am also authorized to tell you that my government has requested an emer-
gency session of the U.N. Security Council to discuss your apparent inten-
tions to invade Sri Lanka. We will offer to the Security Council the service
of the U.S. Navy to safeguard the sovereignty of that country. Please forgive
me for speaking bluntly, but my country does not intend to see the sover-
eignty of that country violated by anyone. As I said, it is in everyone’s inter-
est to prevent a clash of arms.”
“We have no such intentions,” the Prime Minister insisted, taken very
aback by the directness of this message after the earlier one she’d ignored.
“Then we are agreed,” Ambassador Williams said pleasantly. “I will
communicate that to my government at once.”
It took nearly forever, in Ihis case just over half an hour, before the first, then
the second torpedo slopped circling, Ihcn stopped pinging. Neither found the
MOSS a large-enough largel lo engage, but neither found anything else, ei-
ther.
“Strength on that P-3 radar?” C’laggell asked.
“Approaching detection values, sir.”
“Take her down, Mr. Shaw. Lei’s gel below the layer and tool on out of
here.”
“Aye, Cap’n.” Shaw gave the necessary orders. Two minutes later, USS
Tennessee was underwater, and five minutes after that at six hundred feet,
turning southeast at a speed often knots. Soon thereafter they heard splashes
aft, probably sonobuoys, but it took a long time for a P-3 to generate enough
data to launch an attack, and Tennessee wasn’t going to linger about.
47
Brooms
“Not with a bang but a whimper?” the President asked.
“That’s the idea,” Ryan said, selling the phone down. Satellite imagery
showed that whatever the losses had been in the air battle, the Japanese had
lost another fourteen aircraft due to cluster munitions on their airfields. Their
principal search radars were gone, and they’d shot off a lot of SAMs. The
next obvious step was lo isolate the islands entirely from air and sea traffic,
and that could be done before the end of the week. The press release was
already being prepared if ihe necessity presented itself.
“We’ve won,” Ihe National Security Advisor said. “It’s just a matter of
convincing the other side.”
“You’ve done well, Jack,” Durling said.
“Sir, if I’d managed lo get the job done properly, it never would have
started in the first place,” Ryan replied after a second’s pause. He remem-
bered getting things stalled along those lines . . . about a week too late to
matter. Damn.
“Well, we seem lo have done that with India, according to what Dave
Williams just cabled in.” The President paused. “And what about ihis?”
“First we worry about concluding hostilities.”
“And then?”
“We offer them an honorable way out.” Upon elaboration. Jack was
pleased to see thai the Boss agreed with him.
There would be one more thing, Durling didn’t say, but he needed just a
little more thinking about it. For the moment it was enough that America
looked to be winning Ihis war, and with it he’d won reeleclion for saving ihe
economy and safeguarding the rights of American cili/.ens. It had been quite
HII iMlrirs(ni); inonili, the President/thought, looking ut the other man in the
loom inuI wondering what might have come to pass without him. After Ryan
led, he pliiietl a telephone call to the Hill.
One other advantage of airborne-radar aircraft was that they made counting
coup a lot easier. They could not always show which missile killed which
aircraft, but they did show them dropping off the screen.
‘ ‘Port Royal reports recovery complete,” a talker said.
“Thank you,” Jackson said. He hoped the Army aviators weren’t too
disappointed to have landed on a cruiser instead of Johnnie Reb, but he
needed his deck space.
“I count twenty-seven kills,” Sanchez said. Three of his own fighters had
fallen, with only one of the pilots rescued. The casualties were lighter than
expected, though that fact didn’t make the letter-writing any easier for the
CAG.
“Well, it’s not exactly like the Turkey Shoot, but it wasn’t bad. Tack on
fourteen more from the Tomahawks. That’s about half their fighter
strength-most of their F-I5S-and they only have the one Hummer left.
They’re on the short end from now on.” The battle-force commander went
over the other data. A destroyer gone and the rest of their Aegis ships in the
wrong place to interfere with the combat action. Eight submarines definitely
destroyed. The overall operational concept had been to detach the arms from
the body first, just as had been done in the Persian Gulf, and it had proved to
be even easier over water than over land. “Bud, if you were commanding
the other side, what would you try next?”
“We still can’t invade.” Sanche/. paused. “It’s a losing game any way
you cut it, but the last time we had to come this way …” He looked at his
commander.
“There is that. Bud, gel a Tom ready for a flight with me in the back.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Sanche/ made his way off.
“You thinking what I ” Stcnnix’s captain asked with a raised eyebrow.
“What do we got to lose, Phil?”
“A pretty good admiral, Koh,” he replied quietly.
“Where do you keep your radios in this barge?” Jackson asked with a
wink.
“Where have you been?” Goto asked in surprise.
“In hiding, after your patron kidnapped me.” Koga walked in without so
much as an announcement, took a seal without being bidden, and generally
displayed the total lack of manners that proclaimed his renewed power.
“What do you have to say for yourself.'” the former Prime Minister de-
manded of his successor.
“You cannot talk to me that way.” But even these words were weak.
“How murvclous. You lead our nation to ruin, but you insist on deference
from someone whom your master almost killed. With your knowledge?”
Koga asked lightly.
“Certainly not-and who murdered the-”
“Who murdered the criminals? Not I,” Koga assured him. “There is a
more important question: what are you going to do?”
‘ ‘Why, I haven’t decided that yet.” This attempt at a strong statement fell
short on several counts.
“You haven’t spoken to Yamata yet, you mean.”
‘ ‘I decide things for myself!”
“Excellent. Do so now.”
“You cannot order me about.”
‘ ‘And why not? I will soon be back in that seat. You have a choice. Either
you will resign your position this morning or this afternoon I will speak in
the Diet and request a vote of no-confidence. It is a vote you will not survive.
In either case you are finished.” Koga stood and started to leave. ‘ ‘I suggest
you do so honorably.”
People were lined up in the terminal, standing in line at the counters to get
tickets home, Captain Sato saw, as he walked past with a military escort.
He was only a young lieutenant, a paratrooper still apparently eager to
fight, which was more than could be said for the others in the building.
The waiting jeep raced away, heading for the military airfield. The natives
were out now, unlike before, carrying signs urging the “Japs” to leave.
Some of them ought to be shot for their insolence, Sato thought, still com-
ing to terms with his grief. Ten minutes later, he entered one of Kobler’s
hangars. Fighters were circling overhead, probably afraid to stray offshore,
he thought.
“In here, please,” the Lieutenant said.
He walked into the building with consummate dignity, his uniform cap
tucked inside his left arm, his back erect, hardly looking at anything, his eyes
fixed on the distant wall of the building until the Lieutenant stopped and
pulled the rubber sheet off the body.
‘ ‘Yes, that is my son.” He tried not to look, and blessedly the face was not
grossly disfigured, possibly protected by the flight helmet while the rest of
the body had burned as he sat trapped in his wrecked fighter. But when he
closed his eyes he could see his only child writhing in the cockpit, less than
an hour after his brother had drowned. Could destiny be so cruel as this? And
how was it that those who had served his country had to die, while a mere
transporter of civilians was allowed to pass through the American fighters
with contempt?
“The squadron command believes that he shot down an American fighter
beIore muting buck,” I he Lieutenant offered. He’d just made that up, hut he
hud In say somrlhmg, duln’l tie ‘
“‘Chunk you, Lieutenant. I have to relurn to my aircraft now.” No more
words were passed on the way hack to the airport. The army officer left the
man with his grief and his dignity.
Sato was on his flight deck twenty minutes later, the 747 already pre-
flighted, and, he was sure, completely filled with people returning home
under the promise of safe passage by the Americans. The ground tractor