Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

take made by the automated homing systems. The ADCAP was at this point

not unlike a miniature submarine with its own very precise sonar picture,

enabling the weapons tech to play vicarious kamikaze, in this case two at

once, a skill that nicely complemented his skill on the boat’s Nintendo sys-

tem. The really good news for Claggett was that he wasn’t trying a coun-

terdetection, but rather trying to save his ship first. Well, that was a

judgment call, wasn’t it?

“There’s another one forward of us, bearing one-four-zero!”

“They have us,” the Captain said, looking at the display and thinking that

probably two submarines had shot at him. Still, he had to try, and ordered a

crash turn to port. Top-heavy like her American Aegis cousins, Mutsu

heeled violently to the right. As soon as the turn was made, the CO ordered

full astern, hoping that the torpedo might miss forward.

It couldn’t be anything else. Sato was losing sight of the battle, and overrode

the autopilot, turning his aircraft into a tight left bank, leaving it to his right-

seater to hit the seat belt signs for the passengers. He could see it all in the

clear light of a quarter moon. Mulstt had executed one radical turn and then

twisted into another. There were Hashing lights on her stern as the ship’s

antisub helicopter started turning its rotor, struggling to get off and hunt

whatever-yes, it had to be a submarine. Captain Sato thought, a sneaking,

cowardly submarine attacking his brother’s proud and beautiful dcMioyei

lie was surprised to see the ship slow-to slop almost dead with ihc it Mom

thrust of her reversible propeller-and wondered why thai maneuver hml

been attempted. Wasn’t it the same as for aircraft, whose rule was the simple

axiom: Speed Is Life . . .

“Major cavitation sounds, maybe a crash-stop, sir,” the sonar chief said.

The weapons tech didn’t give Claggett a chance to react.

“Don’t matter. I have him cold on both, sir. Setting three for contact ex

plosion, getting some magnetic interference from-they must use our Nixie.

eh?”

“Correct, sailor.”

“Well, we know how that puppy works. Unit one is five hundred out,

closing fast.” The technician cut one of the wires, letting unit one go on its

own now, rising to thirty feet and fully autonomous, activating its onboard

magnetic field and seeking the metal signature of the target, then finding it,

letting it grow and grow . ..

The helicopter just got off, its strobe lights looping away from the now-sta-

tionary destroyer. The moment seemed fixed in time when the ship started

turning again, or seemed to, then a violent green flash appeared in the water

on both sides of the ship, just forward of the bridge under the vertical launch

magazine for her surface-to-air missiles. The knifelike shape of the hull was

backlit in an eerie, lethal way. The image fixed in Sato’s mind for the quarter

second it lasted, and then one or more of the destroyer’s SAMs exploded,

followed by forty others, and Mutsu’s forward half disintegrated. Three sec-

onds later, another explosion took place, and when the white water returned

back to the surface, there was little more to be seen than a patch of burning

oil. Just like her namesake in Nagasaki harbor in 1943 . . .

” Captain!” The cop i I ot had to wrench the control-wheel level away from

the Captain before the Boeing went into a stall. “Captain, we have passen-

gers aboard!”

“That was my brother…”

“We have pasxcnxt’i’x aboard, damn you!” Without resistance now, he

brought the 747 back to level flight, looking at his gyrocompass for the

proper heading. ‘ ‘Captain!”

Sato turned his head back into the cockpit, losing sight of his brother’s

grave as the airliner changed its heading back to the south.

“I am sorry, Captain Sato, but we also have a job we must do.” He en-

gaged the autopilot before reaching out to the man. “Are you all right

now?”

Sato looked forward into the empty sky. Then he nodded and composed

hintselt. “Yes, 1 am quite all right. Thank you. Yes. I am quite all right

now,” he repeated more firmly, required by the rules of his culture to set his

personal emotions aside for now. Their father had survived his destroyer

command, had moved on to captain a cruiser on which he had died off

Samar, the victim of American destroyers and their torpedoes . . . and now

again . . .

“What the hell was that?” Commander Ugaki demanded of his sonar offi-

cers.

“Torpedoes, two of them, from the south,” the junior lieutenant replied.

‘ ‘They’ve killed Mutsu.”

“What from?” was the next angry shout.

“Something undetected, Captain,” was the weak reply.

“Come south, turns for eight knots.”

“That will take us right through the disturbance from-”

“Yes, I know that.”

“Definite kill,” sonar told him. The signature on the sonar screen was defi-

nite. “No engine sounds from target bearing, but breakup noises, and this

here was one big secondary explosion. We got him, sir.”

Richter crossed over the same town the C-I7 had overflown a few days ear-

lier, and though somebody might have heard him, that was less of a concern

now. Besides, al nighl a chopper was a chopper, and there were plenty of

them here. He settled his C’omanche to a cruising altitude of fifty feet and

headed due south, telling himself that, sure, the Navy would be there, and

sure, he could land on a ship, and sure, everything was going to go just fine.

He was grateful for the lailwind until he saw the waves it was whipping up.

Oh, shit. . .

“Mr. Ambassador, the situation has changed, as you know,” Adler said

gently. The room had never heard the sound of more than one voice, but

somehow it seemed far quieter now.

Seiji Nagumo, sitting next to his senior, noted that the chair next to Adler

was occupied by someone else, another Japanese specialist from the fourth

floor. Where was Chris Cook? he asked himself as the American negotiator

went on. Why was he not here-anil what did it mean?

“As we speak, American aircraft are attacking the Marianas. As we

speak, American fleet units are engaging your fleet units. I must tell you that

we have every reason to believe that our operations will be successful and

that we will he uhlc lo isolate the Marianas from the rest of the world. The

next part of the operation, if it becomes necessary, will be to declare a mari-

time exclusion /.one around your Home Islands. We have no wish to attack

your country directly, but it is within our capabilities to cut off your mari-

time trade in a matter of days.

” Mr. Ambassador, it is time to put an end to this …”

“As you see,” the CNN reporter said from her perch next to USS Enter-

prise. Then the camera panned to her right, showing an empty box. “USS

John Stennis has left her dry dock. We are informed that the carrier is even

now launching a strike against the Japanese-held Marianas. We were asked

to cooperate with government deception operations, and after careful con-

sideration, it was decided that CNN is, after all, an American news ser-

vice . . .”

“Bastards!” General Arima breathed, looking at the empty concrete

structure, occupied only by puddles and wooden blocks now. Then his

phone rang.

When it was certain that the Japanese E-2Cs had them, two Air Force

AW ACS aircraft flipped their radars on, having staged in from Hawaii, via

Dyess on Kwajalein Atoll. In electronic terms it would be an even fight, but

the Americans had more aircraft up to make sure it was fair in no other way.

Four Japanese Eagles were aloft, and their first instinctive action was to turn

northeast toward the intruders, the better to give their comrades standing

ground alert time to gel aloft and join the air battle before the incoming at-

tack got close enough to catch their comrades on the ground. Simultaneously

the ground defenses were warned to expect inbound hostile aircraft.

Sanchez lit off his own targeting radar as he saw the Japanese fighters just

over a hundred miles away, heading in to launch their missiles. But they

were armed with AMRAAMs, and he was armed with Phoenix, which had

about double the range. He and three other aircraft launched two each for a

max-range engagement. The eight missiles went into ballistic arcs, heading

up to a hundred thousand feet before tipping over at Mach-5 and heading

back down, their height giving them the largest possible radar cross section

to home on. The Kagles detected the attack and tried to maneuver clear, but

seconds later two of the F-i5Js were blotted from the sky. The remaining

pair kept driving in. The second wave of Phoenixes took care of that.