from the wall of the trench. Even then, his toughest hurdle was the trench itself. He was on the wrong side. To reach the safety of the Japanese shore, he would have to drive the great vehicle down into the bottom and up the opposite slope.
He did not see, his scanner could not tell him, that there was no hard ground or shallow slopes for the DSMV to claw its way up to flat terrain. If anything, the great fracture in the seabed deepened and curved southeast, offering no chance of escape for over eight hundred kilometers. And too late, his scanner revealed the mighty seismic landslide flaring out across the eastern bank of the trench, much as sand spreads when falling through an hourglass, and closing on him at an incredible rate of speed.
Big Ben was still battling through the soft ooze when the avalanche caught up to it. Pitt felt the ground slipping away under the vehicle and knew he’d lost the race. The sound of it came like the roar of a cataract in a tiled room. He saw death’s finger reaching out to touch him. He just had time to tense his body before a great wall of mud engulfed the DSMV and swept it end over end into the black void far below, concealing it under a burial shroud of featureless ooze.
The sea looked as if it had gone insane as the mighty bulk of the tsunami towered into the night, forming a raging frenzy of destruction. It sped out of the darkness, rising ever higher as it came in contact with the island’s shoals, the sheer magnitude of its power beyond human belief.
As its front slowed from friction at meeting the rising bottom, the water in its rear piled up, lifting with fantastic speed to the height of an eight-story building. Blacker than the night itself, its crest bursting like fireworks with the fire of phosphorescence, its roar slashing across the sea like a sonic boom, the mammoth nightmare reared up like a mountain summit and flung itself against the defenseless island’s already sunken palisades.
The stupendous wall of death and devastation crushed and swept away every tree, every stick of organic growth, and the resort buildings above the island like toothpicks in a tornado. Nothing made by man or nature resisted the catastrophic force longer than an eye blink in time. Trillions of liters of water obliterated everything in their path. The island was pushed under even further as if by a giant hand.
Much of the tsunami’s astronomical power was sapped from the onslaught against the land mass. A counter surge was created in a kind of backlash that sent the major force of the wave back into the vastness of the ocean. What energy was left of the westward thrust passed on and struck Japan’s main island of Honshu, the wave having dropped to a one-meter coastal surge that caused some damage to several fishing ports but no deaths.
In its wake the tsunami born of Mother’s Breath left Soseki Island and its Dragon Center drowned under a turbulent sea, never to rise above the surface again.
From deep under the island the aftershocks went on. They sounded like the rumblings of heavy gunfire. At the same time, countless tons of black water gushed through the air vents and elevator shaft, pressured by the enormous weight from above. Rivers spurted from fractures opened in the concrete roof and by widening fissures in the overhead lava rock from the stress forces brought on by the sinking island.
The entire Dragon Center was suddenly filled with the noise of water cascading from above. And behind that noise was the heavier, deeper thunder of water exploding into the rooms and corridors of the upper levels. Impelled by fantastic pressure, the flood plunged into the heart of the complex, shoving a great blast of air ahead of it.
All was confusion and panic now. The full realization by the hundreds of workers that they all faced certain death came with sickening suddenness. Nothing could save them, there was no place to run to escape the inundation. The tunnel had been split apart as the island shifted downward, sending the sea pouring through the tube toward Edo City at the other end.
Tsuboi’s ears rang from the air pressure. A great roaring sound came from outside and he recognized it as a wall of water ramming its way toward the defense control room. He had no time to react. In that instant, a sudden torrent of water burst into the room. There was no time to run, to even shout. In his final moments he saw his mentor, the evil old archcriminal Yoshishu, shot away from the column he was clinging to like a fly from the spurt of a garden hose. With a faint cry he disappeared in a rush of water.
Rage dominated all of Tsuboi’s other emotions. He felt no fear of pain or death, only a rage directed against the elements for denying him the leadership of the new empire. With Suma and Yoshishu gone, it would have all belonged to him. But it was only the fleeting hallucination of a dying man.
Tsuboi felt himself being sucked out and swept into the flow of water rushing through the corridor. His ears stabbed with agony from the pressure. His lungs were squeezed to the bursting point. And then he was thrust against a wall, his body crushed.
Only eight minutes had elapsed since Mother’s Breath had exploded, no more. The destruction of the Dragon Center was terrifyingly complete. The Kaiten Project no longer existed, and the island the ancients knew as Ajima was now only a mound beneath the sea.
73
FOR THE PRESIDENT and the vastly relieved advisers on his National Security Council, the news of the total elimination of the Dragon Center was greeted with tired smiles and a quiet round of applause. They were all too exhausted for any display of unrestrained celebration. Martin Brogan, the CIA chief, compared it to waiting all night at the hospital for his wife’s first baby.
The President came down to the Situation Room to personally congratulate Ray Jordan and Don Kern. He was in a jubilant mood, and fairly beamed like an airport beacon.
“Your people did one hell of a job,” said the President, pumping Jordan’s hand. “The nation is in your debt.”
“The MAIT team deserves the honors,” said Kern. “They truly pulled off the impossible.”
“But not without sacrifice,” Jordan murmured softly. “Jim Hanamura, Marv Showalter, and Dirk Pitt—it was a costly operation.”
“No word on Pitt?” asked the President.
Kern shook his head. “There seems to be little doubt that he and his Deep Sea Mining Vehicle were swept away by the seismic landslide and buried.”
“Any sign of him from the Pyramider?”
“During the satellite’s first pass after the explosion and upheaval, there was so much turbulence the cameras couldn’t detect any image of the vehicle.”
“Maybe you can spot him on the next pass,” the President said hopefully. “If there is even the slightest chance he may still be alive, I want a full-scale rescue mission mounted to save him. We owe Pitt our butts, and I’m not about to walk away from him.”
“We’ll see to it,” Jordan promised. But already his mind was turning to other projects.
“What news of Admiral Sandecker?”
“His surveillance aircraft was struck by missiles launched from the Dragon Center. The pilot managed to make a safe wheels-up landing at Naha Air Field on Okinawa. From initial reports, the plane was shot up pretty badly and lost all communications.”
“Casualties?”
“None,” answered Kern. “It was a wonder they survived with little more to show than a few cuts and bruises.”
The President nodded thoughtfully. “At least we know now why they broke off contact.”
Secretary of State Douglas Oates stepped forward. “More good news, Mr. President,” he said, smiling. “The combined Soviet and European search teams have uncovered almost all of the bomb cars hidden in their territories.”
“We have MAIT team to thank for stealing the locations,” explained Kern.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t help much on our end,” said Jordan.
Kern nodded. “The United States was the main threat to the Kaiten Project, not the European alliance or the Eastern Bloc countries.”
