'Chris, it was not an accident.'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean there was a battle of sorts. I mean that my country feels itself to be very threatened, and that we have taken certain defensive measures to protect ourselves.'

Cook just didn't get it. Though he was part of the State Department's Japan specialists, he'd not yet been called in for a full briefing and knew only what he'd caught on his car radio, which was thin enough. It was beyond Chris's imagination, Nagumo saw, to consider that his country could be attacked. After all, the Soviets were gone, weren't they? It was gratifying to Seiji Nagumo. Though appalled at the risks that his country was running and ignorant of the reasons for them, he was a patriot. He loved his country as much as any man. He was also part of its culture. He had orders and instructions. Within the confines of his own mind he could rage at them, but he'd decided, simply, that he was a soldier of his country, and that was that.

And Cook was the real gaijin, not himself. He kept repeating it to himself.

'Chris, our countries are at war, after a fashion. You pushed us too far. Forgive me, I am not pleased by this, you must understand that.'

'Wait a minute.' Chris Cook shook his head as his face twisted into a very quizzical expression. 'You mean war? Real war?'

Nagumo nodded slowly, and spoke in a reasonable, regretful tone. 'We have occupied the Mariana Islands. Fortunately this was accomplished without loss of life. The brief encounter between our two navies may have been more serious, but not greatly so. Both sides are now withdrawing away from one another, which is a good thing.'

'You've killed our people?'

'Yes, I regret to say, some people may have lost their lives on both sides.' Nagumo paused and looked down as though unable to meet his friend's eyes. He'd already seen there the emotions he'd expected. 'Please, don't blame me for this, Chris,' he went on quietly in a voice clearly under very tight control. 'But these things have happened. I had no part in it. Nobody asked me for an opinion. You know what I would have said. You know what I would have counseled.' Every word was true and Cook knew it.

'Christ, Seiji, what can we do?' The question was a manifestation of his friendship and support, and as such, very predictable. Also predictably, it gave Nagumo the opening he'd expected and needed.

'We have to find a way to keep things under control. I do not want my country destroyed again. We have to stop this and stop it quickly.' Which was his country's objective and therefore his own. 'There is no room in the world for this…this abomination. There are cooler heads in my country. Goto is a fool. There'—Nagumo threw up his hands—'I have said it. He is a fool. Do we allow our countries to do permanent damage to one another because of fools? What of your Congress, what of that Trent maniac with his Trade Reform Act. Look what his reforms have brought us to!' He was really into it now. Able to veil his inner feelings, like most diplomats, he was now discovering acting talents made all the more effective by the fact that he really believed in what he was saying. He looked up with tears in his eyes. 'Chris, if people like us don't get this thing under control—my God, then what? The work of generations, gone. Your country and mine, both badly hurt, people dead, progress thrown away, and for what? Because fools in my country and yours could not work out difficulties on trade? Christopher, you must help me stop this. You must!' Mercenary and traitor or not, Christopher Cook was a diplomat, and his professional creed was to eliminate war. He had to respond, and he did.

'But what can you really do?'

'Chris, you know that my position is really more senior than my post would indicate,' Nagumo pointed out. 'How else could I have done the things for you to make our friendship what it is?'

Cook nodded. He'd suspected as much.

'I have friends and influence in Tokyo. I need time. I need negotiating space. With those things I can soften our position, give Goto's political opponents something to work with. We have to put that man in the asylum he belongs in—or shoot him yourself. That maniac might destroy my country, Chris! For God's sake, you must help me stop him.' The last statement was an entreaty from the heart.

'What the hell can I do, Seiji? I'm just a DASS, remember? A little Indian, and there's a bunch of chiefs.'

'You are one of the few people in your State Department who really understand us. They will seek your counsel.' A little flattery. Cook nodded.

'Probably. If they're smart,' he added. 'Scott Adler knows me. We talk.'

'If you can tell me what your State Department wants, I can get that information to Tokyo. With luck I can have my people inside the Foreign Ministry propose it first. If we can accomplish that much, then your ideas will appear to be our ideas, and we can more easily accommodate your wishes.'

It was called judo, 'the gentle art,' and consisted mainly of using an enemy's strength and movements against himself. Nagumo thought he was making a very skillful use of it now. It had to appeal to Cook's vanity that he might be able to manage foreign policy himself through cleverness. It appealed to Nagumo's that he'd thought up this gambit.

Cook's face twisted into disbelief again. 'But if we're at war, how the hell will—'

'Goto is not completely mad. We will keep the embassies open as a line of communication. We will offer you a return of the Marianas. I doubt the offer will be completely genuine, but it will be placed on the table as a sign of good faith. There,' Seiji said, 'I have now betrayed my country.' As planned.

'What will be acceptable to your government as an end-game scenario?'

'In my opinion? Full independence for the Northern Marianas; an end to their commonwealth status. For reasons of geography and economics they will fall into our sphere of influence in any case. I think it is a fair compromise. We do own most of the land there,' Nagumo reminded his guest.

'That is a guess on my part, but a good one.'

'What about Guam?'

'As long as it is demilitarized, it remains U.S. territory. Again a guess, but a good one. Time will be necessary for a full resolution of the various issues, but I think we can stop this war before it goes further.'

'What if we do not agree?'

'Then many people will die. We are diplomats, Chris. It is our mission in life to prevent that.' One more time: 'If you can help me, just to let us know what you want us to do so that I can get our side moving in that direction, you and I can end a war, Chris. Please, can you help me?'

'I won't take money for this, Seiji,' Cook said by way of a reply.

Amazing. The man had principles after all. So much the better that they were not accompanied by insight.

The Japanese Ambassador arrived, as instructed, at the East Wing entrance. A White House usher opened the door on the stretch Lexus, and the Marine at the door saluted, not having been told not to. He walked in alone, unaccompanied by a bodyguard, and he passed through the metal detectors without incident, then turned west, past a long corridor including, among other things, the entrance to the President's own movie theater. There were portraits of other presidents, sculptures by Frederic Remington, and other reminders of America's frontier history. The walk itself was intended to give the man a sense of the size of the country to which he represented his own. A trio of Secret Service agents escorted him up to the State Floor of the building, an area he knew well, then farther west to the wing from which the United States was administered. The looks, he saw, were not unfriendly, merely correct, but that was quite different from the cordiality he ordinarily received in this building. As a final touch, the meeting was held in the Roosevelt Room. It held the Nobel Prize won by Theodore for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War.

If the mode of arrival was supposed to overawe him, the Ambassador thought, then the final act was counterproductive. The Americans, and others, were known for such foolish theatrics. The Indian Treaty Room in the adjacent Old Executive Office Building had been designed to overawe savages. This one reminded him of his country's first major conflict, which had raised Japan to the ranks of the great nations by the defeat of another member of that club, czarist Russia, a country far less great than she had appeared, internally corrupt, strewn with dissension, given to posturing and bluster. Much like America, in fact, the Ambassador thought. He needed such ideas right now to keep his knees from trembling. President Durling was standing, and took his hand.

'Mr. Ambassador, you know everyone here. Please be seated.'

'Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you for receiving me on such short and urgent notice.' He looked around the conference table as Durling went to his seat at the opposite end, nodding to each of them. Brett Hanson,

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