Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

for a while.” He turned to check the status of his aircraft. He had ample

combat power to deal with the threat, but that wasn’t the issue. His mission

was not to defeat the Indian Navy in battle. It was to intimidate them from

doing something which America found displeasing. For that matter, his ad-

versary’s mission could not have been to fight the United States Navy-

could it? No, that was too crazy. It was barely within the realm of possibility

that a very good and very lucky Indian fleet commander could best a very

unlucky and very dumb American counterpart, but Dubro had no intention

of letting that happen. More likely, just as his mission was mainly bluff, so

was theirs. If they could force the American fleet south, then . . . they

weren’t so dumb after all, were they? The question was how to play the cards

he had.

“They’re forcing us to commit, Ed. Trying to, anyway.” Dubro leaned

forward, resting one hand on the map display and tracing around with the

other. “They probably think we’re southeast. If so, by moving south they

can block us better, and they know we’ll probably maintain our distance just

to keep out of their strike range. On the other hand, if they suspect we are

where we really are right now, they can accomplish the same thing, or face

us with the option of looping around to the northwest to cover the Gulf of

Mannar. But that means coming within range of their land-based air, with

their fleet to our south, and our only exit due west. Not bad for an operational

concept,” the battle-group commander acknowledged. “The group com-

mander still Chandraskatta?”

Fleet-Ops nodded. “That’s right, sir. He’s back after a little time on the

beach. The Brits have the book on the guy. They say he’s no dummy.”

“I think I’d go along with that for the moment. What sort of intel you

suppose they have on us?”

Harrison shrugged. “They know how long we’ve been here. They have to

know how tired we are.” Fleet-Ops meant the ships as much as the men.

Every ship in the Task Force had materiel problems now. They all carried

spare parts, but ships could remain at sea only so long before refit was

needed. Corrosion from salt air, the constant movement and pounding of

wind and wave, and heavy equipment use meant that ships’ systems couldn’t

last forever. Then there were the human factors. His men and women were

tired now, too long at sea. Increased maintenance duties made them tireder

still. The current catchphrase in the military for these combined problems

was “leadership challenge,” a polite expression meaning that the officers

commanding both the ships and the men sometimes didn’t know what the

hell they were supposed to do.

“You know, Ed, at least the Russians were predictable.” Dubro stood

erect, looking down and wishing he still smoked his pipe. “Okay, let’s call

this one in. Tell Washington it looks like they might just be making a

move.”

“So we meet for the first time.”

“It’s my pleasure, sir.” Chuck Searls, the computer engineer, knew that

his three-piece suit and neat haircut had surprised the man. He held out his

hand and bobbed his head in what he supposed was a proper greeting for his

benefactor.

“My people tell me that you are very skilled.”

“You’re very kind. I’ve worked at it for some years, and I suppose I have

a few small talents.” Searls had read up on Japan.

And very greedy, Yamata thought, hut well-mannered. He would settle for

that. It was, all in all, a fortunate accident. He’d purchased the man’s busi-

ness four years earlier, left current management in place, as was his custom,

then discovered that the real brains of the outfit were in this man. Searls was

the nearest thing to a wizard that his executive had ever seen, the man had

reported to Yamata-san, and though the American’s title hadn’t changed, his

salary had. And then, a few years ago, Searls had remarked that he was tiring

of his job …

“Everything is prepared?”

“Yes, sir. The initial software upgrade went in months ago. They love

it.”

” And the-”

“Easter egg, Mr. Yamata. That’s what we call it.”

Raizo had never encountered the expression. He asked for an explanation

and got it-but it meant nothing to him.

“How difficult to implement it?”

“That’s the clever part,” Searls said. “It keys on two stocks. If General

Motors and Merck go through the system at values which I built in, twice

and in the same minute, the egg hatches, but only on a Friday, like you said,

and only if the five-minute period falls in the proper time-range.”

‘ ‘You mean this thing could happen by accident?” Yamata asked in some

surprise.

“Theoretically, yes, but the trigger values for the stocks are well outside

the current trading range, and the odds of having that happen all together by

accident are about thirty million to one. That’s why I picked this method for

hatching the egg. I ran a computer-search of trading patterns and …”

Another problem with mercenaries was that they could never stop them-

selves from telling you how brilliant they were. Even though it was probably

true in this case, Yamata found it difficult to sit through the dissertation. He

did it anyway. Good manners required it.

“And your personal arrangements?”

Searls merely nodded. The flight to Miami. The connecting flights to An-

tigua, via Dominica and Grenada, all with different names on the tickets,

paid for by different credit cards. He had his new passport, his new identity.

On the Caribbean island, there was a certain piece of property. It would take

an entire day, but then he’d be there, and he had no plans to leave it, ever.

For his part, Yamata neither knew nor wanted to know what Searls would

do. Had this been a screen drama, he would have arranged for the man’s life

to end, but it would have been dangerous. There was always the chance that

there might be more than one egg in the nest, wasn’t there? Yes, there had to

be. Besides, there was honor to be considered. This entire venture was about

honor.

“The second third of the funds will be transferred in the morning. When

that happens, I would suggest that you execute your plans.” Honin. Yamata

thought, but even some of them were faithful after a fashion.

“Members,” the Speaker of the House said after Al Trent had concluded his

final wrap-up speech, “will cast their votes by electronic device.”

On C-SPAN the drone of repeated words was replaced by classical music.

Bach’s Italian Concerto in this case. Each member had a plastic card-it was

like an automatic teller machine, really. The votes were tallied by a simple

computer displayed on TV screens all over the world. Two hundred eighteen

votes were needed for passage. That number was reached in just under ten

minutes. Then came the final rush of additional “aye” votes as members

rushed from committee hearings and constituent meetings to enter the cham-

ber, record their votes, and return to whatever they’d been doing.

Through it all, Al Trent stayed on the floor, mainly chatting amiably with

a member of the minority leadership, his friend Sam Fellows. It was remark-

able how much they agreed on, both thought. They could scarcely have been

more different, a gay New England liberal and a Mormon Arizonan conser-

vative.

“This’ll teach the little bastards a lesson,” Al observed.

‘ ‘You sure ramrodded the bill through,” Sam agreed. Both men wondered

what the long-term effects on employment would be in their districts.

Less pleased were the officials of the Japanese Embassy, who called the re-

sults in to their Foreign Ministry the moment the music stopped and the

Speaker announced, “HR-I23I3, the Trade Reform Act, is approved.”

The bill would go to the Senate next, which, they reported, was a formal-

ity. The only people likely to vote against it were those furthest away from

reelection. The Foreign Minister got the news from his staff at about nine

local time in Tokyo and informed Prime Minister Koga. The latter had al-

ready drafted his letter of resignation for the Emperor. Another man might

have wept at the destruction of his dreams. The Prime Minister did not. In

retrospect, he’d had more real influence as a member of the opposition than

in this office. Looking at the morning sun on the well-kept grounds outside

his window, he realized that it would be a more pleasant life, after all.

Let Goto deal with this.

“You know, the Japanese make some awfully good stuff that we use at

Wilmer,” Cathy Ryan observed over dinner. It was time for her to comment

on the law, now that it was halfway passed.

“Oh?”

“The diode laser system we use on cataracts, for one. They bought the