Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

gotten in the way of a supertanker and been squashed, simply crushed

against the bottom of that shallow body of water by a tanker whose crew had

never even noticed the rumble. In any case, the other Kilos were securely

tied to their piers. Or maybe the Iranians had finally heard the old seaman’s

moniker for submarines and decided not to touch their new naval vessels

again-they’d once been known as “pigboats,” after all.

“Sure looks empty out there.” Jones pointed to what had once been one

of the greatest naval facilities ever made. Not a single carrier in view, only

two cruisers, half a squadron of destroyers, roughly the same number of fri-

gates, five fleet-support ships. “Who commands Pac Fleet now, a chief?”

“Christ, Ron, let’s not give anybody ideas, okay?”

2

Fraternity

“You got him?” President Durling asked.

“Less than half an hour ago,” Ryan confirmed, taking his seat.

“Nobody hurt?” That was important to the President. It was important to

Ryan, too, but not morbidly so.

“Clark reports no friendly casualties.”

“What about the other side?” This question came from Brett Hanson, the

current Secretary of State. Choate School and Yale. The government was

having a run on Yalies, Ryan thought, but Hanson wasn’t as good as the last

Eli he’d worked with. Short, thin, and hyper, Hanson was an in-and-out guy

whose career had oscillated between government service, consulting, a side-

line as a talking head on PBS-where you could exercise real influence_

and a lucrative practice in one of the city’s pricier firms. He was a specialist

in corporate and international law, an area of expertise he’d once used to

negotiate multinational business deals. He’d been good at that, Jack knew.

Unfortunately he’d come into his cabinet post thinking that the same niceties

ought to-worse, did-apply to the business of nation-states.

Ryan took a second or two before replying. “I didn’t ask ”

“Why?”

Jack could have said any one of several things, but he decided that it was

time to establish his position. Therefore, a goad: “Because it wasn’t impor-

tant. The objective, Mr. Secretary, was to apprehend Corp. That was done.

In about thirty minutes he will be handed over to the legal authorities, such

as they are, in his country, for trial in accordance with their law, before a jury

of his peers, or however they do it over there.” Ryan hadn’t troubled himself

to find out.

“That’s tantamount to murder.”

“It’s not my fault his peers don’t like him, Mr. Secretary. He’s also re-

uponsiblc for the deaths of American soldiers. Had we decided to eliminate

him ourselves, even that would not be murder. It would have been a straight-

forward national-security exercise. Well, in another age it would have

hccn,” Ryan allowed. Times had changed, and Ryan had to adapt himself to

it new reality as well. “Instead, we are acting as good world-citizens by ap-

prehending a dangerous international criminal and turning him over to the

government of his country, which will put him on trial for drug-running,

which is a felony in every legal jurisdiction of which I am aware. What hap-

pens next is up to the criminal-justice system of his country. That is a coun-

try with which we have diplomatic relations and other informal agreements

of assistance, and whose laws, therefore, we must respect.”

Hanson didn’t like it. That was clear from the way he leaned back in his

chair. But he would support it in public because he had no choice. The State

Department had announced official American support for that government

half a dozen times in the previous year. What stung worse for Hanson was

being outmaneuvered by this young upstart in front of him.

“They might even have a chance to make it now, Brett,” Durling ob-

nerved gently, putting his own seal of approval on Operation WALKMAN.

“And it never happened.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Jack, you were evidently right about this Clark fellow. What do we do

•bout him?”

“I’ll leave that to the DCI, sir. Maybe another Intelligence Star for him,”

Ryan suggested, hoping that Durling would forward it to Langley. If not,

maybe a discreet call of his own to Mary Pat. Then it was time for fence-

mending, a new skill for Ryan. “Mr. Secretary, in case you didn’t know, our

people were under orders to use nonlethal force if possible. Beyond that, my

only concern is the lives of our people.”

“I wish you’d cleared it through my people first,” Hanson grumped.

Deep breath, Ryan commanded himself. The mess was of State’s making,

along with that of Ryan’s predecessor. Having entered the country to restore

order after it had been destroyed by local warlords-another term used by

the media to give a label to common thugs-the powers-that-be had later

decided, after the entire mission had gone to hell, that the “warlords” in

question had to be part of the “political solution” to the problem. That the

problem had been created by the warlords in the first place was conveniently

forgotten. It was the circularity of the logic that offended Ryan most of all,

who wondered if they taught a logic course at Yale. Probably an elective, he

decided. At Boston College it had been mandatory.

“It’s done, Brett,” Durling said quietly, “and nobody will mourn the

passing of Mr. Corp. What’s next?” the President asked Ryan.

“The Indians are getting rather frisky. They’ve increased the operating

tempo of their navy, and they’re conducting operations around Sri

Lanka-”

“They’ve done that before,” SecState cut in.

“Not in this strength, and I don’t like the way they’ve continued their

talks with the ‘Tamil Tigers,’ or whatever the hell those maniacs call them-

selves now. Conducting extended negotiations with a guerrilla group operat-

ing on the soil of a neighbor is not an act of friendship.”

This was a new concern for the U.S. government. The two former British

colonies had lived as friendly neighbors for a long time, but for years the

Tamil people on the island of Sri Lanka had maintained a nasty little insur-

gency. The Sri Lankans, with relatives on the Indian mainland, had asked for

foreign troops to maintain a peace-keeping presence. India had obliged, but

what had started in an honorable fashion was now changing. There were

rumbles that the Sri Lankan government would soon ask for the Indian sol-

diers to leave. There were also rumbles that there would be some ‘ ‘technical

difficulties” in effecting their removal. Concurrent with that had come word

of a conversation between the Indian Foreign Minister and the U.S. Ambas-

sador at a reception in Delhi.

“You know,” the Minister had said after a few too many, but probably

purposeful drinks, “that body of water to our south is called the Indian

Ocean, and we have a navy to guard it. With the demise of the former Soviet

threat, we wonder why the U.S. Navy seems so determined to maintain a

force there.”

The U.S. Ambassador was a political appointee-for some reason India

had turned into a prestige post, despite the climate-but was also a striking

exception to Scott Adler’s professional snobbery. The former governor of

Pennsylvania had smiled and mumbled something about freedom of the

seas, then fired off an encrypted report to Foggy Bottom before going to bed

that night. Adler needed to learn that they weren’t all dumb.

“We see no indication of an aggressive act in that direction,” Hanson

said after a moment’s reflection.

‘ ‘The ethnic element is troubling. India can’t go north, with the mountains

in the way. West is out. The Pakis have nukes, too. East is Bangladesh-why

buy trouble? Sri Lanka has real strategic possibilities for them, maybe as a

stepping-stone.”

“To where?” the President asked.

“Australia. Space and resources, not many people in the way, and not

much of a military to stop them.”

‘T just don’t see that happening,” SecState announced.

“If the Tigers pull something off, I can see India increasing its peace-

keeping presence. The next step could be annexation, given the right precon-

ditions, and then all of a sudden we have an imperial power playing games a

long way from here, and making life somewhat nervous for one of our his-

torical allies.” And helping the Tigers to get something going was both easy

and u time-honored tactic. Surrogates could be so useful, couldn’t they? “In

historical terms such ambitions are most inexpensively stopped early.”

“Thai’s why the Navy’s in the Indian Ocean,” Hanson observed confi-

dently.

“True,” Ryan conceded.

1’ Are we strong enough to deter them from stepping over the line?”

“Yes, Mr. President, at the moment, but I don’t like the way our Navy is

being stretched. Every carrier we have right now, except for the two in over-

haul status, is either deployed or conducting workups preparatory for de-

ployment. We have no strategic reserve worthy of the name.” Ryan paused

before going on, knowing that he was about to go too far, but doing so any-