“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 fiber-optic 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 President 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.