sues, and he’d fully expected it to go easier in this case rather than harder.
After all, the twenty most senior zaibatsu were his staff now. Not that they
thought of themselves that way. Yamata-san smiled to himself. It was a
heady thought. Getting the government to dance to his tune had been child’s
play. Getting these men onboard had taken years of cajolery. But they were
dancing to his tune, and they just needed the bandmaster around from time to
time. And so he’d flown back on a nearly empty airliner to steady down their
nerves.
“It’s not possible,” he told them.
“But he said-”
‘ ‘Kozo, President Durling can say anything he wishes. I’m telling you that
it is not possible for them to rebuild their records in anything less than sev-
eral weeks. If they attempt to reopen their markets today all that will result is
chaos. And chaos,” he reminded them, “works in our favor.”
“And the Europeans?” Tanzan Itagake asked.
“They will wake up at the end of next week and discover that we have
bought their continent,” Yamata told them all. “In five years America will
be our grocer and Europe will be our boutique. By that time the yen will be
the world’s most powerful currency. By that time we will have a fully inte-
grated national economy and a powerful continental ally. Both of us will be
self-sufficient in all our resource needs. We will no longer have a population
that needs to abort its babies to keep from overpopulating our Home Islands.
And,” he added, “we will have political leadership worthy of our national
status. That is our next step, my friends.”
Indeed, Binichi Murakami thought behind an impassive face. He remem-
bered that he’d signed on partly as a result of being accosted on the streets of
Washington by a drunken beggar. How was it possible that someone as
clever as himself could be influenced by petty anger? But it had happened,
and now he was stuck with the rest. The industrialist sipped his sake and kept
his peace while Yamata-san waxed rhapsodic about their country’s future.
He was really talking about his own future, of course, and Murakami won-
dered how many of the men around the table saw that. Fools. But that was
hardly fair, was it? After all, he was one of them.
Major Boris Scherenko had no less than eleven highly placed agents within
the Japanese government, one of whom was the deputy head of the PSID, a
man he’d compromised some years before while on a sex and gambling trip
to Taiwan. He was the best possible person to have under control-it was
likely that he would one day graduate to chief of the agency and enable the
Tokyo rezidentura both to monitor and influence counterintelligence activ-
ity throughout the country. What confused the Russian intelligence officer
was that none of his agents had been of much help so far.
Then there was the issue of working with the Americans. Given his pro-
fessional training and experience, it was as if he were heading the welcom-
ing committee for diplomats arriving from Mars. The dispatch from
Moscow made it easier to accept. Or somewhat easier. It appeared that the
Japanese were planning to rob his country of her most precious potential
asset, in conjunction with China, and to use that power base to establish
themselves as the world’s most powerful nation. And the strangest thing of
all was that Scherenko did not think the plan crazy on its face. Then came his
tasking orders.
Twenty missiles, he thought. It was one area he’d never targeted for inves-
tigation. After all, Moscow had sold the things to them. They must have con-
sidered the possibility that the missiles could be used for-but, no, of course
they hadn’t. Scherenko promised himself that he’d sit down with this Clark
fellow, an experienced man, and after breaking the ice with a few drinks,
inquire delicately if the American’s political direction was as obtuse as that
which he received, regardless of the government in question. Perhaps the
American would have something useful to say. After all, their governments
changed every four or eight years. Perhaps they were used to it.
Twenty missiles, he thought. Six warheads each. Once it had been normal
to think of missiles as things that flew in thousands, and both sides had actu-
ally been mad enough to accept it as a strategic fact of life. But now, the
possibility of a mere ten or twenty-at whom would they really be aimed?
Would the Americans really stand up for their new . . . what? Friends? Al-
522
TOM CLANCY
lies? Associates? Or were they merely former enemies whose new status had
not yet been decided in Washington? Would they help his country against
the new/old danger? What kept coming back to him was, twenty missiles
times six warheads. They would be evenly targeted, and surely enough to
wreck his country. And if that were true, they would surely be enough to
deter America from helping.
Well, then Moscow is right, Scherenko judged. Full cooperation now was
the best way to avoid that situation. America wanted a location on the mis-
siles, probably with the intention of destroying them. And if they don’t, we
will.
The Major personally handled three of the agents. His subordinates han-
dled the others, and under his direction messages were prepared for distribu-
tion to dead-drops around the city. What do you know about. . . How many
would answer his call for information? The danger was not so much that the
people under his control would not have the information he needed, but that
one or more of them would take this opportunity to report in to the govern-
ment. In asking for something of this magnitude, he ran the risk of giving
one of his agents the chance to redeem himself by turning patriot, to reveal
the new orders and absolve himself of any guilt. But some risks you had to
run. After midnight he took a walk, picking high-traffic areas to place his
drops and making the appropriate wake-up signals to alert his people. He
hoped that the half of PSID he controlled was the one covering this area. He
thought so, but you could never be sure, could you?
Kimura knew he was running risks, but he’d gone beyond that kind of worry
now. All he could really hope for was that he was acting as a patriot, and that
somehow people would understand and honor that fact after his execution
for treason. The other consolation was that he would not die alone.
“I can arrange a meeting with former Prime Minister Koga,” he said sim-
ply.
Oh, shit, Clark thought at once. I’m a goddamned spy, he wanted to reply.
I’m not with the goddamned State Department. The only good news at the
moment was that Chavez didn’t react at all. His heart had probably stopped,
John told himself. Like yours just did.
“To what end?” he asked.
‘ ‘The situation is grave, is it not? Koga-san has no part in this. He is still a
man of political influence. His views should be of interest to your govern-
ment.”
Yeah, you might say that. But Koga was also a politician on the outside,
and perhaps willing to trade the lives of some foreigners for an open door
back into the government; or just a man who placed country ahead of per-
sonal gain-which possibility might cut in just about any direction Clark
could imagine.
DEBT OF HONOR
523
“Before I can commit to that, I need instructions from my government,”
John said. It was rarely that he temporized on anything, but this one was well
beyond his experience.
“Then I would suggest that you get it. And soon,” Kimura added as he
stood and left.
“I always wondered if my master’s in international relations would come
in handy,” Chavez observed, staring into his half-consumed drink. “Of
course I have to live long enough to get the parchment.” Might be nice to get
married, settle down, have kids, maybe even have a real life someday, he
didn’t add.
“Good to see you still have a sense of humor, Yevgeniy Pavlovich.”
“They’re going to tell us to do it. You know that.”
‘ ‘Da.” Clark nodded, keeping his cover and now trying to think as a Rus-
sian would. Did the KGB manual have a chapter for this? he wondered. The
CIA’s sure as hell didn’t.
As usual the tapes were clearer than the instant analysis of the operators.
There had been three, perhaps four-more likely four, given American oper-
ational patterns, the intelligence officers opined-aircraft probing Japanese
air defenses. Definitely not EC-1355, however. Those aircraft were based on
a design almost fifty years old and studded with enough antennas to watch
every TV signal in the hemisphere, and would have generated far larger
radar returns. Besides, the Americans probably didn’t have four such aircraft