took only three minutes before Nomuri had to close his eyes again, a smile
fixed on his lips. Both actions were the result of his training in Yorktown,
Virginia, as was that of his memory, which struggled now to record every
single word while another part of his consciousness wondered how the hell
he was going to get the information out. His other reaction was one that
Taoka could neither see nor hear, a quintessential Americanism, spoken
within the confines of the CIA officer’s mind: You motherfuckers!
‘ ‘Okay, JUMPER is up and pretty much put together,” Helen d’Agustino said.
“JASMINE”-the code name for Anne Durling-“will be in another cabin.
SecState and SecTreas are up and having their coffee. Arnie van Damm is
probably in better shape than anybody aboard. Showtime. How about the
fighters?”
“They’ll join up in about twenty minutes. We went with the F-I5S out of
Otis. Better range, they’ll follow us all the way down. I’m really being para-
noid on that, ain’t I?”
Daga’s eyes gave off a coldly professional smile. “You know what I’ve
always liked about you, Dr. Ryan?”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t have to explain security to you like I do with everybody else.
You think just like I do.” It was a lot for a Secret Service agent to say.’ ‘The
President is waiting, sir.” She led him down the stairs.
Ryan bumped into his wife on the way forward. Pretty as ever, she was
not suffering from the previous night despite her husband’s warning, and on
seeing Jack she almost made a joke that it was he who’d had the prob-
“What’s the matter?”
“Business, Cathy.”
“Bad?”
Her husband just nodded and went forward, past a Secret Service agent
and an armed Air Force security policeman. The two convertible couches
had been made up. President Durling was sitting down in suit pants and
white shirt. His tie and jacket were not in evidence at this time. A silver pot
of coffee was on the low table. Ryan could see out the windows on both
sides of the nose cabin. They were Hying a thousand feet or so above fleecy
cumulus clouds.
“I hear you’ve been up all night, Jack,” Durling said.
“Since before Iceland, whenever that was, Mr. President,” Ryan told
him. He hadn’t washed, hadn’t shaved, and his hair probably looked like
Cathy’s after a long procedure under a surgical cap. Worse still was the look
in his eyes as he prepared to deliver grimmer news than he’d ever spoken.
“You look like hell. What’s the problem?”
“Mr. President, based on information received over the last few hours, I
believe that the United States of America is at war with Japan.”
‘ ‘What you need is a good chief to run this for you,” Jones observed.
“Ron, one more of those, and I’ll toss you in the brig, okay? You’ve
thrown enough weight around for one day,” Mancuso replied in a weary
voice. “Those people were under my command, remember?”
” Have I been that much of a jerk?”
“Yeah, Jonesy, you have.” Chambers handled that answer. “Maybe Sea-
ton needed to be brought up short once, but you overdid it big-time. And
now we need solutions, not smartass bullshit.”
Jones nodded but kept his own counsel. “Very well, sir. What assets do
we have?”
“Best estimate, they have eighteen boats deployable. Two are in overhaul
status and are probably unavailable for months at least,” Chambers replied,
doing the enemy first. “With Charlotte and Asheville out of the game, we
have a total of seventeen. Four of those are in yard-overhaul and unavailable.
Four more are in bobtail-refits alongside the pier here or in ‘Dago. Another
four are in the IO. Maybe we can shake those loose, maybe we can’t. That
leaves five. Three of those are with the carriers for the ‘exercise,’ one’s right
down below at the pier. The last one’s at sea up in the Gulf of Alaska doing
workups. That has a new CO-what, just three weeks since he relieved?”
“Correct.” Mancuso nodded. “He’s just learning the job.”
“Jesus, the cupboard’s that bare?” Jones was now regretting his com-
ment on having a good chief around. The mighty United States Pacific Fleet,
as recently as five years ago the most powerful naval force in the history of
civilization, was now a frigate navy.
“Five of us, eighteen of them, and they’re all spun-up to speed. They’ve
been running ops for the last couple of months.” Chambers looked at the
wall chart and frowned. “That’s one big fuckin’ ocean, Jonesy.” It was the
way he added the last statement that worried the contractor.
‘ ‘The four in refits?”
“That order’s out. ‘Expedite readiness for sea.’ And that brings the num-
ber to nine, in a couple of weeks, if we’re lucky.”
“Mr. Chambers, sir?”
Chambers turned back. “Yeah, Petty Officer Jones?”
“Remember when we used to head up north, all alone, Hacking lour or
five of the bad guys at once?”
The operations officer nodded soberly, almost nostalgically. His ivply
was quiet. “Long time ago, Jonesy. We’re dealing with SSKs now, on their
home turf and-”
“Did you trade your balls in to get that fourth stripe on your shoulder1.'”
Chambers turned around in an instant rage.
“You listen to me, boy, I-” But Ron Jones just snarled back.
” ‘I,’ hell, you, used to be a kickass officer! I trusted you to know what to
do with the data I gave you, just like I trusted him-” Jones pointed to Ad-
miral Mancuso. “When I sailed with you guys, we were the class of the
whole fuckin’ world. And if you did your job right as a CO, and if you’ve
been doing your job right as a type-commander, Bart, then those kids out
there still are. Goddamn it! When I tossed my bag down the hatch on Dallas
the first time, I trusted you guys to know your damned job. Was I wrong,
gentlemen? Remember the motto on Dallas? ‘First in Harm’s Way’! What
the hell’s the matter here?” The question hung in the air for several seconds.
Chambers was too angry to take it in. SubPac was not.
“We look that bad?” Mancuso asked.
“Sure as hell, sir. Okay, we took it in the ass from these bastards. Time to
start thinking about catchup. We’re the varsity, aren’t we? Who’s better
suited to it than we are?”
“Jones, you always did have a big mouth,” Chambers said. Then he
looked back at the chart. “But I guess maybe it is time to go to work.”
A chief petty officer stuck his head in the door. “Sir, Pasadena just
checked in from down the hill. Ready in all respects to get under way, the
CO requests orders.”
“How’s he loaded?” Mancuso replied, knowing that if he’d really done
his job right over the past few days the question would have been unneces-
sary.
“Twenty-two ADCAPs, six Harpoons, and twelve T-LAM-Cs. They’re
all warshots,” the chief replied. “He’s ready to rock, sir.”
ComSubPac nodded. “Tell him to stand by for mission orders.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Good skipper?” Jones asked.
“He got the Battle-E last year,” Chamber said. “Tim Parry. He was my
XO on Key West. He’ll do.”
“So now all he needs is a job.”
Mancuso lifted the secure phone for CINCPAC. “Yeah.”
“Signal from State Department,” the Air Force communications officer
said, entering the room. “The Japanese Ambassador requests an urgent
meeting with the President.”
“Brett?”
“We see what he has to say,” SecState said. Ryan nodded agreement.
“Any chance at all that this is some kind of mistake?” Durling asked.
“We expect some hard intelligence anytime now from a satellite pass
over the Marianas. It’s dark there, but that won’t matter much.” Ryan had
finished his briefing, and on completion the data he’d managed to deliver
seemed very thin. The baseline truth here was that what had evidently taken
place was so wildly beyond the limits of reason that he himself would not be
fully satisfied until he saw the overheads himself.
“If it’s real, then what?”
“That will take a little time,” Ryan admitted. “We want to hear what
their ambassador has to say.”
“What are they really up to?” Treasury Secretary Fiedler asked.
“Unknown, sir. Just pissing us off, it isn’t worth the trouble. We have
nukes. They don’t. It’s all crazy …” Ryan said quietly. “It doesn’t make
any sense at all.” Then he remembered that in 1939, Germany’s biggest
trading partner had been . . . France. History’s most often repeated lesson
was that logic was not a constant in the behavior of nations. The study of
history was not always bilateral. And the lessons learned from history de-
pended on the quality of the student. Worth remembering, Jack thought, be-
cause the other guy might forget.
“It’s got to be some kind of mistake,” Hanson announced. “A couple of
accidents. Maybe our two subs collided under the water and maybe we have