Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

much about it, and consequently lacked the confidence that a real player

would have had with this situation, which explained why he had immedi-

ately asked Ryan for an opinion. Well, that was a good sign, wasn’t it? He

knew what he didn’t know. No wonder everybody said he was smart.

“We put in speed bumps and other safeguards as a result of the last time.

This event blew right through them. In less than three hours,” SecTreas

added uneasily, wondering, as an academic would, why good theoretical

measures had failed to work as expected.

“True. It’ll be interesting to see why. Remember, Buzz, it has happened

before.”

“Statement,” the President said, giving a one-word order.

Fiedler nodded, thinking for a moment before speaking. “Okay, we say

that the system is fundamentally sound. We have all manner of automated

safeguards. There is no underlying problem with the market or with the

American economy. Hell, we’re growing, aren’t we? And TRA is going to

generate at least half a million manufacturing jobs in the coming year. That’s

a hard number, Mr. President. That’s what I’ll say for now.”

“Defer anything else until we get back?” Durling asked.

“That’s my advice,” Fiedler confirmed. Ryan nodded agreement.

“Okay, get hold of Tish and put it out right away.”

There was an unusual number of charter flights, but Saipan International

Airport wasn’t all that busy an airport despite its long runways, and in-

creased business made for increased fees. Besides, it was a weekend. Proba-

bly some sort of association, the tower chief thought as the first of the 7475

out of Tokyo began its final approach. Of late Saipan had become a much

more popular place for Japanese businessmen. A recent court decision had

struck down the constitutional provision prohibiting foreign ownership of

land and now allowed them to buy up parcels. In fact, the island was more

than half foreign-owned now, a source of annoyance to many of the native

Chamorros people, but not so great an annoyance as to prevent many of

them from taking the money and moving off the land. It was bad enough

already. On any given weekend, the number of Japanese on Saipan outnum-

bered the citizens, and typically treated the owners of the island like . . .

natives.

“Must be a bunch going to Guam, too,” the radar operator noted, examin-

ing the line of traffic heading farther south.

‘ ‘Weekend. Golf and fishing,” the senior tower controller observed, look-

ing forward to the end of his shift. The Japs-he didn’t like them very

much-were not going to Thailand as much for their sex trips. Too many

had come home with nasty gifts from that country. Well, they did spend

money here-a lot of it-and for the privilege of doing it for this weekend

they’d boarded their jumbo-jets at about two in the morning . . .

The first JAL 747 charter touched down at 0430 local time, slowing and

turning at the end of the runway in time for the next one to complete its final

approach. Captain Torajiro Sato turned right onto the taxiway and looked

around for anything unusual. He didn’t expect it, but on a mission like this-

Mission? he asked himself. That was a word he hadn’t used since his F-86

days in the Air Self-Defense Force. If he’d stayed, he would have been a Sho

by now, perhaps even commanding his country’s entire Air Force. Wouldn’t

that have been grand? Instead-instead he’d left that service ami Marled with

Japan Air Lines, at the time a place of far greater respect. He’d hated that

fact then, and now hoped that it would change for all time. It would be an Air

Force now, even if someone lesser than he was actually in command.

He was still a fighter pilot at heart. You didn’t have much chance to do

anything exciting in a 747. He’d been through one serious inflight emer-

gency eight years before, a partial hydraulic failure, and handled it so skill-

fully that he hadn’t bothered telling the passengers. No one outside the flight

deck had even noticed. His feat was now a routine part of the simulator train-

ing for 747 captains. Beyond that frantic but satisfying moment, he strove

for precision. He was something of a legend in an airline known worldwide

for its excellence. He could read weather charts like a fortune-teller, pick the

precise tar-strip on a runway where his main gear would touch, and had

never once been more that three minutes off an arrival time.

Even taxiing on the ground, he drove the monstrous aircraft as though it

were a sports car. So it was today, as he approached the jetway, adjusted his

power settings, nosewheel steering, and finally the brakes, to come to a pre-

cise stop.

“Good luck, Nisa,” he told Lieutenant Colonel Seigo Sasaki, who’d rid-

den the jump seat in the cockpit for the approach, scanning the ground for

the unusual and seeing nothing.

The commander of the special-operations group hustled aft. His men were

from the First Airborne Brigade, ordinarily based at Narashino. There were

two companies aboard the 747, three hundred eighty men. Their first mis-

sion was to assume control of the airport. It would not be difficult, he hoped.

The JAL personnel at the gate had not been briefed for the events of the

day, and were surprised to see that all the people leaving the charter flight

were men, all about the same age, all carrying identical barrel-bags, and that

the first fifty or so had the tops unzipped and their hands inside. A few held

clipboards on which were diagrams of the terminal, as it had not been possi-

ble to perform a proper rehearsal for the mission. While baggage handlers

struggled with the cargo containers out of the bottom of the aircraft, other

soldiers headed for the baggage area, and simply walked through EMPLOY-

EES ONLY signs to start unpacking the heavy weapons. At another jetway, a

second airliner arrived.

Colonel Sasaki stood in the middle of the terminal now, looking left and

right, watching his teams of ten or fifteen men fan out and, he saw, doing

their job quietly and well.

“Excuse me,” a sergeant said pleasantly to a bored and sleepy security

guard. The man looked up to see a smile, and down to see that the barrel bag

over the man’s shoulder was open, and that the hand in it held a pistol. The

guard’s mouth gaped comically and the private disarmed him without a

struggle. In less than two minutes, the other six guards on terminal duty were

similarly taken into custody. A lieutenant led a squad to the security office,

where three more men were disarmed and handcuffed. All the while continu-

ous if terse radio messages were flowing in to their colonel.

The tower chief turned when the door opened-a guard had handed over

the pass card and punched in the entry code on the keypad without the need

for much encouragement-to see three men with automatic rifles.

“What the hell-”

“You will continue your duties as before,” a captain, or ichii, told him.

“My English is quite good. Please do not do anything foolish.” Then he

lifted his radio microphone and spoke in Japanese. The first phase of Opera-

tion KABUL was completed thirty seconds early, and entirely without vio-

lence.

The second load of soldiers took over airport security. These men were in

uniform to make sure that everyone knew what was going on, and they took

their places at all entrances and control points, commandeering official vehi-

cles to set additional security points on the access roads into the airport. This

wasn’t overly hard, as the airport was on the extreme southern part of the

island, and all approaches were from the north. The commander of the sec-

ond detachment relieved Colonel Sasaki. The former would control the ar-

rival of the remaining First Airborne Brigade elements tasked to Operation

KABUL. The latter had other tasks to perform.

Three airport buses pulled up to the terminal, and Colonel Sasaki boarded

the last after moving around to make sure that all his men were present and

properly organized. They drove immediately north, past the Dan Dan Golf

Club, which adjoined the airport, then left on Cross Island Road, which took

them in sight of Invasion Beach. Saipan is by no means a large island, and it

was dark-there were very few streetlights-but that didn’t lessen the cold

feeling in Sasaki’s stomach. He had to run this mission on time and on pro-

file or risk catastrophe. The Colonel checked his watch. The first aircraft

would now be landing on Guam, where the possibility of organized resist-

ance was very real. Well, that was the job of First Division. He had his own,

and it had to be done before dawn broke.

The word got out very quickly. Rick Bernard placed his first call to the chair-