The Citadel Page 5

  Fatima turned and followed the two guards back to the stairs.

  Behind Fatima, Takase waited until the woman was gone, then the old man stood. He quickly walked to an elevator, a pair of guards surrounding him as he moved. He stepped in, leaving the guards behind. It whisked him down over 150 feet, through the Japan center to a level four floors belowground. When the door opened again, Takase stepped forward into a large room, then bowed toward a figure behind a desk twenty feet in front of him, hidden in the shadows cast by large halogen lamps on the far wall. Takase spoke, while bowing, his words echoing off the heavily carpeted floor. "The new head of the Abu Sayif was here. She has asked for information about the Black Tentacle. It goes as you said it would, Oyabun. What should I do?"

  The man seated behind the desk lifted a wrinkled and liver-spotted hand. When he spoke, his voice was so low, Takase had to strain to hear him. "She is reaching out into darkness. It is a dangerous thing to do, but Abayon would not have picked her if she were not special."

  "She did kill Kaito," Takase noted.

  There was only the sound of a machine pushing oxygen into the old man's lungs for several moments before he spoke again. "Let her know about the Black Tentacle and the I-401 submarine. That should keep her occupied and cause both the Black Tentacle and the Organization to remain busy."

  Takase bowed his head in compliance. "Yes, Oyabun."

  * * *

  Two blocks away a man on a dark rooftop fiddled with the controls on a small laptop computer and listened to the voices from the top of the building through the headphones he wore. In front of him a black aluminum tripod held what looked like a camera. Actually, it was a laser resonator. It shot out a laser beam that hit the black glass on the top of the Japan center. The beam was so delicate that it picked up the slightest vibration in the glass. Reflecting back to a receiver just below the transmitter, a computer inside interpreted the sound vibrations into the words that caused them.

  It had not taken the man long to tune out the background noise and get the computer to pick up the voices inside. He'd heard the entire exchange between Fatima and Takase. Satisfied that Fatima had left the room, he quickly broke down the laser and placed it into a backpack along with the computer. Within thirty seconds he was gone from his perch.

  * * *

  The room Fatima was renting was on the second floor of a six-story hotel. She had picked it, as she'd been taught in the terrorist camp in the Middle East so many years ago, for its transient and illicit clientele, mostly prostitutes and drug addicts. She hadn't even had to say a word when getting the room. She'd shoved two hundred-dollar bills at the clerk and received a key in return. Very convenient and inconspicuous, just as she'd expected.

  Abayon had been her godfather, and his best friend, Moreno, her grandfather. Abayon had died in the explosion of his Jolo Island mountain lair at the hands of the Americans, and Moreno had gone down with his submarine during the failed nerve gas attack on Oahu. She had thousands of loyal "soldiers" ready to do her bidding, but felt completely isolated with the passing of the two old men who had taught her so much.

  Fatima unrolled her prayer mat and then knelt on it. She faced toward Mecca and began her prayers, but her mind kept sliding among the various issues confronting her. Her body was still tense from the encounter with the local Yakuza warlord.

  These were the times she had doubts. When she wondered if this Organization her godfather had fought against was nothing more than the shadow of the western world looming over the third world, or even a religious schism: the Vatican had wielded tremendous power and controlled great riches for many hundreds of years. Although Abayon had tried hard not to make the Abu Sayif's battle to be against Christians, it seemed inevitable at times. Surely there were many in the western world who viewed Islam as the equivalent of terrorism.

  Even as she prayed, she continued to consider the factor religion played in all the divisiveness. There were many of her followers who believed their battle, as devout Muslims, was against Christians. And they believed that battle had been forced on them by the western world through various actions, most particularly the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by the United States and its cronies. But in private, Abayon had always tried to steer her away from seeing things in that manner.

  Abayon had fought beside Christians in World War II to free the Philippines from the hold of the Japanese. In fact, he believed that Christians and Muslims shared a common path and should be closer to each other rather than fighting. It was an opinion he had not shared loudly, particularly when dealing with other Islamic groups the Abu Sayif was loosely affiliated with.

  For Abayon, and now for Fatima, it was a war between the haves and the have-nots. Between those who controlled the world's economy to further their own aims and those who suffered because of that. Fatima had no doubts that the large gap existed, she just wondered if it was being controlled by one organization, as her great-uncle had claimed, or simply the result of capitalism run amuck.

  Fatima had to admit that Abayon had had solid reasons for his suspicion that this international Organization existed. He had become aware during the early years of World War II that as the Japanese expanded their empire around the Pacific Rim, their front-line troops were followed closely by elements of their secret police, the Kempetai, which began the systematic looting of the lands they conquered. The spoils were given the innocuous code name Golden Lily.

  While fighting with the guerrillas, Abayon was captured along with his wife and sent to the infamous Unit 731 concentration camp in Manchuria. It was a horrible place where the Japanese tested chemical and biological weapons on living prisoners. Surprisingly enough, in this place of death, Abayon ran into an American, a man who had been part of a secret mission into Japan using Doolittle's raid as the cover for their parachute infiltration near Tokyo.

  The American had been briefed that his three-man team's mission as part of the OSS -Office of Strategic Services, the American precursor to the CIA-was to parachute into Japan and make their way to a university where Japan 's only cyclotron was located. He thought they were going to help destroy Japan 's nascent nuclear weapons capability.

  But the American had been shocked to be met at the drop zone by members of the Kempetei. One of the three was executed on the spot. The true surprise for the captured American who told this story to Abayon was that the third American, a man named David Lansale, was greeted by the Kempetei not only as if they expected him, but as if he were a guest.

  All this Abayon had told her at her last meeting with him, before he sent her away, as if he were anticipating his coming death. After his escape from Unit 731 and the end of the war, Abayon tried to find out who this David Lansale was, who was greeted by the Japanese while the two countries were locked in a life and death struggle.

  Supposedly he was an operative of the OSS, but Abayon found out that was just a cover. Abayon found information suggesting that Lansale was an envoy sent from the Organization's American branch to the Japanese representatives of the Organization, to coordinate the course of the war and the disbursement of the Golden Lily when the war was over. He found out that Lansale met with Emperor Hirohito's brother, Prince Chichibu, to coordinate the Golden Lily project. The deal made was that the Japanese could continue the Golden Lily, unopposed by the Allies, but that none of the loot was to be sent back to Japan proper.

  Most of the riches were sent to the Philippines, some to other places, but none to Japan. It was a trade, Abayon had explained to her: by putting the Golden Lily in places where the Allies, particularly the United States, could recover it easily after the war, the Allies agreed to leave the Japanese Emperor in position after the war, a rather remarkable thing in hindsight.

  As he finished telling her this, Abayon had laid on her another piece of startling information, this in regard to the agent David Lansale: that he was photographed in Dallas on November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated.

  And now Lansale had risen once
more, a specter in her life, in the form of the FedEx package she had received just the other day, containing the information about the Citadel.

  Fatima believed that Kaito-and the Black Tentacle-were just an outer ring of the Japanese representatives of the Organization. And now she waited to find out if she could delve deeper.

  At a knock at the door, Fatima turned her head. She drew the silenced pistol and stood in the corner, in the shadows. "Come in," she called out.

  A man entered, just a dark figure. He took two steps and halted, hands well away from his sides. "I bring a message from the Oyabun. He says you look in the wrong direction. Japan is not where you want to go. The Black Tentacle is significant in its dealings with this Organization for the things they do for it. For one of those things that connects with what you seek, you want to follow the path of I-401."

  Fatima was confused. "What is I-401?"

  "A World War II Japanese submarine," the man said. "You can learn about it easily enough doing basic research. What you cannot learn easily enough is its last mission. And where it ended up. Even we do not know that. But if you do, then you will learn of this Citadel you seek."

  "Who would know?" Fatima asked.

  "Someone at the docks in the old American naval base. There is an old tug captain named Shibimi. He is a member of the Black Tentacle. We will let you know where and when you can meet him."

  With that the man turned and was gone, shutting the door behind him.

  Fatima slowly lowered her pistol. Her grandfather had just died on board a World War II era submarine. And now she must find the whereabouts of another one. This did not bode well.

  * * *

  A block away, the man who had been listening to Fatima 's Yakuza meeting lowered the lid on the metal case that held the laptop computer. He had picked up the conversation in Fatima 's room quite easily from his position in the windowless rear of a black van. He slid through a curtain to the front of the rental van and drove to the hotel where he was staying. It was much nicer than Fatima 's. He parked in the garage and retired to his room.

  Then he opened up a state of the art satellite radio and sent a coded message.

  CHAPTER 3

  Switzerland

  Lake Geneva, or Lac Léman, as it is locally known, stretches in a northward arc from Geneva at one end, in the west, to Montreux at the other end, in the east. Built atop a rocky outcrop on the shore of the lake is Chillon Castle, just south of Montreux.

  As castles should be and usually are, Chillon is located at a strategic point, controlling the narrow road that ran between the lake and adjacent mountains. This road had been a major north-south thoroughfare dating back at least to the days of the Roman Empire. It led to the Great St. Bernard Pass, the only connection between northern and southern Europe for hundreds of miles in either direction, east or west.

  On top of the original Roman outpost, a castle had been built in the ninth century A.D. to guard the road. The counts of Savoy razed that rudimentary structure and began building the current castle in the middle of the twelfth century. It was modified and rebuilt numerous times over the centuries that followed.

  The castle has a unique design because of the spot on which it sits. The side facing the road and landward is a typical fortress wall, designed for military purposes. The side facing the lake, however, has the air of a summer residence for very rich people, which it has been over the centuries. It was very unlikely that an enemy would come over the Great St. Bernard Pass hauling boats with them, which determined the unique construction of the castle complex.

  During the Romantic Era of the nineteenth century, the castle gained fame throughout the world in narratives by writers and poets such as Victor Hugo, Rousseau, Shelley, Dumas, and most notably, Lord Byron. The Prisoner of Chillon by Byron revolved around the legend of the imprisonment of Bonivard in the castle's dungeon in the sixteenth century.

  All this is the known history of the castle.

  The unknown history is much more interesting, for it was here that the Organization, whose name was always kept secret, established their headquarters in the Year of our Lord 1289. It was from Chillon that the High Counsel who oversaw the destruction of the Knights Templar and the burning of Jacques De Molay at the stake in 1314 rode forth, and it was to Chillon that he returned from Paris.

  The Organization understood the concept that their headquarters had to be both secure and accessible, as they had dealings around the world. Long before The Purloined Letter was written, the Organization decided that the best place to hide their headquarters was in plain sight. At that time Switzerland was in the center of the known civilized world. The lords of Savoy owed their good fortune-as did almost all the great families in Europe-to the Organization, so it was not difficult to have two parts to the castle: the part that even today a tourist can go and see, and the part that no one except those who are part of the Organization's highest ranks can enter or even know exists.

  It is not by chance that Switzerland has gone to extreme lengths to maintain its neutrality through numerous wars, including both world wars, an amazing feat considering its central location in Europe. It is also not by chance that Switzerland is the banking center of the world. The Organization did not deal in chance. They dealt in logic, power, and control. In essence, much like Vatican City is run by the Pope and Church, Switzerland has been controlled by the Organization for centuries.

  In the early days of the castle, the Organization met in a secret room adjacent to the dungeon, where the sound of the waves of Lake Geneva lapping against the stone walls could be heard intermingled with the moans and cries of the prisoners, a mixture that seemed to be indicative of the way the group conducted itself.

  As time went on and technology improved, the Organization dug deeper into the granite below the castle. Today it is not a large complex, but contains perhaps the most sophisticated computer and intelligence center in the world, rivaling anything in the Pentagon or at Microsoft.

  The center of the complex is known simply as the Intelligence Center, or I.C. It is a circular chamber, exactly ten meters across. The walls are lined with the largest flat-screen displays available, all of which are hooked into the main computer. In the center of the I.C., on a series of four progressively raised platforms, much like a large wedding cake, sat four men. Each level could rotate at the man's command who occupied it, allowing each a 360-degree view of the displays.

  The seating arrangement also reflected pecking order in the four levels, with the man at the bottom being senior. The four men, called "Assessors," work six-hour shifts, which can be extended indefinitely during periods of crisis to allow someone who was on duty during the initiation of the crisis to always be present until the crisis is resolved.

  The Assessors sat in comfortable chairs, with a keyboard extended across their laps. They didn't use a mouse, but rather, wore gloves that had photo-optic leads attached with which they could interact with whatever data came up on the screens by pointing and bending their fingers. It was a complicated system that required six months of full-time equipment training before a new Assessor was allowed into the I.C. for his or her first shift.

  While sophisticated and cutting edge, the true genius of the I.C. was buried one level below: the computer that ran the system. It was the most powerful mainframe in the world. The Organization could afford it. As important as the hardware was the software. The Organization had its own software company located in Geneva that worked only on its projects, the primary one called the COAP: Course of Action Projector.

  Understanding that human beings were flawed in the analysis of information and intelligence, the Organization was trying to develop a software program to do it more efficiently. At present, version 3.2 was loaded into the mainframe below the I.C., while the programmers in Geneva labored on 3.3. The COAP took in all the data it could gather-a staggering amount, given the capabilities of the Internet-and tried to project what was going to happen based on probabilities. It was cold, it wa
s logical, and it worked 72.3 percent of the time, at least based on results for the past five years. With 3.3, the Organization was hoping to get that rating up over 80 percent.

  The machine, however, never had the final word. That was left to the High Counsel, who had his office in a chamber forty-two meters from the center of the I.C. He communicated via secure intercom with the Assessors and had no direct access to COAP, an interesting arrangement, in that it meant the computer's projections came to the High Counsel through humans.

  A problem now on the screens and being considered by the Assessors was the disturbing information being forwarded from the Philippines. The intercepted conversations between Fatima and Takase, and then Fatima and Takase's representative, had just been played, and all four Assessors were lined up, like blocks ready to tumble over each other, listening to it.

  As the tape came to a close, the High Counsel's voice echoed out of the speakers in the I.C. ceiling: "Do we know for sure it was Lansale who sent the information to Fatima?"

  COAP had been analyzing intelligence concerning this for over twelve minutes now, an eternity for the machine. One of the Assessors shifted his ring and seat slightly to the left to look at the results to answer the High Counsel.

  "Eighty-two percent probability that Lansale was behind it."

  "And the probability that Fatima can track I-401?"

  A different Assessor had been working on that. "That's difficult to figure because we don't know what exactly was in the packet that Lansale sent her."

  "Do we know where I-401 went?"

  "No, sir. That was a joint Far East and North American Table operation at the end of World War II."