We're going pretty far into RCW speculation territory here, so I'll just say two things:

>There is one piece that nobody appears to have picked up on:
>
>>Iona glanced at Corwin, received a nod, and replied, "Long-range
>>submarine I-401."
>>"Four-oh-one! Huh. I thought you were scrapped," Tenryū said.

I had assumed Tenryū was referring to the original, non-Fog I-401 there, but now you point it out, that doesn't make any sense; why would Tenryū know or care about that?

>There-in lies an interesting possibility. Supposed the original shell
>of I-401 -was- scrapped, but the core was not? Placed back in
>stasis, left in a particular location, or whatever. That could explain
>why Miss James only had the single Core, and why it required a bit of
>work to reactivate. Also, if she was scrapped, Iona would then likely
>have been the -least- well-informed member of the group in terms of
>what happened after the war.

I was also assuming that the briefcase sold to the Black Rose was bigger on the inside, and did in fact contain all of Fog!I-401. Earthforce has access to nanomaterial, but why would Akio's goons?