I-411. It, too, was armed with the Maka^e ordnance and was sent to
attack the eastern seaboard of the United States," Yaeger said quietly,
realizing he had just dropped a bomb of his own.
It had been a long day for Takeo Yoshida. A crane operator for the
Yokohama Port Development Corporation, Yoshida had toiled since six in
the morning loading an aged Iberian freighter with container after
container of Japanese consumer electronics bound for export. He had
just secured the last of the metal containers onto the ship's deck when
a radio crackled in the crane's control cabin.
"Yoshida, this is Takagi," the deep voice of his foreman grumbled.
"Report to Dock D-5 upon completion with San Sebastian. A single
loading for the vessel Baekje. Takagi, out."
"Affirmed, Takagi-san," Yoshida answered, holding his disdain under his
breath. Just twenty minutes to go on his shift and Takagi gives him a
last-minute assignment across the shipyard. Securing the crane,
Yoshida walked eight hundred yards across the Honmoku Port Terminal
toward Dock D-5, cursing Takagi's name with each step he took. As he
approached the end of the pier, he glanced beyond at the waters of the
bustling port of Yokohama, where a constant stream of commercial ships
jockeyed into position for loading and unloading.
With three hundred meters of waterfront, container terminal D-5 was big enough to handle the largest cargo ships afloat. Yoshida was
surprised to find the vessel tied to the dock was not the typical jumbo
containership awaiting a load of industrial cargo but a special-purpose
cable ship. Yoshida even recognized the Baekje as having been built in
the nearby Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shipyard. At 436 feet long and
with a beam of 133 feet, the stout vessel was designed to lay
fiber-optic cable on the seafloor while withstanding the turbulent seas
of the North Pacific. With a modern-appearing superstructure and white
paint that still glistened, Yoshida could tell that it had not been
many years since the high-tech ship slid into Yokohama Bay for the
first time. She sported a Korean flag above the bridge mast and a blue
lightning bolt across the funnel, which Yoshida recalled was the
signature of a Kang Enterprises vessel. Short on Korean history, the
crane operator did not know that her name, Baekje, represented one or
the early Korean tribal kingdoms that dominated the peninsula in the
third century a.d.
A pair of dockworkers was securing cables beneath an oblong object on
the bed of a large flatbed truck when one of the men turned and greeted
Yoshida as he approached.
"Hey, Takeo, ever fly a submarine before?" the man yelled.
Yoshida returned a confused look before realizing that the object on
the back of the truck was a small white submersible.
"Takagi says our shift is over once we get it aboard," the man
continued, displaying a missing front tooth as he spoke. "Lay it
aboard and let's go get some Sapporo's."
"Is she secure?" Yoshida asked, waving a hand at the submersible.
"All ready," the second man replied eagerly, a young kid of nineteen
^ho Yoshida knew had just started work on the docks a few weeks
before.
A few yards away, Yoshida noticed a stocky bald man with dark eyes
surveying the scene near the ship's gangway. A menacing quality
lingered over the man, Yoshida thought. He'd been in enough scrapes in
the nearby shipyard bars to recognize which men were legitimate tough
guys and which were pretenders. This man was no pretender, he
judged.
Shifting thoughts to the taste of a cold Sapporo beer, Yoshida climbed
up a high ladder into the cab of the adjacent container crane and fired
up its diesel motor. Adeptly working the levers like a concert pianist
tickling the ivories, he expertly adjusted the movable boom and sliding
block until satisfied, then dropped the hook and block quickly toward
the ground, halting it dead center a few inches above the submersible.
The two dockworkers quickly slipped a pair of cables over the hoist
hook and gave Yoshida the thumbs-up sign. Ever so gently, the crane
operator pulled up on the hoist line, the thick cable drawing tight as
it wrapped around a drum behind the cab. Slowly, Yoshida raised the
twenty-four-ton submersible to a height of fifty feet, hesitating as he
waited for its twisting motion to halt before swinging it over to a
waiting pad on the Baekje's rear deck. But he never got the chance.
Before it could be seen, and almost before it physically started,
Yoshida's experienced hands could feel something wrong through the
controls. One of the cables had not been properly secured to the
submersible and the tail suddenly slipped down and through a loop in
the cable. In an instant, the rear of the sub lunged down and the
white metal capsule hung vertically at a grotesque angle, clinging
precariously to the single cable wrapped around its nose. Yoshida didn't breathe, and, for a moment, it looked like the dangling submersible
would stabilize. But before he could move it an inch, a loud twang
burst through the air as the lone securing cable snapped. Like a toon
of bricks, the submersible dropped straight to the dock below, landing
on its tail with an accordion like smash before plopping over on its
side in distress.
Yoshida grimaced, already thinking of the grief he would suffer at the
hands of Takagai, as well as the reams of insurance paperwork he would
be forced to fill out. Thankfully, no one was hurt on the dock. As he
climbed down from the crane's cab to inspect the damage, Yoshida
glanced at the bald man on the gangway, expecting to see a seething
fury. Instead, the mysterious man looked back at him with a cold face
of stone. The dark eyes, however, seemed to pierce right through
him.
The Shinkai three-man submersible was heavily mashed on one end and
clearly inoperable. It would be shipped back to its home at the
Japanese Marine Science and Technology Center for three months' worth
of repairs before it would be seaworthy again. The two dock-workers
did not fare as well. Though not fired, Yoshida noticed that the two
men did not show up for work the next day, and, in fact, were never
seen or heard from again.
Twenty hours later and 250 miles farther to the southwest, an American
commercial jetliner touched down at Osaka's modern Kan-sai
International Airport and taxied to the international gate. Dirk
stretched his six-foot-four frame as he exited the plane, relieved to
be free from the cramped airline seating that only a jockey would find
comfortable. Passing quickly through the customs checkpoint, he
entered the busy main terminal crowded with businessmen hustling to
catch their flights. Stopping briefly, it took just a momentary scan
of the terminal before he picked out the woman he was looking for from
the mass of humanity.
Standing nearly six feet tall with shoulder-length flaming red hair, his
fraternal twin sister Summer towered like a beacon in a sea of
black-haired Japanese. Her pearl gray
eyes glistened and her soft
mouth broke into a grin as she spotted her brother and waved him over to
her.
"Welcome to Japan," she gushed, giving him a hug. "How was your
flight?"
"Like riding in a sardine can with wings."
"Good, then you'll feel right at home in the cabin berth I scraped up
for you on the Sea Rover" she laughed.
"I was afraid you wouldn't be here yet," Dirk remarked as he collected
his luggage and they made their way to the parking lot.
"When Captain Morgan received word from Rudi that we were to terminate
our study of pollutants along the eastern coast of Japan to assist in
an emergency search-and-recovery mission, he wasted no time in
responding. Fortunately, we were working not far off Shikoku when we
got the call so were able to reach Osaka this morning."
Like her brother, Summer had possessed a deep love of the sea since
childhood. After obtaining a master's degree in oceanography from the
Scripps Institute, she'd joined her brother at NUMA following a uniting
with their father, who now headed up the undersea organization. As
headstrong and resourceful as her sibling, she'd gained respect in the
field with her knowledge and hands-on abilities, while her attractive
looks never failed to turn heads.
Leading Dirk past a row of parked cars, Summer suddenly stopped in
front of a tiny orange Suzuki subcompact parked by itself.
"Oh, no, not another knee-crusher," Dirk laughed as he surveyed the
tiny vehicle.
"A loaner from the Port Authority. You'll be surprised."
After carefully wedging his gear into the minuscule hatchback, Dirk
opened the left-side door and prepared to pretzel himself into the
passenger seat. To his amazement, the interior of the right-hand-drive
car proved roomy, with a low sitting position creating ample headroom
for the two six-footers. Summer jumped into the driver's seat and
threaded their way out of the parking lot and onto the Hanshin
Expressway-Heading north toward downtown Osaka, she accelerated the
little Suzuki hard, zipping in and out of traffic, for the
twelve-kilometer drive to the city's port terminal. Exiting the
expressway, she turned the car into the Osaka South Port Intermodal
Terminal and down a side dock before pulling up in front of the Sea
Rover.
The NUMA research vessel was a slightly newer and larger version of the
Deep Endeavor, complete with matching turquoise paint scheme. Dirk's
eyes were drawn to the stern deck, where a bright orange submersible
called the Starfish sat glistening like a setting sun.
"Welcome aboard, Dirk," boomed the deep voice of Robert Morgan, the
master of the Sea Rover. A bearded bear of a man, Morgan resembled a
muscular version of Burl Ives. The jovial captain held an amazing
array of seagoing experience, having commanded everything from a
Mississippi River tugboat to a Saudi Arabian oil tanker. Having salted
away a healthy retirement sum from his commercial captain days, Morgan
joined NUMA for the pure adventure of sailing to unique corners of the
globe. Deeply admired by his crew, the skipper of the Sea Roverwas a
highly organized leader who possessed an acute attention to detail.
After storing Dirk's bags, the threesome adjourned to a starboard-side
conference room whose porthole windows offered a serene view of Osaka
Harbor. They were joined by First Officer Tim Ryan, a lanky man with
ice blue eyes. Dirk grabbed a cup of coffee to regain alertness after
his long flight while Morgan got down to business.
"Tell us about this urgent search-and-recovery mission. Gunn was
rather vague with the details over the satellite phone."
Dirk recapped the Yunaska incident and the recovery of the I-403's bomb
canister and what had been learned of the sub's failed mission.
"When HiramYaeger reviewed the Japanese naval records in the National
Archives, he discovered a near-duplicate operations order that was
issued to a second submarine, the I-411. It had the same mission, only
to cross the Atlantic and strike New York and Philadelphia instead of
the West Coast."
"What became of the I-411?" Summer asked.
"That's what we're here to find out. Yaeger was unable to uncover any
definitive information on the I-411's final whereabouts, other than that she failed to appear for a refueling rendezvous near Singapore and
was presumed lost in the South China Sea. I contacted St. Julien
Perlmutter, who took it a step further and found an official Japanese
naval inquiry which placed the loss in the middle of the East China Sea
sometime during the first few weeks of 1945. Perlmutter noted that
those facts matched up to a report from the American submarine
Swordfish that she had engaged and sunk a large enemy submarine in that
region during the same time frame. Unfortunately, the Swordfish was
later destroyed on the same mission so the full accounting was never
documented. Their radio report did provide an approximate coordinate
of the sinking, however."
"So it's up to us to find the I-411" Morgan said matter-of-factly.
Dirk nodded. "We need to ensure that the biological bombs were
destroyed when the submarine went down, or recover them if they are
still intact."
Summer stared out one of the porthole windows at a skyscraper in
distant downtown Osaka. "Dirk, Rudi Gunn briefed us about the Japanese
Red Army. Could they have already recovered the biological weapons
from the I-411?"
"Yes, that's a possibility. Homeland Security and the FBI don't seem
to think the JRA has the resources to conduct a deep-water salvage
operation and they're probably right. But, then, all it would take is
money, and who's to say how well funded they, or an associate terrorist
group, may be. Rudi agrees that we better make sure one way or the
other."
The room fell silent as all minds visualized a cache of deadly
biological bombs sitting deep below the ocean's surface and the
consequence if they fell into the wrong hands.
"You've got the best ship and crew in NUMA at your disposal," Morgan
finally said. "We'll get her done."
"Captain, we've got a pretty large search area on our hands. How soon
can we be under way?" Dirk asked.
"We'll need to top off our fuel supplies, plus two or three of the
crew
still ashore obtaining additional provisions. I expect we can be under way in six hours," Morgan said, glancing at a wall chronometer.
"Fine. I'll retrieve the search coordinates and provide them to the
ship's navigator right away."
As they exited the conference room, Summer tugged at Dirk's elbow.
"So what did the data from Perlmutter cost you?" she chided, knowing
the gourmet historian's penchant for culinary blackmail.
"Nothing much. Just a jar of pickled sea urchins and an
eighty-year-old bottle of sake."
"You found those in Washington, D.C.?"
Dirk gave his sister a pleading look of helplessness.
"Well," she laughed, "we do have six more hours in port."
But, Dae-jong, opening the gates to the No
rth is not going to provide
me a usable, skilled labor pool," the CEO of South Korea's largest auto
manufacturer asserted before taking a puff on a large Cuban cigar.
Sitting across a mahogany cocktail table, Dae-jong Kang shook his head
politely as a long-legged waitress brought a second round of drinks to
the table. Their conversation halted while the young Chaebel Club
waitress placed their drinks in front of them. The club was a private
enclave for Korea's super rich and powerful, a secure and neutral
meeting place where huge deals were hammered out over kimchi and
martinis. The aristocratic club was appropriately housed on the
hundredth floor of the world's tallest building, the recently completed
International Business Center Tower located in western Seoul.
"You must consider the lower labor wages. Retraining costs would be
minor and recouped in no time. My staff has analyzed the prospects and
told me I could save twenty million dollars a year in labor costs
if we could draw on manpower from North Korea at their current
equivalent wage rate. I can only imagine what your potential auto
anufacturing savings would be. Suppose instead of expanding your
Tllsan manufacturing facility, you built an entirely new plant in the
orthern province of Yanggang. How would that improve your
competitiveness on the world markets, not to mention open access to the
northern consumers?"
"Yes, but it is not so easy for me. I have unions to contend with, as
well as capital budget constraints. I certainly can't throw people out
on the street at Ulsan and rehire workers from the North at half the
Dirk Pitt18-Black Wind Page 21
