Jack Ryan 8 - Debt of Honor (78 page)

“Northern Resource Area?” John asked, typing the question on the computer screen. Then he turned the machine on the coffee table.

    
I should have seen it sooner. It's in one of the books back at
Seoul
, mano.
Indonesia
, belonged to the Dutch back then, was the
Southern Resource Area when they kicked off Big Mistake No. 2. Can you imagine what the Northern one was?

Clark
just took one look and pushed the computer back Yevgeniy Pavlovich, go ahead and send it." Ding erased the dialog on the screen and hooked up the modem to the phone. The dispatch went out seconds later. Then the two officers traded a look. It had been a productive day after all.

The timing for once could scarcely have been better:
00:08
in
Tokyo
was
18:08
in
Moscow
and
10:08
both at
Langley
and in the White House, and Jack was just reentering his office after his time at the opposite corner of the West Wing when his STU-6 started warbling.

“Yeah.”

"Ed here. We just got something important from our people in
Japan
. The fax is coming over now. A copy's on the way to Sergey, too.

“Okay, standing by.” Ryan flipped the proper switch and heard the facsimile printer start to turn out its copy.

Winston wasn't all that easy a man to impress. The VC-20 version the Gulfstream-III business jet, he saw, was as nicely appointed as his personal aircraft—the seats and carpet were not as plush, but the communication gear was fabulous… even enough to make a real techno-weenie like Mark happy, he thought. The two older men took the chance to catch up on sleep while he observed the Air Force crewmen run through their pre-flight checklist. It really wasn't at all different from what his crewmen did, but Ryan had been right. It somehow made a difference to see military-type insignia on their shoulders. Three minutes later the executive jet was airborne and heading north for
New York
's La Guardia, with the added benefit that they already had a priority approach setup, which would save fifteen minutes at the top end of the trip. As he listened, the sergeant working the communications bay was arranging an FBI car to meet them at the general-aviation terminal, and evidently the Bureau was now calling everyone who mattered in the markets for a meeting at their own
New York
headquarters. How remarkable, he thought, to see the government acting in an efficient manner. What a pity they couldn't do that all the time.

Mark Gant was not paying attention to any of that. He was working on his computer, preparing what he called the case for the prosecution. He'd need about twenty minutes to get the exhibits printed up on acetate sheets for an overhead projector, something the FBI ought to be prepared for, they both hoped. From that point on… who would deliver the information? Probably me, Winston thought. He'd let Fiedler and the Fed Chairman propose the solution, and that was fair. After all, a government guy had come up with it.

Brilliant, George Winston told himself with an admiring chuckle. Why didn't I think of that? What else…?

“Mark, make a note. We'll want to fly the European central-bank boys over here to see this. I don't think doing it over a teleconference line will really cut it.”

Gant checked his watch. “We'll have to call right after we get in, George, but if we do the timing ought to work out okay. The evening flights into
New York
—yeah, they'll get in in the morning, and probably we can coordinate everything for a Friday restart.”

Winston looked aft. “We'll tell them when we get in. I think they need to catch some Z's for right now.”

Gant nodded agreement. “It's going to work, George. That Ryan guy is pretty smart, isn't he?”

Now was a time to take it slow, Jack told himself. He was almost surprised that his phone hadn't rung yet, but on reflection he realized that Golovko was reading the same report, was looking at the same map on his wall, and was also telling himself to think it through as slowly and carefully as circumstances allowed.

It was starting to make sense. Well, almost. “Northern Resource Area” had to mean
Eastern Siberia
. The term “Southern Resource Area,” as Chavez had stated in his report, had once been the term used by the Japanese government in 1941 to identify the
Dutch East Indies
, back when their prime strategic objective had been oil, then the principal resource needed for a navy and now the most important resource for any industrialized nation needing power to run its economy.
Japan
was the world's largest importer of oil despite an earnest effort to switch over to nuclear power for electricity. And
Japan
had to import so much else; only coal was in natural abundance. Supertankers were largely a Japanese invention, the more efficiently to move oil from the
Persian Gulf
fields to Japanese terminals. But they needed other things, too, and since she was an island nation, those commodities all had to come by sea, and
Japan
's navy was small, far too small to secure the sea-lanes.

On the other hand,
Eastern Siberia
was the world's last unsurveyed territory, and
Japan
was now conducting the survey, and the sea-lanes from the Eurasian mainland to Japan—Hell, why not just build a railroad tunnel and do it the easy way? Ryan asked himself.

Except for one thing.
Japan
was stretching her abilities in doing what she had already done, even with a gravely diminished American military and a five-thousand-mile buffer of Pacific waters between the American mainland and her own home islands.
Russia
's military machine was even more drastically reduced than
America
's, but an invasion was more than a political act. It was an act against a people, and the Russians had not lost their pride. The Russians would fight, and they were still far larger than
Japan
. The Japanese had nuclear weapons on ballistic launchers, and the Russians, like the Americans, did not—but the Russians did have submarines, and fighter-bombers, and cruise

missiles, all with nuclear capability, and bases close to
Japan
, and the political will to make use of them. There would have to be one more element. Jack leaned back, staring at his map. Then he lifted his phone and speed-dialed a direct line.

“Admiral Jackson.”

“Robby? Jack. I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“You said that one of our attachés in
Seoul
had a little talk with—”

“Yeah. They told him to sit tight and wait,”
Jackson
reported.

“What exactly did the Koreans say?”

“They said…wait a minute. It's only half a page, but I have it here. Stand by.” Jack heard a drawer open, probably a locked one. “Okay, paraphrasing, that sort of decision is political not military, many considerations to be looked at, concern that the Japanese could close their harbors to trade, concern about invasion, cut off from us, they're hedging. We haven't gone back to them yet,” Robby concluded.

“OrBat for their military?” Jack asked. He meant “order of battle,” essentially a roster of a nation's military assets.

“I have one around here.”

“Short version,” Ryan ordered.

“A little larger than
Japan
's. They've downsized since reunification, but what they retained is high-quality. Mainly
U.S.
weapons and doctrine. Their air force is pretty good. I've played with them and—”

“If you were an ROK general, how afraid would you be of
Japan
?”

“I'd be wary,” Admiral Jackson replied. “Not afraid, but wary. They don't like
Japan
very much, remember.”

“I know. Send me copies of that attaché report and the ROK OrBat.”

“Aye aye.” The line clicked off. Ryan called CIA next. Mary Pat still wasn't available, and her husband picked up. Ryan didn't bother with preliminaries.

“Ed, have you had any feedback from Station Seoul?”

“The ROKs seem very nervous. Not much cooperation. We've got a lot of friends in the KCIA, but they're clamming up on us, no political direction as yet.”

“Anything different going on over there?”

“Well, yes,” Ed Foley answered. “Their air force is getting a little more active. You know they have established a big training area up in the northern part of the country, and sure enough they're running some unscheduled combined-arms exercises. We have some overheads of it.”

“Next,
Beijing
,” Ryan said.

“A whole lot of nothing.
China
is staying out of this one. They say that they want no part of this, they have no interest in this. It doesn't concern them.”

“Think about that, Ed,” Jack ordered.

“Well, sure, it does concern them… oh…”

It wasn't quite fair and Ryan knew it. He now had fuller information than anyone else, and a huge head start on the analysis. “We just developed some information. I'll have it sent over as soon as it's typed up. I want you down here at two-thirty for a skull session.”

“We'll be there,” the almost-DDO promised.

And there it was, right on the map. You just needed the right information, and a little time.

Korea
was not a country to be intimidated by
Japan
. The latter country had ruled the former for almost fifty years earlier in the century, and the memories for Koreans were not happy ones. Treated as serfs by their conquerors, to this day there were few quicker ways to get dead than to refer to a Korean citizen as a Jap. The antipathy was real, and with the growing Korean economy and the competition to
Japan
that it made, the resentment was bilateral. Most fundamental of all was the racial element. Though
Korea
and
Japan
were in fact countries of the same genetic identity, the Japanese still regarded Koreans as Hitler had once regarded Poles. The Koreans, moreover, had their own warrior tradition. They'd sent two divisions of troops to
Vietnam
, had built a formidable military of their own to defend against the now—dead madmen to their north. Once a beaten-down colony of
Japan
, they were now tough, and very, very proud. So what, then, could have cowed them out of honoring treaty commitments to
America
?

Not Japan.
Korea
had little to fear from direct attack, and
Japan
could hardly use her nuclear weapons on
Korea
. Wind patterns would transport whatever fallout resulted right back to the country that had sent the weapons.

But immediately to
Korea
's north was the world's most populous country, with the world's largest standing army, and that was enough to frighten the ROKs, as it would frighten anyone.

Japan
needed and doubtless wanted direct access to natural resources. It had a superb and fully developed economic base, a highly skilled manpower pool, all manner of high-tech assets. But
Japan
had a relatively small population in proportion to her economic strength.

China
had a vast pool of people, but not as yet highly trained, a rapidly developing economy still somewhat lacking in high technology. And like
Japan
,
China
needed better access to resources.

And to the immediate north of both
China
and
Japan
was the world's last unexploited treasure house.

Taking the
Marianas
would prevent or at least hinder the approach of
America
's principal strategic arm, the U.S. Navy, from approaching the area of interest. The only other way to protect
Siberia
was from the west, through all of
Russia
. Meaning that the area was in fact cut off from outside assistance.
China
had her own nuclear capacity to deter
Russia
, and a larger land army to defend the conquest. It was a considerable gamble, to be sure, but with the American and European economies in a shambles, unable to help
Russia
, yes, it did all make good strategic sense. Global war on the installment plan.

The operational art, moreover, was not new in the least. First cripple the strong enemy, then gobble up the weak one. Exactly the same thing had been attempted in 1941-1942. The Japanese strategic concept had never been to conquer
America
, but to cripple the larger country so severely that acquiescence to her southern conquests would become a political necessity. Pretty simple stuff,

really, Ryan told himself. You just had to break the code. That's when the phone rang. It was his number-four line.

“Hello, Sergey,” Ryan said.

“How did you know?” Golovko demanded.

Jack might have answered that the line was set aside for the Russian's direct access, but didn't. “Because you just read the same thing I did.”

“Tell me what you think?”

“I think you are their objective, Sergey Nikolay'ch. Probably for next year.” Ryan's voice was light, still in the flush of discovery, which was always pleasant despite the nature of the new knowledge.

“Earlier. Autumn, I should imagine. The weather will work more in their favor that way.” Then came a lengthy pause. “Can you help us, Ivan Emmetovich? No, wrong question. Will you help us?”

“Alliances, like friendships, are always bilateral,” Jack pointed out. “You have a president to brief. So do I.”

32

Special Report

As an officer who had once hoped to command a ship like this one, Captain Sanchez was glad he'd chosen to remain aboard instead of flying his fighter off to the Naval Air Station at Barbers Point. Six gray tugboats had nudged USS John Stennis into the graving dock.

There were over a hundred professional engineers aboard, including fifty new arrivals from Newport News Shipbuilding, all of them below and looking at the power plant. Trucks were lined up on the perimeter of the graving dock, and with them hundreds of sailors and civilian yard employees, like doctors or EMTs, Bud imagined, ready to switch out body parts.

As Captain Sanchez watched, a crane lifted the first brow from its cradle, and another started turning, to lift what looked like a construction trailer, probably to rest on the flight deck. The gate on the dock wasn't even closed yet. Somebody, he saw, was in a hurry.

“Captain Sanchez?”

Bud turned to see a Marine corporal. He handed over a message form after saluting. “You're wanted at CINCPACFLT Operations, sir.”