Dragon

  "Can you distinguish--?"

  "Either a tilt-rotor or a new tilt-turbine," the operator anticipated Harper. "It lifted like a helicopter, but it's coming on too fast for rotor blades."

  "Heading?"

  "One-two-zero. Looks to be on a course toward the position where we launched the two Ibises."

  Harper swung to a phone and picked it up. "Communications."

  "Communications, sir," a voice answered instantly.

  "Any radio signals?"

  "None, sir. The airwaves are quiet.

  "Call me the second you receive anything." Harper slammed down the phone. "Any course change?"

  "Target still flying on a one-two-zero heading slightly south of east, Captain."

  It had to be, but it couldn't be Pitt, Harper thought. But who else would fly toward that particular position? A coincidence? he wondered. Not one to run on idle, he barked an order to his executive officer, who was standing at his side.

  "Turn on a course toward the position where we launched the Ibises. Full speed until I tell you different."

  The officer knew Harper preferred efficiency to traditional protocol, so he turned without acknowledging and speedily relayed the orders to the bridge.

  "Communications for you, Captain," announced a seaman.

  Harper snatched the phone. "This is the captain."

  "I have a signal from a woman claiming to be Congresswoman Loren Smith. She also claims Mr. Pitt is at the controls of an aircraft hijacked from Soseki Island, carrying eight passengers including Senator Michael Diaz and Mr. Hideki Suma."

  Too far down the chain of command to be informed of the abductions of Loren and Diaz, Harper could not be blamed for a lack of credence. "They hijacked an airplane and snatched Suma? And where in hell did Pitt dig up a pair of politicians on Soseki Island?" He paused to shake his head in wonderment, then gave an order over the phone. "Tell whoever you're in contact with that I require more concrete identification."

  The communication specialist came back within half a minute. "The woman swears she's Congresswoman Loren Smith of Colorado, and if we don't guide them in and provide protection in the event they're pursued, she's going to lunch with Roy Monroe and demand you're put in command of a tugboat in the Arctic. I'm not one to offer advice to the captain, sir, but if she's friendly with the Secretary of the Navy, she must be who she says she is."

  "All right, I'll buy her story for now." Harper reluctantly caved in. "Give instructions to turn twenty degrees south and continue on a westerly heading until we meet up--"

  "I have two aircraft rising from Senzu Air Base," the console operator monitoring the tactical receiver system broke in. "Configuration and speed indicate Mitsubishi Raven interceptors of the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force. They've turned onto the same heading as the tilt-turbine and are probing with radar."

  "Damn it!" Harper burst. "Now we've got the Jap military to deal with." He turned to his exec again.

  "Apprise Pacific Command of our situation. Inform them I am going on combat mode. I intend to fire on the pursuers if they show any indication of a hostile act. I'm taking on the responsibility of protecting those people in the tilt-turbine aircraft in the belief they're American nationals."

  His executive officer hesitated. "Aren't you going out on a limb, sir?"

  "Not too far out." Harper smiled shrewdly. "Do you seriously think I'll be court-martialed for shooting down hostile aircraft to save the lives of two members of Congress?"

  Harper's logic was unarguable. The executive officer smiled back. "No, sir, I don't guess you would."

  Pitt took the aircraft up to four thousand meters and held it there. The time for hugging the surface of the sea was past. He was out of range of the island's missile systems and now had a straight shot at the Ralph R. Bennett. He relaxed and donned the radio headset and microphone that was hanging on the arm of his seat.

  "Eighty kilometers to go," he said quietly. "She should be coming into sight dead ahead."

  Giordino had relieved Loren in the co-pilot's seat and was studying the fuel gauges with a bemused eye. "Suma's ground crew was pretty stingy with the gas. We'll be on fumes in another ten minutes."

  "They only needed to partially fill the tanks for the short hop from Soseki and back from Edo City,"

  said Pitt. "I've pushed her hard and used up fuel at an extravagant rate."

  "You better take it easy and conserve."

  There was a click in their earphones and a deep voice came through. "This is Commander Harper."

  "Nice to hear from you, Commander. This is Dirk Pitt. Go ahead."

  "I hate to be the bearer of grim tidings, but you've got a pair of Japanese mosquitoes chasing your tail."

  "What next?" muttered Pitt in exasperation. "How soon before they intercept?"

  "Our computers say they'll be sitting in your lap twelve to fifteen kilometers before we rendezvous."

  "We're dead meat if they attack," Giordino said, tapping the fuel gauges.

  "You're not as bad off as you think," Harper said slowly. "Our electronic countermeasures are already jamming their radar missile guidance systems. They'll have to be almost on top of you to go on visual."

  "Got anything you can throw at them to spoil their aim?"

  "Our only weapon is a thirty-millimeter Sea Vulcan."

  "Not much better than a peashooter," Giordino complained.

  "I'll have you know that peashooter, as you call it, can spit forty-two hundred rounds a minute as far as eight kilometers," Harper shot back.

  "A good five kilometers too short, too late," said Pitt. "Got any other ideas?"

  "Hang on." Two full minutes passed before Harper spoke. "You might make it under our fire cover if you put your craft into a dive and pull out on the deck. The increased speed during your descent will give you an extra four minutes of lead time."

  "No advantage I can see," said Giordino. "Our pursuers will dive too."

  "Negative," Pitt replied to Harper. "We'll be like a helpless duck gliding over the waves. Better to remain at an altitude where I still have air space to maneuver."

  "They're pretty smart fellas," retorted Harper. "They've planned ahead. We track them closing at an altitude of twelve hundred meters, twenty-eight hundred meters below you. Looks to me like they figure to cut you off at the pass."

  "Keep talking."

  "If you use the tactics created by our computers, you increase your odds of making it under our umbrella of fire. Also, and this is a vital issue, once they come within range of our Vulcan we'll have an open field of fire above you."

  "I'm persuaded," said Pitt. "Will begin descent in forty seconds." He turned to Loren, who was sitting in the seat directly behind the cockpit door. "See that everyone straps in good and tight. We're going to rock and roll for a little while."

  Loren quickly made the rounds of the cabin, checking on Suma and Toshie, alerting the others. Any joy shared among the survivors of the MAIT team quickly faded as a dark mood settled over the cabin.

  Only the Japanese industrialist looked suddenly happy. Suma smiled the smile of a carved Buddha.

  In the cockpit, Pitt briefly went through a stretching routine to relieve muscle tension and loosen his joints. He took a series of deep breaths and then he massaged his hands and fingers as if he was a concert pianist about to attack Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody.

  "Eighteen kilometers and closing fast," came Harper's voice.

  Pitt gripped the wheel on the control column and nodded at Giordino. "Al, read out the airspeed and altitude readings."

  "My pleasure," Giordino said without the slightest note of excitement. His faith in Pitt was total.

  Pitt pressed the transmit button on his radio. "Commencing dive," he said in the tone of a pathologist announcing an incision on a corpse. Then he took a firm grip on the wheel and eased the control column forward, wondering what he would say when he met the devil. The aircraft nosed over and down, it's jet engines screaming as it hurtled toward the va
st blue sea that filled the entire expanse of the cockpit's windshield.

  >

  Tsuboi put down the phone and stared dolefully across his desk at Korori Yoshishu. "Our fighter aircraft have reported Hideki's plane has taken evasive action. They have no time for an attempt to force it back to Soseki Island before it reaches the American naval ship. Their flight commander requests confirmation of our order to shoot it down."

  Yoshishu replied thoughtfully. Already he had mentally accepted Suma's death. He inhaled a cigarette and nodded. "If there is no other way, Hideki must die to save what we have all struggled so long to build."

  Tsuboi looked into the old dragon's eyes but saw only a flinty hardness. Then he spoke into the phone.

  "Order to destroy confirmed."

  As Tsuboi set down the phone, Yoshishu shrugged. "Hideki is only one of along line who sacrificed their lives for the new empire."

  "That is so, but the American government won't be happy over sacrificing two of their legislators in the same incident."

  "The President will be pressured by our lobbyists and friends in his government to say little and do nothing," Yoshishu said with shrewd certainty. "The uproar will swirl around Hideki. We will remain in the shadows, free of the storm."

  "And very quietly assume control of Hideki's corporations."

  Yoshishu nodded slowly. "That is a law of our brotherhood."

  Tsuboi looked at the older man with renewed respect. He understood how Yoshishu had survived when countless other underworld leaders and Gold Dragons had fallen by the wayside. He knew Yoshishu was a master at manipulating others, and no matter who crossed him, no matter how strong his enemies, he was never defeated. He was, Tsuboi had come to realize, the most powerful man in the world who did not hold public office.

  "The world news media," Yoshishu continued, "is like a voracious dragon that devours a scandal. But quickly tiring of the taste, it moves on to another. Americans forget quickly. The death of two of their countless politicians will soon fade."

  "Hideki was a fool!" Tsuboi lashed out sharply. "He began to think he was a god. As with most men, when they become too powerful and self-worshipping, he made grave mistakes. Kidnapping American congressional members from their own soil was idiotic."

  Yoshishu did not immediately reply but looked across Tsuboi's desk. Then he said quickly, "You are like a grandson to me, Ichiro, and Hideki was the son I never had. I must bear the blame. If I had kept a tighter rein on him, this disaster would not have happened."

  "Nothing has changed." Tsuboi shrugged. "The attempt by American intelligence agents to sabotage the Kaiten Project was checked. We are as powerful as before."

  "Still, Hideki will be sorely missed. We owe him much."

  "I would have expected no less if our positions were reversed."

  "I'm sure you wouldn't hesitate to throw yourself on the sword if necessary," Yoshishu said with a condescending smile.

  Tsuboi was too sure of his abilities to even consider failing. He was of the new breed and would never have the slightest intention of stepping aside by sticking a knife in his gut. "Our financial and industrial empire will continue to expand without Hideki," he said without remorse. "We must harden our hearts and push forward."

  Yoshishu saw the look of ambition in Tsuboi's eyes. The young financial wizard was too anxious to step into Suma's shoes. "I leave it to you, Ichiro, to arrange a fitting ceremony for our friend when we enshrine his spirit at Yasukuni," said Yoshishu, referring to Suma as if he had been dead for days.

  Tsuboi dismissed this with a wave of one hand. He rose to his feet and leaned across the desk. "Now, Korori, with the Kaiten Project operational, we must seize the moment to undermine European and American economic independence."

  Yoshishu nodded, his white hair falling forward over his brow. "I agree, we cannot allow Hideki's death to delay our timetable. You must return to Washington immediately and dictate our demands to the President for the extension of our financial ventures in America."

  "And if he doesn't accept our demands?"

  "I've studied the man for years. He's a realist. He will see that we are throwing a rope to his dying country. He knows of our Kaiten Project and what it can do. Have no fear, the President of the United States will deal, and so will Congress. What choice do they have?"

  "Twenty-two hundred," Giordino droned as he read aloud the altitude in meters and the airspeed in knots. "Speed five-twenty."

  The ocean was rising rapidly, the scattered whitecaps growing larger. They darted through a wisp of cloud. There was almost no sensation of speed except for the screaming engines that Pitt held on full power. It was next to impossible to judge 'height above water. Pitt put his faith in Giordino, who in turn relied on the instruments to warn him when to pull level.

  "Where are they?" he asked into his microphone.

  "This is Ray Simpson, Dirk," came the voice of the commander who had briefed them on the Ibis. "I'll talk you in."

  "Where are they?" Pitt repeated.

  "Thirty kilometers and closing fast."

  "I'm not surprised," said Pitt. "They can't be more than a thousand knots faster than this bus."

  "Fifteen hundred," read Giordino. "Speed five-ninety."

  "I wish I'd read the flight manual," Pitt muttered under his breath.

  "Twelve hundred meters. Speed six-fifty. Looking good."

  "How do you know?"

  "It seemed the thing to say." Giordino shrugged.

  At that instant, an alarm gong began sounding in the cockpit. They had taken the aircraft beyond its safety limits into the realm of the unknown.

  "One thousand meters. Speed seven-forty. Wings, don't fail us now."

  Now within visible range, the lead Japanese aircraft's pilot centered the red dot that appeared in his targeting system's TV monitor on the diving tilt-turbine. The optical computer took over the firing sequence and launched the missile.

  "Air-to-air missile on the way," Simpson warned them in an ominous voice.

  "Alert me when it's closed to within one kilometer," ordered Pitt quickly.

  "Six hundred meters," Giordino warned Pitt. "Speed eight hundred. Now is the time."

  Pitt did not waste his breath on a reply but pulled back on the control column. The tilt-rotor responded as if it was a glider gripped by a giant hand. Smoothly, in a perfectly curved arc, it swooped into level flight perilously low, less than seventy meters above the water.

  "Missile closing, three kilometers," Simpson said, his voice flat and empty.

  "Al, begin maximum tilt to engines." Pitt hesitated.

  Almost instantly, it seemed, Simpson called out, "One kilometer."

  "Now."

  Giordino shoved the levers that tilted the engines from horizontal to full vertical.

  The aircraft seemed to shoot from level flight into a near ninety-degree angle upward. The tilt-turbine shuddered as everyone was thrown forward under the sudden change in momentum and the skyward pull of the engines still turning on full power.

  The missile streaked beneath, missing the aircraft's belly by less than two meters. And then it was gone, flashing away and eventually falling into the sea.

  "Nice work," complimented Simpson. "You're coming within range of our Vulcan. Try to stay low so we have an open field of fire above you."

  "It'll take time to swing this bus back to level flight on the deck," Pitt told Simpson, frustration displayed on the furrowed lines of his face. "I've lost my airspeed."

  Giordino returned the jet turbines to horizontal as Pitt nosed the aircraft over. It leveled and screamed a scant twenty meters over the water toward the looming outline of the ship. From Pitt's view, hurtling across the wave tops, it looked like a stationary paper ship on a plastic sea.

  "Aircraft closing but no indication of a missile launch," came Simpson's anxious voice. "They're delaying until the last second to compensate for your next maneuver. You'd better hit the deck and damned fast."

  "I'm surfing the w
aves now," Pitt snapped back.

  "So are they. One above the other so you can't pull your flying saucer stunt again."

  "They must be reading our minds," said Giordino calmly.

  "Since you don't have a scrambler to encrypt voice transmissions, they listen to your every move,"

  Simpson warned them.

  "Now he tells us."

  Pitt stared through the windshield at the Ralph R. Bennett. He felt as if he could reach out and touch its giant radar array. "The next play action is yours, Bennett. We've run out of surprises."

  "The gate to the fort is open," came the voice of Harper suddenly. "Swing five degrees to port and don't forget to duck when the mail goes out."

  "Missile away," Simpson called.

  "I read," said Pitt, "but have nowhere to go."

  Pitt and Giordino instinctively crouched in anticipation of the impact and explosion. They poised as helpless as homing pigeons under attack by a falcon. Suddenly their salvation erupted in a maelstrom of fire that flashed in front of the tilt-turbine's bow and roared overhead and to the rear.

  The Bennett's thirty-millimeter Sea Vulcan had cut loose. The modern Gatling gun's seven barrels rotated and spat 4,200 rounds a minute in a swath of fire so thick the shells could be followed by the naked eye. The stream cut across the sky until it met the incoming missile, blasting it into a mushroom of flame less than two hundred meters behind the fleeing tilt-turbine aircraft.

  Then it walked toward the lead aircraft, caught up with it, and chewed away one wing like teeth through a potato chip. The Mitsubishi Raven jet fighter flipped into a series of contorted rollovers and smacked the water with a great splash. The second jet went into a steep bank, barely staying ahead of the river of shells that raced relentlessly toward its exhaust, and whirled around on a course back to Japan. Only then did the Sea Vulcan fall silent as the last of its rounds swept the blue and fell, spraying the crests of the swells into white foam.