Yeah, you might say that. But Koga was also a politician on the outside, and perhaps willing to trade the lives of some foreigners for an open door back into the government; or just a man who placed country ahead of personal gain—which possibility might cut in just about any direction Clark could imagine.

"Before I can commit to that, I need instructions from my government," John said. It was rarely that he temporized on anything, but this one was well beyond his experience.

"Then I would suggest that you get it. And soon," Kimura added as he stood and left.

"I always wondered if my master's in international relations would come in handy," Chavez observed, staring into his half-consumed drink. "Of course I have to live long enough to get the parchment."

Might be nice to get married, settle down, have kids, maybe even have a real life someday, he didn't add.

"Good to see you still have a sense of humor, Yevgeniy Pavlovich."

"They're going to tell us to do it. You know that."

"Da." Clark nodded, keeping his cover and now trying to think as a Russian would. Did the KGB manual have a chapter for this? he wondered. The CIA's sure as hell didn't.

As usual the tapes were clearer than the instant analysis of the operators. There had been three, perhaps four-more likely four, given American operational patterns, the intelligence officers opined-aircraft probing Japanese air defenses. Definitely not EC-135's, however. Those aircraft were based on a design almost fifty years old and studded with enough antennas to watch every TV signal in the hemisphere, and would have generated far larger radar returns. Besides, the Americans probably didn't have four such aircraft left. Therefore something else, probably their B-1B bomber, the intelligence people estimated. And the B-1B was a bomber, whose purpose was far more sinister than the collection of electronic signals. So the Americans were thinking of Japan as an enemy whose defenses would have to be penetrated for the purpose of delivering death, an idea new to neither side in this war, if war it was, the cooler heads added. But what else could it be? the majority of the analysts asked, setting the tone of the night's missions.

Three E-767's were again up and operating, again with two of them active and one waiting in the ambush role. This time the radars were turned up in power, and the parameters for the signal-processing software were electronically altered to allow for easier tracking of stealthy targets at long range. It was physics they depended on. The size of the antenna combined with the power of the signal and the frequency of the electronic waves made it possible to get hits on almost anything. That was both the good news and the bad news, the operators thought, as they received all manner of signals now.