Debt of Honor - Tom Clancy [230]
"You really want more like her?" Nomuri asked, eyes closed.
"Oh, yes. Fucking Americans will soon be our national sport." Taoka chuckled. "We had a fine time of it the past two days. And I was there to see it all happen," his voice concluded in awe. It had all paid off. Twenty years of toeing the line had brought its reward, to have been there in the War Room, listening to it all, following it all, seeing history written before his eyes. The salaryman had made his mark, and most importantly of all, he'd been noticed. By Yamata-san himself.
"So what great deeds have happened while I was performing my own, eh?" Nomuri asked, opening his eyes and giving off a leering smile.
"We just went to war with America, and we've won!" Taoka proclaimed.
"War? Nan ja? We accomplished a takeover of General Motors, did we?"
"A real war, my friend. We crippled their Pacific Fleet and the Marianas Islands are Japanese again."
"My friend, you cannot tolerate too much alcohol," Nomuri thought, really believing what he'd just said to the blowhard.
"I have not had a drink in four days!" Taoka protested. "What I told you is true!"
"Kazuo," Chet said patiently as though to a bright child, "You tell stories with a skill and style better than any man I have ever mot. Your descriptions of women make my loins swell as though I were there myself." Nomuri smiled. "But you exaggerate."
"Not this time, my friend, truly," Taoka said, really wanting his friend to believe him, and so he started giving details.
Nomuri had no real military training. Most of his knowledge of such affairs came from reading books and watching movies. His instructions for operating in Japan had nothing to do with gathering information on the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, but rather with trade and foreign-affairs matters. But Kazuo Taoka was a fine storyteller, with a keen eye for detail, and it took only three minutes before Nomuri had to close his eyes again, a smile fixed on his lips. Both actions were the result of his training in Yorktown, Virginia, as was that of his memory, which struggled now to record every single word while another part of his consciousness wondered how the hell he was going to get the information out. His other reaction was one that Taoka could neither see nor hear, a quintessential Americanism, spoken within the confines of the CIA officer's mind: You motherfuckers!
"Okay, JUMPER is up and pretty much put together," Helen d'Agustino said. "JASMINE"—the code name for Anne Durling—"will be in another cabin. SecState and SecTreas are up and having their coffee. Arnie van Damm is probably in better shape than anybody aboard. Showtime. How about the fighters?"
"They'll join up in about twenty minutes. We went with the F-15's out of Otis. Better range, they'll follow us all the way down. I'm really being paranoid on that, ain't I?"
Daga's eyes gave off a coldly professional smile. "You know what I've always liked about you, Dr. Ryan?"
"What's that?"
"I don't have to explain security to you like I do with everybody else. You think just like I do." It was a lot for a Secret Service agent to say. "The President is waiting, sir." She led him down the stairs.
Ryan bumped into his wife on the way forward. Pretty as ever, she was not suffering from the previous night despite her husband's warning, and on seeing Jack she almost made a joke that it was he who'd had the problem. "What's the matter?"
"Business, Cathy."
"Bad?"
Her husband just nodded and went forward, past a Secret Service agent and an armed Air Force security policeman. The two convertible couches had been made up. President Durling was sitting down in suit pants and white shirt. His tie and jacket were not in evidence at this time. A silver pot of coffee was on the low table. Ryan could see out the windows on both sides of the nose cabin. They were flying a thousand feet or so above fleecy cumulus clouds.
"I hear you've been up all night, Jack," Durling said.
"Since before Iceland, whenever that was, Mr. President," Ryan told him. He hadn't washed, hadn't shaved, and