Debt of Honor

'Brief us in,' Clark said.

'The government is very confused. Goto has control, but he is not sharing information with many people. His coalition is still thin. Koga is very respected, too much so to be publicly arrested.' I think, Scherenko didn't add. What might have been said with confidence two weeks earlier was a lot more speculative now.

It actually made sense to the Americans. Clark thought for a second before speaking. 'You'd better shake the tree, Boris Il'ych. We both need that man.'

'Did you compromise him?' the Russian asked.

'No, not at all. We told him to act as he normally would—and besides, he thinks we're Russians. I had no instructions other than to check him out, and trying to direct a guy like that is too risky. He's just as liable to turn superpatriot on us and tell us to shove it. People like that, you just let them do the right thing all by themselves.' Scherenko reflected again that the file in Moscow Center on this man was correct. Clark had all the right instincts for field-intelligence work. He nodded and waited for Clark to go on. 'If you have PSID under your control, we need to find out immediately if they have the man.'

'And it they do?'

Clark shrugged. 'Then you have to decide it you can get him out. That part of the operation is yours. I can't make that call for you. But if it's somebody else who bagged him, then maybe we can do something.'

'I need to talk to Moscow.'

'We figured that. Just remember, Koga's our best chance for a political solution to this mess. Next, get the word to Washington.'

'It will be done,' Scherenko promised. 'I need to ask a question—the two aircraft that crashed last night?'

Clark and Chavez were already on the way out the door. It was the younger man who spoke without turning. 'A terrible accident, wasn't it?'

'You're insane,' Mogataru Koga said.

'I am a patriot,' Raizo Yamata replied. 'I will make our country truly independent. I will make Japan great again.' Their eyes met from opposite ends of the table in Yamata's penthouse apartment. The executive's security people were outside the door. These words were for two men alone.

'You have cast away our most important ally and trading partner. You are bringing economic ruin to us. You've killed people. You've suborned our country's government and our military.'

Yamata nodded as though acknowledging a property acquisition. 'Hai, I have done all these things, and it was not difficult. Tell me, Koga, how hard is it to get a politician to do anything?'

'And your friends, Matsuda and the rest?'

'Everyone needs guidance from time to time.' Almost everyone, Yamata didn't say. 'At the end of this, we will have a fully integrated economy, two firm and powerful allies, and in time we will again have our trade because the rest of the world needs us.' Didn't this politician see that? Didn't he understand?

'Do you understand America as poorly as that? Our current difficulties began because a single family was burned alive. They are not the same as us. They think differently. Their religion is different. They have the most violent culture in the world, yet they worship justice. They venerate making money, but their roots are found in ideals. Can't you grasp that? They will not tolerate what you have done!' Koga paused. 'And your plan for Russia— do you really think that—'

'With China helping us?' Yamata smiled. 'The two of us can handle Russia.'

'And China will remain our ally?' Koga asked. 'We killed twenty million Chinese in the Second World War, and their political leadership has not forgotten.'

'They need us, and they know they need us. And together 'Yamata-san,' Koga said quietly, politely, because it was his nature, 'you do not understand politics as well as you understand business. It will be your downfall.'

Yamata replied in kind. 'And treason will be yours. I know you have contacts with the Americans.'

'Not so. I have not spoken with an American citizen in weeks.' An indignant reply would not have carried the power of the matter-of-fact tone.

'Well, in any case, you will be my guest here for the time being,' Raizo told him. 'We will see how ignorant of political matters I am. In two years I will be Prime Minister, Koga-san. In two years we will be a superpower.'

Yamata stood. His apartment covered the entire top floor of the forty-story building, and the Olympian view pleased him. The industrialist stood and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, surveying the city which would soon be his capital. What a pity that Koga didn't understand how things really worked. But for the moment he had to fly back to Saipan, to begin his political ascendancy. He turned back.

'You will see. You are my guest for the moment. Behave yourself and you will be treated well. Attempt to escape, and your body will be found in pieces on some railroad tracks along with a note apologizing for your political failures.'

'You will not have that satisfaction,' the former Prime Minister replied coldly.

40—Foxes and Hounds

Scherenko had planned to do the meet himself, but urgent business had prevented him from doing so. It turned out to be just as well. The message, delivered via computer disk, was from his top agent-in-place, the Deputy Director of the PSID. Whatever the man's personal habits, he was a canny political observer, if somewhat verbose in his reports and evaluations. The Japanese military, he said, was not the least displeased by their immediate prospects. Frustrated by years of having been labeled as a 'self-defense force' and relegated in the public's mind to getting in the way of Godzilla and other unlikely monsters (usually to their misfortune), they deemed themselves custodians of a proud warrior tradition, and now, finally, with political leadership worthy of their mettle, their command leadership relished the chance to show what they could do. Mainly products of American training and professional education, the senior officers had made their estimate of the situation and announced to everyone who would listen that they could and would win this limited contest—and, the PSID director went on, they thought the chances of conquering Siberia were excellent.

This evaluation and the report from the two CIA officers were relayed to Moscow at once. So there was dissension in the Japanese government, and at least one of its professional departments had a slight grasp on reality. It was gratifying to the Russian, but he also remembered how a German intelligence chief named Canaris had done much the same thing in 1939 and had completely failed to accomplish anything. It was an historical model that he intended to break. The trick with wars was to prevent them from growing large. Scherenko didn't hold with the theory that diplomacy could keep them from starting, but he did believe that good intelligence and decisive action could stop them from going too far if you had the political will to take the proper action. It worried him, however, that it was Americans who had to show this will.

'It's called Operation ZORRO, Mr. President,' Robby Jackson said, flipping the cover off the first chart. The Secretaries of State and Defense were there in the Situation Room, along with Ryan and Arnie van Damm. The two cabinet secretaries were ill at ease right now, but then so was the Deputy J-3. Ryan nodded for him to go on.

'The mission is to dislocate the command leadership of the other side by precisely targeting those individuals who—'

'You mean murder them?' Brett Hanson asked. He looked over at SecDef, who didn't react at all.

'Mr. Secretary, we don't want to engage their civilian population. That means we cannot attack their economy. We can't drop bridges in their cities. Their military is too decentralized in location to—'

'We can't do this,' Hanson interrupted again.

'Mr. Secretary,' Ryan said coolly, 'can we at least hear what the plan is before we decide what we should and should not do?'

Hanson nodded gruffly, and Jackson continued his brief. 'The pieces,' he concluded, 'are largely in place now. We've eliminated two of their air-surveillance assets—'

'When did that happen? How did we do it?'

'It happened last night, ' Ryan answered. 'How we did it is not your concern, sir.'

'Who ordered it?' This question came from President Durling.