A nuclear explosion in Los Angeles would be devastating for sure, but Mizuzawa would have shot his complete wad, having nothing else to fight with except his meager self-defense forces.
“I’m six hours out from the harbor. As soon as I touch the pier, I will vanish in a blaze of glory for my country,” Sazaku answered, reminiscent of the kamikaze pilots of World War II. Sazaku carried on the Japanese kamikaze tradition of writing a final poem before the splendid final moments of life.
I am the final victor/my country proud/the ship I steer/finishing loud/I am not alone/friends by my side/others gathered/in the ebbing tide/in the end/my floating corpse/finding safe harbor/Banzai Japan, no remorse.
“Yes, good. Continue your mission,” Mizuzawa ordered, then placed the handset back in its receiver. He looked at Nugama, an old friend whom he trusted.
“Do you have misgivings, my friend?” Mizuzawa asked, hoping for an honest answer.
“We can still win, Prime Minister. We can have Sazaku enter the port, then we can sue for peace on our terms,” Nugama responded, his gray hair shining bright beneath the stained-glass window. They could hear the intermittent pop of small-arms fire and the horrifying noise of American jets slicing low above the Manila skyline.
Chapter 100
While she was recovering at the Garrett farm in Stanardsville, Meredith continued to pore over the thumb drive, finding little else of use. She stood and stretched, catlike, her angora sweater providing full effect.
She went back to Matt’s room, where she had been sleeping, and studied the computer notes he had typed, which gave her an idea.
“Karen,” she shouted down the stairs. “Think Matt would mind if I looked at some files on his computer?”
“No, just stay away from all the sports illustrated swimsuit editions. He copies the pictures in Adobe PDF and saves them.” Karen smiled.
“I always thought of him as a man who could judge quality swimwear,” Meredith said, smiling. Like a Greek tragedy, the two women were able to manage pockets of humor, but overall the situation was a disaster.
Karen opened Matt’s computer using all of the protocols and she was inside Matt Garrett’s storage files. She was missing something — something she couldn’t remember, and Meredith believed it was substantial.
She scanned his personal e-mail. Lots of Viagra offers, announcements that his Bank of America account was going to be closed if he didn’t provide all of his financial data, and some that looked like stray friends, perhaps lovers.
She reprimanded herself for perusing the note from Kari Jackson from New York. Apparently they had once been an item in college. With a career like Matt’s, Meredith wished Kari good luck. Well, actually, she didn’t. Not the way she had grown to feel.
As she stared at the screen, a new e-mail appeared at the top in the form of a text message, meaning it was most likely sent from a cell phone. She didn’t recognize the phone number but did understand the message.
Check out Shimpu. Contact KIA. New location. Standing by.
That was it, Meredith derided herself. The eleventh ship was out there floating in the Pacific as a wild card. Matt had mentioned this to her when they first met in Palau.
She ran downstairs and kissed Karen on the cheek, then jumped in her Prelude to make the two-hour drive to DC along Route 29 and I-66. She called Mark, her assistant, to get her the proper parking clearances and to let them know she had urgent information. She fishtailed her small car into a parking space on the Ellipse less than five hundred yards from the Washington Monument.
She could see the tall white structure pointing into the sky, and even at that urgent moment was amazed that there was nothing actually holding the granite blocks together but their sheer weight.
She ran to the southwest gate of the White House, flashing her credentials and passing through the metal detector. The guard recognized her from her few visits with Stone and allowed her to pass after phoning Dave Palmer, who told him to send her through.
Worry etched lines of concern across her soft face. Dressed in blue jeans and flannel shirt, she had driven as fast as possible from Stanardsville.
She jogged beneath the awning that led to the business portion of the White House in the West Wing, then bounced up the stairs into Palmer’s corner office where Stone and Lantini were looking at a map on Palmer’s desk. She steeled herself against Stone’s presence and projected a determined demeanor.
“You’ve got to find this ship,” she demanded, slapping down a piece of paper on the desk with the word Shimpu scribbled in large, erratic script.
The three men looked at her, then the paper, and Palmer asked, “What’s the big deal, we’ve won this thing? We’ve got the Presidential Palace, and we’ve defeated their operational reserve. They’ve got nothing left. All we’ve got to do is root Mizuzawa out of the Catholic chapel there, and we can pack our bags.” His matter-of-fact demeanor only served to ignite a simmering fire in Meredith.
“You don’t understand! The ship has nukes on it and is roaming in the Pacific somewhere,” she said, shaking. She tried to maintain her professionalism, fearing that Palmer might just mistake her for another woman with PMS. The barriers were still there. If she had been a man, she could have done or said whatever she wanted, but as a woman, if she got too irate, she was just another crazy bitch.
“What makes you so sure, Meredith?” Stone asked, giving her the benefit of the doubt. After all, she had predicted with certainty the reaction of Japan’s neighbors. In fact, the president’s policy was based in large part on Meredith’s acute analysis. Thankfully, the defeat of the Japanese ground forces had kept the Chinese and Koreans in check. The Russians and Taiwanese were merely extending their security zones and never had any intention of provoking Japan beyond convincing her to put her toys back in her bag and go home.
“This is the eleventh ship. I don’t know how I missed it, but remember there were ten that pulled away from Davao City. They were military sealift ships disguised as oil tankers. But look here,” she said, flipping some pages to a shipping log, “the Shimpu docked at Zhoushan a month ago, spent one night, never off-loaded anything, then arrived in Davao City and departed port the day Matt Garrett’s contact was killed on the pier. And Matt reported this.”
Palmer took a minute to scan the log, a product of United States HUMINT, human intelligence and passed it to Lantini, whose organization had originally provided the document. Routinely, operators around the world tracked foreign ships, particularly among high-risk nations. Stone looked over Lantini’s shoulder, and thought, What have we done?
“We know this ship docked in Zhoushan, loaded something, then left, then arrived in Davao, and left. Now we don’t know where it is. Is that right?” Palmer said. He added before she could answer, “Christ, what happened to your head.” He saw the six stitches that the Georgetown doctor had put in her forehead near the right temple.
“Jogging accident,” she said quickly, staring directly at Stone. “Why don’t we just try to find the Shimpu? And then we can hazard a guess as to what it’s doing.”
“You think there are nukes on the thing, really?” Lantini asked.
“Well, why don’t we worst-case it, then?” Sewell said, walking into the office. He wore his green Army uniform, bedecked with medals from conflicts in Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, and Iraq. Meredith smiled. Sewell returned the nonverbal greeting, shaking her hand.