Tom Clancy - Debt of Honor

Oh, shit , Clark thought at once. I'm a goddamned spy, he wanted to reply. I'm not with the goddamned State Department . The only good news at the moment was that Chavez didn't react at all. His heart had probably stopped, John told himself. Like yours just did.

"To what end?" he asked.

"The situation is grave, is it not? Koga-san has no part in this. He is still a man of political influence. His views should be of interest to your government."

Yeah, you might say that. But Koga was also a politician on the outside, and perhaps willing to trade the lives of some foreigners for an open door back into the government; or just a man who placed country ahead of personal gain—which possibility might cut in just about any direction Clark could imagine.

"Before I can commit to that, I need instructions from my government," John said. It was rarely that he temporized on anything, but this one was well beyond his experience.

"Then I would suggest that you get it. And soon," Kimura added as he stood and left.

"I always wondered if my master's in international relations would come in handy," Chavez observed, staring into his half-consumed drink. "Of course I have to live long enough to get the parchment."

Might be nice to get married, settle down, have kids, maybe even have a real life someday , he didn't add.

"Good to see you still have a sense of humor, Yevgeniy Pavlovich."

"They're going to tell us to do it. You know that."

"Da." Clark nodded, keeping his cover and now trying to think as a Russian would. Did the KGB manual have a chapter for this? he wondered. The CIA's sure as hell didn't.

As usual the tapes were clearer than the instant analysis of the operators. There had been three, perhaps four-more likely four, given American operational patterns, the intelligence officers opined-aircraft probing Japanese air defenses. Definitely not EC-135's, however. Those aircraft were based on a design almost fifty years old and studded with enough antennas to watch every TV signal in the hemisphere, and would have generated far larger radar returns. Besides, the Americans probably didn't have four such aircraft left. Therefore something else, probably their B-1B bomber, the intelligence people estimated. And the B-1B was a bomber, whose purpose was far more sinister than the collection of electronic signals. So the Americans were thinking of Japan as an enemy whose defenses would have to be penetrated for the purpose of delivering death, an idea new to neither side in this war, if war it was, the cooler heads added. But what else could it be? the majority of the analysts asked, setting the tone of the night's missions.

Three E-767's were again up and operating, again with two of them active and one waiting in the ambush role. This time the radars were turned up in power, and the parameters for the signal-processing software were electronically altered to allow for easier tracking of stealthy targets at long range. It was physics they depended on. The size of the antenna combined with the power of the signal and the frequency of the electronic waves made it possible to get hits on almost anything. That was both the good news and the bad news, the operators thought, as they received all manner of signals now.

There was one change, however. When they thought they had a weak return from a moving object at long range, they started directing their fighters in that direction. The Eagles never got within a hundred miles. The return signals always seemed to lade out when the E-767 switched frequency from longwave acquisition to shortwave tracking, and that didn't bode well for the Ku-band needed for actual targeting. It did show them that the Americans were still probing, and that perhaps they knew they were being tracked. And, everyone thought, if nothing else it was good training for the fighters. If this were truly a war, all the participants told themselves, then it was becoming more and more real.

"I don't buy it," the Colonel said.

"Sir, it looks to me like they were tracking you. They were sweeping you at double the rate that I can explain by the rotation of their dome. Their radar is completely electronic. They can steer their beams, and they were steering their beams." The sergeant's voice was reasonable and respectful, even though the officer who'd led the first probe was showing a little too much pride and not quite enough willingness to listen. He'd heard a little of what he was just told, but now he just shrugged it off.

"Okay, maybe they did get a few hits. We were broadside—aspect to them. Next time we'll deploy the patrol line farther out and do a direct penetration. That cuts our RCS by quite a bit. We have to tickle their line to see how they react."

Better you than me, pal , the sergeant thought. He looked out the window. Elmendorf Air Force Base was in Alaska and subject to dreadful winter weather—the worst enemy of any man-made machine. As a result the B-1's were all in hangars, which hid them from the satellite that Japan might or might not have operating. Still, nobody was sure about that.

"Colonel, I'm just a sergeant who diddles with O-scopes, but I'd be careful about that. I don't know enough about this radar to tell you for sure how good it is. My gut tells me it's pretty damned good."

"We'll be careful," the Colonel promised. "Tomorrow night we'll have a better set of tapes for you."

"Roger that, sir." Better you than me, pal , he thought again.

USS Pasadena had joined the north end of the patrol line west of Midway. It was possible for the submarines to report in with their satellite radios without revealing their positions except to PacFlt SubOps.

"Not much of a line," Jones observed, looking at the chart. He'd just come over to confer on what SOSUS had on Japanese naval movements, which was at the moment not much. The best news available was that SOSUS, even with Jones's improved tracking software, wasn't getting anything on the line of Olympia, Helena, Honolulu, Chicago, and now Pasadena. "We used to have more boats than that just to cover the Gap."

"That's all the SSNs we have available, Ron," Chambers replied. "And, yeah, it ain't much. But if they forward-deploy their diesel boats, they'd better be real careful." Washington had given them that much by way of orders.

An eastward move of Japanese warships would not tolerated, and the elimination of one of their submarines would be approved, probably. It was just that the boat holding the contact had to call it in first for political approval. Mancuso and Chambers hadn't told Jones that. There was little sense in dealing with his temper again.

"We have a bunch of SSNs in storage—"

"Seventeen on the West Coast, to be exact," Chambers said. "Minimum six months to reactivate them, not countin' getting the crews spun up."

Mancuso looked up. "Wait a minute. What about my 726's?"

Jones turned. "I thought they were deactivated."

SubPac shook his head. "The environmental people wouldn't let me. They all have caretaker crews aboard."

"All five of them," Chambers said quietly. " Nevada, Tennessee, West Virginia, Pennsylvania , and Maryland . That's worth calling Washington about, sir."

"Oh, yeah," Jones agreed. The 726-class, more commonly known by the name of the lead ship, Ohio , which was now high-quality razor blades, was far slower than the smaller 688-class of fast-attack boats, a lot less maneuverable and ten knots slower, but they were also quiet. More than that, they defined what quiet was.

"Wally, think we can scratch up crews for them?"

"I don't see why not, Admiral. We could have them moving in a week…ten days max, if we can get the right people."

"Well, that's something I can do." Mancuso lifted the phone for Washington.