Executive Orders

35 OPERATIONAL CONCEPT

WHEN MILITARY FORCES move, other forces watch with interest, though what they do about it depends on the instructions of their leaders. The move of Iranian forces into Iraq was entirely administrative. The tanks and other tracked vehicles came by low-hauler trailers, while the trucks rolled on their own wheels. There were the usual problems. A few units took wrong turns, to the embarrassment of their officers and the rage of superiors, but soon enough each of the three divisions had found a new home, in every case co-located with a formerly Iraqi division of the same type. The traumatically enforced downsizing of the Iraqi army had made for almost enough room for the new occupants of the bases, and scarcely had they arrived but the staffs were integrated in corps units, and joint exercises began to acquaint one grouping with the other. Here, too, there were the usual difficulties of language and culture, but both sides used much the same weapons and doctrine; and the staff officers, the same all over the world, worked to hammer out a common ground. This, too, was watched from satellite.

"How much?"

"Call it three corps formations," the briefing officer told Admiral Jackson. "One of two armored divisions, and two of an armored and a heavy mechanized. They're a little light in artillery, but they have all the rolling stock they need. We spotted a bunch of command-and-control vehicles running around in the desert, probably doing unit-movement simulations for a CPX." That was a Command-Post Exercise, a war game for professionals.

"Anything else?" Robby asked.

"The gunnery ranges at this base here, west of Abu Sukayr, are being bulldozed and cleaned up, and the air base just north at Nejef has a few new tenants, MiGs and Sukhois, but on IR their engines are cold."

"Assessment?" This came from Tony Bretano.

"Sir, you can call it anything," the colonel replied. "New country integrating their military, there's going to be a lot of getting-to-know-you stuff. We're surprised by the integrated corps formations. It's going to pose administrative difficulties, but it might be a good move from the political-psychological side. This way, they're acting like they really are one country."

"Nothing threatening at all?" the SecDef asked.

"Nothing overtly threatening, not at this time."

"How quick could that corps move to the Saudi border?" Jackson asked, to make sure his boss got the real picture.

"Once they're fully fueled and trained up? Call it forty-eight to seventy-two hours. We could do it in less than half the time, but we're trained better."

"Force composition?"

"Total for the three corps, we're talking six heavy divisions, just over fifteen hundred main battle tanks, over twenty-five hundred infantry fighting vehicles, upwards of six hundred tubes—still haven't got a handle on their red team, Admiral. That's artillery, Mr. Secretary," the colonel explained. "Logistically they're on the old Soviet model."

"What's that mean?"

"Their loggies are organic to the divisions. We do that also, but we maintain separate formations to keep our maneuver forces running."

"Reservists for the most part," Jackson told the Secretary. "The Soviet model allows for a more integrated maneuver force, but only for the short term. They can't sustain operations as long as we can, in terms of time or distance."

"The admiral is correct, sir," the briefing officer went on. "In 1990, when the Iraqis jumped into Kuwait, they went about as far as their logistical tail allowed. They had to stop to replenish."

"That's part of it. Tell him the other part," Jackson ordered.

"After a pause of from twelve to twenty-four hours, they were ready to move again. The reason they didn't was political."

"I always wondered about that. Could they have taken the Saudi oil fields?"

"Easy," the colonel said. "He must have thought a lot about that in later months," the officer added without sympathy.

"So, we have a threat here?" Bretano was asking simple questions and listening to the answers. Jackson liked that. He knew what he didn't know, and wasn't embarrassed about learning things.

"Yes, sir. These three corps represent a potential striking force about equal in power to what Hussein used. There would be other units involved, but they're just occupying forces. That's the fist right here," the colonel said, tapping the map with his pointer.

"But it's still in their pocket. How long to change that?"

"A few months at minimum to do it right, Mr. Secretary. It depends most of all on their overall political intentions. All of these units are individually trained up to snuff by local standards. Integrating their corps staffs and organizations is the real task ahead for them."

"Explain," Bretano ordered.

"Sir, I guess you could call it a management team. Everybody has to get to know everybody else so that they can communicate properly, start thinking the same way."

"Maybe it's easier to think of it as a football team, sir." Robby took it further. "You don't just take eleven guys and put them in a huddle together and expect them to perform properly. You have to have everybody reading out of the same playbook, and everybody has to know what everybody else is able to do."

SecDef nodded. "So it's not the hardware we're worried about. It's the people."

"That's right, sir," the colonel said. "I can teach you to drive a tank in a few minutes, but it'll be a while before I want you driving around in my brigade."

"That's why you people must love having a new Secretary come in every few years," Bretano observed with a wry smile.

"Mostly they learn pretty fast."

"So, what do we tell the President?"

THE CHINESE AND Taiwanese navies were keeping their respective distances, as though an invisible line were drawn north-south down the Formosa Strait. The latter kept pacing the former, interposing itself between its island home, but informal rules were established and so far none was being violated.

This was good for the CO of USS Pasadena, whose sonar and tracking parties were trying to keep tabs on both sides, all the while hoping that a shooting war wouldn't start with them in the middle. Getting killed by mistake seemed such a tawdry end.

"Torpedo in the water, bearing two-seven-four!" was the next call from the sonar compartment. Heads turned and ears perked up at once.

"Stay cool," the captain ordered quietly. "Sonar, Conn, I need more than that!" That statement was not quiet.

"Same bearing as contact Sierra Four-Two, a Luda II-class 'can, sir, probably launched from there."

"Four-Two is bearing two-seven-four, range thirty thousand yards," a petty officer in the tracking party interjected at once.

"Sounds like one of their new homers, sir, six blades, turning at high speed, bearing is changing north to south, definite side aspect on the fish."

"Very well," the captain said, allowing himself to stay as calm as he pretended to be.

"Could be targeted on Sierra-Fifteen, sir." That contact was an old Ming-class submarine, a Chinese copy of the old Russian Romeo-class, a clunker whose design dated from the 1950s which had snorted less than an hour before to recharge batteries.

"He's at two-six-one, range about the same." That came from the officer in charge of the tracking party. The senior chief at his left nodded agreement.

The captain closed his eyes and allowed himself a breath. He'd heard the stories about the Good Old Days of the Cold War, when people like Bart Mancuso had gone Up North into the Barents Sea and, occasionally, found themselves right in the middle of a live-fire ShootEx of the Soviet navy—perhaps mistaken for practice targets, even. A fine opportunity to figure out how good Soviet weapons really were, they joked now, sitting in their offices. Now he knew what they'd really felt at the time. Fortunately, his private head was a mere twenty feet away, if it came to that…

"Transient, transient, mechanical transient bearing two-six-one, sounds like a noisemaker, probably released by contact Sierra-Fifteen. The torpedo bearing is now two-six-seven, estimated speed four-four knots, bearing continues to change north to south," sonar reported next. "Hold it—another torpedo in the water bearing two-five-five!"

"No contact on that bearing, could be a helo launch," the senior chief said.

He'd have to discuss one of those sea stories with Man-cuso when he got back to Pearl, the captain thought.

"Same acoustical signature, sir, another homing fish, drifting north, could also be targeted on Sierra-Fifteen."

"Bracketed the poor bastard." This came from the XO.

"It's dark topside, isn't it?" the captain thought suddenly. Sometimes it was easy to lose track.

"Sure is, sir." From the XO again.

"Have we seen them do night helo ops this week?"

"No, sir. Intel says they don't like to fly off their 'cans at night."

"That just changed, didn't it? Let's see. Raise the ESM mast."

"Raise the ESM, aye." A sailor pulled the proper handle and the reed-thin electronics-sensor antenna hissed up on hydraulic power. Pasadena was running at periscope depth, her long sonar «tail» streamed out behind her as the submarine stayed roughly on what they hoped was the borderline between the two enemy fleets. It was the safest place to be until such time as real shooting started.

"Looking for—"

"Got it, sir, a Ku-band emitter at bearing two-five-four, aircraft type, frequency and pulse-repetition rate like that new French one. Wow, lots of radars turning, sir, take a while to classify them."

"French Dauphin helos on some of their frigates, sir," the XO observed.

"Doing night ops," the captain emphasized. That was unexpected. Helicopters were expensive, and landing on tin cans at night was always dicey. The Chinese navy was training up to do something.

THINGS COULD BE slippery in Washington. The nation's capital invariably panics at the report of a single snowflake despite the realization that a blizzard might do little more than fill the potholes in the street, if only people would plow the snow that way. But there was more to it than that. As soldiers once followed flags onto a battlefield, so senior Washington officials follow leaders or ideologies, but near the top it got slippery. A lower- or middle-level bureaucrat might just sit at his post and ignore his sitting department Secretary's identity, but the higher one went, the closer one came to something akin to decision or policy making. In such positions, one actually had to do things, or tell others to do things, from time to time, other than what someone else had already written down. One regularly went in and out of top-floor offices and became identified with whoever might be there, ultimately all the way to the President's office in the West Wing, and though access to the top meant power of a sort, and prestige, and an autographed photo on the office wall to tell your visitors how important you were, if something happened to the other person in the photo, then the photo and its signature might become a liability rather than an asset. The ultimate risk lay in changing from an insider, always welcome, to an outsider, if not quite always shunned, then forced to earn one's way back inside, a prospect not attractive to those who had spent so much time getting there in the first place.

The most obvious defense, of course, was to be networked, to have a circle of friends and associates which didn't have to be deep so much as broad, and include people in all parts of the political spectrum. You had to be known by a sufficiently wide number of fellow insiders so that no matter what happened at the very top there was always a safe platform just below, a safety net of sorts. The net was close enough to the top that the people in it had the upward access without the risk of falling off. With care, those at the top positions enjoyed its protection, too, always able to slide in and out of appropriate postings, to and from other offices not too far away—usually less than a mile—to await the next opportunity, and so even though out, to remain in the Network, to retain the access, and also rent out that access to those who needed it. In that sense, nothing had changed since the pharaonic court in the ancient Nile city of Thebes, where knowing a nobleman who had access to Pharaoh gave one a power which translated into both money and the pure joy of being important enough to bow and scrape for profit.

But in Washington as in Thebes, being too close to the wrong leader's court meant you ran the risk of becoming tarnished, especially when the Pharaoh didn't play ball (actually jackals and hounds in the Middle Kingdom) with the system.

And President Ryan didn't. It was as though a foreigner had usurped the throne, not necessarily a bad man, but a different man who didn't assemble people from the Establishment. They'd waited patiently for him to come to them, as all Presidents did, to seek their wisdom and counsel, to give access and get it in return, as courtiers had for centuries. They handled things for a busy chief, doling out justice, seeing to it that things were done in the same old way, which had to be the right way, since all of their number agreed with it while serving and being served by it.

But the old system hadn't so much been destroyed as ignored, and that befuddled the thousands of members of the Great Network. They held their cocktail parties and discussed the new President over Perrier and pate, smiling tolerantly at his new ideas and waiting for him to see the light. But it had been quite a while now since that awful night, and it hadn't happened yet. Networked people still working inside as appointees of the Fowler-Durling administration came to the parties and reported that they didn't understand what was going on. Senior lobbyists tried to make appointments through the office of the President, only to be told that the President was extremely tied up, and didn't have time.

Didn't have time?

Didn't have time for them?

It was as though Pharaoh had told all the nobles and courtiers to go home and tend their estates up and down the river kingdom, and that was no fun—to live in the provinces… with the… common folk?

Worse, the new Senate, or a large part of it, was following the President's example. Worst of all, many, if not most, were curt with them. A new senator from Indiana was reported to have a kitchen timer on his desk and to twist it to a mere five minutes for lobbyists, and to none at all for people talking to him about the absurd ideas for rewriting the tax code. Worst of all, he even lacked the courtesy to have his executive secretary deflect appointment requests. He'd actually told the chief of a powerful Washington law firm—a man who'd only wanted to educate the newcomer from Peoria—that he would not listen to such people, ever. Told the man himself. In another context it would have been an amusing story. Such people occasionally came to Washington with such purity of purpose as to justify a white horse, but in due course they would learn that horses were out of date—and in most cases, they were merely doing it for show anyway.

But not this time. The story had spread. First reported in the local D.C. papers with whimsy, it had been picked up in Indianapolis as something genuinely new and decidedly "Hoosier," and then respread through a couple of the news syndicates. This new senator had talked forcefully with his new colleagues, and won a few converts. Not all that many, but enough to be worrisome. Enough to give him a chairmanship of a powerful subcommittee, what was too bully a pulpit for one such as he, especially since he had a flair for the dramatic and an effective, if not exactly nice, turn of phrase that reporters couldn't avoid quoting. Even reporters in the Great Network enjoyed reporting genuinely new things—which was what «news» meant, something everyone mainly forgot.

At the parties, people joked that it was a fad, like hula hoops, amusing to watch and soon to fade, but every so often one of them would worry. The tolerant smile would freeze on his or her face in mid-joke, and they'd wonder if something genuinely new might be happening.

No, nothing genuinely new ever happened here. Everybody knew that. The system had rules, and the rules had to be obeyed.

Even so, a few of them worried at their dinner parties in Georgetown. They had expensive houses to pay off, children to educate, and status to maintain. All had come from somewhere else, and none wanted to go back there.

It was just so outrageous. How did the newcomers expect to find out what they needed to, without lobbyists from the Network to guide and educate them—and didn't they represent the people, too? Weren't they paid to do exactly that? Didn't they tell the elected representatives— worse, these new ones weren't elected, they were all appointed, many of them by governors who, in their wish to get reelected themselves, had bowed to President Ryan's impassioned but utterly unrealistic televised speech. As though some new religion had broken out.

At the parties in Chevy Chase, many of them worried that the new laws these new senators would pass would be… laws, just like the ones produced by the system, at least in their power if not in their wisdom. These new people could actually pass new laws without being "helped." That was so genuinely new an idea as to be… frightening. But only if you really believed it.

And then there were the House races, just about to start around the country, the special elections required to repopulate the People's House, as everyone liked to call it, which was Disneyland for lobbyists, so many meetings all in one convenient complex of buildings, 435 lawmakers and their staffs within a mere twenty acres. Polling data that had been reported mainly in local papers was now being picked up by the national media in shocked disbelief. There were people running who had never run for anything before; businessmen, community leaders who had never worked the system, lawyers, ministers, even some physicians. Some of them might win as they spewed forth neo-populist-type speeches about supporting the President and "restoring America" — a phrase that had gained wide currency. But America had never died, the Network people told themselves. They were still here, weren't they?

It was all Ryan's doing. He'd never been one of them. He'd actually said more than once that he didn't like being President!

Didn't like it?

How could any man—"person" to the Network Establishment in the new age of enlightenment—not like having the ability to do so much, to pass out so many favors, to be courted and flattered like a king of old?

Didn't like it?

Then he didn't belong, did he?

They knew how to handle that. Someone had already started it. Leaks. Not just from inside. Those were little people with lesser agendas. There was more. There was the big picture, and for that, access still counted, because the Network had many voices, and there were still ears to listen. There would be no plan and no conspiracy per se. It would all happen naturally, or as naturally as anything happened here. In fact, it had already begun.

FOR BADRAYN, AGAIN, it was time on his computer. The task, he learned, was time-critical. Such things often were, but the reason was new in this case. The travel time itself had to be minimized, rather than arranged in such a way as to meet a specific deadline or rendezvous. The limiting factor here was the fact that Iran was still something of an outlaw country with surprisingly little in the way of air travel options.

Flights with convenient times were astoundingly limited: KLM 534 to Amsterdam left just after one A.M., and arrived in Holland at 6:10 A.M. after an intermediary stop; Lufthansa's nonstop 601 left at 2:55, and got to Frankfurt at 5:50; Austrian Airlines 774, leaving at 3:40 A.M., arrived in Vienna nonstop at 6:00 A.M.; Air France 165 left at 5:25 A.M., arrived at Charles de Gaulle at nine A.M.; British Airways 102 left at six A.M., stopping en route, arriving at Heathrow at 12:45 P.M.; Aeroflot 516 left at three A.M. for Moscow, arrived there at 7:10.

Only one nonstop to Rome, no direct flights,to Athens, not even a nonstop to Beirut! He could have his people connect through Dubai—remarkably, Emirates Airlines did fly out of Tehran into its own international hub, as did Kuwait's flag carrier, but they, he thought, were not a very good idea.

Just a handful of flights to use, all of them easily observed by foreign intelligence services—if they were competent, as he had to assume they were, either they'd have their own people aboard the flights or the cabin staff would be briefed on what to look for and how to report it while the aircraft was still in the air. So, it wasn't just time, was it?

The people he'd selected were good ones; educated for the most part, they knew how to dress respectably, how to carry on a conversation, or at least to deflect one politely—on international flights the easiest thing was to feign the need for sleep, which most often wasn't feigned anyway. But only one mistake, and the consequences could be serious. He'd told them that, and all had listened.

Badrayn had never been given a mission like this one, and the intellectual challenge was noteworthy. Just a handful of really usable flights out, and the one to Moscow wasn't all that attractive. The gateway cities of London, Frankfurt, Paris, Vienna, and Amsterdam would have to do—and one flight each per day. The good news was that all five of them offered a wide choice of qonnec-tions via American and other flag carriers. So one group would take 601 to Frankfurt, and there, some would disperse through Brussels (Sabena to New York-JFK) and Paris (Air France to Washington-Dulles; Delta to Atlanta; American Airlines to Orlando; United to Chicago) via conveniently timed connecting flights, while others took Lufthansa to Los Angeles. The British Airways team had the most options of all. One would take Concorde Flight 3 into New York. The only trick was getting them through the first series of flights. After that, the whole massive system of international air travel would handle the dispersal.

Still, twenty people, twenty possible mistakes. Operational security was always a worry. He'd spent half his life trying to outfox the Israelis, and while his continued life was some testimony to his success—or lack of total failure, which was somewhat more honest—the hoops he'd had to leap through had nearly driven him mad more than once. Well. At least he had the flights figured out. Tomorrow he would brief them in. He checked his watch. Tomorrow wasn't all that far away.

NOT EVERY INSIDER agreed. Every group had its cynics and rebels, some good, some bad, some not even outcasts. Then there was also anger. The Network members, when thwarted by other members in one of their endeavors, often took a philosophical view of the matter—one could always get even later, and still stay friends—but not always. This was especially true of the media members who both were and were not part of it all. They were, in the sense that they did have their own personal relationships and friendships with the government in and out people; they could go to them for information and insights, and stories about their enemies. They were not, in that the insiders never really trusted them, because the media could be used and fooled—most often cajoled, which was easier for one side of the political spectrum than the other. But trust? Not exactly. Or more exactly, not at all.

Some of them even had principles.

"Arnie, we need to talk."

"I think we do," van Damm agreed, recognizing the voice that had come in on his direct line.

"Tonight?"

"Sure. Where?"

"My place?"

The chief of staff gave it a few seconds of consideration. "Why not?"

THE DELEGATION CAME just in time for evening prayers. The greetings were cordial and modest on both sides, and then all three of them entered the mosque and performed their daily ritual. Ordinarily, all would have felt purified by their devotions as they walked back out to the garden. But not this time. Only long practice in the concealment of emotions prevented overt displays of tension, but even that told much to all three, and especially to the one.

"Thank you for receiving us," Prince Ali bin Sheik said first of all. He didn't add that it had taken long enough.

"I am pleased to welcome you in peace," Daryaei replied. "It is well that we should pray together." He led them to a table prepared by his security people, where coffee was served, the strong, bitter brew favored in the Middle East. "The blessings of God on this meeting, my friends. How may I be of service?"

"We are here to discuss recent developments," the Royal Prince observed after a sip. His eyes locked in on Daryaei. His Kuwaiti colleague, Mohammed Adman Sabah, his country's foreign minister, remained quiet for the moment.

"What do you wish to know?" Daryaei asked.

"Your intentions," Ali replied bluntly.

The spiritual head of the United Islamic Republic sighed. "There is much work to be done. All the years of war and suffering, all the lives lost to so many causes, the destruction to so much. Even this mosque" — he gestured to the obvious need for repairs —"is a symbol of it all, don't you think?"

"There has been much cause for sorrow," Ali agreed.

"My intentions? To restore. These unhappy people have been through so much. Such sacrifices—and for what? The secular ambitions of a godless man. The injustice of it all cried out to Allah, and Allah answered the cries. And now, perhaps, we can be one prosperous and godly people." The again hung unspoken on the end of the statement.

"That is the task of years," the Kuwaiti observed.

"Certainly it is," Daryaei agreed. "But now with the embargo lifted, we have sufficient resources to see to the task, and the will to see it done. There will be a new beginning here."

"In peace," Ali added.

"Certainly in peace," Daryaei agreed serioasly.

"May we be of assistance? One of the Pillars of our Faith is charity, after all," Foreign Minister Sabah observed.

A gracious nod. "Your kindness is noted with gratitude, Mohammed Adman. It is well that we should be guided by our Faith rather than worldly influences that have so sadly swept over this region in recent years, but for the moment, as you can see, the task is so vast that we can scarcely begin to determine what things need to be done, and in what order. Perhaps at a later time we might discuss that again."

It wasn't quite a flat rejection of aid, but close. The UIR wasn't interested in doing business, just as Prince Ali had feared.

"At the next meeting of OPEC," Ali offered, "we can discuss the rearrangement of production quotas so that you can share more fairly in the revenue we collect from our clients."

"That would indeed be useful," Daryaei agreed. "We do not ask for all that much. A minor adjustment," he allowed.

"Then on that we are agreed?" Sabah asked.

"Certainly. That is a technical issue which we can delegate to our respective functionaries."

Both visitors nodded, noting to themselves that the allocation of oil production quotas was the most rancorous of issues. If every country produced too much, then the world price would fall, and all would suffer. On the other hand, if production were overly restricted, the price would rise, damaging the economies of their client states, which would then reduce demand and revenues with it. The proper balance—hard to strike, like all economic issues— was the yearly subject of high-level diplomatic missions, each with its own economic model, no two ever the same, and considerable discord within the mainly Muslim association. This was going far too easily.

"Is there a message you wish to convey to our governments?" Sabah asked next.

"We desire only peace, peace so that we can accomplish our tasks of restoring our societies into one, as Allah intends it to be. There is nothing for you to fear from us."

"SO WHAT DO you think?" Another training rotation was completed. Present at the final review of operations were some very senior Israeli officers, at least one of whom was a senior spook.

Colonel Sean Magruder was a cavalryman, but in a real sense every senior officer was an intelligence consumer, and willing to shop at any source. "I think the Saudis are very nervous, along with all their neighbors."

"And you?" Magruder asked. He'd unconsciously adopted the informal and direct mode of address common in the country, especially its military. Avi ben Jakob, still titularly a military officer—he was wearing a uniform now— was deputy chief of the Mossad. He wondered how far he could go, but with his job title, that was really for him to decide.

"We are not pleased at all by the development."

"Historically," Colonel Magruder observed, "Israel has had a working relationship with Iran, even after the Shah fell. That goes all the way back to the Persian Empire. I believe your festival of Purim results from that period. Israeli air force pilots flew missions for the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war and—"

"We had a large number of Jews then in Iran, and that was intended to get them out," Jakob said quickly.

"And the arms-for-hostages mess that Reagan got into went through here, probably your agency," Magruder added, just to show that he, too, was a player in the game

"You are well informed."

"That's my job, part of it anyway. Sir, I am not making value judgments here. Getting your people out of Iran back then was, as we say at home, business, and all countries have to do business. I'm just asking what you think of the UIR."

"We think Daryaei is the most dangerous man in the world."

Magruder thought of the eyes-only brief he'd had earlier in the day about the Iranian troop movements into Iraq. "I agree."

He'd come to like the Israelis. That hadn't always been true. For years, the United States Army had cordially disliked the Jewish state, along with the other branches of the service, mainly because of the corporate arrogance adopted by the small nation's senior military officers. But the IDF had learned humility in Lebanon, and learned to respect American arms as observers in the Persian Gulf War—after literally months of telling American officers that they needed advice on how to fight first the air war and then the ground war, they'd quickly taken to asking, politely, to look over some of the American plans because there might be some few minor things worthy of a little study.

The descent of the Buffalo Cav into the Negev had changed things some more. America's tragedy in Vietnam had broken another type of arrogance, and from that had grown a new type of professionalism. Under Marion Diggs, first CO of the reborn 10th United States Cavalry, quite a few harsh lessons had been handed out, and while Magruder was continuing that tradition, the Israeli troopers were learning, just as Americans had done at Fort Irwin. After the initial screams and near fistfights, common sense had broken out. Even Benny Eitan, commander of the Israeli 7th Armored Brigade, had rallied from the first set of drubbings to finish his training rotation with a pair of break-evens, and come away thanking his American hosts for the lessons—and promising to kick their asses when he returned the next year. In the central computer in the local Star Wars building, a complex mathematical model said that the performance of the Israeli army had improved by fully forty percent in just a few years, and now that they again had something to be arrogant about, the Israeli officers were showing disarming humility and an almost ruthless desire to learn—ever signs of truly professional soldiers.

And now one of their head spooks wasn't talking about how his forces could handle anything the Islamic world might throw at his country. That was worth a contact report to Washington, Magruder thought.

THE BUSINESS JET once «lost» in the Mediterranean could no longer leave the country. Even using it to ferry the Iraqi generals to Sudan had been a mistake, but a necessary one, and perhaps the odd covert mission was all right as well, but for the most part it had become Daryaei's personal transport, and a useful one, for his time was short, and his new country large. Within two hours of seeing his Sunni visitors off, he was back in Tehran.

"So?"

Badrayn laid out his papers on the desk, showing cities and routes and times. It was mere mechanics. Daryaei looked the plans over with a cursory eye, and while they seemed overly complex, that was not a major concern for him. He'd seen maps before. He looked up for the explanation that had to come with the paperwork.

"The primary issue is time," Badrayn said. "We want to have each traveler to his destination no more than thirty hours after departure. This one, for example, leaves Tehran at six A.M., and arrives in New York at two A.M. Tehran time, elapsed time twenty hours. The trade show he will attend—it is at the Jacob Javits Center in New York—will be open past ten in the evening. This one departs at 2:55 A.M., and ultimately arrives in Los Angeles twenty-three hours later—early afternoon, local time. His trade show will be open all day. That is the most lengthy in terms of distance and time, and his 'package' will still be more than eighty-five percent effective."

"And security?"

"They are all fully briefed. I have selected intelligent, educated people. All they need do is be pleasant en route. After that, a little caution. Twenty at once, yes, that is troublesome, but those were your orders."

"And the other group?"

"They will go out two days later via similar arrangements," Badrayn reported. "That mission is far more dangerous."

"I am aware of that. Are the people faithful?"

"They are that." Badrayn nodded, knowing that the question really asked if they were fools. "The political risks concern me."

"Why?" The observation didn't surprise Daryaei, but he wanted the reason.

"The obvious question of discovering who sent them, though their travel documents will be properly prepared, and the usual security measures put in place. No, I mean the American political context. An unhappy event to a politician can often create sympathy for him, and from that sympathy can come political support."

"Indeed! It does not make him appear weak?" That was rather much to swallow.

"In our context, yes, but not necessarily in theirs."

Daryaei considered that and compared it with other analyses he'd ordered and reviewed. "I have met Ryan. He is weak. He does not deal effectively with his political difficulties. He still has no true government behind him. Between the first mission and the second, we will break him—or at least we will distract him long enough to achieve our next goal. After that is accomplished, America becomes irrelevant."

"Better the first mission only," Badrayn advised.

"We must shake their people. If what you say of their government is true, we will do such harm as they have never known. We will shake their leader, we will shake his confidence, we will shake the confidence of the people in him."

He had to respond to that carefully. This was a Holy Man with a Holy Mission. He was not fully amenable to reason. And yet there was one other factor which he didn't know about. There had to be. Daryaei was more given to wishes than considered action—no, that wasn't true, was it? He united the two while giving another impression entirely. What the cleric did appreciate was that the American government was still vulnerable, since its lower house of parliament had not yet been replaced, a process just beginning.

"Best of all merely to kill Ryan, if we could. An attack on children will inflame them. Americans are very sentimental about little ones."

"The second mission goes on only after the first is known to be successful?" Daryaei demanded.

"Yes, that is true."

"Then that is sufficient," he said, looking back down at the travel arrangements, and leaving Badrayn to his own thoughts. There is a third element. There had to be.

"HE SAYS HIS intentions are peaceful."

"So did Hitler, Ali," the President reminded his friend. He checked his watch. It was after midnight in Saudi Arabia. Ali had flown back and conferred with his government before calling Washington, as one would expect. "You know about the troop movement."

"Yes, your people briefed our military earlier today. It will be some time before they are ready to make any threat. Such things take time. Remember, I was once in uniform."

"True, that's what they told me, too." Ryan paused. "Okay, what does the Kingdom propose?"

"We will observe closely. Our military is training. We have your pledge of support. We are concerned, but not overly so."

"We could schedule some joint exercises," Jack offered.

"That might only inflame matters," the Prince replied. The absence of total conviction in his voice was not accidental. He'd probably fielded the idea in council himself and gotten a negative reply.

"Well, I guess you've had a long day. Tell me, how did Daryaei look? I haven't seen the guy since you introduced him to me."

"His health appears good. He looks tired, but he's had a busy time."

"I can relate to that. Ali?"

"Yes, Jack?"

The President stopped then, reminding himself that he was unschooled in diplomatic exchange. "How concerned should I be about all this?"

"What do your people tell you?" the Prince replied.

"About the same as you do, but not all of them. We need to keep this line open, my friend."

"I understand, Mr. President. Good-bye for now."

It was an unsatisfactory conclusion to an unsatisfactory call. Ryan replaced the phone and looked around at his empty office. Ali wasn't saying what he wanted to say because the position of his government was different from what he thought it should be. The same had happened to Jack often enough, and the same rules applied. Ali hacFto be loyal to that government—hell, it was mainly his own family—but he had allowed himself one slip, and the Prince was too clever to do that sort of thing by mistake. It probably would have been easier before, when Ryan had not been President and both could talk without the worry of making policy with every word. Now Jack was America to those beyond the borders, and governmental officials could talk to him only that way, instead of remembering that he was also a thinking man who needed to explore options before making decisions. Maybe if it hadn't been over the phone, Jack thought. Maybe face-to-face would have been better. But even Presidents were limited by time and space.