“I agree,” Paul said. “But rather than expecting one giant seamount, we should look for a widespread buckling of the crust somewhere along the edge of the tectonic plates. It would show up as the beginning of a new mountain range. But even if the heights were not remarkable, the length and breadth of the mountain chain would make up for it. A low-level buckling that ran along the boundary of the Pacific or Australian plates would move a great deal of water out of the way. If it ran the full length, the hills would only have to be a hundred feet high and four or five hundred feet wide. That would displace more than enough water to raise the sea level in the manner we’ve recorded. The higher and wider the new range is, the shorter its length would need to be.”
Kurt was intrigued but not yet sold. “Okay, you’re in the ballpark. Now close the deal. Show me some proof. If a subsurface mountain range is forming due to a buckling plate, wouldn’t we see a large uptick in seismic activity?”
“I’d expect to,” Paul said.
“And?”
“We’re not picking up anything unusual,” he admitted. “Or should I say, none of the international seismic networks have reported anything. But there is someone out there claiming to have detected an uptick of tremors.”
Kurt considered the notes he’d seen. “Kenzo Fujihara.”
Paul nodded. “He’s a Japanese scientist who insists he’s detected a new type of seismic wave that no one else is monitoring. He calls them Z-waves. He says he’s detected thousands of them over the last eleven months coming from somewhere in the Pacific plate boundary layer. But he refuses to publish any details explaining what these Z-waves are or how he actually detects them.”
“Have you reached out to him?”
“By telegram,” Paul said.
Kurt’s eyebrows went up. “Telegram? Did we suddenly travel back to the eighteen hundreds?”
Joe grinned. “Tough room. Now you know how I felt.”
Gamay laughed softly, but Paul was serious.
“The sound you hear is the other shoe dropping,” he said. “It turns out Kenzo Fujihara is the leader of an antitechnologist movement. They are of the opinion that Japan is destroying itself through an obsession with electronics. He and his followers don’t do phone calls, emails, texts or video conferencing. He published his findings in a newsprint-style manuscript, printed on a homemade printing press. One that Ben Franklin would have recognized.”
Paul continued. “He claims the government of Japan and the technological-industrial complex of the nation are out to get him. He and his followers have been called a radical group, sect, even a cult. And he’s been accused of brainwashing people and holding them against their will.”
“Not really asking to be taken seriously, is he?”
“He was once an acclaimed geologist,” Paul added. “A rising star. And according to his paper, the Z-waves began eleven months back, increased suddenly six months ago and increased again in the last thirty days.”
The correlation escaped no one. It matched exactly with the various stages of the sea-level rise.
Kurt gazed into the coffee cup as if the answer might lie within. “Is this our best lead?”
“Actually, it’s our only lead,” Joe said.
“Good point,” Kurt replied. “I’ll have a NUMA jet waiting at the airport in two hours. Don’t anyone be late. We’re flying to Japan.”
5
TOKYO
WALTER HAN was used to a luxurious lifestyle, but he’d grown up on the streets of Hong Kong and held a certain affinity for the back alleys of the world and the inhabitants who dwelled in them.
Traveling to a bad part of Tokyo with an escort of three bodyguards, he entered the parlor of a man who now worked for him in a freelance capacity.
Greetings were exchanged, assurances given and all parties scanned for electronic devices. With their phones and shoes taken, Han was allowed to enter the back room.
There, he found the person he was looking for. Lithe, sinuous and covered with tattoos, the man was known as Ushi-Oni, or Oni for short. The name meant demon, and if the man had killed half the people he claimed to have killed, he’d earned the name several times over.
Oni sat cross-legged on the floor, bathed in a reddish light. He was thinner than Han recalled. His eyes wilder.
“I’m surprised to see you back here,” Oni said.
“I have another job for you.”
“To abduct more American servicemen?”