She let out a long breath and picked up her beer again. “That’s why it was developed in Fukushima, right, Doc? So they’d have a way to kill it if they lost control.”

“That would be my guess. Everything was probably going along fine and then the tsunami caused a containment breach. It forced them to irradiate Reactor Four.”

“Okay. Let’s assume they’re still working on this thing—either developing it or manufacturing it. They’d still need that safeguard, right? Access to radiation.”

“I assume so.”

“Okay. Then put yourself in their shoes. Where would you be?”

“A nuclear sub would be ideal. Easy to irradiate and even if you didn’t get them all, they’d end up at the bottom of the ocean. With no fuel chain, they’d corrode in the salt water before they could make it to civilization.”

“It’s a little hard to make pronouncements about the Japanese military right now, but building something as big as a nuclear sub without anyone knowing doesn’t seem plausible. Even for Takahashi.”

“Yeah, I thought of that too,” Maple said. “But I have a theory. Do you want to hear it?”

“Hell yes, I want to hear it.”

“A few years ago, the Japanese built a facility to store the nuclear waste from their reactors. It’s carved out of a mountain in the northeast. That’s it. If I was working on this thing, that’s where I’d be set up.”

46

46

Outside Melbourne
Australia

President Sam Adams Castilla stood at the massive window and looked out over the rows of vines stretching to the horizon. The sun had just set, casting long shadows across the landscape and obscuring all but one man patrolling the grounds with a German shepherd.

The house was on loan from an Australian manufacturing magnate whom he’d known since he was the governor of New Mexico. Its relative isolation made it easier for the Secret Service to secure as well as a more appealing venue for the negotiations he was hosting. Setting was more important than most people realized. Warm, comfortable, and serene. Those were things that put people in the mood to compromise.

A quick glance at his watch confirmed that it was time. As the president of the United States it was his prerogative to keep people waiting, but he sensed it would be a mistake in this case.

He walked across the expansive bedroom suite and into the long second-floor hallway. Two Secret Service men fell in behind, talking quietly into microphones hidden near their wrists to tell their team that he was on the move.

Normally he would have greeted them by name, but not today. Today he was lost in his own thoughts.