Northeastern Japan
Jon Smith paced back and forth across the tiny room, feeling the overwhelming urge to throw something. Unfortunately he hadn’t been left with anything heavy or breakable enough to give him any satisfaction.
Takahashi had departed an hour ago and taken the tablet with him. Before he did, though, they’d watched one of Randi’s men go down and her disappear over a boulder. He couldn’t be certain what happened after that, but having had experience with those projectiles, he could guess. The only reason he was alive was that the ones attacking him had been programmed to stay within the confines of Genjiro Ueda’s house.
The door began sliding open and Smith moved quickly toward it, standing in a position where he could lunge through and snap Takahashi’s neck before the soldier knew what was happening. He had no illusions that it would do much to save Randi or prevent the coming world war, but at least he’d have some revenge before they put a bullet in his head.
Instead of Takahashi, the stooped figure of Hideki Ito appeared. Smith looked past the scientist at the man standing against the corridor wall. Still the same one—taking in everything with black eyes and a hand in his jacket. The distance was only five yards but it might as well have been a mile.
The door slid closed after Ito passed through, and he moved close to Smith. “We have to talk.”
“About what?”
Ito pointed to the cameras looking down on them. “I’ve initiated a software upgrade to our security system. The cameras are rebooting. We have seven and a half minutes.”
Smith looked up at a clock on the wall and took note of the time before stepping back to examine the man. He was sweating where his ravaged skin would allow, creating a glistening patchwork across his face. “You have my attention.”
“What I built was never meant as an offensive weapon. My expectation was that the general would publicly demonstrate its capabilities in some nonlethal way. That it would make us safe from our enemies and perhaps even be a positive contribution to society.”
“But instead he’s going to use it to exterminate the Chinese.”
“It’s…” Ito’s voice faltered. “Is ironic the correct word? My technology is useful because it can be carefully targeted. Certain materials, certain locations. We could destroy China’s entire military capability without harming a single human being. But he’s going to use it in a way that’s completely indiscriminate. He’ll kill everyone. Civilians, women. Even children.”
Was Ito just running on at the mouth to try to assuage his guilt or was he there to suggest some kind of action? Smith glanced up at the dead cameras, painfully aware that the clock was ticking.
“Can he be stopped?”
“The prime minister is flying to China today, and he’s ordered Takahashi to go with him. Both Sanetomi and President Yandong have made it clear that they will find a way to come to terms. That this situation will be de-escalated.”
“But Takahashi doesn’t want that.”
“No. He’s ordered me to finish making the weapons, and when I’m done he plans to deploy them.”
“I assume you’re here because you don’t want that blood on your hands, Doctor. Do you have a course of action in mind?”
Ito reached beneath his smock and pulled out a screwdriver made of what looked like carbon fiber.
Smith almost laughed when the scientist held it out to him. He’d hoped for something a bit more clever from the man who had cracked molecular manufacturing.
Ito obviously sensed his disappointment. “As I’m sure you’re aware from your investigation of Fukushima, we have sterilization protocols in place that are similar to what you use in your lab at Fort Detrick.”
“Radiation,” Smith said.
Ito gave a short nod.
“And as the lead researcher, do you have the ability to unilaterally initiate sterilization?”
“Yes. However, this is Takahashi’s facility. The procedure takes time to implement, and he has the ability to override.”
“Will he?”
“I guarantee it. I’ve seen how twisted the man has become. He will never allow his weapon to be destroyed.”
“So what are you proposing?”
“If we can access one of the server rooms, there is a chance that I can block his attempt to shut down the sterilization protocol.”
“Then why don’t you do it?”
“Because I don’t have access to those particular servers without his express permission.”
“And that’s where I come in.”
“Yes.”
Smith looked down at the screwdriver in the scientist’s hand. “There’s a problem with your plan.”
“What?”
“On my best day, I couldn’t close the distance to that guard before he gets his gun out. And believe me when I tell you that this isn’t my best day.”
“But we have to—”
“What we have to do is deal with reality, Doctor. I have a lot of ground to cover and the guard just has to move his gun a few inches. It’s not going to happen.”
Ito started to panic. “There’s no time! The cameras are going to come back online in only a few minutes. You have to help me!”
“Calm down, Doctor. I will help you, but there’s going to have to be a minor change in plan. When you leave here, does the guard follow you or do you follow him?”
Ito’s bloodshot eyes darted back and forth as he tried to remember. “He follows me.”
“Okay. Fine,” Smith said, trying to keep his tone soothing. “Do the guards wear body armor?”
“I don’t think so. No. I’ve never seen it.”
“Good. Then you’re going to walk out of here like you always do. And when you get close”—Smith touched a place on his upper stomach—“put that screwdriver right here.”
“What?” Ito said, eyes widening. “You want—”
“Listen to me!” Smith said, raising his voice enough to silence the man. “You need to drive it upward and to your right. Toward his heart.”
“But—”
“He has no reason to expect this,” Smith said. “But when you do it, he’s going to try to get his gun out and he’ll probably try to grab you. Stay right up against him. Be calm and don’t give him room to maneuver. In two seconds it’ll be over.”
“No,” Ito said. “I…I cannot do this.”
“You’re either going to have the figurative blood of millions of innocent people on your hands or the literal blood of one trained killer. As moral dilemmas go, that one seems pretty straightforward.”
“But…but I’m a scientist. An old man. What if he kills me?”
“Then all your worries will be over, won’t they?”
The scientist wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his lab coat and then, surprisingly, turned and pressed his hand against the palm reader next to the door.
His gait was a little too fast and stiff, but it didn’t matter. The guard’s eyes were locked on his American prisoner as they had been every time before.
Smith just stood there watching, calculating the odds that Ito would just keep on walking at about 99 percent. Again, though, the scientist surprised him.
He struck just as the door started to slide shut, pressing himself up against the man and pinning him to the wall. Smith rushed the door and grabbed its edge, but the mechanism was too powerful. The last thing he saw was the guard wrapping a hand around Ito’s fragile neck.
His heart was pounding far harder than it would have been if he’d taken the man himself, nearly audible in the silence that had descended on the room. There had been no gunshot, but what did that mean? Had Ito managed to hold on? Were the two men lying dead on the floor, one with a screwdriver beneath his rib cage and the other with a broken spine?
The door slid back again and Ito stood in front of it, his face frozen into a distorted mask.
“Well done,” Smith said as he brushed by the scientist and crouched next to the body. The screwdriver was still lodged in it and he retrieved the tool, wiping the blood off and stashing it in one of the pockets of the jumpsuit he’d been provided.
Unfortunately, there was no equally practical place to store the man’s Glock. In the end, Smith had to unzip the front of the jumpsuit and stuff it in the waistband of his boxer shorts. Not exactly at his fingertips but it would have to do.
“Dr. Ito,” he said, standing and putting a hand on the still-dazed scientist’s shoulder. “The server room. Where is it? We don’t have much time before the cameras come back online.”