Jack Ryan 8 - Debt of Honor (93 page)

“You're asking us to help you lie,” one of the senior journalists said.

“Exactly right,” Ryan responded.

“We have a professional obligation—”

“You're American citizens,” Jack reminded them. “So are the people on those islands. My job is not to exercise the rights you're thinking about now. My job is to guarantee those rights to you and everyone else in this country. Either you help us or you don't. If you do, then we can do our job more easily, cheaply, and with less bloodshed. If you don't, then some additional people are probably going to get hurt.”

“I doubt that Madison and the rest ever intended the American press to help an enemy in time of war,” the lady from Justice said.

“We would never do that,” the man from NEC protested. “But to take action in the other direction—”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I do not have time for a discourse on constitutional law. This is quite literally a matter of life and death. Your government is asking for your help. If you do not give that help, you will sooner or later have to explain to the American people why you did not.” Jack wondered if anyone had ever threatened them in this way. Turnabout, he supposed, was fair play, though he didn't expect they would see things quite the same way. It was time for the olive branch. “I will take the heat on this. If you help us out, no one will ever hear it from me.”

“Don't give me that. It'll get out,” CNN protested.

“Then you will have to explain to the American people that you acted as patriotic citizens.”

“I didn't mean it that way, Dr. Ryan!”

“I did,” Jack said with a smile. “Think about it. How will it hurt you? Besides, how will it get out? Who else is going to report it?”

The journalists were cynical enough—it was almost a professional requirement—to see the humor, but it was Ryan's earlier statement that had scored. They were in a profound professional quandary, and the natural result was to evade it by thinking in other terms. In this case, business. Failure to act in support of their country, however much they might proclaim principle and professional ethics—well, the people who watched their TV were not as impressed with those high-flying standards as they ought to be. And besides, Ryan wasn't asking all that much. Just one thing, and if they were clever about it, maybe nobody really would notice. The news executives would have preferred to leave the room and discuss the request in privacy, but no one offered that opportunity, and none of them had the nerve to ask. So they looked at one another, and all five nodded.

You'll pay for this one someday, their eyes told Ryan. It was something he was willing to deal with, he thought.

“Thank you.” When they made their way out. Ryan walked toward the Oval Office.

“We got it,” he told the President.

“I'm sorry I couldn't back you up on that.”

“It's an election year,” Jack acknowledged. The
Iowa
caucuses were two weeks away, then
New Hampshire
, and though Durling had no opposition in his party, he would on the whole have preferred to be elsewhere. He could also not afford offending the media. But that's why he had a National Security Advisor. Appointed officials were always expendable.

“When this is all over…”

“Back to golfing? I need the practice.”

That was another thing he liked about him, Durling told himself. Ryan didn't mind telling a joke once in a while, though the circles under his eyes duplicated his own. It was one more reason to thank Bob Fowler for his contrarian advice, and perhaps a reason to lament Ryan's choice of political affiliation.

“He wants to help,” Kimura said.

“The best way for him to do that,”
Clark
replied, “is to act normally. He's an honorable man. Your country needs a voice of moderation.” It wasn't exactly the instructions he'd expected, and he found himself hoping that
Washington
knew what the hell it was doing. The orders were coming through Ryan's office, which was some consolation but not all that much. At least his agent-in-place was relieved.

“Thank you. I do not wish to put his life at risk.”

“He's too valuable for that. Perhaps
America
and
Japan
can reach a diplomatic solution.”
Clark
didn't believe it, but saying such things always made diplomats happy. “In that case, Goto's government will fall, and perhaps Koga-san will regain his former place.”

“But from what I hear, Goto will not back down.”

“It is also what I hear, but things can change. In any case, that is our request for Koga. Further contact between us is dangerous,” “Klerk” went on. “Thank you for your assistance. If we need you again, we will contact you through normal channels.”

In gratitude, Kimura paid the bill before leaving.

“That's all, eh?” Ding asked.

“Somebody thinks it's enough, and we have other things to do.”

Back in the saddle again, Chavez thought to himself. But at least they had orders, incomprehensible though they might be. It was ten in the morning, local time, and they split up after hitting the street, and spent the next several hours buying cellular phones, three each of a new digital model, before meeting again. The units were compact and fit into a shirt pocket. Even the packing boxes were small, and neither officer had the least problem concealing them.

Chet Nomuri had already done the same, giving his address as an apartment in Hanamatsu, a preselected cover complete with credit cards and driver's license. Whatever was going on, he had less than thirty days in-country to accomplish it. His next job was to return to the bathhouse one last time before disappearing from the lace of the earth.

“One question,” Ryan said quietly. The look in his eyes made Trent and Fellows uneasy.

“Are you going to make us wait for it?” Sam asked.

“You know the limitations we face in the Pacific.”

Trent
stirred in his seat. “If you mean that we don't have the horses to—”

“It depends on which horses we use,” Jack said. Both insiders considered that for a moment.

“Gloves off?” Al Trent asked.

Ryan nodded. “All the way off. Will you hassle us about it?”

“Depends on what you mean by that. Tell us,” Fellows ordered. Ryan did.

“You're really willing to stick it out that far?”
Trent
asked.

“We don't have a choice. I suppose it would be nice to fight it out with cavalry charges on the field of honor and all that stuff, but we don't have the horses, remember? The President needs to know if Congress will back him up. Only you people will know the black part. If you support us, then the rest of the people on the Hill will fall in line.”

“If it doesn't work?” Fellows wondered.

“Then there's a hanging party for all hands. Including you,” Ryan added.    “We'll keep the committee in line,”
Trent
promised. “You're playing a high-risk game, my friend.”

“True enough,” Jack agreed, thinking of the lives at risk. He knew that Al Trent was talking about the political side, too, but Ryan had commanded himself to set those thoughts aside. He couldn't say so, of course.
Trent
would have considered it a weakness. It was remarkable how many things they could disagree on. But the important thing was that
Trent
's word was good.

“Keep us informed?”

“In accordance with the law,” the National Security Advisor replied with a smile. The law required that Congress be notified after “black” operations were carried out.

“What about the Executive Order?” An Order dating back to the Ford administration prohibited the country's intelligence agencies from conducting assassinations.

“We have a Finding,” Ryan replied. “It doesn't apply in time of hostilities.” A Finding was essentially a Presidential decree that the law meant what the President thought it meant. In short, everything that Ryan had proposed was now, technically speaking, legal, so long as Congress agreed. It was a hell of a way to run a railroad, but democracies were like that.

“Then the i's are dotted,”
Trent
observed. Fellows concurred with a nod: “And the t's are crossed.” Both congressmen watched their host lift a phone and punch a speed-dial button.

“This is Ryan. Get things moving.”

The first move was electronic. Over the outraged protests of CINCPAC, three TV crews set up their cameras on the edge of the side-by-side dry docks now containing
Enterprise
and John Stennis.

“We're not allowed to show you the damage to the ships' sterns, but informed sources tell us that it's even worse than it appears to be,” the reporters all said, with only minor changes. When the live reports were done, the cameras were moved and more shots made of the carriers, then still more from the other side of the harbor. They were just backgrounders, like file footage, and showed the ships and the yards without any reporters standing in the way. These tapes were turned over to someone else and digitalized for further use.

“Those are two sick ships,” Oreza observed tersely. Each one represented more than the aggregate tonnage of the entire U.S. Coast Guard, and the Navy, clever people that they were, had let both of them take a shot in the ass. The retired master chief felt his blood pressure increase.

“How long to get them well?” Burroughs asked.

“Months. Long time. Six months…puts us into typhoon season,” Portagee realized to his further discomfort. It got worse with additional consideration. He didn't exactly relish the idea of being on an island assaulted by Marines, either. Here he was, on high ground, within sight of a surface-to-air missile battery that was sure to draw fire. Maybe selling out for a million bucks wasn't so bad an idea after all. With that sort of money he could buy another boat, another house, and do his fishing out of the
Florida Keys
. “You know, you can fly out of here if you want.”

“Oh, what's the hurry?”

Election posters were already being printed and posted. The public access channel on the island's cable system updated notices every few hours about the plans for
Saipan
. If anything, the island was even more relaxed now. Japanese tourists were unusually polite, and for the most part the soldiers were unarmed now. Military vehicles were being used for roadwork. Soldiers were visiting schools for friendly introductions. Two new baseball fields had been created, virtually overnight, and a new league started up. There was talk that a couple of Japanese major-league teams would commence spring training on
Saipan
, for which a stadium would have to be constructed, and maybe, it was whispered now,
Saipan
would have its own team. Which made sense, Oreza supposed. The island was closer to
Tokyo
than
Kansas City
was to
New York
. It wasn't that the residents were happy with the occupation. It was just that they did not see any salvation, and so like most people in such a spot they learned to live with it. The Japanese were going far out of their way to make it as comfortable a process as possible.

For the first week there had been daily protests. But the Japanese commander, General Arima, had come out to meet every such group, TV cameras all around, and invited the leaders into his office for a chat, often televised live. Then came the more sophisticated responses. Government civilians and businessmen held a lengthy press conference, documenting how much money they had invested in the island, showing in graphic form the difference they'd made for the local economy, and promising to do more. It wasn't so much that they had eliminated resentment as shown tolerance of it, promising at every turn to abide by the results of the elections soon to be held. We live here, too, they kept saying. We live here, too.

There had to be hope. Two weeks tomorrow, Oreza thought, and all they heard were reports on goddamned negotiations. Since when had
America
ever negotiated something like this? Maybe that was it. Maybe it was just his country's obvious sign of weakness that gave him a sense of hopelessness. Nobody was fighting back. Tell us that the government is doing something, he wanted to say to the Admiral at the other end of the satellite phone…

“Well, what the hell.” Oreza walked into the living room, put the batteries back in the phone, slid the antenna into the bottom of the mixing bowl, and dialed the number.

“Admiral Jackson,” he heard.

“Oreza here.”

“Anything new to report?”

“Yeah, Admiral. How the elections are going to go.”

“I don't understand, Master Chief.”

     “I see CNN telling us we got two carriers with their legs cut off and people saying we can't do shit, sir. Jesus, Admiral, even when the Argentineans took the goddamned
Falklands
the Brits said they were coming back. I ain't hearing that. What the hell are we supposed to think?”

Jackson
weighed his reply for a few seconds. “I don't need to tell you the rules on talking about operational stuff. Your job's to give me information, remember?”

“All we keep hearing is how they're going to hold elections, okay? The missile site east of us is camouflaged now—”

“I know that. And the search radar on top of
Mount
Takpochao
is operating, and there's about forty lighter aircraft based at the airport and Kobler. We count sixty more at Andersen on
Guam
. There are eight 'cans cruising east of you, and an oiler group approaching them for an unrep. Anything else you want to know?” Even if Oreza was “compromised,” a polite term for being under arrest, which
Jackson
doubted, this was nothing secret. Everyone knew
America
had reconnaissance satellites. On the other hand, Oreza needed to know that
Jackson
was up-to-date and, more importantly, interested. He was slightly ashamed of what he had to say next. “Master Chief, I expected better from a guy like you.” The reply made him feel better, though.

“That's what I needed to hear, Admiral.”

“Anything new happens, you tell us about it.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Jackson
broke the connection and lifted a recently arrived report on Johnnie Reb.

“Soon, Master Chief,” he whispered. Then it was time to meet with the people from MacDill Air Force Base, who were, perversely, all wearing Army green. He didn't know that they would remind him of something he'd seen a few months earlier.