Dragon (45 page)

“A final meal for the condemned?” Diaz asked harshly.

“Not at all, Senator,” Suma replied in a congenial voice. “You and Congresswoman Smith will be returning to Washington within twenty-four hours on board my private jet.”

“Why not now?”

“You must be instructed of my goals first. Tomorrow I will personally conduct you and Congresswoman Smith on a tour of my Dragon Center and demonstrate the source of Japan’s new might.”

“A Dragon Center,” repeated Diaz curiously. “For what purpose?”

“You don’t know, Senator, about the nuclear bomb cars our host has spread around half the world?” Pitt asked provokingly.

Diaz was uncomprehending. “Bomb cars?”

“Suma, here, wants to play hardball with the big boys, so he’s dreamed up a blue-ribbon extortion plot. As soon as his highly touted Dragon Center is completed, he can push a button and cause the detonation of a nuclear bomb at any location his robots park a car with a built-in bomb.”

Loren’s eyes went wide with shock. “Is this true? Japan has secretly built a nuclear arsenal?”

Pitt nodded at Suma. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Suma stared at Pitt like a mongoose eyeing a cobra. “You’re a very astute man, Mr. Pitt. I’m told it was you who put Mr. Jordan and his intelligence people onto our method of smuggling the warheads into your country.”

“I freely admit that hiding them in automobile air-conditioning compressors was a cagey act of genius on your part. You almost got away with a clean operation, that is, until a bomb accidentally exploded aboard your auto transport ship.”

Frowning, baffled, Loren asked, “What do you hope to gain?”

“Nothing deep and unfathomable,” answered Suma. “Using your slang, Japan has always been on the short end of the stick. Raw universal anti-Japanese prejudice is deeply ingrained in the white West. We have been looked down on as an odd little Oriental race for three hundred years. The time has come to grasp the dominance we deserve!”

An angered flush crept into Loren’s face. “So you’d launch a war that would slaughter millions of people for nothing but false pride and greed. Didn’t you learn anything from the death and destruction you caused in the nineteen-forties?”

“Our leaders went to war only after the Western nations strangled us to death with trade embargoes and boycotts. What we lost then in lives and destruction, we’ve since surpassed in expansion of economic power. Now we are being threatened again by international ostracism and world enmity merely due to our diligent efforts and dedication to efficient trade and industry. And because our great economy is dependent on foreign oil and minerals, we can never again allow ourselves to be dictated to by Washington politics, European interests, or Middle East religious conflict. With the Kaiten Project we have the means to protect ourselves and our hard won economic gains.”

“The Kaiten Project?” Diaz repeated, never having heard of it before.

“His sordid plan to blackmail the universe,” Pitt explained caustically.

“You’re flirting with fire,” Loren said to Suma. “The United States, the Soviet Union, and Europe will band together to destroy you.”

“They will back off when they see what it will cost them,” Suma said confidently. “They’ll do little but hold press conferences and declare they will solve the problem through diplomatic means.”

“You don’t give a damn about saving Japan!” snapped Diaz suddenly. “Your own government would be horrified if they were aware of this monster you’ve created. You’re in this for yourself, a personal power grab. You’re a power-mad maniac.”

“You are right, Senator,” Suma said in quiet control. “In your eyes I must appear as a maniac intent on supreme power. I won’t hide it. And like all the other maniacs of history who were driven to protect their nation and its sovereignty, I won’t hesitate to use my power to guide expansion of our race around the globe while protecting our culture from the corruptions of the West.”

“Just what do you find so corrupting about the Western nations?” demanded Diaz.

A look of contempt came into Suma’s eyes. “Look to your own people, Senator. The United States is a land of drug addicts, Mafia gangsters, rapists and murderers, homeless and illiterates. Your cities run rampant with racism because of your mixed cultures. You are declining as did Greece and Rome and the British Empire. You’ve become a cesspool of deterioration, and the process is unstoppable.”

“So you think America is undermined and finished as a superpower,” said Loren in an annoyed voice.

“You do not find such decay in Japan,” Suma replied smugly. 

“God but you’re hypocritical.” Pitt broke out laughing, turning every head at the dining table. “Your quaint little culture is rife with corruption in the highest political levels. Reports of scandals fill your newspapers and TV stations on a daily basis. Your underworld is so powerful it runs the government. Half your politicians and bureaucrats are on the take, openly receiving money for political influence. You sell highly secret military technology to the Communist Bloc for profit. Living costs are ridiculously out of sight for your own people, who pay twice what Americans pay for goods manufactured by Japanese corporations. You steal high-tech advancements wherever you can find them. You have racketeers who regularly disrupt company meetings to extract payoffs. You accuse us of racism when your best-selling books promote anti-Semitism, your department stores display and sell black Sambo manikins and dolls, and you sell magazines on street newsstands depicting women in bondage. And you have the gall to sit there and claim you have a superior culture. That’s garbage.”

“Amen, my friend,” said Diaz, raising his teacup. “Amen.”

“Dirk is one hundred percent right,” Loren added proudly. “Our society isn’t perfect, but people to people, our overall quality of life is still better than yours.”

Suma’s face altered into a mask of wrath. The eyes were as hard as topaz on the satin-smooth face. His teeth were set. He spoke as if cracking a whip. “Fifty years ago, we were a defeated people, reviled by the United States! Now, all of a sudden, we are the winners, and you have lost to us. The poisoning of Japan by the United States and Europe has been stopped. Our culture will prevail. We will prove to be the dominant nation in the twenty-first century.”

“You sound like the warlords who prematurely counted us out after Pearl Harbor,” Loren reminded him curtly. “The United States treated Japan far better after the war than we’d have expected if you were the victors. Your armies would have raped, murdered, and pillaged America just as you did China.”

“Besides us, you still have Europe to contend with,” warned Diaz. “Their trade policies are not nearly as tolerant and patronizing as ours toward Tokyo. And if anything, the new European Common Market is going to dig in against your economic penetration. Threatened by nuclear blackmail or not, they’ll close their markets to Japanese exports.”

“Over the long term, we will merely use our billions of cash reserves to slowly buy up their industries until we have a base that is impregnable. Not an impossible operation when you consider that the twelve largest banks in the world are Japanese, constituting almost three quarters of the total market value of all the rest of the foreign banks. That means we rule the world of big money.”

“You can’t hold the world hostage forever,” said Pitt. “Your own government and people will rise up against you when they discover the world’s warheads are aimed at the Japanese islands instead of the United States and the Soviet Union. And the possibility of another nuclear attack becomes very real should one of your car bombs accidentally detonate.”

Suma shook his head. “Our electronic safeguards are more advanced than yours and the Russians’. There will be no explosions unless I personally program the correct code.”

“You can’t really start a nuclear war,” Loren gasped.

Suma laughed. “Nothing as stupid and cold-blooded as what the White House and Kremlin might attempt. You forget, we Japanese know what it’s like to suffer the horror of atomic warfare. No, the Kaiten Project is far more technically sophisticated than masses of missile warheads aimed at cities and military installations. The bombs are designed to be set off in remote strategically unpopulated areas to create a massive electromagnetic force with the potential of destroying your entire economy. Any deaths or injuries would be minimal.”

“You really plan to do it, don’t you?” said Pitt, reading Suma’s mind. “You really intend to set off the bombs.”

“And why not, if circumstances warrant it. There is no fear of immediate retaliation, since the electromagnetic force will effectively close down all American, NATO, and Soviet communications and weapons systems.” The Japanese industrialist stared at Pitt, the dark eyes cool and tyrannical. “Whether I take that step or not, you, Mr. Pitt, won’t be around to find out.”

A frightened look swept Loren’s face. “Aren’t Dirk and AI flying back to Washington with Senator Diaz and me?”

Suma exhaled his breath in a long silent sigh and shook his head very slowly. “No… I have made them a gift to my good friend Moro Kamatori.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Moro is an expert hunter. His passion is tracking human game. Your friends and the three intelligence operatives who were captured during their attempt to destroy the center will be offered a chance to escape the island. But only if they can elude Moro for twenty-four hours.”

Kamatori gave Pitt a subzero stare. “Mr. Pitt will have the honor of being the first to make the attempt.”

Pitt turned to Giordino, the trace of a grin on his saturnine face. “See, I told you so.”

48

“
E
SCAPE,” MUTTERED
G
IORDINO
, pacing the small cottage under the watchful eye of McGoon, “escape” where? The best long distance swimmer in the world couldn’t make it across sixty kilometers of cold water swept by five-knot currents. And even then, Suma’s hoods would be waiting to gut you the minute you crawled onto a mainland beach.”

“So what’s the game plan?” asked Pitt between pushups on the floor.

“Stay alive as long as possible. What other options do we have?”

“Die like stouthearted men.”

Giordino raised an eyebrow and stared at Pitt suspiciously. “Yeah, sure, bare your chest, refuse the blindfold, and puff a cigarette as Kamatori raises his sword.”

“Why fight the inevitable.”

“Since when do you give up in the first inning?” Giordino said, beginning to wonder if his old friend had suffered a brain leak.

“We can try to hide somewhere on the island as long as we can, but it’s a hopeless cause. I suspect Kamatori will cheat and use robotic sensors to track us down.”

“What about Stacy? You can’t stand by and let that moonfaced scum murder her too.”

Pitt rose from the floor. “Without weapons, what do you expect? Flesh can’t win against mechanical cyborgs and an expert with a sword.”

“I expect you to show the guts you showed in a hundred other scrapes we’ve been through together.”

Pitt favored his right leg as he limped past McGoon and stood with his back to the robot. “Easy for you to say, pal. You’re in good physical shape. I wrenched my knee when I crash-landed into that fishpond and I can barely walk. I stand no chance at all of eluding Kamatori.”

Then Giordino saw the wily grin on Pitt’s face, and a dawning comprehension settled over him. Suddenly he felt a complete fool. Besides McGoon’s sensors, the room must have had a dozen listening devices and video cameras hidden in and around it. He figured Pitt’s drift and played along.

“Kamatori is too much a samurai to hunt an injured man. If there’s a morsel of sporting blood in him, he’d give himself a handicap.”

Pitt shook his head. “I’d settle for something to ease the pain.”

“McGoon,” Giordino hailed the sentry robot, “is there a doctor in the house?”

“That data is not programmed in my directive.”

“Then call up your remote boss and find out.”

“Please stand by.”

The robot went silent as its communications system sent out a request to its control center. The reply came back immediately. “There is a small staff in a clinic on the fourth level. Does Mr. Pitt require medical assistance?”

“Yes,” Pitt answered. “I’ll require an injection of a painkiller and a tight bandage if I’m to provide Mr. Kamatori with a challenging degree of competition.”

“You did not appear to limp a few hours ago,” McGoon flagged Pitt.

“My knee was numb,” Pitt lied. “But the pain and stiffness have increased to where I find it difficult to walk.” He took a few halting steps and tensed his face as though experiencing a mild case of agony.

As a machine that was completely adequate for the job, Murasaki, alias McGoon, duly relayed his visual observation of Pitt’s pathetic display to his directorate controller somewhere deep within the Dragon Center and received permission to escort his injured prisoner to the medical clinic. Another roboguard appeared to keep a video eye on Giordino, who promptly named the newcomer McGurk.

Playing his fake condition as though an Academy Award was in the offing, Pitt shuffled awkwardly through a labyrinth of corridors before being hustled into an elevator by McGoon.

The robot pressed a floor button with a metal finger, and the elevator began to quietly descend, although not as silently as the one in the Federal Headquarters Building.

Too bad the MAIT team didn’t have intelligence on an elevator that dropped from the island’s surface to the underground center, Pitt thought during the ride. Penetration from the resort might have been carried off with a higher chance of success. A few moments later the doors spread and McGoon prodded Pitt into a brightly lit passageway.

“The fourth door on your left. Take it and enter.”

The door, like every piece of flat surface in the underground facility, was painted white. A small red cross was the only indication of a medical center. There was no knob, only a button set in the frame. Pitt pushed it and the door noiselessly slid open. He limped inside. An attractive young lady in a nurse’s uniform looked up from a desk through serious brown eyes as he entered. She spoke to him in Japanese, and he shrugged dumbly.