“I don’t understand.”
“Moro is an expert hunter. His passion is tracking human game. Your friends and the three intelligence operatives who were captured during their attempt to destroy the center will be offered a chance to escape the island. But only if they can elude Moro for twenty-four hours.”
Kamatori gave Pitt a subzero stare. “Mr. Pitt will have the honor of being the first to make the attempt.”
Pitt turned to Giordino, the trace of a grin on his saturnine face. “See, I told you so.”
48
“ESCAPE,” MUTTERED GIORDINO, pacing the small cottage under the watchful eye of McGoon, “escape” where? The best long distance swimmer in the world couldn’t make it across sixty kilometers of cold water swept by five-knot currents. And even then, Suma’s hoods would be waiting to gut you the minute you crawled onto a mainland beach.”
“So what’s the game plan?” asked Pitt between pushups on the floor.
“Stay alive as long as possible. What other options do we have?”
“Die like stouthearted men.”
Giordino raised an eyebrow and stared at Pitt suspiciously. “Yeah, sure, bare your chest, refuse the blindfold, and puff a cigarette as Kamatori raises his sword.”
“Why fight the inevitable.”
“Since when do you give up in the first inning?” Giordino said, beginning to wonder if his old friend had suffered a brain leak.
“We can try to hide somewhere on the island as long as we can, but it’s a hopeless cause. I suspect Kamatori will cheat and use robotic sensors to track us down.”
“What about Stacy? You can’t stand by and let that moonfaced scum murder her too.”
Pitt rose from the floor. “Without weapons, what do you expect? Flesh can’t win against mechanical cyborgs and an expert with a sword.”
“I expect you to show the guts you showed in a hundred other scrapes we’ve been through together.”
Pitt favored his right leg as he limped past McGoon and stood with his back to the robot. “Easy for you to say, pal. You’re in good physical shape. I wrenched my knee when I crash-landed into that fishpond and I can barely walk. I stand no chance at all of eluding Kamatori.”
Then Giordino saw the wily grin on Pitt’s face, and a dawning comprehension settled over him. Suddenly he felt a complete fool. Besides McGoon’s sensors, the room must have had a dozen listening devices and video cameras hidden in and around it. He figured Pitt’s drift and played along.
“Kamatori is too much a samurai to hunt an injured man. If there’s a morsel of sporting blood in him, he’d give himself a handicap.”
Pitt shook his head. “I’d settle for something to ease the pain.”
“McGoon,” Giordino hailed the sentry robot, “is there a doctor in the house?”
“That data is not programmed in my directive.”
“Then call up your remote boss and find out.”
“Please stand by.”
The robot went silent as its communications system sent out a request to its control center. The reply came back immediately. “There is a small staff in a clinic on the fourth level. Does Mr. Pitt require medical assistance?”
“Yes,” Pitt answered. “I’ll require an injection of a painkiller and a tight bandage if I’m to provide Mr. Kamatori with a challenging degree of competition.”
“You did not appear to limp a few hours ago,” McGoon flagged Pitt.
“My knee was numb,” Pitt lied. “But the pain and stiffness have increased to where I find it difficult to walk.” He took a few halting steps and tensed his face as though experiencing a mild case of agony.
As a machine that was completely adequate for the job, Murasaki, alias McGoon, duly relayed his visual observation of Pitt’s pathetic display to his directorate controller somewhere deep within the Dragon Center and received permission to escort his injured prisoner to the medical clinic. Another roboguard appeared to keep a video eye on Giordino, who promptly named the newcomer McGurk.
Playing his fake condition as though an Academy Award was in the offing, Pitt shuffled awkwardly through a labyrinth of corridors before being hustled into an elevator by McGoon.
The robot pressed a floor button with a metal finger, and the elevator began to quietly descend, although not as silently as the one in the Federal Headquarters Building.
Too bad the MAIT team didn’t have intelligence on an elevator that dropped from the island’s surface to the underground center, Pitt thought during the ride. Penetration from the resort might have been carried off with a higher chance of success. A few moments later the doors spread and McGoon prodded Pitt into a brightly lit passageway.
“The fourth door on your left. Take it and enter.”
The door, like every piece of flat surface in the underground facility, was painted white. A small red cross was the only indication of a medical center. There was no knob, only a button set in the frame. Pitt pushed it and the door noiselessly slid open. He limped inside. An attractive young lady in a nurse’s uniform looked up from a desk through serious brown eyes as he entered. She spoke to him in Japanese, and he shrugged dumbly.
“Sorry,” he said. “I only speak English.”
Without another word she stood and walked across a room with six empty beds and disappeared into an office. A few seconds later a young smiling Japanese man wearing jeans and a turtleneck sweater under the standard white coat with a stethoscope hanging from his neck approached with the nurse at his heels.
“Mr. Pitt, Mr. Dirk Pitt?” he inquired in West Coast American.
“Yes.”
“I was informed you were coming. Josh Nogami. This is a real honor. I’ve been a fan of yours since you raised the Titanic. As a matter of fact, I took up scuba diving because of you.”
“My pleasure,” Pitt said almost bashfully. “You don’t sound like a local boy.”
“Born and raised in San Francisco under the shadow of the Bay Bridge. Where are you from?”
“I grew up in Newport Beach, California.”
“No kidding. I served my internship at St. Paul’s Hospital in Santa Ana. I used to surf at Newport every chance I got.”
“You’re a long way from your practice.”
“So are you, Mr. Pitt.”
“Did Suma make an offer you couldn’t refuse?”
The smile went cool. “I’m also an admirer of Mr. Suma. I joined his employ four years ago without being bought.”
“You believe in what he’s doing?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Pardon me for suggesting that you’re misguided.”
“Not misguided, Mr. Pitt. Japanese. I’m Japanese and believe in the advancement of our intellectual and aesthetic culture over the contaminated society America has become.”
Pitt was in no mood for another debate on lifestyle philosophies. He pointed to his knee. “I’m going to be needing this tomorrow. I must have twisted it. Can you deaden the pain enough so I can use it?”
“Please roll up your pant leg.”
Pitt did so and made the required grimaces and quick expulsions of breath to simulate hurt as the doctor felt about the knee.
“Doesn’t appear swollen or bruised. No indication of a torn ligament.”
“Hurts like hell, though. I can’t bend it.”
“Did you injure it when you crashed into Mr. Suma’s retreat?”
“News travels fast here.”
“The robots have a grapevine that would make San Quentin prison inmates proud. After I heard of your arrival, I went up and viewed the remains of your airplane. Mr. Suma wasn’t happy that you killed over four hundred thousand yen worth of his prized carp.”
“Then you know I’m the opening act for the massacre tomorrow,” said Pitt.
The smile left Nogami’s face and his eyes went dark. “I want you to know, though I may follow Mr. Suma’s commands, I don’t favor Kamatori’s murderous hunting games.”