Debt of Honor

another side of the house.' Burroughs looked around the kitchen. Mrs. Oreza had prepared a light dinner, a good one, it appeared, though it was growing cold.

'You were worried about having people track in on your phone.'

'Maybe just being paranoid, but my company makes the chips for scanners that the Army uses for just that purpose.'

Oreza sat down and started shoveling some of the stir-fry onto his plate.

'I don't think anything's paranoid anymore, man.'

'I hear ya, Skipper.' Burroughs decided to do the same, and looked at the food with approval. 'Y'all trying to lose weight?'

Oreza grunted. 'We both need to, Izzy and me. She's been taking classes in low-fat stuff.'

Burroughs looked around. Though the home had a dining room, like most retired couples (that's how he thought of them, even though they clearly were not), they ate at a small table in their kitchen. The sink and counter were neatly laid out, and the engineer saw the steel mixing and serving bowls. The stainless steel gleamed. Isabel Oreza, too, ran a tight ship, and it was plain enough who was the skipper at home.

'Do I go to work tomorrow?' she asked, her mind drilling, trying to come to terms with the change in local affairs.

'I don't know, honey,' her husband replied, his own thoughts stopped cold by the question. What would he do? Go fishing again as though nothing at all had happened?

'Wait a minute,' Pete said, still looking at the mixing bowls. He stood, took the two steps needed to reach the kitchen counter, and lifted the largest bowl. It was sixteen inches in diameter and a good five or six inches deep. The bottom was flat, perhaps a three-inch circle, but the rest of it was spherical, almost parabolic in shape. He pulled his sat-phone out of his shirt pocket. He'd never measured the antenna, but now, extending it, he saw it was less than four inches in length. Burroughs looked over at Oreza. 'You have a drill?'

'Yeah, why?'

'DF, hell. I got it!'

'You lost me, Pete.'

'We drill a hole in the bottom, put the antenna through it. The bowl's made out of steel. It reflects radio waves just like a microwave antenna. Everything goes up. Hell, it might even make the transmitter more efficient.'

'You mean like, E.T. phone home?'

'Close enough, Cap'n. What if nobody's phoned home on this one?'

Burroughs was still trying to think it through, coming to terms slowly with a very frightening situation. 'Invasion' meant 'war.' War, in this case, was between America and Japan, and however bizarre that possibility was, it was also the only explanation for the things he'd seen that day. If it was a war, then he was an enemy alien. So were his hosts. But he'd seen Oreza do some very fancy footwork at the marina.

'Let me get my drill. How big a hole you need?' Burroughs handed over the sat-phone. He'd been tempted to toss it through the air, but stopped himself on the realization that it was perhaps his most valuable possession. Oreza checked the diameter of the little button at the end of the slim metal whip and went for his tool kit.

'Hello?'

'Rachel? It's Dad.'

'You sure you're okay? Can I call you guys now?'

'Honey, we're fine, but there's a problem here.' How the hell to explain this? he wondered. Rachel Oreza Chandler was a prosecuting attorney in Boston, actually looking forward to leaving government service and becoming a criminal lawyer in private practice, where the job satisfaction was rarer, but the pay and hours were far better. Approaching thirty, she was now at the stage where she worried about her parents in much the same way they'd once worried about her. There was no sense in worrying Rachel now, he decided. 'Could you get a phone number for me?'

'Sure, what number?'

'Coast Guard Headquarters. It's in D.C., at Buzzard's Point. I want the watch center. I'll wait,' he told her.

The attorney put one line on hold and dialed D.C. information. In a minute she relayed the number, hearing her father repeat it word for word back to her. 'That's right. You sure things are okay? You sound a little tense.'

'Mom and I are just fine, honest, baby.' She hated it when he called her that, but it was probably too late to change him. Poppa would just never be PC.

'Okay, you say so. I hear that storm was really bad. You have electricity back yet?' she asked, forgetting that there hadn't been a storm at all.

'Not yet, honey, but soon, probably,' he lied. 'Later, baby.'

'Coast Guard Watch Center, Chief Petty Officer Obrecki, this is a nonsecure line,' the man said, just as rapidly as possible to prevent the person on the other end from understanding a single word.

'Are you telling me that that fuzzy-cheeked infant who sailed on Panache with me made chief?' It was good enough to startle the man at the other end, and the reply was comprehensible.

'This is Chief Obrecki. Who's this?'

'Master Chief Oreza,' was the answer.

'Well, how the hell are you, Portagee? I heard you retired.' The chief of the watch leaned back in his chair. Now that he was a chief himself, he could refer to the man at the other end by his nickname.

'I'm on Saipan. Okay, kid, listen up: put your watch officer on right now.'

'What's the matter, Master Chief?'

'No time, okay? Let's do it.'

'Fair enough.' Obrecki put the call on hold. 'Commander, could you pick up on one, ma'am?'

'NMCC, this is Rear Admiral Jackson,' Robby said, tired and in a very foul mood. Only reluctantly did he lift the phone, on the recommendation of a youngish Air Force major.

'Admiral, this is Lieutenant Commander Powers, Coast Guard, over at Buzzard's Point. I have a call on the line from Saipan. The caller is a retired Command Master Chief. One of ours.'

Damn it, I have a broke carrier division out there, his mind grumbled. 'That's nice, Commander. You want to clue me in fast? It's busy here.'

'Sir, he reports a whole lot of Japanese troops on the island at Saipan.'

Jackson's eyes came up off the dispatches on his desk. 'What?'

'I can patch him over now, sir.'

'Okay,' Robby said guardedly.

'Who's this?' another voice asked, old and gruff. He sounded like a chief, Robby thought.

'I'm Rear Admiral Jackson, in the National Military Command Center.'

He didn't have to order a tape on the line. They were all taped.

'Sir, this is Master Chief Quartermaster Manuel Oreza, U.S. Coast Guard, retired, serial number three-two- eight-six-one-four-zero-three-zero. I retired five years ago and moved to Saipan. I operate a fishing boat here. Sir, there are a lot—and I mean a whole goddamned pisspot full—of Japanese troops, uniformed and carrying arms, on this-here rock, right now, sir.'

Jackson adjusted his hand on the phone, gesturing for another officer to pick up. 'Master Chief, I hope you understand that I find that a little bit hard to believe, okay?'

'Shit, sir, you oughta see it from my side. I am looking out my window right now. I can see down on the airport and Kobler Field. I count a total of six jumbo-jet aircraft, four at the airport and two at Kobler. I observed a pair of F-15 Eagle fighters with meatball markings circling over the island a few hours ago. Question, sir, is there any sort of joint exercise under way at this time?' the voice asked. It was stone sober, Jackson thought. It sure as hell sounded like a command master chief.

The Air Force major listening fifteen feet away was scribbling notes, though an invitation to Jurassic Park would have seemed somewhat more realistic.

'We just concluded a joint exercise, but Saipan didn't have anything to do with it.'

'Sir, then this ain't no fuckin' exercise. There are three car-carrier-type merchant ships tied alongside the dock up the coast from me. One of 'em's named Orchid Ace. I have personally observed