Debt of Honor - Tom Clancy [298]
Yamata judged that Japan would bend some efforts to help Europe out of her predicament. His country needed markets alter all, and with this sudden increase in Japanese ownership of their private companies, perhaps now the European politicians would listen more attentively to their suggestions. Not certain, he thought, but possible. What they would definitely listen to was power. Japan was facing down America. America would never be able to confront his country, not with her economy in turmoil, her military defanged, and her President politically crippled. And it was an election year as well. The finest strategy, Yamata thought, was to sow discord in the house of your enemy. That he had done, taking the one action that had simply not occurred to the bonehead military people who'd led his country down the path of ruin in 1941.
"So," he said to his host. "How may I be of service?"
"Yamata-san, as you know, we will be holding elections for a local governor." The bureaucrat poured a stiff shot of a fine Scotch whiskey. "You are a landowner, and have been so for some months. You have business interests here. I suggest that you might be a perfect man for the job."
For the first time in years, Raizo Yamata was startled.
In another room in the same hotel an admiral, a major, and a captain of Japan Air Lines held a family reunion.
"So, Yusuo, what will happen next?" Torajiro asked.
"What I think will happen next is that you will return to your normal flight schedule back and forth to America," the Admiral said, finishing his third drink. "If they are as intelligent as I believe them to be, then they will see that the war is already over."
"How long have you been in on this, Uncle?" Shiro inquired with deep respect. Having now learned of what his uncle had done, he was awed by the man's audacity.
"From when I was a nisa, supervising construction of my first command in Yamata-san's yards. What is it? Ten years now. He came down to see me, and we had dinner and he asked some theoretical questions. Yamata learns quickly for a civilian," the Admiral opined. "I tell you, I think there is much
more to this than meets the eye."
"How so?" Torajiro asked.
Yusuo poured himself another shot. His fleet was safe, and he was entitled to unwind, he thought, especially with his brother and nephew, now that all the stress was behind him. "We've spoken more and more in the past few years, but most of all right before he bought that American financial house. And so, now? My little operation happens the same day that their stock market crashes…? An interesting coincidence, is it not?" His eyes twinkled.
"One of my first lessons to him, all those years ago. In 1941 we attacked America's periphery. We attacked the arms but not the head or the heart. A nation can grow new arms, but a heart, or a head, that's far harder. I suppose he listened."
"I've flown over the head part many times," Captain Torajiro Sato noted. One of his two normal runs was to Dulles International Airport. "A squalid city."
"And you shall do so again. If Yamata did what I think, they will need us again, and soon enough," Admiral Sato said confidently.
"Go ahead, let him through," Ryan said over the phone.
"But—"
"But if it makes you feel better, pop it open and look, but if he says not to X-ray it, don't, okay?"
"But we were told just to expect one, and there's two."
"It's okay," Jack told the head uniformed guard at the west entrance. The problem with increased security alerts was that they mainly kept you from getting the work done that was necessary to resolve the crisis. "Send them both up." It took another four minutes by Jack's watch. They probably did