Debt of Honor

'We have no such intentions,' the Prime Minister insisted, taken very aback by the directness of this message after the earlier one she'd ignored.

'Then we are agreed,' Ambassador Williams said pleasantly. 'I will communicate that to my government at once.'

It took nearly forever, in this case just over half an hour, before the first, then the second torpedo stopped circling, then stopped pinging. Neither found the MOSS a large-enough target to engage, but neither found anything else, either.

'Strength on that P-3 radar?' Claggett asked.

'Approaching detection values, sir.'

'Take her down, Mr. Shaw. Let's get below the layer and tool on out of here.'

'Aye, Cap'n.' Shaw gave the necessary orders. Two minutes later, USS Tennessee was underwater, and five minutes after that at six hundred feet, turning southeast at a speed often knots. Soon thereafter they heard splashes aft, probably sonobuoys, but it took a long time for a P-3 to generate enough data to launch an attack, and Tennessee wasn't going to linger about.

47—Brooms

'Not with a bang but a whimper?' the President asked.

'That's the idea,' Ryan said, selling the phone down. Satellite imagery showed that whatever the losses had been in the air battle, the Japanese had lost another fourteen aircraft due to cluster munitions on their airfields. Their principal search radars were gone, and they'd shot off a lot of SAMs. The next obvious step was to isolate the islands entirely from air and sea traffic, and that could be done before the end of the week. The press release was already being prepared if the necessity presented itself.

'We've won,' the National Security Advisor said. 'It's just a matter of convincing the other side.'

'You've done well, Jack,' Durling said.

'Sir, if I'd managed to get the job done properly, it never would have started in the first place,' Ryan replied after a second's pause. He remembered getting things started along those lines…about a week too late to matter. Damn.

'Well, we seem to have done that with India, according to what Dave Williams just cabled in.' The President paused. 'And what about this?'

'First we worry about concluding hostilities.'

'And then?'

'We offer them an honorable way out.' Upon elaboration, Jack was pleased to see that the Boss agreed with him.

There would be one more thing, Durling didn't say, but he needed just a little more thinking about it. For the moment it was enough that America looked to be winning this war, and with it he'd won re-election for saving the economy and safeguarding the rights of American citizens. It had been quite na interesting month, the President thought, looking at the other man in the room and wondering what might have come to pass without him. After Ryan left, he placed a telephone call to the Hill.

One other advantage of airborne-radar aircraft was that they made counting coup a lot easier. They could not always show which missile killed which aircraft, but they did show them dropping off the screen.

'Port Royal reports recovery complete,' a talker said.

'Thank you,' Jackson said. He hoped the Army aviators weren't too disappointed to have landed on a cruiser instead of Johnnie Reb, but he needed his deck space.

'I count twenty-seven kills,' Sanchez said. Three of his own fighters had fallen, with only one of the pilots rescued. The casualties were lighter than expected, though that fact didn't make the letter-writing any easier for the CAG.

'Well, it's not exactly like the Turkey Shoot, but it wasn't bad. Tack on fourteen more from the Tomahawks. That's about half their fighter strength—most of their F-I5's—and they only have the one Hummer left. They're on the short end from now on.' The battle-force commander went over the other data. A destroyer gone and the rest of their Aegis ships in the wrong place to interfere with the combat action. Eight submarines definitely destroyed. The overall operational concept had been to detach the arms from the body first, just as had been done in the Persian Gulf, and it had proved to be even easier over water than over land. 'Bud, if you were commanding the other side, what would you try next?'

'We still can't invade.' Sanchez paused. 'It's a losing game any way you cut it, but the last time we had to come this way…' He looked at his commander.

'There is that. Bud, get a Tom ready for a flight with me in the back.'

'Aye aye, sir.' Sanchez made his way off.

'You thinking what I am?' Stennis's captain asked with a raised eyebrow.

'What do we got to lose, Phil?'

'A pretty good admiral, Rob,' he replied quietly.

'Where do you keep your radios in this barge?' Jackson asked with a wink.

'Where have you been?' Goto asked in surprise.

'In hiding, after your patron kidnapped me.' Koga walked in without so much as an announcement, took a seal without being bidden, and generally displayed the total lack of manners that proclaimed his renewed power. 'What do you have to say for yourself.'' the former Prime Minister demanded of his successor.

'You cannot talk to me that way.' But even these words were weak.

'How marvelous. You lead our nation to ruin, but you insist on deference from someone whom your master almost killed. With your knowledge?'

Koga asked lightly.

'Certainly not—and who murdered the—'

'Who murdered the criminals? Not I,' Koga assured him. 'There is a more important question: what are you going to do?'

'Why, I haven't decided that yet.' This attempt at a strong statement fell short on several counts.

'You haven't spoken to Yamata yet, you mean.'

'I decide things for myself!'

'Excellent. Do so now.'

'You cannot order me about.'

'And why not? I will soon be back in that seat. You have a choice. Either you will resign your position this morning or this afternoon I will speak in the Diet and request a vote of no-confidence. It is a vote you will not survive. In either case you are finished.' Koga stood and started to leave. 'I suggest you do so honorably.'

People were lined up in the terminal, standing in line at the counters to get tickets home, Captain Sato saw, as he walked past with a military escort. He was only a young lieutenant, a paratrooper still apparently eager to fight, which was more than could be said for the others in the building. The waiting jeep raced away, heading for the military airfield. The natives were out now, unlike before, carrying signs urging the 'Japs' to leave.

Some of them ought to be shot for their insolence, Sato thought, still coming to terms with his grief. Ten minutes later, he entered one of Kobler's hangars. Fighters were circling overhead, probably afraid to stray offshore, he thought.

'In here, please,' the Lieutenant said.

He walked into the building with consummate dignity, his uniform cap tucked inside his left arm, his back erect, hardly looking at anything, his eyes fixed on the distant wall of the building until the lieutenant stopped and pulled the rubber sheet off the body.

'Yes, that is my son.' He tried not to look, and blessedly the face was not grossly disfigured, possibly protected by the flight helmet while the rest of the body had burned as he sat trapped in his wrecked fighter. But when he closed his eyes he could see his only child writhing in the cockpit, less than an hour after his brother had drowned. Could destiny be so cruel as this? And how was it that those who had served his country had to die, while a mere transporter of civilians was allowed to pass through the American fighters with contempt?