Debt of Honor - Tom Clancy [250]
Oreza wished for a cigarette for the first time in years. They were good for staying alert. You just needed them at a time like this. They were what a warrior used—at least that's what the World War II movies proclaimed. But this wasn't World War II, and he wasn't a warrior. For all he'd done in his over thirty years in the United States Coast Guard, he'd never fired a shot in anger, even on his one Vietnam tour. Someone else had always been on the gun. He didn't know how to fight.
"Up all night?" Isabel asked, dressed for her job. It was Monday on this tide of the International Dateline, and a workday. She looked down and saw that the pad of note paper usually kept next to the phone was covered with scribbles and numbers. "Does it matter?"
"I don't know, Izz."
"Want some breakfast?"
"It can't hurt," Pete Burroughs said, stretching as he came into the kitchen. "I think I conked out around three." A moment's consideration. "I feel like…hell," he said, in deference to the lady in the room.
"Well, I have to be at my desk in an hour or so," Mrs. Oreza observed, pulling open the refrigerator. Breakfast in this house consisted of a selection of cold cereals and skim milk, Burroughs saw, along with toast made of the bread baked from straw. Toss in a little fruit, he thought, and he could have been back in San Jose. The coffee he could already smell. He found a cup and poured some.
"Somebody really knows how to do this right."
"It's Manni," Isabel said.
Oreza smiled for the first time in hours. "I learned it from my first chief. The right blend, the right proportions, and a pinch of salt."
Probably in the dark of the moon and after sacrificing a goat, Burroughs thought. If so, however, the goat had died for a noble cause. He took a long sip and came over to check Oreza's tally sheet.
"That many?"
"Could be conservative. It's two flying hours from here to Japan. That's four on the round-trip. Let's be generous and say ninety minutes on the ground at each end. Seven-hour cycle. Three and a half trips per airplane per day. Each flight about three hundred, maybe three-fifty soldiers per hop. That means every plane brings in a thousand men. Fifteen airplanes operating over one day, that means a whole division of troops. You suppose the Japs have more than fifteen 747's?" Portagee asked. "Like I said, conservative. Now it's just a matter of bringing their mobile equipment in."
"How many ships for that?"
Another frown. "Not sure. During the Persian Gulf War—I was over there then doing port-security work…damn. Depends on what ships you use and how you pack them. I'll be conservative again. Twenty large merchant hulls just to ferry in the gear. Trucks, jeeps, all kinds of stuff you'd never think of. It's like moving a cityful of people. They need to resupply fuel. This rock doesn't grow enough food; that has to come in by ship, too, and the population of this place just doubled. The water supply might be stretched." Oreza looked down and made a notation on that. "Anyway, they came to stay. That's for damned sure," he said, heading for the table and his Special K, wishing for three eggs up, bacon, white-bread toast with butter, hash-browns, and all the cholesterol that went with it. Damn turning fifty!
"What about me?" the engineer asked."I seen you pass for a local. I sure as hell can't."
"Pete, you're my charter, and I'm the captain, okay? I am responsible for your safety. That's the law of the sea, sir."
"We're not at sea anymore," Burroughs pointed