Dragon

  "A conceptualization."

  "A rose, et cetera."

  "Involving what?"

  "A smuggling operation."

  "What are we smuggling?"

  "I'd rather spell it out after Percy gets here."

  "A tangible, a solid object, maybe like a nuclear warhead?" Yaeger asked smugly.

  Pitt looked at him. "That's one possibility."

  Yaeger lazily rose to his feet and started down the stairs. "While we're waiting for your uncle, I'll warm up my CAD/CAM."

  He was gone and away on the computer floor before Pitt thought to ask him what he was talking about.

  >

  A great white beard flowed down Payload Percy's face and covered half his paisley necktie. He had a knuckle for a nose and the set brows and squinting eyes of a wagon master intent on getting the settlers through Indian country. He beamed at the world from a face that belonged in a TV beer commercial, and seemed far younger than his eighty-two years.

  He dressed natty for Washington. No regimented gray pinstripe or blue suit with red tie for Percy. He entered NUMA's computer complex in a lavender sport coat with matching pocket kerchief and tie, gray slacks, and lizard-skin cowboy boots. Sought and intimately entertained by half the attractive widows within a hundred miles, Percy had somehow managed to remain a bachelor. A wit who was in demand as a party guest and speaker, he was a gourmand who owned a wine cellar that was the envy of every society party thrower in town.

  The serious side of his character was his tremendous knowledge of the deadly art of nuclear weaponry. Percy was in on the beginning at Los Alamos and stayed in harness at the Atomic Energy Commission and its succeeding agency for almost fifty years. Many a third-world leader would have given his entire treasury for Percy's talents. He was one of a very small band of experts who could assemble a working nuclear bomb in his garage for the price of a power lawn mower.

  "Dirk my boy!" he boomed. "How good to see you."

  "You look fit," Pitt said as they hugged.

  Percy shrugged sadly. "Damned Motor Vehicle Department took away my motorcycle license, but I can still drive my old Jaguar XK-One-twenty."

  "I appreciate your taking the time to help me."

  "Not at all. Always prime for a challenge."

  Pitt introduced Percy to Hiram Yaeger. The old man gave Yaeger a shoe to headband examination.

  His expression was one of benign amusement.

  "Can you buy faded and prewashed clothes like that off the rack?" he asked conversationally.

  "Actually my wife soaks them in a solution of camel urine, liverwort, and pineapple juice," Yaeger came right back with a straight face. "Softens and gives them that special air of savoirfaire."

  Percy laughed. "Yes, the aroma made me wonder about the secret ingredients. A pleasure to meet you, Hiram."

  "The same." Hiram nodded. "I think."

  "Shall we begin?" said Pitt.

  Yaeger pulled up two extra chairs beside a computer screen that was three times the size of most desk models. He waited until Pitt and Percy were seated and then held out both hands as if beholding a vision.

  "The latest state-of-the-art," he instructed. "Goes by the name CAD/CAM, an acronym for Computer-Aided Design/Computer-Aided Manufacturing. Basically a computer graphics system, but also a supersophisticated visual machine that enables draftsmen and engineers to make beautifully detailed drawings of every mechanical object imaginable. No dividers, compasses, or T-squares. You can program the tolerances and then simply sketch a rough outline with an electronic pen on the screen.

  Then the computer will render them in precise and elaborate solid forms, or in three dimensions."

  "Quite astounding," Percy murmured. "Can you separate different sections of your drawings and enlarge details?"

  "Yes, and I can also apply colors, alter shapes, simulate stress conditions, and edit the changes, then store the results in its memory to be recalled like a word processor. The applications from design to finished manufactured product are mind staggering."

  Pitt straddled his chair and rested his chin on the backrest. "Let's see if it can lead us to the jackpot."

  Yaeger peered at him over his granny glasses. "We in the trade refer to it as conceptualization.

  "If it'll make you happy."

  "So what are we looking for?" asked Percy.

  "A nuclear bomb," Pitt answered.

  "Where?"

  "In an automobile."

  "Expecting one to be smuggled across the border?" inquired Percy intuitively.

  "Something like that."

  "By land or by sea?"

  "Sea."

  "This have anything to do with the explosion in the Pacific couple of days ago?"

  "I can't say."

  "My boy, I'm unbeatable at Trivial Pursuit. I also keep up on nuclear affairs. And you know, of course, that, except for the President, I've carried the highest security clearance they've got.

  "You're trying to tell me something, uncle?"

  "Would you believe I was the first one Ray Jordan consulted after the Pacific detonation?"

  Pitt smiled in defeat. "Then you know more than I do."

  "That Japan is hiding nuclear weapons around the country in automobiles, yes, I know that much. But Jordan didn't see fit to enlist an old man for his operation, so he merely picked my brains and sent me packing."

  "Consider yourself hired. You've just become a dues-paying member of Team Stutz. You too, Hiram."

  "You'll catch hell when Jordan finds out you've taken on reinforcements."

  "If we're successful, he'll get over it."

  "What's this about Japanese bombs in cars?" asked an incredulous Yaeger.

  Percy put a hand on his shoulder. "What we're about to attempt here, Hiram, must be held in strict security."

  "Hiram carries a Beta-Q clearance," said Pitt.

  "Then we're ready to begin the hunt."

  "I'd appreciate a little background," said Yaeger, looking at Percy steadily.

  The old atomic expert met his eyes. "In the nineteen-thirties, Japan went to war to build a self-reliant economic empire. Now, fifty years later, they're willing to fight again, only this time to protect it. With utmost secrecy they built their nuclear weapons arsenal long before anyone thought of verifying its existence. The weapons-grade plutonium and uranium were spirited from civilian nuclear facilities. The fact they had the bomb was also overlooked because they didn't have a delivery system such as long-range missiles, cruise systems, bombers, or missile-carrying submarines."

  "I thought the Japanese were committed to nuclear nonproliferation," said Yaeger.

  "True, the government and the majority of the people are totally against atomic weapons. But forces deep beneath the mainstream of their bureaucracy clandestinely constructed a nuclear force. The arsenal was built more for defense against economic threat than as a military deterrent. Their concept was the bombs could be used as extortion in the event of an all-out trade war and a ban on their export goods into the United States and Europe. Or if worse came to worse, a naval blockade on the home islands."

  Yaeger was disturbed. Pitt could see it.

  "You're telling me we may be sitting on a nuclear bomb?"

  "Probably within a few blocks of one," said Pitt.

  "It's unthinkable," Yaeger muttered angrily. "How many have they smuggled into the country?"

  "We don't know yet," Pitt replied. "It could be as many as a hundred. Also, we're not the only country.

  They're spread all over the world."

  "It gets worse," said Percy. "If the bombs have indeed been smuggled into major international cities, the Japanese possess total assured destruction. It's an efficient setup. Once the bombs are in place, the chance of accidental or unauthorized launch of a missile is voided. There is no defense against them, no time to react, no star wars system to stop incoming warheads, no alert, no second strike. When they push the button, the strike is instantaneous."

  "Good God
, what can we do?"

  "Find them," said Pitt. "The idea is the bombs are brought in by auto ship carriers. I'm guessing hidden inside the imported cars. With your computer smarts, we're going to try and figure out how."

  "If they're coming in by ship," Yaeger said decisively, "customs inspectors searching for drugs would pick them out."

  Pitt shook his head. "This is a sophisticated operation, run by hightech professionals. They know their business. They'll design the bomb to be an integral part of the car to throw off an elaborate search.

  Customs inspectors are wary of tires, gas tanks, upholstery, anyplace where there's an air space. So it has to be secreted in such a way that even the wiliest inspector would miss it."

  "Totally foolproof to known discovery techniques," Yaeger agreed.

  Percy thoughtfully stared at the floor. "All right, now let's talk about size."

  "That's your department." Pitt smiled.

  "Give me a break, nephew. I at least have to know the model of the car, and I'm not a follower of Japanese machinery."

  "If it's a Murmoto, it's probably a sport sedan."

  The jovial look on Percy's face went dead serious. "To sum up, we're looking at a compact nuclear device in the neighborhood of ten kilograms that's undetectable inside a medium-sized sedan."

  "That can be primed and detonated from a great distance," Pitt added.

  "Unless the driver is suicidal, that goes without saying."

  "What size bomb are we thinking about?" asked Yaeger innocently.

  "They can vary in shape and size from an oil barrel to a baseball," answered Percy.

  "A baseball," Yaeger murmured incredulously. "But can one that small cause substantial destruction?"

  Percy stared up at the ceiling as if seeing the devastation. "If the warhead was high yield, say around three kilotons, it could probably level the heart of Denver, Colorado, with huge conflagrations ignited by the explosion spreading far out into the suburbs."

  "The ultimate in car bombings," said Yaeger. "Not a pretty thought."

  "A sickening possibility, but one that has to be faced as more third-world nations possess atomic weapons." Percy gestured toward the empty display screen. "What do we use as a model to dissect?"

  "My family's eighty-nine Ford Taurus," replied Yaeger. "As an experiment I inserted its entire parts manual into the computer's intelligence. I can give you blown-up images of specific parts or the completed solid form."

  "A Taurus will make a good match-up," Pitt agreed.

  Yaeger's fingers flew over the keyboard for several seconds, and then he sat back with his arms folded. An image appeared on the screen, a three-D rendering in vivid color. Another command by Yaeger and a metallic burgundy red Ford Taurus four-door sedan revolved on different angles as if on a turntable that went from horizontal to vertical.

  "Can you take us inside?" asked Pitt.

  "Entering," Yaeger acknowledged. A touch of a button and they seemed to flow through solid metal into sectioned views of the interior chassis and body. Like ghosts floating through walls, they clearly viewed every welded seam, every nut and bolt. Yaeger took them inside the differential and up the driveshaft through the gears of the transmission into the heart of the engine.

  "Astonishing," Percy muttered admiringly. "Like flying through a generating plant. If only we'd had this contrivance back in forty-two. We could have ended both the European and Pacific theaters of war two years early."

  "Lucky for the Germans you didn't have the bomb by nineteen forty-four," Yaeger goaded Percy.

  Percy gave him a stern stare for a moment and then turned his attention back to the image on the screen.

  "See anything interesting?" Pitt put to him.

  Percy tugged at his beard. "The transmission casing would make a good container."

  "No good. Can't be in the engine or drivetrain. The car must be capable of being driven normally.

  "That eliminates a gutted battery or radiator," said Yaeger. "Maybe the shock absorbers."

  Percy gave a brief shake of his head. "Okay for a plastic explosive pipe bomb but too narrow a diameter for a nuclear device."

  They studied the cutaway image silently for the next few minutes as Yaeger's keyboard skills took them on a journey through an automobile few people ever experience. Axle and bearing assemblies, brake system, starter motor, and alternator, all were probed and rejected.

  "We're down to the optional accessories," said Yaeger.

  Pitt yawned and stretched. Despite his concentration, he could hardly keep his eyes open. "Any chance of it being in the heating unit?"

  "Configuration isn't right," replied Percy. "The windshield washer bottle?"

  Yaeger shook his head. "Too obvious."

  Suddenly Pitt stiffened. "The air conditioner!" he burst out. "The compressor in the air conditioner."

  Yaeger quickly programmed the computer to illustrate an interior view. "The car can be driven, and no customs inspector would waste two hours dismantling the compressor to see why it didn't put out cold air."

  "Remove the guts and you've got an ideal casing to hold a bomb," Pitt said, examining the computer image. "What do you think, Percy?"

  "The condenser coils could be altered to include a receiving unit to prime and detonate," Percy confirmed. "A neat package, a very neat package. More than enough volume to house a device capable of blasting a large area. Nice work, gentlemen, I think we've solved the mystery."

  Pitt walked over to an unoccupied desk and picked up the phone. He dialed the safe-line number given out by Kern at the MAIT team briefing. When a voice answered on the other end, he said, "This is Mr. Stutz. Please tell Mr. Lincoln the problem lies in his car's air conditioner. Goodbye."

  Percy gave Pitt a humorous look. "You really know how to stick it to people, don't you?"

  "I do what I can."

  Yaeger sat gazing at the interior of the compressor he'd enlarged on the display screen. "There's a fly in the soup," he said quietly.

  "What?" asked Percy. "What is that?"

  "So we piss Japan off and they punch out our lights. They can't eliminate all of our defenses, especially our nuclear submarines. Our retaliation force would disintegrate their entire island chain. If you want my opinion, I think this thing is unfeasible and suicidal. It's one big bluff."

  "There's one small problem with your theory," Percy said, smiling patiently at Yaeger. "The Japanese have outfoxed the best intelligence brains in the business and caught the world powers in their Achilles'

  heel. From their viewpoint the consequences are not all that catastrophic. We contracted with the Japanese to help research the strategic defense system for the destruction of incoming missile warheads.

  While our leaders wrote it off as too costly and unworkable, they went ahead with their usual hightech proficiency and perfected a working system."

  "Are you saying they're invulnerable?" asked Yaeger in a shocked voice.

  Percy shook his head. "Not yet. But give them another two years and they'll have a working in-placèStar Wars' system, and we won't."

  >

  Behind closed doors in the Capitol building a select subcommittee was meeting to investigate and evaluate Japanese cultural and economic impact upon the United States. The fancy words were a nice way of saying that certain members of Congress were mad as hornets over what they perceived as a United States held hostage by the ever tightening screws of Japanese capital.

  Ichiro Tsuboi, chief director of Kanoya Securities, the largest security company in the world, sat at a table below the long, curved counterlike desk in front of the congressional committee. He was flanked by four of his chief advisers, who irritated the committee members with their jabbering consultations before Tsuboi answered each question.

  Tsuboi did not appear as a financial giant who led a securities company that had enough capital to swallow Paine Webber, Charles Schwab, Merrill Lynch, and the rest of Wall Street's honored brokerage houses without so much as a burp. He
had, in fact, already purchased heavy interest in several of them.

  His body was short and slender, and he had a face that some likened to that of a jolly proprietor of a geisha house.

  Tsuboi's looks were deceiving. He could easily hold his own against a protectionist Congress with fire in their eyes. His competitors in Japan and abroad hated and feared him with reasons bred from experience. Tsuboi was as ruthless as he was shrewd. His canny financial manipulations had elevated him to the level of a cult figure whose contempt for America and the European nations was hardly a well-guarded secret. Wall Street's cleverest investment brokers and corporate raiders were pigeons next to the guru of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Almost single-handedly he possessed the power to knock the props from under the American economy.

  He sat and politely fielded the questions of the select committee, smiling with maddening courtesy throughout the questioning, speaking as comfortably as if he was conversing with guests over a dinner table.

  "For the esteemed members of Congress to pass legislation forcing Japanese companies to sell our majority rights in our United States businesses to your companies at a fraction of their value is nothing less than nationalization. American business credibility will be shattered around the world. There will be chaos. Banking systems will collapse along with international currencies. Industrial nations will be bankrupted. And for what purpose? In my humble opinion, Japanese investors are the best thing that ever happened to the American people."

  "There is no such legislation in the works," snapped Senator Mike Diaz. "What I said was `Those of your companies operating and showing a profit on American soil should be subject to the same regulations and tax standards as ours.' Your capital markets remain closed to us. Americans are restricted from buying real estate and ownership in your businesses, while Japanese interests are getting away with financial murder in this country, Mr. Tsuboi, and you damn well know it."

  The one man who was not intimidated by Tsuboi was New Mexico Democrat Michael Diaz, chairman of the committee, the driving force behind a movement to not only limit but roll back foreign investment in American government, business, and real estate, and if he had his way, raise trade embargoes on all imported Japanese products.