by Tom Clancy
“Perhaps you say that such words are easy to speak, and you are correct. Tomorrow you will see people on the streets and roads of Saipan, surveying, taking measurements, and interviewing local citizens. Our first important task will be to improve the roads and highways of your island, something neglected by the Americans. We want your advice on the best way to do this. In fact, we will welcome your help and participation in everything we do.
“Now,” Arima said, leaning forward somewhat, “I know that some among you will find these developments unwelcome, and I wish to apologize sincerely for that. We have no desire to harm anyone here, but you must understand that any attack upon one of my men or any Japanese citizen will be treated as a violation of the law. I am also responsible to take certain security measures to protect my troops and to bring this island into compliance with Japanese law.
“All firearms owned by private citizens on Saipan must be surrendered in the next few days. You may bring them into your local police stations. If you have a sales record for the guns, or if you can demonstrate their commercial value, we will pay you the fair cash value for them. Similarly, we must ask that any owners of ‘ham’ radios turn them over to us for a short period of time, and, please, not to use them until you do. Again, we will pay in cash the full value of your property, and in the case of the radios, when we return them to you, you may keep the money as a token of our thanks for your cooperation. Aside from that”—another smile—“you will hardly notice that we are here. My troops are under orders to treat everyone on this island as fellow citizens. If you experience or even see a single incident in which a Japanese soldier is impolite to a local citizen, I want you to come to my headquarters and report it. You see, our law applies to us, too.
“For the moment, please go about your normal lives.” A number came up on the screen. “If you have any specific questions, please call this number or feel free to come to my headquarters at your parliament building. We will be glad to help you in any way we can. Thank you for listening. Good night.”
“This message will be repeated every fifteen minutes on Channel Six, the public-access channel,” another voice said.
“Son of a bitch,” Oreza breathed.
“I wonder who their ad agency is,” Burroughs noted, going to punch the rewind button on the VCR.
“Can we believe it?” Isabel asked.
“Who knows? You have any guns?”
Portagee shook his head. “Nope. I don’t even know if this rock has a registration law. Have to be crazy to take on soldiers anyway, right?”
“It makes it a lot easier for them if they don’t have to watch their backs.” Burroughs started putting the batteries back in his sat-phone. “You have the number for that admiral?”
“Jackson.”
“Master Chief Oreza, sir. You got a tape machine running?”
“Yes, I do. What you got?”
“Well, sir, it’s official,” Oreza reported dryly. “They just made the announcement on TV. We taped it. I’m turning the tape on now. I’ll hold the phone right next to the speaker.”
General Tokikichi Arima, Jackson wrote down on a pad. He handed it to an Army sergeant. “Have the intel boys identify this name.”
“Yessir.” The sergeant vanished in an instant.
“Major!” Robby called next.
“Yes, Admiral?”
“The sound quality is pretty good. Have a copy of the tape run over to the spooks for voice-stress analysis. Next, I want a typed transcript ASAP ready to fax out to half a million places.”
“Right.”
For the rest of the time, Jackson just listened, an island of calm in a sea of madness, or so it seemed.
“That’s it,” Oreza told him when it ended. “You want the call-in number, Admiral?”
“Not right now, no. Good job, Master Chief. Anything else to report?”
“The airplanes are still shuttling in. I counted fourteen since we talked last.”
“Okay.” Robby made the proper notes. “You feel like you’re in any particular danger?”
“I don’t see people running around with guns, Admiral. You notice they didn’t say anything about American nationals on the island?”
“No, I didn’t. Good point.” Ouch.
“I ain’t real comfortable about this, sir.” Oreza gave him a quick reprise of the incident on his boat.
“I can’t say that I blame you, Master Chief. Your country is working on the problem, okay?”
“You say so, Admiral. I’m shutting down for a while.”
“Fair enough. Hang in there,” Jackson ordered. It was a hollow directive, and both men knew it.
“Roger that. Out.”
Robby sat the phone back in the cradle. “Opinions?”
“You mean aside from, ‘It’s all fuckin’ crazy’?” a staff officer inquired.
“It may be crazy to us, but it’s sure as hell logical to somebody.” There was no sense in clobbering the officer for the statement, Jackson knew. It would take a bit more time before they really came to terms with the situation. “Does anybody not believe the information we have now?” He looked around. Seven officers were present, and people weren’t selected for duty in the NMCC for their stupidity.
“It may be crazy, sir, but everything keeps coming down the same way. Every post we’ve tried to link with is off the air. They’re all supposed to have duty officers, but nobody’s answering the phone. Satellite links are down. We have four Air Force bases and an Army post off the air. It’s real, sir.” The staffer redeemed herself with the follow-up.
“Anything from State? Any of the spook shops?”
“Nothing,” a colonel from J-2 replied. “I can give you a satellite pass over the Marianas in about an hour. I’ve already told NRO and I-TAC about the tasking and the priority.”
“KH-11?”
“Yes, sir, and all the cameras are up. Weather is clear. We’ll get good overheads,” the intelligence officer assured him.
“No storm in the area yesterday?”
“Negative,” another officer said. “Ain’t no reason for phone service to be out. They have Trans-Pac cable and satellite uplinks. I called the contractor that operates the dishes. They had no warning at all. They’ve been sending their own signals to their people, requesting information, no reply.”
Jackson nodded. He’d waited this long only to get the confirmation he needed to take the next step.
“Okay, let’s get a warning signal drafted, distribution to all the CINCs. Alert SecDef and the Chiefs. I’m calling the President now.”
“Dr. Ryan, NMCC on the STU with CRITIC traffic. Admiral Robert Jackson again.” The use of “CRITIC” caused heads to turn as Ryan lifted the secure phone.
“Robby, this is Jack. What’s happening?” Everyone in the communications room saw the National Security Advisor turn pale. “Robby, are you serious?” He looked at the communications watch officer. “Where are we now?”
“Approaching Goose Bay, Labrador, sir. About three hours out.”
“Get Special Agent d’Agustino up here, would you, please?” Ryan took his hand off the phone. “Robby, I need hard copy ... okay ... he’s still asleep, I think. Give me thirty minutes to get organized here. Call me if you need me.”
Jack got out of his chair and made his way to the lav just aft of the flight deck. He managed to avoid looking in the mirror when he washed his hands. The Secret Service agent was waiting for him when he emerged.
“Not much sleep for you, eh?”
“Is the Boss up yet?”
“Sir, he left orders not to do that until we were an hour out. I just checked with the pilot and—”
“Kick him loose, Daga, right now. Then get Secretaries Hanson and Fiedler up. Arnie, too.”
“What’s the matter, sir?”
“You’ll be in there to hear it.” Ryan took the roll of fax paper off the secure machine and started reading. He looked up. “I’m not kidding, Daga. Right now.”
“A
ny danger to the President?”
“Let’s assume that there is,” Jack replied. He thought for a second. “Where’s the nearest fighter base, Lieutenant?”
The what? on her face was quite obvious. “Sir, there are F-15s at Otis on Cape Cod, and F-16s at Burlington, Vermont. Both are Air National Guard groups tasked to continental air defense.”
“You call them and tell them that the President would like to have some friends around ASAP.” The nice thing about talking to lieutenants was that they weren’t used to asking why an order was given, even when there was no obvious reason for it. The same thing didn’t apply to the Secret Service.
“Doc, if you need to do that, then I need to know, too, right now.”
“Yeah, Daga, I guess so.” Ryan tore off the top section of the thermal fax paper when he got to the second page of the transmission.
“Holy shit,” the agent thought aloud, handing it back. “I’ll wake the President up. You need to tell the pilot. They do things a little differently at times like this.”
“Fair enough. Fifteen minutes, Daga, okay?”
“Yes, sir.” She headed down the circular stairs while Jack went forward to the flight deck.
“One-six-zero minutes to go, Dr. Ryan. Has been a long one, hasn’t it?” the Colonel at the controls asked pleasantly. The smile faded instantly from his face.
It was mere chance that took them past the American Embassy. Maybe he’d just wanted to see the flag, Clark thought. It was always a pleasant sight in a foreign land, even if it did fly over a building designed by some bureaucrat with the artistic sense of—
“Somebody’s worried about security,” Chavez said.
“Yevgeniy Pavlovich, I know your English is good. You need not practice it on me.”
“Excuse me. The Japanese are concerned with a riot, Vanya? Except for that one incident, there hasn’t been much hooliganism ...” His voice trailed off. There were two squads of fully armed infantrymen arrayed around the building. That seemed very odd indeed. Over here, Ding thought, one or two police officers seemed enough to—
“Yob’tvoyu mat.”
Clark was proud of the lad just then. Foul as the imprecation was, it was also just what a Russian would have said. The reason for it was also clear. The guards around the embassy perimeter were looking in as much as they were looking out, and the Marines were nowhere to be seen.
“Ivan Sergeyevich, something seems very odd.”
“Indeed it does, Yevgeniy Pavlovich,” John Clark said evenly. He didn’t let the car slow down, and hoped the troops on the sidewalk wouldn’t notice the two gaijin driving by and take down their license number. It might be a good time to change rental cars.
“The name is Arima, first name Tokikichi, sir, Lieutenant General, age fifty-three.” The Army sergeant was an intelligence specialist. “Graduated their National Defense Academy, worked his way up the line as an infantryman, good marks all the way. He’s airborne qualified. Took the senior course at Carlisle Barracks eight years ago, did just fine. ‘Politically astute,’ the form sheet says. Well connected. He’s Commanding General of their Eastern Army, a rough equivalent of a corps organization in the U.S. Army, but not as heavy in corps-level assets, especially artillery. That’s two infantry divisions, First and Twelfth, their First Airborne Brigade, First Engineer Brigade, Second Anti-Air Group, and other administrative attachments.”
The sergeant handed over the folder, complete with a pair of photos. The enemy has a face now, Jackson thought. At least one face. Jackson examined it for a few seconds and closed the folder back. It was about to go to Condition FRANTIC in the Pentagon. The first of the Joint Chiefs was in the parking lot, and he was the lucky son of a bitch to give them the news, such as it was. Jackson assembled his documents and headed off to the Tank, a pleasant room, actually, located on the outside of the building’s E-Ring.
Chet Nomuri had spent the day meeting at irregular hours with three of his contacts, learning not very much except that something very strange was afoot, though nobody knew what. His best course of action, he decided, was to head back to the bathhouse and hope Kazuo Taoka would turn up. He finally did, by which time Nomuri had spent so much time soaking in the blisteringly hot water that his body felt like pasta that had been in the pot for about a month.
“You must have had a day like I did,” he managed to say with a crooked smile.
“How was yours?” Kazuo asked, his smile tired but enthusiastic.
“There is a pretty girl at a certain bar. Three months I’ve worked on her. We had a vigorous afternoon.” Nomuri reached below the surface of the water, feigning agony in an obvious way. “It may never work again.”
“1 wish that American girl was still around,” Taoka said, settling in the tub with a prolonged Ahhhhh. “I am ready for someone like her now.”
“She’s gone?” Nomuri asked innocently.
“Dead,” the salaryman said, easily controlling his sense of loss.
“What happened?”
“They were going to send her home. Yamata sent Kaneda, his security man, to tidy things up. But it seems she used narcotics, and she was found dead of an overdose. A great pity,” Taoka observed, as if he were describing the demise of a neighbor’s cat. “But there are more where she came from.”
Nomuri just nodded with weary impassivity, remarking to himself that this was a side of the man he hadn’t seen before. Kazuo was a fairly typical Japanese salaryman. He’d joined his company right out of college, starting off in a position little removed from clerkship. After serving five years, he’d been sent off to a business school, which in this country was the intellectual equivalent of Parris Island, with a touch of Buchenwald. There was just something outrageous about how this country operated. He expected that things would be different. It was a foreign land, after all, and every country was different, which was fundamentally a good thing. America was the proof of that. America essentially lived off the diversity that arrived at her shores, each ethnic community adding something to the national pot, creating an often boiling but always creative and lively national mix. But now he truly understood why people came to the U.S., especially people from this country.
Japan demanded much of its citizens—or more properly, its culture did. The boss was always right. A good employee was one who did as he was told. To advance you had to kiss a lot of ass, sing the company song, exercise like somebody in goddamned boot camp every morning, showing up an hour early to show how sincere you were. The amazing part was that anything creative happened here at all. Probably the best of them fought their way to the top despite all this, or perhaps were smart enough to disguise their inner feelings until they got to a position of real authority, but by the time they got there they must have accumulated enough inner rage to make Hitler look like a pansy. Along the way they bled those feelings off with drinking binges and sexual orgies of the sort he’d heard about in this very hot tub. The stories about jaunts to Thailand and Taiwan and most recently the Marianas were especially interesting, stuff that would have made his college chums at UCLA blush. Those things were all symptoms of a society that cultivated psychological repression, whose warm and gentle façade of good manners was like a dam holding back all manner of repressed rage and frustration. That dam occasionally leaked, mostly in an orderly, controlled way, but the strain on the dam was unchanging, and one result of that strain was a way of looking at others, especially gaijin, in a manner that insulted Nomuri’s American-cultivated egalitarian outlook. It would not be long, he realized, before he started hating this place. That would be unhealthy and unprofessional, the CIA officer thought, remembering the repeated lessons from the Farm: a good field spook identified closely with the culture he attacked. But he was sliding in the other direction, and the irony was that the deepest reason for his growing antipathy was that his roots sprang from this very country.
“You really want more like her?” Nomuri asked, eyes closed.
“Oh, yes. Fucking Americans will so
on be our national sport.” Taoka chuckled. “We had a fine time of it the past two days. And I was there to see it all happen,” his voice concluded in awe. It had all paid off. Twenty years of toeing the line had brought its reward, to have been there in the War Room, listening to it all, following it all, seeing history written before his eyes. The salaryman had made his mark, and most importantly of all, he’d been noticed. By Yamata-san himself.
“So what great deeds have happened while I was performing my own, eh?” Nomuri asked, opening his eyes and giving off a leering smile.
“We just went to war with America, and we’ve won!” Taoka proclaimed.
“War? Nan ja? We accomplished a takeover of General Motors, did we?”
“A real war, my friend. We crippled their Pacific Fleet and the Marianas Islands are Japanese again.”
“My friend, you cannot tolerate too much alcohol,” Nomuri thought, really believing what he’d just said to the blowhard.
“I have not had a drink in four days!” Taoka protested. “What I told you is true!”
“Kazuo,” Chet said patiently as though to a bright child, “you tell stories with a skill and style better than any man I have ever met. Your descriptions of women make my loins swell as though I were there myself.” Nomuri smiled. “But you exaggerate.”
“Not this time, my friend, truly,” Taoka said, really wanting his friend to believe him, and so he started giving details.
Nomuri had no real military training. Most of his knowledge of such affairs came from reading books and watching movies. His instructions for operating in Japan had nothing to do with gathering information on the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, but rather with trade and foreign-affairs matters. But Kazuo Taoka was a fine storyteller, with a keen eye for detail, and it took only three minutes before Nomuri had to close his eyes again, a smile fixed on his lips. Both actions were the result of his training in Yorktown, Virginia, as was that of his memory, which struggled now to record every single word while another part of his consciousness wondered how the hell he was going to get the information out. His other reaction was one that Taoka could neither see nor hear, a quintessential Americanism, spoken within the confines of the CIA officer’s mind: You motherfuckers!
