Tom Clancy - Debt of Honor

There would be one more thing, Durling didn't say, but he needed just a little more thinking about it. For the moment it was enough that America looked to be winning this war, and with it he'd won re-election for saving the economy and safeguarding the rights of American citizens. It had been quite na interesting month, the President thought, looking at the other man in the room and wondering what might have come to pass without him. After Ryan left, he placed a telephone call to the Hill.

One other advantage of airborne-radar aircraft was that they made counting coup a lot easier. They could not always show which missile killed which aircraft, but they did show them dropping off the screen.

" Port Royal reports recovery complete," a talker said.

"Thank you," Jackson said. He hoped the Army aviators weren't too disappointed to have landed on a cruiser instead of Johnnie Reb , but he needed his deck space.

"I count twenty-seven kills," Sanchez said. Three of his own fighters had fallen, with only one of the pilots rescued. The casualties were lighter than expected, though that fact didn't make the letter-writing any easier for the CAG.

"Well, it's not exactly like the Turkey Shoot, but it wasn't bad. Tack on fourteen more from the Tomahawks. That's about half their fighter strength—most of their F-I5's—and they only have the one Hummer left. They're on the short end from now on." The battle-force commander went over the other data. A destroyer gone and the rest of their Aegis ships in the wrong place to interfere with the combat action. Eight submarines definitely destroyed. The overall operational concept had been to detach the arms from the body first, just as had been done in the Persian Gulf, and it had proved to be even easier over water than over land. "Bud, if you were commanding the other side, what would you try next?"

"We still can't invade." Sanchez paused. "It's a losing game any way you cut it, but the last time we had to come this way…" He looked at his commander.

"There is that. Bud, get a Tom ready for a flight with me in the back."

"Aye aye, sir." Sanchez made his way off.

"You thinking what I am?" Stennis's captain asked with a raised eyebrow.

"What do we got to lose, Phil?"

"A pretty good admiral, Rob," he replied quietly.

"Where do you keep your radios in this barge?" Jackson asked with a wink.

"Where have you been?" Goto asked in surprise.

"In hiding, after your patron kidnapped me." Koga walked in without so much as an announcement, took a seal without being bidden, and generally displayed the total lack of manners that proclaimed his renewed power. "What do you have to say for yourself.'" the former Prime Minister demanded of his successor.

"You cannot talk to me that way." But even these words were weak.

"How marvelous. You lead our nation to ruin, but you insist on deference from someone whom your master almost killed. With your knowledge?"

Koga asked lightly.

"Certainly not—and who murdered the—"

"Who murdered the criminals? Not I," Koga assured him. "There is a more important question: what are you going to do?"

"Why, I haven't decided that yet." This attempt at a strong statement fell short on several counts.

"You haven't spoken to Yamata yet, you mean."

"I decide things for myself!"

"Excellent. Do so now."

"You cannot order me about."

"And why not? I will soon be back in that seat. You have a choice. Either you will resign your position this morning or this afternoon I will speak in the Diet and request a vote of no-confidence. It is a vote you will not survive. In either case you are finished." Koga stood and started to leave. "I suggest you do so honorably."

People were lined up in the terminal, standing in line at the counters to get tickets home, Captain Sato saw, as he walked past with a military escort. He was only a young lieutenant, a paratrooper still apparently eager to fight, which was more than could be said for the others in the building. The waiting jeep raced away, heading for the military airfield. The natives were out now, unlike before, carrying signs urging the "Japs" to leave.

Some of them ought to be shot for their insolence , Sato thought, still coming to terms with his grief. Ten minutes later, he entered one of Kobler's hangars. Fighters were circling overhead, probably afraid to stray offshore, he thought.

"In here, please," the Lieutenant said.

He walked into the building with consummate dignity, his uniform cap tucked inside his left arm, his back erect, hardly looking at anything, his eyes fixed on the distant wall of the building until the lieutenant stopped and pulled the rubber sheet off the body.

"Yes, that is my son." He tried not to look, and blessedly the face was not grossly disfigured, possibly protected by the flight helmet while the rest of the body had burned as he sat trapped in his wrecked fighter. But when he closed his eyes he could see his only child writhing in the cockpit, less than an hour after his brother had drowned. Could destiny be so cruel as this? And how was it that those who had served his country had to die, while a mere transporter of civilians was allowed to pass through the American fighters with contempt?

"The squadron command believes that he shot down an American fighter before turning back," the Lieutenant offered. He'd just made that up, but he had to say something, didn't he?

"'Thank you, Lieutenant. I have to return to my aircraft now." No more words were passed on the way hack to the airport. The army officer left the man with his grief and his dignity.

Sato was on his flight deck twenty minutes later, the 747 already pre-flighted, and, he was sure, completely filled with people returning home under the promise of safe passage by the Americans. The ground tractor pushed the Boeing away from the jetway. It was driven by a native, and the gesture he flashed to the cockpit on decoupling from their aircraft was not exactly a friendly one. But the final insult came as he waited for clearance to take off. A fighter came in to land, not a blue Eagle, it was a haze-gray aircraft with NAVY painted on the engine nacelles.

"Nice touch, Bud. Grease job," Jackson said as the canopy came up.

"We aim to please, sir," Sanchez replied nervously. As he taxied off to the right, the welcoming committee, such as it was, all wore green fatigues and carried rifles. When the aircraft stopped, an aluminum extension ladder was laid alongside the aircraft. Jackson climbed out first, and at the bottom of the ladder a field-grade officer saluted him correctly.

"That's a Tomcat," Oreza said, handing over the binoculars. "And that officer ain't no Jap."

"Sure as hell," Clark confirmed, watching the black officer get into a jeep. What effect would this have on his tentative orders? Attractive as it might be to put the arm on Raizo Yamata, even getting close enough to evaluate the possibility—his current instructions—was not a promising undertaking. He had also reported on conditions on Saipan, and that word, he thought, was good. The Japanese troops he'd seen earlier in the day were not the least bit jaunty, though some officers, especially the junior ones, seemed very enthusiastic about their mission, whatever that was right now. It was about what you expected of lieutenants in any army.

The Governor's house, set on the local Capitol Hill next to the convention center, seemed a pleasant enough structure. Jackson was sweating now. The tropical sun was hot enough, and his nomex flight suit was just too good an insulator. Here a colonel saluted him and led him inside.

Robby knew General Arima on sight, remembering the intelligence file he'd seen in the Pentagon. They were of about the same height and build, he saw. The General saluted. Jackson, bareheaded and under cover, was not allowed to do so under naval regulations. It seemed the proper response not to, anyway. He nodded his head politely, and left it at that.