Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

take such things phlegmatically. “No wonder he wants this one under

wraps. The front page isn’t big enough, is it?”

“That is the problem. It wouldn’t affect passage of the bill-well, proba-

bly not-but who needs the complications? TRA, the Moscow trip, too.

So-smart money, it’s announced when he gets back from Russia.”

“He’s hanging Realty out.”

“Roger never has liked him. He brought Ed on board for his legislative

savvy, remember? The President needed somebody who knew the system.

Well, what good will he be now, even if he’s cleared? Also, a major liability

for the campaign. It makes good political sense,” Greening pointed out, “to

toss him overboard right now, doesn’t it? At least, as soon as the other stuff

is taken care of.”

That’s interesting, Newton thought, quiet for a few seconds. We can’t

stop TRA. On the other hand, what if we can curse Durlings presidency?

That could give us a new Administration in one big hurry, and with the right

sort of guidance, a new Administration . . .

“Okay, Ernie, that’s something.”

12

Formalities

There had to be speeches. Worse, there had to be a lot of speeches. For

something of this magnitude, each of the 435 members from each of the 435

districts had to have his or her time in front of the cameras.

A representative from North Carolina had brought in Will Snyder, his

hands still bandaged, and made sure he had a front-row seat in the gallery.

That gave her the ability to point to her constituent, praise his courage to the

heavens, laud organized labor for the nobility of its unionized members, and

introduce a resolution to give Snyder official congressional recognition for

his heroic act.

Next, a member from eastern Tennessee rendered a similar panegyric to

his state’s highway police and the scientific resources of Oak Ridge National

Laboratory-there would be many favors handed out as a result of this legis-

lation, and ORNL would get a few more million. The Congressional Budget

Office was already estimating the tax revenue to be realized from increased

American auto production, and members were salivating over that like Pav-

lov’s dogs for their bell.

A member from Kentucky went to great pains to make it clear that the

Cresta was largely an American-made automobile, would be even more so

with the additional U.S. parts to be included in the design (that had already

been settled in a desperate but necessarily unsuccessful accommodation ef-

fort by the corporate management), and that he hoped none would blame the

workers of his district for the tragedy caused, after all, by non-American

parts. The Kentucky Cresta plant, he reminded them, was the most efficient

car factory in the world, and a model, he rhapsodized, of the way America

and Japan could and should cooperate! And he would support this bill only

because it was a way to make that cooperation more likely. That straddled

the fence rather admirably, his fellow members thought.

And so it went. The people who edited Roll Call, the local journal that

covered the Hill, were wondering if anyone would dare to vote against TRA.

“Look,” Roy Newton told his main client. “You’re going to take a beating,

okay? Nobody can change that. Call it bad luck if you want, but shit hap-

pens.”

It was his tone that surprised the other man. Newton was almost being

insolent. He wasn’t apologizing at all for his gross failure to change things,

as he was paid to do, as he had promised that he could do when he’d first

been hired to lobby for Japan, Inc. It was unseemly for a hireling to speak in

this way to his benefactor, but there was no understanding Americans, you

gave them money to do a job, and they-

“But there are other things going on, and if you have the patience to take

a longer view-“long view had already been tried, and Newton was grateful

for the fact that his client had good-enough language skills to catch the dif-

ference-“there are other options to be considered.”

“And what might those be?” Binichi Murakami asked acidly. He was

upset enough to allow his anger to show for once. It was just too much. He’d

come to Washington in the hope that he could personally speak out against

this disastrous bill, but instead had found himself besieged with reporters

whose questions had only made clear the futility of his mission. And for that

reason he’d been away from home for weeks, despite all sorts of entreaties to

return to Japan for some urgent meetings with his friend Kozo Matsuda.

“Governments change,” Newton replied, explaining on for a minute

or so.

“Such a trivial thing as that?”

“You know, someday it’s going to happen in your country. You’re kid-

ding yourself if you think otherwise.” Newton didn’t understand how they

could fail to grasp something so obvious. Surely their marketing people told

them how many cars were bought in America by women. Not to mention the

best lady’s shaver in the world. Hell, one of Murakami’s subsidiaries made

it. So much of their marketing effort was aimed at attracting women custom-

ers, and yet they pretended that the same factors would never come to be in

their own country. It was, Newton thought, a particularly strange blind spot.

“It really could ruin Durling?” The President was clearly getting all sorts

of political capital from TRA.

“Sure, if it’s managed properly. He’s holding up a major criminal investi-

gation, isn’t he?”

“No, from what you said, he’s asked to delay it for-”

“For political reasons, Binichi.” Newton did not often first-name his cli-

ent. The guy didn’t like it. Stuffed shirt. But he paid very well, didn’t he?

“Binichi. you don’t want to get caught playing with a criminal mailer, espe-

cially for political reasons. Expeciallv where the abuse of women is in-

volved. It’s an eccentricity of the American political system,” he explained

patiently.

“We can’t meddle with that, can we?” It was an ill-considered question.

He’d never quite meddled at this level before, that was all.

“What do you think you pay me for?”

Murakami leaned back and lit up a cigarette. He was the only person al-

lowed to smoke in this office. “How would we go about it?”

“Give me a few days to work on that? For the moment, take the next

flight home. You’re just hurting yourself by being here, okay?” Newton

paused. “You also need to understand, this is the most complicated project

I’ve ever done for you. Dangerous, too,” the lobbyist added.

Mercenary! Murakami raged behind eyes that were again impassive and

thoughtful. Well, at least he was effective at it.

“One of my colleagues is in New York. I plan to see him and then fly

home from New York.”

“Fine. Just keep a real low profile, okay?”

Murakami stood and walked to the outer office, where an aide and a body-

guard waited. He was a physically imposing man, tall for a Japanese at five-

ten, with jet-black hair and a youthful face that belied his fifty-seven years.

He also had a better-than-average track record for doing business in Amer-

ica, which made the current situation all the more offensive to him. He had

never purchased less than a hundred million dollars’ worth of American

products in any year for the past decade, and he had occasionally spoken out,

quietly, for allowing America greater access to his country’s food market.

The son and grandson of farmers, it appalled him that so many of his coun-

trymen would want to do that sort of work. It was so damnably inefficient,

after all, and the Americans, for all their laziness, were genuine artists at

growing things. What a pity they didn’t know how to plant a decent garden,

which was Murakami’s other passion in life.

The office building was on Sixteenth Street, only a few blocks from the

White House, and, stepping out on the sidewalk he could look down and see

the imposing building. Not Osaka Castle, but it radiated power.

‘ ‘You Jap cocksucker!”

Murakami turned to see the face, angry and white, a working-class man

by the look of him, and was so startled that he didn’t have time to take of-

fense. His bodyguard moved quickly to interpose himself between his boss

and the American.

“You’re gonna get yours, asshole!” the American said. He started to

walk away.

“Wait. What have I done to harm you?” Murakami asked, still too sur-

prised to be angry.

Had he known America better, the industrialist might have recognized

thai the man was one of Washington’s homeless, and like most of them, a

man with a problem. In this case, he was an alcoholic who had lost both his

job and his family to drink, and his only contact with reality came from dis-

jointed conversations with people similarly afflicted. Because of that, what-

ever outrages he held were artificially magnified. His plastic cup was full of