Debt of Honor - Tom Clancy [353]
"Nobody's that invisible, sir," Lieutenant Shaw observed.
"Bring her back to base course. We'll try it again at fifteen knots." To the sonar chief: "Put a good man on the tapes. So let's find that rattle all, shall we?" Ten minutes later Tennessee commenced another self-noise check.
"It's all going to be done in the saddle, Jack. As I read this, time works for them, not for us." It wasn't that Admiral Jackson liked it. There didn't appear to he another way, and this war would be come-as-you-are and make up your own rules as you went along.
"You may be right on the political side. They want to stage the elections soon, and they seem awfully confident—"
"Haven't you heard? They're flying civilians in hand over fist," Jackson told him. "Why do that? I think they're all going to become instant residents, and they're all going to vote Ja on the Anschluss. Our friends with the phone can see the airport. The inbound flights have slacked off some, but look at the numbers. Probably fifteen thousand troops on the island. They can all vote. Toss in the Japanese tourists already there, and those who've flown in, and that's all she wrote, boy."
The National Security Advisor winced. "That is simple, isn't it?"
"I remember when the Voting Rights Act got passed. It made a big difference in Mississippi when I was a kid. Don't you just love how people can use law to their benefit?"
"It sure is a civilized war, isn't it?" Nobody ever said they were stupid, Jack told himself. The results of the election would be bogus, but all they really had to do was muddle things. The use of force required a clear cause. So negotiations were part of the strategy of delay. The other side was still determining the rules of the game. America did not yet have a strategy of action.
"That's what we need to change."
"How?"
Jackson handed over a folder. "Here's the information I need."
Mutsu had satellite communications, which included video that could be uplinked from fleet headquarters at Yokohama. It was a pretty sight, really, Admiral Sato thought, and so good of CNN to give it to him. Enterprise with three propellers wrecked, and the fourth visibly damaged. John Stennis with two already removed, a third clearly beyond repair; the fourth, unfortunately, seemed to be intact. What was not visible was internal damage. As he watched, one of the huge manganese-bronze propellers was removed from the latter ship, and another crane maneuvered in, probably, the destroyer's engineering officer observed, to withdraw part of the starboard outboard shaft.
"Five months," he said aloud, then heard the reporter's estimate of six, pleasantly the opinion of some unnamed yard worker.
"That's what headquarters thinks."
"They can't defeat us with destroyers and cruisers," Mutsu's captain observed. "But will they pull their two carriers out of the Indian Ocean?"
"Not if our friends continue to press them. Besides," Sato went on quietly, "two carriers are not enough, not against a hundred fighters on Guam and Saipan…more if I request it, as I probably will. It's really a political exercise now."
"And their submarines?" the destroyer's CO wondered, very nervous.
"So why can't we?" Jones asked.
"Unrestricted warfare is out," SubPac said.
"It worked before."
"They didn't have nuclear weapons before," Captain Chambers said.
"Oh." There was that, Jones admitted to himself. "Do we have a plan yet?"
"For the moment, keeping them away from us," Mancuso said. It wasn't exactly a mission to thrill Chester Nimitz, but you had to start somewhere. "What do you have for me?"
"I've gotten a couple of hits on snorting subs east of the islands. Nothing good enough to initiate a hunt, but I don't suppose we're sending P-3's in there anyway. The SOSUS troops are up to speed, though. Nothing's going to slip past us." He paused.