35—Consequences
It happened in Idaho, in a community outside Mountain Home Air Force Base. A staff sergeant based there had flown out to Andersen Air Force Base on Guam to work on the approach-control radars. His wife had delivered a baby a week after his departure, and she attempted to call him that evening to tell him about his new daughter, only to learn that the phones were out due to a storm. Only twenty years old and not well educated, she'd accepted the news with disappointment. The military comm links were busy, an officer had told her, convincingly enough that she'd gone home with tears in her eyes. A day later she'd talked to her mother and surprised her with the news that her husband didn't know about his daughter yet. Even in time of war, her mother thought, such news always got through—and what storm could possibly be worse than fighting a war?
So she called the local TV station and asked for the weatherman, a sagacious man of fifty who was excellent at predicting the tornadoes that churned through the region every spring, and, it was widely thought, saved five or ten lives each year with his instant analysis of which way the funnel clouds moved.
The weatherman in turn was the kind who enjoyed being stopped in the local supermarkets with friendly comments, and took the inquiry as yet another compliment for his professional expertise, and besides, he'd never checked out the Pacific Ocean before. But it was easy enough. He linked into the NOAA satellite system and used a computer to go backwards in time to see what sort of storm had hammered those islands. The time of year was wrong for a typhoon, he knew, but it was the middle of an ocean, and storms happened there all the time.
But not this year and not this time. The satellite photos showed a few wispy clouds, but otherwise fair weather. For a few minutes he wondered if the Pacific Ocean, like Arkansas, was subject to fair-weather gales, but, no, that wasn't likely, since those adiabatic storms resulted mainly from variations in temperature and land elevation, whereas an ocean was both flat and moderate. He checked with a colleague who had been a Navy meteorologist to confirm it, and found himself left only with a mystery. Thinking that perhaps the information he had was wrong, he consulted his telephone book and dialed 011-671-555-1212, since a directory-assistance call was toll-free. He got a recording that told him that there had been a storm. Except there had not been a storm. Was he the first guy to figure that out?
His next move was to walk across the office to the news department. Within minutes an inquiry went out on one of the wire services.
'Ryan.'
'Bob Holtzman, Jack. I have a question for you.'
'I hope it's not about Wall Street,' Jack replied in as unguarded a voice as he could muster.
'No, it's about Guam. Why are the phone lines out?'
'Bob, did you ask the phone company that?' Ryan tried.
'Yeah. They say there was a storm that took a lot of lines down. Except for a couple of things. One, there wasn't any storm. Two, there's an undersea cable and a satellite link. Three, a week is a long time. What's going on?' the reporter asked.
'How many people are asking?'
'Right now, just me and a TV station in Little Rock that put a request up on the AP wire. Another thirty minutes and it's going to be a lot more. What gives? Some sort of—'
'Bob, why don't you come on down here,' Ryan suggested.
'Lookouts report unknown aircraft inbound at two-two-five,' a talker called.
The Admiral swore quietly, lifted his binoculars, and turned to the southwest. There. Two Sea Harriers. Playing it smart, too, he saw. They were at five thousand feet or so, tucked into the neat two-plane element used for tactical combat and air shows, flying straight and level, careful not to overfly any ship directly. Before they had passed over the first ring of escorts, a pair of Tomcats were above and behind them, ready to take them out in a matter of seconds if they showed hostile intent. But hostile intent meant loosing a weapon first, and in this day and age a loosed weapon most probably meant a hit, whatever happened to the launch aircraft. The Harriers flew overhead one time only. They seemed to be carrying extra fuel tanks and maybe a reconnaissance pod, but no weapons, this time. Admiral Chandraskatta was no fool, but then Dubro had never made that assumption. His adversary had played a patient game, sticking to his own mission and biding his time, and learning from every trick the Americans had shown him. None of this was of much comfort to the battle-force commander.
'Follow them back?' Commander Harrison asked dispassionately.
Mike Dubro shook his head. 'Pull one of the Hummers in close and track by radar.'
When the hell would Washington realize he had an imminent confrontation brewing?
'Mr. Ambassador,' Scott Adler said, folding up the note an aide had just delivered. 'It is likely that in the next twenty-four hours your occupation of the Marianas will become public knowledge. At that point the situation will go beyond our control. You have plenipotentiary powers to resolve this affair…'
But he didn't, as Adler had begun to suspect, despite assurances to the contrary. He could also see that he'd pushed the man too hard and too fast. Not that he'd had a choice in the matter. The entire affair had been going on for barely a week. In normal diplomatic practice it took that long just to select the kind of chairs the negotiators sat in. In that respect everything had been doomed from the beginning, but Adler was a professional diplomat for whom hope was never dead. Even now as he concluded his latest statement, he looked into the man's eyes for something he'd be able to report to the White House.
'Throughout our talks we have heard about America's demands, but we have not heard a single word concerning my country's legitimate security interests. Today you have concluded a systematic attack on our financial and economic foundations and—'
Adler leaned forward. 'Mr. Ambassador! A week ago your country did the same thing to us, as the information in front of you demonstrates. A week ago your country conducted an attack on the United States Navy. A week ago your country seized U.S. territory. In equity, sir, you have no place to criticize us for efforts necessary to the restoration of our own economic stability. ' He paused for a moment, reproving himself for the decidedly undiplomatic language of his outburst, but events had gone beyond such niceties—or they soon would. 'We have offered you the opportunity to negotiate in good faith for a mutually acceptable interpretation of the Trade Reform Act. We will accept an apology and reparations for the losses to our Navy. We require the immediate evacuation of Japanese military forces from the Mariana Islands.'
But things had already gone too far for that, and everyone at the table knew it. There just wasn't time. Adler felt the dreadful weight of inevitability. All his skills were useless now. Other events and other people had taken matters out of his hands, and the Ambassador's hands as well. He saw the same look on the man's face that must have been on his own.
His voice was mechanical. 'Before I can respond to that, I must consult with my government. I propose that we adjourn so that consultations may be carried out.'
Adler nodded more with sadness than anger. 'As you wish, Mr. Ambassador. If you should need us, we will be available.'
'My God, you kept all that quiet? How?' Holtzman demanded.
'Because you guys were all looking the other way,' Jack answered bluntly. 'You've always depended too much on us for information anyway.' He instantly regretted those words. It had come out as too much of a challenge.
'But you lied to us about the carriers and you never told us about the submarines at all!'
'We're trying to stop this thing before it gets worse,' President Durling said. 'We're talking to them over at
