Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

TOM CLANCY

his acts,” Adler offered next, giving generous maneuvering room to the

Ambassador and his government. “The net effect of his actions, as may be

seen today, will be to cause greater hardship to your country than to ours.

“Now, if we may, I should like us to return to the issue of the Mariana

Islands.”

The one-two punch predictably staggered the Japanese delegation. As was

often the case, nearly everything was left unsaid: We know what you did. We

know how you did it. We are prepared to deal with all of it. The brutally

direct method was designed to conceal the real American problem-the in-

ability to make an immediate military counter-but it also provided Japan

with the ability to separate her government from the acts of certain of her

citizens. And that, Ryan and Adler had decided the previous night, was the

best means of achieving a quick and clean end to the situation. To that end, a

large carrot was required.

‘ ‘The United States seeks little more than a return to normal relations. The

immediate evacuation of the Marianas will allow us to consider a more le-

nient interpretation of the Trade Reform Act. This, also, is something we are

willing to place on the table for consideration.” It was probably a mistake to

hit him with this much, Adler thought, but the alternative was further blood-

shed. By the end of the first session of formal negotiations, something re-

markable had happened. Neither side had repeated a position. Rather, it had

been, in diplomatic terms, a free-form exchange of views, few of them well

considered.

“Chris,” Adler whispered when he stood. “Find out what they’re really

thinking.”

‘ ‘Got it,” Cook replied. He got himself some coffee and headed out to the

terrace, where Nagumo stood on the edge, looking out toward the Lincoln

Memorial.

“It’s an elegant way out, Seiji,” Cook offered.

“You push us too hard,” Nagumo said without turning.

“If you want a chance to end this without getting people killed, this is the

best one.”

“The best for you, perhaps. What of our interests?”

“We’ll cut a deal on trade.” Cook didn’t understand it all. Unschooled in

financial matters, he was as yet unaware of what was happening on that

front. To him the recovery of the dollar and the protection of the American

economy was an isolated act. Nagumo knew different. The attack his coun-

try had begun could be balanced only by a counterattack. The effect would

not be restoration of the status quo ante, but, rather, serious damage to his

own country’s economy on top of preexisting damage from the Trade Re-

form Act. In this, Nagumo knew something that Cook did not: unless Amer-

ica acceded to Japanese demands for some territorial gain, then the war was

quite real.

1)1 III 01 HONOR

“We need time, Christopher.”

“Seiji, there isn’t time. Look, the media haven’t picked up on this yet.

That can change at any moment. If the public finds out, there’s going to be

hell to pay.” Because Cook was right, he’d given Nagumo an opening.

“Yes, there may well be, Chris. But I am protected by my diplomatic

status and you are not.” He didn’t need to say more than that.

“Now, wait a minute, Seiji…”

“My country needs more than what you offer,” Nagumo replied coldly.

“We’re giving you a way out.”

“We must have more.” There was no turning back now, was there?

Nagumo wondered if the ambassador knew that yet. Probably not, he

judged, from the way the senior diplomat was looking in his direction. It was

suddenly clear to him. Yamata and his allies had committed his country to

action from which there was no backing away, and he couldn’t decide if

they’d known it or not when they’d begun. But that didn’t matter now. “We

must have something,” he went on, “to show for our actions.”

At about that time, Cook realized how slow he’d been on the uptake.

Looking in Nagumo’s eyes, he saw it all. Not so much cruelty as resolve.

The Deputy Assistant Secretary of State thought about the money sitting in a

numbered account, and the questions that would be asked, and what possible

explanation he might have for it.

It sounded like an old-fashioned school bell when the digital clock turned

from 11:59:59 to 12:00:00.

“Thank you, H. G. Wells,” a trader breathed, standing on the wooden

floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The time machine was in operation.

For the first time in his memory, at this hour of the day the floor was clean.

Not a single paper slip lay there. The various traders at their kiosks looked

around and saw some signs of normality. The ticker had been running for

half an hour, showing the same data it had displayed the previous week,

really as a way of synchronizing their minds with the new day, and everyone

used it as a touchstone, a personal contact with reality that both was and was

not.

It was a hell of a speech the President had given five hours earlier. Every-

one on the floor had seen it at least once, most of them right here, followed

by a pep talk from the head of the NYSE that would have done Knulc

Rockne proud. They had a mission that day, a mission that was more impor-

tant than their individual well-being, and one that, if accomplished, would

see to their long-term security as well as that of the entire country. They hnd

spent the day reconstructing their activities of the previous Friday, lo ll»r

point where every trader knew what quantities of which stock he or she In-Id,

what every position was. Some even remembered the moves they’d Ix-on

planning lo make, bul most of those had been “up” moves rather lhan

“down” ones, and their collective memory would not allow them to follow

through on them.

On the other hand, they remembered well the panic of the afternoon seven

days before, and, knowing that it had been both artificial and malicious, no

one wished to start it afresh. And besides, Europe had signaled its confi-

dence in the dollar in the strongest terms. The bond market was as solidly

fixed as though set in granite, and the first moves of the day had been to buy

U.S. Treasuries to take advantage of the stunning deal offered by the Fed

Chairman. That move was the best confidence-builder they’d ever seen.

For over ninety seconds by one trader’s watch, exactly nothing happened

on the floor of the exchange. The ticker simply displayed nothing. The phe-

nomenon evoked snorts of disbelief from men whose minds raced to under-

stand it. The little-guy investors, without a clue, were making few calls, and

those who did were told by their brokers to sit tight. And for the most part

that was what they did. Those who did make sell orders had them handled

in-house by their brokerage houses from the reservoir of issues that they had

on hand, left over from the previous week. But the big traders weren’t doing

anything, either. Each of them was waiting for somebody else to do some-

thing. The inactivity of merely a minute and a half seemed an eternity to

people accustomed to frantic action, and when the first major play happened,

it came as a relief.

That first big move of the day, predictably, came from the Columbus

Group. It was a massive purchase of Citibank common. Seconds later, Mer-

rill Lynch pushed the button for a similar acquisition of Chemical Bank.

“Yeah,” a few voices said on the floor. It made sense, didn’t it? Citibank

was vulnerable to a fall in the dollar, but the Europeans had seen to it that the

dollar was rising in value, and that made First National City Bank a good

issue to pick up on. As a result, the first tick of the Dow Jones Industrial

Average was up, defying every prediction of every computer.

“Yeah, we can do this,” another floor trader observed. “I want a hundred

Manny-Hanny at six,” he announced. That would be the next bank to bene-

fit from the increasing strength of the dollar, and he wanted a supply that he

could move out at six and a quarter. The stocks that had led the slide the

previous week would now lead a rise, and for the same reasons as before.

Mad as it sounded, it made perfect sense, they all realized. And as soon as

the rest of the market figured it out, they could all cash in on it.

The news ticker on the wall was up and running, again giving shorthand

selections off the wire services. GM, it said, was rehiring twenty thousand

workers for its plants around Detroit in anticipation of increased auto sales.

The callback would take nine months, the announcement didn’t say, and was

the result of a call from the Secretaries of Commerce and Labor, but it was