The question was surprisingly gentle. "Have you been speaking with Americans?"

Kimura shook his head. "No."

The day usually started at six, but that didn't make it easy, Jack thought. Paul Robberton had gotten the papers and started the coffee, Andrea Price turned to also, helping Cathy with the kids. Ryan wondered about that until he saw an additional car parked in the driveway. So the Secret Service thought it was a war. His next step was to call the office, and a minute later his STU-6 started printing the morning faxes. The first item was unclassified but important. The Europeans were trying to dump U.S. T-Bills, and nobody was buying them, still. One such day could be seen as an aberration. Not a second one. Buzz Fiedler and the Fed Chairman would be busy again, and the trader in Ryan worried. It was like the Dutch kid with his thumb in the dike. What happened when he spotted another leak? And even if he could reach it, what about the third?

News from the Pacific was unchanged, but getting more texture. John Stennis would make Pearl Harbor early, but Enterprise was going to take longer than expected. No evidence of Japanese pursuit. Good. The nuke hunt was under way, but without results, which wasn't surprising. Ryan had never been to Japan, a failing he regretted. His only current knowledge was from overhead photographs. In winter months when the skies over the country were unusually clear, the National Reconnaissance Office had actually used the country (and others) to calibrate its orbiting cameras, and he remembered the elegance of the formal gardens. His other knowledge of the country was from the historical record. But how valid was that knowledge now? History and economics made strange bedfellows, didn't they?

The usual kisses sent Cathy and the kids on their way, and soon enough Jack was in his official car for Washington. The sole consolation was that it was shorter than the former trip to Langley.

"You should be rested, at least," Robberton observed. He would never have talked so much to a political appointee, but somehow he felt far more at case with this guy. There was no pomposity in Ryan.

"I suppose. The problems are still there."

"Wall Street still number one?"

"Yeah." Ryan looked at the passing countryside after locking the classified documents away. "I'm just starting to realize, this could take the whole world down. The Europeans are trying to sell off their treasuries. Nobody's buying. The market panic might be starting there today. Our liquidity is locked up, and a lot of theirs is in our T-Bills."

"Liquidity means cash, right?" Robberton changed lanes and speeded up. His license plate told the state cops to leave him alone.

"Correct. Nice thing, cash. Good thing to have when you get nervous and not being able to get it, that makes people nervous."

"You like talking 1929, Dr. Ryan? I mean, that bad?"