Y
eltsin looked coldly down the table at his advisers. It seemed to him that the higher one went in any organization the less access he had to the truth. He wondered if President Lindsay had the same problem.
“We are not going to war with the Japanese,” he said.
“Judging from the thermal images we're receiving from our satellite over the East China Sea it would appear that the Americans are,” Minister of Defense Solovyev said.
“Nonsense. It was an unfortunate accident. You said yourself that the MSDF had trouble with the skipper of that submarine. The same captain, need I remind you, who was responsible for sinking the
Menshinsky.”
“Yet the captain was allowed to leave Yokosuka with his boat and crew, presumably reprovisioned.”
“That has nothing to do with what is happening at this moment in the Soya Strait,” Yeltsin replied angrily.
“Morning Star,” Karyagin interjected.
Yeltsin glared at his Secret Service director. “In my estimation there is no directed effort on the part of the Japanese government to foment a war either between the United States or us. It would be folly for them.”
“Begging your pardon, Mr. President, but I cannot agree with you,” Karyagin pressed his point. “The sinking of the
Sovremennyy
and the high state of readiness of all Japanese forces would suggest otherwise. As has the attack on the American air traffic control system. That was no act of terrorism. It was a highly sophisticated and very
directed
operation.”
“Has the order been sent to our ships in the Soya Strait to withdraw?”
“There has been some difficulty with the transmitting equipment,” Solovyev admitted.
“The American National Security Agency has the ability to monitor our ELF messages,” Yeltsin said.
“That has not been confirmed,” Karyagin cautioned.
“Assuming they can, President Lindsay now believes that I am lying.”
No one said a thing.
Yeltsin lifted the telephone. “This is Boris Yeltsin. I wish to speak to Admiral Aladko at his headquarters in Vladivostok.”
Aladko was CINC of the Pacific Fleet. He came on the line a few seconds later.
“Good morning, Mr. President.”
“Listen to me very carefully, Stefan Mikhailovich. I want you to send a message immediately, by any and all means at your disposal, to all your warships in or near the Soya Strait, or near any Japanese national waters and airspace, to unilaterally withdraw. As of this moment I am revoking their authorization to fire their weapons. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes, Mr. President. But what if my ships are attacked as they withdraw? Are you taking away their ability to defend themselves?”
“Of course not,” Yeltsin shot back. “But we will launch no further first strikes.”
“I understand, Mr. President. And I agree with you.”
“It's good that you do, Admiral,” Yeltsin replied coolly.
Â
Admiral Aladko gazed out of his office window, which overlooked the busy navy base and, beyond it, the breakwaters to the Golden Horn Bay. Japan was less than four hundred miles to the east across the treacherous Sea of Japan. In this day of modern weapons and delivery systems, it was an impossibly small distance. Now Japan was beginning to flex her muscles. This day, he suspected, would come again.
He wrote out the disengage order and called for an aide to hand deliver it immediately to the communications center.
These were the twenties and thirties all over again. At fifty-three he fully expected to be a part of the next war, though he did not look forward to it. No rational professional soldier would.
Â
“Takefumi-san
, we are faced with another grave problem,” Director General of Defense Hironaka said.
“How may I be of assistance, Director General?”
“A telephone call has been monitored between Moscow and Vladivostok.”
“Hai
, I saw to the translation myself.”
“I admire your efficiency. But we have learned that President Yeltsin was speaking in a carefully crafted code.”
“Sir?”
“The actual order for the Russian Pacific Fleet is to press the attack against the North Island.”
“This is very serious.”
“I want you to establish a communications link with Seventh Fleet Commander-in-Chief Admiral Albert Ryland, who is currently aboard his flagship, the
George Washington
, off shore to our east. Tell him, in my name, about the Russian intent. We need his help.”
“Hai,”
Takefumi, who was a devotee of Mishima, replied without hesitation.
“Your patriotism does not go unnoticed,
Takefumi
-
san.”
Â
“Sir, this is Morrison from Security. A Mr. Ryan and two other gentlemen from the CIA are here to see you. They say it's urgent.”
Whitman put his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. “Howard Ryan is downstairs.”
“It's your choice,” McGarvey told Assistant Director Wood. “Reid has the answers, but in order to get to him we're going to have to take Mueller.”
“We'll discuss this with the CIA,” Wood said. “Have Mr. Ryan brought up.”
“We don't have the time. As it is it'll take a couple of hours to get me up there. Ryan will insist I return to Langley. He's probably brought muscle.”
“He's right,” Whitman said. “I can get a chopper over here from Anacostia within a few minutes.”
“You're playing into his hand!”
“I'll go with him,” Whitman argued. “Ken, we've got too much to lose.”
Wood shook his head in irritation. “Have Ryan escorted to my office. I can stall him for at least ten minutes.”
Whitman gave the order to the security guard downstairs.
Wood eyed McGarvey. “If you're fucking with us, I'll probably shoot you myself.”
Â
Director General of Defense Hironaka walked back across the hall and was admitted by the security guard into the situation room. In the seven minutes he'd been absent the atmosphere in the room had changed dramatically.
Prime Minister Enchi barely seemed able to control his anger. The others around the long polished teak conference table seemed stunned.
“Is it the Russians?” he asked, the first warning signals going off in his head.
Enchi held up two pieces of paper, without a word.
Hironaka went stiffly around the table and took them. One was a transcript of the telephone intercept between Yeltsin and Admiral Aladko. The other was a transcript of the burst telex that had just been sent from the Ministry of Defense Communications Center downstairs to Admiral Ryland aboard the aircraft carrier off shore. His hand shook.
“Can you explain the discrepancy?” Enchi demanded.
Hironaka looked up defiantly as he gathered himself. “It is time for Nippon to take her rightful place in the world.”
“By going to war?”
“It was you who asked for American help defending against a Russian attack.”
“President Yeltsin has recalled his ships.”
“He may have given the order to the Pacific Fleet, but they have not complied. The submarines remain within the Soya Strait. We are still under attack.”
“We will deal with the United States on the basis of truth.”
“Mr. Prime Minister, the Americans no longer belong on Japanese soil. If you seize this opportunity, you can drive them out. All the way back across the Pacific.”
“Have you such a short memory?”
“Not as short as yours.”
“Has the past fifty-two years meant nothing?”
“On the contrary, Mr. Prime Minister, the years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki have meant everything. They have reopened our eyes. We rebuilt ourselves from the ashes, rebuilt our cities, our factories, our ships and airplanes, and our economy. We no longer need to be a dependent nation.”
“Perhaps you are correct.”
Hironaka was momentarily speechless.
“But you cannot believe that we are ready for such an adventure. Perhaps in twenty years. Perhaps fifty.”
“If you believe that, Prime Minister, and yet you are still against us ⦠it makes you a traitor to Japan.”
“No, Hironaka. It is you who are the traitor to Japan.” Enchi lifted the telephone.
“Ima.”
Hironaka looked to the others for support, but they avoided his eyes.
“You are relieved of your duties,” Enchi told him.
“It's not over.”
“I will try to see that it is.”
Two uniformed civilian police officers came in.
“The Director General of Defense is to be placed under close arrest for treason,” Enchi said. “See that no harm comes to him until his trial.”
Â
Secretary of Defense Landry put down the telephone. “I'll be damned if I know what that meant.”
“What is it, Paul?” the President asked. They'd been at it for more than eight hours, and his eyes were bloodshot.
“The Japanese are talking to Al Ryland.”
“Did he establish contact with the SDF?”
“Not two-way. But Director General of Defense Shin Hironaka sent him a transcript of a telephone call between Yeltsin and Russian Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Aladko. Naval Operations Pacific is faxing us a copy. According to the Japanese, Yeltsin has ordered Aladko to press the attack on Hokkaido.”
Lindsay lifted the phone and punched the button for NSA. “Amundson, this is the President. The Japanese are sending us the transcript of a telephone call between Boris Yeltsin and Admiral Aladko in Vladivostok. Presumably this call was made within the past half-hour or less. Can NSA help? We would like a confirmation.”
“Mr. President, we probably monitored that call. But it'll be in our computer system. I'll have to dig it out.”
“Do that. In the meantime have we monitored any further ELF traffic from Vladivostok?”
“No, sir.”
“Very well.” Lindsay hung up. How the hell was he supposed to make informed decisions when the information he was receiving was contradictory and confusing?
Â
Dulles Airport was in chaos. It took Sam Varelis the better part of an hour to make his way from the wooded
field south of the active runway where Delta 756 had gone down, to the hangar where the NTSB had set up shop next to the hangar where the remains of the Guerin company jet that had gone down two weeks ago were still being studied. All crash sites were nightmares, but this time it was something out of hell. The bodies they were still prying out of the wreckage here represented only one-fourteenth of the total nationwide.
The reports he'd gotten from the other teams were sketchy because of the overloaded long-distance telephone system, which made calls almost impossible. But it definitely pointed to the InterTech-designed heat monitor subassembly. His technicians had removed one of them from an American Airlines Guerin 522 that was down for maintenance, and they were analyzing the circuitry.
Varelis parked his car near one of the service doors, and, an unlit cigar clamped in his mouth, went inside where a test stand had been set up in back.
“The problem is the thermocouple frame attached to the engine,” NTSB technician Mason Dillard said. “We didn't pick it up before because nobody was looking for it. The frame is explosive. Semtex blended with a magnesium alloy. A CPU in the monitor triggered it.”
“Japanese?” Varelis asked.
Dillard looked up from his test equipment. “Well, that's the problem, Sam. The monitor and CPU are Japanese design. But the Semtex-magnesium frame is called P-4. It was being experimented with about ten years ago. By the Russians.”
“Holy shit.” Varelis took the cigar out of his mouth. “No mistake?”
“I don't think so.”
Â
“NTSB, John Hom.”
“The monitor is definitely Japanese, but what brought the airplanes down was an explosive thermocouple frame on the engines. Russian.”
“Sam, are you sure?”
“Dillard pulled a unit out of an American Airlines
bird in the hangar. He's sure. Stuff called P-4, Semtex and magnesium. Get that over to the FBI, CIA, and FAA.”