Debt of Honor

showing much change as yet, they soon would. The Japanese submarines were all now at snorting depth, and the time was wrong. They snorted on the hour, usually, typically one hour into a watch cycle, which allowed the officers and men on duty time to get used to the ship after a rest period, and also to do a sonar check before entering their most vulnerable evolution. But it was twenty-five after the hour now, and they'd all started snorting within the same five-minute period, and that meant movement orders. Jones lifted the phone and punched the button for SubPac.

'Jones here.'

'What's happening, Ron?'

'Whatever bait you just dropped in the water, sir, they just took after it. I have seven tracks,' he reported. 'Who's waiting for them?'

'Not on the phone, Ron,' Mancuso said. 'How are things over there?'

'Pretty much under control,' Jones replied, looking around at the chiefs. Good men and women already, and his additional training had put them fully on-line.

'Why don't you bring your data over here, then? You've earned it.'

'See you in ten,' the contractor said.

'We got 'em,' Ryan said.

'How sure are you?' Durling asked.

'Here, sir.' Jack put three photos on the President's desk, just couriered over from NRO.

'This is what it looked like yesterday.' There was nothing to see, really, except for the Patriot missile battery. The second photo showed more, and though it was a radar photo in black and white, it had been computer-blended with another visual overhead to give a more precise picture of the missile field. 'Okay, this is seventy minutes old,' Ryan said, setting the third one down.

'It's a lake.' He looked up, surprised even though he'd been briefed.

'The place is under about a hundred feet of water, will be for another few

hours,' Jack explained. 'Those missiles are dead—'

'Along with how many people?' Durling asked.

'Over a hundred,' the National Security Advisor reported, his enthusiasm for the event instantly gone. 'Sir— there wasn't any way around that.'

The President nodded. 'I know. How sure are we that the missiles…?'

'Pre-flood shots showed seven of the holes definitely hit and destroyed. One more probably wrecked, and two unknowns, but definitely with shock damage of some sort. The weather seals on the holes won't withstand that much water pressure, and ICBMs are too delicate for that sort of treatment. Toss in debris carried downstream from the flooding. The missiles are as dead as we can make them without a nuclear strike of our own, and we managed to do the mission without it.' Jack paused. 'It was all Robby Jackson's plan. Thanks for letting me reward him for it.'

'He's with the carrier now?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Well, it would seem that he's the man for the job, wouldn't it?' the President asked rhetorically, clearly relieved at the evening's news. 'And now?'

'And now, Mr. President, we try to settle this one down once and for all.'

The phone rang just then. Durling lifted it. 'Oh. Yes, Tish?'

'There's an announcement from the Japanese government that they have nuclear weapons and they hope —'

'Not anymore, they don't,' Durling said, cutting off his communications director. 'We'd better make an announcement of our own.'

'Oh, yeah,' Jones said, looking at the wall chart. 'You did that one in a big hurry, Bart.'

The line was west of the Marianas. Nevada was the northernmost boat. Thirty miles south of her was West Virginia. Another thirty and there was Pennsylvania. Maryland was the southernmost former missile submarine. The line was ninety miles across, and really extended a theoretical thirty more, fifteen to the north and south of the end-boats, and they were two hundred miles west of the westward-moving line of Japanese SSKs. They had just arrived in place after the warning from Washington that the word had been leaked somehow or other to the Japanese.

'Something like this happened once before, didn't it?' Jones asked, remembering that these were all battleship names, and more than that, the names of battlewagons caught alongside the quays one morning in December, long before his birth. The original holders of the names had been resurrected from the mud and sent off to take islands back, supporting soldiers and Marines under the command of Jesse Oldendorf, and one dark night in Surigao Strait…but it wasn't a time for history lessons.

'What about the 'cans?' Chambers asked.

'We lost them when they went behind the Bonins, sir. Speed and course were fairly constant. They ought to pass over Tennessee around midnight, local time, but by that time our carrier—'

'You have the operation all figured out,' Mancuso observed.

'Sir, I've been tracking the whole ocean for you. What d'ya expect?'

'Ladies and gentlemen,' the President said in the White House Press Room. He was winging it, Ryan saw, just working off some scribbled notes, never something to make the Chief Executive comfortable. 'You've just this evening heard an announcement by the Japanese government that they have fabricated and deployed nuclear- tipped intercontinental missiles.

'That fact has been known to your government for several weeks now, and the existence of those weapons is the reason for the careful and circumspect way in which the Administration has dealt with the Pacific Crisis. As you can well imagine, that development has weighed heavily on us, and has affecled our response to Japanese aggression against U.S. soil and citizens in the Marianas.

'I can now tell you that those missiles have been destroyed. They no longer exist,' Durling said in a forceful voice.

'The current situation is this: the Japanese military still hold the Marianas Islands. That is not acceptable to the United States of America. The people living on those islands are American citizens, and American forces will do anything necessary to redeem their freedom and human rights. I repeat: we will do anything necessary to restore those islands to U.S. rule.

'We call tonight on Prime Minister Goto to announce his willingness to evacuate Japanese forces from the Marianas forthwith. Failure to do so will compel us to use whatever force is necessary to remove them.

'That is all I have to say right now. For whatever questions you have on the events of this evening, I turn you over to my National Security Advisor, Dr. John Ryan.' The President walked toward the door, ignoring a riot of shouted questions, while a few easels were set up for visual displays. Ryan stood at the lectern, making everyone wait as he told himself to speak slowly and clearly.

'Ladies and gentlemen, this was called Operation TIBBETS. First of all let me show you what the targets were.' The cover came off the first photo, and for the first time the American people saw just what the nation's reconnaissance satellites were capable of. Ryan lifted his pointer and started identifying the scene for everyone, giving the cameras time to close in on them.

'Holy shit,' Manuel Oreza observed. 'That's why.'

'Looks like a pretty good reason to me,' Pete Burroughs observed. Then the screen went blank.

'We're sorry, but a technical problem has temporarily interrupted the CNN satellite feed,' a voice told them.

'My ass!' Portagee snarled back.

'They'll come here next, won't they?'

'About fuckin' time, too,' Oreza thought.

'Manny, what about that missile thing on the next hill?' his wife wanted to know.

'We're preparing copies of all these photos for you. They should be ready in about an hour or so. Sorry for the delay,' Jack told them. 'It's been rather a busy time for us.

'Now, the mission was carried out by B-2 bombers based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri—'

'Staging out of where?' a reporter asked.