“Fifty years,” the PR man pointed out. “And your country was also dif-
ferent then.”
”That is true, my friends, that is true,” Clark admitted, his head lolling to
one side. Chavez thought he was overdoing the alcohol stuff.
“Your first time here, yes?”
“Correct.”
“Your impressions?” Ishii asked.
“I love your poetry. It is very different from ours. I could write a book
on Pushkin, you know. Perhaps someday I will, but a few years ago I
started learning about yours. You see, our poetry is intended to convey a
whole series of thoughts-often tell a complex story-but yours is far
more subtle and delicate, like-how do I say this? Like a flash picture,
yes? Perhaps there is one you could explain to me. I can see the picture,
but not understand the significance. How does it go?” Clark asked himself
drunkenly. “Ah, yes: ‘Plum blossoms bloom, and pleasure-women buy
new scarves in a brothel room.’ Now,” he asked the PR guy, “what is the
meaning of that?”
Ding handled the eye contact with Ishii. It was amusing in a way. Confu-
sion at first, then you could just about hear the eyeballs click when the code
phrase sliced through his mind like the killing stroke of a rapier. Sasaki’s
eyes zeroed in on Clark, then noticed that it was Ding who was maintaining
eye contact.
That’s right. You’re back on the payroll, buddy.
“Well, you see, it’s the contrast,” the PR official explained. “You have
the pleasant image of attractive women doing something-oh, feminine, is
that the word? Then the end, you see that they are prostitutes, trapped in
a-”
“Prison,” Ishii said, suddenly sober. “They are trapped into doing some-
thing. And suddenly the setting and the picture are not as pleasant as they
seem at all.”
“Ah, yes,” Clark said with a smile. “That is entirely sensible. Thank
you.” A friendly nod to acknowledge the important lesson.
Goddamn, but Mr. C was smooth, Chavez thought. This spy stuff had its
moments. Ding almost felt sorry for Ishii, but if the dumb son of a bitch had
betrayed his country before, well, no sense in shedding any tears for him
now. The axiom in CIA was simple, if somewhat cruel: once a traitor, al-
ways a traitor. The corresponding aphorism in the FBI was even crueler,
which was odd. The FBI boys were usually so upright and clean-cut. Once a
cocksucker, always a cocksucker.
“Is it possible?” Murakami asked.
“Possible? It’s child’s play.”
“But the effects …” Yamata’s idea had obvious panache, but. . .
“The effects are simple. The damage to their economy will prevent them
from building up the industries they need to replace our products. Their con-
sumers will recover from the initial shock and, needing products which their
own corporations cannot manufacture, they will again buy them from us.” If
Binichi thought he was going to get the whole story, that was his problem.
“I think not. You underestimate the Americans’ anger at this unfortunate
incident. You must also factor in the political dimension-”
“Koga is finished. That is decided,” Yamata interrupted coldly.
“Goto?” Murakami asked. It wasn’t much of a question. He followed his
country’s political scene as much as any man.
“Of course.”
An angry gesture. “Goto is a fool. Everywhere he walks he’s following
his penis. I wouldn’t trust him to run my father’s farm.”
“You could say that of any of them. Who really manages our country’s
affairs? What more could we want in a prime minister, Binichi?” Raizo
asked with a jolly laugh.
“They have one like that in their government, too,” Murakami noted
darkly, pouring himself another generous jolt of Chivas and wondering what
Yamata was really talking about. “I’ve never met the man, but he sounds
like a swine.”
“Who is that?”
“Realty, their Vice President. You know, this upstanding President of
theirs is covering it up, too.”
Yamata leaned back in his chair. “I don’t understand.”
Murakami filled him in. The whiskey didn’t impede his memory a jot, his
host noted. Well, though a cautious man, and often an overly generous one
in his dealings with foreigners, he was one of Yamata’s true peers, and
though they often disagreed on things, there was genuine ivsjH’i’l between
them.
“That is interesting. What will your people do about it?”
“They are thinking about it,” Binichi replied with an eloquent arch of the
eyebrows.
“You trust Americans on something like this? The best of them arc ronin,
and you know what the worst are …” Then Yamata-san paused and took a
few seconds to consider this information more fully. “My friend, if the
Americans can take down Koga …”
Murakami lowered his head for a moment. The smell of the thrown beer
was stronger than ever. The insolence of that street creature! For that matter,
what of the insolence of the President? He could cripple an entire country
with his vanity and his clearly feigned anger. Over what? An accident, that
was all. Had the company not honorably assumed responsibility? Had it not
promised to look after the survivors?
“It is a large and dangerous thing you propose, my friend.”
“It is an even more dangerous thing not to do anything.”
Murakami thought about it for a moment.
‘ ‘What would you have me do?”
“The specifics about Kealty and Burling would be welcome.”
That required only a few minutes. Murakami made a call, and the infor-
mation was sent to the secure fax machine in Yamata’s suite. Perhaps Raizo
would be able to put it to good use, he thought. An hour later his car took
him to Kennedy International, where he boarded a JAL flight to Tokyo.
Yamata’s other corporate jet was another G-IV. It would be busy. The first
flight was to New Delhi. It was only on the ground for two hours before
taking off on an easterly heading.
“Looks like a course change,” Fleet-Ops said. “At first we thought they
were just doing some extended flight operations, but they’ve got all their
birds up already and-”
Admiral Dubro nodded agreement as he looked down at the Link-i i dis-
play in the carrier’s Combat Information Center. It was relayed in from an
E-2C Hawkeye surveillance aircraft. The circular formation was heading
due south at a speed of eighteen knots. The carriers were surrounded by their
goalkeeper force of missile-armed destroyers and cruisers, and there was
also a screen of picket destroyers well in advance. All their radars were on,
which was something new. The Indian .ships were both advertising their
presence and creating a “bubble” through which no one could pass without
their knowledge.
“Looking for us, you suppose?” the Admiral asked.
“If nothing else, they can make us commit to one ops-area or another. We
can be southwest of them or southeast, but if they keep coming this way,
they split the difference pretty clean, sir.”
Maybe they were just tired of being shadowed, Dubro thought. Under-
standable. They had a respectable fleet, manned with people who had to be
well drilled in their duties after the last few months. They’d just topped off
their bunkers again, and would have all the fuel they needed to do … what?
“Intel?”
”Nothing on their intentions,” Commander Harrison replied.’ ‘Their am-
phibs are still tied up. We don’t have anything on that brigade J-2 was wor-
ried about. Bad weather for overheads the last few days.”
“Damn those Intel pukes,” Dubro growled. CIA depended so much on
satellite coverage that everyone pretended the cameras could see through
clouds. All they had to do was put a few assets on the ground .. . was he the
only one who realized that?
The computer-generated display was on a flat glass plate, a new model
just installed on the ship the previous year. Far more detailed than the earlier
systems, it gave superb map and chart data on which ship and aircraft loca-
tions were electronically overlaid. The beauty of the system was that it
showed what you knew in exquisite detail. The problem was that it didn’t
show anything else, and Dubro needed better data to make his decision.
“They’ve had a minimum of four aircraft up for the past eight hours,
sweeping south. By their operating radius I would estimate that they’re car-
rying air-to-air missiles and aux fuel tanks for max endurance. So call it a
strong effort at forward reconnaissance. Their Harriers have that new Black
Fox look-down radar, and the Hummers caught some sniffs of it. They’re
looking as far as they can, sir. I want permission to pull the Hummer south
another hundred miles or so right now, and to have them go a little covert.”
By which he meant the surveillance aircraft would keep its radar on only
some of the time, and would instead track the progress of the Indian fleet
passively, from the Indians’ own radar emissions.
“No.” Admiral Dubro shook his head. “Let’s play dumb and complacent