Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

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