Dragon (Dirk Pitt 10)

"Let them try," Weatherhill fairly purred. "In about another three minutes your Dragon Center is going to have its lights put out."

The robotic electrical inspector Otokodate soon found the explosive charge taped to the ribbon of fiber optics. He deftly removed it and rolled back to his console. He studied the package for several moments, recognizing the timer for what it was, but his memory had not been programmed to analyze plastic explosives, and he had no concept of its purpose. He transmitted a signal to his superior in robotic control.

"This is Otokodate at power center five."

"Yes, what is it?" answered a robot monitor.

"I wish to communicate with my supervisor, Mr. Okuma."

"He is not back from tea yet. Why are you transmitting?"

"I have found a strange object attached to the primary fiberoptic bundle."

"What sort of object?"

"A pliable substance with a digital timing device."

"Could be an instrument left behind by a cable engineer during installation."

"My memory does not contain the necessary data for a positive identification. Do you wish me to bring it to control for examination?"

"No, remain at your station. I'll send a courier down to collect

"I will comply."

A few minutes later a courier robot named Nakajima that was programmed to navigate every passageway and corridor and pass through the doors to all office and work areas in the complex entered the power center. As ordered, Otokodate unwittingly turned over the explosive to Nakajima.

Nakajima was a sixth-generation mechanical rover that could receive voice commands but not give them. It silently extended its articulated gripper, took the package, deposited it in a container, and then began the trip to robotic control for inspection.

Fifty meters from the power center door, at a point well removed from humans and critical equipment, the C-8 plastic detonated with a thundering roar that rumbled throughout the concrete passageways of level five.

The Dragon Center was designed and built to withstand the most severe earthquakes, and any structural damage was minimal. The Kaiten Project remained intact and operational. The only result of Weatherhill's explosive charge was the almost total disintegration of courier rover Nakajima.

The roboguards alerted their security command to the stray drama in the garden before Pitt had lifted the tilt-turbine cleat the hedged confine. At first the robots' warning was discounted as a malfunction of visual perception, but when an immediate search failed to turn up Suma, the security command offices became a scene of frenzied confusion.

Because of his monumental ego and fetish for secrecy, Hideki Suma had failed to groom a top-level executive team to act in an emergency if he was beyond reach. In panic, his security directors turned to Kamatori but quickly discovered all private phones and pages went unanswered, nor were signals to his personal roboguards acknowledged.

A special defense team, backed by four armed robots, rushed to Kamatori's quarters. The officer in charge knocked loudly, but receiving no reply, he stepped aside and ordered one of the robots to break in the locked door. The thick etched glass partition was quickly smashed into fragments.

The officer cautiously stepped through the empty video viewing room and advanced slowly into the trophy room, his jaw dropping in stunned disbelief. Moro Kamatori hung, shoulders hunched over, in an upright position, his eyes wide open and blood streaming from his mouth. His face was contorted in pain and rage. The officer stared vacuously at the hilt of a saber protruding from Kamatori's groin, the blade running through his body and pinning him to the wall.

Like a man in a daze, the officer could not believe he was dead and gently shook Kamatori and talked to him. After a minute it finally broke through that the born-too-late samurai warrior wasn't going to speak again, ever. And then, for the first time, the officer realized the prisoners were gone and Kamatori's roboguards were frozen where they stood.

The confusion was magnified by the news of Kamatori's killing and the almost simultaneous explosion on level five. The ground-to-air missiles installed around the island rose from their hidden bunkers, poised and ready for launch but put on hold due to the uncertainty of Suma's presence on the plane.

But soon the action became purposeful and controlled. The remote video recordings of the roboguards were replayed, and it was clearly seen that Suma was forced aboard the aircraft.

The aging leader of the Gold Dragons, Korori Yoshishu, and his financial power force, Ichiro Tsuboi, were in Tsuboi's offices in Tokyo when

the call came from Suma's security director. The two partners of Suma immediately assumed full command of the situation.

Within eight minutes after the explosion, Tsuboi used his considerable influence with the Japanese military to scramble a flight of jet fighters to chase the fleeing tilt-turbine. His orders were to intercept and attempt to force the plane back to Soseki Island. Failing in this, they were to destroy the craft and everyone on board. Tsuboi and Yoshishu agreed that, despite their long friendship with Suma, it was better for the Kaiten Project and their new empire that he should die than become a tool for foreign policy blackmail. Or worse, scandalized as a criminal under the American justice system. And then there was the frightening certainty that Suma would be forced to reveal details of Japan's secret technology and plans for economic and military supremacy to U.S. intelligence interrogation experts.

Pitt took a compass heading on the position where the ship was cruising when he'd taken off for Soseki Island. He pushed the engines dangerously past their limit as Loren tried desperately to make contact with the Bennett.

"I can't seem to raise them," she said in frustration.