Tom Clancy - Debt of Honor

Sato saw it too. He stopped and looked at a paper dispenser but only needed to see the headline to understand. Then he looked at the foreigners at their gates and muttered, " Gaijin …" It was the only unnecessary word he'd uttered in two hours, and he said nothing else on the way to his car. Perhaps some sleep would help him, the copilot thought, heading off to his own

"Aren't we supposed to go back out and—"

"And do what, Ding?" Clark asked, pocketing the car keys after a thirty-minute drive around the southern half of the island. "Sometimes you just let things be. I think this is one of those times, son."

"You think it's over?" Pete Burroughs asked.

"Well, take a look around."

Fighters were still orbiting overhead. Cleanup crews had just about cleared the debris from the periphery of Kobler Field, but the fighters had not moved over to the international airport, whose runways were busy with civilian airliners. To the east of the housing tract the Patriot crews were also standing alert, but those not in the control vans were standing together in small knots, talking among themselves instead of doing the usual soldierly make-work. Local citizens were demonstrating now, in some cases loudly, at various sites around the island, and nobody was arresting them. In some cases officer backed by armed soldiers asked, politely, for the demonstrators to stay away from the troops, and the local people prudently heeded the warnings. On their drive. Clark and Chavez had seen half a dozen such incidents, and in all cases it was the same: the soldiers not angered so much as embarrassed by it all. It wasn't the sign of an army ready to fight a battle , John thought, and more importantly, the officers were keeping their men under tight control. Thai meant orders from above to keep things cool.

"You think it's over?" Oreza asked

"If we're lucky, Portagee."

Prime Minister Koga's first official act after forming a cabinet was to summon Ambassador Charles Whiting. A political appointee whose last four weeks in the country had been very tense and frightening indeed, Whiting noted first of all that the guard detail around the embassy was cut by half.

His official car had a police escort to the Diet Building. There were cameras to record his arrival at the VIP entrance, but they were kept well back, and two brand-new ministers conducted him inside.

"Thank you for coming so quickly, Mr. Whiting."

"Mr. Prime Minister, speaking for myself, I am very pleased to answer your invitation." The two men shook hands, and really that was it, both of them knew, though their conversation had to cover numerous issues.

"You are aware that I had nothing at all to do—"

Whiting just raised his hand. "Excuse me, sir. Yes, I know that, and I assure you that my government knows that. Please, we do not need to establish your goodwill. This meeting," the Ambassador said generously, "is proof positive of that."

"And the position of your government?"

At exactly nine in the morning, Vice President Edward Kealty's car pulled into the underground parking garage of the State Department. Secret Service agents conducted him to the VIP elevator that took him to the seventh floor, where one of Brett Hanson's personal assistants led him to the double doors of the office of the Secretary of State.

"Hello, Ed," Hanson said, standing and coming to meet the man he'd known in and out of public life for two decades.

"Hi, Brett." Kealty was not downcast. In the past few weeks he'd come to terms with many things. Later today he would make his public statement, apologizing to Barbara Linders and several other people by name. But before that he had to do what the Constitution required. Kealty reached into his coat pocket and handed over an envelope to the Secretary of State. Hanson took it and read the two brief paragraphs that announced Kealty's resignation from his office. There were no further words. The two old friends shook hands and Kealty made his way back out of the building. He would return to the White House, where his personal staff was already collecting his belongings. By evening the office would be ready for a new occupant.

"Jack, Chuck Whiting is delivering our terms, and they're pretty much what you suggested last night."

"You might catch some political heat from that," Ryan observed, inwardly relieved that President Durling was willing to run the risk.

The man behind the ornate desk shook his head. "I don't think so, but if it happens, I can take it. I want orders to go out for our forces to stand down, defensive action only."

"Good."

"It's going to be a long while before things return to normal."

Jack nodded. "Yes, sir, but we can still manage things in as civilized a way as possible. Their citizens were never behind this. Most of the people responsible for it are already dead. We have to make that clear. Want me to handle it?"

"Great idea. Let's talk about that tonight. How about you bring your wife in for dinner. Just a private one for a change," the President suggested with smile.

"I think Cathy would like that."

Professor Catherine Ryan was just finishing up a procedure. The atmosphere in the operating room was more akin to something in an electronics factory. She didn't even have to wear surgical gloves, and the scrub rules here were nothing like those for conventional surgery. The patient was only mildly sedated while the surgeon hovered over the gunsightlike controls of her laser, searching around for the last bad vessel on the surface of the elderly man's retina. She lined up the crosshairs as carefully as a man taking down a Rocky Mountain sheep from half a mile, and thumbed the control. There was a brief flash of green light and the vein was "welded" shut.

"Mr. Redding, that's it," she said quietly, touching his hand.

"Thank you, doctor," the man said somewhat sleepily.

Cathy Ryan flipped off the power switch on the laser system and got off her stool, stretching as she did so. In the corner of the room, Special Agent Andrea Price, still disguised as a Hopkins faculty member, had watched the entire procedure. The two women went outside to find Professor Bernard Katz, his eyes beaming over his Bismarck mustache.

"Yeah, Bernie?" Cathy said, making her notes for Mr. Redding's chart.

"You have room on the mantel, Cath?" That brought her eyes up. Katz handed over a telegram, still the traditional way of delivering such news. "You just bagged a Lasker Award, honey." Katz then delivered a hug that almost made Andrea Price reach for her gun.

"Oh, Bernie!"

"You earned it, doctor. Who knows, maybe you'll get a free trip to Sweden, too. Ten years of work It's one hell of a clinical breakthrough, Cathy."

Other faculty members came up then, applauding and shaking her hand and for Caroline Muller Ryan, MD, F.A.C.S., it was a moment to match the arrival of a baby. Well, she thought, almost…

Special Agent Price heard her beeper go off and headed to the nearest phone, taking the message down and returning to her principal.

"Is it really that good?" she finally asked.

"Well, it's about the top American award in medicine," Katz said while Cathy basked in the glow of respect from her colleagues. "You get a nice little copy of a Greek statue, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, I think, the Goddess Nike. Some money, too. But mainly what you get is the knowledge that you really made a difference. She's a great doc."

"Well, the timing is pretty good. I have to get her home and changed," Price confided.

"What for?"

"Dinner in the White House," the agent replied with a wink. "Her husband did a pretty good job, too." Just how good was a secret from nearly everyone, but not from the Service, from whom nothing was secret.

"Ambassador Whiting, I wish to apologize to you, to your government, and to your people for what has happened. I pledge to you that it will not happen again. I also pledge to you that the people responsible will answer to our law," Koga said with great if somewhat stiff dignity.