else was conked out. To keep from waking his wife it was necessary (o step
over the table. He almost tripped, but the sergeant grabbed his arm.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“No problem, sir.” Ryan followed her to the spiral stairs and headed up
to the communications area on the upper deck.
“What gives?” He resisted the temptation to ask the time. It would have-
begged another question: the time in Washington, the time where the plane
was now, or the time where the flash traffic had originated. Just another sign
of progress, Ryan thought, heading to the thermal printer, you had to ask
when ‘ ‘now” was. The communications watch officer was an Air Force first
lieutenant, black, slim, and pretty.
“Good morning, Dr. Ryan. The National Security Office said to flag this
one for you.” She handed over the slippery paper Jack hated. The thermal
printers were quiet, though, and this communications room, like all the oth-
ers, was noisy enough already. Jack read the Reuters dispatch, too new as yet
to have any analysis from CIA or elsewhere.
“That’s the indicator we were looking for. Okay, let’s get a secure
phone.”
“Some other stuff that’s just come in,” an airman said, handing over
more papers. “The Navy had a bad day.”
“Oh?” Ryan sat down in a padded chair and flipped on a reading light.
“Oh, shit,” he said next. Then he looked up. “Coffee, please, Lieutenant?”
The officer sent an enlisted man for a cup.
“First call?”
“NMCC, the senior watch officer.” The National Security Advisor
checked his watch, did the arithmetic, and decided that he’d gotten about
five hours of sleep total. It was not likely that he’d get much more between
here, wherever that was, and Washington.
“Line three, Dr. Ryan. Admiral Jackson on the other end.”
“This is SWORDSMAN,” Ryan said, using his official Secret Service code
name. They’d tried to hang GUNFIGHTER on him, a token of backhanded
respect for his earlier life.
“This is SWITCHBOARD. Enjoying the flight, Jack?” It was a constant
amazement to Ryan that the secure digital comm links had such high trans-
mission quality. He could recognize his friend’s voice, and even his humor-
ous tone. He could also tell that it was somewhat forced.
“These Air Force drivers are pretty good. Maybe you should think about
learning from them. Okay, what gives? What are you doing in the shop?”
“Pac Fleet had a little incident a few hours ago.”
“So I see. Sri Lanka first,” SWORDSMAN ordered.
“Nothing much more than the wire dispatch. We have some still photos,
too, and we expect video in a half-hour or so. The consulate in Trincomalec
is reporting in now. They confirm the incident. One American citizen in-
jured, they think, just one, and not real serious, but he’s asking to be evac’d
soonest. Mike is being painted into a corner. He’s going to try an’ maneuver
out of it when the sun goes down. Our estimate is that our friends are starting
to get real frisky. Their amphibs are still alongside, but we’ve lost track of
that brigade. The area they’ve been using to play games in appears empty.
We have overheads three hours old, and the field is empty.”
Ryan nodded. He slid the plastic blind off the window by his chair. It was
dark outside. There were no lights to be seen below. Either they were over
the ocean already or there were clouds down there. All he could see was the
blinking strobe on the aircraft’s wingtip.
“Any immediate dangers there?”
‘ ‘Negative,” Admiral Jackson thought.’ ‘We estimate a week to take pos-
itive action, minimum, but we also estimate that positive action is now
likely. The folks up the river concur. Jack,” Robby added, “Admiral Dubro
needs instructions on what he can do about things, and he needs them soon.
“Understood.” Ryan was making notes on an Air Force One scratchpad
that the journalists hadn’t managed to steal yet. “Stand by.” He looked up at
the Lieutenant. “ETA to Andrews?”
“Seven and a half hours, sir. Winds are pretty stiff. We’re approaching
the Icelandic coast now.”
Jack nodded.’ ‘Thank you. Robby, we’re seven and a half out. I’ll be talk-
ing to the Boss before we get in. Start thinking about setting a briefing up
two hours after we get in.”
“Roger that.”
“Okay. Now, what the hell happened to those carriers?”
“Supposedly one of the Jap ‘cans had a little malfunction and rippled off
her Mark 505. They caught both CVNs in the ass. Enterprise has damage to
all four shafts. Stennis has three down. They report no fatalities, some minor
injuries.”
“Robby, how the hell-”
“Hey, SWORDSMAN, I just work here, remember.”
“How long?”
“Four to six months to effect repairs, that’s what we have now. Wait,
stand by, Jack.” The voice stopped, but Ryan could hear murmurs and pa-
pers shuffling. “Wait a minute-something else just came in.”
“Standing by.” Ryan sipped his coffee and returned to the task of figur-
ing out what time it was.
“Jack, something bad. We have a SuBMiss/SusSuNK in Pac Fleet.”
“What’s that?”
“USS Asheville, that’s a new 688, her BST-3 just started howling. Stennis
has launched a bird to check it out, and a ‘can’s heading up there, too. This
ain’t good.”
“What’s the crew? Like a hundred?”
“More, one-twenty, one-thirty. Oh, damn. Last time this happcm-il, I was
a mid.”
“We had an exercise going with them, didn’t we?”
“DATELINE PARTNERS, yes, just ended yesterday. Until a couple hours
ago, looked like a good exercise. Things went in the shitter in a hurry
Jackson’s voice trailed off. “Another signal. First report, Stennis launched a
Hoover-”
“What?”
“8-3 Viking, ASW bird. Four-man crew. They report no survivors from
the sub. Shit,” Jackson added, even though it wasn’t exactly a surprise.
“Jack, I need to do some work here, okay?”
“Understood. Keep me posted.”
“Will do. Out.” The line went dead.
Ryan finished off his coffee and dropped the plastic cup into a basket
bolted to the floor of the aircraft. There was no point in waking the President
just yet. Durling would need his sleep. He was coming home to a financial
crisis, a political mess, maybe a brewing war, in the Indian Ocean, and now
the situation with Japan would only get worse after this damned-fool acci-
dent in the Pacific. Durling was entitled to a little good luck, wasn’t he?
By coincidence Oreza’s personal car was a white Toyota Land Cruiser, a
popular vehicle on the island. He and his charter were walking toward it
when two more just like it pulled into the marina’s parking lot. Six people
got out and walked straight toward them. The former Command Master
Chief stopped dead in his tracks. He’d left Saipan just before dawn, having
picked Burroughs up at the hotel himself, the better to catch the tuna chasing
their own food in the early morning. Though traffic on the way in to the dock
had been . . . well, a little busier than usual, the world had held its normal
shape.
But not now. Now there were Japanese fighters circling over the island,
and now six men in fatigues and pistol belts were walking toward him and
his charter. It was like something from a movie, he thought, one of those
crazy TV mini-things from when the Russians were real.
“Hello, how was the fishing?” the man asked. He had O-3 rank, Oreza
saw, and a parachutist’s badge on the left breast pocket. Smiling, just as
pleasant and friendly as he could be.
“I bagged one hell of an albacore tuna,” Pete Burroughs said, his pride
amplified by the four beers he’d drunk on the way in.
A wider smile. “Ah! Can I see it?”
“Sure!” Burroughs reversed his path and led them back to the dock,
where the fish was still hanging head-down from the hoist.
“This is your boat, Captain Oreza?” the soldier asked. Only one other
man had followed their captain down. The others stayed behind, watching
closely, as though under orders not to be too . . . something, Portagee
thought. He also took note of the fact that this officer had troubled himself to
learn his name.
“That’s right, sir. Interested in a little fishing?” he asked with an inno-
cent smile.
“My grandfather was a fisherman,” the ishii told them.
Portagee nodded and smiled. “So was mine. Family tradition.”
“Long tradition?”
Oreza nodded as they got to Springer. “More than a hundred years.”
‘ ‘Ah, a fine boat you have. May I look at it?”
“Sure, jump aboard.” Portagee went first and waved him over. The ser-
geant who’d walked down with his captain, he saw, stayed on the dock with
Mr. Burroughs, keeping about six feet away from him. There was a pistol in
the man’s holster, a SIG P22O, the standard sidearm of the Japanese military.
By this time all kinds of alarm were lighting off in Oreza’s brain.