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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Critical Mass
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KELLEY FULLER WATCHED AS MCGARVEY PULLED ON THE single scuba tank, adjusted its weight on his shoulders, and fastened the Velcro straps holding his buoyancy control vest in place.
They were huddled out of the wind behind some rocks twenty-five yards below the highway, and barely six feet above the waters of the bay. In the distance, to the north, they could make out the lights of Fukai Semiconductor. It was 11:00 P.M.
“You still haven't told me what you hope to find over there,” she said. “Or how you're going to get inside. There'll be security on the docks.”
“I'm going to get aboard the boat first, and then go ashore as one of the crewmen,” McGarvey said, checking the seals on the waterproof camera case which they'd picked up at the dive shop where they'd rented the scuba gear. Earlier in the afternoon they'd purchased a compact Geiger counter from a scientific school supply house in Nagasaki. The unit fit perfectly in the camera case.
“What if the crew is all Japanese?”
McGarvey looked up. “It's possible,” he said. “But I saw a good number of Westerners in the compound this morning. So it stands to reason there'll be Westerners as crew aboard a pleasure boat that's registered out of Monaco.”
“Once you're ashore, what then? It's a big place.”
“If there's a lab to handle nuclear material, it'll be beneath ground. In a sub-basement or even lower, which means it'll have to be equipped with an elevator, perhaps an emergency
stairwell, or access tunnel, and probably an air shaft or two. I've seen these sorts of things before.”
“If you don't find it?” she persisted.
He smiled. “I don't give up that easily. Especially now that we've come this close. Besides, I owe this one to someone I'm very close to.”
Kelley's eyes narrowed slightly. “What if you don't find it?”
“Then I'll find Kiyoshi Fukai, and ask him to show it to me.”
“He won't tell you anything.”
“Then if I can prove that he's involved, I'll kill him,” McGarvey said evenly, and Kelley shivered because she believed him.
“Good,” she said, and she helped McGarvey pick his way across the rocks and into the water. His leg was giving him trouble because of the weight of the equipment he was carrying.
McGarvey spit on the inside of his mask, spread it around with his fingers, then rinsed it off in the bay. “If I'm not out of there by daybreak, I want you to call Carrara and tell him what's happened.”
She nodded. “Is she beautiful?”
McGarvey donned the mask. “Very,” he said.
“Who is she?”
“My daughter.”
 
He had timed his entry into the bay to coincide with slack tide. Even so he briefly surfaced twice to make sure he was swimming a straight line underwater. The
Grande Dame II
was at least a mile from where he'd started at the edge of the Fukai compound, and being off by one or two compass degrees he could have swum past it in the pitch-black water.
But he was right on course, and the second time he surfaced he was close enough to pick out a lot of activity on the dock.
From the window of the headquarters building this morning he had spotted closed-circuit television cameras and what
he took to be proximity alarm detectors along the line of the docks, which meant they were more concerned about someone coming ashore than anyone in the water.
Storm sewer openings would be screened and equipped with integrity alarms. And although he'd hoped to find the ship dark, and possibly even unattended, the unexpected activity would serve his purpose just as well, distracting attention away from the bay side of the ship's hull.
The other thing he'd seen from the waiting room above the dock was the
Grande Dame II's
anchor chain. Apparently because of tidal currents, the anchor had been dropped to keep the ship from swinging too hard against the docks. It would also provide a way aboard.
Of course there was still a high probability that he would be spotted and challenged. But if it happened, it happened, he told himself, biting down so hard on his mouthpiece that he nearly severed the thick rubber.
The expression in Elizabeth's eyes that night off Santorini had not faded days later when she came to him in the hospital. He didn't think it would ever go away, because she had become a frightened woman. Her self-confidence had been taken away from her by these people. And now if someone got in his way … it would be too bad.
Twenty minutes later the ship's hull loomed up out of the darkness, and McGarvey reached out and touched it. He could feel the vibration of machinery through the bottom plates, probably a generator or generators supplying the ship with power. A vessel this size never truly shut down unless she was in dry dock.
He followed the line of the hull to the bows, then turned away, to the right, coming at length to the anchor chain leading at an angle through the murk. Some of the light from the dock filtered a few feet down into the water, sparkling on the suspended particles of mud, like dust motes in sunlight.
Slowly he swam up the angle of the chain, breaking the surface ten or fifteen yards away from the looming white hull.
At this point he was practically invisible from the dock, but
as soon as he started up the chain, anyone looking up from shore would be able to see him. There was no other way.
Careful to make absolutely no noise, he pulled off his BC vest and scuba tank, then unclipped his weight belt and draped it around the harness. It floated on its own until he opened a valve in the vest and released the air it contained and the entire assembly slowly sank.
He took off his fins and pushed them away, and, making sure that the strap holding his Geiger counter to his side was secure, started up the chain, one link at a time.
For the first three feet or so, he nearly lost his grip on the slimy chain several times, but when he reached the part that had never been in the water, or hadn't been in the water for a long time, the going became easier.
Twice he stopped, holding himself absolutely still, stretched out along the chain as a security guard came to the edge of the dock and spit into the water.
The second time, the man looked up directly at McGarvey for several long seconds as he scratched himself, but then he turned away and walked back out of sight.
At the top, McGarvey was just able to squeeze his way through the hawse hole onto the bow deck, behind a thick bollard, where he crouched in the relative darkness. His leg and arm were throbbing, and it felt as if some of his stitches had broken open. He thought he might be bleeding.
Five decks above and forward of midships the bridge was lit up, and as he watched he could see several people moving around.
It was possible, he thought, that the parts for the nuclear device had already been delivered and assembled, and would be transported aboard this boat to wherever Fukai intended on igniting it. It would mean the target would probably be somewhere on the U.S. West Coast.
But it would take ten days or more for the ship to make that distance. And somehow McGarvey didn't think Fukai would be willing to wait that long. Because of what had happened to the STASI on Santorini, and what had happened up in Tokyo, the Japanese billionaire had to realize that someone would
come poking around his operation sooner or later. Every hour he had possession of the bomb parts, especially the weapons-grade plutonium or uranium, he was risking detection.
McGarvey unzipped the front of his drysuit, took out his Walther and cycled a round into the firing chamber.
Next, he unsealed the camera case and took out the Geiger counter. He flipped on the switch, but there was no reading above ambient on the dial, nor had he expected any. If the bomb material was here, it would be well enough shielded to avoid detection except at close range.
Certain that no one on the well-lit bridge deck would be able to see him down on the dark foredeck. McGarvey darted out from behind the bollard and took the first hatch into the ship.
What he needed now was to find a crewman willing to give up his uniform.
THE FUKAI SHUTTLE HELICOPTER TOUCHED DOWN ON THE rooftop landing pad of the headquarters building around midnight. As the rotors began to slow down, a crewman opened the hatch, fitted the aluminum steps over the edge and helped Liese Egk climb down. He'd stared up her short skirt all the way down from Tokyo's Narita Airport, and his hand shook when he touched the bare flesh of her arm.
She smiled back up at him when he passed down her single bag.
“D
mo arigat
,”
she said.
“D
itashimashite,”
the young man said breathlessly.
“Your charms are still intact, I see,” someone said, coming from the elevator alcove.
Liese turned as Endo, still dressed in a crisp suit and tie, came across the pad. He said something in Japanese in a very sharp tone to the crewman, who immediately answered,
“Hai,”
and closed the hatch.
“I assume all of our shipments arrived on time and intact,” she said, coldly.
“Yes, we are most pleased. Now, I imagine, you have come here to arrange for payment. Your situation must be very difficult after Santorini.”
“We are reorganizing. Within the month we will be ready to accept new assignments.”
“What about Ernst? How is he faring?”
“I killed him.”
“I see,” Endo replied, smiling faintly. “It must leave you shorthanded.”
“Besides my couriers who made deliveries …”
“They have been eliminated,” Endo interrupted, but instead of reacting the way he thought she might, Liese continued smoothly.
“Besides the couriers, I have twenty frontline officers, plus the usual network. We lost some very good people in this operation, but of course we expected as much. It is one of the reasons, as you may recall, that you agreed to pay so dearly.”
Endo had to admire the woman's coolness. It was almost a pity, he thought, that she would have to die tonight.
He took her bag, and pointed the way toward the elevator, but she stepped back a half pace.
“You first,” she said. “I wouldn't want to get lost.”
Endo stared at her for several long seconds. He could take out his pistol and kill her, here and now. Fukai-san understood the danger she presented. But she reached inside her shoulder bag, as if for a compact or a handkerchief … or a gun … and he forced a smile.
“No, we wouldn't want anything to happen to you,” he said, and he led the way across the landing pad to the elevator and held the door for her.
“I'll stay the night,” Liese said on the way down. She took a handkerchief out of her purse and dabbed her nose. “We can conclude our business in the morning and I will be out of Japan by noon.”
“You may stay the evening, of course, but we'll have to make our business arrangements immediately. Unfortunately Mr. Fukai leaves for Paris first thing in the morning.”
“That's just as well. Your shuttle can take me back to Narita.”
“Yes, of course.”
The elevator opened to a broad empty corridor of very low ceilings, scrubbed wooden floors and rice paper sliding doors. Traditional Japanese music played softly from hidden speakers, and from somewhere they could hear the sound of water gently splashing as if on rocks at the bottom of a small waterfall. The fragrant odor of incense was on the pleasantly warm, moist air.
Near the far end of the corridor, Endo slid open a rice paper
door and went in. The room was sparsely furnished as a tea place or as a waiting area in a traditional Japanese home. Putting her bag down, Endo went to the sliding doors along the opposite wall and opened them onto a broad rock garden, beneath a fake sky that was made to look like dusk. Water tumbled down a pile of rocks that rose at least thirty feet into the sky, falling into a pool in which a dozen large golden carp lazily swam. The sandy areas had been carefully raked, and a cedar tub filled with steaming water was ready on the broad, low veranda. Even birds were singing.
“You may refresh yourself, Ms. Egk. Mr. Fukai will see you in one hour. If you have any needs in the meantime, just speak out loud, and you will be attended to.”
Liese had been here to Nagasaki before, but she had never seen this place. “It's beautiful,” she said.
Endo smiled. “It is restful,” he replied, and he bowed and left.
For a full minute Liese remained standing in the middle of the room, drinking it all in; the sights, the smells, the sounds, all carefully engineered to seem authentic, and all designed to promote a feeling of peace and security.
This place had obviously cost Fukai a great deal of money. But as a business tool it had to have paid for itself dozens of times over each year by disarming those who came here seeking to do hard, fast business.
She crossed the room and stepped out onto the veranda. A very gentle breeze was blowing from the left, and it smelled faintly of the sea.
The evening (she decided the atmosphere was meant to be sunset) was balmy. Perfect.
She stepped out of her sandals as she unbuttoned her blouse and padded down the veranda to the shower head just beyond the tub. She wore no bra, and already her nipples were erect in response to the sensuous surroundings. She took off her skirt and panties, and laid them over the low wooden rack provided for just that purpose, and stepped under the shower head, the weight of her body on some hidden control beneath the floor boards turning on the water.
The spray was perfect in strength and temperature, and she turned slowly beneath it as she lathered her well-tanned, almost athletic body.
 
Endo stood just within an alcove at the far end of the veranda watching Liese take her shower, and he felt aroused. She was a beautiful creature, he decided. More's the pity that he would have to kill her tonight.
Ernst Spranger had hinted that the woman was a lesbian, but watching her lather herself, he found that hard to believe. And, recalling the occasions she'd spent with Fukai-san, Endo felt that Spranger had hoped to gain something by such a lie. Now that he was dead, it had become a moot point.
When she was finished under the shower, clean and well rinsed as was the Japanese tradition, she moved gracefully, like a cat or some night animal, off the veranda, and across the stepping stones to the pool. She hunched down and dabbled her fingers in the water.
From where he stood, Endo had a perfect view of the curve of her haunches, and the delicate line of her backbone merging with the crease of her buttocks. He fought an almost overwhelming desire to go out there and touch her.
“She is a lovely animal, isn't she,” Fukai said from within the alcove's entrance hall.
Endo turned to face his master. Fukai was nearing eighty, but his hair was still jet black, his eyes still dark and clear, and his lean, compact body still well muscled because of the workouts he did every day of his life. But there was a cruel streak to his face; the set of his mouth, the expression in his eyes. Each time Endo looked at Fukai, he felt like a prize butterfly in the presence of a ruthless master collector.
“Yes, indeed she is,” Endo said. “Do you wish for me to kill her now, or would you like to watch her for a while?”
“Perhaps it won't be necessary for us to kill her this evening,” Fukai said. “We shall see.” He was dressed in a spotlessly white kimono, wooden block sandals on his feet.
“Ernst Spranger is dead.”
“It is of no consequence.”
“Possibly …” Endo said, but Fukai silenced him with a glance.
Liese straightened up, watched the fish swim beneath the waterfall for a long time, then turned and languidly went back up to the veranda where she slowly lowered herself into the scented, very hot water.
Fukai stepped around Endo onto the veranda. “You look like a fawn at peace in the forest.”
Liese turned. “Kiyoshi-san,” she said, apparently with pleasure.
Endo backed out of the alcove and left, certain that Fukai was making a mistake with the woman that might cost him his life.

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