Page 39 of Croatia Collateral

“Because they are hackers,” Strüngmann supplied. “You trust them to hack into foreign countries’ data and grids, but would you trust them to keep your secrets? They are nothing more than hired criminals. I would not trust them with my bank account. Certainly not with my life.”

Rabinovich’s face flushed an angry red.

“Gentlemen,” Yamaguchi said. “Please.” Her softly spoken command for attention drew the two men’s focus back to her. She entered another room with stone floors, walls and ceilings like the other huge one. This one was smaller with three other doors as if the room was the hub, and the doors would lead into other passageways like spokes of a wheel.

Dax wondered how Maas had acquired what seemed to be the entire subterranean level of Old Town Dubrovnik without securing ownership of the buildings above. The man was one of the wealthiest men on the planet, but surely a place as historically significant as Dubrovnik couldn’t be bought.

Then again, if the price was right and the country needed the money, what would it hurt to sell the cellar to a crazy rich man?

Yamaguchi turned to the door on the right, keyed the code into the keypad and led them down yet another passage. Thankfully, this one was shorter than some of the others.

Dax would soon lose track of the number of passages and the turns they’d made. He hoped they would arrive at the operation center Yamaguchi had alluded to.

She stopped at another door. Here, she slid the black plate upward, keyed in the code and paused to look back at Dax. “Do you want to do the honors?” She stood back.

Beside the keypad was what appeared to be an iris or retinal scanner. His heart skipped several beats before the beats came back with a thunderous vengeance. He waved his hand. “Not necessary. This is all your work. You do the honors.”

For a moment, her eyes narrowed as she stared at him, a slight pucker in her brow.

Dax held his breath. If she insisted on him performing a scan of his eye, the game would be over.

“Very well,” she said finally, turning, leaning her face close to the scanner and staring into it. A lock clicked, and the door swung open into a brightly-lit, modern room where the stone walls had been painted bright white and modern tables had been installed.

The wall to the left was covered in large display monitors. Four stations were set up in front of the wall, with monitors, computers, keyboards and modems. Two men sat in front of two of the computer stations. On the right was a raised area, that overlooked the floor below. A plexiglass wall separated this area from the rest. From what Dax could make out, it had an array of monitors and two computer stations.

“As you directed,” Yamaguchi said, “we installed the stations we needed with redundancy for each. The wall on our left is comprised of four sets of displays. The first two tap into webcams scattered across the port of Shanghai and the surrounding city.”

Dax studied the images of the massive port operations conducted on a daily basis from Shanghai. Targeting it with an electromagnetic pulse would devastate their operation and cause mass chaos among the people who lived there.

Trains, buses and automobiles would cease to work. Electric grids would be disabled for who knows how long it would take to repair. Twenty-five million people would be without power. A hit like that could take years to recover from. The number of displaced persons would be impossible to manage. Millions would die before they could get enough help.

“The next two sets of displays tap into webcams from various large ports across China, Japan, Taiwan, India, the US and European nations,” Yamaguchi said, her gaze on the monitors. “We can also bring up images from satellites focusing on military installations around the world.”

The monitors flicked from one site to another, pausing only a few seconds before going to the next. Dax recognized London and Houston among the ports flashing by. Then, the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. A naval port flying a Russian flag, a military installation in a desert location. Dax couldn’t tell if it was in the Middle East, but that would be his guess.

Yamaguchi turned to the plexiglass room on the right. “In the operation center, we have two stations. The primary and a backup. These stations are connected to an array of satellites positioned worldwide, thanks to Evan Maas San.” She dipped her head in deference toward Dax. “Each of the satellites is equipped with the ability to emit electromagnetic pulses that can target precise locations down to a one-mile radius.”

“That does not sound very specific,” Strüngmann said in his stilted English. “I thought you could be more exact on target acquisition.”

All gazes turned to Dax. He’d read a little bout EMPs but didn’t possess the extent of knowledge Evan Maas must have. They waited for him to explain something he wasn’t familiar with. “I’ve experimented with a smaller version of the device,” he said, pulling bullshit out of his ass. “No matter how much I adjust, the pulse spreads wider than my target. Shanghai is a massive target. The energy necessary to cripple such a large city will affect a large swath I can’t accurately predict.”

Rabinovich’s bushy eyebrows descended. “Could it spread worldwide?”

Dax backpaddled. “No. No. The device will only impact the area around Shanghai.”

“The test will help you to see and understand,” Yamaguchi said.

“Where is the test site,” Galeotti asked.

Yamaguchi met Dax’s gaze. “It’s a small town on the coast of China in the Guandong Province. It has a limited port operation. There are a number of other small cities nearby. We have positioned webcams in the target city and those surrounding it. The test pulse will help us determine how accurate and specific the effects will be.”

Strüngmann held up his hands. “This is the first test you have run with this device? How do you know it will not impact the entire world?” He shook his head. “I want increased business, not a blitzkrieg.”

Dax held up his hands, guessing at what Maas would have done up to this point. “It will be the first test on a target this size. My team has performed hundreds of tests on smaller locations, expanding to a drug cartel’s compound in Columbia, an isolated resort on the coast of Mexico and a terrorists’ training compound in Pakistan. Each test helped us calculate the amount of energy needed for the target size.”

“The point is,” Yamaguchi said, “targeted EMPs work. We only have to test on a larger target before we direct it toward Shanghai.” She nodded toward Dax. “We can begin now.”

Well, damn.

---