Jack Ryan 8 - Debt of Honor (52 page)

“Fuck,” Chambers breathed.

Mancuso leaned over the paper sheet, next to Jones, and he saw it all now. “And this one?”

“That's probably
Charlotte
, also maneuvering briefly. See, here and here, look like aspect changes on these traces to me. No transients because it was probably too far away, same reason we don't have a track on the fish.” Jones moved the pen back to the track of USS Asheville. “Here. That Japanese diesel boat launched on her. Here.
Asheville
tried to evade and failed. Here's the first explosion from the torpedo warhead. Engine sounds stop here—she took the hit from aft. Here's the internal bulkheads letting go. Sir,
Asheville
was sunk by a torpedo, probably a Type 89, right about the same time that our two carriers had their little accident.”

“It's not possible,” Chambers thought.

When Jones turned his head, his eyes looked like the buttons on a doll's face. “Okay, sir, then you tell me what these signals denote.” Somebody had to goad him into reality.

“Christ, Ron!”

“Settle down, Wally,” ComSubPac said quietly, looking at the data and searching for another plausible interpretation. He had to look, even in the knowledge that there was no other possible conclusion.

“Wasting your time, Skipper.” Jones tapped the track of USS Gary. “Somebody better tell that frigate that it ain't a rescue she's on. She's sailing in harm's way. There's two SSKs out there with warshots, and they already used them twice.” Jones walked to the wall chart. He had to search around for a red marker, lifted it, and drew two circles, both about thirty miles in diameter. “Somewhere here. We'll get a better cut on them when they snort next. Who's the surface track, by the way?”

“Reportedly a coast-guard cutter, one of theirs, heading in for the rescue,” SubPac answered.

“We might want to think about killing it,” Jones suggested, marking that contact in red also, then setting the pen down. He'd just taken the final step. The surface ship whose position he'd marked was not “she,” but rather it. An enemy. A target.

“We have to see CINCPAC,” Mancuso said.

Jones nodded. “Yes, sir, I think we do.”

22

The Global Dimension

The bomb was impressive. It exploded outside the Trincomalee Tradewinds, a new luxury hotel mainly built with Indian money. A few people, none closer than half a block away, would remember the vehicle, a small white delivery truck that had been big enough to contain half a ton of AMFO, an explosive mixture composed of nitrogen-based fertilizer and diesel fuel. It was a concoction easily made up in a bathtub or laundry basin, and in this case sufficient to rip the facade off the ten-story hotel, killing twenty-seven people and injuring another hundred or so in the process. Scarcely had the noise died when a telephone call came in to the local Reuters office.

“The final phase of liberation has begun,” the voice said, probably reading the words off a prepared statement, as terrorists often did. “The Tamil Tigers will have their homeland and their autonomy or there will be no peace in
Sri Lanka
. This is only the beginning of the end of our struggle. We will explode one bomb per day until we achieve our goal.” Click.

For more than a hundred years, Reuters had been one of the world's most efficient news services, and the
Colombo
office was no exception, even on a weekend. In ten minutes the report went out on the wire—a satellite link today—to the agency's
London
headquarters, where it was instantly relayed across the global news network as a “flash” story.

Many
U.S.
agencies routinely monitor the news-wire services, including the intelligence services, the FBI, Secret Service, and the Pentagon. This was also true of the White House Signals Office, and so it was that twenty-five minutes after the bomb went off, an Air Force sergeant put his hand on Jack Ryan's shoulder. The National Security Advisor's eyes opened to see a finger pointed topside.

“Flash traffic, sir,” the voice whispered.

Ryan nodded sleepily, slipped off his seat belt, and thanked God that he hadn't drunk too much in
Moscow
. In the dim lights of the cabin everyone else was conked out. To keep from waking his wife it was necessary to step over the table. He almost tripped, but the sergeant grabbed his arm.

“Thank you, ma'am.”

“No problem, sir.” Ryan followed her to the spiral stairs and headed up to the communications area on the upper deck.

“What gives?” He resisted the temptation to ask the time. It would have begged another question: the time in
Washington
, the time where the plane was now, or the time where the flash traffic had originated. Just another sign of progress, Ryan thought, heading to the thermal printer, you had to ask when “now” was. The communications watch officer was an Air Force first lieutenant, black, slim, and pretty.

“Good morning, Dr. Ryan. The National Security Office said to flag this one for you.” She handed over the slippery paper Jack hated. The thermal printers were quiet, though, and this communications room, like all the others, was noisy enough already. Jack read the Reuters dispatch, too new as yet to have any analysis from CIA or elsewhere.

“That's the indicator we were looking for. Okay, let's get a secure phone.”

“Some other stuff that's just come in,” an airman said, handing over more papers. “The Navy had a bad day.”

“Oh?” Ryan sat down in a padded chair and flipped on a reading light. “Oh, shit,” he said next. Then he looked up. “Coffee, please, Lieutenant?” The officer sent an enlisted man for a cup.

“First call?”

“NMCC, the senior watch officer.” The National Security Advisor checked his watch, did the arithmetic, and decided that he'd gotten about five hours of sleep total. It was not likely that he'd get much more between here, wherever that was, and
Washington
.

“Line three, Dr. Ryan. Admiral Jackson on the other end.”

“This is S
WORDSMAN
,” Ryan said, using his official Secret Service code name. They'd tried to hang G
UNFIGHTER
on him, a token of backhanded respect for his earlier life.

“This is S
WITCHBOARD
. Enjoying the flight, Jack?” It was a constant amazement to Ryan that the secure digital comm links had such high transmission quality. He could recognize his friend's voice, and even his humorous tone. He could also tell that it was somewhat forced.

“These Air Force drivers are pretty good. Maybe you should think about learning from them. Okay, what gives? What are you doing in the shop?”

“Pac Fleet had a little incident a few hours ago.”

“So I see.
Sri Lanka
first,” S
WORDSMAN
ordered.

“Nothing much more than the wire dispatch. We have some still photos, too, and we expect video in a half-hour or so. The consulate in Trincomalec is reporting in now. They confirm the incident. One American citizen injured, they think, just one, and not real serious, but he's asking to be evac'd soonest. Mike is being painted into a corner. He's going to try and maneuver out of it when the sun goes down. Our estimate is that our friends are starting to get real frisky. Their amphibs are still alongside, but we've lost track of that brigade. The area they've been using to play games in appears empty. We have overheads three hours old, and the field is empty.”

Ryan nodded. He slid the plastic blind off the window by his chair. It was dark outside. There were no lights to be seen below. Either they were over the ocean already or there were clouds down there. All he could see was the blinking strobe on the aircraft's wingtip.

“Any immediate dangers there?”

“Negative,” Admiral Jackson thought. “We estimate a week to take positive action, minimum, but we also estimate that positive action is now likely. The folks up the river concur. Jack,” Robby added, "Admiral Dubro needs instructions on what he can do about things, and he needs them soon.

“Understood.” Ryan was making notes on an Air Force One scratchpad that the journalists hadn't managed to steal yet. “Stand by.” He looked up at the Lieutenant. “ETA to Andrews?”

“Seven and a half hours, sir. Winds are pretty stiff. We're approaching the Icelandic coast now.”

Jack nodded. “Thank you. Robby, we're seven and a half out. I'll be talking to the Boss before we get in. Start thinking about setting a briefing up two hours after we get in.”

“Roger that.”

“Okay. Now, what the hell happened to those carriers?”

“Supposedly one of the Jap 'cans had a little malfunction and rippled off her Mark 50's. They caught both CVNs in the ass.
Enterprise
has damage to all four shafts. Stennis has three down. They report no fatalities, some minor injuries.”

“Robby, how the hell—”

“Hey, S
WORDSMAN
, I just work here, remember.”

“How long?”

“Four to six months to effect repairs, that's what we have now. Wait, stand by, Jack.” The voice stopped, but Ryan could hear murmurs and papers shuffling.

“Wait a minute—something else just came in.”

“Standing by.” Ryan sipped his coffee and returned to the task of figuring out what time it was.

“Jack, something bad. We have a S
UBMISS
/S
UB
S
UNK
in Pac Fleet.”

“What's that?”

“USS Asheville, that's a new 688, her BST-3 just started howling. Stennis has launched a bird to check it out, and a 'can's heading up there, too. This ain't good.”

“What's the crew? Like a hundred?”

“More, one-twenty, one-thirty. Oh, damn. Last time this happened, I was a mid.”

“We had an exercise going with them, didn't we?”

“D
ATELINE
P
ARTNERS
, yes, just ended yesterday. Until a couple hours ago, looked like a good exercise. Things went in the shitter in a hurry
Jackson
's voice trailed off. ”Another signal. First report, Stennis launched a
Hoover
—"

“What?”

“S-3 Viking, ASW bird. Four-man crew. They report no survivors from the sub. Shit,”
Jackson
added, even though it wasn't exactly a surprise.

“Jack, I need to do some work here, okay?”

“Understood. Keep me posted.”

“Will do. Out.” The line went dead.

Ryan finished off his coffee and dropped the plastic cup into a basket bolted to the floor of the aircraft. There was no point in waking the President just yet. Durling would need his sleep. He was coming home to a financial crisis, a political mess, maybe a brewing war, in the
Indian Ocean
, and now the situation with
Japan
would only get worse after this damned-fool accident in the Pacific. Durling was entitled to a little good luck, wasn't he?

By coincidence Oreza's personal car was a white Toyota Land Cruiser, a popular vehicle on the island. He and his charter were walking toward it when two more just like it pulled into the marina's parking lot. Six people got out and walked straight toward them. The former Command Master Chief stopped dead in his tracks. He'd left
Saipan
just before dawn, having picked Burroughs up at the hotel himself, the better to catch the tuna chasing their own food in the early morning. Though traffic on the way in to the dock had been…well, a little busier than usual, the world had held its normal shape.

But not now. Now there were Japanese fighters circling over the island, and now six men in fatigues and pistol belts were walking toward him and his charter. It was like something from a movie, he thought, one of those crazy TV mini-things from when the Russians were real.

“Hello, how was the fishing?” the man asked. He had O-3 rank, Oreza saw, and a parachutist's badge on the left breast pocket. Smiling, just as pleasant and friendly as he could be.

“I bagged one hell of an albacore tuna,” Pete Burroughs said, his pride amplified by the four beers he'd drunk on the way in.

A wider smile. “Ah! Can I see it?”

“Sure!” Burroughs reversed his path and led them back to the dock, where the fish was still hanging head-down from the hoist.

“This is your boat, Captain Oreza?” the soldier asked. Only one other man had followed their captain down. The others stayed behind, watching closely, as though under orders not to be too… something, Portagee thought. He also took note of the fact that this officer had troubled himself to learn his name.

“That's right, sir. Interested in a little fishing?” he asked with an innocent smile.

“My grandfather was a fisherman,” the ishii told them.

Portagee nodded and smiled. “So was mine. Family tradition.”

“Long tradition?”

Oreza nodded as they got to Springer. “More than a hundred years.”

“Ah, a fine boat you have. May I look at it?”

“Sure, jump aboard.” Portagee went first and waved him over. The sergeant who'd walked down with his captain, he saw, stayed on the dock with Mr. Burroughs, keeping about six feet away from him. There was a pistol in the man's holster, a SIG P220, the standard sidearm of the Japanese military. By this time all kinds of alarm were lighting off in Oreza's brain.

“What does 'Springer' denote?”

“It's a kind of hunting dog.”

“Ah, yes, very good.” The officer looked around. “What sort of radios do you need for a boat like this. Expensive?”

“I'll show you.” Oreza led him into the salon. “Your people make it, sir, NEC, a standard marine VHP and a backup. Here's my GPS nav system, depth finder, fish-finder, radar.” He tapped each instrument. They were in fact all Japanese-made, high quality, reasonably priced, and reliable as hell.

“You have guns aboard?”

Click. “Guns? What for?”

“Don't many islanders own guns?”

“Not that I know of.” Oreza shook his head. “Anyway, I've never been attacked by a fish. No, I don't have any, even at home.”

Clearly the officer was pleased by that news. “Oreza, what sort of name is that?” It sounded native to the Ishii.

“Originally, you mean? Way back, my people come from
Portugal
.”

“Your family here a long time?”

Oreza nodded. “You bet.” Five years was a long time, wasn't it? A husband and wife constituted a family, didn't they?

“The radios, VHF you say, short-range?” The man looked around for other instruments, but clearly there were none.