He slept soundly on his cross-country red-eye flight, popping awake well rested as the wheels of the NUMA jet touched down at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport just after eight in the morning. An agency car was left waiting for him at the government terminal, and he drove himself out of the parking lot under a light drizzle. As he exited the airport, he cast a long glance toward a dilapidated-looking hangar situated off one of the runways. Though his father was out of the country, he still had the urge to visit the old man's hideout and tinker with one of his many antique autos stored there. Business before pleasure, he told himself, and wheeled the loaner car onto the highway.

Following the George Washington Memorial Parkway out of the airport, he drove north, passing the Pentagon on his left as he followed the banks of the Potomac River. A short distance later, he turned off the highway and angled toward a towering green glass building that housed the NUMA headquarters. Passing through an employee security gate, he pulled into an underground garage and parked. Opening the car trunk, he hoisted a large duffel bag over his shoulder, then rode the employees' elevator to the tenth floor, where the doors opened onto an elaborate maze of quietly humming computer hardware.

Established with a budget that would make a third world dictator whimper, the NUMA Ocean Data Center computer network was a marvel of state-of-the-art computer processing. Buried within its massive data storage banks was the finest collection of oceanographic resources in the world. Real-time inputs of weather, current, temperature, and bio diversity measurements were collected via satellite from hundreds of remote sea sites from around the world, giving a global snapshot of ocean conditions and trends at any given moment. Links to the leading research universities provided data on current investigations in geology, marine biology, and undersea flora and fauna research, as well as engineering and technology. NUMA's own historical reference library contained literally millions of data sources and was a constant reservoir of information for research institutes the world over.

Dirk found the maestro behind the vast computer network, sitting behind a horseshoe console munching a bear claw with one hand while tapping a keyboard with the other. To a stranger, Hiram Yaeger resembled a groupie from a Bob Dylan concert. His lean body was clad in faded Levi's and matching jeans jacket over a white T-shirt, complemented by a pair of scuffed cowboy boots on his feet. With his long gray hair tied in a ponytail, his appearance belied the fact that he lived in a high-end Maryland suburb with an ex-model wife and drove a BMW 7 Series. He caught sight of Dirk over a pair of granny glasses and smiled in greeting.

“Well, the young Mr. Pitt,” he grinned warmly.

“Hiram, how are you?”

“Not having smashed my car, nor destroyed an agency helicopter, I'd have to say I'm doing quite well,” he joked. “By the way, has our esteemed director been advised of the loss of one of NUMA's flying assets?”

“Yes. Fortunately, with Dad and Al still over in the Philippines the bite was tempered somewhat.”

“They've had their hands full with a toxic spill they ran across near Mindanao, so your timing was good,” Yaeger said. “So tell-me, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“Well,” Dirk hesitated, “it's your daughters. I would like to go out with them.”

The color drained from Yaeger's thin boyish face for a moment as he took Dirk's proposal seriously. Yaeger's twin daughters, finishing their last year of private high school, were his pride and joy. For seventeen years, he had successfully scared away any male suitors who had the remotest inkling of touching his girls. God forbid the giddiness they'd show over the rugged and charismatic Dirk.

"You so much as mention their names around me and I'll have you off the payroll with a ruined credit rating that will take five lifetimes to fix' Yaeger threatened.

It was Dirk's turn to laugh, chuckling loudly at Yaeger's vulnerable soft spot. The computer genius softened and grinned as well at Dirk's idle ploy.

“Okay, the girls are off-limits. But what I really want is a little time with you and Max before my meeting with Rudi later this morning.”

“Now, that I can approve,” Yaeger replied with a firm nod of the head. The bear claw now demolished, he applied both hands in a finger dance over the keyboard to conjure up his bionic confidante, Max.

No fellow computer programmer, Max was an artificial intelligence system with a virtual interface in the form of a holographic image. The brainchild of Yaeger to aid in researching voluminous databases, he had cleverly modeled the visual interface after his wife, Elsie, adding a sensual voice and saucy personality. On a platform opposite the horseshoe console, an attractive woman with auburn hair and topaz eyes suddenly appeared. She was dressed in a skimpy halter top that revealed her navel and a very short leather skirt.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” the three-dimensional image murmured.

“Hi, Max. You remember the younger Dirk Pitt?”

“Of course. Nice to see you again, Dirk.”

“You're looking good, Max.”

“I'd look better if Hiram would stop dressing me in Britney Spears outfits,” she replied with disdain, rolling her hands down her body.

“All right. Tomorrow it will be Prada,” Yaeger promised.

“Thank you.”

“Dirk, what is it that you'd like to ask Max?” Yaeger prompted.

“Max, what can you tell me about the Japanese efforts at chemical and biological warfare during World War Two?” Dirk asked, turning serious.

Max hesitated for a moment as the question generated a massive search through thousands of databases. Not just limiting it to oceanographic resources, Yaeger had wired the NUMA network into a diverse multitude of government and public information resources, ranging from the Library of Congress to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Sifting through the mass of information, Max consolidated the data points into a concisely summarized reply.

“The Japanese military conducted extensive research and experimentation into chemical and biological weaponry both during and preceding World War Two. Primary research and deployment occurred in Manchuria, under the direction of the occupying Japanese Imperial Army after they had seized control of northeast China in 1931. Numerous facilities were constructed throughout the region as test centers, under the guise of lumber mills or other false fronts. Inside the facilities, Chinese captives were subject to a wide variety of human experiments with germ and chemical compounds. The Qiqihar facility, under the command of Army Unit 516, was the largest Japanese chemical weapons research and test site, although chemical weapons manufacture actually took place on the Japanese mainland. Changchun, under Army Unit 100, and the sprawling Ping Fan facility, under \my Unit 731, were the major biological warfare research and test centers. The facilities were in fact large prisons, where local criminals and derelicts were sent and used as test subjects, though few of the captives would survive their incarceration.”

“I've read about Unit 731,” Dirk commented. “Some of their experiments made the Nazis look like Boy Scouts.”

“Allegations of inhuman experiments performed by the Japanese, particularly in Unit 731, are nearly endless. Chinese prisoners, and even some Allied prisoners of war, were routinely injected with an assortment of deadly pathogens, as their captors sought to determine the appropriate lethal dosage. Biological bombs were dropped on prisoners staked to the ground in order to test delivery systems. Many experiments took place outside the walls of the facilities. Typhoid bacilli germs were intentionally released into local village wells, resulting in widespread outbreaks of fever and death. Rats carrying plague-infected fleas were released in congested urban areas as a test of the speed and ferocity of infection. Children were even considered an acceptable target. In one experiment, local village children were given chocolates filled with anthrax, which they gratefully devoured, with horrifying side effects.”