'The squadron command believes that he shot down an American fighter before turning back,' the Lieutenant offered. He'd just made that up, but he had to say something, didn't he?
''Thank you, Lieutenant. I have to return to my aircraft now.' No more words were passed on the way hack to the airport. The army officer left the man with his grief and his dignity.
Sato was on his flight deck twenty minutes later, the 747 already pre-flighted, and, he was sure, completely filled with people returning home under the promise of safe passage by the Americans. The ground tractor pushed the Boeing away from the jetway. It was driven by a native, and the gesture he flashed to the cockpit on decoupling from their aircraft was not exactly a friendly one. But the final insult came as he waited for clearance to take off. A fighter came in to land, not a blue Eagle, it was a haze-gray aircraft with NAVY painted on the engine nacelles.
'Nice touch, Bud. Grease job,' Jackson said as the canopy came up.
'We aim to please, sir,' Sanchez replied nervously. As he taxied off to the right, the welcoming committee, such as it was, all wore green fatigues and carried rifles. When the aircraft stopped, an aluminum extension ladder was laid alongside the aircraft. Jackson climbed out first, and at the bottom of the ladder a field-grade officer saluted him correctly.
'That's a Tomcat,' Oreza said, handing over the binoculars. 'And that officer ain't no Jap.'
'Sure as hell,' Clark confirmed, watching the black officer get into a jeep. What effect would this have on his tentative orders? Attractive as it might be to put the arm on Raizo Yamata, even getting close enough to evaluate the possibility—his current instructions—was not a promising undertaking. He had also reported on conditions on Saipan, and that word, he thought, was good. The Japanese troops he'd seen earlier in the day were not the least bit jaunty, though some officers, especially the junior ones, seemed very enthusiastic about their mission, whatever that was right now. It was about what you expected of lieutenants in any army.
The Governor's house, set on the local Capitol Hill next to the convention center, seemed a pleasant enough structure. Jackson was sweating now. The tropical sun was hot enough, and his nomex flight suit was just too good an insulator. Here a colonel saluted him and led him inside.
Robby knew General Arima on sight, remembering the intelligence file he'd seen in the Pentagon. They were of about the same height and build, he saw. The General saluted. Jackson, bareheaded and under cover, was not allowed to do so under naval regulations. It seemed the proper response not to, anyway. He nodded his head politely, and left it at that.
'General, can we speak in private?'
Arima nodded and led Jackson into what looked like a combination den/office. Robby took a seat, and his host was kind enough to hand over a glass of ice water.
'Your position is…?'
'I am Commander Task Force Seventy-Seven. I gather you are the commander of Japanese forces on Saipan.' Robby drank the water down. It annoyed him greatly to be sweating, but there was no helping that.
'Correct.'
'In that case, sir, I am here to request your surrender.' He hoped the General knew the semantic difference between 'request' and 'demand,' the customary verb for the occasion.
'I am not authorized to do that.'
'General, what I'm about to say to you is the position of my government. You may leave the islands in peace. You may take your light weapons with you. Your heavy equipment and aircraft will remain behind for later determination of status. For the moment we require that all Japanese citizens leave the island, pending the restoration of normal relations between our countries.'
'I am not authorized to—'
'I'll be saying the same thing on Guam in two hours, and the American Ambassador in Tokyo is now requesting a meeting with your government.'
'You do not have the ability to take this one island back, much less all of them.'
'That is true,' Jackson conceded. 'It is also true that we can easily stop all ships from entering or leaving Japanese ports for the indefinite future. We can similarly cut off this island from air and sea traffic.'
'That is a threat,' Arima pointed out.
'Yes, sir, it is. In due course your country will starve. Its economy will come to a complete hall. That serves no one's purposes.' Jackson paused.
'Up until this point only military people have suffered. They pay us to take chances. If it goes any further, then everyone suffers more, but your country most of all. It will also generate additional bad feelings on both sides, when our actions should be to restore normal relations as rapidly as circumstances allow.'
'I am not authorized to—'
'General, fifty years ago you could have said that, and it was the custom of your armed forces to fight to the last man. It was also the custom of your armed forces to deal with people in the lands you occupied in a way that even you must find barbaric—I say that because you have behaved honorably in all respects or so all my information tells me. For that I thank you, sir,' Jackson went on. speaking evenly and politely. 'This is not the nineteen-forties. I wasn't born before the end of that war, and you were a toddler then. That sort of behavior is a thing of the past. There is no place for it in the world today.'
'My troops have behaved properly,' Arima confirmed, not knowing what else to say under the circumstances.
'Human life is a precious commodity, General Arima, far too precious to be wasted unnecessarily. We have limited our combat actions to militarily important targets. We have not as yet inflicted harm on the innocent, as you have not. But if this war continues, that will change, and the consequences will be harder on you than on us. There is no honor in that for either side. In any case, I must now fly to Guam. You know how to reach me by radio.'
Jackson stood.
'I must await orders from my government.'
'I understand,' Robby replied, thankful that Arima meant that he would follow those orders from his government.
Usually when Al Trent came to the White House it was in the company of Sam Fellows, the ranking minority member of the Select Committee, but not this time, because Sam was in the other party. A member of his party's Senate leadership was there also. The hour made this a political meeting, with most of the White House staffers gone for the day, and a President allowing himself a release from the stress of his office.
'Mr. President, I gather that things have gone well?'
Durling nodded cautiously. 'Prime Minister Goto is not yet able to meet with the Ambassador. We're not sure why, but Ambassador Whiting says not to worry. The public mood over there is shifting our way rapidly.'
Trent took a drink from the Navy steward who served in the Oval Office. That part of the White House staff must have kept a list of the favored drinks for the important. In Al's case it was vodka and tonic, Finnish Absolut vodka, a habit begun while a student at Tufts University, forty years earlier.
'Jack said all along that they didn't know what they were getting into.'
'Bright boy, Ryan,' the senior Senator agreed. 'He's done you quite a few favors, Roger.' Trent noted with annoyance that this stalwart member of what he liked to call 'the upper house' felt the right to first-name the President in private. Typical senator, the House member thought.
'Bob Fowler gave you some good advice,' Trent allowed.
The President nodded agreement. 'True, and you're the one who put the bug in his ear, Al, aren't you?'
'Guilty.' The word was delivered with a laugh.
'Well, I have an idea I want to float on the both of you,' Durling said.
Captain Checa's squad of Rangers made the last treeline just after noon, local time, concluding a thoroughly murderous trek through snow and mud. There was a single-lane road below. This part of town must have been some sort of summer resort, the Captain thought. The hotel parking lots were almost entirely empty, though one had a minibus in it. The Captain pulled the cellular phone from his pocket and speed-dialed the proper number.
'Hello?'
'Señor Nomuri?'
'Ah, Diego! I've been waiting for hours. How was your nature hike?' the voice asked with a laugh.
Checa was formulating his answer when the lights on the minibus flashed twice. Ten minutes later all the men were inside, where they found some hot drinks and room to change their clothing. On the drive down the
