"Then how about starting off this 'tutorial' with a look at your new plane?" Vance glanced around. "Guess I should call it _Daedalus_."

"_Daedalus I _and_ II. _There actually are two prototypes, although only one is currently certified to operate in the hypersonic regime.

Yes, I expected the _Daedalus_ would intrigue you. You are a man of insatiable intellectual appetite."

"I'm not sure that's necessarily a compliment."

"It wasn't necessarily meant to be. Sometimes curiosity needs to be curbed. But if we can agree on certain matters, I shall enjoy providing you a personal tour, to satisfy that curiosity. You are a man who can well appreciate both my technological achievement and my strategic coup."

The old boy's finally gone off the deep end, Vance told himself.

Megalomania. "Incidentally, by 'strategic coup' I suppose you're referring to the fact you've got them exactly where you want them. The Soviets."

"What do you mean?" His eyes hardened slightly.

"You know what I mean. They probably don't realize it yet, but you're going to end up with the Soviet Far East in your wallet. For the price of a hot airplane, you get to plunder the region. They're even going to be thanking you while you reclaim Sakhalin for Japan. This _Daedalus_ spaceship is going to cost them the ranch. Have to admit it's brilliant. Along with financing the whole scheme by swindling Benelux tax dodgers."

"You are too imaginative for your own good, Dr. Vance," he said, a thin smile returning. "Nobody is going to believe your interpretation of the protocol."

"You've got a point. Nobody appreciates the true brilliance of a criminal mind. Or maybe they just haven't known you as long as I have."

"Really, I'd hoped we would not descend to trading insults." He reached to refill Vance's sake saucer. "It's demeaning. Instead I'd hoped we could proceed constructively."

"Why not."

"Well then, perhaps you'll forgive me if I'm somewhat blunt. I'm afraid my time is going to be limited over the next few hours. I may as well tell you now that we are about to have the first hypersonic test of the _Daedalus_. Tomorrow morning we will take her to Mach 25. Seventeen thousand miles per hour. A speed almost ten times greater than any air- breathing vehicle has ever before achieved."

"The sky's the limit," he whistled quietly. Alex hadn't known the half of it. This was the ultimate plane.

"Impressive, I think you'll agree." Mino smiled and poured more sake for himself.

"Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"That ought to grease the way in the Diet for your deal. And the protocol's financial grab ought to sail through the Supreme Soviet. You prove this marvel can work and the rest is merely laundering your profits."

"So I would like to think," he nodded. "Of course, one never knows how these things will eventually turn out."

"So when do I get a look at it?"

"Why, that all depends on certain agreements we need to make."

"Then I guess it's time I heard the bottom line."

"Most assuredly." He leaned back. "Dr. Vance, you have just caused me considerable hardship. Nor is this the first occasion you have done so.

Yet, I have not achieved what I have to date without becoming something of a judge of men. The financial arrangements you put together in London demonstrated, I thought, remarkable ingenuity. There could be a place for you in my organization, despite all that has happened between us."

"I don't work for the mob, if that's what you're hoping."

"Don't be foolhardy. Those days are well behind me," he went on calmly, despite the flicker of anger in his eyes. "The completion of this project will require financial and strategic skills well beyond those possessed by the people who have worked for me in the past."

"All those petty criminals and hoods, you mean."

"I will choose to ignore that," he continued. "Whatever you may wish to call them, they are not proving entirely adequate to the task at hand.

You bested my European people repeatedly and brought me a decided humiliation."

Speaking of which, Vance found himself suddenly wondering, a thought out of the blue, what's happened to Vera? She's been European point woman for this whole scam. Where's she now?

Mino continued. "Therefore I must now either take you into my organization or . . ." He paused. "It's that simple. Which, I wonder, will it be?"

Vance studied him. "A lot depends on what happens to Eva."

"The fate of Dr. Borodin depends largely on your decision. So perhaps I should give you some time to think it over." He leaned back. "Or perhaps some inducement."

Vance didn't know what he meant. At first. Then he turned and looked behind him. There waiting on the stony walkway of the garden were three of Tanzan Mino's personal _kobun_, two of whom he recognized from London. The CEO's instructions to them were in rapid-fire Japanese, but he needed no translation as they moved forward.

Thursday 5:18 P.M.

Yuri Andreevich was mad as hell. After his one-on-one with Tanzan Mino, he knew he'd been screwed. Sticking a couple of "pilots" from Mino Industries in the cockpit. It was just the old GRU trick, surveillance under the specious guise of "support." He'd seen it all before.

But he'd had an idea. A flash. What about the woman Nikolai had seen?

The one he said was T-Directorate?

A knockout. That's what Nikolai had claimed, so she shouldn't be hard to track down. He'd been methodically working the crowded corridors of the North Quadrant, checking every open doorway. Although the facility was huge and sprawling, he figured she'd probably be somewhere here close to Command Sector.

Where the hell could she be?

One thing was sure: Tanzan Mino was as sharp as all the rumors said.

The bastard had been on-site for less than a day and already he'd suspected that something was brewing. So he'd made his own preemptive strike.

The problem now was, how to outsmart him.

This T-Directorate operative had to be the way. After he got her into a receptive mood, he'd lay out his case. Point out he had enough to worry about in the cockpit without playing flight instructor to a couple of Mino Industries greenhorns. He'd never flown an experimental plane with civilian copilots and he damned sure wasn't going to start now.

Especially now.

_Govno_! Where the hell was she?