Debt of Honor

energy now sweeping over their aircraft. It was part of the stealth design to be found in any high-school physics book. The copper filaments gathered in much of the energy, much like a simple radio antenna, converting it to heat that dissipated in the cold night air. The rest of the signals hit the inner structure, to be deflected elsewhere, or so everyone hoped.

Ryan met the Ambassador and escorted him into the West Wing, further surrounded by five Secret Service agents. The atmosphere was what diplomats called 'frank.' There was no overt impoliteness, but the atmosphere was tense and minus the usual pleasantries that marked such meetings. No words were exchanged beyond those required, and by the time they entered the Oval Office Jack was mainly worried about what threat, if any, would be delivered at this most inopportune of moments.

'Mr. Ambassador, won't you please take a seat,' Durling said.

'Thank you, Mr. President.'

Ryan picked one between the visiting diplomat and Roger Durling. It was an automatic action to protect his president, but unnecessary. Two of the agents had come in and would not leave the room. One stood at the door. The other stood directly behind the Ambassador.

'I understand you have something you wish to tell me,' Durling observed.

The diplomat's delivery was matter-of-fact. 'My government wishes me to remind you that we will soon make public our possession of strategic weapons. We wish to give you fair warning of that.'

'That will be seen as an overt threat to our country, Mr. Ambassador,' Ryan said, performing his task of shielding the President from the necessity of speaking directly.

'It is only a threat it you make it so.'

'You are aware,' Jack noted next, 'that we too have nuclear arms which can be delivered to your country.'

'As you have already done,' the Ambassador replied at once.

Ryan nodded. 'Yes, in the case of another war begun by your country.'

'We keep telling you, this is only a war if you make it so.'

'Sir, when you attack American territory and kill American servicemen, that is what makes it a war.'

Durling watched the exchange with no more reaction than a tilted head, playing his part as his National Security Advisor played his own. He knew his subordinate well enough now to recognize the tension in him, the way his feet crossed at the bottom of his chair while his hands clasped lightly in his lap, his voice soft and pleasant- sounding despite the nature of the conversation. Bob Fowler had been right all along, more so than either the former President or the current one had realized. Good man in a storm, Roger Durling thought yet again, a saying that dated as far back as men had gone to sea.

Headstrong and hot-tempered though he sometimes was, in a crisis Ryan settled down rather like a doctor in an operating room. Something he'd learned from his wife? the President wondered, or perhaps something he'd learned because it had been forced upon him in the past ten or twelve years, in and out of government service. Good brains, good instinct, and a cool head when needed. What a shame the man had avoided politics. That thought almost made Durling smile, but this wasn't the place for it. No, Ryan would not be good at politics. He was the sort who sought to handle problems directly. Even his subtlety had a sharp point to it, and he lacked the crucial ability to lie effectively, but for all that, a good man for dealing with a crisis.

'We seek a peaceful conclusion to this episode,' the Ambassador was saying now. 'We are willing to concede much.'

'We require nothing more than a return to status quo ante,' Ryan replied, taking a chance that made his shoes turn under him. He hated this, hated taking the point, but now he had to float the ideas that he and the President had discussed, and if something went wrong, it would merely be remembered that it was Ryan who misspoke and not Roger Durling. 'And the elimination of your nuclear arms under international inspection.'

'You force us to play a very dangerous game.'

'The game is of your making, sir.' Ryan commanded himself to relax. His right hand was over his left wrist now. He could feel his watch, but didn't dare to look down at it for fear of giving an indication that something time- related was now under way. 'You are already in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. You have violated the U.N. Charter, which your government has also signed. You are in violation of several treaty relationships with the United States of America, and you have launched a war of aggression. Do you expect us to accept all of this, and your enslavement of American citizens? Tell me, how will your citizens react when they learn all of this?' The events of the previous night over Northern Japan had not become public yet. They had controlled their media far more thoroughly than Ryan's own play with the American TV networks, but there was a problem with that sort of thing. The truth always got out. Not a bad thing if the truth worked for you, it could be a terrible thing if it did not.

'You must offer us something!' the Ambassador insisted, visibly losing his diplomatic composure. Behind him, the Secret Service agent's hands flexed a little.

'What we offer you is the chance to restore the peace honorably.'

'That is nothing!'

'This is more properly a subject for Deputy Secretary Adler and his delegation. You are aware of our position,' Ryan said. 'If you choose to go public with your nuclear weapons, we cannot stop you from doing so. But I caution you that it would be a grave psychological escalation which neither your country nor ours needs.'

The Ambassador looked at Durling now, hoping for a reaction of some sort. Iowa and New Hampshire would be happening soon, and this man had to start off well…was that the reason for the hard line? the diplomat wondered. His orders from Tokyo commanded him to get some maneuvering room for his country, but the Americans weren't playing, and the culprit for that had to be Ryan.

'Does Dr. Ryan speak for the United States?' His heart skipped a beat when he saw the President shake his head slightly.

'No, Mr. Ambassador. Actually, I speak for the United States.' Durling paused for a cruel instant before adding, 'But Dr. Ryan speaks for me in this case. Do you have anything else for us?'

'No, Mr. President.'

'In that case we will not detain you further. We hope that your government will see that the most profitable way out of this situation is what we propose. The other alternatives do not bear inspection. Good day, sir.' Durling didn't stand, though Ryan did, to walk the man out. He was back in two minutes.

'When?' the President asked.

'Anytime.'

'This had better work.'

The sky was clear below them, though there were some wisps of cirrus clouds at fifty thousand feet. Even so, the Initial Point, called the IP, was too difficult for the unaided human eye to see. Worse, the other aircraft in the flight of three were quite invisible, though they were programmed to be only four and eight miles ahead, respectively. Mike Zacharias thought of his father, all the missions he'd down into the most sophisticated defenses of his time, and how he'd lost his professional gamble, just once, and miraculously survived a camp supposed to be a final resting place. This was easier, after a fashion, but also harder, since the B-2 could not maneuver at all except to adjust its position slightly for winds.

'A Patriot battery around here, off at two o'clock,' the captain on the electronic-warfare board warned. 'It just lit off.'

Then Zacharias saw why. There were the first flashes on the ground, a few miles ahead. So the intelligence reports were right, the colonel thought. The Japanese didn't have many Patriots, and they wouldn't put them out here for the fun of it. Just then, looking down, he saw the moving lights of a train just outside the valley they were about to attack.

'Interrogate-one,' the pilot ordered. Now it got dangerous. The LPI radar under the nose of his bomber aimed itself at the piece of ground the satellite-navigation system told it to, instantly fixing the bomber's position with respect to a known ground reference. The aircraft then swept into a right turn and two minutes later it repeated the procedure—

'Missile-launch warning! Patriot is flying now—make that two,' the EWO warned.

'That's -Two,' Zacharias thought. Must have caught him with the doors open. The bomber wasn't stealthy with its bomb bay open, but that only took a few seconds before—There. He saw the Patriots coming up from behind a hill, far faster than the SA-2s that his father had dodged, not like rockets at all, more like some sort of