a large transparent screen. He pressed another command into the box and a holographic image of the global earth appeared in pulsating neonlike colors. Then he programmed the detonation sites that burst into tiny points of gold light at strategic locations around nearly twenty countries. Only then did Suma answer Yoshishu’s question.
“One hundred and thirty in fifteen countries.
Yoshishu sat silent, staring at the little beams as they flashed around the room with the rotation of the globe like reflections on a mirrored ball above a dance floor.
The Soviet Union had more light clusters than any other nation, suggesting a greater threat to Japan than her trade rivals in Europe and the United States. Strangely, no military installations or major cities were targeted. All of the lights appeared to emanate from barren or lightly populated areas, making the Kaiten menace all the more mysterious as an extortion tool.
“Your father’s spirit is proud of you,” Yoshishu said in quiet awe. “Thanks to your genius we can take our rightful place as a world power of the first magnitude. The twenty-first century belongs to Nippon. America and Russia are finished.”
Suma was pleased. “The Kaiten Project could not have been created and built without your support, my dear old friend, and certainly not without the financial wizardry of Ichiro Tsuboi.”
“You are most kind,” said Tsuboi with a bow. “The Machiavellian intrigue of arranging secret funding to build a clandestine nuclear weapons plant came as a great challenge.”
“Soviet and Western intelligence know we have the capacity,” Kamatori said, bringing a realistic bent into the conversation.
“If they didn’t know before the explosion,” added Suma, “they do now.”
“The Americans have suspected us for several years,” said Suma. “But they have been unable to penetrate our security rings and confirm the exact location of our facility.”
“Lucky for us the fools keep searching horizontal instead of vertical.” Yoshishu’s voice was ironic. “But we must face the very real possibility that sooner or later the CIA or KGB will track the site.”
“Probably sooner,” said Kamatori. “One of our undercover agents has informed me that a few days after the Divine Starexplosion, the Americans launched an all-out covert operation to investigate our involvement. They’ve already been sniffing around one of Murmoto’s automotive distributors.”
A worried crease appeared on Yoshishu’s face. “They are good, the American intelligence people. I fear the Kaiten Project is in jeopardy.”
“We’ll know before tomorrow just how much they’ve learned,” said Kamatori. “I meet with our agent, who has just returned from Washington. He claims to have updated information.”
The worry in Yoshishu’s mind deepened. “We cannot allow the project to be endangered before the command center is fully operational. The consequences could spell the end of our new empire.
“I agree,” said Tsuboi grimly. “For the next three weeks we are vulnerable while the warheads sit useless. One leak and the Western nations would band together and strike us from all sides, economically as well as militarily.”
“Not to worry,” said Suma. “Their agents may stumble onto our nuclear weapons manufacturing plant, but they will never discover the whereabouts of the Kaiten Project’s brain center. Not in a hundred years, much less three weeks.”
“And even if fortune smiled on them,” said Kamatori, “they can never neutralize it in time. There is only one way in, and that’s fortified by massive steel barriers and guarded by a heavily armed security force. The installation can take a direct hit by a nuclear bomb and still function.”
A tight smile cut Suma’s lips. “Everything is working to our advantage. The slightest hint of an attempted penetration or an attack by enemy special forces, and we could threaten to detonate one or more of the auto warheads.”
Tsuboi wasn’t convinced. “What good is an empty threat?”
“Hideki makes a good point,” said Kamatori. “No one outside this room or the engineers in the command center knows our system is three weeks away from completion. Western leaders can easily be bluffed into thinking the system is fully operational.”
Yoshishu gave a satisfied nod of his head. “Then we have nothing to fear.”
“A guaranteed conclusion,” Suma stated without hesitation. “We’re making too much out of a nightmare that will never happen.”
Silence then in the richly decorated office, the four men sitting, each one with his own thoughts. After a minute, Suma’s desk interoffice phone buzzed. He picked up the receiver and listened a moment without speaking. Then he set it down.