Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

lapse his chute. That task done, he came back, donned his low-light goggles,

and assembled his people.

“Everybody okay?”

“Good drop, sir.” Vega showed up first with two others in tow. The rest

were heading in, all carrying their black chutes.

“Let’s get to work, Rangers.”

The Globemaster continued almost due south, going “feet-wet” just west of

Nomazu, and again hugging the water, kept a mountainous peninsula be-

tween itself and the distant 8-7675 for as long as possible, then turned south-

west to distance itself further still from them until, two hundred miles off the

coast of Japan, it was safe to climb back to a safe cruising altitude into com-

mercial airline routing 6223. The only remaining question was whether the

KC-io tanker that was supposed to meet them would show up and allow

them to complete their flight to Kwajalein. Only then could they break radio

silence.

The Rangers were able to do it first. The communications sergeant broke out

a satellite transmitter, oriented it toward the proper azimuth, and transmitted

a five-letter group, waiting for an acknowledgment.

“They’re down okay,” an Army major told Jackson at his desk in the

National Military Command Center.

The real trick is K”if’K to ‘”‘ Wttinx them out, the Admiral thought. Hut

one thinx at a time. He lifted his phone to call the White House.

“Jack, the Rangers are in.”

“Good one, Rob. I need you over here,” Ryan told him.

“What for? It’s busy here and-”

“Now, Robby.” The line clicked off.

The next order of business was to get the cargo moved. It had landed within

two hundred meters of the nominal location, and the plan had allowed for

quite a bit more than that. One by one, pairs of Rangers struggled with empty

fuel bladders, carrying them uphill to the treeline that bordered what seemed

to be a highlands meadow. With that done, a hose was strung, and twenty

thousand pounds of JP-5 pumped from one large rubber bladder into six

other, smaller ones arranged in pairs at preselected spots. That operation

took an hour, while four of their number patrolled the immediate area for

signs of human presence, but finding nothing but the tracks of a four-wheel

cycle, which they’d been told to expect. When the pumping operation was

finished, the original fuel bladder was folded and dumped into a hole, then

carefully covered up with sod. Next, the solid cargo had to be manhandled

into place and covered with camouflage netting. That required another two

hours, straining the Rangers to the limit of their conditioning with the com-

bination of heavy work and building stress. Soon the sun would be up, and

the area could not look as though there were people here. First Sergeant

Vega supervised the cover-up operation. When all was done, the Rangers

still outside the treeline walked in single file toward it, with the last man in

line working on the grass to reduce the signs of their passage. It wasn’t per-

fect, but it would have to do. By dawn, at the end of what had been for them

a twenty-hour day as unpleasant as anyone could have contrived to make,

they were in place, unwelcome guests on the soil of a foreign land, mainly

shivering in the cold, unable to light a fire for warmth, eating cold MRE

rations.

‘ ‘Jack, I got work to do over there, damn it,” Robby said on his way through

the door.

“Not anymore. The President and I talked it over last night.”

“What do you mean?”

“Get packed. You’re taking over the Stennis battle group.” Ryan

wanted to grin at his friend, but couldn’t quite bring himself lo thai. Not

when he was sending his friend into danger. The news stopped Jackson in

his tracks.

“You sure?”

“It’s decided. The President has signed off on it. CINCPAC knows. Ad-

miral Scalon

Kohhy nodded. “Yeah, I’ve worked for him before.”

“You have two hours. There’s a Gulfstream waiting for you at Andrews.

We need somebody,” the National Security Advisor explained, “who

knows the political limits on the mission. Take it right to the edge, Rob, but

no further. We have to smart our way through this.”

“I understand.”

Ryan stood and walked to his friend. “I’m not sure I like doing this …”

“It’s my job, Jack.”

Tennessee arrived at her station off the Japanese coast and finally slowed to

her normal patrol speed of five knots. Commander Claggett took a required

moment to get a position fix on a rocky outcropping known to sailors as

Lot’s Wife, then dived his boat below the layer to a depth of six hundred

feet. The sonar showed nothing at the moment, odd for the normally busy

shipping lanes, but after four and a half days of dangerously high-speed run-

ning, it came as a considerable relief to everyone aboard. The Army person-

nel had adapted well enough and joined sailors for their jogs in the missile

room. For the moment, the mission orders were little different from those the

boomer had been designed to do: remain undetected, with the additional as-

signment of gathering whatever information on enemy movements that

came her way. It wasn’t exactly exciting, but only Claggett knew at the mo-

ment how important it was.

The satellite link told Sandy Richter and his colleagues that the mission was

a probable “go.” It meant more simulator time for all of them while ground

crews prepped Iheir Comanches for business. Unfortunately, that meant af-

fixing decidedly unstealthy wing fittings to the side of each aircraft, along

with long-range ferry tanks, but he’d known that from the beginning, and

nobody had bothered asking how much he liked the idea. There were three

scenarios on the sim now, and one by one the flight crews went through

them, their bodies gyrating, quite unaware of what they were doing in the

real world while their minds and bodies played in the virtual one.

“How the hell do we do that?” Chavez demanded.

Russians would not have questioned the orders in quite that way, Sche-

renko thought. “I only relay orders from your own agency,” he told them.

“I also know that Koga’s disappearance was not caused by any official

agency.”

“Yamata, you suppose?” Clark asked. That piece of information nar-

rowed the possibilities somewhat. It also made the impossible merely dan-

gerous.

“A good guess. You know where he lives, yes?”

“We’ve seen it from a distance,” Chavez confirmed.

“Ah, yes-your photos.” The Major would have loved to know what

those had been about, but it would have been foolish to ask the question, and

it was not certain that these two Americans knew the answer in any case. “If

you have other assets in-country, I suggest you make use of them. We are

making use of ours as well. Koga is probably the political solution to this

crisis.”

“If there is one,” Ding noted.

“Good to fly with you again, Captain Sato,” Yamata said pleasantly. The

invitation to the flight deck pleased him. The pilot, he saw, was a patriot, a

man of both pride and skill who really understood what was happening.

What a pity he’d chosen such a lowly path for his life.

Sato took off his headset and relaxed in his command seat. “This is a

pleasant change from the Canadian flights.”

“How does that go?”

‘ ‘I’ve spoken with a few executives on the way home. They say the Amer-

icans are more confused than anything else.”

“Yes.” Yamata smiled. “They confuse easily.”

‘ ‘Can we hope for a diplomatic settlement to this business, Yamata-san?”

“I think so. They lack the ability to attack us effectively.”

“My father commanded a destroyer in the war. My brother-”

“Yes, I know him well, Captain.” That remark, he saw, lit up the pilot’s

eyes with pride.

”And my son is a fighter pilot. He flies the Eagle.”

“Well, they have done well so far. They recently killed two American

bombers, you know. The Americans tested our air defenses,” the industrial-

ist said. “It was they who failed.”

41

CTF-T7

“You’re back!” the rental agent said with some pleasure.

Nomuri smiled and nodded. “Yes. I had a particularly good day at the

office yesterday. I do not need to tell you how stressful such a ‘good’ day

can be, do I? ”

The man grunted agreement. “In the summer my best days are those

when I get no sleep. Please excuse how I appear,” he added. He’d been

working on some of his machines all morning, which for him had begun just

after five. The same was true of Nomuri, but for a different reason.

“I understand. I own my own business, too, and who works harder than a

man who works for himself, eh?”

“Do you suppose the zaibatsu understand that?”

“Not the ones I’ve met. Even so, you are fortunate to live in so peaceful

an area.”

“Not always peaceful. The Air Force must have been playing games last