Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

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.