higher standard of living for your citizens.”
The President’s teeth clenched. “With a monopoly, prices and profits on Japanese products would skyrocket.”
“You’d also have lower unemployment, and the national debt would diminish,” Tsuboi went on as if the President was impotent.
“I don’t have it in my power to make promises that Congress won’t keep,” said the President, his anger stilled, his mind jockeying for an upper hand. He lowered his eyes to appear perplexed. “You know your way around Washington, Mr. Tsuboi. You have an understanding of how our government works.”
“I am quite aware of your executive limits. But there is much you can do without congressional approval.”
“You must excuse me for a few moments while I digest the enormity of your demands.” The President paused to gather his thoughts. He could not lie and pretend to cave in to all of Tsuboi’s ridiculous demands. That would indicate an obvious ploy, a stall for time. He had to put up a brusque front and appear agitated. He looked up and stared directly at Tsuboi. “I cannot in good conscience accept what has to be unconditional terms of surrender.
“They are better terms than you offered us in nineteen forty-five.”
“Our occupation was far more generous and benevolent than your people had any right to expect,” the President said, his nails digging into the armrests of his chair.
“I am not here to discuss historic differences,” Tsuboi stated bluntly. “You’ve heard the terms and know the consequences. Indecision or procrastination on your part will not delay tragedy.”
There was no sign of a bluff in Tsuboi’s eyes. The President well realized the threat was made more horrible by the cars hidden in heavily populated cities and the suicidal maniacs waiting for the signal to set off the bombs.
“Your extortion demands don’t leave much room for negotiation.”
“None whatsoever,” Tsuboi replied in a tone that defied debate.
“I can’t just snap my fingers and produce a miracle of cooperation with the political opposition,” said the President, feigning exasperation. “You damned well know I can’t dictate to Congress. Senator Diaz and Congresswoman Smith carry heavy weight in both houses, and they’re already inflaming their fellow legislators against you.”
Tsuboi shrugged indifferently. “I fully realize the wheels of your government grind in a swamp of emotions, Mr. President. And your elected representatives vote along party lines, irrespective of the national good. But they will be persuaded to accept the inevitable once you inform them that two of the bomb cars are being driven around Washington as we talk.”
Not good. The ball was back on the President’s side of the court. He made a monumental effort to remain impassive and show strains of anger. “I’ll need time.”
“You have until three o’clock this afternoon, your time, to appear on national television with your advisers and the leaders of Congress standing behind you in a show of support as you announce the new cooperation agreements between Japan and the United States.”
“You’re asking too much.”
“That is the way it must be,” said Tsuboi. “And one more thing, Mr. President. Any indication of an attack on Soseki Island will be answered with the bomb cars. Do I make myself clear?”
“As crystal.”
“Then, good morning. I shall look forward to watching you on television this afternoon.”
Tsuboi’s image swiftly dissolved and vanished.
The President looked up at a clock on one wall. Nine o’clock. Only six hours remained. The same time sequence Jordan projected for Pitt to set off the old atomic bomb and launch the submarine quake and tsunami.
“Oh, God,” he whispered to the empty room. “What if it all goes wrong?”
69
BIG BEN MOVED across the vast seascape at fifteen kilometers an hour, almost lightning speed for an immense vehicle traveling underwater through the abyssal mud. A great cloud of fine silt swirled in its wake, blossoming into the yawning blackness before dissipating and slowly settling back to the bottom.
Pitt studied a viewing screen connected to a laser-sonar unit that probed the seafloor ahead and enhanced it into three dimensions. The submarine desert held few surprises, and except for a detour around a narrow but deep rift, he was able to make good time.
Precisely forty-seven minutes after he detached the parachutes and set Big Ben in motion, the hard outline of the B-29 appeared and grew until it filled the monitor. The coordinates from the Pyramider satellite that were programmed into the DSMV’s navigation computer had put him right on the target.
Pitt was close enough now to see wreckage creeping under the far edges of the exterior lights. He slowed Big Ben and circled the bleak and broken aircraft. It looked like a cast-off toy on the bottom of a backyard pond. Pitt stared at it with the rapture experienced by divers the first time they approach a manmade object in the sea. To be the first to see or touch a sunken automobile, a missing plane, or a lost shipwreck is a fearful yet melancholy experience, only shared by those who daringly walk through a haunted house after midnight.
The three-story-high tail section showed the effects of shell fire. It had broken away and lay several meters behind the main fuselage and slightly off to one side. The tail gunner’s section was shattered and riddled, the rusting barrels of the 20-millimeter cannons dipped into the mud.
The aluminum surfaces of the 30-meter-long tubular fuselage were covered with slime and encrustations, but the framed glass windows encircling the bow were still clear. And the little demon painted under the pilot’s side window was surprisingly clean and free of scale and growth. Pitt could have sworn the beady little eyes stared back at him and the lips pulled back in a satanic grin.
He knew better than to let his imagination run wild and envision skeletons of the crew still at their stations, skulls with jaws dropped in deathly silence, eye sockets empty and unseeing. Pitt had spent enough time under the sea swimming through sunken vessels to know the soft organic substances of the human body were the first to go, quickly consumed by bottom-dwelling sea creatures. Then the bones, eventually dissolving in the icy cold of saltwater. Strange as it seems, clothing would be the last to disintegrate, especially leather flight jackets and boots. In time, even those would disappear, as well as the entire aircraft.
“I have visual on the target,” he announced to Sandecker in the C-5, flying overhead in the night.
“What is the condition?” Sandecker’s disembodied voice came back quickly.
“One wing is heavily damaged. The tail is broken off, but the main fuselage is intact.”
“The bomb is in the forward bomb bay. You’ll have to position Big Ben at an angle where the leading edge of the wing joins the fuselage. Then make your cut across the aircraft’s roof.”
“Luck was a lady tonight,” said Pitt. “The starboard wing is torn back, offering easy access. I can move into perfect position to slice through the bulkheads from the side.”
Pitt maneuvered the DSMV until its manipulator arms reached over the forward bomb bay of the aircraft. He inserted his hand into a glovelike actuator that electronically controlled the mechanical arms and selected a multidirectional metal-cutting wheel from one of three tools coupled to the wrist of the left manipulator. Operating the system as if it was an extension of his hand and arm, he laid out and measured the cut on a monitor that projected interior cutaway views of the aircraft’s structural components. He could perform the difficult operation by observing it on video from several close-up angles instead of relying on direct sight through the transparent bow. He positioned the wheel against the aluminum skin of the plane and programmed the dimensions and the depth of the cut into the computer. Then he switched on the tool and watched it attack the body of
