The bonita was followed by individual wooden trays that held unpeeled ginkgo nuts threaded with pine needles and a pyramid of sliced abalone. Then came a flower soup, a clear broth with single orchids floating in the bowls.

Loren closed her eyes as she savored it. “It tastes as wonderful as it looks,” she said.

Suma nodded. “Japanese haute cuisine is created to delight the eye as well as the palate.”

“A successful attempt at visual and taste perfection,” Pitt observed.

“Are you a bon vivant, Mr. Pitt?” asked Suma.

“I enjoy the pleasure of a gourmet meal, yes.”

“Are your tastes varied?”

“If you mean, do I eat most everything, the answer is affirmative.”

“Good.” Suma clapped his hands. “Then you’re in for an exciting and harmonious treat.”

Loren thought the dinner was half over, but it had barely begun. A truly exceptional display of tasty dishes, their ingredients artistically arranged, arrived in a steady stream. Figs in sesame sauce, rice with basil, another soup with egg yolk, neatly sliced conger eel, radish, and mushrooms accompanied by roe of sea urchin, several kinds of fish, including turbot, snapper, pike, and squid wrapped in a collage with varied types of seaweed, and lotus root mixed with intricately cut mussels, cucumber, and zucchini. A third soup was served with pickled vegetables, rice, and sesame. At last, dessert was presented, consisting of several sweet fruits, and the feast concluded with the inevitable cup of tea.

“A final meal for the condemned?” Diaz asked harshly.

“Not at all, Senator,” Suma replied in a congenial voice. “You and Congresswoman Smith will be returning to Washington within twenty-four hours on board my private jet.”

“Why not now?”

“You must be instructed of my goals first. Tomorrow I will personally conduct you and Congresswoman Smith on a tour of my Dragon Center and demonstrate the source of Japan’s new might.”

“A Dragon Center,” repeated Diaz curiously. “For what purpose?”

“You don’t know, Senator, about the nuclear bomb cars our host has spread around half the world?” Pitt asked provokingly.

Diaz was uncomprehending. “Bomb cars?”

“Suma, here, wants to play hardball with the big boys, so he’s dreamed up a blue-ribbon extortion plot. As soon as his highly touted Dragon Center is completed, he can push a button and cause the detonation of a nuclear bomb at any location his robots park a car with a built-in bomb.”

Loren’s eyes went wide with shock. “Is this true? Japan has secretly built a nuclear arsenal?”

Pitt nodded at Suma. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Suma stared at Pitt like a mongoose eyeing a cobra. “You’re a very astute man, Mr. Pitt. I’m told it was you who put Mr. Jordan and his intelligence people onto our method of smuggling the warheads into your country.”

“I freely admit that hiding them in automobile air-conditioning compressors was a cagey act of genius on your part. You almost got away with a clean operation, that is, until a bomb accidentally exploded aboard your auto transport ship.”

Frowning, baffled, Loren asked, “What do you hope to gain?”

“Nothing deep and unfathomable,” answered Suma. “Using your slang, Japan has always been on the short end of the stick. Raw universal anti-Japanese prejudice is deeply ingrained in the white West. We have been looked down on as an odd little Oriental race for three hundred years. The time has come to grasp the dominance we deserve!”

An angered flush crept into Loren’s face. “So you’d launch a war that would slaughter millions of people for nothing but false pride and greed. Didn’t you learn anything from the death and destruction you caused in the nineteen-forties?”

“Our leaders went to war only after the Western nations strangled us to death with trade embargoes and boycotts. What we lost then in lives and destruction, we’ve since surpassed in expansion of economic power. Now we are being threatened again by international ostracism and world enmity merely due to our diligent efforts and dedication to efficient trade and industry. And because our great economy is dependent on foreign oil and minerals, we can never again allow ourselves to be dictated to by Washington politics, European interests, or Middle East religious conflict. With the Kaiten Project we have the means to protect ourselves and our hard won economic gains.”

“The Kaiten Project?” Diaz repeated, never having heard of it before.

“His sordid plan to blackmail the universe,” Pitt explained caustically.

“You’re flirting with fire,” Loren said to Suma. “The United States, the Soviet Union, and Europe will band together to destroy you.”

“They will back off when they see what it will cost them,” Suma said confidently. “They’ll do little but hold press conferences and declare they will solve the problem through diplomatic means.”

“You don’t give a damn about saving Japan!” snapped Diaz suddenly. “Your own government would be horrified if they were aware of this monster you’ve created. You’re in this for yourself, a personal power grab. You’re a power-mad maniac.”

“You are right, Senator,” Suma said in quiet control. “In your eyes I must appear as a maniac intent on supreme power. I won’t hide it. And like all the other maniacs of history who were driven to protect their nation and its sovereignty, I won’t hesitate to use my power to guide expansion of our race around the globe while protecting our culture from the corruptions of the West.”

“Just what do you find so corrupting about the Western nations?” demanded Diaz.

A look of contempt came into Suma’s eyes. “Look to your own people, Senator. The United States is a land of drug addicts, Mafia gangsters, rapists and murderers, homeless and illiterates. Your cities run rampant with racism because of your mixed cultures. You are declining as did Greece and Rome and the British Empire. You’ve become a cesspool of deterioration, and the process is unstoppable.”

“So you think America is undermined and finished as a superpower,” said Loren in an annoyed voice.

“You do not find such decay in Japan,” Suma replied smugly.

“God but you’re hypocritical.” Pitt broke out laughing, turning every head at the dining table. “Your quaint little culture is rife with corruption in the highest political levels. Reports of scandals fill your newspapers and TV stations on a daily basis. Your underworld is so powerful it runs the government. Half your politicians and bureaucrats are on the take, openly receiving money for political influence. You sell highly secret military technology to the Communist Bloc for profit. Living costs are ridiculously out of sight for your own people, who pay twice what Americans pay for goods manufactured by Japanese corporations. You steal high-tech advancements wherever you can find them. You have racketeers who regularly disrupt company meetings to extract payoffs. You accuse us of racism when your best-selling books promote anti-Semitism, your department stores display and sell black Sambo manikins and dolls, and you sell magazines on street newsstands depicting women in bondage. And you have the gall to sit there and claim you have a superior culture. That’s garbage.”

“Amen, my friend,” said Diaz, raising his teacup. “Amen.”

“Dirk is one hundred percent right,” Loren added proudly. “Our society isn’t perfect, but people to people, our overall quality of life is still better than yours.”

Suma’s face altered into a mask of wrath. The eyes were as hard as topaz on the satin-smooth face. His teeth were set. He spoke as if cracking a whip. “Fifty years ago, we were a defeated people, reviled by the United States! Now, all of a sudden, we are the winners, and you have lost to us. The poisoning of Japan by the United States and Europe has been stopped. Our culture will prevail. We will prove to be the dominant nation in the twenty-first century.”