Flashback

Sato turned toward Nick, who thought the security chief looked infinitely more at home in the samurai armor than he had in his usual black or gray suits and ties. “Joe will be riding with us, the other three in the second truck. You had best get into your body armor, Bottom-san.”

Their two vehicles were made to look like Toyota Land Cruisers, but once Nick saw the scale with men standing next to them, he realized that both SUVs—a quaint term from Nick’s childhood and young-adult years—were about twice the size of even the largest vehicle from the venerable line of what he and Dara had called Land Crushers. He’d also noticed that the “Land Cruisers” had no windows of any sort—not even windshields. Every part of the rugged, dull-matte-painted surface was the same desert-tan mix of steel, Kevlar-9, and various alloys.

In truth, Sato explained after Nick had struggled into his definitely-not-samurai-looking cop armor, these vehicles were the Japanese military’s blend of the most effectively armored-up civilian trucks they had along with the twenty-year-old but constantly refined U.S. Army’s Oshkosh B’Gosh M-ATV, which stood, Sato explained, for “Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected All-Terrain Vehicle.”

This Land Cruiser’s belly was four feet off the ground and V-shaped to deflect IED blasts from beneath. In an age where every granny lady on the block paid extra to have her Chevrolet up-armored so she could get to the supermarket without being blown away, this M-ATV was still exceptional.

The huge Michelin tires were not only centrally inflatable from the cabin and two-hundred-mile run-flats, but were woven of metallic mesh. The four wheels were connected to TAK-7 military independent suspensions that would transmit only the slightest of bumps if the big vehicle decided to run over a platoon of enemy soldiers. Instead of batteries or an internal-combustion engine demanding gasoline or diesel, the two trucks were moved by two Caterpillar C10, inline-8, 700-horsepower, 1,880-pound-feet of torque turbines powered by “radioactive elements” in the vehicle’s armored core of cores. In other words, Sato explained, the two Land Cruiser–Oshkoshes could drive twice around the world without stopping to refuel.

“Decent mileage” was Nick’s response. Joe was helping him to strap in and the restraints included not only five-point metal-mesh harnesses but a series of restraint clips that attached him permanently to his sarcophagus of a passenger seat. Enmeshed in his body armor as well as the deep tub of the crash seat and harnesses, Nick suddenly wished he’d taken time to pee.

As if reading his mind, the red-samurai-armored figure behind the wheel said, “There’s a relief tube there in the door that you can attach for urinary purposes, Bottom-san. The urine will be stored in a receptacle—up to three gallons—there in the door until we stop to empty it.”

“Three gallons,” said Nick. “Great.”

There were no windows or windshields visible from the outside of the Land Cruiser, but there was the perfect illusion from the inside of two large windshields in front of Sato and Nick. It was 3DHD, the image gathered from a multitude of external micro-cams, and the data and smaller images superimposed on the “windshield” at the driver’s command furthered the illusion by looking like a regular heads-up display.

Joe was trying to put an oxygen mask on Nick.

“I don’t need that.”

“You do,” came Sato’s voice in his earphones. “If the vehicle is hit by a shell or IED blast, there will be no oxygen in the compartment.”

Nick assumed that this was because of fire-quenching elements such as CO₂ or some sort of firefighting foam and let it go. The oxygen mask had a microphone embedded in it and the surrounding helmet of the sarcophagus-seat had the earphones pressed against his head. Sato showed him the floor switch that Nick could click once with his foot to put him on a private comm line with Sato, twice to include Joe, and three times to tie into the radio band between the two vehicles and all six men.

“What else should I do here from the passenger seat?” asked Nick. He was all but encircled by high-tech consoles, LCD panels, switches, and levers.

“Absolutely nothing,” said Sato. “Touch nothing, Bottom-san.”

“Great,” said Nick, wondering if he should use the relief tube yet. He decided to wait until Sato and Joe were busy with something else.

Nick couldn’t shift in his concave cradle of a seat to look back at Joe as the third man got busy behind him, but the dash monitor showed an interior view so Nick could watch the mercenary tuck himself into his own seat.

The rest of the Land Cruiser wasn’t exactly showroom stock. The rear seat and cargo areas were empty except for lockers everywhere on the bulkheads and Joe’s elaborate chair. To Nick’s surprise, that chair now rose through the roof of the truck with Joe clutching what looked to be an M260 7.62mm machine gun.