Debt of Honor jr-6

by Tom Clancy

  "What the hell was that?"

  "Two F-3S conducting an attack drill," the officer of the deck replied. "They've been tracking them in CIC for several minutes. We had them illuminated with our missile trackers."

  "Will someone tell those 'wild eagles' that flying directly over a ship in the dark risks damage to us, and foolish death to them!"

  "But, Admiral—" the OOD tried to say.

  "But we are a valuable fleet unit and I do not wish one of my ships to have to spend a month in the yard having her mast replaced because some damned fool of an aviator couldn't see us in the dark!"

  "Hai. I will make the call at once."

  Spoiling my morning that way, Sato fumed, going back out to sit in the leather chair and doze off.

  Was he the first guy to figure it out? Winston asked himself. Then he asked himself why he should find that surprising. The FBI and the rest were evidently trying to put things back together, and their main effort was probably to defend against fraud. Worse, they were also going over all the records, not just those of the Columbus Group. It had to be a virtual ocean of data, and they would have been unfamiliar with the stuff, and this was a singularly bad time for on-the-job training.

  The TV told the story. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank had been on all the morning talk shows, which had to have kept his driver busy in D.C. this day, followed by a strong public statement in the White House Press Room, followed by a lengthy interview on CNN. It was working, after a fashion, and TV showed that as well. A lot of people had shown up at banks before lunch, surprised there to find piles of cash trucked out the previous night to make what in military terms was probably called a show of force. Though the Chairman had evidently jawboned every major banker in the country, the reverse was true of the tellers meeting depositors at their windows: Oh, you want cash? Well, of course we have all you need. In not a few cases, by the time people got home they started to feel a new variety of paranoia—keep all this cash at home?—and by afternoon some had even begun coming back to redeposit.

  That would be Buzz Fiedler's work, too, and a good man he was, Winston thought, for an academic. The Treasury Secretary was only buying time, and doing so with money, but it was a good tactic, good enough to confuse the public into believing things were not as bad as they appeared.

  Serious investors knew better. Things were bad, and the play in the banks was a stopgap measure at best. The Fed was dumping cash into the system. Though a good idea for a day or so, the net effect by the end of the week had to be to weaken the dollar further still, and already American T-Bills were about as popular in the global financial community as plague rats. Worst of all, though Fiedler had prevented a banking panic for the time being, you could hold back a panic only so long, and unless you could restore confidence in a real way, the longer you played stopgap games, the worse would be the renewed panic if those measures failed, for then there would be no stopping it. That was what Winston really expected. Because the Gordian knot around the throat of the investment system would not soon be untied.

  Winston thought he had decoded the likely cause of the event, but along the way he'd learned that there might not be a solution. The sabotage at DTC had been the master stroke. Fundamentally, no single person knew what he owned, what he'd paid for it, when he'd gotten it, or what cash he had left; and the absence of knowledge was metastatic. Individual investors didn't know. Institutions didn't know. The trading houses didn't know. Nobody knew.

  How would the real panic start? In short order, pension funds would have to write their monthly checks—but would the banks honor them? The Fed would encourage them to do so, but somewhere along the line there would be one bank that would not, due to troubles of its own—just one, such things always began in a single place, after all—and that would start yet another cascade, and the Fed would have to step in again by boosting the money supply, and that could start a hyperinflationary cycle. That was the ultimate nightmare. Winston well remembered the way that inflation had affected the market and the country in the late 1970's, the "malaise" that had indeed been real, the loss of national confidence that had manifested itselt with nut cases building cabins in the Northwestern mountains and had movies about life after the apocalypse. And even then inflation had topped out at what? Thirteen percent or so. Twenty-percent interest rates. A country suffering from nothing more than the loss of confidence that had resulted from long gas lines and a vacillating president. Those times might well seem nostalgic indeed.

  This would be far worse, something not like America at all, something from the Weimar Republic, something from Argentina in the bad old days, or Brazil under military rule. And it wouldn't stop just with America, would it? Just as in 1929, the ripple effects would spread far, crippling economies across the world, well beyond even Winston's capacity for prediction. He would not be badly hurt personally, George knew. Even the 60-percent diminution of his personal wealth would leave a vast and comfortable sum—he always hedged some of his bets on issues that owned physically real things, like oil or gold; and he had his own gold holdings, real metal bars in vaults, like a miser of old—and since major depressions were ultimately deflationary, the relative value of his diverse holdings would actually increase after a time. He knew that he and his family would survive and thrive, but the cost to those less fortunate than himself was economic and social chaos. And he wasn't in the business just for himself, was he? Over time he'd come to think long at night about the little guys who'd seen his TV ads and entrusted him with their savings. It was a magic word, trust. It meant that you had an obligation to the people who gave it to you. It meant that they believed what you said about yourself, and that you had to prove that it was real, not merely to them, but to yourself as well. Because if you failed, then houses were not bought, kids not educated, and the dreams of real people not unlike yourself would die aborning. Bad enough just in America, Winston thought, but this event would—could—affect the entire world.

  And he had to know what he'd done. It was not an accident. It had been a well-considered plan, executed with style. Yamata. That clever son of a bitch, Winston thought. Perhaps the first Japanese investor he'd ever respected. The first one who'd really understood the game both tactically and strategically. Well, that was sure as hell the case. The look on his face, those dark eyes over the champagne glass. Why didn't you see it then? So that was the game after all, wasn't it?

  But no. It couldn't be the entire game. A part of it, perhaps, a tactic aimed at something else. What? What could be so important that Raizo Yamata was willing to kiss off his personal fortune, and along the way destroy the very global markets upon which his own corporations and his own national economy depended? That was not something to enter the mind of a businessman, certainly not something to warm the soul of a maven on the Street. It was strange to have it all figured out and yet not understand the sense of it. Winston looked out the window as the sun set on New York Harbor. He had to tell somebody, and that somebody had to understand what this was all about. Fiedler? Maybe. Better somebody who knew the Street…and knew other things, too. But who?

  "Are they ours?" All four lay alee in Laolao Bay. One of their number was tucked alongside an oiler, doubtless taking on fuel.

  Oreza shook his head. "Paint's wrong. The Navy paints its ships darker, bluer, like."

  "They look like serious ships, man." Burroughs handed the binoculars back.

  "Billboard radars, vertical-launch cells for missiles, antisub helicopters. They're Aegis 'cans, like our Burke class. They're serious, all right. Airplanes are afraid of 'em." As Portagee watched, a helicopter lifted off one and headed for the beach.

  "Report in?"

  "Yeah, good idea."

  Burroughs went into the living room and put the batteries back in his phone. The idea of completely depowering it was probably unnecessary, but it was safe, and neither man was interested in finding out how the Japanese treated spies, for that was what they were. It was also awkward, putting the antenna
through the hole in the bottom of the serving bowl and then holding it next to your head, but it did give a certain element of humor to the exercise, and they needed a reason to smile at something.

  "NMCC, Admiral Jackson."

  "You have the duty again, sir?"

  "Well, Master Chief, I guess we both do. What do you have to report?"

  "Four Aegis destroyers offshore, east side of the island. One's taking fuel on now from a small fleet oiler. They showed up just after dawn. Two more car carriers at the quay, another on the horizon outbound. We counted twenty fighter aircraft a while ago. About half of them are F-15's with twin tails. The other half are single tails, but I don't know the type. Otherwise nothing new to tell you about."

  Jackson was looking at a satellite photo only an hour old showing four ships in line-ahead formation, and fighters dispersed at both the airfields. He made a note and nodded.

  "What's it like there?" Robby asked. "I mean, they hassling anybody, arrests, that sort of thing?" He heard the voice at the other end snort.

  "Negative, sir. Everybody's just nice as can be. Hell, they're on TV all the time, the public-access cable channel, telling us how much money they plan to spend here and all the things they're gonna do for us." Robby heard the disgust in the man's voice.

  "Fair enough. I might not always be here. I do have to get a little sleep, but this line is set aside for your exclusive use now, okay?"

  "Roger that, Admiral."

  "Play it real cool, Master Chief. No heroic shit, okay?"

  "That's kid stuff, sir. I know better," Oreza assured him.

  "Then close down, Oreza. Good work." Jackson heard the line go dead before he set his phone down. "Better you than me, man," he added to himself. Then he looked over at the next desk.

  "Got it on tape," an Air Force intelligence officer told him. "He confirms the satellite data. I'm inclined to believe that he's still safe."

  "Let's keep him that way. I don't want anybody calling out to them without my say-so," Jackson ordered.

  "Roge-o, sir." I don't think we can anyway, he didn't add.

  "Tough day?" Paul Robberton asked.

  "I've had worse," Ryan answered. But this crisis was too new for so confident an evaluation. "Does your wife mind…?"

  "She's used to having me away, and we'll get a routine figured out in a day or so." The Secret Service agent paused. "How's the Boss doing?"

  "As usual he gets the hard parts. We all dump on him, right?" Jack admitted, looking out the window as they turned off Route 50. "He's a good man, Paul."

  "So are you, doc. We were all pretty glad to get you back." He paused. "How tough is it?" The Secret Service had the happy circumstance of needing to know almost everything, which was just as well, since they overheard almost everything anyway.

  "Didn't they tell you? The Japanese have built nukes. And they have ballistic launchers to deliver them."

  Paul's hands tightened on the wheel. "Lovely. But they can't be that crazy."

  "On the evening of December 7, 1941, USS Enterprise pulled into Pearl Harbor to refuel and rearm. Admiral Bill Halsey was riding the bridge, as usual, and looked at the mess from the morning's strike and said, 'When this war is over, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell.' " Ryan wondered why he'd just said that.

  "That's in your book. It must have been a good line for the guys around him."

  "I suppose. If they use their nukes, that's what'll happen to them. Yeah, they have to know that," Ryan said, his fatigue catching up with him.

  "You need about eight hours, Dr. Ryan, maybe nine," Robberton said judiciously. "It's like with us. Fatigue really messes up your higher-brain functions. The Boss needs you sharp, doc, okay?"

  "No argument there. I might even have a drink tonight," Ryan thought aloud.

  There was an extra car in the driveway, Jack saw, and a new face that looked out the window as the official car pulled into the parking pad.

  "That's Andrea. I already talked with her. Your wife had a good lecture today, by the way. Everything went just fine."

  "Good thing we have two guest rooms." Jack chuckled as he walked into the house. The mood was happy enough, and it seemed that Cathy and Agent Price were getting along. The two agents conferred while Ryan ate a light dinner.

  "Honey, what's going on?" Cathy asked.

  "We're involved in a major crisis with Japan, plus the Wall Street thing."

  "But how come—"

  "Everything that's happened so far has been at sea. It hasn't broken the news yet, but it will."

  "War?"

  Jack looked up and nodded. "Maybe."

  "But the people at Wilmer today, they were just as nice—you mean they don't know either?"

  Ryan nodded. "That's right."

  "That doesn't make any sense!"

  "No, honey, it sure doesn't." The phone rang just then, the regular house phone. Jack was the closest and picked it up. "Hello?"

  "Is this Dr. John Ryan?" a voice asked.

  "Yeah. Who's this?"

  "George Winston. I don't know if you remember, but we met last year at the Harvard Club. I gave a little speech about derivatives. You were at the next table over. By the way, nice job on the Silicon Alchemy IPO."

  "Seems like a while ago," Ryan said. "Look, it's kinda busy down here, and—"

  "I want to meet with you. It's important," Winston said.

  "What about?"

  "I'll need fifteen or twenty minutes to explain it. I have my G at Newark. I can be down whenever you say." The voice paused. "Dr. Ryan, I wouldn't be asking unless I thought it was important."

  Jack thought about it for a second. George Winston was a serious player.

  His rep on the Street was enviable: tough, shrewd, honest. And, Ryan remembered, he'd sold control of his fleet to somebody from Japan. Somebody named Yamata—a name that had turned up before. "Okay, I'll squeeze you in. Call my office tomorrow about eight for a time."

  "See you tomorrow then. Thanks for listening." The line went dead.

  When he looked over at his wife, she was back at work, transcribing notes from her carry-notebook to her laptop computer, an Apple IIIc laptop.

  "I thought you had a secretary for that," he observed with a lopsided smile.

  "She can't think about these things when she writes up my notes. I can." Cathy was afraid to relate Bernie's news on the Lasker. She'd picked up several bad habits from her husband. One of them was his Irish-peasant belief in luck, and how you could spoil luck by talking about it. "I had an interesting idea today, just after the lecture."

  "And you wrote it right down," her husband observed. Cathy looked up with her usual impish smile.

  "Jack, if you don't write it down—"

  "Then it never happened."

  30—Why Not?

  The dawn came up like thunder in this part of the world, or so the poem went. Sure as hell the sun was hot, Admiral Dubro told himself. It was almost as hot as his temper. His demeanor was normally pleasant, but he had simmered in both tropical heat and bureaucratic indifference for long enough. He supposed that the policy weenies and the planning weenies and the political weenies had the same take on things: he and his battle force could dance around here indefinitely without detection, doing their Ghostbusters number and intimidating the Indians without actual contact. A fine game, to be sure, but not an endless one. The idea was to get your battle force in close without detection and then strike at the enemy without warning. A nuclear-powered carrier was good at that. You could do it once, twice, even three times if the force commander had it together, but you couldn't do it forever, because the other side had brains, too, and sooner or later a break would go the wrong way.

  In this case it wasn't the players who'd goofed. It was the water boy, and it hadn't even been much of an error. As his operations people had reconstructed events, a single Indian Sea Harrier at the very end of its patrol arc had had his look-down radar on and gotten a hit on one of Dubro's oilers, which were now raci
ng northeast to refill his escort ships whose bunkers were nearly two thirds empty after the speed run south of Sri Lanka. An hour later another Harrier, probably stripped of weapons and carrying nothing but fuel tanks, had gotten close enough for a visual. The replenishment-group commander had altered course, but the damage was done. The placement of the two oilers and their two-frigate escort could only have meant that Dubro was now east-by-south of Dondra Head. The Indian fleet had turned at once, satellite photos showed, split into two groups, and headed northeast as well Dubro had little choice but to allow the oilers to continue on then base course. Covertness or not, his oil-fueled escorts were dangerously close to empty bunkers, and that was a hazard he could not afford. Dubro drank his wake-up coffee while his eyes burned holes in the bulkhead. Commander Harrison sat across from the Admiral's desk, sensibly not saying much of anything until his boss was ready to speak.

  "What's the good word, Ed?"

  "We still have them outgunned, sir," the Force Operations Officer replied. "Maybe we need to demonstrate that."

  Outgunned? Dubro wondered. Well, yes, that was true, but only two thirds of his aircraft were fully mission-capable now. They'd been away too long from base. They were running out of the stores needed to keep the aircraft operating. In the hangar bay, aircraft sat with inspection hatches open, awaiting parts that the ship no longer had. He was depending on the replenishment ships for those, for the parts flown into Diego Garcia from stateside. Three days after delivery, he'd be back to battery, after a fashion, but his people were tired. Two men had been hurt on the flight deck the day before. Not because they were stupid. Not because they were inexperienced. Because they'd been doing it too damned long, and fatigue was even more dangerous to the mind than to the body, especially in the frenetic environment of a carrier's flight deck. The same was true of everyone in the battle force, from the lowliest striker to…himself. The strain of continuous decision-making was starting to tell. And all he could do about that was to switch to decaf.