“As you may know, the Japanese Red Army is a fringe terrorist group that grew out of a number of communist factions in Japan during the seventies. They promote an anti-imperialist rant and have supported the overthrow of the Japanese government and monarchy by both legitimate and illegitimate means. With suspected ties to the Middle East and North Korea, the JRA was behind a number of bombings and hijackings, culminating in the attempted takeover of the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur in 1975. They seemed to lose support in the nineties, and by 2000 the known leadership of the organization had been largely apprehended. Though many believed the organization was dead, indications of the group's stirrings have been seen again in the last two years. Published doctrines and active media reporting in Japan have provided a new sounding board, gaining more reception in the country's declining economic climate. Their message has focused on anti-American and anticapitalist tenets, rather than the anarchistic overthrow of the government, which has found a degree of support within a fragment of the population's youth. Oddly, there is no visible front man, or poster child, for the group.”
“I can endorse Marty's comments, Mr. President,” the deputy CIA director offered. “Until the hits on our people, we've had no overt record of activity from these people in a number of years. The known leadership is behind bars. Quite frankly, we don't know who is now calling the shots.”
“Are we confident there is no Al Qaeda connection here?”
“Possible, but not likely,” Finch replied. “The method of assassination is certainly not their style, and there has been no real radical Islamic presence visible in Japan. At this juncture, we have absolutely no evidence to suggest a link.”
“Where are we with the Japanese on this?” the president asked.
“We have an FBI counterterrorist team in-country working closely with the Japanese National Police Agency. The Japanese authorities are quite cognizant of the nefarious nature of these assassinations in their country and have assigned a large task force to the investigation. There is little more in the way of assistance we could ask of them that they haven't already offered up.”
“I have initiated a request through State to the Japanese Foreign Ministry for an update to their profile of high-risk aliens,” Jimenez interjected. “We'll issue a border security alert watch, in coordination with the FBI.”
“And what are we doing elsewhere abroad to prevent any more target shooting?” the president asked, addressing the secretary of state.
“We have issued heightened security alerts at all of our embassies,” the secretary replied. “We have also assigned additional security protection to our senior diplomats, and placed a temporary travel restriction for all State Department personnel within their host country. For the time being, our ambassadors abroad are under lock and key.”
“Any opinion that there is an imminent threat domestically, Dennis?”
“Not at this time, Mr. President,” the homeland security director replied. “We've tightened our travel and immigration inspections on incoming traffic from Japan but don't feel it is necessary to raise the domestic security alert.”
“Do you concur, Marty?”
“Yes, sir. Like Dennis, all our indications suggest that the incidents are isolated to Japan.”
“Very well. Now what about the deaths of those two Coast Guard meteorologists in Alaska?” the president asked, drawing another puff on his pipe.
Finch rifled through some documents before responding. “That would be the island of Yunaska in the Aleutians. We have an investigative team presently on site working with local officials. They are also looking at the destruction of a NUMA helicopter as a related incident. Preliminary indications are that the acts were the result of rogue poachers who used cyanide gas to subdue a herd of sea lions. We're trying to track down a Russian fishing trawler that was known to be fishing the local waters illegally. Officials on-site appear confident that they will apprehend the vessel.”
“Cyanide gas to hunt sea lions? There are lunatics all over this planet. All right, gentlemen, let's give it our all to find these murderers. Allowing our diplomatic representatives to be gunned down without repercussion is not the message I want to be giving the world. I knew Hamilton and Bridges. They were both good men.”
“We'll find them,” Finch promised.
“Make sure,” the president said, tapping his downturned pipe bowl against a stainless steel ashtray for effect. “I fear these characters have more up their sleeve than we realize and I want none of what they're selling.” As he spoke, a glob of burned tobacco plopped unceremoniously into the ashtray, and nobody said a word.
Although Keith Catana had been in South Korea only three months, he had already identified his favorite off-base watering hole. Chang's Saloon appeared little different from the dozen or so other bars of “A-Town,” a seedy entertainment section on the fringe of Kunsan City that catered to the American servicemen stationed at Kunsan Air Force Base. Chang's skipped the loud blaring music that emanated from most of the other bars and offered a decent price for an OB beer, one of the local Korean brews. But perhaps more important, in Catana's eyes, Chang's attracted the best-looking working girls of A-Town.
Abandoned by two buddies who decided to pursue a group of American servicewomen headed to a dance club around the corner, Catana sat silently nursing his fourth beer, welcoming the early periphery of a warm buzz. The twenty-three-year-old master sergeant was an avionics specialist at the air base, supporting F-16 attack jets of the Eighth Fighter Wing. Located just a few minutes' flight time from the DMZ, his squadron stood in constant preparedness for an aerial counter strike should North Korea initiate an invasion of the South.
Sentimental memories of his family back in Arkansas were suddenly jolted from his brain when the door to the bar flung open and in strolled the most stunning Korean woman Catana had ever laid eyes on. Four beers were not enough to deceive himself; she was a genuine beauty. Her long, straight black hair accentuated a delicate, almost porcelain-skinned face that featured a petite nose and mouth but stunningly bold black eyes. A tight leather skirt and silk top accentuated her small build but magnified a distorted symmetry created by her large, surgically enhanced breasts.
Like a tigress searching for prey, the woman surveyed the crowded bar from front to back before focusing on the lone airman sitting alone in a corner. With her sights locked, she swiveled her way over to Catana's table and smoothly slipped into the chair facing him.
“Hello, Joe. Be a friend and buy me a drink?” she purred.
“Glad to,” Catana stammered in reply. She was definitely in a different league from the normal A-Town hookers, he thought, and not the type that caters to enlisted servicemen. But who was he to argue? If the heavens intended to drop this creature in his lap on payday, then good fortune was indeed smiling his way.
It took only one quick beer before the harlot invited him back to her hotel room. Catana was pleasantly surprised that the woman didn't wrangle about price, or, in fact, mention it at all, he thought oddly.
She led him to a cheap motel nearby, where they walked arm in arm down its seedy hallway that was complete with red lights. At the end of the hall, the woman unlocked the door to a small, hot corner room. Sleep wasn't the major draw of the room, Catana could see, as evidenced by a condom machine mounted near the bed.
After closing the door, the woman quickly stripped off her top, then embraced Catana in a deep, passionate kiss. He paid little attention to a noise near the closet as he soaked in the warmth of the exotic woman, intoxicated by a combination of her beauty, the alcohol,
and the expensive perfume she wore. His pleasurable delirium was suddenly jolted by a sharp jab to his buttocks, followed by a hot, searing pain. Whirling unsteadily around, he was shocked to find himself facing another man in the room. The stocky bald man grinned a crooked smile through his long mustache, his dark cold eyes seeming to penetrate right through Catana's skull. In his hands, he held a fully depressed hypodermic needle.
Pain and confusion overwhelmed Catana as his body suddenly went numb. He tried to raise his hands but his limbs were useless. Even his lips refused to cooperate with his brain in voicing a cry of protest. It took just a few seconds before a wave of blackness rolled over him and all feeling departed his senses.
It was hours later when the incessant pounding jarred him from a state of unconsciousness. The pounding was not in his head, as he first imagined, but came externally, from the motel room door. He noticed a warm stickiness enveloping him as he fought to clear the fog from his vision. Why the pounding? Why the wetness? The dimly lit room and cobwebs in his mind refused to reveal the mystery..
The banging ceased for a moment, then a loud blow struck the door, bashing it open with a flood of light. Squinting through the brightness, he saw a company of policemen storm into the room, followed by two men with cameras. As his eyes adjusted to the sudden infusion of light, he was able to notice what the wetness was around him.
Blood. It was everywhere: on the sheets, on the pillows, and smeared all over his body. But mostly it was pooled about the prone figure of the nude woman lying dead beside him.
Catana instinctively lurched back from the body in shock at the sight of the corpse. As two of the policemen pulled him off the bed and handcuffed his wrists, he cried out in horror.
“What happened? Who did this?” he said in a daze.
He looked on in shock as a third policeman pulled back a sheet partially covering the woman, fully exposing a body that had been brutally mutilated. To Catana's further bewilderment, he saw that the body was not that of the beautiful woman he had met the night before but rather was of a young girl whom he did not know.
Catana sagged as he was dragged out of the room amid a flurry of photographs. By noon that day, the story of the rape and savage murder of a thirteen-year-old Korean girl by a U.S. serviceman was a countrywide horror. By evening, it had become a national outrage. And by the time of the girl's funeral two days later, it was a full-blown international incident.
The high noonday sun shimmered brightly off the sapphire waters of the Bohol Sea, forcing Raul Biazon to squint as he gazed toward the large research vessel moored in the distance. For a moment, the Philippine government biologist thought the sun's rays were playing a trick on his eyes. No respectable scientific research ship could possibly be emblazoned in such a lively hue. But as the small weather-beaten launch in which he rode drew closer, he saw that there was nothing wrong with his vision. The ship was in fact painted a glistening turquoise blue from stem to stern, which made the vessel appear as if it belonged under the sea rather than bobbing atop it. Leave it to the Americans, Biazon thought, to escape the ordinary.
The launch pilot guided the worn wooden boat alongside a stepladder suspended over the side of the ship and Biazon wasted no time in leaping aboard. Speaking briefly to the pilot in Tagalog, he turned and scampered up the ladder and sprang onto the deck, nearly colliding with a tall brawny man who stood at the rail. With thinning blond hair and sturdy build, there was a Viking-like air about the man who was dressed in an immaculate white warm-weather captain's uniform.
“Dr. Biazon? Welcome aboard the Mariana Explorer. I'm Captain Bill Stenseth,” the man smiled warmly through gray eyes.
“Thank you for receiving me on such short notice, Captain,” Biazon replied, regaining his stance and composure. “When a local fisherman informed me that a NUMA research vessel was seen in the region, I thought you might be able to offer some assistance.”
“Let's head to the bridge and out of the heat,” Stenseth directed, “and you can fill us in on the environmental calamity you mentioned over the radio.”
“I hope that I am not interfering with your research work,” Biazon said as the two men climbed a flight of stairs.
“Not at all. We've just completed a seismic mapping project off Mindanao and are taking a break to test some equipment before heading up to Manila. Besides,” Stenseth said with a grin, “when my boss says, ”Stop the boat,“ I stop the boat.”
“Your boss?” Biazon inquired with a confused look.
“Yes,” Stenseth replied as they reached the bridge wing and he pulled open the side door. “He's traveling on board with us.”
Biazon stepped through the door and into the bridge, shivering involuntarily as a blast of refrigerated air struck his perspiration-soaked body. At the rear of the bridge, he noticed a tall, distinguished-looking man in shorts and a polo shirt bent over a chart table studying a map.
“Dr. Biazon, may I present the director of NUMA, Dirk Pitt,” Stenseth introduced. “Dirk, this is Dr. Raul Biazon, hazardous wastes manager with the Philippines Environmental Management Bureau.”
Biazon was shocked to find the head of a large government agency working at sea so far from Washington. But one look at Pitt and Biazon knew he wasn't the typical government administrator. Standing nearly a foot taller than his own five-foot-four frame, the NUMA chief carried a tan, lean, muscular body that showed few indications of having spent much time behind a desk. Though Biazon wouldn't know, the senior Pitt was nearly the spitting image of his son who carried the same name. The face was weathered and the ebony hair showed tinges of gray at the temples, but the opaline green eyes sparkled with life. They were eyes that had absorbed much in their day, Biazon gauged, reflecting an assorted mix of intelligence, mirth, and tenacity.
“Welcome aboard,” Pitt greeted warmly, shaking Biazon's hand with a firm grip. “My underwater technology director, Al Giordino,” he added, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder toward the far corner of the wheelhouse. Curled up asleep on a bench seat was a short, thick man with dark curly hair. A light snore drifted from the man's lips with each breath of air that exhaled from his barrel-shaped chest. His powerful build reminded Biazon of a rhinoceros.
“Al, come join the party,” Pitt yelled across the bridge.
Giordino pried his eyes open, then popped instantly awake. He quickly stood and joined the other men at the table, showing no signs of slumber.
“As I told the captain, I appreciate your offer of assistance,” Biazon said.
“The Philippine government has always been supportive of our research work in your country's waters,” Pitt replied. “When we received your radio call to help identify a toxic marine affliction, we were glad to help. Perhaps you can tell us a little more about the specifics of the outbreak.”
“A few weeks ago, our office was contacted by a resort hotel on anglao Island. The hotel's management was upset because a large quantity of dead fish were washing up on the guest beach.”
“I could see where that would tend to dampen the holiday makers' spirits,” Giordino grinned.
“Indeed,” Biazon replied sternly. “We began monitoring the shoreline and have witnessed the fish kill growing at an alarming rate. Dead marine life is washing ashore along a ten-kilometer stretch of beach now, and growing day by day. The resort owners are all up in arms, and we, of course, are concerned about potential damage to the coral reef.”
“Have you been able to diagnose what is killing the fish?” Stenseth asked.
“Not yet. Toxic poisoning is all we can infer. We have sent samples to our departmental lab in Cebu for analysis but are still awaiting the results.” The look on Biazon's face revealed his dissatisfaction with the snail-paced response from the agency lab.