Barracuda: Final Bearing

He made a full turn, looking and listening for observers in the scrubby growth around him. All was quiet. The pad computer aural sensors were tuned to pick out man-made noises and would alert Namuru by buzzing the flesh of his forearm, but until that function proved itself it was not to be assumed that it worked. After a last glance at the pad display, Namuru set off in the direction of the compound.

YOKOSUKA CENTER

“So how will he get through the perimeter fence and security?” Prime Minister Kurita asked, watching raptly as the screen display jiggled and showed Major Namuru walking through the thick trees on the downslope of a mountain leading to the Tamga valley. The view on one panel of the display showed the trees and underbrush approaching the camera; a second panel showed a fisheye-lens view of a puffy-looking face beaded with sweat, the eyes wide and hyper alert; the third panel revealed a grid superimposed on a bird’s-eye view of the valley with a flashing circle nearing a fenceline surrounding a military compound.

“Not a problem,” General Gotoh replied, glancing from the screen to Kurita’s lined face, then back to the display. “Namuru has gas for dogs, a silenced automatic for human guards, shorting cables for electrified fences.

We’ve spent six months training him in the use of every security measure we know. He’s consistently penetrated them 78 percent of the time.”

“Seventy-eight percent doesn’t sound like it’s passing.”

“That is against Japanese technology perimeter security,” Gotoh said, typing into a keyboard in front of his control console. “Against gaijin methods, he will be more than the equal of a security detail.”

“Tell me again how he is going to get inside the bunker, if that is what it is.” “He’ll shoot the guards,” Gotoh said simply, his eyes still on the display, careful not to let a flicker of annoyance cross his face at Kurita’s insistence on covering briefing material over and over.

“Does he have to do that? It would seem to imperil the mission, draw attention to the breakin.”

“True, Prime Minister. But guards of nuclear weapons are trained — conditioned is perhaps a better term — to shoot intruders. They call it Deadly Force Authorization.

It means shoot first and forget the questions. The quickest way to penetrate the security around a nuclear weapon is to surprise the guards and kill them. Even then, one’s life expectancy is numbered in the minutes, perhaps only seconds. That’s why Namuru has the cameras.

If he’s shot we’ll still have the data.”

“What about the time delay? They might disconnect and destroy his camera before we know what happened.”

“Unavoidable, I’m afraid, sir. But it is unlikely that if Namuru and his gear is captured that the gaijin Greater Manchurians could understand that he is transmitting.

By the time they realized it, we would know all that Namuru knew.”

In the panel monitoring Namuru’s view a bush flashed close to the camera, then rolled away to reveal a length of fencing between two trees. The right panel showing the navigation display changed, a graph replacing the aerial photograph, the graph pulsing with circular curves.

“The fence is electrified with high voltage,” Gotoh announced. The view from Namuru’s helmet blurred as he approached the fence. Namuru’s hands flashed in and out of view, attaching a cable to the fence, just before the fireball exploded and the screens again went blank.

Namuru looked at the fence as his computer pad flickered with the electromagnetic signature of 11,000 volts surging through the aluminum cable braided through the fence. What could be seen through the fence was limited, since there were more trees there and little else.

Namuru snaked out the electrical cables that were in the back of the heavy vest, uncoiled the heavy insulated wires, withdrew the lengths of copper rods half a meter at a time. He screwed the copper rod lengths together, until there was a two-meter-long copper rod, then attempted to force the rod into the ground. It went in halfway, then had to be tapped with a rubber mallet from another vest pocket until the rod was buried in the ground with only five centimeters protruding.

Namuru hid the mallet under a bush. At least after this, he thought, much of the weight he’d carried in would be left behind. He took a cable and attached it to the top of the copper rod with a heavy copper clamp.

The other end of the cable he attached to a large alligator clip, then stepped back to inspect his work. He unfastened the computer pad and digital receiver watch, his vest and his utility leggings so that most of the metal objects were removed from his body. He put on the thick 100,000-volt rubber gloves. His boots were already wrapped in insulating material, one of the reasons his feet were so uncomfortably hot.