“And substantially higher kill rates?” Nones, the third of the Horatii, asked bluntly.
The scientist nodded reluctantly. “Of course.” He swallowed hard. “I doubt that very many people in the target area will survive.”
“Good.” The green-eyed man smiled coldly. “After all, that is the point of all this new technology of yours, isn't it?”
PART THREE
Chapter Twenty-Four
As a multinational corporation worth nearly $50 billion, Nomura Pharma-Tech owned factories, laboratories, and warehouse facilities all around the world, but it still retained a substantial presence in Japan. The company's Tokyo-based complex occupied a forty-acre campus located in the very heart of the sprawling city's Shinjuku Ward. Three identical skyscrapers held administrative offices and science labs for Nomura's thousands of dedicated employees. At night, Tokyo's vivid, shimmering neon lights were reflected by each tower's mirrored facade — turning them into jeweled pillars on which the city's night sky rested. But the rest of the campus was a peaceful rural setting of forested parkland, flowing streams, and restful pools. During his tenure as CEO and chairman, Jinjiro Nomura, Hideo's father, had insisted on creating an oasis of natural beauty, peace, and tranquillity around his corporate headquarters — no matter how much it cost his company or its shareholders.
Three main gates controlled access to the walled compound. From each gate tree-lined paths and service roads fed pedestrian, auto, and truck traffic to one of the three towers.
Mitushara Noda had worked for Nomura PharmaTech for all of his adult life. Over the course of twenty-five years, the short, spare man with a passion for order and routine had risen steadily, if unspectacularly, from the post of junior nightshirt watchman to that of Gate Three security supervisor. The work was equally steady and equally unspectacular. Apart from making sure his guards checked employee badges, Noda's day consisted largely of making sure that shipments of food, office supplies, and lab chemicals arrived on time and were directed to the proper loading dock. Before beginning any shift, he always arrived early just so he could spend the time he needed to memorize the scheduled arrivals, departures, and loads for every vehicle slated to pass through his gate during the next eight hours.
That was why the unexpected sound of a heavy tractor-trailer truck shifting its gears noisily as it turned off the main road brought Mitsuhara Noda rushing out of his small office at the gatehouse. By his calculations, no shipments of any kind were due to arrive for at least another two hours and twenty-five minutes. The little man's black brows were furrowed as he watched the huge rig draw nearer, engine roaring as it steadily picked up speed.
Behind him, several of the other security guards whispered nervously to one another, wondering aloud what they should do. One unsnapped the holster at his side, readying his pistol for a quick draw.
Noda's eyes narrowed. The access road through Gate Three led directly to the tower dedicated to Nomura PharmaTech's nanotechnology research efforts. Several security circulars were posted in his office warning all company employees about the threats made by the Lazarus Movement. And there were no corporate markings on either the trailer or the cab of this fast-approaching truck.
He made a decision. “Lower the gate!” he snapped. “Hoshiko, phone the main office and report a possible security incident.”
Noda stepped right out into the road, signaling the driver of the oncoming truck to stop. Behind him, a solid steel pole swung down with a shrill electrical whine and locked in place. The other guards fumbled for their weapons.
But the truck kept coming. Its gears screamed as the big engine revved higher, accelerating to more than forty miles an hour. Unable for a moment to believe what he was seeing, the little gate supervisor stood his ground, still frantically waving his arms as he shouted for the big rig to halt.
Through the tinted windshield he caught a momentary glimpse of the man behind the wheel. There was no expression on the driver's face, no sign of recognition in his glassy, unseeing eyes. A kamikaze! Noda realized in horror.
Far too late, he turned to run.
The front end of the huge truck slammed into him with lethal force, shattering every bone in his upper body. Unable even to force a scream out of his ruptured lungs, he was hurled backward against the steel pole. The impact snapped his spine in half. Noda was already dead when the truck crashed straight through the gate amid the high- pitched shriek of rending metal.
Two of the shocked security guards reacted fast enough to open fire. But their pistol shots only ricocheted off the big rig's improvised armor plating and bulletproof windows. The truck kept going, roaring deeper into the wooded Nomura complex, racing straight for the tall mirrored lower containing the company's Tokyo nanotech research facility.
Scarcely one hundred yards from the skyscraper's main entrance, the speeding tractor-trailer crashed head- on into a row of massive steel-and-concrete barriers hurriedly deployed by the company after the terrorist attack on the Teller Institute. Huge pieces of broken concrete flew away from the point of impact, but the barriers held.
The big rig jackknifed and then exploded.
An enormous orange and red fireball roared high into the air. The
shock wave smashed windows all across the front of the lab complex. Knife-edge shards of glass cascaded onto the pavements and lawns far below. Bomb-mangled pieces of the truck and trailer were blown through a wide arc — tearing jagged holes in the steel fabric of the building and toppling trees in the surrounding groves.
The nanotech labs themselves, however, unoccupied and sealed under Japanese government supervision, were largely untouched. Casualties, aside from the suicide-bomb driver and the unfortunate Mitsuhara Noda, were remarkably low.
Thirty minutes later, an e-mail message issued by the Lazarus Movement arrived at the offices of every major Tokyo media outlet. In it, the Movement's Japan-based wing took credit for what it called “a mission of heroic self-sacrifice in defense of the planet and all humanity.”
Surveillance Team Safe House, on the Outskirts of Santa Fe
Two large panel vans were parked close to the front entrance of the secluded hilltop house. Their rear doors stood wide open, revealing an assortment of boxes and equipment cases crammed into the back of each vehicle. Five men were gathered near the vans, waiting for their leader.
The older, white-haired Dutchman named Linden was inside, going from room to room to make sure they were leaving nothing suspicious or incriminating behind. What he saw, or rather didn't see, pleased him. The safe house had been stripped and sanitized. Apart from a few tiny holes drilled in the walls, there were no longer any traces of the large array of cameras, radio and microwave receivers, computers, and communications gear they had installed to eavesdrop on every facet of the Teller investigation. Every smooth surface and piece of wood or metal furniture gleamed, scrubbed clean of all fingerprints and other traces of recent human habitation.
He came out of the house and stood blinking in the dazzling sunshine.
He crooked a finger at one of his men, beckoning him over. “Is everything packed, Abrantes?”
The younger man nodded. “We're ready.”
“Good, Vitor,” Linden said. The surveillance team leader checked his watch. “Then let's go. We have planes to catch.” He showed his tobacco-stained teeth in a quick, humorless smile. “Center's timetable for this new mission is very tight, but it will be good to leave this high and arid desert behind and return to Europe.”