T
he
Samisho
had eleven hours of battery power remaining before she had to surface. Less if she pressed the attack. Captain Kiyoda walked back to his compartment, locked his door, and then opened the door of a small cabinet beside his bunk. It was his Shinto shrine. He bowed before it, and thought about
kami
, nature, and what it meant to his life. He asked for benevolent treatment and protection for his boat and all who sailed in her, and for all who would fight and might soon die.
To bear what you think you cannot bear is truly to bear.
He thought about his
sensei
whose idea it was to place the rock, “future” and “hope,” in
Yamagata-san's
garden. A haven for the body as well as the spirit.
Your primary duty will be loyalty. Obedience to the call of duty. The sacrifice of everything for the emperor. For the laws and the state.
A veil descended over Kiyoda's eyes, and in the darkness a billion stars passed overhead, surrounded him, penetrated his body to the farthest corners of his soul. He smiled cruelly, his thin lips pulled into a grimace.
Two years ago there'd been an incident at
kendo
in which he'd been carried away by the match and had nearly beaten his opponent to death before his comrades had pulled him away. Afterward he'd questioned his own sanity.
Not to mar the pleasure or serenity of another by expressions of our own sorrow or pain is self control. He shows no sign of joy or anger. This is stoicism.
His opponent had understood this and had said nothing
about the incident. A few days later Kiyoda had put it out of his mind.
Chi, jin, yu
. Wisdom, benevolence, courage.
Someone knocked at his door. Kiyoda slowly withdrew from his reverie. “
Hai
.”
Minori came in. “Pardon me for interrupting you,
Kan-cho.
”
“What is it?”
“We are experiencing difficulties with one of our battery banks. Lieutenant Owada recommends that we shut down that cell and isolate the entire compartment.”
“How will it affect our endurance?”
“If the cell remains on line, power from the other batteries will be dissipated very rapidly. Perhaps two hours. If we follow Owada's suggestion he can give us eight hours.”
“Less if we attack?”
“
Hai
,
Kan-cho.
”
“More if we shut down every non-essential system, except for passive sonar, and reduce our life-support systems to fifty percent.”
“We can operate with a skeleton crew, and the others can stay in their bunks. That will give us additional time. But at some point the CO
2
levels will impair our abilities.”
Kiyoda thought about it for a moment. A picture of his wife, Moriko, came into his mind's eye, and he smiled again, this time gently.
“Break out the emergency re-breathers from the escape trunks and issue them to all duty personnel.”
Minori's eyes widened slightly. “
Hai
,
Kan-cho.
”
“The crew will understand.”
“Shall I instruct Owada to isolate the bad cell?”
“Yes.”
“Very well.” Minori started to withdraw.
“Matte,
” Kiyoda said. Wait.
“Kan-cho?”
The veil was completely lifted from Kiyoda's eyes. He buttoned his tunic. “What is happening on the surface?”
“Sierra-Zero-Four and -Five have slowed their speed of advance, and Sierra-Zero-Nine has begun to circle again.”
“What of the fourth target?”
“It is dead in the water. Drifting downwind.”
A threat or not, Kiyoda wondered? Or an innocent vessel caught in the middle of a ⦠storm? “What of the circling action?”
“They are still wary of us.”
“But we have not been discovered by their sonar?”
“No,
Kan-cho
. Sierra-Zero-Nine is ten thousand meters out, the other two much farther. They have not found us. But they know that we are damaged. They may be waiting until we have to surface.”
“Or until they find us.”
“Hai,
” Minori replied.
“Other than the batteries, how is damage control coming along?”
“The flooding has been stopped, and we still have weapons systems integrity.”
“Then we are still a fighting ship.”
“Hai.
”
“Then that is what we shall do, Ikuo,” Kiyoda said. “Return to your duties. I will join you in the conn momentarily.”
Â
“What do you mean, technical difficulties?” Enchi demanded. “I have personally asked President Lindsay for help, and now you say that the direct circuit to the White House is inoperative? Who is at fault?”
“I cannot say, Mr. Prime Minister,” Hironaka admitted. “Our technicians are working to resolve the problem, if indeed it is one of a technical nature.”
Enchi ignored the innuendo. The full Security Council had finally arrived. In addition to his cabinet, which included Hironaka and Nobunaga, also present were the ministers of foreign affairs and of finance, the chairman of the public safety commission, and the director general of the Economic Planning Agency. Businessmen, like
himself. None of them had ever been involved in the planning or execution of an actual war, and yet the fate of Japan rested on their shoulders.
“Has there been any response from the U.S. Third Air Force at Misawa?”
“No,” Hironaka said. “Nor has there been any word from Admiral Ryland. It's believed that he is no longer at his headquarters in Yokosuka. He's probably already aboard the aircraft carrier
George Washington
, well off shore.”
“The American naval base has been overrun,” the public safety commissioner said.
“By rioters?” Enchi asked. “Why hasn't something been done?”
“The crowd is very large, possibly more than twenty-five thousand people, and already there have been many deaths. We can only hope to contain them. In the dark, there is too much confusion.”
“For the moment we cannot assume that President Lindsay will offer any assistance, other than his offer to
help
us recall our forces,” Hironaka said slyly.
“I can at least partially understand their position,” the Foreign Minister said. “The United States is under attack by terrorists.”
“Not us,” Hironaka responded angrily.
The foreign minister shrugged. “We have not heard from Kamiya or Kobayashi. This could have been engineered by them. I think there is little doubt in this room about that.”
“What information are we receiving from our intelligence operations in the United States?”
“Beyond the fact of the crashes and the high death toll, very little that is of any use to us at the moment,” Nobunaga said.
Enchi looked down at the table for a response from his other advisers. Besides MITI there were a dozen or more specialized intelligence-gathering agencies in Japan. Among them were the Public Security Agency; the Police Guard Division and Agency Research Association; the Cabinet Investigation Board; the Defense Agency's First
and Second Research Intelligence Divisions; the Security Bureau's Research and Foreign Affairs Divisions; the Ministry of Justice's Public Security Investigation Agency (which dealt primarily with subversion); the Foreign Ministry's Intelligence and Research Organization; and the Self Defense Forces individual military intelligence units. But there was no intelligence-data clearinghouse such as America's Central Intelligence Agency.
“There were no legitimate advance warnings,” the Foreign Minister explained delicately. “With time ⦔
“We do not have time,” Enchi interrupted impolitely. “The Russians would not have done this, nor did the Americans do it to themselves. That is unthinkable. Which leaves Kamiya and his
Zaibatsu
, or an as yet unknown organization whose purpose we can only guess.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Prime Minister, but we are still left with two intolerable situations,” Hironaka warned. “We are under attack in the north, and despite your formal request to President Lindsay, the Americans have not responded. In fact the Seventh Fleet is making a run for the open sea.”
“Can we hold the majority of the fleet to the bay without firing shots?”
“A diversion can be arranged. Say an emergency between one or more of our ships.” Hironaka sat forward. “But if the Americans chose not to respond, our commanders would have to be given clear orders.”
“When the time comes I will consider those orders,” Enchi said. “I will call President Yeltsin.”
“He will lie.”
“I will tell him that we mean to defend Hokkaido with everything in our power. In the meantime we will continue our efforts to reach President Lindsay and Admiral Ryland.”
“For now it's a waiting game,” Nobunaga mused. “Who will blink first?”
Â
Marvin Amundson called from Fort Meade.
“Mr. President, NSA has another update from our
Japanese Intercept Division. Two separate orders have been issued from their C-and-C, presumably under Prime Minister Enchi's authority. The first was to their Forty-first Destroyer Division at Cape Miruaâthat's the mouth of Tokyo Bayâto do whatever is necessary to hold the majority of the Seventh Fleet from breaking out.”
“Hold on,” Lindsay said. “Have they been ordered to shoot at our ships?”
“That's not clear, Mr. President. We only have a partial decryption and translation. But it was a flash-designated message, which means they're serious. They want to box Seventh inside the bay.”
“All right. What's the second message?”
“Their military forces in the north have been ordered to Defense Condition One, which gives their local commanders unlimited weapons release authorization. That means they will shoot anything within their national boundaries.”
“That includes all of Soya Strait?”
“Yes, sir. Presumably this is a clear message to the Russians to back off.”
The President looked down the table at his advisers.
“That means us as well when Ryland sends help up there, or if Third Air Force responds from Misawa,” Secretary of Defense Landry said.
“What about our telephone circuit to Enchi?”
“There is no technical trouble at our end, Mr. President,” Amundson said. “But we're still working on it.”
Â
“Goddammit, are you sure?” John Whitman swore. “What the hell were those guys thinking about?”
“I don't know, but they were shot to death in the back of the van. Looks like maybe Kris put up a fight, but neither of them pulled their weapons.”
“I don't believe this. What about Reid? Have you got the sonofabitch?”
“He's gone,” Special Agent Irving Newton said. “But there's more, Mr. Whitman. Whoever did our people
also did a couple of guys parked across the street. White Toyota van, registered to an invalid address in Rockville. They're Japanese. The van is equipped with some sophisticated surveillance gear. But it was the same deal. They didn't put up any resistance. Might have known who it was.”
Whitman was numb. This just wasn't happening. “Any witnesses?”
“We're working the neighborhood. But we got a name on the yellow Vette parked in front of Reid's. Belongs to Dominique Kilbourne. Address in the Watergate.”
“Any sign of her?”
“No, sir. But if you want a quick turnaround here, we're going to need some help.”
“Nobody left,” Whitman said. “Use the D.C. cops.”
Â
“President Yeltsin, I am told that your submarines are still in the vicinity of the Soya Strait, well within Japanese territorial waters.”
“These things take time, President Lindsay. I assure you that the situation in the strait is being resolved. Since our submarines are submerged, we can only communicate via ELF. It is very slow. But the Japanese fired the first shot.”
So far NSA had intercepted no such message from the Russian's Pacific Fleet headquarters in Vladivostok. But the system was not one-hundred percent accurate, nor did Lindsay wish to reveal that capability to Yeltsin.
“Japanese military forces in the region have gone to Defense Condition One. Your ships are in their territorial waters!”