Executive Orders

18 LAST PLANE OUT

THE NEXT SHUTTLE FLIGHT got off early. The shell corporation's third and last business jet was recalled from Europe, and with a change of flight crews, was ready three hours early. That meant that the first of the G-IVs could fly to Baghdad, pick up two more generals, and return. Badrayn felt rather like a travel agent or dispatcher in addition to his unusual role as diplomat. He just hoped it wouldn't take too long. It might be dangerous to be a passenger on the last plane, because the last one—well, there was no telling which would be the last, was there? The generals didn't grasp that yet. The last one might well be pursued by tracer fire, leaving people on the ground to face the music, and Badrayn knew he would be with them… in a region where selectivity wasn't an integral part of the justice system. Well, he shrugged, life had risks, and he was being well paid. They'd told him, at least, that there would be another pickup flight in less than three hours, and a fourth five hours beyond that one. But the sum total would be ten or eleven, and that would go for another three days on the current schedule, and three days could be a lifetime.

Beyond the confines of this airport, the Iraqi army was still in the streets, but there would be a change now. Those conscript soldiers, and even the elite guardsmen, would have been out there for several days, settled into a dull and purposeless routine, and that was something destructive to soldiers. They'd be shuffling around on their feet, smoking cigarettes, starting to ask questions amongst themselves: What exactly is going on? Initially there would be no answers. Their sergeants would tell them to mind their duties, so advised by their company officers, so advised in turn from battalion staffs, and so on all the way up the line… until somewhere that same question would be repeated, and there would be no one farther up the chain of command to tell the questioner to sit down and shut up. At that point the question would rebound back down the line. It was something an army could sense, as a thorn in the foot instantly told the brain that something was amiss. And if the thorn was dirty, then an infection would follow that could spread and kill the entire body. The generals were supposed to know such things—but, no, they didn't anymore. Something very foolish happened to generals, especially in this part of the world. They forgot. It was that simple. They just forgot that the villas and the servants and the cars were not a divine bequest, but a temporal convenience that could disappear as quickly as morning fog. They were still more afraid of Daryaei than of their own people, and that was foolish. It would have merely been annoying to Badrayn, except that his life now depended on theirs.

THE SEAT ON the right side of the cabin was still damp. This time it was occupied by the youngest daughter of the general who had, until minutes before, commanded the 4th Guards Division (Motorized), and who was now conferring with an air force colleague. The child felt the lingering damp on her hand and, puzzled, licked at it, until her mother saw it and sent her off to wash her hands. Then the mother complained to the Iranian steward who rode in the back with this group. He had the child moved, and made a note to have the seat cleaned or replaced at Mehrabad. There was less tension now. The first pair of officers had reported in from Khartoum that all was well. A Sudanese army platoon guarded the large house which they shared, and all appeared to be secure. The generals had already determined that they would make a sizable «contribution» to that country's treasury, to ensure their own safety for the time—hopefully brief—they'd spend in that country before moving on. Their intelligence chief, still back in Baghdad, was on the phone now, calling around to various contacts in various countries to find secure permanent housing for them. Switzerland? They wondered. A cold country in terms of both climate and culture, but a safe one, and for those with money to invest, an anonymous one.

"WHO OWNS THREE G-IVs over there?"

"The registration of the aircraft is Swiss, Lieutenant," Major Sabah reported, having just learned the fact. From the photos shot at Khartoum he'd gotten the tail number, and that was easily checked on a computer database. He flipped the page to determine the ownership. "A corporately owned jet. They have three of them, and a few smaller turboprops for flying around Europe. We'll have to check further to learn more about the corporation." But somebody would be working on that, and they'd find the obvious. Probably some import-export concern, more a letter-drop than anything else, perhaps with a small storefront that conducted real, if negligible, business for appearance's sake. The corporation would have a medium-sized account in a commercial bank; it would have a law firm to make sure that it scrupulously obeyed every local rule; its employees would be fully briefed on how to behave—Switzerland was a law-abiding country—and how to keep everything in order; the corporation would vanish into the woodwork, because the Swiss didn't trouble people who deposited money in their banks and kept within their laws. Those who broke the rules severely could find the country as inhospitable as the one the generals were leaving. That was well understood, too.

The pity of it, Sabah thought, was that he knew the first two faces, and probably also knew the faces now in transit. It would have been pleasing to get them before the bar of justice, especially a Kuwaiti bar. They'd been more junior, most of them, when Iraq had invaded his country. They would have participated in the pillaging. Major Sabah remembered prowling the streets, trying to look as inconspicuous and harmless as possible while other Kuwaiti subjects had resisted more actively, which had been brave, but dangerous. Most of them had been caught and killed, along with family members, and though the survivors were now famous and well rewarded, those few had operated on information he'd gathered. The major didn't mind. His family was wealthy enough, and he liked being a spook. Even more, he was damned sure his country would never be surprised like that again. He would see to that personally.

In any case, the generals who were leaving were less a concern than the ones who would replace them. That had the major worried.

"WELL, I'M AFRAID it was a pretty weak performance in all respects for Mr. Ryan," Ed Kealty said on the noon news-interview show. "Dr. Bretano is, first of all, an industry official who has long since opted out of public service. I was there when his name came up before, and I was there when he refused to consider a high government position— so that he could stay where he was to make money, I suppose. He's a talented man, evidently a good engineer," Kealty allowed with a tolerant smile, "but a Secretary of Defense, no." A shake of the head emphasized it.

"What did you think of President Ryan's position on abortion, sir?" Barry asked on CNN.

"Barry, that's the problem. He's not really the President," Kealty replied in a mild, businesslike tone. "And we need to correct that. His lack of understanding for the public showed clearly in that contradictory and ill-considered statement in the Press Room. Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. That's all he had to say. It's not necessary that the President should like the laws, but he has to enforce them. Of course, for any public official not to understand how the American people think on this issue doesn't so much show insensitivity to the rights of women to choose, as simple incompetence. All Ryan had to do was listen to his briefers on what to say, but he didn't even do that. He's a loose cannon," Kealty concluded. "We don't need one of those in the White House."

"But your claim—" A raised hand stopped the correspondent cold.

"It's not a claim, Barry. It's a fact. I never resigned. I never actually left the vice-presidency. Because of that, when Roger Durling died, I became President. What we have to do right now, and Mr. Ryan will do this if he cares about his country, is to form a judicial panel to examine the constitutional issues and decide who the President really is. If Ryan does not do that—well, he's putting himself before the good of the country. Now, I must add that I fully believe that Jack Ryan is acting in good conscience. He's an honorable man, and in the past he's shown himself to be a courageous man. Unfortunately, right now, he's confused, as we saw at the press conference this morning."

"A pat of butter would not melt in his mouth, Jack," van Damm observed, turning the sound down. "You see how good he is at this?"

Ryan nearly came out of his chair. "God damn it, Arnie, that's what I said! I must have said it three or four times—that's the law, and I can't break the law. That's what I said!"

"Remember what I told you about keeping your temper under control?" The chief of staff waited for Ryan's color to go back down. He turned the sound back up.

"What's most disturbing, however," Kealty was saying now, "is what Ryan said about his appointments to the Supreme Court. It's pretty clear he wants to turn the clock back on a lot of things. Litmus tests on issues like abortion, appointing only strict-constructionists. It makes you wonder if he wants to overturn affirmative action, and heaven knows what else. Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a situation where the sitting President will exercise immense power, particularly in the courts. And Ryan just doesn't know how, Barry. He doesn't, and what we learned today about what he wants to do—well, it's just plain frightening, isn't it?"

"Am I on a different planet, Arnie?" Jack demanded. "I didn't say 'litmus test. A reporter did. I didn't say 'strict-constructionist. A reporter did."

"Jack, it isn't what you say. It's what people hear."

"Just how much damage do you think President Ryan could do, then?" Barry asked on the TV. Arnie shook his head in admiration. Kealty had seduced him right out of his shorts, right on live television, and Barry had responded perfectly, framing the question to show that he still called Ryan the President, but then asking the question in a form that would shake people's faith in him. It was no wonder that Ed was so good with the ladies, was it? And the average viewer would never grasp the subtlety with which he'd pulled Barry's drawers off. What a pro.

"In a situation like this, with the government decapitated? It could take years to fix what he might break," Kealty said with the grave concern of a trusted family physician. "Not because he's an evil person. He certainly is not. But because he simply doesn't know how to execute the office of President of the United States. He just doesn't, Barry."

"We'll be back after these messages from our cable operators," Barry told the camera. Arnie had heard enough, and didn't need to see the commercials. He lifted the controller and clicked the TV off.

"Mr. President, I wasn't worried before, but I'm worried now." He paused for a moment. "Tomorrow you will see some editorials in a few of the major papers agreeing that a judicial commission is necessary, and you'll have no choice but to let it go forward."

"Wait a minute. The law doesn't say that—"

"The law doesn't say anything, remember? And even if it did, there's no Supreme Court to decide. We're in a democracy, Jack. The will of the people will decide who's the President. The will of the people will be swayed by what the media says, and you'll never be as good at working the media as Ed is."

"Look, Arnie, he resigned, I got confirmed by the Congress as VP, Roger got killed, and I became President, and that's the fucking law! And I have to abide by the law. I swore an oath to do that, and I will. I never wanted this fucking job, but I've never run away from anything in my life, either, and I'll be damned if I'll run away from this!" There was one other thing. Ryan despised Edward Kealty. Didn't like his political views, didn't like his Harvard hauteur, didn't like his private life, damned sure didn't like his treatment of women. "You know what he is, Arnie?" Ryan snarled.

"Yes, I do. He's a pimp, a hustler, a con man. He has no convictions at all. He's never even practiced law, but he's helped write thousands of them. He's not a doctor, but he's established national health policy. He's been a professional politician his whole life, always on the public payroll. He's never generated a product or a service in the private sector of the economy, but he's spent his life deciding how high the taxes should be, and how that money should be spent. The only black people he ever met as a kid were the maids who picked up his bedroom, but he's a champion of minority rights. He's a hypocrite. He's a charlatan. And he's going to win unless you get your shit together, Mr. President," Arnie said, pouring dry ice over Ryan's fiery temper. "Because he knows how to play the game, and you don't."

THE PATIENT, THE records said, had taken a trip to the Far East back in October, and in Bangkok had indulged himself in the sexual services for which that country was well known. Pierre Alexandre, then a captain assigned to a military hospital in the tropical country, had once indulged in them himself. His conscience didn't trouble him about it. He'd been young and foolish, as people of that age were supposed to be. But that had been before AIDS. He'd been the guy to tell the patient, male, Caucasian, thirty-six, that he had HIV antibodies in his blood, that he could not have unprotected sex with his wife, and that his wife should have her blood tested at once. Oh, she was pregnant? Immediately, right away. Tomorrow if possible.

Alexandre felt rather like a judge. It wasn't the first time he'd delivered news like this, and damned sure it wouldn't be the last, but at least when a judge pronounced a sentence of death it was for a serious crime, and there was an appeals process. This poor bastard was guilty of nothing more than being a man twelve time-zones from home, probably drunk and lonely. Maybe he'd had an argument over the phone with his wife. Maybe she'd been pregnant then, and he wasn't getting any. Maybe it had just been the exotic locations, and Alex remembered well how seductive those childlike Thai girls could be, and what the hell, who'd ever know? Now a lot of people would, and there was no appeals process. That could change, Dr. Alexandre thought. He had just told the patient that. You couldn't take their hope away. That's what oncologists had told their patients for two generations. That hope was real, was true, wasn't it? There were some smart people working on this one—Alexandre was one of them—and the breakthrough could happen tomorrow, for all he knew. Or it could take a hundred years. The patient, on the form card, had ten.

"You don't look very happy."

He looked up. "Dr. Ryan."

"Dr. Alexandre, and I think you know Roy." She gestured at the table with her tray. The dining area was packed today. "Mind?"

He got halfway to his feet. "Please."

"Bad day?"

"E-Strain case," was all he had to say.

"HIV, Thailand? Over here now?"

"You do read M&M" He managed a smile.

"I have to keep up with my residents. E-Strain? You're sure?" Cathy asked.

"I reran the test myself. He got it in Thailand, business trip, he said. Pregnant wife," Alex added. Professor Ryan grimaced at the addition.

"Not good."

"AIDS?" Roy Altman asked. The rest of SURGEON'S detail was spread around the room. They would have preferred that she ate in her office, but Dr. Ryan had explained that this was one of the ways in which Hopkins docs kept up with one another, and was for her a regular routine. Today it was infectious disease. Tomorrow pediatrics.

"E-Strain," Alexandre explained with a nod. "America is mostly B-Strain. Same thing in Africa."

"What's the difference?" Cathy answered.

"B-Strain is pretty hard to get. It mainly requires direct contact of blood products. That happens with IV drug users who share needles or through sexual contact, but mainly it's still homosexuals who have tissue lesions either from tearing or more conventional venereal diseases."

"You forgot bad luck, but that's only one percent or so." Alexandre picked up the thread. "It's starting to look as though E-Strain—that cropped up in Thailand—well, that it makes the heterosexual jump a lot more easily than B. It's evidently a heartier version of our old friend."

"Has CDC quantified that yet?" Cathy asked.

"No, they need a few more months, least that's what I heard a couple weeks ago."

"How bad?" Altman asked. Working with SURGEON was turning into an educational experience.

"Ralph Forster went over five years ago to see how bad things were. Know the story, Alex?"

"Not all of it, just the bottom line."

"Ralph flew over on a government ticket, official trip and all that, and first thing happens off the plane, the Thai official meets him at customs, walks him to the car and says, 'Want some girls for tonight? That's when he knew there was a real problem."

"I believe it," Alex said, remembering when he would have smiled and nodded. This time he managed not to shudder. "The numbers are grim. Mr. Altman, right now, nearly a third of the kids inducted into the Thai army are HIV positive. Mainly E-Strain." The implications of that number were unmistakable.

"A third? A third of them?"

"Up from twenty-five percent when Ralph flew over. That's a hard number, okay?"

"But that means—"

"It might mean in fifty years, no more Thailand," Cathy announced in a matter-of-fact voice that masked her inner horror. "When I was going to school here, I thought oncology was the place to be for the supersmart ones" — she pointed for Altman's benefit—"Marty, Bert, Curt, and Louise, those guys in the corner over there. I didn't think I could take it, take the stress, so I cut up eyeballs and fix 'em. I was wrong. We're going to beat cancer. But these damned viruses, I don't know."

"The solution, Cathy, is in understanding the precise interactions between the gene strings in the virus and the host cell, and it shouldn't be all that hard. Viruses are such tiny little sunzabitches. They can only do so many things, not like the interaction of the entire human genome at conception. Once we figure that one out, we can defeat all the little bastards." Alexandre, like most research docs, was an optimist.

"So, researching the human cell?" Altman asked, interested in learning this. Alexandre shook his head.

"A lot smaller than that. We're into the genome now. It's like taking a strange machine apart, every step you're trying to figure what the individual parts do, and sooner or later you got all the parts loose, and you know where they all go, and then you figure out what they all do in a systematic way. That's what we're doing now."

"You know what it's going to come down to?" Cathy suggested with a question, then answered it: "Mathematics."

"That's what Gus says down at Atlanta."

"Math? Wait a minute," Altman objected.

"At the most basic level, the human genetic code is composed of four amino acids, labeled A, C, G and T. How those letters—the acids, I mean—are strung together determines everything," Alex explained. "Different character sequences mean different things and interact in different ways, and probably Gus is right: the interactions are mathematically defined. The genetic code really is a code. It can be cracked, and it can be understood." Probably someone will assign a mathematical value to them… complex polynomials… he thought. Was that important?

"Just nobody smart enough to do it has come along yet," Cathy Ryan observed. "That's the home-run ball, Roy. Someday, somebody is going to step up to the plate, and put that one over the fence, and it will give us the key to defeating all human diseases. All of them. Every single one. The pot of gold at the end of that rainbow is medical immortality—and who knows, maybe human immortality."

"Put us all out of business, especially you, Cathy. One of the first things they'll edit out of the human genome is myopia, and diabetes and that—"

"It'll unemploy you before it unemploys me, Professor," Cathy said with an impish smile. "I'm a surgeon, remember? I'll still have trauma to fix. But sooner or later, you're going to win your battle."

But would it be in time for this morning's E-Strain patient? Alex wondered. Probably not. Probably not.

SHE WAS CURSING them now, mainly in French, but Flemish also. The army medics didn't understand either language. Moudi spoke the former well enough to know that, vile as the imprecations were, they were not the product of a lucid mind. The brain was now being affected, and Jean Baptiste was unable to converse even with her God. Her heart was under attack, finally, and that gave the doctor hope that Death would come for her and show some belated mercy for a woman who deserved far more than she had received from life. Maybe delirium was a blessing for her. Maybe her soul was detached from her body. Maybe in not knowing where she was, who she was, what was wrong, the pain didn't touch her anymore, not in the places that mattered. It was an illusion the doctor needed, but if what he saw was mercy, it was a ghastly variety of it.

The patient's face was a mass of rashes now, almost as though she'd been brutally beaten, her pale skin like an opaque window onto misplaced blood. He couldn't decide if her eyes were still working. There was bleeding both on the surface and the interior of each, and if she could still see, it wouldn't last much longer. They'd almost lost her half an hour earlier, occasioning his rush to the treatment room to see her choking on aspirated vomit and the medics trying both to clear her airway and keep their gloves intact. The restraints that held her in place, coated though they were with smooth plastic, had abraded away her skin, causing more bleeding and more pain. The tissues of her vascular system were breaking down as well, and the IV leaked as much out on the bed as went into the arms and legs, all of the fluids as deadly as the most toxic poison. Now the medical corpsmen were truly frightened even of touching the patient, gloves or not, suits or not. Moudi saw that they'd gotten a plastic bucket and filled it with dilute iodine, and as he watched, one of them dipped his gloves into it, shaking them off but not drying them, so that if he touched her there would be a chemical barrier against the pathogens that might leap at him from her body. Such precautions weren't necessary—the gloves were thick—but he could hardly blame the men for their fear. At the turning of the hour, the new shift arrived, and the old one left. One of them looked back on his way out the door, praying with silent lips that Allah would take the woman before he had to come back in eight hours. Outside the room, an Iranian army doctor similarly dressed in plastic would lead the men to the disinfection area, where their suits would be sprayed before they took them off, and then their bodies, while the suits were burned to ashes in the downstairs incinerator. Moudi had no doubts that the procedures would be followed to the letter—no, they would be exceeded in every detail, and even then the medics would be afraid for days to come.

Had he possessed a deadly weapon right then and there, he might have used it on her, and to hell with the consequences. A large injection of air might have worked a few hours before, causing a fatal embolism, but the breakdown of her vascular system was such that he couldn't even be sure of that. It was her strength that made the ordeal so terrible. Small though she was, she'd worked forty years of long hours, and earned surprisingly good health as a result. The body which had sustained her courageous soul for so long would not give up the battle, futile as it was.

"Come, Moudi, you know better than this," the director said behind him.

"What do you mean?" he asked without turning.

"If she were back in the hospital in Africa, what would be different? Would they not treat her the same way, taking the same measures to sustain her? The blood, and the IV fluids, and everything else. It would be exactly the same. Her religion does not allow euthanasia. If anything, the care here is better," he pointed out, correctly, if coldly, then turned away to check the chart. "Five liters. Excellent."

"We could start—"

"No." The director shook his head. "When her heart stops, we will drain all her blood. We will remove the liver, kidneys and spleen, and then our real work begins." "Someone should at least pray for her soul." "You will, Moudi. You are a fine doctor. You care even for an infidel. You may be proud of that. If it were possible to save her, you would have done so. I know that. You know that. She knows that."

"What we are doing, to inflict this on—" "On unbelievers," the director reminded him. "On those who hate our country and our Faith, who spit upon the words of the Prophet. I will even agree that this is a woman of virtue. Allah will be merciful with her, I am sure. You did not choose her fate. Neither did I." He had to keep Moudi going. The younger man was a brilliant physician. If anything, too good. The director for his part thanked Allah that he'd spent the last decade in laboratories, else he might have succumbed to the same human weaknesses.

BADRAYN INSISTED. This time, three generals. Every seat full, and one of them with two small children strapped in together. They understood now. They had to. He'd explained it to them, pointing to the tower, whose controllers had watched every flight in and out, and who had to know what was going on by now, and arresting them would do little good, as their families would miss them, and if their families were picked up, the neighbors would know, wouldn't they?

Well, yes, they had agreed.

Just send a damned airliner next time, he wanted to tell Tehran, but no, someone would have objected, here or there, it didn't matter, because no matter what you said, no matter how sensible it was, somebody would object to it. Whether on the Iranian side or the Iraqi, that didn't matter, either. Either way it would get people killed. It certainly would. There was nothing for him to do but wait now, wait and worry. He could have had a few drinks, but he decided against it. He'd had alcohol more than once.

All those years in Lebanon. As Bahrain still was, Lebanon had been, and probably would be again, a place where the strict Islamic rules could be violated, and there he had indulged in Western vice along with everyone else. But not now. He might be close to death and, sinner or not, he was a Muslim, and he would face death in the proper way. And so he drank coffee for the most part, staring out the windows from his seat, next to the phone, telling himself that the caffeine was making his hands shake, and nothing else.

"YOU'RE JACKSON?" Tony Bretano asked. He'd spent the morning with the acting chiefs. Now it was time for the worker bees.

"Yes, sir, J-3. I guess I'm your operations officer," Robby replied, taking his seat and not, for once, carrying a bundle of papers and scurrying around like the White Rabbit.

"How bad is it?"

"Well, we're spread pretty thin. We still have two carrier battle-groups in the IO looking after India and Sri Lanka. We're flying a couple battalions of light infantry to the Marianas to reassert control there and supervise the withdrawal of Japanese personnel. That's mainly political, we don't expect any problems. Our forward-deployed air assets have been recalled to CONUS to refit. That aspect of operations against Japan went well."

"You will want me to speed production of the F-22 and restart B-2 production, then? That's what the Air Force said."

"We just proved that Stealth is one hell of a force-multiplier, Mr. Secretary, and that's a fact. We need all of those we can get."

"I agree. What about the rest of the force structure?" Bretano asked.

"We're too damned thin for all the commitments we have. If we had to go to Kuwait again, for example, like we did in 1991, we can't do it. We literally do not have all that force to project anymore. You know what my job is, sir. I have to figure out how to do the things we have to do. Okay, operations against Japan took us as far as we could go, and—"

"Mickey Moore said a lot of nice things about the plan you put together and executed," the SecDef pointed out.

"General Moore is very kind. Yes, sir, it worked, but we were on a shoestring the whole time, and that's not the way American forces are supposed to go out into harm's way, Mr. Secretary. We're supposed to scare the bejeebers out of people the moment the first private steps off the airplane. I can improvise if I have to, but that's not supposed to be my job. Sooner or later, I goof, or somebody goofs, and we end up with dead people in uniform."

"I agree with that, too." Bretano took a bite of his sandwich. "The President's given me a free hand to clean this department out, do things my way. I have two weeks to put the new force requirements together."

"Two weeks, sir?" If Jackson were able to go pale, that would have done it to him.

"Jackson, how long you been in uniform?" the SecDef asked.

"Counting time at the Trade School? Call it thirty years."

"If you can't do it by tomorrow, you're the wrong guy. But I'll give you ten days," Bretano said generously.

"Mr. Secretary, I'm Operations, not Manpower, and—"

"Exactly. In my way of looking at things, Manpower fills the needs that Operations defines. Decisions in a place like this are supposed to be made by the shooters, not the accountants. That's what was wrong at TRW when I moved in. Accountants were telling engineers what they could have to be engineers. No." Bretano shook his head. "That didn't work. If you build things, your engineers decide how the company runs. For a place like this, the shooters decide what they need, and the accountants figure out how to shoehorn it into the budget. There's always a struggle, but the product end of the business makes the decisions."

Well, damn. Jackson managed not to smile. "Parameters?"

"Figure the largest credible threat, the most serious crisis that's likely, not possible, and design me a force structure that can handle it." Even that wasn't good enough, and both men knew it. In the old days there had been the guideline of two and a half wars, that America could deploy to fight two major conflicts, plus a little brush fire somewhere else. Few had ever admitted that this «rule» had always been a fantasy, all the way back to the Eisen-hower presidency. Today, as Jackson had just admitted, America lacked the wherewithal to conduct a single major military deployment. The fleet was down to half of what it had been ten years earlier. The Army was down further. The Air Force, ever sheltering behind its high-tech, was formidable, but had still retired nearly half its total strength. The Marines were still tough and ready, but the Marine Corps was an expeditionary force, able to deploy in the expectation that reinforcements would arrive behind them, and dangerously light in its weapons. The cupboard wasn't exactly bare, but the enforced diet hadn't really done anyone much good.

"Ten days?"

"You've got what I need sitting in a desk drawer right now, don't you?" Planning officers always did, Bretano knew.

"Give me a couple days to polish it up, sir, but, yes, we do."

"Jackson?"

"Yes, Mr. Secretary?"

"I kept track of our operations in the Pacific. One of my people at TRW, Skip Tyler, used to be pretty good at this stuff, and we looked over maps and things every day. The operations you put together, they were impressive. War isn't just physical. It's psychological, too, like all life is. You win because you have the best people. Guns and planes count, but brains count more. I'm a good manager, and one hell of a good engineer. I'm not a fighter. I'll listen to what you say, 'cause you and your colleagues know how to fight. I'll stand up for you wherever and whenever I have to. In return for that, I want what you really need, not what you'd like to have. We can't afford that. We can cut bureaucracy. That's Manpower's job, civilian and uniform. I'll lean this place out. At TRW I got rid of a lot of useless bodies. That's an engineering company, and now it's run by engineers. This is a company that does operations, and it ought to be run by operators, people with notches cut in their gun grips. Lean. Mean. Tough. Smart. You get what I'm saying?"

"I think so, sir."

"Ten days. Less if you can. Call me when you're ready."

"CLARK," JOHN SAID, picking up his direct line.

"Holtzman," the voice said. The name made John's eyes go a little wide.

"I suppose I could ask how you got this number, but you'd never reveal your source."

"Good guess," the reporter agreed. "Remember that dinner we had a while back at Esteban's?"

"Vaguely," Clark lied. "It's been a long time." It hadn't actually been a dinner, but the tape machine that had to be on the phone didn't know that.

"I owe you one. How about tonight?"

"I'll get back to you." Clark hung up and stared down at his desk. What the hell was this about?

"COME ON, THAT'S not what Jack said," van Damm told the New York Times.

"That's what he meant, Arnie," the reporter responded. "You know it. I know it."

"I wish you'd go easy on the guy. He's not a politician," the chief of staff pointed out.

"Not my fault, Arnie. He's in the job. He has to follow the rules."

Arnold van Damm nodded agreement, concealing the anger that had risen in an instant at the correspondent's casual remark. Inwardly he knew that the reporter was right. That's how the game was played. But he also knew that the reporter was wrong. Maybe he'd grown too attached to President Ryan, enough so that he'd actually absorbed some of his flaky ideas. The media, exclusively composed of the employees of private businesses—most of them corporations with publicly traded stock—had grown in power to the point that they decided what people said. That was bad enough. What was worse, they enjoyed their jobs too much. They could make or break anyone in this town. They made the rules. He who broke them could himself be broken.

Ryan was a naif. There was no denying it. In his defense, he'd never sought his current job. He'd come here by accident, having sought nothing more than a final opportunity to serve, and then to leave once and for all, to return to private life. He'd not been elected to his post. But neither had the media, and at least Ryan had the Constitution to define his duties. The media was crossing the line. They were taking sides in a constitutional matter, and they were taking the wrong side.

"Who makes the rules?" Arnie asked.

"They just are," the Times answered.

"Well, the President isn't going to attack Roe. He never said that he would. And he's not going to pick Justices off park benches, either. He isn't going to pick liberal activists, and he isn't going to pick conservative activists, and I think you know that."

"So Ryan misspoke himself?" The reporter's casual grin said it all. He'd report this as spin control by a senior administration official, " 'clarifying, which means correcting, what the President said," the article would read.

"Not at all. You misunderstood him."

"It sounded pretty clear to me, Arnie."

"That's because you're used to listening to professional politicians. The President we have now says things straight. Actually I kind of like that," van Damm went on, lying; it was driving him crazy. "And it might even make life easier for you. You don't have to check the tea leaves anymore. All you have to do is take proper notes. Or maybe just judge him by a fair set of rules. We've agreed that he's not a politician, but you're treating him as if he were. Listen to what he's really saying, will you?" Or maybe even look at the videotape, he didn't add. He was skating on the edge now. Talking to the media was like petting a new cat. You never knew when they'd reach up and scratch.

"Come on, Arnie. You're the most loyal guy in this town. Damn, you would have been a great family doctor. We all know that. But Ryan doesn't have a clue. The speech at National Cathedral, that loony speech from the Oval Office. He's about as presidential as the chairman of the Rotary in Bumfuck, Iowa."

"But who decides what's presidential and what isn't?"

"In New York, I do." The reporter smiled again. "For Chicago, you have to ask somebody else."

"He is the President of the United States."

"That's not what Ed Kealty says, and at least Ed acts presidential."

"Ed's out. He resigned. Roger took the call from Secretary Hanson, and told me about it. Damn it, you reported that yourself."

"But what possible motive could he have for—"

"What motive could he have for boffing every skirt that crossed his bow?" the chief of staff demanded. Great, he thought, now I'm losing control of the media!

"Ed's always been a ladies' man. He's gotten better since he got off the booze. It never affected his duties," the White House correspondent made clear. Like his paper, he was a strong proponent of women's rights. "This one will have to play out."

"What position will the Times take?"

"I'll get you a copy of the editorial," the reporter promised.

HE COULDN'T STAND it anymore. He lifted the phone and dialed the six digits while staring out at the darkness. The sun was down now, and clouds were rolling in. It would be a cold, rainy night, leading to a dawn which might or might not take place before his eyes. "Yes?" a voice said halfway through the first ring.

"Badrayn here. It would be more convenient if the next aircraft were larger."

"We have a 737 standing by, but I need authorization to have it sent."

"I will work on this end."

It was the TV news which had gotten him moving. Even more muted than usual, there had not been a single political story. Not one, in a nation where political commentary often as not displaced the weather forecasts. Most ominously of all, there was a story about a mosque, an old Shi'a mosque, one that had fallen into disrepair. The story lamented that fact, citing the building's long and honorable history, and ignoring the fact that it had fallen into disrepair because it had once been a meeting place for a group charged, perhaps truthfully, with plotting the demise of Iraq's fallen, beloved, great, and evidently soon-to-be-forgotten political leader. Worst of all, the taped footage had shown five mullahs standing outside the mosque, not even looking directly at the camera, merely gesturing at the faded blue tile on the wall and probably discussing what needed to be done. The five were the same ones who'd flown in to be hostages. But not a single soldier was in sight on the TV screen, and the faces of at least two of the mullahs were well known to Iraqi audiences. Somebody had gotten to the TV station, more precisely to the people who worked there. If the reporters and others wanted to retain their jobs and their heads, it was time to face a new reality. Were the brief few moments on the screen enough for the common folk to see and recognize the visitors' faces—and get the message? Finding out the answer to that question could be dangerous.

But the common people didn't matter. Colonels and majors did. Generals not on the proper list did. Quite soon they'd know. Probably some already did. They'd be on the phone, first calling up the line to see what was going on. Some would hear lies. Some would hear nothing. They'd start thinking. They'd start making contacts. Over the next twelve hours they'd talk among themselves and have to make hard decisions. These were the men who were identified with the dying regime. The ones who couldn't run, who had no place to run to and no money to run with, the ones who had to stay. Their identification with the past regime could be a death sentence—for many, certainly would be so. For others, there was a chance. To survive, they would have to do what criminals all over the world did. They would save their own lives by offering up a larger fish. So it always was. The colonels would overthrow the generals.

Finally, the generals understood.

"There is a 737 standing by. Enough room for all. It can be here in ninety minutes," he told them.

"And they will not kill us at Mehrabad Airport?" the deputy chief of staff of the Iraqi army demanded.

"Would you prefer to die here?" Badrayn asked in reply.

"What if it's all a trap?"

"There is that risk. In that case, the five television personalities will die." Of course they wouldn't. That would have to be the act of troops loyal to generals already dead. That sort of loyalty didn't exist here. They all knew that. The mere act of taking hostages had been an instinctive gesture, and one already invalidated by someone, perhaps in the media, but maybe the colonel who'd headed the guard force over the Iranian clerics. He was supposed to be a trusted intelligence specialist, Badrayn remembered on reflection, a loyal Sunni officer, son of a Ba'ath Party member. That could mean that the Ba'ath Party was already being suborned. It was going too fast now. The mullahs would not have concealed the nature of their mission, would they? But none of that mattered. Killing the hostages would accomplish nothing. The generals were doomed if they stayed here, and martyrdom wasn't exactly offensive to Iranian clerics. It was an integral part of the Shi'a tradition.

No, the decision had already been irreversibly made. These senior commanders hadn't grasped that. They hadn't thought it all the way through.

Well, had they been truly competent officers, they would have been killed ages ago, by their beloved leader.

"Yes," the most senior of them said.

"Thank you." Badrayn lifted the phone and punched the buttons again.

THE DIMENSIONS OF the constitutional crisis in which America has found itself were not apparent until yesterday.

Although the issue may seem to be technical, the substance of it is not.

John Patrick Ryan is a man of ability, but whether or not he has the necessary talent to perform his presidential duties has yet to be established. The initial indications are less than promising. Government service is not a job for amateurs. Our country has often enough turned to such people, but always in the past they have been in the minority, able to grow into their duties in an orderly way.

There is nothing orderly about the crisis facing the country. To this point Mr. Ryan has done a proper and careful job of stabilizing the government. His interim appointment to head the FBI, for example, Daniel Murray, is an acceptable choice. Similarly, George Winston is probably a fair interim choice for the Department of the Treasury, though he is politically unschooled. Scott Adler, a highly talented, lifelong foreign service officer, may be the best member of the current cabinet… Ryan skipped the next two paragraphs.

Vice President Edward Kealty, whatever his personal failings, knows government, and his middle-of-the-road position on most national issues offers a steady course until elections can select a new administration. But are his claims true?

"Do you care?" Ryan asked the lead editorial for the next day's Times.

"They know him. They don't know you," Arnie answered. Then the phone rang.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Foley for you, Mr. President. He says it's important."

"Okay… Ed? Putting you on speaker." Jack pushed the proper button and replaced the receiver. "Arnie's listening in."

"It's definite. Iran's making a move, big and fast. I have a TV feed for you if you have the time."

"Roll it." Jack knew how to do that. In this office and others were televisions fed off secure fiber-optic cables to the Pentagon and elsewhere. He pulled the controller from a drawer and turned the set on. The «show» lasted only fifteen seconds, was rerun again, then freeze-framed.

"Who are they?" Jack asked.

Foley read off the names. Ryan had heard two of them before. "Mid- and top-level advisers to Daryaei. They're in Baghdad, and somebody decided to get the word out. Okay, we know senior generals are flying out. Now we have five mullahs talking about rebuilding an important mosque on national TV. Tomorrow they'll be talking louder," the DCI-designate promised.

"Anything from people on the ground?"

"Negative," Ed admitted. "I was talking to station chief Riyadh about sneaking up there for a sit-down, but by the time he gets there, there won't be anyone to sit down with."

"THAT'S A LITTLE big," an officer said aboard the duty AWACS. He read off the alpha-numeric display. "Colonel," the lieutenant called over the command line, "I have what appears to be a 737 charter inbound Mehrabad to Baghdad, course two-two-zero, speed four-five-zero knots, twenty thousand feet. PALM BOWL reports encrypted voice traffic to Baghdad from that track."

Farther aft, the senior officer commanding the aircraft checked his display. The elltee in front was right. The colonel lit up his radio to report to KKMC.

THE REST OF them arrived together. They should have waited longer, Badrayn thought. Better to show up with the aircraft already here, the quicker to—but, no.

It was amusing to see them this way, these powerful men. A week earlier they'd strutted everywhere, sure of their place and their power, their khaki shirts decorated with various ribbons denoting some heroic service or other. That was unfair. Some had led men into battle, once or twice. Maybe one or two of them had actually killed an enemy. Iranian enemies. The same people to whom they would now entrust their safety, because they feared their own countrymen more. So now they stood about in little worried knots, unable to trust even their own bodyguards. Especially them. They had guns and were close, and they would not have been in this fix had bodyguards been trustworthy.

Despite the danger to his own life, Badrayn could not help but be amused by it. He'd spent his entire adult life dedicated to bringing about a moment such as this. How long had he dreamed of seeing senior Israeli officials standing about an airport like this—leaving their own people to an uncertain fate, defeated by his… that irony was not amusing, was it? Over thirty years, and all he'd accomplished was the destruction of an Arab country? Israel still stood. America still protected her, and all he was doing was adjusting the chairs of power around the Persian Gulf.

He was running away no less than they were, Badrayn admitted. Having failed in the mission of his life, he had done this one mercenary job, and then what? At least these generals had money and comfort before them. He had nothing ahead, and only failure behind. With that thought, Ali Badrayn swore, and sat back in his seat, just in time to see a dark shape race across the near runway in its rollout. A bodyguard at the door gestured at the people in the room. Two minutes later, the 737 came back into view. Additional fuel was not needed. The truck-borne stairway headed off, stopping only when the aircraft did. The stairs were in place before the door opened, and the generals, and their families, and one bodyguard each, and for most of them a mistress, hurried out the door into the cold drizzle that had just begun. Badrayn walked out last. Even then he had to wait. The Iraqis had all arrived at the bottom of the stairs in a tight little knot of jostling humanity, forgetting their importance and their dignity as they elbowed their way onto the steps. At the top was a uniformed crew member, smiling a mechanical greeting to people he had every reason to hate. Ali waited until the stairs were clear before heading up, arriving at the small platform and turning to look back. There hadn't really been all that much reason to rush. There were as yet no green trucks approaching with their confused soldiers. Another hour, it turned out, would have been fine. In due course they'd come here and find nothing but an empty lounge. He shook his head and entered the aircraft. The crewman closed the door behind him.

Forward, the flight crew radioed the tower for clearance to taxi, and that came automatically. The tower controllers had made their calls and passed along their information, but without instructions, they just did their jobs. As they watched, the aircraft made its way to the end of the runway, increased power, and lifted off into the darkness about to descend on their country.