war. alter a fashion. He’d terminated a “black” operation that would proba-
bly have caused great political harm to his country. Now he was about to
initiate one-well, not exactly, he told himself. Somebody else had started
this war, but just though it might be, he didn’t exactly relish what he was
about to do. “They’re not going to back off.”
“We never saw it coming,” Durling said quietly, knowing that it was too
late for such thoughts.
” And maybe that’s my fault,” Ryan replied, feeling that it was his duty to
take the blame. After all, national security was his bailiwick. People would
die because of what he’d done wrong, and die from whatever things he
might do right. I-or all the power exercised from this room, there really were
no choices, were there?
“Will it all work?”
“Sir, that is something we’ll just have to see.”
It turned out to be easier than expected. Three of the ungainly twin-engine
aircraft taxied in a line to the end of the runway, where each took its turn to
lace into the northwest winds, stopping, advancing its engines to full power,
backing off to see if the engines would flame out, and when they didn’t,
going again to full power, but this time slipping the brakes and accelerating
into its takeoff roll. Clark checked his watch and unfolded a road map of
Honshu.
All that was required was a phone call. The Boeing Company’s Commercial
Airplane Group issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive, called an
li-AD, concerning the auto-landing system on its 767 commercial aircraft. A
fault of unknown origin had affected the final approach of a TWA airliner on
final into St. Louis, and until determination of the nature of the fault, opera-
tors were strongly advised to deactivate that feature of the flight-control sys-
tems until further notice. The directive went out by electronic mail, telex,
and registered mail to all operators of the 767.
Eyes First
It came as no particular surprise that the Japanese consulates in Honolulu,
San Francisco, New York, and Seattle were closed. FBI agents showed up at
all of them simultaneously and explained that they had to be vacated forth-
with. After perfunctory protests, which received polite but impassive atten-
tion, the diplomatic personnel locked up their buildings and walked off
under guard-mainly to protect them against ragtag protesters, in every case
watched by local police-into buses that would conduct them to the nearest
airport for a flight to Vancouver, B.C. In the case of Honolulu, the bus went
close enough to the Pearl Harbor naval base that officials got a last look at
the two carriers in their graving docks, and photos were shot from the bus to
record the fact. It never occurred to the consulate official who shot the pic-
tures that the FBI personnel at the front of the bus did not interfere with his
action. After all, the American media were advertising everything, as they’d
been expected to do. The operation, they saw, was handled professionally in
every detail. Their bags were X-rayed for weapons and explosives-there
was none of that nonsense, of course-but not opened, since these were dip-
lomatic personnel with treaty-guaranteed immunity. America had chartered
an airliner for them, a United 737, which lifted off and, again, managed to
fly directly over the naval base, allowing the official to shoot another five
photos through the double windows from an altitude of five thousand feet.
He congratulated himself on his foresight in keeping his camera handy. Then
he slept through most of the five-hour flight to Vancouver.
“One and lour lire gmxl as new. Skipper,” the ChEng assured Johnnic
Wc/>’s CO. “We’ll jjivc you thirty, maybe thirty-two knots, whenever you
ask.”
Two and three, the inboard shafts, were closed off, the hull openings into
the skegs welded shut, and with them the top fifteen or so knots of John
,SV<7;m'.v's real top speed, but the removal of the propellers also cut down ondrag, allowing a quite respectable max speed that would have to do. Themost ticklish procedure had been resetting the number-four drivetrain,which had to be more finely balanced than the wheel of a racing car, lest itdestroy itself at max revolutions. The testing had been accomplished thesame way, by turning the screw and checking every bearing along thelengthy shaft. Now it was done, and the dry dock could be flooded tonight.The commanding officer walked tiredly up the concrete steps to the top ofthe immense man-made canyon, and from there the brow. It was quite aclimb all the way to his at-sea cabin aft of the bridge, from which he made atelephone call.II was just about time. Clark looked southeast out the back window of theirroom. The cold air was clear and dry, with a few light clouds in the distance,still white in the direct sunlight while the ground was beginning to darkenwith twilight."Ready?" he asked."You say so, man." Ding's large metal camera case was open on thefloor. The contents had cleared customs weeks before, and appeared unre-markable, typical of what a news photographer might take with him, if asomewhat lighter load than most carried. The foam-filled interior includedcutout spaces for three camera bodies and a variety of lenses, plus othercavities for photographic lights that also appeared entirely ordinary but werenot. The only weapons with them did not appear to be weapons at all, a factthat had also worked well for them in East Africa. Chavez lifted one of them,checking the power meter on the battery pack and deciding not to plug it intothe wall. He flipped the switch to standby and heard the thin electronic whis-tle of the charging capacitors."There it is," John said quietly when he saw the incoming lights, notrelishing the job any more than his partner. But you weren't supposed to,were you?The inbound 6-767 had turned on its inboard recognition lights while de-scending through ten thousand feet, and now lowered its landing gear.The outboard landing lights came on next. Five miles out and two thou-sand feet over the industrial area surrounding the air base, the pilot sawIhc runway lights and told himself not to relax after the long, boring pa-trol flight."Haps twenty-five," he said."Haps twenty-five," the copilot acknowledged, reaching for the controllever that deployed the landing flaps off the rear of the wing surfaces and theslats at the front, which gave the wing needed extra lift and control at thediminishing speed."Kami-Three on final, runway in sight," the pilot said, this time over theradio to the approach-control officer who had guided him unnecessarily tothis point. The tower responded properly and the pilot tightened his gripslightly on the controls, more thinking the slight control movements thanactually moving, adjusting to the low-altitude winds and scanning for possi-ble unnoticed aircraft in the restricted airspace. Most aircraft accidents, heknew, occurred on landing, and that was why the flight crew had to be espe-cially alert at this time."I got it," Chavez said, no emotion at all in his voice as he told his con-science to be still. His country was at war. The people in the airplane woreuniforms, were fair game because of it, and that was that. It was just toodamned easy, though he remembered the first time he had killed, which, inretrospect, had also been so easy as to constitute murder. He'd actually feltelation at the time, Chavez remembered with passing shame."I want a hot tub and a massage," the copilot said, allowing himself a per-sonal thought as his eyes checked around, two miles out. "All clear to theright. Runway is clear."The pilot nodded and reached for the throttles with his right hand, easingthem back and allowing air friction to slow the aircraft further for its pro-grammed touchdown speed of 145 knots, high because of the extra fuel re-serves the Kami aircraft carried. They always flew heavy."Two kilometers, everything is normal," the copilot said."Now," Chavez whispered. The barrel-like extension of the light was on hisshoulder, aimed almost like a rifle, or more properly like an antitank rocketlauncher, at the nose of the approaching aircraft. Then his finger came downon the button.The "magic" they had used in Africa was conceptually nothing morethan a souped-up flashlight, but this one had a xenon-arc bulb and put outthree million candlepower. The most expensive part of the assembly was thereflector, a finely machined piece of steel alloy that confined the beam to adiameter of about forty feet at a distance of one mile. One could easily read anewspaper by Ihc illumination provided at that distance, but to look directlyinto the light, even at that distance, was quite blinding. Designed and issued