Dragon - Cussler Clive (книги хорошем качестве бесплатно без регистрации .TXT) 📗

“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.”

“Epee, 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 epee.”

Jordan smiled. “I’d still have the advantage, since touches by the foil and epee 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.”

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