gize sincerely for that. We have no desire to harm anyone here, but you must
understand that any attack upon one of my men or any Japanese citizen will
be treated as a violation of the law. I am also responsible to take certain
security measures to protect my troops and to bring this island into compli-
ance with Japanese law.
“All firearms owned by private citizens on Saipan must be surrendered in
the next few days. You may bring them into your local police stations. If you
have a sales record for the guns, or if you can demonstrate their commercial
value, we will pay you the fair cash value for them. Similarly, we must ask
that any owners of ‘ham’ radios turn them over to us for a short period of
time, and, please, not to use them until you do. Again, we will pay in cash the
full value of your property, and in the case of the radios, when we return
them to you, you may keep the money as a token of our thanks for your
cooperation. Aside from thai” -another smile-“you will hardly notice
that we are here. My troops are under orders to treat everyone on this island
as fellow citi/.ens. If you experience or even see a single incident in which a
Japanese soldier is impolite to a local citizen, I want you to come to my
headquarters and report it. You see, our law applies to us, too.
“{•’or the moment, please go about your normal lives.” A number came
up on the screen. “If you have any specific questions, please call this num-
ber or feel free to come to my headquarters at your parliament building. We
will be glad to help you in any way we can. Thank you for listening. Good
night.”
“This message will be repeated every fifteen minutes on Channel Six, the
public-access channel,” another voice said.
“Son of a bitch,” Oreza breathed.
“I wonder who their ad agency is,” Burroughs noted, going to punch the
rewind button on the VCR.
“Can we believe it?” Isabel asked.
“Who knows? You have any guns?”
Portagee shook his head. “Nope. I don’t even know if this rock has a
registration law. Have to be crazy to take on soldiers anyway, right?”
” It makes it a lot easier for them if they don’t have to watch their backs.”
Burroughs started putting the batteries back in his sat-phone. ‘ ‘You have the
number for that admiral?”
“Jackson.”
“Master Chief Oreza, sir. You got a tape machine running?”
“Yes, I do. What you got?”
“Well, sir, it’s official,” Oreza reported dryly. “They just made the an-
nouncement on TV. We taped it. I’m turning the tape on now. I’ll hold the
phone right next to the speaker.”
General Tokikichi Arima, Jackson wrote down on a pad. He handed it to
un Army sergeant. “Have the intel boys identify this name.”
“Yessir.” The sergeant vanished in an instant.
” Major!” Robby called next.
“Yes, Admiral?”
‘ ‘The sound quality is pretty good. Have a copy of the tape run over to the
spooks for voice-stress analysis. Next, I want a typed transcript ASAP ready
lo fax out to half a million places.”
“Right.”
For the rest of the time, Jackson just listened, an island of calm in a sea of
madness, or so it seemed.
“That’s it,” Oreza told him when it ended. “You want the call-in num-
ber, Admiral?”
“Not right now, no. Good job, Master Chief. Anything else to report?”
“The airplanes are still shuttling in. I counted fourteen since we talked
last.”
“Okay.” Robby made the proper notes. “You feel like you’re in any par-
ticular danger?”
“I don’t see people running around with guns, Admiral. You notice they
didn’t say anything about American nationals on the island?”
“No, I didn’t. Good point.” Ouch.
“I ain’t real comfortable about this, sir.” Oreza gave him a quick reprise
of the incident on his boat.
“I can’t say that I blame you. Master Chief. Your country is working on
the problem, okay?”
“You say so, Admiral. I’m shutting down for a while.”
‘ ‘Fair enough. Hang in there,” Jackson ordered. It was a hollow directive,
and both men knew it.
“Roger that. Out.”
Robby sat the phone back in the cradle. “Opinions?”
“You mean aside from, ‘It’s all fuckin’ crazy’?” a staff officer inquired.
“It may be crazy to us, but it’s sure as hell logical to somebody.” There
was no sense in clobbering the officer for the statement, Jackson knew. It
would take a bit more time before they really came to terms with the situa-
tion. “Does anybody not believe the information we have now?” He looked
around. Seven officers were present, and people weren’t selected for duty in
the NMCC for their stupidity.
“It may be crazy, sir, but everything keeps coming down the same way.
Every post we’ve tried to link with is off the air. They’re all supposed to
have duty officers, but nobody’s answering the phone. Satellite links are
down. We have four Air Force bases and an Army post off the air. It’s real,
sir.” The staffer redeemed herself with the follow-up.
“Anything from State? Any of the spook shops?”
“Nothing,” a colonel from J-2 replied. “I can give you a satellite pass
over the Marianas in about an hour. I’ve already told NRO and I-TAC about
the tasking and the priority.”
“KH-ii?”
“Yes, sir, and all the cameras are up. Weather is clear. We’ll get good
overheads,” the intelligence officer assured him.
“No storm in the area yesterday?”
“Negative,” another officer said. “Ain’t no reason for phone service to
be out. They have Trans-Pac cable and satellite uplinks. I called the contrac-
tor that operates the dishes. They had no warning at all. They’ve been send-
ing their own signals to their people, requesting information, no reply.”
Jackson nodded. He’d waited this long only to get the confirmation he
needed to take the next step.
“Okay, let’s get a warning signal drafted, distribution to all the CINCs.
Alert SecDef and the Chiefs. I’m calling the President now.”
“Dr. Ryan, NMCC on the STU with CRITIC traffic. Admiral Robert Jackson
again.” The use of “CRITIC” caused heads to turn as Ryan lifted the secure
phone.
“Robby, this is Jack. What’s happening?” Everyone in the communica-
tions room saw the National Security Advisor turn pale. “Robby, are you
serious?” He looked at the communications watch officer. “Where are we
now?”
“Approaching Goose Bay, Labrador, sir. About three hours out.”
“Get Special Agent d’Agustino up here, would you, please?” Ryan took
his hand off the phone. “Robby, I need hard copy . . . okay . . . he’s still
asleep, I think. Give me thirty minutes to get organized here. Call me if you
need me.”
Jack got out of his chair and made his way to the lav just aft of the flight
deck. He managed to avoid looking in the mirror when he washed his hands.
The Secret Service agent was waiting for him when he emerged.
“Not much sleep for you, eh?”
“Is the Boss up yet?”
“Sir, he left orders not to do that until we were an hour out. I just checked
with the pilot and-”
‘ ‘Kick him loose, Daga, right now. Then get Secretaries Hanson and Fied-
ler up. Arnie, too.”
“What’s the matter, sir?”
“You’ll be in there to hear it.” Ryan took the roll of fax paper off the
secure machine and started reading. He looked up. “I’m not kidding, Daga.
Right now.”
“Any danger to the President?”
“Let’s assume that there is,” Jack replied. He thought for a second.
“Where’s the nearest fighter base, Lieutenant?”
The what? on her face was quite obvious. “Sir, there are F-I5S at Otis on
Cape Cod, and F-i6s at Burlington, Vermont. Both are Air National Guard
groups tasked to continental air defense.”
“You call them and tell them that the President would like to have some
friends around ASAP.” The nice thing about talking to lieutenants was that
they weren’t used to asking why an order was given, even when there was no
obvious reason for it. The same thing didn’t apply to the Secret Service.
‘ ‘Doc, if you need to do that, then I need to know, too, right now.”
“Yeah, Daga, I guess so.” Ryan tore off the top section of the thermal fax
paper when he got to the second page of the transmission.
“Holy shit,” the agent thought aloud, handing it back. “I’ll wake the
President up. You need to tell the pilot. They do things a little differently at
times like this.”
“Fair enough. Fifteen minutes, Daga, okay?”
“Yes, sir.” She headed down the circular stairs while Jack went forward
to the flight deck.
“One-six-zero minutes to go, Dr. Ryan. Has been a long one, hasn’t it?”
the Colonel at the controls asked pleasantly. The smile faded instantly from
his face.
It was mere chance that took them past the American Embassy. Maybe he’d