Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

“But, Admiral-” the OOD tried to say.

‘ ‘But we are a valuable fleet unit and I do not wish one of my ships to have

to spend a month in the yard having her mast replaced because some damned

fool of an aviator couldn’t see us in the dark!”

‘ ‘Hai. I will make the call at once.”

Spoiling my morning that way, Sato fumed, going back out to sit in the

leather chair and doze off.

Was he the first guy to figure it out? Winston asked himself. Then he asked

himself why he should find that surprising. The FBI and the rest were evi-

dently trying to put things back together, and their main effort was probably

to defend against fraud. Worse, they were also going over all the records, not

just those of the Columbus Group. It had to be a virtual ocean of data, and

they would have been unfamiliar with the stuff, and this was a singularly bad

time for on-the-job training.

The TV told the story. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank had

been on all the morning talk shows, which had to have kept his driver busy in

D.C. this day, followed by a strong public statement in the White House

Press Room, followed by a lengthy interview on CNN. It was working, after

a fashion, and TV showed that as well. A lot of people had shown up at

banks before lunch, surprised there to find piles of cash trucked out the pre-

vious night to make what in military terms was probably called a show of

force. Though the Chairman had evidently jawboned every major banker in

the country, the reverse was true of the tellers meeting depositors at their

windows: Oh, you want cash? Well, of course we have all you need. In not a

few cases, by the time people got home they started to feel a new variety of

paranoia-keep all this cash at home?-and by afternoon some had even

begun coming back to redeposit.

That would be Buzz Fiedler’s work, too, and a good man he was, Winston

thought, for an academic. The Treasury Secretary was only buying time, and

doing so with money, but it was a good tactic, good enough to confuse the

public into believing things were not as bad as they appeared.

Serious investors knew better. Things were bad, and the play in the banks

was a stopgap measure at best. The Fed was dumping cash into the system.

Though a good idea for a day or so, the net effect by the end of the week had

to be to weaken the dollar further still, and already American T-Bills were

about as popular in the global financial community as plague rats. Worst of

all, though Fiedler had prevented a banking panic for the time being, you

could hold back a panic only so long, and unless you could restore confi-

dence in a real way, the longer you played stopgap games, the worse would

be the renewed panic if those measures failed, for then there would be no

stopping it. That was what Winston really expected.

Because the Gordian knot around the throat of the investment system

would not soon be untied.

Winston thought he had decoded the likely cause of the event, but along

the way he’d learned that there might not be a solution. The sabotage at DTC

had been the master stroke. Fundamentally, no single person knew what he

owned, what he’d paid for it, when he’d gotten it, or what cash he had left;

and the absence of knowledge was metastatic. Individual investors didn’t

know. Institutions didn’t know. The trading houses didn’t know. Nobody

knew.

How would the real panic start? In short order, pension funds would have

to write their monthly checks-but would the banks honor them? The Fed

would encourage them to do so, but somewhere along the line there would

be one bank that would not, due to troubles of its own-just one, such things

always began in a single place, after all-and that would start yet another

cascade, and the Fed would have to step in again by boosting the money

supply, and that could start a hyperinflationary cycle. That was the ultimate

nightmare. Winston well remembered the way that inflation had affected the

market and the country in the late 1970*, the “malaise” thai had indeed

been real, the loss of national confidence that had manifested itselt with mil

cases building cabins in the Northwestern mountains and had movies alxnii

life after the apocalypse. And even then inflation had lopped out al what?

Thirteen percent or so. Twenty-percent interest rates. A country sUan^lm^

from nothing more than the loss of confidence that had resulted from JMSO

line lines and a vacillating president. Those times might well seem nostalgic

indeed.

This would be far worse, something not like America at all, something

from the Weimar Republic, something from Argentina in the bad old days,

or Brazil under military rule. And it wouldn’t stop just with America, would

it? Just as in 1929, the ripple effects would spread far, crippling economies

across the world, well beyond even Winston’s capacity for prediction. He

would not be badly hurt personally, George knew. Even the go-percent dimi-

nution of his personal wealth would leave a vast and comfortable sum-he

always hedged some of his bets on issues that owned physically real things,

like oil or gold; and he had his own gold holdings, real metal bars in vaults,

like a miser of old-and since major depressions were ultimately deflation-

ary, the relative value of his diverse holdings would actually increase after a

time. He knew that he and his family would survive and thrive, but the cost

to those less fortunate than himself was economic and social chaos. And he

wasn’t in the business just for himself, was he? Over time he’d come to think

long at night about the little guys who’d seen his TV ads and entrusted him

with their savings. It was a magic word, trust. It meant that you had an obli-

gation to the people who gave it to you. It meant that they believed what you

said about yourself, and that you had to prove that it was real, not merely to

them, but to yourself as well. Because if you failed, then houses were not

bought, kids not educated, and the dreams of real people not unlike yourself

would die aborning. Bad enough just in America, Winston thought, but this

event would-could-affect the entire world.

And he had to know what he’d done. It was not an accident. It had been a

well-considered plan, executed with style. Yamata. That clever son of a

bitch, Winston thought. Perhaps the first Japanese investor he’d ever re-

spected. The first one who’d really understood the game both tactically and

strategically. Well, that was sure as hell the case. The look on his face, those

dark eyes over the champagne glass. Why didn’t you see it then? So that was

the game after all, wasn’t it?

But no. It couldn’t be the entire game. A part of it, perhaps, a tactic aimed

at something else. What? What could be so important that Raizo Yamata

was willing to kiss off his personal fortune, and along the way destroy the

very global markets upon which his own corporations and his own national

economy depended? That was not something to enter the mind of a business-

man, certainly not something to warm the soul of a maven on the Street.

It was strange to have it all figured out and yet not understand the sense of

it. Winston looked out the window as the sun set on New York Harbor. He

had to tell somebody, and that somebody had to understand what this was all

about. Fiedler? Maybe. Better somebody who knew the Street. .. and knew

other things, too. But who?

‘ ‘Are they ours?” All four lay alee in Laolao Bay. One of their number was

tucked alongside an oiler, doubtless taking on fuel.

Oreza shook his head. “Paint’s wrong. The Navy paints its ships darker,

bluer, like.”

“They look like serious ships, man.” Burroughs handed the binoculars

back.

“Billboard radars, vertical-launch cells for missiles, antisub helicopters.

They’re Aegis ‘cans, like our Burke class. They’re serious, all right. Air-

planes are afraid of ’em.” As Portagee watched, a helicopter lifted off one

and headed for the beach.

“Report in?”

“Yeah, good idea.”

Burroughs went into the living room and put the batteries back in his

phone. The idea of completely depowering it was probably unnecessary, but

it was safe, and neither man was interested in finding out how the Japanese

treated spies, for that was what they were. It was also awkward, putting the

antenna through the hole in the bottom of the serving bowl and then holding

it next to your head, but it did give a certain element of humor to the exer-