High Flight - Softcover

David Hagberg is a former Air Force cryptographer who has traveled extensively in Europe, the Arctic, and the Caribbean and has spoken at CIA functions. He has published more than twenty novels of suspense, including the bestselling High Flight, Assassin, and Joshua’s Hammer. He makes his home in Vero Beach, Florida.

David Hagberg is a former Air Force cryptographer who has traveled extensively in Europe, the Arctic, and the Caribbean and has spoken at CIA functions. He has published more than twenty novels of suspense, including the bestselling High Flight, Assassin, and Joshua's Hammer. He makes his home in Vero Beach, Florida.

SPRING 1990

PROLOGUE

Anarrow beam of light flashed suddenly in the dark confines of the airliner's electronics bay. A slightly built man dressed in the white coveralls of an American Airlines maintenance technician directed the penlight toward a particular equipment rack. The boards were all dead. Not even standby power was being supplied to the jetliner parked at the ramp. The man studied the rack, and those on either side of it in the cramped quarters, then turned his flashlight away.

Hunching down on his knees, he opened his tool kit and took out a plastic box, barely one inch on a side, laid it on the deck, then took out a screwdriver and began removing the six screws that held a narrow electronics panel marked HEAT MONITOR/ALARM, ENGINE, PORT in the center rack.

Miyazaki Oshima's movements were as precise as they were soundless. He had practiced the drill dozens of times so that he could not possibly make a mistake. When he finished he set the screwdriver aside, slid the panel out from its slot in the rack, and propped it at an angle against his knees. Holding the penlight in hismouth and directing it on the subassembly's innards, he slid the cover panel back until its spring-loaded catches released, then removed it and put it aside. The unit was crammed with electronic modules each containing one or more computer chips. Few other components or wiring were visibile from the top. A metal tag bore the legend PE171.314.LP522, INTERTECH CORP:, SAN FRANCISCO, CA., which matched the number on the small plastic box lying beside him on the deck.

Oshima cocked his head to listen for any sound from above that might indicate someone was coming. But the equipment bay was utterly still. The air was close. It smelled of lubricating oil, hydraulic fluid, kerojet, and electronics. Irrationally he thought of this place as a coffin.

Using a special tool that looked like a four-inch plastic pry bar, he removed one of the modules from the heat monitor/alarm subassembly, and replaced it with the one from the plastic box. Both modules were identical to the naked eye, and no routine maintenance diagnostic test would tell them apart.

Making sure that the replacement module was firmly seated in its receptacle, he replaced the subassembly's cover panel, reengaging its catches, then slid the entire unit back into the equipment rack, pushing firmly to make sure the contact bar pins fully mated. Forcing himself not to speed up, not to make any mistake, he refastened the six screws holding the unit in place, returned the screwdriver, pry bar, and plastic box that now contained the original module to his tool kit, and carefully examined the area immediately around each screw head in case he had inadvertently scratched the metal. If he had, he could touch it up, but he had not, and he was satisfied.

He remained crouched for a moment or two, listening, feeling, trying to sense the essence of the jetliner and the people who would fly in her soon. And die in her.

He switched off the penlight and by touch returned it to his tool kit. The feeling of distress, he was taught, wasthe root of benevolence. He felt as if he was finally becoming gishi--a man of rectitude. Of giri--duty.

"It is true courage to live when it is right to live, and to die only when it is right to die." The precepts of Bushido, the Japanese warrior's code of honor. "But courage is a virtue only in the case of righteousness."

Hiroshima. Nagasaki. These abominations to the Yamato Damashi--the soul--of Japan could not be forgotten. He'd been taught that, too, from childhood. He carried the resentment like a Samurai carried his swords.

But the parliament's kowtowing to Washington over nothing more than commerce also ate at Japan's soul.

At twenty-six, Oshima was not old enough to remember Yukio Mishima, Japan's greatest post-war novelist, who committed seppuku in 1970 to illustrate his belief that Japan's soul could be saved only by a return to Bushido. But he believed in what the master had taught, and at certain times his belief was clearly visible on his face as a saintly, beatific smile. He smiled now. By being here, by doing this thing, he was helping to preserve Japan.

"I want you to have no illusions about the job you are being asked to do," Arimoto Yamagata told him six months ago. "You understand everything?"

"Hai, Yamagata-san," Oshima had answered sharply.

"If your true purpose is discovered and you are arrested, we will deny any knowledge of you. The United States authorities will punish you, and when you finally come home you will be tried again, found guilty, and will be sentenced to a very long time in prison."

"Seppuku ..."

"There will be no honorable death for you, if you fail."

Yamagata's expression was stern, but the implication of what had gone unsaid made Oshima swell with pride. In failure there would be dishonor, but in success there would be rewards.

"I will not fail, Yamagata-san."

"I'm sure you will not," Yamagata said, finally smiling. They were seated alone, fifty miles outside of Tokyo, on a broad scrubbed teak deck that overlooked a pleasant garden. The gentle sounds of running water mingled with the musical tinkling of a windchime in the single, gnarled tree in the middle of the garden. The sand had been freshly raked, and Oshima had been asked to bear witness to the placing of a new rock near the pool. Yamagata called it "future," with a second name of "hope."

"I will think of this place often," Oshima had said.

"Yes, Oshima-san. And here I will think of you."

Yamagata worked for the powerful Ministry of International Trade and Industry--MITI--which was the nearest thing to an intelligence agency that Japan maintained. The ministry had influence in every corner of Japanese science, business, and government, and therefore nearly unlimited resources. Training Oshima on the proper equipment, in secret, getting him to the United States on a U.S. passport as Michael Oshima, and getting him the proper credentials so that he had access to the restricted sections of Chicago's O'Hare Airport had been no problem. Nor had getting through security this morning presented any difficulties. As a technician with the proper badges and work orders his presence was barely noticed.

Now it was time to leave.

Careful to make no noise, he picked up his tool kit, got to his feet, and climbed to the top of the ladder, where he stopped a moment to listen. So far as he could tell no one was aboard the aircraft. It was before 4:30 in the morning and this plane's first scheduled flight wasn't due out until 7:30 A.M. The first of the maintenance technicians and housekeeping crew wouldn't be showing up until 5:30, which left him a full hour to get out.

Plenty of time, he told himself. But he was jumpy.

He pushed the trap door open a crack. The interior of the plane was in darkness, only a dim light came through the windows from outside. He hesitated a momentlonger, then eased the trap door the rest of the way open. Laying his tool kit on the deck, he climbed up into the cockpit, careful to keep below the level of the windshield so that if someone outside happened to look this way, they would not see him.

He closed and relatched the trap door, picked up his tool kit, and scrambled back to the galley where he straightened up a few feet forward of the main hatch.

The weather was warm so the hatch was open directly onto the jetway back to the boarding gate. It had been figured into their contingency plans. If someone were on the ramp when he was ready to leave through the flight service area he could use...