“We’ll never find our way around this complex without a map or a guide,” Pitt murmured. “Follow me inside.” He pushed the door button and kicked it back against its stops.
Startled, the nurse-receptionist looked up in surprise at seeing Pitt burst through the doorway. She was not the same nurse who aided Dr. Nogami during Pitt’s earlier visit. This one was as ugly and ruggedly constructed as a road grader. Even as she recovered, her arm snapped out toward an alarm button on an intercom communications unit. Her finger was a centimeter away when Pitt’s flattened palm struck her violently on the chin, catapulting her in a backward somersault onto the floor unconscious.
Dr. Nogami heard the commotion and rushed from his office, stopping abruptly and staring at Pitt and the MAIT team as they flooded through the door before pushing it closed. Oddly, the expression on his face was one of curious amusement rather than shock.
“Sorry for intruding, Doc, Pitt said, “but we need directions.”
Nogami gazed down at his nurse who was lying on the floor out cold. “You certainly have a way with women.”
“She was about to set off an alarm,” Pitt said apologetically.
“Lucky you caught her by surprise. Nurse Oba knows karate like I know medicine.” Only then did Nogami take a few seconds to study the motley group of people standing around the prostrate nurse. He shook his head almost sadly. “So you’re the finest MAIT team the U.S. can field. You sure don’t look it. Where in hell did Ray Jordan dig you people up?”
Giordino was the only one who didn’t stare back at the doctor in mute surprise. He looked up at Pitt. “Do you know something we don’t?”
“May I introduce Dr. Josh Nogami, the British deep cover operative who’s been supplying the lion’s share of information on Suma and his operation.”
“You figured it out,” said Nogami.
Pitt made a modest hands-out gesture. “Your clues made it elementary. There is no St. Paul’s Hospital in Santa Ana, California. But there is a Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London.”
“You don’t sound British,” said Stacy.
“Though my father was raised as a British subject, my mother came from San Francisco, and I attended medical school at UCLA. I can do a reasonable American accent without too much effort.” He hesitated and looked Pitt in. the eye, his smile gone. “You realize, I hope, that by coming back here you’ve blown my cover.”
“I regret throwing you in the limelight,” Pitt said sincerely, “but we have a more immediate problem.” He nodded toward the others. “Maybe only another ten or fifteen minutes before Kamatori and three of his security robots are discovered… ah… incapacitated. Damned little time to set off an explosive charge and get out of here.”
“Wait a minute.” Nogami raised a hand. “Are you saying you killed Kamatori and zapped three roboguards?”
“They don’t come any deader,” Giordino answered cheerfully.
Mancuso was not interested in cordial conversation. “If you can please provide us with a diagram of this complex, and quickly, we’ll be on our way and out of your hair.”
“I photographed the construction blueprints on microfilm, but had no way of smuggling them out to your people after I lost my contact.”
“Jim Hanamura?”
“Yes. Is he dead?” Nogami asked, certain of the answer.
Pitt nodded. “Cut down by Kamatori.”
“Jim was a good man. I hope Kamatori died slowly.”
“He didn’t exactly enjoy the trip.”
“Can you please help us?” Mancuso asked urgently, insistently. “We’re running out of time.”
Nogami didn’t seem the least bit rushed. “You hope to get out through the tunnel to Edo City, I suppose.”
“We had thought we might take the train,” said Weatherhill, his eyes aimed through the door into the corridor.
“Fat chance.” Nogami shrugged. “Since you guys penetrated the complex, Suma ordered the tube guarded by an army of robots on the island side and a huge security force of specially trained men at the Edo City end. An ant couldn’t get through.”
Stacy looked at him. “What do you suggest?”
“The sea. You might get lucky and be picked up by a passing ship.”
Stacy shook her head. “That’s out. Any foreign ship that came within five kilometers would be blown out of the water.”
“You have enough on your minds,” Pitt said calmly, his eyes seemingly fixed on one wall as if seeing something on the other side. “Concentrate on planting the explosives. Trust the escape to Al and me.”
Stacy, Weatherhill, and Mancuso all looked at each other. Then Weatherhill nodded in agreement. “You’re on. You’ve saved our lives and got us this far. Be downright rude not to trust you now.”
Pitt turned to Nogami. “How about it, Doc, care to tag along?” Nogami shrugged and gave a half smile. “Might as well. Thanks to you, my usefulness here is finished. No sense in hanging around for Suma to have my head lopped off.”
“Any suggestions for a place to set explosives?” asked Weatherhill.
“I’ll show you an access hole to the electrical cables and fiber optics that feed the entire complex. Set your charge there and you’ll put this place out of business for a month.”
“What level?”
Nogami tilted his head toward the ceiling. “The level above, the fifth.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” Weatherhill said to Pitt.
“Ready now.” Cautiously, Pitt slipped into the corridor and dogtrotted back to the elevator. They all followed and piled in and stood silent as it rose to the fifth level, tensed for any trouble they might face when the doors opened. Suddenly the elevator dropped down instead of going up. Someone had beat them to it by pressing the button on the level below.
“Damn,” Mancuso swore bitterly. “That’s all we need.”
“Everybody!” Pitt ordered. “Push the doors together to keep them from opening. Al, lean on the ‘door close’ button.”
The elevator stopped and they all pressed their hands on the doors and pushed. The doors tried to spread apart but could only jerk spasmodically without opening.
“Al!” Pitt said softly. “Now hit five!”
Giordino had kept one finger pressed against the “door close” button so tightly the knuckle went white. He released it and pushed the button marked 5.
The elevator shuddered for a few moments as if torn in two directions, then it gave an upward jerk and began rising.
“That was close, too close,” Stacy sighed.
“Going up,” Giordino announced. “Housewares, kitchen utensils, dishes, and hardware—” Abruptly he broke off. “Oh, oh, we haven’t tagged home base yet. Someone else wants on. The light on five just blinked.”
Again alerted, every eye unconsciously rotated toward the panel and the small indicator light that was flashing for the fifth level. Then, as if activated by the same set of gears, they turned and crouched, ready to spring into action.
A white-coated engineer was standing there wearing a hard hat, intently studying notations on a clipboard. He didn’t even look up as he entered the elevator. Only when it began to seep through to him that the elevator wasn’t moving did he gaze around into the Occidental faces. None that he observed were smiling.
He opened his mouth to shout, but Pitt clamped one hand over the engineer’s mouth and squeezed the carotid arteries with the other. Even before the eyes rolled back in the head and the body went limp and sagged to the elevator floor, Nogami was out and leading the others into a passageway.
Weatherhill was the last to go. He paused and looked at Pitt. “When and where do you want us to join up?” he asked.
“Topside in twelve minutes. We’ll hold the cab.”
