Jack Ryan 8 - Debt of Honor (15 page)

It wasn't their fault. It was just a matter of objective conditions. With four times the population of the
United States
, and only one third the living space, they had to do something, The people needed jobs, products, a chance to have what everyone else in the world wanted. They could see it on the television sets that seemed to exist even in places where there were no jobs, and, seeing it, demanded a chance to have it. It was that simple. You couldn't say “no” to nine hundred million people.

Certainly not if you were one of them. Vice Admiral V. K. Chandraskatta sat on his leather chair on the flag bridge of the carrier Viraat. His obligation, as expressed in his oath of office, was to carry out the orders of his government, but more than that, his duty was to his people. He had to look no further than his own flag bridge to see that: staff officers and ratings, especially the latter, the best his country could produce. They were mainly signalmen and yeomen who'd left whatever life they'd had on the subcontinent to take on this new one, and tried hard to be good at it, because as meager as the pay was, it was preferable to the economic chances they took in a country whose unemployment rate hovered between 20 and 25 percent. Just for his country to be self-sufficient in food had taken—how long? Twenty-five years. And that had come only as charity of sorts, the result of Western agroscience whose success still grated on many minds, as though his country, ancient and learned, couldn't make its own destiny. Even successful charity could be a burden on the national soul.

And now what? His country's economy was bouncing back, finally, but it was also hitting limits.
India
needed additional resources, but most of all needed space, of which there was little to he had. To his country's north was the world's most forbidding mountain range. East was
Bangladesh
, which had even more problems than
India
did. West was
Pakistan
, also overcrowded, and an ancient religious enemy, war with whom could well have the unwanted effect of cutting off his country's oil supply to the Muslim states of the
Persian Gulf
.

Such bad luck, the Admiral thought, picking up his glasses and surveying his fleet because he had nothing else to do at the moment. If they did nothing, the best his country might hope for was something little better than stagnation. If they turned outward, actively seeking room…But the “new world order” said that his country could not.
India
was denied entry into the race to greatness by those very nations that had run the race and then shut it down lest others catch up.

The proof was right here. His navy was one of the world's most powerful, built and manned and trained at ruinous expense, sailing on one of the world's seven oceans, the only one named for a country, and even here it was second-best, subordinate to a fraction of the United States Navy. That grated even more.
America
was the one telling his country what it could and could not do.
America
, with a history of—what?—scarcely two hundred years. Upstarts. Had they fought Alexander of Macedon or the great Khan? The European “discovery” voyages had been aimed at reaching his country, and that land mass discovered by accident was now denying greatness and power and justice to the Admiral's ancient land. It was, all in all, a lot to hide behind a face of professional detachment while the rest of his flag staff bustled about.

“Radar contact, bearing one-three-five, range two hundred kilometers,” a talker announced. “Inbound course, speed five hundred knots.”

The Admiral turned to his fleet-operations officer and nodded. Captain Mehta lifted a phone and spoke. His fleet was off the normal commercial sea and air routes, and the timing told him what the inbound track would be. Four American fighters, F-18E Hornet attack fighters off one of the American carriers to his southeast. Every day they came, morning and afternoon, and sometimes in the middle of the night to show that they could do that, too, to let him know that the Americans knew his location, and to remind him that he didn't, couldn't know theirs.

A moment later he heard the start-up noise from two of his Harriers. Good aircraft, expensive aircraft, but not a match for the inbound Americans. He'd put four up today, two from Viraat and two from Vikrant, to intercept the four, probably four, American Hornets, and the pilots would wave and nod in a show of good humor, but it would be a bilateral lie.

“We could light off our SAM systems, show them that we tire of this game,” Captain Mehta suggested quietly. The Admiral shook his head.

“No. They know little about our SAM systems, and we will volunteer them nothing.” The Indians' precise radar frequencies, pulse width, and repetition rates were not open information, and the American intelligence services had probably never troubled itself to find them out. That meant that the Americans might not be able to jam or spoof his systems—probably they could, but they wouldn't be certain of it, and it was the lack of certainty that would worry them. It wasn't much of a card, but it was the best in Chandraskatta's current hand. The Admiral sipped at his tea, making a show of his imperturbable nature.“No, we will take notice of their approach, meet them in a friendly manner, and let them go on their way.”

Mehta nodded and went off without a word to express his building rage. It was to be expected. He was the fleet-operations officer, and his was the task of divining a plan to defeat the American fleet, should that necessity present itself. That such a task was virtually impossible did not relieve Mehta of the duty to carry it out, and it was hardly surprising that the man was showing the strain of his position. Chandraskatta set his cup down, watching the Harriers leap off the ski-jump deck and into the air.

“How are the pilots bearing up?” the Admiral asked his air officer.

“They grow frustrated, but performance thus far is excellent.” The answer was delivered with pride, as well it might be. His pilots were superb. The Admiral ate with them often, drawing courage from the proud faces in the ready rooms. They were fine young men, the equal, man for man, of any fighter pilots in all the world. More to the point, they were eager to show it.

But the entire Indian Navy had only forty-three Harrier FRS 51 fighters. He had but thirty at sea on both Viraat and Vikrant, and that did not equal the numbers or capability aboard a single American carrier. All because they had entered the race first, won it, and then declared the games closed, Chandraskatta told himself, listening to the chatter of his airmen over an open-voice channel. It simply wasn't fair.

“So, what are you telling me?” Jack asked.

“It was a scam,” Robby answered. “Those birds were maintenance-intensive. Guess what? The maintenance hasn't been done in the past couple of years. Andy Malcolm called in on his satellite brick this evening. There was water at the bottom of the hole he looked at today.”

“And?”

“I keep forgetting you're a city boy.” Robby grinned sheepishly, or rather like the wolf under a fleece coat. “You make a hole in the ground, sooner or later it fills with water, okay? If you have something valuable in the hole, you better keep it pumped out. Water in the bottom of the silo means that they weren't always doing that. It means water vapor, humidity in the hole. And corrosion.”

The light bulb went off. “You telling me the birds—”

“Probably wouldn't fly even if they wanted them to. Corrosion is like that. Probably dead birds, because fixing them once they're broke is a very iffy proposition. Anyway”—
Jackson
tossed the thin file folder at Ryan's desk—“that's the J-3 assessment.”

“What about J-2?” Jack asked, referring to the intelligence directorate of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“They never believed it, but I expect they will now if we open enough holes and see the same thing. Me?” Admiral Jackson shrugged. “I figure if Ivan let us see it in number one, we'll find pretty much the same thing everywhere else. They just don't give a good fuck anymore.”

Intelligence information comes from many sources, and an “operator” like
Jackson
was often the best source of all. Unlike intelligence officers whose job it was to evaluate the capabilities of the other side, almost always in a theoretical sense,
Jackson
was a man whose interest in weapons was making them work, and he'd learned from hard experience that using them was far more demanding than looking at them.

“Remember when we thought they were ten feet tall?”

“I never did, but a little bastard with a gun can still ruin your whole day,” Robby reminded his friend. “So how much money have they hustled out of us?”

“Five big ones.”

“Good deal, our federal tax money at work. We just paid the Russkies five thousand million dollars to 'deactivate' missiles that couldn't leave the silos unless they set the nukes off first. Fabulous call, Dr. Ryan.”

“They need the money, Rob.”

“So do I, man. Hey, boy, I'm scratching the bottom to get enough JP to keep our planes in the air.” It was not often understood that every ship in the fleet and every battalion of tanks in the Army had to live on a budget. Though the commanding officers didn't keep a checkbook per se, each drew on a fixed supply of consumable stores—fuel, weapons, spare parts, even food in the case of warships—that had to last a whole year. It was by no means unknown for a man-of-war to sit several weeks alongside her pier at the end of the fiscal year because there was nothing left to make her run. Such an event meant that somewhere a job was not getting done, a crew was not being trained. The Pentagon was fairly unique as a federal agency, in that it was expected to live on a fixed, often diminishing budget.

“How much thinner do you expect us to be spread?”

“I tell him, Rob, okay? The Chairman—”

“Just between you and me, the Chairman thinks operations are something that surgeons do in hospitals. And if you quote me on that, no more golf lessons.”

“What is it worth to have the Russians out of the game?” Jack asked, wondering if Robby would calm down a little.

“Not as much as we've lost in cuts. In case you haven't noticed, my Navy is still stretched from hell to breakfast, and we're doing business with forty percent less ships. The ocean didn't get any smaller, okay? The Army's better off, I grant that, but the Air Force isn't, and the Marines are still sucking hind tit, and they're still our primary response team for the next time the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom fuck up.”

“Preaching to the choir, Rob.”

“More to it than just that, Jack. We're stretching the people, too. The fewer the ships, the longer they have to stay out. The longer they stay out, the worse the maintenance bills. It's like the bad old days in the late seventies. We're starting to lose people. Hard to make a man stay away from his wife and kids that long. In flying, we call it the coffin corner. When you lose experienced people, your training bills go up. You lose combat effectiveness no matter which way you go,” Robby went on, talking like an admiral now.

“Look, Rob, I gave the same speech a while back on the other side of the building. I'm doing my best for you,” Jack replied, talking like a senior government official. At that point both old friends shared a look.

“We're both old farts.”

“It's a long time since we were on the faculty of Canoe U,” Ryan allowed. His voice went on almost in a whisper. “Me teaching history, and you prostrating yourself to God every night to heal your leg.”

“I should've done more of that. Arthritis in the knee,” Robby said. “I have a flight physical in nine months. Guess what?”

“Down-check?”

“The big one.”
Jackson
nodded matter-of-factly. Ryan knew what it really meant. To a man who'd flown fighter planes off carriers for over twenty years, it was the hard realization that age had come. He couldn't play with the boys anymore. You could explain away gray in the hair by citing adverse genes, but a down-check would mean taking off the flight suit, hanging up the helmet, and admitting that he was no longer good enough to do the one thing he'd yearned for since the age of ten, and at which he'd excelled for nearly all of his adult life. The bitterest part would be the memories of the things he'd said as a lieutenant, j.g., about the older pilots of his youth, the hidden smirks, the knowing looks shared with his fellow youngsters, none of whom had ever expected it would come to them.

“Rob, a lot of good guys never get the chance to screen for command of a squadron. They take the twenty-year out at commander's rank and end up flying the night shift for Federal Express.”

“And make good money at it, too.”

“Have you picked out the casket yet?” That broke the mood.
Jackson
looked up and grinned.

“Shit. If I can't dance, I can still watch. I'm telling you, pal, you want us to run all these pretty operations we plan in my cubicle, we need help from this side of the river. Mike Dubro is doing a great job hanging paper with one hand, but he and his troops have limits, y'dig?”

“Well, Admiral, I promise you this: when the time comes for you to get your battle group, there will be one for you to drive.” It wasn't much of a pledge, but both men knew it was the best he could offer.

She was number five. The remarkable part was—hell,
Murray
thought in the office six blocks from the White House, it was all remarkable. It was the profile of the investigation that was the most disquieting. He and his team had interviewed several women who had admitted, some shamefacedly, some without overt emotional involvement, and some with pride and humor, at having bedded Ed Kealty, but there were five for whom the act had not been entirely voluntary. With this woman, the latest, drugs had been an additional factor, and she felt the lonely personal shame, the sense that she alone had fallen into the trap.

“So?” Bill Shaw asked after what had been a long day for him, too.

“So it's a solid case. We now have five known victims, four of whom are living. Two would stand up as rapes in any courtroom I've ever been in. That does not count Lisa Beringer. The other two demonstrate the use of drugs on federal property. Those two are virtually word-for-word, they identify the label on the brandy bottle, the effects, everything.”