"The Air Force has air-launched cruise missiles in the stockpile. They would be carried in by B-1 bombers. We also have the option of rearming Tomahawk cruise missiles with W-80 warheads as well for launch by submarines or surface ships. The Russians know that we may exercise that option, and they will not object so long as we keep it quiet."

"That's an escalation," Cook warned. "We want to be careful about that."

"What about their SS-19's?" the second NIO inquired delicately.

"They think they need them. It will not be easy to talk them out of 'em." Cook looked around the table. "We have nuked their country, remember. It's a very sensitive subject, and we're dealing with people motivated by paranoia. I recommend caution on that issue."

"Noted," Ryan said as he stood. "You know what I want, people, get to work." It felt a little good to be able to give an order like that, but less so to have to do it, and less still in anticipation of the answers he would receive for his questions. But you had to start somewhere.

"Another hard day?" Nomuri asked.

"I thought with Yamata gone it would get easier," Kazuo said. He shook his head, leaning back against the fine wood rim of the tub. "I was wrong."

The others nodded curt agreement at their friend's observation, and they all missed Taoka's sexual stories now. They needed the distraction, but only Nomuri knew why they had ended.

"So what is going on? Now Goto says that we need America. Last week they were our enemies, and now we are friendly again? This is very confusing for a simple person like me," Chet said, rubbing his closed eyes, and wondering what the bait would draw. Developing his rapport with these men had not been easy because they and he were so different, and it was to be expected that he would envy them, and they him. He was an entrepreneur, they thought, who ran his own business, and they the senior salarymen of major corporations. They had security. He had independence. They were expected to be overworked. He marched to his own drum. They had more money. He had less stress. And now they had knowledge, and he did not.

"We have confronted America," one of their number said.

"So I gather. Isn't that highly dangerous?"

"In the short term, yes," Taoka said, letting the blisteringly hot water soothe his stress-knotted muscles. "Though I think we have already won."

"But won what, my friend? I feel I have started watching a mystery in the middle of the show, and all I know is that there's a pretty, mysterious girl on the train to Osaka." He referred to a dramatic convention in Japan, mysteries based on how efficiently the nation's trains ran.

"Well, as my boss tells it," another senior aide decided to explain, "it means true independence for our country."