Dragon (33 page)

Jordan stood unobserved and gazed over the collection. He was astonished it was so extensive. He’d heard Sandecker speak of it, but verbal description failed to do it justice. Softly he walked behind the first row of cars, circled around, and approached Pitt from under the apartment side of the hangar. It was a test. He was curious as to Pitt’s reaction to an intruder who suddenly appeared within arm’s reach.

Jordan paused before he closed the final three meters and studied Pitt and the car for a moment. The Stutz was badly scratched in many areas and would require a new paint job. The windshield was cracked and the left front headlight seemed to be dangling by a wire.

Pitt was dressed casually, wearing a pair of corduroy pants and a knit sweater. His black hair was wavy and carelessly brushed. There was a decisive look about him, the green eyes were set under heavy black eyebrows and had a piercing quality that seemed to transfix whatever they were aimed at. He looked to be screwing the headlight lens into a chrome rim.

Jordan was in midstep when Pitt suddenly spoke without turning. “Good evening, Mr. Jordan. Good of you to drop in.”

Jordan froze, but Pitt went on with his work with the indifferent air of a bus driver expecting the correct change from a fare.

“I should have knocked.”

“No need. I knew you were on the premises.”

“Are you hyperperceptive or do you have eyes in the back of your head?” asked Jordan, moving slowly into Pitt’s peripheral vision.

Pitt looked up and grinned. He lifted and tilted the old headlight’s reflector that revealed Jordan’s image on its silver surface. “I observed your tour of the hangar. Your entry was most professional. I’d judge it didn’t take you more than twenty seconds.”

“Missed spotting a back-up video camera. I must be getting senile.”

“Across the road on top of the telephone pole. Most visitors spot the one hanging on the building. Infrared. It activates an alert chime when a body moves near the door.”

“You have an incredible collection,” Jordan complimented Pitt. “How long did it take you to build it?”

“I began with the maroon forty-seven Ford club coupe over there in the corner about twenty years ago, and collecting became a disease. Some I acquired during projects with NUMA, some I bought from private parties or at auctions. Antique and classic cars are investments you can flaunt. Far more fun than a painting.” Pitt finished screwing the headlight rim around its lens and rose to his feet. “Can I offer you a drink?”

“A glass of milk for an overstressed stomach sounds good.”

“Please come up.” Pitt gestured toward the stairs leading to his apartment. “I’m honored the head man came to see me instead of sending his deputy director.”

As Jordan reached the first step, he hesitated and said, “I thought I should be the one to tell you. Congresswoman Smith and Senator Diaz have been smuggled out of the country.”

There was a pause as Pitt slowly turned and glared at him through eyes suddenly filled with relief. “Loren is unharmed.” The words came more as a demand than a question.

“We’re not dealing with brain-sick terrorists,” Jordan answered. “The kidnap operation was too sophisticated for injury or death. We have every reason to believe she and Diaz are being treated with respect.”

“How did they slip through the cracks?”

“Our intelligence determined she and Diaz were flown out of the Newport News, Virginia, airport in a private jet belonging to one of Suma’s American corporations. By the time we were able to sift through every flight, scheduled or unscheduled, from airports within a thousand-square-kilometer area, trace every plane’s registration until we nailed one to Suma, and track its path by satellite, it was heading over the Bering Sea for Japan.”

“Too late to force down on one of our military bases by a military aircraft?”

“Way too late. It was met and escorted by a squadron of FSX fighter jets from Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force. Aircraft that were built in partnership between General Dynamics and Mitsubishi, I might add.”

“And then?”

Jordan turned and gazed at the gleaming cars. “We lost them,” he said tonelessly.

“After they landed?”

“Yes, at Tokyo International. Little need to go into details why they weren’t intercepted or at least followed, but for reasons known only to the idiot mentality at the State Department, we have no operatives in Japan who could have stopped them. That’s all we have at the moment.”

“The best intelligence minds on the face of the earth, and that’s all you have.” Pitt sounded very tired. He went into his kitchen, opened the refrigerator and poured some milk, then handed the glass to Jordan. “What about all your big specialty teams in Japan? Where were they when the plane touched down?”

“With Marvin Showalter and Jim Hanamura murdered—” 

“Both men murdered?” Pitt interrupted.

“Tokyo police found Hanamura’s body in a ditch, decapitated. Showalter’s head, minus the body, was discovered a few hours ago, impaled on our embassy’s fence. To add to the mess, we suspect Roy Orita is a sleeper. He sold us out from the beginning. God only knows how much information he’s passed to Suma. We may never be able to assess the damage.”

Pitt’s anger softened when he read the sadness along with the frustration in Jordan’s face. “Sorry, Ray, I had no idea things had gone so badly.”

“I’ve never had a MAIT team take a battering like this.”

“What put you onto Orita?”

“A couple of broad hints. Showalter was too clever to be snatched without inside help. He was betrayed by someone who had his confidence and knew his exact movements. And there was Jim Hanamura—he expressed bad vibes on Orita but had nothing solid to go on. To add to the suspicion, Orita has dropped out and gone undercover. He hasn’t reported to Mel Penner since Showalter vanished. Kern thinks he’s hiding under Suma’s skirts in Edo City.”

“What of his background?”

“Third-generation American. His father won the Silver Star in the Italian campaign. We can’t figure what bait Suma used to recruit him.”

“Who handled the execution of Hanamura and Showalter?”

“The evidence isn’t in yet. It appears a ritual killing. A police pathologist thought their heads were taken off by a samurai sword. Suma’s chief assassin is known to be a lover of ancient martial arts, but we can’t prove he did it.”

Pitt sank slowly into a chair. “A waste, a damned waste.”

“Jim Hanamura didn’t go out a loser,” Jordan said with sudden doggedness. “He gave us our one and only lead to the detonation control center.”

Pitt looked up expectantly. “You have a location?”

“Nothing to celebrate yet, but we’re half a step closer.”

“What information did Hanamura turn up?”

“Jim penetrated the offices of Suma’s construction designers and found what looks to be rough drawings of an electronic control center that fits the layout we’re looking for. Indications suggest it’s an underground installation reached by a tunnel.”

“Anything on the whereabouts?”

“The brief message he wrote on the back of an envelope that was delivered to the embassy by the driver of an auto parts delivery truck is too enigmatic to decipher with any accuracy.”

“The message?”

“He wrote, ‘Look on the island of Ajima.’ “ 

Pitt made a slight shrug. “So what’s the problem?”

“There is no Ajima Island,” Jordan answered defeatedly. He held up the glass and examined it. “This is skim milk.”

“It’s better for you than whole milk.”

“Like drinking water,” Jordan muttered as he studied a glass case of trophies. Most were awards for outstanding automobiles at concours shows, a few were old high school and Air Force Academy football trophies, and two were for fencing. “You a fencer?”

“Not exactly Olympic material, but I still work out when I get the time.”

“Epée, foil, or saber?”

“Saber.”

“You struck me as a slasher. I’m into foil myself.”

“You prefer a deft touch.”

“A pity we can’t have a match,” said Jordan.

“We could compromise and use the epée.”

Jordan smiled. “I’d still have the advantage, since touches by the foil and epée are made with the points, while the saber is scored by hits on the edges.”

“Hanamura must have had a good reason for suggesting Ajima as the control center site,” said Pitt, returning to business.

“He was an art nut. His operation to plant bugs in Suma’s office was designed around his knowledge of early Japanese art. We knew Suma collected paintings, especially works by a sixteenth-century Japanese artist who produced a series on small islands surrounding the main isle of Honshu, so I had one forged. Then Hanamura, posing as an art expert, sold it to Suma. The one island painting Suma does not own is Ajima. That’s the only link I can think of.”

“Then Ajima must exist.”

“I’m sure it does, but the name can’t be traced to any known island. Nothing on ancient or modern charts shows it. I can only assume it was a pet name given by the artist, Masaki Shimzu, and listed as such in art catalogs of his work.”

“Did Hanamura’s bugs record any interesting talk?”

“A most informative conversation between Suma, his butcher Kamatori, old Korori Yoshishu, and a heavy hitter named Ichiro Tsuboi.”

“The financial genius behind Kanoya Securities. I’ve heard of him.”

“Yes, he was in a heated debate with the senator and congresswoman during the select subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill a few days before they were seized.”

“And you say he’s tied to Suma?”

“Tighter than a banjo string,” answered Jordan. “Thanks to Jim’s bugs in Suma’s office, we learned Tsuboi juggled the funding for the construction of the nuclear arsenal behind the backs of Japan’s political leaders, and most certainly their people. We also heard the code name Kaiten Project for the first time.”

Pitt poured a cup of old, cold coffee and stuck it in the microwave. He stared through the glass window at the cup as it revolved, his eyes narrowed in thought.

Jordan broke the spell. “I know what you’re thinking, but I haven’t been given the manpower to rescue Diaz and Smith and break up the Kaiten Project in one operation.”

“I can’t believe the President is turning his back on them.”

“He’s not about to go public and threaten a war over the abductions when he’s at a distinct disadvantage. Our first priority is to dismantle the Kaiten Project. Once we’ve accomplished that matter, only then will the President give us his blessing to use whatever force it takes to free Smith and Diaz.”

“So we’re back to mystical Ajima Island,” Pitt said harshly. “You say it’s the only painting of the series Suma doesn’t own?”

“Yes,” Jordan replied. “Hanamura said he acted almost desperate to get his hands on it.”

“Any clue to where it might be?”

“The Ajima painting was last seen in the Japanese embassy in Berlin just before Germany fell. Old OSS records claim it was included with art the Nazis plundered from Italy, and transported by train to northwestern Germany ahead of the advancing Russian Army in the last weeks of the war. Then it disappeared from history.”

“No record at all of it having been recovered?’

“None.”

“And we have no idea as to the island’s general location or its appearance?”

“Not a scrap.”

“Unfortunate,” Pitt commented. “Find the painting, match the shape of the shoreline portrayed by the artist, and you have the location of Hideki Suma’s extortion hideaway, or so it says in a bedtime story.”

Jordan’s eyes narrowed. “It happens to be the best lead we’ve got going for us.”

Pitt wasn’t convinced. “Your spy planes and satellites should easily detect the installation.”

“The four main islands of Japan—Honshu, Kyushu, Hokkaido, and Shikoku—are surrounded by nearly a thousand smaller islands. Finding the right one can hardly be called easy.”

“Then why not isolate only those that can be connected by a tunnel to any of the four main islands?”

“Give us some credit for brains,” Jordan said irritably. “We’ve already eliminated any island farther than ten miles offshore and concentrated on the rest. First of all, no suspicious activities or structures appear above their surfaces. Not unusual when we assume the entire installation must be deep underground. And lastly, almost all the islands’ geology is made up of volcanic rock our sensors can’t penetrate. Have I answered your question?”

Pitt dug in. “No one can excavate a tunnel without hauling away dirt and rock.”

“Apparently the Japanese have. Analysis of our satellite photos shows no signs of a coastal tunnel excavation or roads leading into an entrance.”

Pitt shrugged his shoulders and waved the white flag. “So we’re back to a painting somewhere in the great beyond.”

Jordan suddenly leaned forward in his chair and stared hard at Pitt. “This is where you earn your pay.”

Pitt could see it coming, but not quite. “You’re going to send me to Japan to dive around islands, is that the pitch?”

“Wrong,” said Jordan with a patronizing smile Pitt didn’t like one bit. “You’re going to Germany and dive in a Luftwaffe bunker.”

36

“
T
HEY SIMPLY DOVE
in and vanished.”

Pitt crouched on one knee and stared past the half-submerged tractor into the black ominous water. He was tired from jet lag, and he’d barely slept a couple of hours on the plane from Washington. How rotten not to have time to enjoy a good breakfast at a local inn and sleep past noon, he wallowed in self-pity.

“Their safety lines were sliced apart.” The young officer who led the German naval dive team held up a nylon line whose end appeared razor-severed. “By what? We can’t begin to guess.”

“Communication line too?” Pitt slowly sipped at a cup of coffee. He picked up a small stone with his free hand and idly tossed it in the water, observing the ripples that spread from the splash.

“The phone line connected to the lead diver was also cut,” admitted the German. He stood tall and well muscled. His English carried only a slight trace of an accent. “Soon after the two man team dropped into the pond, they discovered an underwater tunnel leading to the west. They swam a distance of ninety meters before reporting the tunnel ended at a small chamber with a steel door. A few minutes later the phone and safety lines went slack. I sent another team in to investigate. They disappeared like the others.”