Everyone unfolded the drawings and studied the layout of the facility that represented the worst threat the free world had faced since the Cuban missile crisis. No one spoke as they traced the passageways, memorized the labels describing the rooms, and examined the dimensions.

“The center must be a good three hundred meters below the island’s surface,” observed Mancuso.

“There’s no airstrip or dock on the island,” Stacy murmured in concentration. “The only entry is by helicopter or from Edo City through the tunnel.”

Pitt drank the last of his tequila. “No way in by sea unless the assaulting force were professional mountain climbers. And at that, they’d be picked off by Suma’s defense systems like ants crawling up a white wall.”

“What are those buildings on the surface?” asked Weatherhill.

“A luxury retreat for Suma’s top management. They meet there for business conferences. It also makes an ideal location for secret meetings with politicians, government bureaucrats, and underworld leaders.”

“Shimzu’s painting showed an island barren of plant life,” said Pitt. “Half the island appears covered by trees.”

“Planted by Suma’s landscape people over the past twenty years,” explained Penner.

Mancuso scratched his nose thoughtfully. “What about an elevator between the retreat and the control center?”

Penner shook his head. “Nothing showed on the plans. We can’t risk penetration down the shaft if we don’t have a location.”

“An underground facility of this scope requires outside ventilation.”

“Our engineering team believes several of the houses within the resort area are dummy covers for air vents and exhaust ducts.”

“We might give that a try.” Weatherhill laughed. “I’m good at ducts.”

Penner shrugged. “Again, not enough information. It’s possible air is pumped in from Edo, and the foul returned and vented along with the city’s outflow.”

Pitt looked at Penner. “What are the chances Loren and Diaz are held prisoners on the island?”

Penner gave an unknowing shrug. “Fair to good. We haven’t tracked them down yet. But resortlike accommodations on an impregnable island would certainly make an ideal safe house to hide hostages.”

“Hostages, yes,” said Stacy, “but under what terms? No word of Congresswoman Smith and Senator Diaz has been heard since they were abducted.”

“No demands have been received,” explained Penner, “forcing the President into a wait-and-see game. And until we can provide him with enough intelligence to make a judgment call on a rescue operation, he won’t give the order.”

Giordino gazed at Penner with a small air of contemplation. “There must be a plan to trash the joint, there’s always a plan.”

“We have one,” replied Penner, committing himself. “Don Kern has created an intricate but viable operation to penetrate and disable the center’s electronic systems.”

“What kind of defenses are we talking about?” inquired Pitt. “Suma wouldn’t sink heavy effort and money into the eighth wonder of the modern world without protecting the hell out of it.

“We can’t say with any accuracy.” Penner’s eyes swept over the island model with a look of concern. “We do know what security and military technology is available to Suma, and must assume he’s installed the best sensory gear his money can buy. Exotic radar equipment for land and sea detection, sonar sensors for underwater approach, laser and heat detection ringing the perimeter of the shore. Not the least of which is an army of armed robots.”

“And lest we forget, an arsenal of hidden surface-to-sea-and-air missiles.” This from Pitt.

“It won’t be an easy nut to crack,” Weatherhill said in a classic understatement.

Giordino looked at Penner, amused, curious. “Looks to me like an assault by at least five Special Forces assault teams, preceded by an attack of naval carrier aircraft and a bombardment by a strike fleet to soften up the defenses, is the only way anybody’s going to get inside that rock.”

“Either that,” Pitt tagged, “or a damn big nuclear bomb.”

Penner smiled dryly. “Since neither of your suggestions fits into the practical scheme of things, we’ll have to use other means to do the job.”

“Let me guess.” Mancuso was acid. As he spoke he gestured to Stacy, Weatherhill, and himself. “The three of us go in through the tunnel.”

“All five of you are going in,” Penner murmured quietly. “Though not all by way of the tunnel.”

Stacy gasped in surprise. “Frank, Timothy and I are highly trained professionals at forced entry. Dirk and Al are marine engineers. They have neither the skill nor the experience for a tricky penetration operation. Surely you don’t intend to send them in too?”

“Yes I do,” Penner insisted quietly. “They are not as helpless as you imply.”

“Do we get to wear black ninja suits and flit through the tunnel like bats?” There was no mistaking the cynicism in Pitt’s voice.

“Not at all,” Penner said calmly. “You and Al are going to drop in on the island and create a diversion to coincide with the entry of the others from Edo City.”

“Not by parachute,” Giordino groaned. “God, I hate parachutes.”

“So!” Pitt said thoughtfully. “The great Pitt and Giordino the magnificent fly into Hideki Suma’s private resort fortress with bugles sounding, bells ringing, and drums beating. Then get executed samurai style as trespassing spies. Kind of taking us for granted, aren’t you, Penner?”

“There is some risk, I admit,” Penner said defensively. “But I have no intention of sending you to your deaths.”

Giordino looked at Pitt. “Do you get the feeling we’re being used?”

“How about screwed?”

With his partisan eye Pitt knew the Director of Field Operations wasn’t acting purely on his own authority. The plan had come from Kern with Jordan’s approval and the President’s blessing on top of that. He turned and stared at Stacy. She had “Don’t go” written all over her face.

“Once we get on the island, what then?” he queried.

“You avoid capture as long as possible to distract Suma’s security forces, hiding out until we can mount a rescue mission to evacuate the entire team.”

“Against state-of-the-art security, we won’t last ten minutes.”

“No one expects miracles.”

Pitt said, “Well?”

“Well what?”

“We fall from the sky and play hide-and-seek with Suma’s robots while the three pros sneak in through a sixty-kilometer tunnel?” Any hint of irritation, incredulity, and despair was contained with great force of will by Pitt. “That’s the plan? That’s all there is?”

“Yes,” Penner said, self-consciously avoiding Pitt’s blazing stare.

“Your pals in Washington must have drawn that brilliant piece of creativity out of a fortune cookie.”

In his mind, Pitt never doubted his decision. If there was the slightest chance Loren was held prisoner on the island, he would go.

“Why can’t you simply cut off their power source on the mainland?” asked Giordino.

“Because the control center is entirely self-sustaining,” replied Penner. “It has its own generating station.”

Pitt looked at Giordino. “What do you say, big Al?”

“That resort have geishas?”

“Suma has a reputation for hiring only beautiful women,” Penner answered with a faint smile.

Pitt asked, “How do we fly in without being blown out of the sky?”

Penner smiled a smile that seemed to portend something good for a change. “Now that part of the plan has an A-number-one gilt-edge rating for success.”

“It had better,” said Pitt with ice in his opaline eyes. “Or somebody’s going to get hurt real bad.”

44

AS PENNER HAD suggested, being shot down in flames was not a likely prospect. The ultralight power gliders that Pitt and Giordino were to fly off the landing pad of the U.S. Navy detection and tracking ship Ralph R. Bennett looked like pint-sized Stealth bombers. They were painted a dark gray and sported the same weird Buck Rogers shape that made them impossible to see on radar.