sign that Kimura needed an urgent meet. The emergency nature of the signal
came as something of a reassurance that it wasn’t all some perverted dream.
There was danger in their lives again. At least something was real.
I-‘light operations had commenced just after dawn. Four complete squadrons
of F-I4 Tomcats and four more of F/A-i8 Hornets were now aboard, along
with four E-3C Hawkeyes. The normal support aircraft were for the moment
based on Midway, and the one-carrier task force would for the moment use
Pacific Islands as auxiliary support facilities for the cruise west. The first
order of business was to practice midair refueling from Air Force tankers
that would follow the fleet west as well. As soon as they had passed Mid-
way, a standing combat air patrol of four aircraft was established, though
without the usual Hawkeye support. The E-2C made a lot of electronic
noise, and the main task of the depleted battle force was to remain stealthy,
though in the case ofJohnnie Reb, that entailed making something invisible
that was the size of the side of an island.
Sanchez was down in air-operations. His task was to take what appeared
to be a very even battle and make it one-sided. The idea of a fair fight was as
foreign to him as to any other person in uniform. One only had to look
around to see why. He knew the people in this working space. He did not
know the airmen on the islands, and that was all he cared about. They might
be human beings. They might have wives and kids and houses and cars and
every other ordinary thing the men in Navy khaki had, but that didn’t matter
to the CAG. Sanchez would not order or condone such movie fantasies as
wasting ammunition on men in parachutes-people in that condition were
too hard to target in any case-but he had to kill their airplanes, and in an age
of missiles that most often meant that the driver would probably not get the
opportunity to eject. Fortunately, it was hard enough in the modern age to
see your target as anything more than a dot that had to be circled by the
head-up display of the fire-control system. It made things a lot easier, and if
a parachute emerged from the wreckage, well, he didn’t mind making a SAR
call for a fellow aviator, once the man was incapable of harming one of his
own.
“Koga has disappeared,” Kimura told them, his voice urgent and his face
pale.
“Arrested?” Clark asked.
“I ilon’l Know, Do we have anyone inside your organi/.ation?”
John turned very grim. “Do you know what we do to traitors’.'” Everyone
knew. “My country depends on this man, too. We will get to work on it.
Now, go.”
Chavez watched him walk away before speaking. “A leak?”
“Possibly. Also possible that the guys running the show don’t want any
extraneous opposition leaders screwing things up for the moment.” Now I’m
a political analyst, John told himself. Well, he was also a fully accredited
reporter from the Interfax News Agency. ‘ ‘What do you say we visit our
embassy, Yevgeniy?”
Scherenko was on his way out to a meet of his own when the two people
showed up at his office door. Wasn’t this an unusual occurrence, he thought
for a brief moment, two CIA officers entering the Russian Embassy for a
business meeting with the RVS. Then he wondered what would make them
doit.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, and John Clark handled the answer:
“Koga’s vanished.” Major Scherenko sat down, waving his visitors to
seats in his office. They didn’t need to be told to close the door. “Is it some-
thing that might have happened all on its own,” Clark asked, “or did some-
body leak it?”
“I don’t think PSID would have done it. Even on orders from Goto. It’s
too political without real evidence. The political situation here is-how well
do you know it?”
“Brief us in,” Clark said.
‘ ‘The government is very confused. Goto has control, but he is not sharing
information with many people. His coalition is still thin. Koga is very re-
spected, too much so to be publicly arrested.” / think, Scherenko didn’t add.
What might have been said with confidence two weeks earlier was a lot
more speculative now.
It actually made sense to the Americans. Clark thought for a second
before speaking. “You’d better shake the tree, Boris Il’ych. We both need
that man.”
“Did you compromise him?” the Russian asked.
‘ ‘No, not at all. We told him to act as he normally would-and besides, he
thinks we’re Russians. I had no instructions other than to check him out, and
trying to direct a guy like that is too risky. He’s just as liable to turn superpa-
triot on us and tell us to shove it. People like that, you just let them do the
right thing all by themselves.” Scherenko reflected again that the file in
Moscow Center on this man was correct. Clark had all the right instincts for
field-intelligence work. He nodded and waited for Clark to go on. “If you
have PSID under your control, we need to find out immediately if they have
the man.”
“And it they do?”
Clark shrugged. “Then you have to decide it you can get him out. That
part of the operation is yours. I can’t make that call for you. But if it’s some-
body else who bagged him, then maybe we can do something.”
“I need to talk to Moscow.”
“We figured that. Just remember, Koga’s our best chance for a political
solution to this mess. Next, get the word to Washington.”
“It will be done,” Scherenko promised. “I need to ask a question-the
two aircraft that crashed last night?”
Clark and Chavez were already on the way out the door. It was the
younger man who spoke without turning. “A terrible accident, wasn’t it?”
“You’re insane,” Mogataru Koga said.
“I am a patriot,” Raizo Yamata replied. “I will make our country truly
independent. I will make Japan great again.” Their eyes met from opposite
ends of the table in Yamata’s penthouse apartment. The executive’s security
people were outside the door. These words were for two men alone.
“You have cast away our most important ally and trading partner. You
are bringing economic ruin to us. You’ve killed people. You’ve suborned
our country’s government and our military.”
Yamata nodded as though acknowledging a property acquisition. ‘ ‘Hai, I
have done all these things, and it was not difficult. Tell me, Koga, how hard
is it to get a politician to do anything?”
“And your friends, Matsuda and the rest?”
“Everyone needs guidance from time to time.” Almost everyone, Yamata
didn’t say. ‘ ‘At the end of this, we will have a fully integrated economy, two
firm and powerful allies, and in time we will again have our trade because
the rest of the world needs us.” Didn’t this politician see that? Didn’t he
understand?
“Do you understand America as poorly as that? Our current difficulties
began because a single family was burned alive. They are not the same as us.
They think differently. Their religion is different. They have the most vio-
lent culture in the world, yet they worship justice. They venerate making
money, but their roots are found in ideals. Can’t you grasp that? They will
not tolerate what you have done!” Koga paused. “And your plan lor
Russia-do you really think that-”
“With China helping us?” Yamata smiled. “The two of us can handle
Russia.”
“And China will remain our ally?” Koga asked. “We killed twenty mil-
lion Chinese in the Second World War, and their political leadership has not
forgotten.”
“They need us, and they know they need us. And together
“Yamata-san,” Koga said quietly, politely, because it was his nature,
“you tlo nol understand politics as well as you understand business. It will
be, your downfall.”
Yumatu replied in kind. “And treason will be yours. I know you have
contacts with the Americans.”
“Not so. 1 have not spoken with an American citizen in weeks.” An in-
dignant reply would not have carried the power of the matter-of-fact tone.
“Well, in any case, you will be my guest here for the time being,” Raizo
told hiiin. ‘ ‘We will see how ignorant of political matters I am. In two years I
will be Prime Minister, Koga-san. In two years we will be a superpower.”
Yamata stood. His apartment covered the entire top floor of the forty-story
building, and the Olympian view pleased him. The industrialist stood and
walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, surveying the city which would
soon be his capital. What a pity that Koga didn’t understand how things re-
ally worked. But for the moment he had to fly back to Saipan, to begin his
political ascendancy. He turned back.
“You will see. You are my guest for the moment. Behave yourself and