Dragon (Dirk Pitt 10)

"You okay?" he asked.

"Bruised shins and a bent thumb," Pitt replied. "Thanks for the deliverance."

"I'll send you a bill," said Giordino, distastefully eyeing his muck-covered boots.

Pitt removed his crash helmet and threw it in the pond, causing the gawking carp to burst for the safety of the lily pad

s. He nodded at the wrecked power gliders. "They'll be coming for us. You'd best switch on the signal units and set the destruct timers."

While Giordino went about the business of alerting the Bennett of their arrival before setting the timers on small packets of plastic explosives carried inside the aircraft, Pitt rose stiffly to his feet and stared around the garden.

It appeared deserted. The army of human and robotic guards did not materialize. The porches and windows of the buildings were empty of life. He found it impossible to believe no one had heard the cry of the turbine engines and the sounds of the twin impacts from within the thin walls of the Japanese-style constructions. Someone had to live in the neighborhood. The gardeners must be about somewhere, the grounds were immaculate and displayed constant care.

Giordino returned. "We've less than two minutes to make tracks before they blow," he said quickly.

"I'm out of here," Pitt spoke as he began jogging toward the forested area behind the resort compound.

And then he stiffened suddenly as a strange electronic voice called out, "Remain where you stand!"

Pitt and Giordino both reacted by darting behind the cover of heavy brush and the safety of the trees, crouching and swiftly moving from one to another, trying to distance themselves from the unknown pursuer. They'd only covered fifty meters when they abruptly met a high fence that was bristling with electrified wire and insulators.

"The shortest escape in history," Pitt muttered dolefully. At that instant the explosives in the Ibises went off within five seconds of each other. Pitt couldn't see, but he imagined the ugly indolent carp flying through the air.

He and Giordino turned to face the music, and although they'd been warned, they were not totally prepared for the three mechanical apparitions that emerged from the underbrush in a half circle, cutting off all avenues of escape. The trio of robots did not look like the semihuman figures out of television and motion pictures. These traveled on rubber tractor treads and showed no human qualities, except maybe speech.

The mobile automated vehicles were loaded with a jumbled assortment of articulated arms, video and thermal image cameras, speakers, computers, and a quad of automatic rifles pointed directly at Pitt and Giordino's navels.

"Please do not move or we will kill you."

"They don't mince words, do they?" Giordino was frankly disbelieving.

Pitt studied the center robot and observed that it appeared to be operated under a sophisticated telepresence system by a controller at a distant location.

"We are programmed to recognize different languages and respond accordingly," said the middle robot in a hollow voice, sounding surprisingly articulate. "You cannot escape without dying. Our guns are guided by your body heat."

There was a brief uneasy silence as Pitt and Giordino briefly looked at each other with the looks of men committed to a job that was accomplished and they could do no more. Carefully, slowly, they raised their hands above their heads, aware that the gun muzzles pointing at them in the horizontal position never wavered.

"I do believe we've been cut off at the pass by a mechanical posse," Pitt muttered softly.

"At least they don't chew tobacco," Giordino grunted.

Twelve guns in the front, an electrified fence at their backs, there was no way out. Pitt could only hope the robots' controllers were wise enough to know he and Giordino presented no threat.

"Is this a good time to ask them to take us to their leader?" Giordino spoke through a grin that was cold as stone.

"I wouldn't if I were you," Pitt answered mildly. "They're liable to shoot us for using a bad cliché.

No one gave Stacy, Mancuso, and Weatherhill a second look as they penetrated the depths of Edo City with relative ease and precision. The Hollywood makeup expert Jordan flew to Tokyo did a masterful job of applying false folds to their eyes, realigning and darkening the eyebrows, and designing wigs of luxuriant thick black hair. Mancuso, because he spoke flawless Japanese, was dressed in a business suit and acted as boss to Stacy and Weatherhill, who wore the yellow jumpsuits of Suma's engineering inspection teams.

Using data from Jim Hanamura's report on the security procedures, along with identification cards and pass codes provided by a British deep-cover operative working in cooperation with Jordan, they smoothly passed through the checkpoints and finally reached the entrance to the tunnel. This was the tricky part of the operation. The human security guards and identity detection machines had not proven difficult to deceive, but according to Penner during their final briefing, the final barrier would be the toughest test.

A robotic sensory security system met them as they entered a totally featureless, glaringly lit white-painted room. The floor was empty of all furniture and the walls barren of signs or pictures. The door they entered from seemed to be the only entrance and exit.

"State your business," the robot demanded in mechanical Japanese.

Mancuso hesitated. He was told to expect robot sentry machines, but not something that looked like a trash can on wheels that spouted orders. "Fiber optic communications section to modify and inspect system," he complied, trying to hide his awkwardness at interacting with artificial intelligence.