Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 7-12 (70 page)

“Sergey, this is important: you did not have any warning?”

“Jack, on my honor as a spy”—Ryan could almost hear the twisted smile that must be framing the answer—“I just had to tell my President that I was caught with my fly unbuttoned, and the embarrassment to me is even greater than what—”

Jack didn’t bother listening to the embroidery. Okay. The Russians
did
have another spy network operating in Japan, but they had probably not received any warning either, had they? No, the danger from that sort of double-dealing was just too great. Next fact: their second network was inside the Japanese government itself; had to be if they had PSID penetrated. But THISTLE was mainly a
commercial
spy net—always had been—and Sergey had just told him that the U.S. had been foolish not to have activated it sooner. The novelty of what he knew distracted Jack from a more subtle implication surrounding the admission of fault from Moscow.

“Sergey Nikolay’ch, I’m short of time here. You are building to something. What is it?”

“I propose cooperation between us. I have the approval of President Grushavoy to make the offer.” He didn’t say
full
cooperation, Jack noted, but the offer was startling even so.

Never, not ever, not once except in bad movies had KGB and CIA really cooperated on anything important. Sure, the world had changed plenty, but KGB, even in its new incarnation, still worked to penetrate American institutions and remained good at it. That was why you didn’t let them in. But he’d just made the offer anyway. Why?

The Russians are scared. Of what?

“I will present that to my President after consulting with Mary Pat.” Ryan wasn’t yet sure how he would present it. Golovko, however, knew the value of what he’d just laid on the American’s desk. It would not require much insight to speculate on the probable reply.

Again, Ryan could hear the smile. “If Foleyeva does not agree, I will be most surprised. I will be in my office for a few more hours.”

“So will I. Thanks, Sergey.”

“Good day, Dr. Ryan.”

“Well, that sounded interesting,” Robby Jackson said in the doorway. “Looks like you had a long night, too.”

“In an airplane, yet. Coffee?” Jack asked.

The Admiral shook his head. “One more cup and I might shake apart.” He came in and sat down.

“Bad?”

“And getting worse. We’re still trying to tally how many uniformed people we have in Japan—there are some transients. An hour ago a C-141 landed at Yakota and promptly went off the air. The goddamned thing just headed right in,” Robby said. “Maybe a radio problem, more likely they didn’t have the gas to go anywhere else. Flight crew of four, maybe five—I forget. State is trying to run a tally for how many businessmen are there. It ought to generate an approximate number, but there are tourists to consider also.”

“Hostages.” Ryan frowned.

The Admiral nodded. “Figure the ten thousand as a floor figure.”

“The two subs?”

Jackson shook his head. “Dead, no survivors.
Stennis
has recovered her airplane and is heading for Pearl at about twelve knots.
Enterprise
is trying to make turns on one shaft, and is under tow, she’s making maybe six. Maybe none if the engine damage is as bad as the CO told us. They’ve sent a big salvage tug to help with that. We’ve sent some P-3s to Midway to do antisubmarine patrols. If I were the other side, I’d try to finish them off.
Johnnie Reb
ought to be okay, but
Big-E
is a hell of a ripe target. CINCPAC is worried about that. We’re out of the power-projection business, Jack.”

“Guam?”

“All the Marianas are off the air, except for one thing.” Jackson explained about Oreza. “All he tells us is how bad things are.”

“Recommendations?”

“I have people looking at some ideas, but for starters we need to know if the President wants us to try. Will he?” Robby asked.

“Their ambassador will be here soon.”

“Good of him. You didn’t answer my question, Dr. Ryan.”

“I don’t know the answer yet.”

“There’s a confidence-builder.”

For Captain Bud Sanchez the experience was unique. It was not quite a miracle that he’d recovered the S-3 Viking without incident. The “Hoover” was a docile aircraft floating in, and there had been a whole twenty knots of wind over the deck. Now his entire air wing was back aboard, and his aircraft carrier was running away.

Running away. Not heading into harm’s way, the creed of the United States Navy, but limping back to Pearl. The five squadrons of fighters and attack aircraft on the deck of
John Stennis
just sat there, lined up in neat rows on the flight deck, all ready for combat operations but except in a really dire emergency unable to take off. It was a question of wind and weight. Carriers turned into the wind to launch and recover aircraft, and needed the most powerful engines placed aboard ships to give the greatest possible airflow over the bow. The moving air added to the takeoff impulse generated by the steam catapults to give lift to the aircraft flung into the air. Their ability to take off was directly governed by that airflow, and more significantly from a tactical point of view, the magnitude of the airflow governed the weight they could carry aloft—which meant fuel and weapons. As it was, he could get airplanes off, but without the gas needed to stay aloft long or to hunt across the ocean for targets, and without the weapons needed to engage those targets. He judged that he had the ability to use fighters to defend the fleet against an air threat out to a radius of perhaps a hundred miles. But there was no air threat, and though they knew the position of the retiring Japanese formations, he did not have the ability to reach them with his attack birds. But then, he didn’t have orders to allow him to do it anyway.

Night at sea is supposed to be a beautiful thing, but it was not so this time. The stars and gibbous moon reflected off the calm surface of the ocean, making everyone nervous. There was easily enough light to spot the ships, blackout or not. The only really active aircraft of his wing were the antisubmarine helicopters whose blinking anticollision lights sparkled mainly forward of the carriers, aided also by those of some of
Johnnie Reb’s
escorts. The only good news was that the slow fleet speed made for excellent performance by the sonar systems on the destroyers and frigates, whose large-aperture arrays were streamed out in their wakes. Not too many. The majority of the escorts had lingered behind with
Enterprise,
circling her in two layers like bodyguards for a chief of state, while one of their number, an Aegis cruiser, tried to help her along with a towing wire, increasing her speed of advance to a whole six and a half knots at the moment. Without a good storm over the bow,
Big-E
could not conduct flight operations at all.

Submarines, historically the greatest threat to carriers, might be out there. Pearl Harbor said that they had no contacts at all in the vicinity of the now-divided battle force, but that was an easy thing to say from a shore base. The sonar operators, urged by nervous officers to miss nothing, were instead finding things that weren’t there: eddies in the water, echoes of conversing fish, whatever. The nervous state of the formation was manifested by the way a frigate five miles out increased speed and turned sharply left, her sonar undoubtedly pinging away now, probably at nothing more than the excited imagination of a sonarman third-class who might or might not have heard a whale fart. Maybe two farts, Captain Sanchez thought. One of his own Seahawks was hovering low over the surface, dipping her sonar dome to do her own sniffing.
One thousand three hundred miles back to Pearl Harbor,
Sanchez thought. Twelve knots. That came to four and a half days. Every mile of it under the threat of submarine attack.

The other question was: what genius had thought that pulling back from the Western Pacific had been a good idea? Was the United States a global power or not? Projecting power around the world was important, wasn’t it? Certainly it
had
been, Sanchez thought, remembering his classes at the War College. Newport had been his last “tour” prior to undertaking the position of Commander, Air Wing. The U.S. Navy had been the balance of power over the entire world for two generations, able to intimidate merely by existing, merely by letting people see the pictures in their updated copies of
Jane’s Fighting Ships.
You could never know where those ships were. You could only count the empty berths in the great naval bases and wonder. Well, there wouldn’t be much wondering now. The two biggest graving docks at Pearl Harbor would be full for some time to come, and if the news of the Marianas was correct, America lacked the mobile firepower to take them back, even if Mike Dubro decided to act like Seventh Cavalry and race back home.

“Hello, Chris, thank you for coming.”

The Ambassador would arrive at the White House in only a few minutes. The timing was impossible, but whoever in Tokyo was making decisions had not troubled himself with Nagumo’s convenience, the embassy official knew. It was awkward for another reason as well. Ordinarily a city that took little note of foreigners, Washington would soon change, and now for the first time, Nagumo was gaijin.

“Seiji, what the hell happened out there?” Cook asked.

Both men belonged to the University Club, a plush establishment located next door to the Russian Embassy and, boasting one of the best gyms in town, a favored place for a good workout and a quick meal. A Japanese commercial business kept a suite of rooms there, and though they would not be able to use this rendezvous again, for the moment it did guarantee anonymity.

“What have they told you, Chris?”

“That one of your navy ships had a little accident. Jesus, Seiji, aren’t things bad enough without that sort of mistake? Weren’t the goddamned gas tanks bad enough?” Nagumo took a second before responding. In a way it was good news. The overall events were being kept somewhat secret, as he had predicted and the Ambassador had hoped. He was nervous now, though his demeanor didn’t show it.

“Chris, it was not an accident.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there was a battle of sorts. I mean that my country feels itself to be very threatened, and that we have taken certain defensive measures to protect ourselves.”

Cook just didn’t get it. Though he was part of the State Department’s Japan specialists, he’d not yet been called in for a full briefing and knew only what he’d caught on his car radio, which was thin enough. It was beyond Chris’s imagination, Nagumo saw, to consider that his country could be attacked. After all, the Soviets were gone, weren’t they? It was gratifying to Seiji Nagumo. Though appalled at the risks that his country was running and ignorant of the reasons for them, he was a patriot. He loved his country as much as any man. He was also part of its culture. He had orders and instructions. Within the confines of his own mind he could rage at them, but he’d decided, simply, that he was a soldier of his country, and that was that. And Cook was the real gaijin, not himself. He kept repeating it to himself.

“Chris, our countries are at war, after a fashion. You pushed us too far. Forgive me, I am not pleased by this, you must understand that.”

“Wait a minute.” Chris Cook shook his head as his face twisted into a very quizzical expression. “You mean war? Real war?”

Nagumo nodded slowly, and spoke in a reasonable, regretful tone. “We have occupied the Mariana Islands. Fortunately this was accomplished without loss of life. The brief encounter between our two navies may have been more serious, but not greatly so. Both sides are now withdrawing away from one another, which is a good thing.”

“You’ve killed our people?”

“Yes, I regret to say, some people may have lost their lives on both sides.” Nagumo paused and looked down as though unable to meet his friend’s eyes. He’d already seen there the emotions he’d expected. “Please, don’t blame me for this, Chris,” he went on quietly in a voice clearly under very tight control. “But these things have happened. I had no part in it. Nobody asked me for an opinion. You know what I would have said. You know what I would have counseled.” Every word was true and Cook knew it.

“Christ, Seiji, what can we do?” The question was a manifestation of his friendship and support, and as such, very predictable. Also predictably, it gave Nagumo the opening he’d expected and needed.

“We have to find a way to keep things under control. I do not want my country destroyed again. We have to stop this and stop it quickly.” Which was his country’s objective and therefore his own. “There is no room in the world for this ... this abomination. There are cooler heads in my country. Goto is a fool. There”—Nagumo threw up his hands—“I have said it. He is a fool. Do we allow our countries to do permanent damage to one another because of fools? What of your Congress, what of that Trent maniac with his Trade
Reform
Act. Look what his
reforms
have brought us to!” He was really into it now. Able to veil his inner feelings, like most diplomats, he was now discovering acting talents made all the more effective by the fact that he really believed in what he was saying. He looked up with tears in his eyes. “Chris, if people like us don’t get this thing under control—my God, then what? The work of generations, gone. Your country and mine, both badly hurt, people dead, progress thrown away, and for what? Because fools in my country and yours could not work out difficulties on
trade?
Christopher, you must help me stop this. You must!” Mercenary and traitor or not, Christopher Cook was a diplomat, and his professional creed was to eliminate war. He had to respond, and he did.

“But what can you really do?”

“Chris, you know that my position is really more senior than my post would indicate,” Nagumo pointed out. “How else could I have done the things for you to make our friendship what it is?”