Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

the computer engineer told himself, sitting in the fighting chair and sipping a

beer, to get a person over a divorce. He’d spent the first two hours getting

offshore, then three hours trolling, then four hours fighting against the big-

gest goddamned albacore tuna he’d ever seen. The real problem would be

convincing his fellow workers that it wasn’t a lie. The monster was too big to

mount over his mantel, and besides, his ex- had the house and the fireplace.

He’d have to settle for a photo, and everyone knew the stories about that,

damn it. Blue-screen technology had reached fishermen. For twenty bucks

you could have your choice of monster fish hanging from its electronic tail

behind you. Now, if he’d caught a shark, he could have taken home the jaw

and teeth, but an albacore, magnificent as it was, was just tuna fish. Well,

what the hell, his wife hadn’t believed his stories about the late nights at

work either. The bitch. Good news, bad news. She didn’t like fishing either,

but now he could fish all he wanted. Maybe even fish for a new girl. He

popped open another beer.

The marina didn’t look very busy for a weekend. The main port area was,

though, three big commercial ships, ugly ones, he thought, though he didn’t

know exactly what they were on first sight. His company was in California,

though not close to the water, and most of his fishing was of the freshwater

sort. This trip had been a life’s ambition. Tomorrow, maybe, he’d get some-

thing else. For the moment, he looked left at the albacore. Had to be at least

seven hundred pounds. Nowhere close to the record, but one hell of a lot

bigger than the monster salmon he’d gotten the year before with his trusty

Ted Williams spinning rig. The air shook again, spoiling his moment with

his fish. The overhead shadow announced another goddamned 747 coming

out of the airport. It wouldn’t be long before this place was spoiled, too.

Hell, it already was. About the only good news was that the Japanese who

came here to kick loose and screw Filipina bar girls didn’t like to fish much.

The boat’s skipper brought them in smartly. His name was Oreza, a

retired Master Chief Quartermaster, U.S. Coast Guard. Burroughs left the

fighting chair, headed topside, and sat down next to him.

‘ ‘Get tired of talking to your fish?”

“Don’t like drinking alone, either.”

Oreza shook his head. “Not when I’m driving.”

‘ ‘Bad habit from the old days?”

The skipper nodded. “Yeah, I guess. I’ll buy you one at the club, though.

Nice job on the fish. First time, you said?”

“First time in blue water,” Burroughs said proudly.

“Coulda fooled me, Mr. Burroughs.”

“Pete,” the engineer corrected.

“Pete,” Oreza confirmed. “Call me Portagee.”

“You’re not from around here.”

“New Bedford, Massachusetts, originally. Winters are too cold. I served

here once, long time back. There used to be a Coast Guard station down at

Punta Arenas, closed now. The wife and I liked the climate, liked the people,

and, hell, the competition statewide for this sort of business is too stiff,”

Oreza explained. “What the hell, the kids are all grown. So anyway, we

ended up coming out here.”

“You know how to handle a boat pretty well.”

Portagee nodded. “I ought to. I’ve been doing it thirty-five years, more if

you count going out with my pop.” He eased to port, coming around

Managaha Island. “The fishing out of New Bedford’s gone to hell, too.”

“What are those guys?” Burroughs asked, pointing to the commercial

port.

“Car carriers. When I came in this morning they were moving jeeps out

of that one.” The skipper shrugged. “More goddamned cars. You know,

when I came here it was kinda like Cape Cod in the winter. Now it’s more

like the Cape in the summer. Wall-to-goddamned-wall.” Portagee

shrugged. More tourists made for more crowding, spoiling the island, but

also bringing him more business.

‘ ‘Expensive place to live?”

“Getting that way,” Oreza confirmed. Another 747 flew off the island.

“That’s funny . . .”

“What?”

“That one didn’t come out of the airport.”

“What do you mean?”

“That one came out of Kobler. It’s an old SAC runway, BUFF field.”

“BUFF?”

“Big Ugly Fat Fucker,” Portagee explained. “6-525. There’s five or six

runways in the islands that can take big birds, dispersal fields from the bad

old clays,” he went on. “Kobler’s right next to my old I.OKAN stulmn. I’m

surprised they still keep it up. Hell, I didn’t know they did, cvi-n.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There used to be a Strategic Air Command base on (itiam. You know,

nukes, all that big shit? In case the crap hit the fan, they were supposed lo

disperse off Andersen Air Force Base so one missile couldn’t gel (hem all.

There’s two big-bird runways on Saipan, the airport and Kobler, Iwo more

on Tinian, leftovers from World War Two, and two more on Guam.”

“They’re still good to use?”

“No reason why not.” Oreza’s head turned. “We don’t get many hard-

freezes here to rip things up.” The next 747 came off Saipan International,

and in the clear evening sky they could see yet another coming in from the

eastern side of the island.

“This place always this busy?”

‘ ‘No, most I’ve ever seen. Goddamned hotels must be packed solid.” An-

other shrug. “Well, that means the hotels’ll be interested in buying that fish

off ya.”

“How much?”

“Enough to cover the charter, Pete. That’s one big fish you brought in.

But tomorrow you have to get lucky again.”

“Hey, you find me another big boy like our friend down there, and I don’t

care what you charge.”

“I love it when people say that.” Oreza eased back on the throttles as he

approached the marina. He aimed for the main dock. They needed the hoist

to get the fish off. The albacore was the third-largest he’d ever brought in,

and this Burroughs guy wasn’t all that bad a charter.

“You make a living at this?”

Portagee nodded. “With my retirement pay, yeah, it’s not a bad life.

Thirty-some years I drove Uncle’s boats, and now I get to drive me own-

and she’ s paid for.”

Burroughs was looking at the commercial ships now. He lifted the skip-

per’s binoculars. “You mind?”

“Strap around your neck if you don’t mind.” Amazing that people

thought the strap was some sort of decoration.

“Sure.” Burroughs did that, adjusting the focus for his eyes and examin-

ing Orchid Ace. “Ugly damned things …”

“Not made to be pretty. Made to carry cars.” Oreza started the final turn

in.

“That’s no car. Looks like some kind of construction thing, bulldozer,

like…”

” Oh?” Portagee called for his mate, a local kid, to come topside and work

the lines. Good kid, fifteen, might try for the Coast Guard and spend a few

years learning the trade properly. Oreza was working on that.

“The Army have a base here?”

“Give me a light and follow me on this,” Jones ordered. He Hipped an-

other page, checking the 6oHz line. “Nothing . . . nothing. Those diesel

boats are pretty good . . . but if they’re quiet, they ain’t snorting, and if they

ain’t snorting they ain’t going very far … Asheville sprinted out this way,

and probably then she came back in …” Another page.

“No rescue, sir?” It had taken fully thirty seconds for the question to be

asked.

“How deep’s the water?”

“I know that, but the escape trunks … I mean, I’ve seen it, there’s three

of them.”

Jones didn’t even look up, taking a puff off his first smoke in years.

“Yeah, the mom’s hatch, that’s what we called it on Dallas. ‘See, mom, if

anything goes wrong, we can get out right there.’ Chief, you don’t get off

one of these things, okay? You don’t. That ship is dead, and so’s her crew. I

want to see why.”

“But we already have the crush sounds.”

‘ ‘I know. I also know that two of our carriers had a little accident today.”

Those sounds were on the SOSUS printouts, too.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not saying anything.” Another page. At the bottom of it was a large

black blotch, the loud sound that marked the death of USS Asheville and

all-“What the fuck is this?”

“We think it’s a double-plot, sir. The bearing’s almost the same as the

Asheville sound, and we think the computer-”

“The time’s off, goddamn it, a whole four minutes.” He flipped back

three pages. “See, that’s somebody else.”

“Charlotte?”

It was then that Jones felt even colder. His head swam a little from the

cigarette, and he remembered why he’d quit. The same signature on the

paper, a diesel boat snorting, and, later, a 688-class sprinting. The sounds

were so close, nearly identical, and the coincidence of the bearing from the