by Tom Clancy
The central-bank heads were accustomed to VIP treatment. Their flights all arrived at John F. Kennedy International within the same hour. Each was met by a senior diplomat from their respective countries’ U.N. delegations, whisked past customs control, and sent to the city in a car with diplomatic tags. The common destination surprised them all, but the Federal Reserve Chairman explained that for convenience the New York FBI office was a better place for coordination than the local Federal Reserve bank, especially since it was large enough to accommodate the directors of the major trading houses—and since antitrust regulations were being suspended in the interest of American national security. That notification bemused the European visitors. Finally, they thought, America understood the national-security implications of financial matters. It had certainly taken them long enough.
George Winston and Mark Gant began their final briefing on the events of the previous week after an introduction from the Chairman and Secretary Fiedler, and by this time they had the presentation down pat.
“Bloody clever,” the head of the Bank of England observed to his German counterpart.
“Jawohl,” was the whispered reply.
“How do we prevent something like this from happening again?” one of them wondered aloud.
“Better record-keeping systems for starters,” Fiedler replied alertly after something approaching a decent night’s sleep. “Aside from that ... ? It’s something we need to study for a while. Of greater interest are the remedial measures which we must now consider.”
“The yen must suffer for this,” the French banker observed at once. “And we must help you to protect the dollar in order to protect our own currencies.”
“Yes.” The Fed Chairman nodded at once. “Jean-Jacques, I’m glad you see it the same way we do.”
“And to save your equities markets, what will you do?” the head of the Bundesbank asked.
“This is going to sound somewhat crazy, but we think it will work,” Secretary Fiedler began, outlining the procedures that President Durling had not revealed in his speech and whose execution depended to a large degree on European cooperation. The visitors shared a common look, first of incredulity, then of approval.
Fiedler smiled. “Might I suggest that we coordinate our activities for Friday?”
Nine in the morning was considered an ungodly hour for the commencement of diplomatic negotiations, which helped the situation. The American delegation arrived at the Japanese Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., in private cars, the better to conceal the situation.
The formalities were observed in all particulars. The conference room was large, with a correspondingly large table. The Americans took their places on one side and the Japanese on the other. Handshakes were exchanged because these were diplomats and such things were to be expected. Tea and coffee were available, but most just poured glasses of ice water into crystal glasses. To the annoyance of the Americans, some of the Japanese smoked. Scott Adler wondered if they did it just to unsettle him, and so to break the ice he requested and got a smoke from the Ambassador’s chief aide.
“Thank you for receiving us,” he began in a measured voice.
“Welcome, again, to our embassy,” the Japanese Ambassador replied with a friendly if wary nod.
“Shall we begin?” Adler asked.
“Please.” The Ambassador leaned back in his chair and adopted a relaxed posture to show that he was at ease and that he would listen politely to the impending discourse.
“The United States is gravely concerned with developments in the Western Pacific,” Adler began. Gravely concerned was the right turn of phrase. When nations are gravely concerned, it usually means that they are contemplating violent action. “As you know, the inhabitants of the Mariana Islands hold American citizenship, and do so because of their own wishes, freely expressed in an election almost twenty years ago. For that reason the United States of America will not under any circumstances accept Japanese occupation of those islands, and we req—no,” Adler corrected himself, “we demand the return of those islands to U.S. sovereignty forthwith, and the immediate and total removal of Japanese armed forces from the territories in question. We similarly require the immediate release of any and all U.S. citizens held by your government. Failure to comply with these requirements will entail the most serious possible consequences.”
Everyone in the room thought the opening position statement was unequivocal. If anything it was a little too strong, the Japanese diplomats thought, even those who deemed their country’s actions to be madness.
“I personally regret the tone of your statement,” the Ambassador replied, giving Adler a diplomatic slap across the face. “On the substantive issues, we will listen to your position and consider its merit against our own security interests.” This was a diplomat’s way of saying that Adler would now have to repeat what he had just said—with amplifications. It was an implicit demand for another statement, one that conceded something, in return for which was the implied promise that there might be a concession on the part of his government.
“Perhaps I did not make myself sufficiently clear,” Adler said after a sip of water. “Your country has committed an act of war against the United States of America. The consequences of such acts are very grave. We offer your country the opportunity to withdraw from those acts without further bloodshed.”
The other Americans sitting at the table communicated without words and without a look: Hardball. There had scarcely been time for the American team to develop its thoughts and approaches, and Adler had gone further than they’d expected.
“Again,” the Ambassador said after his own moment of contemplation, “I find your tone personally regrettable. As you know, my country has legitimate security interests, and has been the victim of unfortunate legal actions which can have no effect other than severe damage to our economic and physical security. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter specifically recognizes the right of any sovereign nation to self-defense measures. We have done no more than that.” It was a skillful parry, even the Americans thought, and the renewed request for civility suggested a real opening for maneuver.
The initial discussions went on for another ninety minutes, with neither side budging, each merely repeating words, with hardly a change of phrase. Then it was time for a break. Security personnel opened the French doors to the embassy’s elegant garden, and everyone went out, ostensibly for fresh air but really for more work. The garden was too large to bug, especially with a brisk wind blowing through the trees.
“So, Chris, we’ve begun,” Seiji Nagumo said, sipping his coffee—he’d chosen it to show how sympathetic he was with the American position; for the same reason, Christopher Cook was drinking tea.
“What did you expect us to say?” the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State asked.
“The opening position is not surprising,” Nagumo conceded.
Cook looked away, staring at the wall that enclosed the garden. He spoke quietly. “What will you give up?”
“Guam, definitely, but it must be demilitarized,” Nagumo replied in the same voice. “And you?”
“So far, nothing.”
“You must give me something to work with, Chris,” Nagumo observed.
“There’s nothing to offer, except maybe a cessation of hostilities—before they actually start.”
“When will that happen?”
“Not anytime soon, thank God. We do have time to work with. Let’s make good use of it,” Cook urged.
“I’ll pass that along. Thank you.” Nagumo wandered off to join a member of his delegation. Cook did the same, ending up three minutes later with Scott Adler.
“Guam, demilitarized. That’s definite. Maybe more. That’s not definite.”
“Interesting,” Adler thought. “So you were right on their allowing us to save face. Nice call, Chris.”
“What will we offer them back?”
“Gornisch,” the Deputy Secretary of State said coldly. He was think
ing about his father, and the tattoo on his forearm, and how he’d learned that a 9 was an upside-down 6, and how his father’s freedom had been taken away by a country once allied with the owner of this embassy and its lovely if cold garden. It was somewhat unprofessional and Adler knew it. Japan had offered a safe haven during those years to a few lucky European Jews, one of whom had become a cabinet secretary under Jimmy Carter. Perhaps if his father had been one of those fortunate few, his attitude might have been different, but his father hadn’t, and his wasn’t. “For starters we lean on them hard and see what happens.”
“I think that’s a mistake,” Cook said after a moment.
“Maybe,” Adler conceded. “But they made the mistake first.”
The military people didn’t like it at all. It annoyed the civilians, who had established the site approximately five times as fast as these uniformed boneheads would have managed, not to mention doing it in total secrecy and less expensively.
“It never occurred to you to hide the site?” the Japanese general demanded.
“How could anyone find this?” the senior engineer shot back.
“They have cameras in orbit that can pick up a packet of cigarettes lying on the ground.”
“And a whole country to survey.” The engineer shrugged. “And we are in the bottom of a valley whose sides are so steep that an inbound ballistic warhead can’t possibly hit it without striking those peaks first.” The man pointed. “And now they do not even have the missiles they need to do it,” he added.
The General had instructions to be patient, and he was, after his initial outburst. It was his site to command now. “The first principle is to deny information to the other side.”
“So we hide it, then?” the engineer asked politely.
“Yes.”
“Camouflage netting on the catenary towers?” They’d done it during the construction phase.
“If you have them, it’s a good beginning. Later we can consider other more permanent measures.”
“By train, eh?” The AMTRAK official noted after the completion of his briefing. “Back when I started in the business, I was with the Great Northern, and the Air Force came to us half a dozen times about how to move missiles around by rail. We ended up moving a lot of concrete in for them.”
“So you’ve actually thought this one over a few times?” Betsy Fleming asked.
“Oh, yeah.” The official paused. “Can I see the pictures now?” The goddamned security briefing had taken hours of unnecessary threats, after which he’d been sent back to his hotel to contemplate the forms—and to allow the FBI to run a brief security check, he imagined.
Chris Scott flipped the slide projector on. He and Fleming had already made their own analysis, but the purpose of having an outside consultant was to get a free and fresh opinion. The first shot was of the missile, just to give him a feel for the size of the thing. Then they went to the shot of the train car.
“Okay, it sure looks like a flatcar, longer than most, probably specially made for the load. Steel construction. The Japanese are good at this sort of thing. Good engineers. There’s a crane to lift something. How much does one of these monsters weigh?”
“Figure a hundred tons for the missile itself,” Betsy answered. “Maybe twenty for the transporter-container.”
“That’s pretty heavy for a single object, but not all that big a deal. Well within limits for the car and the roadbed.” He paused for a moment. “I don’t see any obvious electronics connections, just the usual brake lines and stuff. You expect them to launch off the cars?”
“Probably not. You tell us,” Chris Scott said.
“Same thing I told the Air Force twenty-some years ago for the MX. Yeah, you can move them around, but it doesn’t make finding them all that hard unless you assume that you’re going to make a whole lot of railcars that look exactly alike—and even then, like for the mainline on the Northern, you have a fairly simple target. Just a long, thin line, and guess what, our mainline from Minneapolis to Seattle was longer than all the standard-gauge track in their country.”
“So?” Fleming asked.
“So this isn’t a launch car. It’s just a transport car. You didn’t need me to tell you that.”
No, but it is nice to hear it from somebody else, Betsy thought.
“Anything else?”
“The Air Force kept telling me how delicate the damned things are. They don’t like being bumped. At normal operating speeds you’re talking three lateral gees and about a gee and a half of vertical acceleration. That’s not good for the missile. Next problem is dimensional. That car is about ninety feet long, and the standard flatcar for their railroads is sixty or less. Their railroads are mainly narrow-gauge. Know why?”
“I just assumed that they picked—”
“It’s all engineering, okay?” the AMTRAK executive said. “Narrow-gauge track gives you the ability to shoehorn into tighter spots, to take sharper turns, generally to do things smaller. But they went to standard gauge for the Shin-Kansen because for greater speed and stability you just need it wider. The length of the cargo and the corresponding length of the car to carry it means that if you turn too tightly, the car overlaps the next track and you run the risk of collision unless you shut down traffic coming the other way every time you move these things. That’s why the missile is somewhere off the Shin-Kansen line. It has to be. Then next, there’s the problem of the cargo. It really messes things up for everybody.”
“Keep going,” Betsy Fleming said.
“Because the missiles are so delicate, we would have been limited to low speed—it would have wrecked our scheduling and dispatching. We never wanted the job. The money to us would have been okay, but it would probably have hurt us in the long run. The same thing would be true of them, wouldn’t it? Even worse. The Shin-Kansen line is a high-speed passenger routing. They meet timetables like you wouldn’t believe, and they wouldn’t much like things that mess them up.” He paused. “Best guess? They used those cars to move the things from the factory to someplace else and that’s all. I’d bet a lot of money that they did everything at night, too. If I were you I’d hunt around for these cars, and expect to find them in a yard somewhere doing nothing. Then I’d start looking for trackage off the mainline that doesn’t go anywhere.”
Scott changed slides again. “How well do you know their railroads?”
“I’ve been over there often enough. That’s why they let you draft me.”
“Well, tell me what you think of this one.” Scott pointed at the screen.
“That’s some bitchin’ radar,” a technician observed. The trailer had been flown up to Elmendorf to support the B-1 mission. The bomber crews were sleeping now, and radar experts, officer- and enlisted-rank, were going over the taped records of the snooper flight.
“Airborne phased array?” a major asked.
“Sure looks that way. Sure as hell isn’t the APY-1 we sold them ten years back. We’re talking over two million watts, and the way the signal strength jumps. Know what they’ve got here? It’s a rotating dome, probably a single planar array,” the master sergeant said. “So it’s rotating, okay. But they can steer it electronically, too.”
“Track and scan?”
“Why not? It’s frequency-agile. Damn, 1 wish we had one of these, sir.” The sergeant picked up a photo of the aircraft. “This thing is going to be a problem for us. All that power—makes you wonder if they might get a hit. Makes me wonder if they were tracking the 1s, sir.”
“From that far out?” The B-1B was not strictly speaking a stealthy aircraft. From nose-on it did have a reduced radar signature. From abeam the radar cross section was considerably larger, though still smaller than any conventional airplane of similar physical dimensions.
“Yes, sir. I need to play with the tapes some.”
“What will you look for?”
“The rotodome probably turns at about six rpm. The pulses we’re recording ought to be at about that interval. Anyt
hing else, and they were steering the beam at us.”
“Good one, Sarge. Run it down.”
34
All Aboard
Yamata was annoyed to be back in Tokyo. His pattern of operation in thirty years of business had been to provide command guidance, then let a team of subordinates work out the details while he moved on to other strategic issues, and he’d fully expected it to go easier in this case rather than harder. After all, the twenty most senior zaibatsu were his staff now. Not that they thought of themselves that way. Yamata-san smiled to himself. It was a heady thought. Getting the government to dance to his tune had been child’s play. Getting these men onboard had taken years of cajolery. But they were dancing to his tune, and they just needed the bandmaster around from time to time. And so he’d flown back on a nearly empty airliner to steady down their nerves.
“It’s not possible,” he told them.
“But he said—”
“Kozo, President Durling can say anything he wishes. I’m telling you that it is not possible for them to rebuild their records in anything less than several weeks. If they attempt to reopen their markets today all that will result is chaos. And chaos,” he reminded them, “works in our favor.”
“And the Europeans?” Tanzan Itagake asked.
“They will wake up at the end of next week and discover that we have bought their continent,” Yamata told them all. “In five years America will be our grocer and Europe will be our boutique. By that time the yen will be the world’s most powerful currency. By that time we will have a fully integrated national economy and a powerful continental ally. Both of us will be self-sufficient in all our resource needs. We will no longer have a population that needs to abort its babies to keep from overpopulating our Home Islands. And,” he added, “we will have political leadership worthy of our national status. That is our next step, my friends.”