"But that'd be only a guess."
Hansen nodded.
"We'll go with it until we know differently. What have you got on the subs themselves?"
"Again not very much," Hansen admitted. He punched a key and the base diagram disappeared to be replaced by a developing sketch of the Petrograd-class submarine." It's our best guess as to what the boat looks like in size and configuration."
She was much larger than the average nuclear attack submarine, well over a thousand feet in length with a correspondingly large beam and deep draft.
In addition to her stealth capability, she carried a sophisticated array of thermonuclear weapons, delivery systems, and attack computers.
"She is supposedly virtually undetectable to anything other than a visual sighting," Hansen was saying as he looked at the diagram.
"How?"
Hansen looked up. "That's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, Mf. Carter. The computer chip, I assume, will give us that answer."
"What's your guess?"
Hansen looked almost pleased. "Hull construction, type of paint, for starters. Quiet engines. Proper underwater configuration to make the least amount of movement noise. But beyond that I'd guess they have electronic countermeasure — ECM — systems that take an incoming radar or sonar pulse, process it, and send it back to the source with negative information."
"The entire hull of the boat would have to be a sensitive receiving antenna so that every bit of the sonar pulse, for one, would be picked up."
"Yes, sir. It would be quite a sight to see. The computer chip would have everything we'd need."
Carter straightened up and looked from Hansen to Forester and finally to Barber. "I'd still like to do this on my own."
Barber shrugged. "I have my orders too."
Carter glanced at his watch. "The sub will be here in something under nineteen hours." He glanced back at the computer. "We can get some sleep now. Sometime tomorrow I think we should go through everything again, and then work up at least a preliminary plan, with a few backups."
"Good," Forester said, rubbing his chest. "I want to put something on this black-and-blue mark."
"You're a pretty fair actor," Carter said. "I was damned near convinced you had broken your leg out there."
"I think it would have been preferable to a rubber bullet to the chest."
Nine
It was barely six o'clock when Carter came awake from a deep sleep as someone knocked softly at his door. Outside it was still pitch-black. Only a thin bit of yellow light showed at the crack beneath the door.
"Yes?" Carter called out.
The door opened and Arnold Scott came in. "We have some trouble back in Tokyo."
Carter shoved the covers back, got out of bed, and switched on the table lamp. Scott came the rest of the way into the room and shut the door.
"Your boss called me. He didn't want to upset the apple cart up here. Spook the others."
Carter was pulling on his clothes. "What is it?"
"Do you know someone… a Japanese woman… by the name of Kazuka Akiyama?"
Carter's stomach lurched, but he did not let it show. "Yes, I do."
"Hawk said someone took her. But he said only you were to handle it, that we were to stay out of it."
Hawk was going way out on a limb passing Kazuka's name on to Scott. But he would have been going even farther out on that limb by calling here and alerting Barber and the others. The Russians had her; of that there was little doubt in his mind, nor was there much doubt as to why they had concentrated their efforts on her.
They had picked up her initial movements several days ago, when she had begun poking around after Paul Tibbet's murder. They had followed her out to the airport, where she had picked up Carter. After that she had developed the habit of dropping in and out of sight, which bothered the Russians, especially since a couple of their legmen had turned up dead in the river. The Russians would want to know more. Missing computer chips and dead agents made them extremely nervous. And very mean.
"I don't suppose you can tell me who she is," Scott asked.
Carter strapped on his stiletto and then pulled on his shirt. He looked up and shook his head. "And I suggest that you forget you ever heard her name."
"Hawk said the same thing to me."
"I mean it, Arnold. This one is very important."
"Even more important than keeping peace with the Japanese?"
"Major Rishiri is on the warpath?"
"That's the understatement of the year. He damned near hopped a plane for Washington to see your body. He doesn't believe you're dead. He's also heard that we're running a little exercise up here. I've held him off until later tonight, after you've already gone. We'll try to set up something convincing for him here."
Carter strapped on his Luger, checked to make sure it was loaded properly and that the safety was on, and then he pulled on his jacket.
"But…?" he asked.
"You're going back into Tokyo after this woman. I have a feeling all hell is going to break loose today."
"It's very possible, Arnold."
"Rishiri is going to come down on me."
"You're going to have to hold him off."
"Is this woman that important… at this moment?"
"Yes, she is. Unless I find her and get her someplace safe, we'll have to scrub this mission." Carter went to the door and looked out into the corridor. The others had not gotten up yet. He turned back. "Now, how about transportation?"
Scott tossed him a set of keys. "My Toyota Supra. I'm going to have to stick around to keep a lid on things here."
"Don't say anything to the others except that I had to leave for a few hours to take care of something that relates directly to our mission. I'll be back on time to rendezvous with the sub."
"And if you're not?"
"Scrap the project. Hawk will be in touch."
"Hansen will give us trouble…" Scott started to say.
"I don't think so," Carter interrupted, and then he slipped out of the room, hurried to the end of the corridor, and took the stairs down.
It was very cold. The wind off the sea was raw. Toward the east the sky was just beginning to lighten with the coming dawn. Carter drove up the main access road, the Korean guard opening the gate for him, and he headed back into the big city, pushing the car for all it was worth.
Kazuka was a big girl and head of a major AXE office, he kept telling himself. She did not have a Killmaster designations but she was damned good at what she did. Still, even the best could not defend against overwhelming odds. If the opposition had you targeted either for the kill or for the grab, they would get you sooner or later. Evidently Kazuka had been targeted.
But where had they taken her, what had they done to her, and how much had they already learned? Someone from her office would be able to help, but the office itself had been targeted. If someone from Amalgamated Press began snooping around in too professional a manner, not only would Kazuka's life be forfeit, but so would future AXE operations in Tokyo.
It was well after seven, and the morning rush-hour traffic was very heavy as Carter pulled off the super highway into a gas station/cafeteria on the outskirts of Tokyo. He parked in front of the Western-style truck stop and found a pay phone around the side near the rest rooms.
He could not go the AXE office to make a call, nor did he trust the CIA compound's communications center. If he knew Major Rishiri, the Japanese had a monitor on all communications from the compound.
It took the operator a couple of minutes to make the trans-Pacific connection, and Hawk answered on the first ring. He had been waiting for the call.
"What did you tell Barber and the others?"
"Nothing, sir. Scott is out there now. He'll explain what he can. What can you tell me?"