Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 7-12 (66 page)

“Sir, then this ain’t no fuckin’ exercise. There are three car-carrier-type merchant ships tied alongside the dock up the coast from me. One of ’em’s named
Orchid Ace.
I have personally observed military-type vehicles, I think MLRS—Mike Lima Romeo Sierra—six of those sitting in the parking lot at the commercial dock area. Admiral, you check with the Coast Guard and pull my package. I did thirty years in CG blue. I ain’t dickin’ around, sir. Check for yourself, the phone lines to the rock are out. The story is supposedly that we had a big windstorm, took lines down and stuff. Ain’t been no windstorm, Admiral. 1 was out fishing all day, okay? Check with your weather pukes to confirm that one, too. There are Japanese troops on this island, wearing fatigue uniforms and under arms.”

“You got a count, Master Chief?”

The best confirmation of this insane tale, Robby thought, was the embarrassed tone of the answer to that question. “No, sir, sorry, I didn’t think to count the airplanes. I’d guess three to six arrivals per hour, over the last six hours at least, probably more, but that’s just a guess, sir. Wait... Kobler, one of the birds is moving, like to take off. It’s a 747, but I can’t make out the markings.”

“Wait. If the phones are out, how are you talking to me?” Oreza explained, giving Jackson a conventional number to call back on. “Okay, Master Chief. I’m going to do some checking here. I’ll be back to you in less than an hour. Fair enough?”

“Yes, sir, I figure we done our part.” The line went dead.

“Major!” Jackson shouted without looking up. When he did that, he saw the man was there.

“Sir, I know he sounded normal and all, but—”

“But call Andersen Air Force Base right now.”

“Roger.” The young pilot went back to his desk and flipped open his Autovon directory. Thirty seconds later he looked up and shook his head, a curious look on his face.

“Is someone telling me,” Jackson asked the ceiling, “that a U.S. Air Force base dropped off the net today and nobody
noticed?”

“Admiral, CINCPAC on your STU, sir, it’s coded as CRITIC traffic.” CRITIC was a classification of priority even higher than FLASH, and not a prefix often used, even by a Theater Commander in Chief.
What the hell,
Jackson thought.
Why not ask?

“Admiral Seaton, this is Robby Jackson. Are we at war, sir?”

His part in the exercise seemed easy enough, Zhang Han San thought. Just one flight to one place, to talk first with one person, then another, and it had gone even more easily than he’d expected.

Well, he shouldn’t have been surprised, he thought, returning to the airport in the back of the embassy car. Korea would be cut off, certainly for a period of months, and perhaps indefinitely. To do anything else would have carried with it great dangers for a country whose military had been downsized and whose next-door neighbor was the nation with the world’s largest standing army, and an historical enemy at that. Han hadn’t even been forced to bring up that unseemly thought. He’d simply delivered an observation. There seemed to be difficulties between America and Japan. Those difficulties did not pertain directly to the Republic of Korea. Nor would it appear that the Republic had any immediate ability to ameliorate those differences, except perhaps as an honest broker of influence when diplomatic negotiations were undertaken, at which time the good offices of the Republic of Korea would be most welcome indeed by all sides in the dispute, certainly by Japan.

He’d taken no particular pleasure at the discomfort his mild words had given to his hosts. There was much to admire in the Koreans, a fact lost on Japan in their blind racism, Zhang thought. With luck, he might firm up the trading relationship between the PRC and the ROK, and they, too, would profit from the ultimate objective—and why not? The ROKs had no reason to love the Russians, and even less to love the Japanese. They simply had to get over their regrettable friendship with America and become part of a new reality. It was sufficient to the moment that they had indeed seen things his way, and that America’s one remaining ally in this part of the world was off the playing field, their president and foreign minister having seen the light of reason. And with luck, the war, such as it was, might already be over for all intents and purposes.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” The voice came from the living room, where Mrs. Oreza had left the TV on. “In ten minutes there will be a special announcement. Please stay tuned.”

“Manni?”

“I heard it, honey.”

“You have a blank tape for your VCR?” Burroughs asked.

23

Catching Up

Robby Jackson’s day had started off badly enough. He’d had bad ones before, including a day as a lieutenant commander at Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, Maryland, in which a jet trainer had decided without any prompting at all to send him and his ejection seat flying through the canopy, breaking his leg in the process and taking him off flight status for months. He’d seen friends die in crashes of one sort or another, and even more often had participated in searches for men whom he’d rarely found alive, more often locating a slick of jet fuel and perhaps a little debris. As a squadron commander and later as a CAG, he’d been the one who’d written the letters to parents and wives, telling them that their man, and most recently, their little girl, had died in the service of their country, each time asking himself what he might have done differently to prevent the necessity of the exercise. The life of a naval aviator was filled with such days.

But this was worse, and the only consolation was that he was deputy J-3, responsible to develop operations and plans for his country’s military. Had he been part of J-2, the intelligence boys, his sense of failure would have been complete indeed.

“That’s it, sir, Yakota, Misawa, and Kadena are all off the net. Nobody’s picking up.”

“How many people?” Jackson asked.

“Total, about two thousand, mainly mechanics, radar controllers, loggies, that sort of thing. Maybe an airplane or two in transit, but not many of those. I have people checking now,” the Major replied. “How about the Navy?”

“We have people at Andersen on Guam, co-located with your base. The port, too, maybe a thousand people total. It’s a lot smaller than it used to be.” Jackson lifted his secure phone and punched in the numbers for CINCPAC. “Admiral Seaton? This is Jackson again. Anything else?”

“We can’t raise anybody west of Midway, Rob. It’s starting to look real.”

“How does this thing work?” Oreza asked.

“I hate to say this, but I’m not sure. I didn’t bother reading the manual,” Burroughs admitted. The sat-phone was sitting on the coffee table, its antenna extended through the drill hole in the bottom of the mixing bowl, which was in turn sitting atop two piles of books. “I’m not sure if it broadcasts its position to the satellites periodically or not.” For which reason they felt it necessary to maintain the comical arrangement.

“You turn mine off by putting the antenna back down,” Isabel Oreza observed, causing two male heads to turn. “Or you can just take the batteries out, right?”

“Damn.” Burroughs managed to say it first, but not by much. He lifted the bowl off, put the little antenna back in its hole, then flipped off the battery cover and withdrew the two AAs. The phone was now completely off. “Ma’am, if you want to get into the master’s program at Sanford, use me as a reference, okay?”

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Heads turned in the living room to see a smiling man in green fatigues. His English was letter-perfect. “I am General Tokikichi Arima of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces. Please allow me to explain what has happened today.

“First of all, let me assure you that there is no cause for alarm. There was an unfortunate shooting at the police substation adjacent to your parliament building, but the two police officers who were hurt in the exchange are both doing well in your local hospital. If you have heard rumors of violence or death, those rumors are not true,” the General assured the twenty-nine thousand citizens of Saipan.

“You probably want to know what has happened,” he went on. “Early today, forces under my command began arriving on Saipan and Guam. As you know from your history, and indeed as some of the older citizens on this island well remember, until 1944 the Mariana Islands were possessions of Japan. It may surprise some of you to know that since the court decision several years ago allowing Japanese citizens to purchase real estate in the islands, the majority of the land on Saipan and Guam is owned by my countrymen. You also know of our love and affection for these islands and the people who live here. We have invested billions of dollars here and created a renaissance in the local economy after years of shameful neglect by the American government. Therefore, we’re not really strangers at all, are we?

“You probably also know that there have been great difficulties between Japan and America. Those difficulties have forced my country to rethink our defense priorities. We have, therefore, decided to reestablish our ownership of the Mariana Islands as a purely defensive measure to safeguard our own shores against possible American action. In other words, it is necessary for us to maintain defense forces here and therefore to bring the Marianas back into our country.

“Now.” General Arima smiled. “What does this mean to you, the citizens of Saipan?

“Really, it means nothing at all. All businesses will remain open. We, too, believe in free enterprise. You will continue to manage your own affairs through your own elected officials, with the additional benefit that you will have status as Japan’s forty-eighth prefecture, with full parliamentary representation in the Diet. That is something you have not had as an American commonwealth—which is just another word for colony, isn’t it? You will have dual citizenship rights. We will respect your culture and your language. Your freedom to travel will not be impeded. Your freedoms of speech, press, religion, and assembly will be the same as those enjoyed by all Japanese citizens, and totally identical with the civil rights you now enjoy. In short, nothing is going to change in your daily life at all.” Another charming smile.

“The truth of the matter is that you will greatly benefit from this change in government. As part of Japan, you will be part of the world’s most vibrant and dynamic economy. Even more money will come to your island. You will see prosperity such as you have never dreamed of,” Arima assured his audience. “The only changes you will experience will be positive ones. On that you have my word and the word of my government.

“Perhaps you say that such words are easy to speak, and you are correct. Tomorrow you will see people on the streets and roads of Saipan, surveying, taking measurements, and interviewing local citizens. Our first important task will be to improve the roads and highways of your island, something neglected by the Americans. We want your advice on the best way to do this. In fact, we will welcome your help and participation in everything we do.

“Now,” Arima said, leaning forward somewhat, “I know that some among you will find these developments unwelcome, and I wish to apologize sincerely for that. We have no desire to harm anyone here, but you must understand that any attack upon one of my men or any Japanese citizen will be treated as a violation of the law. I am also responsible to take certain security measures to protect my troops and to bring this island into compliance with Japanese law.

“All firearms owned by private citizens on Saipan must be surrendered in the next few days. You may bring them into your local police stations. If you have a sales record for the guns, or if you can demonstrate their commercial value, we will pay you the fair cash value for them. Similarly, we must ask that any owners of ‘ham’ radios turn them over to us for a short period of time, and, please, not to use them until you do. Again, we will pay in cash the full value of your property, and in the case of the radios, when we return them to you, you may keep the money as a token of our thanks for your cooperation. Aside from that”—another smile—“you will hardly notice that we are here. My troops are under orders to treat everyone on this island as fellow citizens. If you experience or even see a single incident in which a Japanese soldier is impolite to a local citizen, I want you to come to my headquarters and report it. You see, our law applies to us, too.

“For the moment, please go about your normal lives.” A number came up on the screen. “If you have any specific questions, please call this number or feel free to come to my headquarters at your parliament building. We will be glad to help you in any way we can. Thank you for listening. Good night.”

“This message will be repeated every fifteen minutes on Channel Six, the public-access channel,” another voice said.

“Son of a bitch,” Oreza breathed.

“I wonder who their ad agency is,” Burroughs noted, going to punch the rewind button on the VCR.

“Can we believe it?” Isabel asked.

“Who knows? You have any guns?”

Portagee shook his head. “Nope. I don’t even know if this rock has a registration law. Have to be crazy to take on soldiers anyway, right?”

“It makes it a lot easier for them if they don’t have to watch their backs.” Burroughs started putting the batteries back in his sat-phone. “You have the number for that admiral?”

“Jackson.”

“Master Chief Oreza, sir. You got a tape machine running?”

“Yes, I do. What you got?”

“Well, sir, it’s official,” Oreza reported dryly. “They just made the announcement on TV. We taped it. I’m turning the tape on now. I’ll hold the phone right next to the speaker.”

General Tokikichi Arima,
Jackson wrote down on a pad. He handed it to an Army sergeant. “Have the intel boys identify this name.”

“Yessir.” The sergeant vanished in an instant.

“Major!” Robby called next.

“Yes, Admiral?”