Dragon (Dirk Pitt 10)

It would be ridiculous to call the thing behind the wheel a mechanical man. It was stretching things to even consider it a robot, but that's what it was. The head was some sort of computerized visual system perched on a metal spine with a box full of electronics for a chest. Clawlike steel hands with three fingers gripped the steering wheel. The arms and legs were articulated at the proper joints like a human's, but any remote resemblance stopped there.

Weatherhill took several minutes and studied the robot driver, fixing the design in his memory.

"Please report," Stacy ordered, becoming anxious at his late return.

"I found something interesting," he replied. "A new accessory."

"You better get a move on."

He was happy to leave. The robots that sat in dark silence waiting for a command to drive the car to their preprogrammed targets began to look to him like skeletons. He clipped the ropes to his harness and lay on the cold floor, raising his feet above his head, up the wall, back to the wall.

"Pull away."

Stacy braced a leg against a pipe and began tugging on the rope that circled the pulley on the hedgehog. On the other end, Weatherhill's feet reached the ventilator and he went in as he'd come out, on his back, except this time he was holding the compressor containing a nuclear bomb in outstretched hands beyond his head.

As soon as he was completely in the shaft he spoke over his headset. "Okay, stop while I replace the hedgehog and ventilator screen. Won't do to leave a clue to our visit."

Hand over hand, working around the bomb compressor, he raised the hedgehog and sprung its rods against the ventilator walls. Then he pulled the screen up by the string and quickly screwed it back in place. Now he allowed himself to relax and go limp. He could only lie there and be dragged up the shaft, leaving all physical effort to Stacy, staring at the bomb and wondering about his life expectancy.

"I can see your feet," Stacy said at last. Her arm muscles were losing all feeling, and her heart was pounding from the exertion.

As he came out of the narrow horizontal shaft, he helped her as much as he could, pushing out and up.

There was room now to pass the bomb over his shoulder to where she could reach down and pull it safely into the utility room. As soon as she wrapped a soft cloth around the cylinder and laid it in the tote bag, she finished hauling Weatherhill through the opening in the ventilator shaft.

He quickly released the nylon lines and shrugged out of his harness as Stacy actuated a second trigger releasing the jamming prongs on the hedgehog. Then she reeled it up through the shaft, curled the nylon lines around it, and set it in a tote bag. Next, while Weatherhill changed back into his tennis sweater and shorts, she used duct tape to reseal the panel over the forced opening.

"No interruptions?" Weatherhill asked her.

She shook her head. "A few persons walked by after parking their cars, but the hotel employees stayed clear." She paused and pointed at the tote bag containing the compressor. "Almost impossible to believe we have a nuclear bomb in there."

He nodded. "One with enough power to vaporize the entire hotel."

"Any problems?" Stacy asked.

"None, but I did find that our friend Suma has come up with a new twist," he said, stuffing his suit and harness in a bag. "The cars have robotic drivers. They don't require humans to drive the bombs to their detonation points."

"The bastard." The tiredness and stress were gone, replaced with vehemence. "No human emotions to contend with, no second thoughts by a defector who refuses to deploy the bomb, no one to question or betray the source if police should stop the car."

"Suma didn't get where he is by being stupid. Using robots to do his dirty work is damned smart.

Japan leads the world in robotics, and an investigation will undoubtedly prove his scientists and engineering facilities at Edo City are heavily into the design and manufacture."

A shocked understanding came into Stacy's eyes. Her voice came in whispered foreboding. "The detonation center, what if it's manned and guarded by robots?"

Weatherhill gave a final zip of his tote bag. "That's Jordan's problem. But my guess is we're going to find it next to impossible to penetrate."

"Then we can't stop Suma from coming on-line and priming the bombs."

"There may be no stopping him," he said with grim apprehension in his tone. "Our best resources fall far short of his."

Toshie, wearing a very brief ungeisha-cut kimono loosely tied at the waist with an obi sash, discreetly bowed her head and held up a large soft towel for Suma as he stepped from a tiled steam room. He wrapped the towel about his body toga style and sat on a low pillowed stool. Toshie dropped to her knees and began massaging his feet.

Toshie was the daughter of a poor fisherman, the fourth of eight children, when Suma first saw her.

She had been a skinny, unattractive child whom the boys ignored until, that is, she began to develop a body that was beautifully proportioned, with breasts far more ample than most Japanese girls. Bit by bit her facial features became defined with prominent cheekbones that were enhanced by eyes that were large and dark.