“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.”

“We’re here and we have no alternatives,” said Mancuso, glancing at his watch. “If Pitt and Giordino were successful in landing on the island’s surface and diverting Suma’s security systems, we should have time enough to plant the plastic and escape back through the tunnel to Edo City.”

Weatherhill looked at Stacy and Mancuso, then looked at the elevator panel. He knew exactly how they felt—nerves tense, minds alert, their bodies honed and ready to act. They had come this far and now it all depended on their decisions in the next few minutes. He punched the button marked 6.

“Might as well try the middle floor,” he said with practical logic.

Mancuso raised the briefcase that camouflaged two automatic weapons and clutched it under his arm. Immobile, he and Stacy and Weatherhill stood quietly in uneasy apprehension. A few seconds later there was an audible bong, the digital light for the sixth floor flashed, and the doors spread apart.

Mancuso went through with Stacy and Weatherhill at his heels. When he stopped dead after two steps, he hardly felt the others bump into him. They all stood and stared like village idiots on a space journey to Mars.

Everywhere inside a vast domed gallery there was a bustling purposeful confusion one would expect from an army of efficient assembly line workers, except there were no spoken orders or shouts or group conversations. All of the specialists, technicians, and engineers working on a great semicircle of computers and instrument consoles were robots in myriad different sizes and shapes.

They’d struck gold on the first try. Weatherhill had unwittingly pushed the floor button that took them directly to the electronic brains of Suma’s nuclear command center. There were no human helpers anywhere in the complex. The entire work force was totally automated and made up of sophisticated high-tech machines that worked twenty-four hours a day without coffee breaks, lunch, or sick leave. An operation inconceivable to an American union leader.

Most rolled on wheels, some on tractor treads. Some had as many as seven articulated arms sprouting like octopus tentacles from wheeled carts, a few could have passed as the familiar multipurpose units found in a dentist’s office. But none walked on legs and feet, or remotely resembled C3P0 from Star Wars or Robby from Forbidden Planet. The robots were immersed in their individual work programs and went about their business without taking notice of the human intruders.

“Do you get the feeling we’ve become obsolete?” whispered Stacy.

“Not good,” said Mancuso. “We’d better get back inside the elevator.”

Weatherhill shook his head. “Not a chance. This is the complex we came to destroy. These things don’t even know we’re here. They’re not programmed to interfere with humans. And there are no robotic security guards around. Pitt and Giordino must have saved our ass by distracting them. I say we send this automated anthill to the moon.”

“The elevator has moved on,” said Stacy, pressing the “down” button. “For the next minute we’ve got nowhere else to go.

Mancuso wasted no more time in discussion. He set the briefcase on the floor and began tearing the packets of C-8 plastic explosives attached by tape from around his lower legs. The rest did the same from under their jumpsuit uniforms.

“Stacy, the computer section. Tim, the nuclear bomb prime systems. I’ll tackle the communications gear.”

They had moved less than five steps toward their given targets when a voice boomed and echoed through the concrete walls of the chamber.

“Remain where you are! Do not move or you will surely die!” Perfect English, with barely a trace of a Japanese accent, and the voice cold, menacing.

The surprise was complete, but Mancuso bluffed it out, trying to find a target for the automatic weapons inside his briefcase.

“We are test engineers on an inspection and test program. Do you wish to see and hear our pass code?”

“All human engineers and inspectors along with their codes were discontinued when the fully autonomous vehicles could perform their programs without intervention and human supervision,” the disembodied voice rumbled.

“We were not aware of the change. We were instructed by our superior to inspect the fiber-optic communications,” Mancuso persisted as his hand pressed a button disguised as a cleat on the bottom of his briefcase.

And then the elevator door opened and Roy Orita stepped out onto the control center floor. He paused for a moment, his eyes staring with a certain respect at his former MAIT team members.

“Spare the bravado,” he said with a triumphant smile. “You’ve failed. Your covert operation to stop the Kaiten Project has failed, totally and absolutely. And you’re all going to die for it.”

Jordan and Sandecker shared a light breakfast with the President at the executive retreat at Camp David. They sat at a table in a small cottage in front of a crackling hickory log fire. Jordan and the admiral found the room uncomfortably warm, but the President seemed to enjoy the heat, sipping a cup of Southern chicory-flavored coffee while wearing an Irish wool knit sweater.

The President’s special assistant, Dale Nichols, came in from the kitchen with a glass of milk. “Don Kern is outside,” he reported, addressing Jordan.

“I believe he has an update on Soseki Island,” said Jordan.

The President gestured at Nichols. “By all means, send him in.” And as an afterthought, “Get him a cup of coffee and see if he’d like anything to eat.”

Kern only accepted the coffee and took a seat on a nearby sofa. The President stared expectantly at him, but Jordan gazed emptily into the fire.

“They’re in,” Kern announced.

“They’re in,” echoed the President. “Every one of them?”

Kern nodded. “All three.”

“Any problems?” asked Jordan.

“We don’t know. Before our British contact’s signal was mysteriously cut off, he said they’d made it safely through the tunnel.”

The President reached out and shook Jordan’s hand. “Congratulations, Ray.”

“A bit premature, Mr. President,” said Jordan. “They still have hurdles to clear. Penetrating the Dragon Center is only the first step in the plan.”