Cross was fielding questions and suggestions in the Situation Room. Otto Stern said, “We could be faced with shooting the plane down before we have all the data. This is a no-win, Mr. President.”
Cross knew that was true but a president who preceded him had faced that frightening possibility in the dark hours of 9/11. While they waited for news from Warfield or the ambassador, others in the White House kept an eye on Fox News and CNN. If word of this got out they might need to release a statement to assure the public.
Cross counted on Scrubb and Stern to weigh the incoming information he would use in making a final decision. Earl Fullwood realized he’d been sidelined. He picked up his attaché case and marched off, stopping at the door to glare for a moment at the president, who didn’t seem to notice.
At the Pentagon, Plantar Scrubb huddled with the Joint Chiefs in the Pentagon room known as the Tank, reserved for use by the chiefs.
Flying the 747–400 was as appropriate a way to spend the final hours of his life as Fumio Yoshida could imagine. Unlike the -400 series, earlier versions of the 747 couldn’t be flown by one pilot alone. The 747–400 was by far the most magnificent airplane Yoshida had ever encountered. Several planes like the one Yoshida’s father had flown to his death could be parked on each of its wings. There was more space inside the cabin than in a dozen houses like Yoshida’s and it could carry more than five-hundred passengers if so configured. The tail was six stories tall and the plane could fly eight-thousand miles non-stop. Four Rolls Royce RB211-524G engines powered the plane Yoshida was flying and it could carry many times the weight of the bomb that now occupied it. Fumio Yoshida knew the specs by heart. His only regret in this whole plan of his was that it was necessary to sacrifice such a beautiful aircraft.
The fate of the Russians didn’t bother Yoshida much. Ivan had worried him all along. Petrevich said he was critical to the project but in the end Ivan was Petrevich’s undoing. Maybe Ivan never gave much thought to what he and Petrevich and Mikhail were building, or perhaps the reality of the ultimate purpose of their effort never hit him. Until now. Ivan couldn’t have been blind to it all, but maybe he rationalized it would never happen. After all, he and Petrevich and their counterparts back in Russia built all those nuclear weapons, tens of thousands of them, and as far as Yoshida knew not one of them was ever used against other human beings.
But then hours ago something came over Ivan when it was time for he and Petrevich to show Yoshida the two simple procedures he would have to perform to release the bomb. Sure, there were more efficient ways to deliver nukes but Yoshida wanted to replicate the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks as closely as possible
Ivan had waited until after Petrevich explained it all to Yoshida. How to release the safety system that prevented unintended detonation; and how to arm the trigger that would detonate the bomb at the required time. Ivan then smiled and calmly informed Yoshida he had decided to sabotage the work they had done. It stalled Yoshida for a moment but he was not unprepared for such an occurrence. He fired the .25 from inside his pants pocket and hit Ivan twice in the chest at near point-blank proximity. Petrevich yelled out in a combination of surprise and terror but Yoshida had the gun on him and Mikhail before they could react.
Yoshida ordered Mikhail to bind Petrevich’s hands behind his back and tie him to the chain link fence that bordered the hangar office. Perhaps anticipating death anyway, Mikhail swung around as he finished tying Petrevich. He had picked up a wrench and swung it at Yoshida’s head. Yoshida was surprisingly agile. He dodged it and fired, hitting the Russian in front of his left ear; he fired a second shot into the back of his head after he fell. Then he leveled the pistol at Petrevich, who was cursing Yoshida with all of his breath, and fired his fifth bullet.
Petrevich’s limp body slumped from the fence, to which Mikhail had tied his hands. Yoshida jammed the muzzle of the .25 to the bridge of Petrevich’s nose and pulled the trigger again, but this time there was only a click. Then, another click. He threw the gun at Petrevich but the Russian’s body was still. Yoshida had not planned to kill any of them but had no regrets. Nothing would undermine his mission.
He cut the rope that suspended Petrevich and thought about loading the bodies onto the plane but they were too heavy for him to manage. He retrieved the tent cloth Petrevich had put up around his office area and rolled all three men up in it. Someone would find the bodies in the next day or so but by then it would make no difference.
Fumio Yoshida checked the time. Forty minutes to go. He was at peace with what was about to happen but nevertheless a little jittery from the adrenaline his excitement had generated. He saw the silhouette of a plane in the distance. Was it another airliner, or had the U.S. authorities found him out somehow? He had thought about the possibility that his plan might be discovered in Tokyo before it was complete, in which case he would encounter the U.S. military, but it wasn’t going to matter. They might buzz his plane and try to intimidate him but U.S. authorities wouldn’t think of shooting down a Japanese airliner, at least until it clearly posed a threat to life and before they did a lot of checking with authorities in Japan, which would be difficult on Saturday night.
Even if they reached Saito, the proud and powerful Ministry chief would be so supportive of Yoshida that even the most paranoid American officials would falter. “Vice-Minister Yoshida is on a training flight to the United States,” Saito would say. “He is a humble servant who has served with honor in the Ministry of Transport. He cares for his family and is a model Japanese citizen.” Saito would continue, “It will be determined that Yoshida had no connection with the irregular circumstances discovered at Hangar 23.” And finally, “Yoshida is at the top of his career. Just last week he and I worked together in preparation for the Oberon.”
Yoshida felt an adrenaline rush as he began the first of the two procedures Petrevich had shown him. This was the best day of his life.
In the Situation Room, Stern and Hill spoke with other officials on the phones to bring them up to date. The assistant secretary of state called Hill to say he had spoken with the U.S. ambassador to Japan, who said the Japanese officials he’d reached so far had termed Warfield’s report as not credible unless there was more evidence to go on.
Plantar Scrubb called from the Pentagon. “Traffic controllers say the 747’s requesting priority permission to land at LAX. Low on fuel. Could be a ploy to get into the area. We’ve sent F-15s to intercept. They’ll ride along with him for a few minutes but I can’t wait much longer before we begin to divert him away from the mainland. If he’s low on fuel that’s a problem.”
“What’s the most likely scenario?” Otto Stern asked.
“Hell, I don’t know that, Stern,” Scrubb said, “but just in case that plane is carrying a nuke we will keep her away from the mainland. Need to do something in the next few minutes. What are we waiting on, Mr. President?”
“Warfield. I’m waiting for Warfield to confirm that there’s radioactivity in the hangar. And I need something from Tokyo.”
The first person Warfield saw when he opened his eyes was Komeito. Warfield had a crushing headache and a bandage of some kind covered most of his head. He looked at the blood on the hangar floor and wondered if it was his. Sirens wailed not too far away. He sat up and took a moment to reconstruct what had happened before he’d passed out, and remembered that police had taken Komeito away from the Holiday Inn.