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

The President glanced at the open file again. “And he protects his criminal empire by strategically placing nuclear bombs in other nations.”

“We can’t blame the Japanese government or the great mass of their people,” Jordan qualified. “I’m firmly convinced Prime Minister Junshiro was misled and duped by Hideki Suma and his cartel of industrialists, financiers, and underworld leaders who secretly built a nuclear arsenal and expanded it into the Kaiten Project.”

The President opened his hands. “Perhaps I should set a meeting with Junshiro and inform him of our intelligence revelations.”

Jordan shook his head. “I don’t recommend it just yet, sir. Not until we have a chance at cutting off the Kaiten Project at its head.”

“When last we met, you didn’t have the location of the command center.”

“New information has put us in the neighborhood.”

The President looked at Jordan with renewed respect. He understood his chief intelligence gatherer, the dedication to his country, the many years of service beginning when he was still a few years shy of high school and already entered into training for the intelligence fieldwork. The President also saw the toll that years of incredible stress had taken. Jordan consumed a steady stream of Maalox tablets as if they were popcorn.

“Do you know yet where the car bombs are to be placed for detonation?”

Kern answered. “Yes, sir, one of our teams discovered the plan while tracking a shipment of the cars. Suma’s engineers have created a diabolic and well-contrived disaster.”

“I assume they’ll be parked in densely populated areas to slaughter the largest number of American citizens possible.”

“Dead wrong, Mr. President. They will be strategically located for a minimal loss of life.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“Throughout the United States and the industrialized world,” Kern briefed, “the cars will be staged in systematic grids in deserted areas so their synchronized explosions will set off an electromagnetic pulse on the ground that rises into the atmosphere. This will create an umbrellalike chain reaction that shuts down uplinks to worldwide satellite communications systems.”

“All radio, television, and phone networks simply cease to exist,” added Jordan. “Federal and local governments, military commands, police and sheriff departments, fire departments, ambulances, and all transportation will roll to a halt because they can’t operate deaf.”

“A world without communication,” murmured the President. “It’s unimaginable.”

“The picture gets worse,” Kern continued ominously. “Much worse. You know, of course, Mr. President, what happens when you wave a magnet near a computer disk or a cassette tape.”

“They’re erased.”

Kern nodded slowly. “The electromagnetic pulse from the nuclear explosions would do the same thing. For hundreds of miles around each explosion the memories of every computer would be totally erased. Silicon chips and transistors, the backbone of our modern computerized world, are defenseless against a pulse running through electrical and telephone circuits and aerials. Anything made of metal would carry the pulse from pipes to rails to microwave towers and steel supports inside of buildings.”

The President stared at Kern with unbelieving eyes. “We’re talking total chaos.”

“Yes, sir, a complete national breakdown with catastrophic results that are beyond recovery. Any and every record ever programmed into a computer by banks, insurance companies, giant corporations, small businesses, hospitals, supermarkets, department stores—the list is endless—would vanish, along with all stored scientific and engineering data.”

“Every disk, every tape?”

“In every home and office,” said Jordan.

Kern kept his eyes on the President to reinforce his dire commentary. “Any computer electronics that runs on memory, and that includes ignition and carburetion on modern autos, operation of diesel train engines, and controls on aircraft in flight, would stop functioning. The aircraft especially could suffer horrible consequences, since many would fall to the ground before their crews could take manual command.”

“And there are also the mundane everyday devices we take for granted,” said Jordan, “that would also be affected, such as microwave ovens, video cassette recorders, and security systems. We’ve come to rely so heavily on computer chips that we’ve never considered how vulnerable they are.”

The President picked up a pen and tapped it nervously on the desk. His face was drawn, his expression distraught. “I cannot allow that curse to paralyze the American people well into the next century,” he stated flatly. “I have to seriously consider a strike, nuclear if necessary, on their warhead arsenal and detonation command center.”

“I advise against it, Mr. President, said Jordan with quiet conviction, “except as a last resort.”

The President looked at him. “What’s your angle, Ray?”

“Suma’s installation won’t be on-line for another week. Let us try to devise a penetration plan to destroy it from within. If successful, it will save you enormous fallout from a hailstorm of international condemnation for what will be looked upon as an unprovoked attack on a friendly nation.”

The President was silent, a thoughtful look on his face. Then he said slowly, “You’re right, I’d be forced into making excuses no one would believe.”

“Time is on our side as long as no one but our MAIT team and the three of us knows what’s going down,” Jordan continued.

“Good thing,” Kern muttered. “If the Russians knew their landscape was littered with foreign warheads, they wouldn’t hesitate to threaten a full-scale invasion of Japan.”

“And we don’t need that,” the President said quietly.

“Nor do the innocent Japanese, who have no idea of Suma’s insane threat,” said Jordan, hammering in another nail.

The President came to his feet, ending the briefing. “Four days, gentlemen. You have ninety-six hours.”

Jordan and Kern exchanged tight smiles.

The assault on Suma had been planned before they walked into the Oval Office. All it took was a phone call to set it in motion.

39

AT FOUR O’CLOCK in the morning the small landing strip on a government reservation near Woodmoor, Maryland, looked to be deserted. There were no lights bordering the narrow band of asphalt. The only guide to a pilot making a night landing was a triangle of blue mercury vapor streetlights arched over an intersection of two dirt roads that pointed to the south end of the runway.

Then the early morning stillness was broken as the whine of throttled-back jet engines cut the still air. A pair of headlights flashed on, their beams falling across the center of the landing strip. The Gulfstream jet transport with CIRCLEARTH AIRLINES painted across the top of the fuselage touched down and taxied to a stop beside a Jeep Grand Wagoneer station wagon.

Less than three minutes after the passenger door opened and two men and their luggage were on the ground, the plane rolled toward the end of the runway and was airborne again. As the roar faded in the black sky, Admiral Sandecker shook hands with Pitt and Giordino.

“Congratulations,” he said warmly, “on a very successful operation.”

“We haven’t heard the results,” said Pitt. “Did the photos of the painting Mancuso transmitted match an existing island?”

“Right on the money,” replied Sandecker. “Turns out the island was called Ajima by fishermen after one of them became stranded on it in the seventeen-hundreds. But it remained on the charts as Soseki Island. And like many geographical sites connected with local folklore, the name Ajima was eventually lost.”

“Where’s the location?” asked Giordino.

“About sixty kilometers off the coast due east of Edo City.”