Debt of Honor - Tom Clancy [294]
The crew was up now, and still a little puzzled and angry. They were up because they knew they'd make Pearl early, and were no doubt relieved that whatever danger they feared was diminishing. They were puzzled because they didn't understand what was going on. They were angry because their ship had been injured, and by now they had to know that two submarines had been lost, and though the powers-that-were had worked to conceal the nature of the losses, ships do not keep secrets well. Radiomen took them down, and yeomen delivered them, and stewards overheard what officers said. Johnnnie Reb had nearly six thousand people aboard, and the facts, as reported, sometimes got lost amid the rumors, but sooner or later the truth got out. The result would be predictable: rage. It was part of the profession of arms. However much the carrier sailors might disparage the bubbleheads on the beach, however great the rivalry, they were brothers (and, now, sisters), comrades to whom loyalty was owed.
But owed how? What would their orders be? Repeated inquiries to CINC-PAC had gone unanswered. Mike Dubro's Carrier Group Three had not been ordered to make a speed-run back to WestPac, and that made no sense at all. Was this a war or not? Sanchez asked the sunset.
"So how did you learn this?" Mogataru Koga asked. Unusually, the former prime minister was dressed in a traditional kimono, now that he was a man of leisure for the first time in thirty years. But he'd taken the call and extended the invitation quickly enough, and listened with intense silence for ten minutes.
Kimura looked down. "I have many contacts, Koga-san. In my post I must."
"As do I. Why have I not been told?"
"Even within the government, the knowledge has been closely held."
"You are not telling me everything." Kimura wondered how Koga could know that, without realizing that a look in the mirror would suffice. All afternoon at his desk, pretending to work, he'd just looked down at the papers in front of him, and now he could not remember a single document. Just the questions. What to do? Whom to tell? Where to go for guidance?
"I have sources of information that I may not reveal, Koga-san." For the moment his host accepted that with a nod. "So you tell me that we have attacked America, and that we have constructed nuclear weapons?"
A nod. "Hai."
"I knew Goto was a fool, but I didn't think him a madman." Koga considered his own words for a moment. "No, he lacks the imagination to be a madman. He's always been Yamata's dog, hasn't he?"
"Raizo Yamata has always been his…his—"
"Patron?" Koga asked caustically. "That's the polite term for it." Then he snorted and looked away, and his anger now had a new target. Exactly what you tried to stop. But you failed to do it, didn't you?
"Koga often seeks his counsel, yes."
"So. Now what?" he asked a man clearly out of his depth. The answer was entirely predictable.
"I do not know. This matter is beyond me. I am a bureaucrat. I do not make policy. I am afraid for us now, and I don't know what to do."
Koga managed an ironic smile and poured some more tea for his guest.
"You could well say the same of me, Kimura-san. But you still have not answered a question for me. I, too, have contacts remaining. I knew of the actions taken against the American Navy last week, after they happened. But I have not heard about the nuclear weapons." Just speaking those two words gave the room a chill for both men, and Kimura marveled that the politician could continue to speak evenly.
"Our ambassador in Washington