delivered. “It is likely that in the next twenty-four hours your occupation of
the Marianas will become public knowledge. At that point the situation will
go beyond our control. You have plenipotentiary powers to resolve this af-
fair…”
But he didn’t, as Adler had begun to suspect, despite assurances to the
contrary. He could also see that he’d pushed the man too hard and too fast.
Not that he’d had a choice in the matter. The entire affair had been going on
for barely a week. In normal diplomatic practice it took that long just to se-
lect the kind of chairs the negotiators sat in. In that respect everything had
been doomed from the beginning, but Adler was a professional diplomat for
whom hope was never dead. Even now as he concluded his latest statement,
he looked into the man’s eyes for something he’d be able to report lo ihe
White House.
“Throughout our talks we have heard about America’s demands, but we
have not heard a single word concerning my country’s legitimate security
interests. Today you have concluded a systematic attack on our financial and
economic foundations and-”
Adler leaned forward. “Mr. Ambassador! A week ago your country did
the same thing to us, as the information in front of you demonstrates. A week
ago your country conducted an attack on the United States Navy. A week
ago your country seized U.S. territory. In equity, sir, you have no place to
criticize us for efforts necessary to the restoration of our own economic sta-
bility. ” He paused for a moment, reproving himself for the decidedly undip-
lomatic language of his outburst, but events had gone beyond such
niceties-or they soon would. “We have offered you the opportunity to ne-
gotiate in good faith for a mutually acceptable interpretation of the Trade
Reform Act. We will accept an apology and reparations for the losses to our
Navy. We require the immediate evacuation of Japanese military forces
from the Mariana Islands.”
But things had already gone too far for that, and everyone at the table
knew it. There just wasn’t time. Adler felt the dreadful weight of inevitabil-
ity. All his skills were useless now. Other events and other people had taken
matters out of his hands, and the Ambassador’s hands as well. He saw the
same look on the man’s face that must have been on his own.
His voice was mechanical. “Before I can respond to that, I must consult
with my government. I propose that we adjourn so that consultations may be
carried out.”
Adler nodded more with sadness than anger. “As you wish, Mr. Ambas-
sador. If you should need us, we will be available.”
“My God, you kept all that quiet? How?” Holtzman demanded.
“Because you guys were all looking the other way,” Jack answered
bluntly. “You’ve always depended too much on us for information any-
way.” He instantly regretted those words. It had come out as too much of a
challenge. Stress, Jack.
“But you lied to us about the carriers and you never told us about the
submarines at all!”
“We’re trying to stop this thing before it gets worse,” President Durling
said. “We’re talking to them over at State right now.”
“You’ve had a busy week,” the journalist acknowledged. “Realty’s
out?”
The President nodded. “He’s talking with the Justice Department and
with the victims.”
“The big thing was getting the markets put back in place,” Ryan said.
‘ ‘That was the real-”
“What do you mean? They’ve killed people!” Holtzman objected.
“Bob, why have you guys been hammering the Wall Street story so hard
all week? Damn it, what was really scary about their attack on us was the
w;iy they wrecked the financial markets and did their run on the dollar. We
had to fix that first.”
Bob Holt/.man conceded the point. “How the hell did you pull that one
off?”
“(iod, who would have thunk it?” Mark Gant asked. The bell had just
rung to close the abbreviated trading day. The Dow was down four and a
quarter points, with four hundred million shares traded. The S&P 500 was
actually up a fraction, as was NASDAQ, because the blue-chip companies
hail suffered more from general nerves than the smaller fry. But the bond
market was the best of all, and the dollar was solid. The Japanese yen, on
the other hand, had taken a fearful beating against every Western cur-
rency.
“The changes in bonds will drop the stock market next week,” Winston
said, rubbing his face and thanking Providence for his luck. Residual nerves
in the market would encourage people to seek out safer places for their
money, though the strength of the dollar would swiftly ameliorate that.
“By the end of the week?” Gant wondered. “Maybe. I’m not so sure. A
lot of manufacturing stocks are still undervalued.”
“Your move on Citibank was brilliant,” the Fed Chairman said, taking a
place next to the traders.
“They didn’t deserve the hit they took last week, and everyone knew it. I
was just the first to make the purchase,” Winston replied matter-of-factly.
“Besides, we came out ahead on the deal.” He tried not to be too smug
about it. It had just been another exercise in psychology; he’d done some-
thing both logical and unexpected to initiate a brief trend, then cashed in on
it. Business as usual.
“Any idea how Columbus made out today?” Secretary Fiedler asked.
“Up about ten,” Gant replied at once, meaning ten million dollars, a fair
day’s work under the circumstances. “We’ll do better next week.”
An FBI agent came over. ‘ ‘Call in from DTC. They’re posting everything
normally. That part of the system seems to be back to normal.”
“What about Chuck Searls?” Winston asked.
“Well, we’ve taken his apartment completely apart. He had two bro-
chures about New Caledonia, of all places. That’s part of France, and we
have the French looking for him.”
“Want some good advice?”
“Mr. Winston, we always look for advice,” the agent replied with a pin.
The mood in the room was contagious.
“Look in other directions, too.”
“We’re checking everything.”
“Yeah, Mil//,” Ihc President said, lifting the phone. Kyan, Holt/man, and
two Secret Service agents saw JUMPER close his eyes and let out a long
breath. He’d been getting reports from Wall Street all afternoon, but it
wasn’t official for him until he heard it from Secretary Fiedler. “Thanks, my
friend. Please let everybody know that I-good, thanks. See you tonight.”
Durling replaced the phone. “Jack, you are a good man in a storm.”
“One storm left.”
“So does that end it?” Holtzman asked, not really understanding what
Durling had said. Ryan took the answer.
‘ ‘We don’t know yet.”
“But-”
“But the incident with the carriers can be written off as an accident, and
we won’t know for sure what happened to the submarines until we look at
the hulls. They’re in fifteen thousand feet of water,” Jack told him, cringing
inwardly for saying such things. But this was war, and war was something
you tried to avoid. If possible, he reminded himself. “There’s the chance
that we can both back away from this, write it off to a misunderstanding, a
few people acting without authority, and if they get hammered for it, nobody
else dies.”
“And you’re telling me all this?”
“It traps you, doesn’t it?” Jack asked. “If the talks over at State work out,
then you have a choice, Bob. You can either help us keep things quiet, or you
can have a shooting war on your conscience. Welcome to the club, Mr.
Holtzman.”
“Look, Ryan, I can’t-”
“Sure you can. You’ve done it before.” Jack noted that the President sat
there and listened, saying nothing. That was partly to distance himself from
Ryan’s maneuvering, but another part, perhaps, liked what he saw. And
Holtzman was playing along.
“So what does all this mean?” Goto asked.
“It means that they will bluster,” Yamata told him. It means that our
country needs leadership, he couldn’t say. “They cannot take the islands
back. They lack the resources to attack us. They may have patched up their
financial markets for now, but Europe and America cannot survive without
us indefinitely, and by the time they realize that, we will not need them as we
do now. Don’t you see? This has always been about independence for us!
When we achieve that, everything will change.”
“And for now?”
“Nothing changes. The new American trade laws would have the same
effect as hostilities. At least this way we get something for it, and we will
have the chance of ruling our own house.”
That’s what it really came down to, the one thing that nobody but he ever
ijiiite saw. His country could make products and sell them, but so long as his
country needed markets more than the markets needed his country, trade
laws could cripple Japan, and his country would have no recourse at all. Al-