"How do you know it wasn't an accidental drowning or suicide?"
"There was no body."
"You dragged and searched the entire lake since this morning?" Pitt asked skeptically.
"Nothing so primitive. We diverted our newest spy satellite over the area. There was no body floating on or below the water."
"You have the technology to see an object as small as a body underwater from space?"
"Forget you heard it," Kern said with a slight grin. "Just take my word for the fact that another Japanese team of professional operatives snatched Diaz in broad daylight along with his boat and outboard motor, and they managed it within sight of at least five other fishermen who swear they witnessed nothing."
Pitt looked at Kern. "But Loren's abduction was witnessed."
"By Al and Frank, who guessed what was going down, sure. But the spectators in the stands were concentrating on the race. If any of them happened to glance in Loren's direction during the excitement, all they saw was a woman entering the limo under her own free will."
"What screwed up the abductors' well-laid plan," said Sandecker, "was that you men knew she was being seized and gave chase. Your alert action also confirmed the Japanese connection behind Senator Diaz's kidnapping."
"Whoever masterminded the separate plots was good," Kern admitted. "Too good for the Blood Sun Brotherhood."
"The terrorist organization," said Pitt. "They were behind it?"
"That's what they want us to think. The FBI received a phone call by someone who said he was a member and claiming responsibility. Strictly a red herring. We saw through the facade in less than a minute."
"What about the helicopter that controlled the limousine?" Pitt asked. "Did you track it?"
"As far as Hampton Roads. There it blew up in midair and fell in the water. A Navy salvage team should be diving on it now."
"A bottle of scotch they won't find bodies."
Kern gave Pitt a canny look. "A bet you'd probably win."
"Any trace of the limousine that got away?"
Kern shook his head. "Not yet. It was probably hidden and abandoned after they transferred Congresswoman Smith to another vehicle."
"Who's in charge of the hunt?"
"The FBI. Their best field agents are already forming investigative teams and assembling all known data."
"You think this is tied to our search into the bomb cars?" asked Giordino, who along with Pitt and Mancuso had been picked up by Kern and Sandecker a few miles from the accident site.
"It's possible they could be warning us to lay off," answered Kern. "But our consensus is they wanted to shut down the Senate investigating committee and eliminate the legislators who were ramrodding a bill to cut off Japanese investment in the U.S."
Sandecker lit one of his expensive cigars after clipping the end. "The President is in a hell of a bind. As long as there's a chance Smith and Diaz are alive, he can't allow the abductions to leak to the news media. God knows what hell would erupt if Congress and the public found out."
"They have us over the proverbial barrel," Kern said grimly.
"If it isn't the Blood Sun Brotherhood, then who?" Giordino asked as he lit a cigar he'd stolen from Admiral Sandecker's supply in Washington.
"Only the Japanese government has the resources for an intricate abduction operation," Pitt speculated.
"As far as we can determine," said Kern, "Prime Minister Junshiro and his cabinet are not directly involved. Very possibly they have no idea of what's going on behind their backs. Not a rare occurrence in Japanese politics. We suspect a highly secretive organization made up of wealthy ultranationalist industrialists and underworld leaders, who are out to expand and protect Japan's growing economic empire as well as their own interests. Our best intelligence from Team Honda and other sources points to an extremely influential bastard by the name of Hideki Suma. Showalter is certain Suma is the kingpin behind the bomb cars."
"A very nasty customer," Sandecker added. "Shrewd, earthy, a brilliant operator, he's pulled the strings behind Japanese politics for three decades."
"And his father pulled them three decades before him," said Kern. He turned to Mancuso. "Frank here is the expert on the Sumas. He's compiled an extensive file on the family."
Mancuso was sitting in a large swivel chair drinking a root beer, since no alcoholic beverages were allowed on the National Security Agency's command bus. He looked up. "Suma, the father or the son?
What do you wish to know?"
"A brief history of their organization," answered Kern.
Mancuso took a few sips from his glass and stared at the ceiling as if arranging his thoughts. Then he began speaking as if reciting a book report to an English class.
"During the Japanese conquest of World War Two, their armies confiscated an immense hoard of loot from religious orders, banks, business corporations, and the treasuries of fallen governments. What began as a trickle from Manchuria and Korea soon became a flood as China and all of Southeast Asia, Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines fell before the onslaught from the empire of the rising sun. The total of the stolen gold, gems, and priceless artifacts can only be speculated, but estimates have put it as high as two hundred billion, repeat, billion, dollars at current values."
Sandecker shook his head. "Inconceivable."
"The gold bullion alone was figured at over seven thousand tons.
"It all went to Japan?" asked Giordino.
"Up until nineteen forty-three. After that, American warships, and especially our submarines, interrupted the flow. Records indicate more than half of the total hoard was sent to the Philippines for inventory and forwarding to Tokyo. But toward the end of the war it was buried in secret locations around the islands and became known as 'Yamashita's Gold.' "
"Where do the Sumas fit in?" Pitt inquired.
"I'm coming to them," said Mancuso. "Japanese underworld societies quickly moved in after the occupation troops and helped themselves to the deposits in banks, national treasuries, and the wealth of private citizens, all in the name of the Emperor. Two minor agents of a criminal organization known as the Black Sky, which dominated Japan's underworld after the turn of the century, deserted and launched their own society, naming it thèGold Dragons.' One was Korori Yoshishu. The other was Koda Suma."
"Koda being the father of Hideki," Sandecker concluded.
Mancuso nodded. "Yoshishu was the son of a temple carpenter in Kyoto. He was kicked out of the house by his father when he was ten. He fell in with the Black Sky and rose in its ranks. In nineteen twenty-seven, at the age of eighteen, his bosses arranged for him to join the Army, where he craftily advanced to the rank of captain by the time the Imperial Army seized Manchuria. He set up a heroin operation that brought the gang hundreds of millions of dollars that was divided with the Army."
"Hold on," said Giordino. "You're saying the Japanese Army was in the drug business?"
"They ran an operation that would be the envy of the drug kings of Colombia," Mancuso replied. "In concert with Japanese gang lords, the military ran the opium and heroin trades, forced the occupied citizenry to participate in rigged lotteries and gambling houses, and controlled the sale of black market goods."
The bus stopped at a red light, and Pitt looked into the face of a truck driver who was trying in vain to see through the darkened windows of the bus. Pitt may have been staring out the window, but his mind followed Mancuso's every word.
"Koda Suma was the same age as Yoshishu, the first son of an ordinary seaman in the Imperial Navy.
His father forced him to enlist, but he deserted and was recruited by Black Sky mobsters. At about the same time they put Yoshishu in the Army, the gang leaders smoothed over Suma's desertion record and had him reinstated in the Navy, only this time as an officer. Dispensing favors and money into the right hands, he quickly rose to the rank of captain. Being agents for the same criminal outfit, it was only natural that they work together. Yoshishu coordinated the he
roin operations, while Suma systemized the looting and arranged shipments on board Imperial naval vessels."
"A monumental ripoff to end all ripoffs," Giordino observed moodily.
"The full scope of the network can never be documented."
"More expensive even than the plunder of Europe by the Nazis?" Pitt asked, opening another bottle of soda water.
"By far," Mancuso replied, smiling. "Then as now, the Japanese were more interested in the economic side-- gold, precious gems, hard currency-- while the Nazis concentrated on masterworks of art, sculpture, and rare artifacts." His expression suddenly turned serious again. "Following the Japanese forces into China and then the rest of Southeast Asia, Yoshishu and Suma proved themselves to be archcriminal plotters. Like characters out of Heller's book Catch-22, they worked beneficial deals with their enemies. They sold luxury goods and war materials to Chiang Kai-shek, becoming quite chummy with the generalissimo, an arrangement that paid handsome dividends after the Communists swept over China and later when the Chinese government moved to Formosa, which became Taiwan. They bought, sold, pillaged, smuggled, extorted, and murdered on an unheard-of scale, bleeding every country dry that came under their heel. It goes without saying that Suma and Yoshishu played a òne for you, two for me'
game when the loot was inventoried and divided with the Imperial forces."
Pitt rose from his chair and stretched, easily touching the ceiling of the bus. "How much of the total plunder actually reached Japan?"
"A small percentage made it into the Imperial War Treasury. The more easily transportable treasure hoard, the precious gems and platinum, Suma and Yoshishu safely smuggled into Tokyo on board submarines and hid them on a farm in the country. The great mass of the bullion stayed behind on the main island of Luzon. It was stored in hundreds of kilometers of tunnels dug by thousands of allied POWs used as slave labor, who were either worked to death or executed to secure the hidden locations for recovery after the war. I excavated one tunnel on Corregidor that contained the bones of three hundred prisoners who had been buried alive."
"Why is it this was never brought to the public attention?" asked Pitt.
Mancuso shrugged. "I can't say. Not until forty years later was there mention of the barbarism in a few books. But by then, the Bataan death march and the armies of American, British and Philippine soldiers who perished in POW camps were only dim memories."
"The Germans are still haunted by the holocaust," mused Pitt, "but the Japanese have remained mostly unstained by their atrocities."
Giordino's face was grim. "Did the Japs recover any of the treasure after the war?"
"Some was dug up by Japanese construction companies, who claimed to be helping the Philippines rise from the ravages of the conflict by developing various industrial building projects. Naturally, they worked on top of the burial sites. Some was dug up by Ferdinand Marcos, who shipped several hundred tons of gold out of the country and discreetly converted it to currency on the world bullion markets. And a fair share was retrieved by Suma and Yoshishu twenty years later. Maybe as much as seventy percent of it is still hidden and may never be recovered."
Pitt looked at Mancuso questioningly. "What happened to Suma and Yoshishu after the war ended?"
"No fools, these guys. They read defeat in their tea leaves as early as nineteen forty-three and began laying plans to survive the end in grand style. Not about to die in battle during MacArthur's return to Luzon, or commit ritual suicide in the humiliation of defeat, Suma ordered up a submarine. Then with a generous helping of the Emperor's share, they sailed off to Valparaiso, Chile, where they lived for five years in lavish comfort. When MacArthur became occupied with the Korean war, the master thieves returned home and became master organizers. Suma devoted his genius to economic and political intrigue, while Yoshishu consolidated his hold over the underworld and the new generation of Asian wheeler-dealers. Within ten years they were the major power brokers of the Far East."
"A real pair of sweethearts," Giordino said caustically.
"Koda Suma died of cancer in nineteen seventy-three," Mancuso continued. "Like a couple of prohibition Chicago gangsters, Suma's son, Hideki, and Yoshishu agreed to divide up the massive organization into different areas of activity. Yoshishu directed the criminal end, while Hideki built a power base in government and industry. The old crook has pretty much retired, keeping his fingers in various pies, guiding the present crime leaders of the Gold Dragons, and occasionally cutting a joint venture with Suma."
"According to Team Honda," Kern informed them, "Suma and Yoshishu joined forces to underwrite the weapons plant and the Kaiten Project."
"The Kaiten Project?" Pitt repeated.
"Their code name for the bomb-car operation. Literally translated into English it means à change of sky.' But to the Japanese it has a broader meaning: à new day is coming, a great shift in events.' "
"But Japan claims to ban the introduction of nuclear weapons," Pitt ventured. "Seems damned odd that Suma and Yoshishu could build a nuclear weapons facility without some knowledge or backing from the government."
"The politicians don't run Japan. The back-room movers and shakers behind the bureaucracy pull the reins. It was no secret when Japan built a Liquid Metal Fast Breeder reactor. But it wasn't general knowledge that besides functioning as a power source it also produced plutonium and converted lithium into tritium, essential ingredients for thermonuclear weapons. My guess is Prime Minister Junshiro gave his secret blessing to a nuclear arsenal, however reluctantly because of the risk of public outcry, but he was purposely cut out of the Kaiten Project."
"They certainly don't run a 'government like we do," said Sandecker.
"Has Team Honda located the weapons plant?" Pitt asked Kern.
"They've narrowed it to a sixty-square-kilometer grid around the subterranean city of Edo."
"And they still can't find it?"
"Jim Hanamura thinks the city has deep tunnels that connect to the facility. An ingenious cover. No aboveground buildings or roads as a giveaway. Supplies entering for the thousands of people who live and work in Edo, and their trash exiting. Most any nuclear equipment or material could be smuggled in and out."
"Any leads to the detonation command?" asked Giordino.
"The Dragon Center?"
"Is that what they call it?"
"They have a name for everything." Kern smiled. "Nothing solid. Hanamura's last report said he was onto a lead that had something to do with a painting."
"That makes a hell of a lot of sense," Giordino carped.
The door opened to a cramped communications compartment in the rear of the bus, and a man stepped out and handed three sheets of paper to Kern.
As his eyes flicked over the wording, his face became stricken. Finally, after coming to the end of the third page, he rapped his knuckles against the arm of his chair in shock. "Oh, my God."
Sandecker leaned toward him. "What is it?"
"A status report from Mel Penner on Palau. He says Marvin Showalter was abducted on his way to the embassy. An American tourist couple reported seeing two Japanese men enter Showalter's car when he stopped for a stalled truck a block from the embassy. The husband and wife only happened to report it to embassy officials because of the U.S. license tags and the surprise shown by the driver as the intruders leaped into the car. They saw nothing more, as a tourist bus pulled alongside them and blocked their view. By the time they could see the street again, Showalter's car had disappeared in traffic."
"Go on."
"Jim Hanamura is late reporting in. In his last report to Penner, Jim said he had confirmed the location of the weapons plant three hundred fifty meters underground. The main assembly area is connected to Edo City, four kilometers to the north, by an electric railway that also runs through a series of tunnels to arsenals, waste disposal caverns, and engineering offices."
"Is there more?" Sandecker gently persisted.
"Hanamura went on to say he was following a strong lead
to the Dragon Center. That's all."
"What word on Roy Orita?" Pitt asked.
"Only a brief mention."
"He vanished too?"
"No, Penner doesn't say that. He only says Orita insists on sitting tight until we can sort things out."
"I'd say the visitors have outscored the home team by three to one," said Pitt philosophically. "They've snatched two of our legislators, cut Teams Honda and Cadillac off at the knees, and last but easily the worst, they know what we're after and where we're coming from."
"Suma is holding all the high cards," Kern conceded. "I'd better inform Mr. Jordan at once so he can warn the President."
Pitt leaned over the back of his chair and fixed Kern with a dry stare. "Why bother?"
"What do you mean?"
"I see no need to panic."
"The President must be alerted. We're not only looking at the threat of nuclear blackmail but political ransom for Diaz and Smith. Suma can drop the axe any moment.
"No he won't. Not yet anyway."
"How do you know?" Kern demanded.
"Something is holding Suma back. He's got a fleet of those bomb cars hidden away. All he needs is one driving the streets of Manhattan or Los Angeles to put the fear of God into the White House and the American public. He's literally got the government by the scrotum. But what does he do? He plays petty kidnapper. No, I'm sorry. Something's not going down the right chute. Suma isn't ready for prime time. I say he's stalling."
"I think Dirk has a case," said Mancuso. "It's possible Suma's agents smuggled the bomb cars into position before they could bring the detonation command on line."
"It fits," Sandecker concurred. "We might still have time to send in a new team to find and neutralize it."
"At the moment everything hinges on Hanamura." Kern hesitated apprehensively. "We can only hope he's unearthed the Dragon Center. But we also have to consider the very real possibility he's either dead or captured by Suma's security force."
They went quiet as the Virginia countryside rolled past the windows of the bus. The leaves on the trees gleamed gold under the fall sun. Few people walking beside the road paid any attention to the passing bus. If any had seen the charter sign above the driver's windshield, they'd have simply thought it was a group of vacationers touring Civil War battlefields.