Debt of Honor jr-6

by Tom Clancy

  It was a large cylindrical craft, over thirty feet in length, with immense "wings" of solar receptors to power the onboard Ku-band radar. The solar cells had degraded over the years in the intense radiation environment, allowing only a few minutes of operation per revolution. The ground controllers had waited what seemed a long time for this opportunity. The orbital track was northwest-to-southeast, within six degrees of being directly overhead, close enough to see straight down into the valley. They already knew a lot. The geological history of the place was clear. A river now blocked with a hydroelectric dam had cut the gorge deep. It was more canyon than valley at this point, and the steep sides had been the deciding factor in putting the missiles here. The missiles could launch vertically, but incoming warheads would be blocked from hitting them by the mountains to east and west. It didn't make any difference whose warheads they were. The shape and course of the valley would have had the same effect on Russian RVs as Americans'. The final bit of genius was that the valley was hard rock. Each silo had natural armor. For all those reasons, Scott and Fleming had bet much of their professional reputations on the tasking orders for the KH-12.

  "Right about now, Betsy," Scott said, checking the wall clock.

  "What exactly will you see?"

  "If they're there, we'll know it. You follow space technology?" Fleming asked.

  "You're talking to an original Trekkie."

  "Back in the 1980's NASA orbited a mission, and the first thing they downloaded was a shot of the Nile delta, underground aquifers that feed into the Mediterranean Sea. We mapped them."

  "The same one did the irrigation canals down in Mexico, right, the Mayans, I think. What are you telling me?" the AMTKAK official replied.

  "It was our mission, not NASA's. We were telling the Russians that they couldn't hide their silos from us. They got the message, too," Mrs. Fleming explained. Right about then the secure fax machine started chirping. The signal from the KH-12 had been crosslinked to a satellite in geostationary orbit over the Indian Ocean, and from there to the U.S. mainland. Their first read on the signals would be unenhanced, but, they hoped, good enough for a fast check. Scott took the first image off the machine and set it on the table under a bright light, next to a visual print of the same place.

  "Tell me what you see."

  "Okay, here's the mainline…oh—this thing picks up the ties. The rails are too small, eh?"

  "Correct." Betsy found the spur line. The concrete rail ties were fifteen centimeters in width, and made for a good, sharp radar return that looked like a line of offset dashes.

  "It goes quite a way up the valley, doesn't it?" The AMTRAK guy's face was down almost on the paper, tracing with his pen. "Turn, turn. What are these?" he asked, touching the tip to a series of white circles.

  Scott placed a small ruler on the sheet. "Betsy?"

  "Dense-packed it, too. My, aren't we clever. It must have cost a fortune to do this."

  "Beautiful work," Scott breathed. The rail spur curved left and right, and every two hundred meters was a silo, not three meters away from the marching ranks of rail ties. "Somebody really thought this one through."

  "You lost me."

  "Dense-pack," Mrs. Fleming said. "It means that if you attempt to hit the missile field, the first warhead throws so much debris into the air that the next warhead gets trashed on the way in."

  "It means that you can't use nuclear weapons to take these boys out—not easily anyway," Scott went on. "Summarize what you know for me," he ordered.

  "This is a rail line that doesn't make any commercial sense. It doesn't go anywhere, so it can't make money. It's not a service siding, too long for that. It's standard gauge, probably because of the cargo-dimension requirements."

  "And they're stringing camouflage netting over it," Betsy finished the evaluation, and was already framing the National Intelligence Estimate they had to draft tonight. "Chris, this is the place."

  "But I only count ten. There's ten more we have to find."

  It was hard to think of it as an advantage, but the downsizing of the Navy had generated a lot of surplus staff, so finding another thirty-seven people wasn't all that hard. That brought Tennessee's complement to one hundred twenty, thirty-seven short of an Ohio's normal crew size, a figure Dutch Claggett could accept. He didn't need the missile technicians, after all. His crew would be heavy on senior petty officers, another burden he would bear easily, the CO told himself, standing atop the sail and watching his men load provisions under the glaring lights. The reactor plant was up and running. Even now his engineering officer was conducting drills. Just forward of the sail, a green Mark 48 ADCAP torpedo was sliding backwards down the weapons-loading hatch under the watchful eyes of a chief torpedoman. There were only sixteen of those torpedoes to be had, but he didn't expect to need that many for the mission he anticipated. Asheville and Charlotte. He'd known men on both, and if Washington got its thumb out, maybe he'd do something about that.

  A car pulled up to the brow, and a petty officer got out, carrying a metal briefcase. He made his way aboard, dodging around the crewmen tossing cartons, then down a hatch.

  "That's the software upgrade for the sonar systems," Claggett's XO said.

  "The one they've been tracking whales with."

  "How long to upload it?"

  "Supposedly just a few minutes."

  "I want to be out of here before dawn, X."

  "We'll make it. First stop Pearl?"

  Claggett nodded, pointing to the other Ohios, also loading men and chow. "And I don't want any of those turkeys beating us there, either."

  It wasn't a comfortable feeling, but the sight was worth it. Johnnie Reb rested on rows of wooden blocks, and towered above the floor of the dry dock like some sort of immense building. Captain Sanchez had decided to give things a look, and stood alongside the ship's commanding officer. As they watched, a traveling crane removed the remains of the number-three screw. Workers and engineers in their multicolored hard hats made way, then converged back on the skeg, evaluating the damage. Another crane moved in to begin the removal of number-four tailshaft. It had to be pulled straight out, its inboard extremity already disconnected from the rest of the assembly.

  "Bastards," the skipper breathed.

  "We can fix her," Sanchez noted quietly.

  "Four months. If we're lucky," the Captain added. They just didn't have the parts to do it any faster. The key, unsurprisingly, was the reduction gears. Six complete gear sets would have to be manufactured, and that took time. Enterprise's entire drive-train was gone, and the efforts to get the ship to safely as quickly as possible had wrecked the one gear set that might have been repairable. Six months for her, if the contractor could get spun up in a hurry, and work three-shift weeks to get the job done. The rest of the repairs were straightforward.

  "How quick to get number-one shaft back to battery?" Sanchez asked.

  The Captain shrugged. "Two-three days, for what that's worth."

  Sanchez hesitated before asking the next question. He should have known the answer, and he was afraid it would sound really stupid—oh, what the hell? He had to go off to Barbers Point anyway. And the only dumb questions, he'd told people for years, were the ones you didn't ask.

  "Sir, I hate to sound stupid, but how fast will she go on two shafts?"

  Ryan found himself wishing that the Flat Earth Society was right. In that case the world could have been a single time zone. As it was, the Marianas were fifteen hours ahead, Japan fourteen, Moscow eight. Western Europe's principal financial markets were five and six ahead, depending on the country. Hawaii was five hours behind. He had contacts in all of those places, and everyone was working on local time, and it was so different in every case that just keeping track of who was probably awake and who was probably asleep occupied much of his thoughts. He grunted to himself in bed, remembering with nostalgia the confusion that always came to him on long flights. Even now people were working in some of those places, none under his control, an
d he knew he had to sleep if he were going to be able to deal with any of them when the sun returned to where he lived and worked. But sleep wasn't coming, and all he saw was the pine decking that made up his bedroom ceiling.

  "Any ideas?" Cathy asked.

  Jack grunted. "I wish I'd stuck with merchant banking."

  "And then who'd be running things?"

  A long breath. "Somebody else."

  "Not as well, Jack," his wife suggested.

  "True," he admitted to the ceiling.

  "How do you think people will react to this?"

  "I don't know. I'm not even sure how I'm reacting to it," Jack admitted. "It's not supposed to be like this at all. We're in a war that doesn't make any sense. We just got rid of the last nuclear missiles ten days ago, and now they're back, and pointed at us, and we don't have any to point back at them, and if we don't stop this thing fast—I don't know, Cathy."

  "Not sleeping doesn't help."

  "Thank God, married to a doctor." He managed a smile. "Well, honey, you got us out of one problem anyway."

  "How did I do that?"

  "By being smart." By using your head all the time, his mind went on. His wife didn't do anything without thinking it through first. She worked pretty slowly by the standards of her profession. Perhaps that was normal for someone pushing the frontiers buck, always considering and planning and evaluating—like a good intelligence officer, in fact—and then when everything was ready and you had it all figured out, zap with her laser. Yeah, that wasn't a bad way to operate, was it?

  "Well, I think they've learned one lesson," Yamata said. A rescue aircraft had recovered two bodies and some floating debris from the American bomber. The bodies would be treated with dignity, it had been decided. The names had already been telexed to Washington via the Japanese Embassy, and in due course the remains would be returned. Showing mercy was the proper thing to do, for many reasons. Someday America and Japan would be friends again, and he didn't want to poison that possibility. It was also bad for business.

  "The Ambassador reports that they do not offer us anything," Goto replied after a moment.

  "They have not as yet evaluated their position, and ours."

  "Will they repair their financial systems?"

  Yamata frowned. "Perhaps. But they still have great difficulties. They still need to buy from us, they still need to sell to us—and they cannot strike us effectively, as four of their airmen, possibly eight, just learned to their sorrow." Things had not gone entirely in accord with his plans, but, then, when had things ever really done that? "What we must do next is to show them that the people who live on Saipan prefer our rule to theirs. Then world opinion will work in our favor, and that will defuse the situation greatly."

  And until then, Yamata thought, things were going well. The Americans would not soon again probe his country's mainland. They didn't have the ability to retake the islands, and by the time they did, well, Japan would have a new ally, and perhaps even new political leadership, wouldn't it?

  "No, I am not being watched," Koga assured them.

  "As a reporter—no, you know better than that, don't you?" Clark asked.

  "I know you are an intelligence officer. I know Kimura here has been in contact with you." They were in a comfortable teahouse close to the Ara River. Nearby was the boat-racing course built for the 1964 Olympics. It was also conveniently close to a police station, John reminded himself. Why, he wondered, had he always feared the attention of police officers? Under the circumstances, it seemed the proper thing to nod his understanding of the situation.

  "In that case, Koga-san, we are at your mercy."

  "I presume your government now knows what is going on. All of it," Koga went on distastefully. "I've spoken with my own contacts as well."

  "Siberia," Clark said simply.

  "Yes," Koga responded. "That is part of it. Yamata-san's hatred for America is another part, but most of all, it's pure madness."

  "The Americans' reaction is not really a matter of my immediate concern, but I can assure you that my country will not meekly submit to an invasion of our soil," John said calmly.

  "Even if China is involved?" Kimura asked.

  "Especially if China is involved," Chavez said just to let everyone know he was there. "I presume that you study history, as we do."

  "I fear for my country. The time for such adventures is long past, but the people who—do you really understand how policy decisions are made here? The will of the people is an irrelevance. I tried to change that. I tried to bring an end to the corruption."

  Clark's mind was racing, trying to decide if the man was sincere or not. "We face similar problems, as you have probably heard. The question is, what do we do now?"

  The torment on the man's face was clear. "I do not know. I asked for this meeting in the hope that your government will understand that not everyone here is mad."

  "You must not think of yourself as a traitor, Koga-san," Clark said after a moment's consideration. "Truly you are not. What does a man do when he feels that his government is taking incorrect action? And you are correct in your judgment that the possible consequences of this current course of action could well be serious. My country has neither the time nor the energy to waste on conflict, but if it is forced on us, well, then we must react. Now I must ask you a question."

  "Yes, I know." Koga looked down at the table. He thought about reaching for his drink, but was too afraid that his hand would shake.

  "Will you work with us to prevent this from happening?" This is something/or somebody a hell of a lot more senior than I am, John told himself, but he was here, and the senior pukes were not.

  "Doing what?"

  "I lack the seniority to tell you exactly what that might be, but I can convey requests from my government. At the very least we will ask you for information, and perhaps for influence. You are still respected within government circles. You still have friends and allies in the Diet. We will not ask you to compromise those things. They are too valuable to be thrown away."

  "I can speak out against this madness. I can—"

  "You can do many things, Koga-san, but please, for the sake of your country and mine, please do nothing without first considering the effects you will achieve by taking action." My next career change, Clark thought. Political advisor. "We are agreed, are we not, that the objective here is to avoid a major war?"

  "Hai."

  "Any fool can start a war," Chavez announced, thanking Providence for his master's courses. "It takes a better man to prevent one, and it takes careful thought."

  "I will listen to your counsel I do not promise you that I will follow it. But I will listen."

  Clark nodded. "That is all we can ask." The rest of the meeting was procedural. Another such rendezvous would be too dangerous. Kimura would handle messages from this point on. Clark and Chavez left first, heading back to their hotel by foot. It was a very different affair from dealing with Mohammed Abdul Corp. Koga was honorable, bright, and wanted to do the right thing, even if it entailed treason. But John realized that his words to the man hadn't just been part of the seduction dance. At a certain point, state policy became a matter of conscience, and he was grateful that this man seemed to have one.

  "Straight board shut," the chief of the boat announced from his post on the port-forward corner of the attack center. As was normal, the submarine's most senior enlisted man was the diving officer. Every opening in the ship's hull was closed tight, the red circles on the diving board replaced now with red horizontal dashes. "Pressure in the boat."

  "All systems aligned and checked for dive. The compensation is entered. We are rigged for dive," the OOD announced.

  "Okay, let's take her down. Dive the ship. Make your depth one hundred feet." Claggett looked around the compartment, first checking the status boards, then checking the men. Tennessee hadn't been underwater for more than a year. Neither had her crew, and he looked around for any first-dive nerves as the officer of the deck gave
the proper commands for the evolution. It was normal that a few of the younger men shook their heads, reminding themselves that they were submariners, after all, and supposedly used to this. The sounds of escaping air made that clear enough. Tennessee took a gentle five-degree down angle at the bow. For the next few minutes the submarine would be checked for trim to see that the ship was properly balanced and that all onboard systems really did work, as all tests and inspections had already made certain. That process required half an hour. Claggett could well have gone faster, and the next time he certainly would, but for the moment it was time to get everyone comfortable again.

  "Mr. Shaw, come left to new course two-one-zero."

  "Aye, helm, left ten degrees rudder, come to new course two-one-zero."

  The helmsman responded properly, bringing the submarine to her base course.

  "All ahead full." Clagget ordered.

  "All ahead full, aye." The full-speed bell would take Tennessee to twenty-six knots. There were actually four more knots of speed available with a flank bell. It was a little-known fact that someone had made a mistake with the Ohio-class of boomers. Designed for a maximum speed of just over twenty-six knots, the first full-power trials on the lead boat in the class had lopped out at just over twenty-nine, and later models had been marginally faster still. Well, Claggett thought with a smile, the U.S. Navy had never been especially interested in slow ships; they were less likely to dodge out of harm's way.

  "So far, so good," Claggett observed to his OOD.

  Lieutenant Shaw nodded. Another officer on his way out of the Navy, he'd been tapped as the boat's navigator, and having served with Dutch Claggett before, he'd not objected to coming back one more time. "Speed's coming up nicely, Cap'n."

  "We've been saving a lot of neutrons lately."

  "What's the mission?"

  "Not sure yet, but damned if we aren't the biggest fast-attack submarine ever made," Claggett observed.