The classified data Furukawa had stolen for a country he had yet to visit saved Japan billions of dollars in research and development costs. Almost single-handedly, his traitorous activities had given Japan a five-year shortcut to becoming a world leader in the aerospace market.
Furukawa had also been recruited for the Kaiten Project during a meeting with Hideki Suma in Hawaii. He was honored to be chosen by one of the most influential leaders of Japan for a sacred mission. His orders were to discreetly arrange for specially colored cars to be collected at the dock and transported to undisclosed destinations. Furukawa did not ask questions. His ignorance of the operation failed to bother him. He could not be deeply involved for fear of compromising his own mission of stealing U.S. technology.
The traffic had thinned between rush hours as he made his way onto Santa Monica Boulevard. Several kilometers later he swung south on the San Diego Freeway. With a bare touch of his shoe on the accelerator, the Murmoto wove through the slower stream of cars. His detector beeped, and Furukawa slowed to the speed limit three hundred meters before entering the range of a parked police radar unit. He cracked a rare smile as he speeded up again.
Furukawa worked into the right-hand lane and curled around the off-ramp down onto the Harbor Freeway. Ten minutes later he reached the shipping terminal area and cut into an alley, where he passed a huge truck and semitrailer parked behind an empty warehouse. The doors of the cab and the sides of the trailer were painted with the logo of a well-known moving and storage company. He hit his horn twice. The driver of the big rig tooted his air horn three times in reply and pulled behind Furukawa’s sports car.
After dodging a heavy crowd of trucks backing in and out of the loading docks, Furukawa finally stopped at one of the gates to a holding yard for cars imported from foreign manufacturers. Other nearby yards were filled with Toyotas, Hondas, and Mazdas that had already come off ships before being loaded on twodeck auto transporters that would haul them to dealer showrooms.
While the guard checked the receiving documents from the envelope, Furukawa gazed at the sea of cars already driven off the Divine Water. Over one-third had been off-loaded and were sitting in the California sun. He idly counted the flow, as an army of drivers drove them through several gaping hatches and down ramps into the yard, and came up with a rate of eighteen a minute.
The guard handed him the envelope. “Okay, sir, three SP-Five Hundred sport sedans. Please give your papers to the dispatcher down the road. He’ll fix you up.”
Furukawa thanked him and motioned for the truck to follow him.
The ruddy cigar-smoking dispatcher recognized Furukawa. “Back for more of those putrid brown cars?” he asked cheerfully.
Furukawa shrugged. “I have a customer who buys them for his sales fleet. Believe it or not, that’s his company’s color.”
“What does he sell, Kyoto lizard crap’?”
“No, imported coffee.”
“Don’t tell me the label. I don’t want to know.”
Furukawa slipped the dispatcher a hundred-dollar bill. “How soon before I can take delivery?”
The dispatcher grinned. “Your cars are easy to find in the cargo holds. I’ll have them for you in twenty minutes.”
An hour had passed before the three brown automobiles were safely tied down inside the enclosed trailer and released from the holding yard. Not once did the driver and Furukawa exchange words. Even eye contact was avoided.
Outside the gate, Furukawa pulled his car to the side of the road and lit a cigarette. He watched in stony curiosity as the truck and semitrailer turned and headed for the Harbor Freeway. The license on the trailer was California, but he knew it would be switched at some desert truck stop before crossing the state line.
Despite his practiced detachment, Furukawa unconsciously found himself wondering what was so special about the brown cars. And why was their final destination so secret?
20
“FIRST WE’LL BODY SURF under the sunrise at Makapuu Point,” said Pitt, holding Stacy’s hand. “Later, it’s snorkeling around Hanauma Bay before you rub suntan oil all over my body, and we spend a lazy afternoon dozing on a warm white sand beach. Then we’ll soak up the sunset while sipping rum collins on the lanai of the Halekalani Hotel, and afterward it’s off to this intimate little restaurant I know in the Manoa Valley.”
Stacy looked at him in amusement. “Have you ever thought of forming an escort service?”
“I don’t have it in me to charge a woman,” said Pitt amicably. “That’s why I’m always broke.”
He paused and looked out the window of the big twin-engine Air Force helicopter as it drummed through the night. In the early evening of Pitt and Plunkett’s rescue, the big bird had appeared and plucked the entire Soggy Acres mining team and the crew of Old Gert off the deck of the Chinese junk. But not before everyone profusely thanked Owen Murphy and his crew for their hospitality. The final act was the removal of Jimmy Knox. Once his canvas-wrapped body was hoisted on board, the great craft rose above Shanghai Shelly and the Tucson and beat its way toward Hawaii.
The sea below shimmered under a bright three-quarter moon as the pilot flew almost directly over a cruise ship. Ahead to the southeast, Pitt caught sight of the lights on the island of Oahu. He should have been sound asleep like Sandecker, Giordino, and the others, but the exhilaration of escaping the bony character with the scythe kept his blood stirred up. That and the fact Stacy stayed awake to keep him company.
“See anything?” she asked between yawns.
“Oahu on the horizon. We should be passing over Honolulu in fifteen minutes.”
She looked at him teasingly. “Tell me more about tomorrow, especially the after-dinner part.”
“I didn’t come to that.”
“Well?”
“Okay, there are these two palm trees—”
“Palm trees?”
“Of course,” said Pitt, looking surprised that she asked. “And between them is this carnal hammock built for two.”
The helicopter, its ultramodern Ferrari-like body lacking the familiar tail rotor, hovered momentarily above a small grass field on the outskirts of Hickam Field. Unseen in the darkness, the perimeter was patrolled by an Army special combat platoon. A lighted signal from the ground informed the pilot the area was secure. Only then did he lightly drop the huge craft onto the soft grass.
A small bus with KAWANUNAI TOURS painted on the sides immediately drove up and stopped just outside the radius of the rotor blades. It was followed by a black Ford sedan and an Army ambulance to carry Jimmy Knox’s body to Tripler Army Hospital for autopsy. Four men in civilian clothes stepped from the car and stationed themselves at the helicopter’s door.
As the weary NUMA people debarked, they were ushered into the bus. Pitt and Stacy were the last to exit. A uniformed guard held out his arm, blocking their way, and directed them to the car where Admiral Sandecker and Giordino were already standing.
Pitt pushed aside the guard’s arm and walked over to the bus. “Goodbye,” he said to Plunkett. “Keep your feet dry.”
Plunkett fairly mashed Pitt’s hand. “Thank you for my life, Mr. Pitt. When next we meet, the drinks are on me.”
“I’ll remember. Champagne for you, beer for me.”
“God bless.”
When Pitt approached the black car, two men were holding up their gold shields to Sandecker’s face, identifying themselves as agents of the federal government.
“I am operating under presidential order, Admiral. I’m to backstop and transport you, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Giordino, and Ms. Fox to Washington immediately.”