himself to find out.
'That's tantamount to murder.'
'It's not my fault his peers don't like him, Mr. Secretary. He's also responsible for the deaths of American soldiers. Had we decided to eliminate him ourselves, even that would not be murder. It would have been a straight-forward national-security exercise. Well, in another age it would have been,' Ryan allowed. Times had changed, and Ryan had to adapt himself to the new reality as well. 'Instead, we are acting as good world-citizens by apprehending a dangerous international criminal and turning him over to the government of his country, which will put him on trial for drug-running, which is a felony in every legal jurisdiction of which I am aware. What happens next is up to the criminal-justice system of his country. That is a country with which we have diplomatic relations and other informal agreements of assistance, and whose laws, therefore, we must respect.'
Hanson didn't like it. That was clear from the way he leaned back in his chair. But he would support it in public because he had no choice. The State Department had announced official American support for that government half a dozen times in the previous year. What stung worse for Hanson was being outmaneuvered by this young upstart in front of him.
'They might even have a chance to make it now, Brett,' Durling observed gently, putting his own seal of approval on Operation WALKMAN.
'And it never happened.'
'Yes, Mr. President.'
'Jack, you were evidently right about this Clark fellow. What do we do about him?'
'I'll leave that to the DCI, sir. Maybe another Intelligence Star for him,' Ryan suggested, hoping that Durling would forward it to Langley. If not, maybe a discreet call of his own to Mary Pat. Then it was time for fence- mending, a new skill for Ryan. 'Mr. Secretary, in case you didn't know, our people were under orders to use non- lethal force if possible. Beyond that, my only concern is the lives of our people.'
'I wish you'd cleared it through my people first,' Hanson grumped.
Deep breath, Ryan commanded himself. The mess was of State's making, along with that of Ryan's predecessor. Having entered the country to restore order after it had been destroyed by local warlords—another term used by the media to give a label to common thugs—the powers-that-be had later decided, after the entire mission had gone to hell, that the 'warlords' in question had to be part of the 'political solution' to the problem. That the problem had been created by the warlords in the first place was conveniently forgotten. It was the circularity of the logic that offended Ryan most of all, who wondered if they taught a logic course at Yale. Probably an elective, he decided. At Boston College it had been mandatory.
'It's done, Brett,' Durling said quietly, 'and nobody will mourn the passing of Mr. Corp. What's next?' the President asked Ryan.
'The Indians are getting rather frisky. They've increased the operating tempo of their navy, and they're conducting operations around Sri Lanka—'
'They've done that before,' SecState cut in.
'Not in this strength, and I don't like the way they've continued their talks with the 'Tamil Tigers,' or whatever the hell those maniacs call themselves now. Conducting extended negotiations with a guerrilla group operating on the soil of a neighbor is not an act of friendship.'
This was a new concern for the U.S. government. The two former British colonies had lived as friendly neighbors for a long time, but for years the Tamil people on the island of Sri Lanka had maintained a nasty little insurgency. The Sri Lankans, with relatives on the Indian mainland, had asked for foreign troops to maintain a peace-keeping presence. India had obliged, but what had started in an honorable fashion was now changing. There were rumbles that the Sri Lankan government would soon ask for the Indian soldiers to leave. There were also rumbles that there would be some 'technical difficulties' in effecting their removal. Concurrent with that had come word of a conversation between the Indian Foreign Minister and the U.S. Ambassador at a reception in Delhi.
'You know,' the Minister had said after a few too many, but probably purposeful drinks, 'that body of water to our south is called the Indian Ocean, and we have a navy to guard it. With the demise of the former Soviet threat, we wonder why the U.S. Navy seems so determined to maintain a force there.'
The U.S. Ambassador was a political appointee—for some reason India had turned into a prestige post, despite the climate—but was also a striking exception to Scott Adler's professional snobbery. The former governor of Pennsylvania had smiled and mumbled something about freedom of the seas, then fired off an encrypted report to Foggy Bottom before going to bed that night. Adler needed to learn that they weren't all dumb.
'We see no indication of an aggressive act in that direction,' Hanson said after a moment's reflection.
'The ethnic element is troubling. India can't go north, with the mountains in the way. West is out. The Pakis have nukes, too. East is Bangladesh—why buy trouble? Sri Lanka has real strategic possibilities for them, maybe as a stepping-stone.'
'To where?' the President asked.
'Australia. Space and resources, not many people in the way, and not much of a military to stop them.'
'I just don't see that happening,' SecState announced.
'If the Tigers pull something off, I can see India increasing its peace-keeping presence. The next step could be annexation, given the right preconditions, and then all of a sudden we have an imperial power playing games a long way from here, and making life somewhat nervous for one of our historical allies.' And helping the Tigers to get something going was both easy and a time-honored tactic. Surrogates could be so useful, couldn't they? 'In historical terms such ambitions are most inexpensively stopped early.'
'Thai's why the Navy's in the Indian Ocean,' Hanson observed confidently.
'True,' Ryan conceded.
'Are we strong enough to deter them from stepping over the line?'
'Yes, Mr. President, at the moment, but I don't like the way our Navy is being stretched. Every carrier we have right now, except for the two in overhaul status, is either deployed or conducting workups preparatory for deployment. We have no strategic reserve worthy of the name.' Ryan paused before going on, knowing that he was about to go too far, but doing so anyway: 'We've cut back too much, sir. Our people are strung out very thin.'
'They are simply not as capable as we think they are. That is a thing of the past.' Raizo Yamata said. He was dressed in an elegant silk kimono, and sat on the floor at a traditional low table.
The others around the table looked discreetly at their watches. It was approaching three in the morning, and though this was one of the nicest geisha houses in the city, the hour was late. Raizo Yamata was a captivating host, however. A man of great wealth and sagacity, the others thought. Or most of them.
'They've protected us for generations,' one man suggested.
'From what? Ourselves?' Yamata demanded coarsely. That was permitted now. Though all around the table were men of the most exquisite good manners, they were all close acquaintances, if not all actually close friends, and all had consumed their personal limit of alcohol. Under these circumstances, the rules of social intercourse altered somewhat. They could all speak bluntly. Words that would ordinarily be deadly insults would now be accepted calmly, then rebutted harshly, and there would be no lingering rancor about it. That, too, was a rule, but as with most rules, it was largely theoretical. Though friendships and relationships would not end because of words here, neither would they be completely forgotten. 'How many of you,' Yamata went on, 'have been victims of these people?'
Yamata hadn't said 'barbarians,' the other Japanese citizens at the table noted. The reason was the presence of the two other men. One of them, Vice Admiral V. K. Chandraskatta, was a fleet commander of the Indian Navy, currently on leave. The other, Zhang Han San—the name meant 'Cold Mountain' and had not been given by his parents—was a senior Chinese diplomat, part of a trade mission to Tokyo. The latter individual was more easily accepted than the former. With his swarthy skin and sharp features, Chandraskatta was regarded by the others with polite contempt. Though an educated and very bright potential ally, he was even more
'They are not as formidable as they once were, I admit, Yamata-san, but I assure you,' Chandraskatta said in his best Dartmouth English, 'their navy remains quite formidable. Their two carriers in my ocean are enough to give
