“I understand, sir. But it’s my duty to give you my unvarnished opinion.”

“And that is?”

“We can’t win. But we can lose big.”

“You’re telling me that a country that spends more on its military than the next ten countries combined is helpless?”

“Essentially, yes. We have a number of insurmountable problems in a confrontation with Japan. The first is that we would have to rely heavily on our navy and I don’t think there’s any question that their self-cavitating torpedo technology is what Takahashi says it is.”

“So all those aircraft carriers the admirals keep telling me I need are useless because of a few video game–controlled torpedoes?”

“Our fleet wasn’t designed to defend against a swarm of autonomous torpedoes traveling at three hundred knots, sir. In the end, our carriers are as big as cities and move just about as fast. We’d have to keep them well out of range and we aren’t certain what that range is. In a worst-case scenario, all of our carrier groups could be taken out within a few hours.”

“Submarines?”

“We assume that these would be much harder for Takahashi to neutralize.”

“Then we could use their missiles?”

Morrison nodded. “The only chance I can see of defeating Japan would be a preemptive nuclear strike done in waves, preferably from land and sea and preferably in a coordinated effort with China.”

Castilla took a long pull on his drink, focusing for a moment on the sensation of it burning down his throat. What Morrison was talking about was the annihilation of every living thing on the island of Japan in an attack that the world would see as completely unprovoked. All on the assumption that Takahashi was indeed going to move against China and that he had the weapons he said he did.

“There could be drawbacks we’d need to consider, though, sir.”

“Really?” Castilla said, his voice rising uncontrollably. “Drawbacks to turning Japan into a radioactive cinder? Who would have thought?”

He caught himself and let out a long, slow breath. “I’m sorry, Keith.”

“I understand, sir. I think I yelled almost the exact same thing at one of my staff just this morning.”

“I assume you’re talking about Japan’s retaliation?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The nanotech.”

“I’m not so sure that would be in Takahashi’s best interest. The destruction of the US would be devastating to the civil and economic stability of the world—something Japan would feel the effects of for the next century.”

“Then what?”

“You have to understand that the US is completely undefended against an attack by a sophisticated enemy. We can assume that Takahashi would know the moment we launched, and based on what he told us we can surmise that his missile defense system will protect Japan for at least a few days.”

“And in those few days, what could we expect?”