“You sound like the warlords who prematurely counted us out after Pearl Harbor,” Loren reminded him curtly. “The United States treated Japan far better after the war than we’d have expected if you were the victors. Your armies would have raped, murdered, and pillaged America just as you did China.”

“Besides us, you still have Europe to contend with,” warned Diaz. “Their trade policies are not nearly as tolerant and patronizing as ours toward Tokyo. And if anything, the new European Common Market is going to dig in against your economic penetration. Threatened by nuclear blackmail or not, they’ll close their markets to Japanese exports.”

“Over the long term, we will merely use our billions of cash reserves to slowly buy up their industries until we have a base that is impregnable. Not an impossible operation when you consider that the twelve largest banks in the world are Japanese, constituting almost three quarters of the total market value of all the rest of the foreign banks. That means we rule the world of big money.”

“You can’t hold the world hostage forever,” said Pitt. “Your own government and people will rise up against you when they discover the world’s warheads are aimed at the Japanese islands instead of the United States and the Soviet Union. And the possibility of another nuclear attack becomes very real should one of your car bombs accidentally detonate.”

Suma shook his head. “Our electronic safeguards are more advanced than yours and the Russians’. There will be no explosions unless I personally program the correct code.”

“You can’t really start a nuclear war,” Loren gasped.

Suma laughed. “Nothing as stupid and cold-blooded as what the White House and Kremlin might attempt. You forget, we Japanese know what it’s like to suffer the horror of atomic warfare. No, the Kaiten Project is far more technically sophisticated than masses of missile warheads aimed at cities and military installations. The bombs are designed to be set off in remote strategically unpopulated areas to create a massive electromagnetic force with the potential of destroying your entire economy. Any deaths or injuries would be minimal.”

“You really plan to do it, don’t you?” said Pitt, reading Suma’s mind. “You really intend to set off the bombs.”

“And why not, if circumstances warrant it. There is no fear of immediate retaliation, since the electromagnetic force will effectively close down all American, NATO, and Soviet communications and weapons systems.” The Japanese industrialist stared at Pitt, the dark eyes cool and tyrannical. “Whether I take that step or not, you, Mr. Pitt, won’t be around to find out.”

A frightened look swept Loren’s face. “Aren’t Dirk and AI flying back to Washington with Senator Diaz and me?”

Suma exhaled his breath in a long silent sigh and shook his head very slowly. “No… I have made them a gift to my good friend Moro Kamatori.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Moro is an expert hunter. His passion is tracking human game. Your friends and the three intelligence operatives who were captured during their attempt to destroy the center will be offered a chance to escape the island. But only if they can elude Moro for twenty-four hours.”

Kamatori gave Pitt a subzero stare. “Mr. Pitt will have the honor of being the first to make the attempt.”

Pitt turned to Giordino, the trace of a grin on his saturnine face. “See, I told you so.”

48

“ESCAPE,” MUTTERED GIORDINO, pacing the small cottage under the watchful eye of McGoon, “escape” where? The best long distance swimmer in the world couldn’t make it across sixty kilometers of cold water swept by five-knot currents. And even then, Suma’s hoods would be waiting to gut you the minute you crawled onto a mainland beach.”

“So what’s the game plan?” asked Pitt between pushups on the floor.

“Stay alive as long as possible. What other options do we have?”

“Die like stouthearted men.”

Giordino raised an eyebrow and stared at Pitt suspiciously. “Yeah, sure, bare your chest, refuse the blindfold, and puff a cigarette as Kamatori raises his sword.”

“Why fight the inevitable.”

“Since when do you give up in the first inning?” Giordino said, beginning to wonder if his old friend had suffered a brain leak.

“We can try to hide somewhere on the island as long as we can, but it’s a hopeless cause. I suspect Kamatori will cheat and use robotic sensors to track us down.”

“What about Stacy? You can’t stand by and let that moonfaced scum murder her too.”

Pitt rose from the floor. “Without weapons, what do you expect? Flesh can’t win against mechanical cyborgs and an expert with a sword.”

“I expect you to show the guts you showed in a hundred other scrapes we’ve been through together.”

Pitt favored his right leg as he limped past McGoon and stood with his back to the robot. “Easy for you to say, pal. You’re in good physical shape. I wrenched my knee when I crash-landed into that fishpond and I can barely walk. I stand no chance at all of eluding Kamatori.”

Then Giordino saw the wily grin on Pitt’s face, and a dawning comprehension settled over him. Suddenly he felt a complete fool. Besides McGoon’s sensors, the room must have had a dozen listening devices and video cameras hidden in and around it. He figured Pitt’s drift and played along.

“Kamatori is too much a samurai to hunt an injured man. If there’s a morsel of sporting blood in him, he’d give himself a handicap.”

Pitt shook his head. “I’d settle for something to ease the pain.”

“McGoon,” Giordino hailed the sentry robot, “is there a doctor in the house?”

“That data is not programmed in my directive.”

“Then call up your remote boss and find out.”

“Please stand by.”

The robot went silent as its communications system sent out a request to its control center. The reply came back immediately. “There is a small staff in a clinic on the fourth level. Does Mr. Pitt require medical assistance?”

“Yes,” Pitt answered. “I’ll require an injection of a painkiller and a tight bandage if I’m to provide Mr. Kamatori with a challenging degree of competition.”

“You did not appear to limp a few hours ago,” McGoon flagged Pitt.

“My knee was numb,” Pitt lied. “But the pain and stiffness have increased to where I find it difficult to walk.” He took a few halting steps and tensed his face as though experiencing a mild case of agony.

As a machine that was completely adequate for the job, Murasaki, alias McGoon, duly relayed his visual observation of Pitt’s pathetic display to his directorate controller somewhere deep within the Dragon Center and received permission to escort his injured prisoner to the medical clinic. Another roboguard appeared to keep a video eye on Giordino, who promptly named the newcomer McGurk.

Playing his fake condition as though an Academy Award was in the offing, Pitt shuffled awkwardly through a labyrinth of corridors before being hustled into an elevator by McGoon.

The robot pressed a floor button with a metal finger, and the elevator began to quietly descend, although not as silently as the one in the Federal Headquarters Building.

Too bad the MAIT team didn’t have intelligence on an elevator that dropped from the island’s surface to the underground center, Pitt thought during the ride. Penetration from the resort might have been carried off with a higher chance of success. A few moments later the doors spread and McGoon prodded Pitt into a brightly lit passageway.

“The fourth door on your left. Take it and enter.”

The door, like every piece of flat surface in the underground facility, was painted white. A small red cross was the only indication of a medical center. There was no knob, only a button set in the frame. Pitt pushed it and the door noiselessly slid open. He limped inside. An attractive young lady in a nurse’s uniform looked up from a desk through serious brown eyes as he entered. She spoke to him in Japanese, and he shrugged dumbly.