Debt of Honor

'Captain, we will be leaving those islands soon. You know that.' It was clear enough, wasn't it? The people, the average men and women on the street, were no longer so much confused as frightened—or maybe even that wasn't the proper word. He hadn't seen anything like it. They felt-betrayed? The first newspaper editorials had come out to question the course their country had taken, and though the questions asked were mild, the import of them was not. It had all been an illusion. His country had not been prepared for war in a psychological sense any more than a physical one, and the people were suddenly realizing what was actually going on. The whispered reports of the murder—what else could one call it?—of some prominent zaibatsu had left the government in a turmoil. Prime Minister Goto was doing little, not even giving speeches, not even making appearances, lest he have to face questions for which he had no answers. But the faith of his captain, the copilot saw, had not yet been shaken.

'No, we will not! How can you say that? Those islands are ours.'

'Time will tell,' the copilot observed, returning to his work and letting it go at that. He did have his job to do, rechecking fuel and winds and other technical data necessary for the successful flight of a commercial airliner, all the things the passengers never saw, assuming that the flight crew just showed up and turned it on as though it were a taxicab.

'Enjoy your sleep?'

'You bet, Captain. I dreamed of a hot day and a hot woman.' Richter stood up, and his movements belied his supposed comfort. I really am too old for this shit, the chief warrant officer thought. It was just fate and luck—if you could call it that—that had put him on the mission. No one else had as much time on the Comanche as he and his fellow warrants did, and somebody had decided that they had the brains to do it, without some goddamned colonel around to screw things up. And now he could boogie on out of here. He looked up to see a clear sky. Well, could be better. For getting in and getting out, better to have clouds.

'Tanks are topped off.'

'Some coffee would be nice,' he thought aloud.

'Here you go, Mr. Richter.' It was Vega, the first sergeant. 'Nice iced coffee, like they serve in the best Florida hotels.'

'Oh, thanks loads, man.' Richter took the metal cup with a chuckle.

'Anything new on the way out?'

This was not good, Claggett thought. The Aegis line had broken up, and now he had one of the goddamned things ten miles away. Worse still, there had been a helicopter in the air not long before, according to his ESM mast, which he'd briefly risked despite the presence of the world's best surveillance radar. But three Army helicopters were depending on him to be here, and that was that. Nobody had ever told him that harm's way was a safe place. Not for him. Not for them, either.

'And our other friend?' he asked his sonar chief. The substantive reply was a shake of the head. The words merely confirmed it.

'Off the scope again.'

There were thirty knots of surface wind, which was whipping up the waves somewhat and interfering with sonar performance. Even holding the destroyer was becoming difficult now that it was slowed to a patrol speed of no more than fifteen knots. The submarine off to the north was gone again. Maybe really gone, but it was dangerous to bank on that. Claggett checked his watch. He'd have to decide what to do in less than an hour.

They would be going in blind, but that was an awkward necessity. Ordinarily they'd gather information with snooper aircraft, but the real effort here was in achieving surprise, and they couldn't compromise that. The carrier task force had avoided commercial air lanes, hidden under clouds, and generally worked very hard to make itself scarce for several days. Jackson felt confident that his presence was a secret, but maintaining it meant depending on spotty submarine reports of electronic activity on the islands, and all these did was to confirm that the enemy had several E-2C aircraft operating, plus a monster air-defense radar. It would be an encounter battle aloft. Well, they'd been training for that over the past two weeks.

'Okay, last check,' Oreza heard over the phone. 'Kobler is exclusively military aircraft?'

'That is correct, sir. Since the first couple of days, we haven't seen any commercial birds on that runway.' He really wanted to ask what the questions were all about, but knew it was a waste of time. Well, maybe an oblique question: 'You want us to stay awake tonight?'

'Up to you, Master Chief. Now, can I talk to your guests?'

'John? Phone,' Portagee announced, then was struck nearly dumb by the normality of what he'd just said.

'Clark,' Kelly said, taking it. 'Yes, sir…Yes, sir. Will do. Anything else? Okay, out.' He hit the kill button. 'Whose idea was this friggin' umbrella?'

'Mine,' Burroughs said, looking up from the card table. 'It works, doesn't it?'

'Sure as hell,' John said, returning to the table and tossing a quarter in the pot. 'Call.'

'Three ladies,' the engineer announced.

'Lucky son of a gun, too,' Clark said, tossing his in.

'Lucky hell! These sunzabitches ruined the best fishing trip I ever had.'

'John, you want I should make some coffee for tonight?'

'He makes the best damned coffee, too.' Burroughs collected the pot. He was six dollars ahead.

'Portagee, it has been a while. Sure, go ahead. It's called black-gang coffee. Pete. Old seaman's tradition,' Clark explained, also enjoying the pleasant inactivity.

'John?' Ding asked.

'Later, my boy.' He picked up the deck and started shuffling adeptly. It would wait.

'Sure you have enough fuel?' Checa asked. The supplies that had been dropped in included auxiliary tanks and wings, but Richter shook his head.

'No prob. Only two hours to the refueling point.'

'Where's that?' The signal over the satcomm had said nothing more than PROCEED to PRIMARY, whatever that meant.

'About two hours away,' the warrant officer said. 'Security, Captain, security.'

'You realize we've made a little history here.'

'Just so I live to tell somebody about it.' Richter zipped up his flight suit, tucked in his scarf, and climbed aboard. 'Clear!'

The Rangers stood by one last time. They knew the extinguishers were worthless, but somebody had insisted on packing them along. One by one the choppers lifted off, their green bodies soon disappearing into the darkness. With that, the Rangers started dumping the remaining equipment into holes dug during the day. That required an hour, and all that remained was their walk to Hirose. Checa lifted his cellular phone and dialed the number he'd memorized.

'Hello?' a voice said in English.

'See you in the morning, I hope?' The question was in Spanish.

'I'll be there, Señor.'

'Montoya, lead off,' the Captain ordered. They'd keep to the treeline as far as they could. The Rangers clasped weapons so far unused, hoping to keep it that way.

'I recommend two weapons,' Lieutenant Shaw said. 'Spread the bearings about ten degrees, converge them in from under the layer, and nail him fore and aft.'

'I like it.' Claggett walked over to the plot for a final examination of the tactical situation. 'Set it up.'

'So what gives?' one of the Army sergeants asked at the entrance to the attack center. The trouble with these damned submarines was that you couldn't just hang around and watch stuff.

'Before we can refuel those helos of yours, we have to make that 'can go away,' a petty officer explained as lightly as he could.

'Is it hard?'

'I guess we'd prefer he was someplace else. It puts us on the surface with—well, somebody's gonna know there's somebody around.'

'Worried?'

'Nah,' the sailor lied. Then both men heard the Captain speak.