Vulcan's Forge (28 page)

“That would make the volcano anyone’s property, right?” Admiral Morrison asked.

“The first one to spot it, gets it.”

“What happens if the volcano is within that line?”

No one had an answer for Dr. Jacobs. Actually they all knew the answer, but no one was brave enough to put it into words. Mercer looked at the doctor and saw that his old teacher had asked the question because he really didn’t know.

“Then we go to war, Abe.”

As soon as the word was said everyone in the room started speaking at once, clamoring to be heard. The President snapped them to silence by slapping his palm against his desk, though when he spoke, his voice was calm.

“Dr. Mercer is right. We can’t allow such a priceless commodity to belong to anyone but the United States. Now that we know the stakes, Takahiro Ohnishi’s threats take on a much more ominous dimension. We now know why he’s doing it. If the volcano does crest within Hawaii’s two-hundred-mile limit, and his coup is successful, he can sell off possibly the most valuable commodity on earth. I just can’t believe that the Soviets are still mixed up in this. Our relations with them have never been better.”

Mercer noted the President was now calling the old foe by their old name. No longer were they the Commonwealth of Independent States. Once again they were the Soviets.

“Paul, use everything at your disposal to find out about Pytor Borodin—who he used to work for before he disappeared, and what happened to his old bosses. Dick, keep digging at Ohnishi. I want to know why he turned traitor.”

“I’ve got something on that already.” Henna fumbled through his briefcase. “Ah, here it is. Both his parents were born in Japan and immigrated to the States in the 1930s. During the Second World War they were sent to one of the internment camps in California, and both died there, his mother on June 13, 1942, and his father just six months afterward. Ohnishi was raised by an aunt and uncle who also spent the war in the camps. His uncle was on file at the bureau for anti-American protests and petitions. He had two arrests: one for trying to break into Pearl Harbor and the other for assaulting a police officer at a pro-Japanese rally in Hawaii during the summer of 1958. Seems he didn’t like the idea of statehood.

“I saw a copy of one of the pamphlets he printed. It’s full of anti-American propaganda and urged Hawaii’s Japanese residents, then and now the majority on the islands, to fight the statehood referendum and become an independent nation loyal to Japan.

“Ohnishi’s uncle committed suicide right after Hawaii was admitted into the Union in March of 1959. There is no record that Ohnishi shared his uncle’s radical politics, but there’s no record that he didn’t, either.” Henna looked up from his notes.

“Thanks, Dick. I think that’s our answer.” Knowing the answer did not alleviate the problem. The President straightened his shoulders and when he spoke his voice was like steel. “I don’t know what Ohnishi’s next move will be, but I want a detailed battle plan drawn up, not only for Hawaii but also for this new volcano. I don’t know what legal right, if any, we will have to this new island, but there’s no way we’re not going to win. If need be, I’ll have the goddamn thing nuked. Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have to call our diplomats in Bangkok and stop them from signing that treaty.” The men got up to leave. “I want hourly reports from all of you. Dr. Mercer, please make yourself available in case you’re needed again. Dr. Jacobs, thank you. We’ll see that you have a safe trip home.”

Mercer said farewell to Jacobs, gave his home number to Joy Craig, and collected Tish. On the cab ride home, she pumped him for information, but Mercer remained silent. He wondered, as the cityscape passed outside the cab’s filthy windows, how the President would react if he knew that his wife had just spent the afternoon with a Russian spy.

J
AL Flight 217, a 747 jumbo jet from Tokyo, was the last plane given permission to land at Honolulu’s international airport. Employees loyal to Ohnishi and Takamora had followed their instructions and sabotaged the IFR equipment and the computers that controlled the other sophisticated systems. Only those planes without enough fuel to be rerouted were allowed to land. Hawaii was now completely isolated from the outside world.

Flight 217 touched down with an acrid puff of smoke and a bark of tires. Because of the danger in landing without electronic assistance from the tower, the pilot gave himself plenty of room to make sure the craft returned to earth safely. The Pratt and Whitney turbo fans shrieked as the pilot applied reverse thrust, the tremendous airframe shuddering with their awesome power.

The three hundred and sixty passengers had no idea of the danger they had just been through. Those controlling the airport had ordered the pilot to keep his charges ignorant of any problems during the landing, in direct violation of standard safety practices.

“Welcome to Honolulu, ladies and gentlemen,” the flight attendant said in Japanese. “The temperature is seventy-eight degrees and the local time is one-thirty on a cloudless afternoon. Please remain seated until the aircraft has come to a complete stop and the pilot has turned off the seatbelt sign.”

Evad Lurbud had absolutely no idea what the diminutive attendant said until she repeated her announcement in English.

He was the only Westerner on the jumbo jet; the rest were Japanese tourists or businessmen, lured to the islands by the increased trade promoted by Ohnishi and Takamora during the past months.

Though Lurbud had flown across eleven time zones since leaving Egypt and had endured hours-long layovers, one in Hong Kong and the other in Tokyo, he felt relaxed and refreshed. This last flight had lasted nearly seven hours and he had slept through six and a half of them. Before each leg of his trip, he had taken a timed sleeping pill developed by the KGB. By calibrating the doses, he could sleep a specific number of hours. The only drawback to the medication was a slight nausea, which lasted about an hour after waking.

The 747, so graceful in the sky, lumbered to the terminal like a hippopotamus, her huge wings flexing with each bump in the tarmac. Lurbud remained seated and buckled as requested rather than draw attention to himself by standing as several hurried businessmen had done. The aircraft taxied to its hardstand, the huge engines spooling down to silence. The truck-mounted stairs eased to the exits and passengers began shuffling off the Boeing.

Deplaning, Lurbud was staggered by the amount of security within the airport’s customs area. Armed National guard troops, all Orientals he noted, patrolled the area, their M-16 assault rifles slung low, their eyes never lingering on one person too long.

At the customs counter, the bored agent gave Lurbud’s forged German passport a cursory glance and didn’t bother with his briefcase. Lurbud relaxed once he passed customs, but became wary when two suited Orientals strode toward him through the throng of passengers.

“Passport, please,” one of the two men demanded, his hand thrust out waiting for the slim booklet.

“I’m already cleared by customs,” Lurbud replied politely, staining his flawless English with a German accent.

The other Oriental flashed a silver badge in a cheap vinyl covering. “Airport security. Your passport.”

Lurbud fished it from inside his suit coat and handed it over. “What’s this all about?”

“Routine, Mr. Schmidt,” one agent said, reading through the passport. “Would you come with us?”

Lurbud followed the two security men through a set of double doors and down a well-lit flight of stairs. They passed a couple of airport employees plodding upward as Lurbud and his two minders made their way down. At the base of the stairs they turned down a long hallway to the last doorway on the left.

As he stepped over the threshold, Lurbud’s instincts told him that this was an interrogation room and his being here was far from routine. In the stark room, two chairs stood behind a unitarian trestle table, with a third chair set in the center of the neutral beige carpet. The room smelled of stale cigarettes and fear.

The moment the door closed, one of the men shoved Lurbud, propelling him across the room. He exaggerated his momentum and slammed himself against the far wall, sliding to the floor with a moan.

One of the security agents walked over to Lurbud, probably intending to throw him into the chair and begin the formal interrogation of this
Gai-Jin
, foreigner. The instant the man’s hand touched Lurbud’s shoulder, the Russian uncoiled himself from the floor, clutching an undetectable Teflon knife in his fist. He buried the knife between the Oriental’s ribs, piercing his heart.

Lurbud pulled the knife from the dying man’s chest, ignoring the fountain of blood that pumped from the obscene wound, and dove across the room.

The other agent was just going for his shoulder-holstered pistol when Lurbud reached him. The impetus of Lurbud’s charge threw them both against the table, the Russian’s body pinning the other man. Lurbud raised the knife over his head and stabbed down viciously, slicing into skin and cartilage, severing the carotid artery of the shocked security man.

The man died hard, gasping and choking and clutching at his punctured throat. His writhing body smeared blood across the table and onto the carpet and white walls.

After the man had stilled, Lurbud cleaned his knife against his victim’s suit and stashed it back in its ankle sheath. He checked himself quickly. A few red splashes of blood were invisible against the dark tropical wool of his suit. He opened the door and, seeing that the hall was empty, made his escape. At the opposite end of the hall Lurbud reentered the public part of the airport just off the main concourse.

Outside, he passed banks of beautiful tropical flowers and ponds loaded with huge goldfish. He hailed a cab and gave the driver an address in downtown Honolulu, confident that he wouldn’t be followed.

Ten minutes into the cab ride his hands began to quiver and his stomach knotted up. He wished he could pass it off as a reaction to the sleeping pill he’d taken during the flight, but knew in his heart that his close brush with the authorities had shaken him. He’d been living on adrenaline his entire adult life and, like any addict, his drug of choice was beginning to wear him away.

At the Cairo airport, Lurbud had been given a sealed envelope by an embassy courier. It had contained a briefing from Ivan Kerikov. The top sheet had outlined the current situation in Hawaii, so Lurbud knew that Honolulu was under martial law, with a strictly enforced eight p.m. curfew. It had been a calculated risk bringing the packet into the state, but there was too much information to memorize. He read through some of it in the taxi to distract himself from the disturbing cityscape outside the Ford’s windows. The envelope contained Lurbud’s final orders, names of the critical targets, opposition strength, and codes for contacting the
John Dory
. Lurbud assumed that Kerikov had an agent in place near Ohnishi because the orders contained a detailed map of Ohnishi’s house, and also stated that Mayor David Takamora was already dead. Yet the KGB master made no provisions for sparing his agent’s life. Lurbud furtively wondered if he too would be considered a loose end after Ohnishi and the mole had been eliminated.

Although it was just midafternoon, the city seemed nearly deserted. Only groups of National Guard troops and armed cadres of students wandered the streets. The citizens were hidden in their homes, fearful or expectant, depending on their loyalty. The scene outside the cab’s windows reminded Lurbud of the time he’d spent in war-ravaged Beirut, where religion-intoxicated youths systematically ripped the Mediterranean’s most beautiful city into minute strips of terror.

Columns of smoke lifted from numerous fires to mingle in a murky haze over the city. The rocky outcrop of Diamond Head was invisible in the gloom. Near the commercial port, thick black smoke belched from two burning oil storage tanks, their noxious fumes reaching Lurbud’s cab many miles away. Buildings had been riddled with small-arms fire and the cab passed numerous husks of burned-out cars and buses. The area over Pearl Harbor resembled a bee’s nest, angry helicopters buzzing in frenzied flight as federal and National Guard choppers performed a dizzying
Danse Macabre
.

After the uneasy forty-minute drive, Lurbud paid off the driver and left the taxi in one of Honolulu’s worst neighborhoods. His destination was a flat-fronted, three-story edifice with a liquor store on the ground floor and apartments on the other two. The building had been bought by Department 7 when they had brought Takahiro Ohnishi into Vulcan’s Forge in case they ever needed a safehouse to monitor the local situation. This was the first time that members of the operation had ever used the building.

Lurbud surveyed the decayed neighborhood, the vacant, rubble strewn lots, the peeling paint, the empty looks in the eyes of the few passersby, and knew that this location had never been compromised. In the humid air, his jacket was already beginning to stick to his body.

On the top floor, he knocked twice on the stout metal door at the head of the stairs, paused, then knocked once more.

“Yes?” a voice called from within.

“United Parcel Service, I have a package for Charles Haines,” Lurbud replied, beginning a recognition code he’d learned from Kerikov’s packet.

“Who’s it from?” The voice behind the door responded suspiciously.

“Kyle Leblanc,” Lurbud finished the code, and the bolts were thrown open.

The man who’d opened the door kept his automatic pistol in view as Lurbud entered the safehouse. Only after Sergeant Dimitri Demanov spoke from across the vast room did he reholster it. “So, what have you been doing since you can no longer rape boys with heated pokers?” Demanov was referring to one of Lurbud’s more effective interrogation techniques from his time working for Kerikov in Afghanistan.

“Cutting off testicles of disrespectful sergeants,” Lurbud retorted. The two men crashed together in the center of the room like sea lions, pounding each other’s backs in reunion.