There was a moment’s silence as Jordan hesitated before continuing. “Doubtful. We have reason to believe Suma intends to execute them.”
The President felt a wave of pity for Jordan. It had to be a bitter pill for him to swallow, losing almost an entire MAIT team. No operation in national security history had suffered from such incredibly rotten luck.
“There’ll be hell to pay when Jim Sandecker hears that Pitt and Giordino are going down.”
“I don’t look forward to briefing him.”
“Then we must blow that damn island under the sea, and the Dragon Center with it.”
“We both know, Mr. President, the American public and world opinion would come down on you like a ton of bricks despite your attempt to stop a nuclear disaster in the making.”
“Then we send in our Delta Forces, and quick.”
“Delta Force teams are already standing by their aircraft at Anderson Air Force Base on Guam. But I advise we wait. We still have time for my people to accomplish their planned mission.”
“How, if they have no hope of escape?”
“They’re still the best, Mr. President. I don’t think we should write them off just yet.”
The President stopped his cart beside the ball that sat only a few centimeters from the green. The caddie ran up with a nine iron. The President looked at him and shook his head. “I can putt better than I can chip. You better let me have a putter.”
Two putts later the ball dropped in the cup. “I wish I had the patience for golf,” said Jordan as the President returned to the cart. “But I keep thinking there are more important things to devote my time to.”
“No man can go continuously without recharging his batteries,” said the President. He glanced at Jordan as he drove to the next tee. “What do you want from me, Ray?”
“Another eight hours, Mr. President, before you order in the Delta Forces.”
“You really think your people can still pull it off.”
“I think they should be given the chance.” Jordan paused. “And then there are two other considerations.”
“Such as?”
“The possibility Suma’s robots might cut our Delta Forces team to pieces before they could reach the command center.”
The President grinned dryly. “A robot may not go down under the assault of a martial arts expert, but they’re hardly immune to heavy weapons fire.”
“I give you that, sir, but they can lose an arm and still come at you, and they don’t bleed either.”
“And the other consideration?”
“We have been unable to uncover the whereabouts of Congresswoman Smith and Senator Diaz. We suspect there is a strong case to be made for them being held at Suma’s retreat on Soseki Island.”
“You’re stroking me, Ray. Brogan over at Langley is certain Smith and Diaz are under guard in Edo City. They were seen and identified at Suma’s guest quarters.” There was a long pause. “You know damned well I can’t afford to give you eight hours. If your team hasn’t resurfaced and completed their operation in four, I’m sending in the Delta Forces.”
“Suma’s island is bristling with defense missile systems. Any submarine attempting to land men within twenty kilometers of the shore would be blown out of the water and any aircraft dropping parachutists shot out of the sky. And should the Delta Forces somehow gain a foothold on Soseki, they’d be slaughtered before they could get inside the Dragon Center.”
The President gazed out on the course as the sun was settling into the treetops. “If your team has failed,” he said pensively, “then I’ll have to doom my political career and launch a nuclear bomb. I see no other way to stop the Kaiten Project before Suma has a chance to use it against us.”
In a room deep in Building C of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Clyde Ingram, the Director of Science and Technical Data Interpretation, sat in a comfortable chair and studied a giant television screen. The imagery detail from the latest advance in reconnaissance satellites was unbelievable.
Thrown into space on a secret shuttle mission, the Pyramider satellite was far more versatile than its predecessor, the Sky King. Instead of providing only detailed photos and video of the land and sea surface, its three systems also revealed subterranean and suboceanic detail.
By merely pushing buttons on a console, Ingram could maneuver the big bird into position above any target on earth and aim its powerful cameras and sensors to read anything from the fine print of a newspaper lying on a park bench and the layout of an underground missile complex to what the crew of a submarine lurking under an ice floe was having for dinner.
This evening he was analyzing the images showing the sea around Soseki Island. After picking out the missile systems hidden in the forested land around the retreat, he began to concentrate on finding and positioning underwater sensors placed by Suma’s security force to detect any submarine activity and guard against a clandestine landing.
After close to an hour, his eyes spotted a small object resting on the seafloor thirty-six kilometers to the northeast and three hundred and twenty meters deep. He sent a message to the computer mainframe to enlarge the area around the object. The computer in turn gave the coordinates and instructed the satellite’s sensors to zero in.
After the signal was received and locked in the satellite sent an enlarged image to a receiver on a Pacific island that was relayed to Ingram’s computer at Fort Meade, where it was then enhanced and thrown on the screen.
Ingram rose and walked closer to the screen, peering through his reading glasses. Then he returned to his chair and pressed a number on a telephone and called his Deputy Director of Operations, who was in his car stuck in the horrendous homeward traffic crush of Washington.
“Meeker,” came a weary voice from a cellular phone.
“This is Ingram, boss.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of peeking at the world’s darkest secrets all night? Why don’t you go home and make love to your wife?”
“I admit sex is best, but staring at these incredible pictures is a close second.”
Curtis Meeker sighed with relief as the traffic opened up and he made it through the last intersection light signal before turning down his street. “You see something?” he asked.
“I have an airplane in the sea off Soseki Island.”
“What model?”
“Looks like a World War Two B-Twenty-nine, or what’s left of it. Appears heavily damaged but otherwise in pretty good shape after sitting on the seabed for fifty years.”
“Any details?”
“A clear picture of numbers and letters on the side of the fuselage and the tail. I can also make out a small figure on the bow beneath the cockpit.”
“Describe it.”
“Not a perfect image, mind you, when you consider that we’re looking through four hundred meters of water. But I’d say it looks like a devil with a pitchfork.”
“Make out any wording?”
“Pretty vague,” answered Ingram. “The first word is covered by undersea growth.” He paused and gave the command to the computer for further enhancement. “The second word looks like ‘
“A little off the beaten path for the Twentieth Air Force during the war,” said Meeker.
“Think there’s any importance attached to it?”
Meeker shook his head to himself as he turned into his driveway. “Probably just an aircraft that went missing after it flew off course and crashed like the Lady Be Good in the Sahara Desert. Better have it checked out, though, so any living relatives of the crew can be notified of their final resting place.”
Ingram set down the receiver and stared at the shattered picture of the old aircraft buried under the sea, and found himself wondering how it came to be there.
