He waved through the minuscule windscreen at the crew who were standing by to release tie-down cables, and he engaged the starter. The turbine, smaller than a beer keg, slowly increased its whine until it became a high-pitched shriek. He looked over at Giordino, just making out a set of spirited brown eyes.
Pitt made a thumbs-up gesture that was returned accompanied with a grin.
One last sweep of the instruments to make sure the engine was functioning as stated in the flight manual, which he barely had time to scan, and a final glimpse at the ensign flapping on the stern under a stiff breeze that beat in from the port side.
Unlike from an aircraft carrier, a forward takeoff was blocked by the great radar housing and the superstructure, so Commander Harper had brought the Bennett around into a quartering wind.
Pitt held the brake on by pressing his toes outward. Then he ran up the throttle, feeling the Ibis try to surge forward. The lip of the landing pad looked uncomfortably close. The lifting force of the Ibis occurred at forty-five kph. The combined wind force and the speed of the Bennett gave him a twenty-five kph running start, but that still left twenty kph to achieve before the landing wheels rolled into air.
The moment of decision. He signaled the flight crew to release the tie-down cables. Then Pitt eased the throttle to the "full" stop, and the Ibis shuddered under the force of the breeze and the thrust of the turbine. His eyes fixed on the end of the landing pad, Pitt released the brakes and the Ibis leaped ahead.
Five meters, ten, and then gently but firmly he pulled the control stick back. The craft's little nose wheel lifted and Pitt could see clouds. With only three meters to spare, he drilled the Ibis into the sky and over the restless sea.
He banked and leveled off at forty meters and watched Giordino sweep into the air behind him. One circle around the ship, dipping his wings at the waving crew of the Ralph R. Bennett, and he set a course for Soseki Island toward the west. The waters of the Pacific rushed beneath the Ibis' undercarriage, dyed a sparkling iridescent gold by the setting sun.
Pitt slipped the throttle back to a cruise setting. He wished he could put the little craft through its paces, gain altitude, and try some acrobatics. But it was not to be. Any wild maneuvers might show on a Japanese radar screen. In straight and level flight at a wave-top altitude the Ibis was invisible.
Pitt now began to wonder about a reception committee. He saw little hope of escaping from the retreat's compound. A nice setup, he thought grimly. Crash-land in Suma's front yard from out of nowhere and create bedlam among the security forces as a distraction for the others.
The crew in the Bennett's situation room had detected the incoming radar signals sent out by Suma's security defenses, but Commander Harper decided not to jam the probes. He allowed the Bennett to be monitored, rightly assuming the island's defense command would relax once they saw the lone U.S. ship was sailing leisurely away toward the east as if on a routine voyage.
Pitt concentrated on his navigation, keeping an eye on the compass. At their present air speed, he calculated, they should set down on the island in thirty-five minutes. A few degrees north or south, however, and they might miss it completely.
It was all seat-of-the-pants flying and navigation. The Ibis could not afford the extra weight of an on-board computer and an automatic pilot. He rechecked speed, wind direction and velocity, and his estimated course heading four times to make certain no errors slipped in.
The thought of running out of fuel and ditching in a rough sea in the dead of night was a hardship he could do without.
Pitt noted grimly that the radios had been removed. By Jordan's orders, no doubt, so neither he nor Giordino would be tempted to launch into idle conversation and give their presence away.
After twenty-seven minutes had passed, and only a small arc of the sun showed on the horizon line, Pitt peered forward through the windscreen.
There it was, a purple-shadowed blemish between sea and sky, more imagined than real. Almost imperceptibly it became a hard tangible island, its jagged cliffs rising vertically from the rolling swells that crashed into their base.
Pitt turned and glanced out his side window. Giordino hung just off his tail and less than ten meters behind and to his right. Pitt waggled his wings and pointed. Giordino pulled closer until Pitt could see him nod in reply and gesture with the edge of his hand toward the island.
One final check of his instruments and then he tilted the Ibis into a gentle bank until he came at the center of the island from out of the darkening eastern sky. There would be no circling to study the layout of the ground, no second approach if he came in too low or high. Surprise was their only friend. They had one chance to set their little Ibises on the garden lawn before surface-to-air missiles burst in their laps.
He could clearly see the pagoda roofs and the opening in the trees around the open garden. He spotted a helicopter pad that wasn't on Penner's mock-up, but he dismissed it as a secondary landing site because it was too small and ringed with trees.
An easy twist of the wrist to the left, right, and then hold. He lowered the throttle setting a notch at a time. The sea was a blur, the towering cliff face rushing closer, swiftly filling the windscreen. He pulled the stick back slightly. And then suddenly, as if a rug was pulled out from under him, the sea was gone and his wheels were hurtling only a few meters above the hard lava rock of the island.
Straight in without a sideways glance, a gentle kick to the right rudder pedal to compensate for a crosswind. He soared over a row of bushes, the tires of his landing gear grooving the tops. Throttle back on idle, the Ibis settled beyond the point of recovery. A tender tug on the stick and the power glider flared. He felt the landing wheels thump as they lightly touched down on the lawn no more than five meters from the edge of a flower bed.
Pitt flipped the kill switch and applied gentle but firm pressure on the brakes. Nothing happened.
There was no slowing force pulling his body forward. The grass was wet and the tires slid across the lawn as though coated with oil.
The urge to cram the throttle full forward and pull back on the stick was overpowering, especially since his face was only a few centimeters from the nose of the Ibis. Impact with a tree, a building, a rock wall? Directly ahead, a row of shrubs ablaze in autumn red and gold shielded any solid barrier beyond.
Pitt tensed, bent his head down, and hung on.
The craft was still traveling at thirty kph when it tore through the shrubs, ripping the wings off and plowing with a great shuddering splash into a small pond filled with huge carp.
For a moment there was a deathly silence, broken a few seconds later by splintering and tearing noise as Giordino's Ibis ripped through the bushes alongside Pitt's shattered craft and skidded to a stop in a sand garden, devastating intricate designs precisely raked in an artful composition.
Pitt struggled to release his safety harness, but was pinned by the legs, and his arms had no freedom of movement. His head was half submerged in the pond, and he had to tilt his face up to breathe. He could plainly see a school of giant white, black, and gold carp, their gaping mouths opening and closing, large round eyes staring blankly at the intruder in their private domain.
Giordino's fuselage was relatively undamaged, and he managed to extricate himself without a problem.
He rushed over, leaped into the pond, and surged through the muck and lily pads like a maddened hippo.
With strength built from long years of bodybuilding, he tore apart the crumpled structural braces that pinned Pitt's legs as if they were toothpicks. Then he unfastened the safety harness, pulled Pitt out of the mangled craft, and dragged him to the bank.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Bruised shins and a bent thumb," Pitt replied. "Thanks for the deliverance."
"I'll send you a bill," said Giordino, distastefully eyeing his muck-covered boots.
Pitt removed his crash helmet and threw it in the pond, causing the gawking carp to burst for the safety of the lily pad
s. He nodded at the wrecked power gliders. "They'll be coming for us. You'd best switch on the signal units and set the destruct timers."
While Giordino went about the business of alerting the Bennett of their arrival before setting the timers on small packets of plastic explosives carried inside the aircraft, Pitt rose stiffly to his feet and stared around the garden.
It appeared deserted. The army of human and robotic guards did not materialize. The porches and windows of the buildings were empty of life. He found it impossible to believe no one had heard the cry of the turbine engines and the sounds of the twin impacts from within the thin walls of the Japanese-style constructions. Someone had to live in the neighborhood. The gardeners must be about somewhere, the grounds were immaculate and displayed constant care.
Giordino returned. "We've less than two minutes to make tracks before they blow," he said quickly.
"I'm out of here," Pitt spoke as he began jogging toward the forested area behind the resort compound.
And then he stiffened suddenly as a strange electronic voice called out, "Remain where you stand!"
Pitt and Giordino both reacted by darting behind the cover of heavy brush and the safety of the trees, crouching and swiftly moving from one to another, trying to distance themselves from the unknown pursuer. They'd only covered fifty meters when they abruptly met a high fence that was bristling with electrified wire and insulators.
"The shortest escape in history," Pitt muttered dolefully. At that instant the explosives in the Ibises went off within five seconds of each other. Pitt couldn't see, but he imagined the ugly indolent carp flying through the air.
He and Giordino turned to face the music, and although they'd been warned, they were not totally prepared for the three mechanical apparitions that emerged from the underbrush in a half circle, cutting off all avenues of escape. The trio of robots did not look like the semihuman figures out of television and motion pictures. These traveled on rubber tractor treads and showed no human qualities, except maybe speech.
The mobile automated vehicles were loaded with a jumbled assortment of articulated arms, video and thermal image cameras, speakers, computers, and a quad of automatic rifles pointed directly at Pitt and Giordino's navels.
"Please do not move or we will kill you."
"They don't mince words, do they?" Giordino was frankly disbelieving.
Pitt studied the center robot and observed that it appeared to be operated under a sophisticated telepresence system by a controller at a distant location.
"We are programmed to recognize different languages and respond accordingly," said the middle robot in a hollow voice, sounding surprisingly articulate. "You cannot escape without dying. Our guns are guided by your body heat."
There was a brief uneasy silence as Pitt and Giordino briefly looked at each other with the looks of men committed to a job that was accomplished and they could do no more. Carefully, slowly, they raised their hands above their heads, aware that the gun muzzles pointing at them in the horizontal position never wavered.
"I do believe we've been cut off at the pass by a mechanical posse," Pitt muttered softly.
"At least they don't chew tobacco," Giordino grunted.
Twelve guns in the front, an electrified fence at their backs, there was no way out. Pitt could only hope the robots' controllers were wise enough to know he and Giordino presented no threat.
"Is this a good time to ask them to take us to their leader?" Giordino spoke through a grin that was cold as stone.
"I wouldn't if I were you," Pitt answered mildly. "They're liable to shoot us for using a bad cliché.
<<45>>
No one gave Stacy, Mancuso, and Weatherhill a second look as they penetrated the depths of Edo City with relative ease and precision. The Hollywood makeup expert Jordan flew to Tokyo did a masterful job of applying false folds to their eyes, realigning and darkening the eyebrows, and designing wigs of luxuriant thick black hair. Mancuso, because he spoke flawless Japanese, was dressed in a business suit and acted as boss to Stacy and Weatherhill, who wore the yellow jumpsuits of Suma's engineering inspection teams.
Using data from Jim Hanamura's report on the security procedures, along with identification cards and pass codes provided by a British deep-cover operative working in cooperation with Jordan, they smoothly passed through the checkpoints and finally reached the entrance to the tunnel. This was the tricky part of the operation. The human security guards and identity detection machines had not proven difficult to deceive, but according to Penner during their final briefing, the final barrier would be the toughest test.
A robotic sensory security system met them as they entered a totally featureless, glaringly lit white-painted room. The floor was empty of all furniture and the walls barren of signs or pictures. The door they entered from seemed to be the only entrance and exit.
"State your business," the robot demanded in mechanical Japanese.
Mancuso hesitated. He was told to expect robot sentry machines, but not something that looked like a trash can on wheels that spouted orders. "Fiber optic communications section to modify and inspect system," he complied, trying to hide his awkwardness at interacting with artificial intelligence.
"Your job order and pass code."
"Emergency order forty-six-R for communications inspection and test program." Then he brought his open hands together, touching the fingertips lightly, and repeated the word "sha" three times.
Mancuso could only hope the British operative had supplied them with the correct pass sign and code word and had programmed their genetic codes into the robotic security memories.
"In sequence, press your right hands against my sensing screen," ordered the roboguard.
All three dutifully took turns placing their hands on a small blinking blue screen recessed in the barrel-round chest. The robot stood mute for a few moments, processing the data from its computer and comparing facial features and body size against the names and description in its memory disks-- a remarkable advance, thought Weatherhill. He'd never seen a computer that could put into memory the data fed to it by a television camera and process the images in real time.
They stood composed and businesslike, knowing from their briefing the robot was programmed to spot the slightest measure of nervousness. They also kept their eyes trained on him. Wandering, avoiding eyes would have invited suspicion. Weatherhill managed a bored yawn while their genetic codes and finger and hand prints were matched up.
"Clearance confirmed," the roboguard said at last. Then the entire wall at the opposite end of the barren room swung inward and he rolled aside. "You may enter. If you remain beyond twelve hours, you must notify security force number six."
The British operative had come through. They had passed the obstacle with flying colors. They walked through the door into a carpeted passageway that led to the main tunnel. They exited onto a boarding platform as a buzzer sounded and red and white strobe lights flashed. A work train loaded with construction materials was pulling away from an expansive underground rail yard with the tracks converging at the main tunnel entrance that Mancuso judged was four meters in diameter.
After three eerie minutes of complete silence, an aluminum car with a glass bubble top that could seat ten people approached the platform on a single rail. The interior was empty, the controls unmanned. A door slid open with a slight hiss and they entered.
"A Maglev," Weatherhill said quietly.
"A what?" Stacy asked.
"Maglev, for `magnetic levitation.' It's the concept based on the repulsion and attraction between two magnets. The interaction between powerful magnets mounted under the train with others lining a single rail raised in the center moves the cars on a field of electromagnetism. That's why it's usually referred to as a floating train."
"The Japs have developed the most advanced system in the world," Mancuso added. "Once they mastered the cooling of the on-board electromagnetic superconductors, they had a vehicle that literally flies inches abov
e its track at aircraft speeds."
The doors closed and the little car paused as its computerized sensors waited for the all-clear-ahead.
A green light blinked on above the track, and they glided into the main tube soundlessly, picking up speed until the sodium vapor lamps embedded in the roof of the tunnel merged into an eye-dazzling yellow blur.
"How fast are we going?" Stacy wondered.
"A wild guess would be three hundred and twenty kilometers an hour," Weatherhill replied.
Mancuso nodded. "At this rate the trip should only take about five minutes."
It seemed the floating train had no sooner reached its cruising speed than it began to slow. With the smoothness of a skyscraper elevator, it slid to a quiet stop. They stepped out onto another deserted platform. Once they were clear, the car came about on a turntable, aligned itself on the opposite rail, and accelerated back to Edo City.
"The end of the line," Mancuso said softly. He turned and led the way through the only door on the platform. It opened into another carpeted passageway that stretched thirty meters before ending at an elevator.
Inside, Weatherhill nodded at the Arabic numerals on the control buttons. "Up or down?"
"How many floors and which one are we on?" inquired Stacy.
"Twelve. We're on two."
"Hanamura's sketches only indicated four," said Mancuso.
"They must have been preliminary drawings that were altered later."
Stacy stared at the lighted panel pensively. "So much for the hub and spoke layout."
"Without exact directions to the computerized electronics section," said Weatherhill, "we'll have to scratch our original plan and go for the power generating station."
"If we can find it before arousing suspicion," complained Mancuso.
"It's all we've got going. Tracing electrical wiring to the source will take less time than trying to stumble onto the control center."
"Twelve floors of rooms and passageways," murmured Stacy uneasily. "We could wander around lost for hours."