Executive Orders

40 OPENINGS

MOST AMERICANS WOKE up to learn what their President already knew. Eleven American citizens were dead, with three more unaccounted for, in an airliner disaster on the opposite side of the world. A local TV crew had made it to the airport just in time, having learned of the emergency from a helpful source at the terminal. Their video showed little more than a distant fireball erupting into the sky, followed by some closer shots that were so typical that they, too, might have come from anywhere. Ten fire trucks surrounded the burning wreckage, blasting it with foam and water, both too late to save anyone. Ambulances scurried about. Some people, obvious survivors, wandered in the haze of shock and disorientation. Others, their faces blackened, staggered into the arms of rescue personnel. There were wives without husbands, parents without children, and the sort of chaos that always appeared dramatic but which passed on nothing in the way of explanation, even as it cried out for action of some kind.

The Republic of China's government issued a blistering statement about air piracy, then requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. Beijing issued its own statement minutes later, stating that its aircraft, on a peaceful training exercise, had been attacked entirely without provocation, then returned fire in self-defense. Beijing totally disavowed any involvement in the damage to the airliner, and blamed the entire episode on their rebellious province.

"So, what else have we turned up?" Ryan asked Admiral Jackson at seven-thirty.

"We went over both tapes for about two hours. I brought in a few fighter pilots I've worked with, and a pair of Air Force guys, and we kicked it around some. Number one, the ChiComs—"

"Not supposed to call them that, Robby," the President observed.

"Old habit, sorry. The gentlemen of the PRC—hey, they knew we had ships there. The electronic signature of an Aegis ship is like Mount St. Helens with an attitude, okay? And the capabilities of the ships ain't exactly a secret. They've been in service for almost twenty years. So they knew we were watching, and they knew we'd see everything. Let's keep that one in mind."

"Keep going," Jack told his friend.

"Number two, we have a spook team on the Chandler, listening in on radio chatter. We have translated the voice transmissions of the Chinese fighter pilots. Quoting now— this is thirty seconds into the engagement—'I have him, I have him, taking the shot. Okay, the time stamp on that is exactly the same as the heat-seeker launch on the airliner.

"Number three, every driver I talked to said the same as I did—why shoot at an airliner on the edge of your missile range when you have fighters in your face? Jack, this one smells—real bad, man.

"Unfortunately, we can't prove the voice transmission came from the fighter that launched on the Airbus, but it is my opinion, and that of my pals across the river, that this was a deliberate act. They tried to splash that airliner on purpose," the Pentagon's director of operations concluded. "We're lucky anybody got off at all."

"Admiral," Arnie van Damm asked, "could you take that into a court of law?"

"Sir, I'm not a lawyer. I'm an airplane driver. I don't have to prove things for a living, but I'm telling you, it's a hundred-to-one against that we're wrong on this."

"I can't say this in front of the cameras, though," Ryan said, checking his watch. He'd have to do makeup in a few minutes. "If they did it on purpose—"

"No 'if, Jack, okay?"

"Damn it, Robby, I heard you the first time!" Ryan snapped. He paused and took a breath. "I can't accuse a sovereign country of an act of war without absolute proof. Next, okay, fine, they did do it on purpose, and they did it with the knowledge that we'd know they did. What's that mean?"

Jack's national security team had had a long night. Goodley took the lead. "Hard to say, Mr. President."

"Are they making a move on Taiwan?" the President asked.

"They can't," Jackson said, shaking off his Commander-in-Chief s tantrum. "They do not have the physical ability to invade. There is no sign of unusual activity in their ground forces in this area, just the stuff they've been doing in the northwest that has the Russians so annoyed. So from a military point of view the answer is no."

"Airborne invasion?" Ed Foley asked. Robby shook his head.

"They don't have the airlift capacity, and even if they tried, the ROC has enough air-defense assets to turn it into early duck season. They could stage an air-sea battle like I told you last night, but it'll cost them ships and planes— for what purpose?" the J-3 asked.

"So did they splash an airliner to test us?" POTUS wondered. "That doesn't make sense, either."

"If you say 'me' instead of'us, that's a possibility," the DCI said quietly.

"Come on, Director," Goodley objected. "There were two hundred people on that plane, and they must have thought they'd kill them all."

"Let's not be too naive, Ben," Foley observed tolerantly. "They don't share our sentimentality for human life over there, do they?"

"No, but—"

Ryan interrupted: "Okay, hold it. We think this was a deliberate act, but we don't have positive proof, and we have no idea what its purpose might have been—and if we don't, I can't call it a deliberate act, right?" There were nods. "Fine, now in fifteen minutes I have to go down to the Press Room and deliver this statement and then the reporters will ask me questions, and the only answers I can give them will be lies."

"That about sums it up, Mr. President," van Damm confirmed.

"Well, isn't that just great," Jack snarled. "And Beijing will know, or at least suspect, that I'm lying."

"Possible, but not certain on that," Ed Foley observed.

"I'm not good at lying," Ryan told them.

"Learn how," the chief of staff advised. "Quickly."

THERE WAS NO talking on the flight from Tehran to Paris. Adler took a comfortable seat in the back, got out a legal pad, and wrote the whole way, using his trained memory to reconstruct the conversation, then added a series of personal observations on everything from Daryaei's physical appearance to the clutter on his desk. After that, he examined the notes for an hour, and started making analytical comments. In the process, he wore down half a dozen pencils. The layover in Paris lasted less than an hour, enough for Adler to spend a little time with Claude again and for his escorts to have a quick drink. Then it was off again in their Air Force VC-20B.

"How'd it go?" John asked.

Adler had to remind himself that Clark was on the SNIE team, and not just a gun-toting SPO.

"First, what did you find out on your walk?"

The senior CIA officer reached in his pocket and handed the Secretary of State a gold necklace. "Does this mean we're engaged?" Adler asked, with a surprised chuckle. Clark gestured to his partner. "No, sir. He's engaged." Now that they were aloft, the cabin crewman who ran the communications panel turned on his equipment. The fax machine started chirping at once.

"… WE HAVE CONFIRMED eleven American deaths, with three more U.S. citizens missing. Four of the American survivors are injured and are being treated in local hospitals. That concludes my opening statement," the President told them.

"Mister President!" thirty voices called at once.

"One at a time, please." Jack pointed to a woman in the front row.

"Beijing claims that Taiwan shot first. Can we confirm that?"

"We are examining some information, but it takes a while to figure these things out, and until such time as we have definitive information, I do not think it proper to draw any conclusions at this time."

"But both sides traded shots, didn't they?" she asked as a follow-up.

"That would seem to be the case, yes."

"So then do we know whose missile hit the Airbus?"

"As I said, we are still examining the data." Keep it short, Jack, he told himself. And that wasn't quite a lie, was it? "Yes?" He pointed to another reporter.

"Mr. President, with so many American citizens lost, what action will you be taking to ensure this does not happen again?" At least this one he could answer truthfully.

"We are examining options right now. Beyond that, I have nothing to say, except that we call on both Chinas to step back and think about their actions. The loss of innocent life is in the interest of no country. Military exercises there have been ongoing for some time now, and the resulting tension is not helpful to regional stability."

"So you're asking both countries to suspend their exercises?"

"We're going to ask them to consider that, yes."

"Mr. President," said John Plumber, "this is your first foreign policy crisis and…"

Ryan looked down at the elderly reporter and wanted to observe that his first domestic crisis had been of his making, but you couldn't afford to make enemies of the press, and you could only make friends with them if they liked you—an altogether unlikely possibility, he'd come to understand.

"Mr. Plumber, before you do anything, you have to find out the facts. We're working on that just as hard as we can. I had my national security team in this morning—"

"But not Secretary Adler," Plumber pointed out. Good reporter that he was, he'd checked the official cars on West Executive Drive. "Why wasn't he here?"

"He'll be in later today," Ryan dodged.

"Where is he now?" Plumber persisted.

Ryan just shook his head. "Can we limit this to just one topic? It's a little early in the morning for so many questions, and as you pointed out, I do have a situation to deal with, Mr. Plumber."

"And he is your principal foreign policy adviser, sir. Where is he now?"

"Next question," the President said tersely. He got about what he deserved from Barry of CNN:

"Mr. President, a moment ago you said both Chinas. Sir, does this signal a change in our China policy, and

IT WAS JUST after eight in the evening in Beijing, and things were good. He could see it on TV. How strange to watch a political figure so singularly lacking in charm and adroitness, especially an American. Zhang Han San lit a cigarette and congratulated himself. He'd done it again. There had been a danger in staging the "exercise," most particularly the recent air sorties — but then the Republic's aviators had so kindly obliged by shooting first, just as he'd hoped they would, and now there was a crisis which he could control precisely, and end it at any time, merely by recalling his own forces to their bases. He'd force America to react not so much by action as by inaction—and then someone else would take the lead in provoking its new President. He had no idea what Daryaei had in mind. An assassination attempt, perhaps? Something else? All he had to do was watch, as he was doing now, and reap the harvest when the opportunity arose, which it surely would. America couldn't stay lucky forever. Not with this young fool in the White House.

"BARRY, ONE COUNTRY calls itself the People's Republic of China, and the other calls itself the Republic of China. I have to call them something, don't I?" Ryan asked testily. Oh, shit, have I done it again?

"Yes, Mr. President, but—"

"But we probably have fourteen American citizens dead, and this is not a time to worry about semantics." There, take that.

"What are we going to do?" a female voice demanded.

"First, we're going to try to find out what took place. Then we can start thinking about reactions."

"But why don't we know yet?"

"Because as much as we would like to know everything that takes place in the world every minute, it's simply impossible."

"Is that why your administration is radically increasing the size of the CIA?"

"As I have said before, we do not discuss intelligence matters, ever."

"Mr. President, there are published reports that—"

"There are published reports that UFOs land here on a regular basis," Ryan shot back. "Do you believe that, too?"

The room actually went quiet for a moment. It wasn't every day that you saw a President lose his temper. They loved it.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I regret the fact that I cannot answer all your questions to your satisfaction. In fact, I am asking some of the same questions myself, but correct answers take time. If I have to wait for the information, so do you," he said, trying to get the news conference back on track.

"Mr. President, a man who looks very much like the former Chairman of the Soviet KGB has appeared on live television and—" The reporter stopped, as he saw Ryan's face glow red under the makeup. He expected another blowup, but it didn't happen. The President's knuckles went ivory-white on the lectern, and he took a breath.

"Please go on with your question, Sam."

"And that gentleman said that he is who he is. Now, sir, the cat is well out of the bag, and I think my question is a legitimate one."

"I haven't heard a question yet, Sam."

"Is he who he says he is?"

"You don't need me to tell you that."

"Mr. President, this event, this… operation has great international significance. At some point, intelligence operations, sensitive though they may well be, have a serious effect on our foreign relations. At that point, the American people want to know what such things are all about."

"Sam, I will say this one last time: I will never, not ever, discuss intelligence matters. I am here this morning to inform our citizens of a tragic and so far unexplained incident in which over a hundred people, including fourteen American citizens, have lost their lives. This government will do its utmost to determine what took place, and then to decide upon a proper course of action."

"Very well, Mr. President. Do we have a one-China policy, or a two-China policy?"

"We have made no changes."

"Might a change result from this incident?"

"I will not speculate on something so important as that. And now, with your permission, I have to get back to work."

"Thank you, Mr. President!" Jack heard on his way out the door.

Just around the corner was a well-hidden gun cabinet. POTUS slammed it with his hand hard enough to rattle a few of the Uzis inside. "God damn it!" he swore on the fifty-yard walk back to his office.

"Mr. President?" Ryan spun around. It was Robby, holding his briefcase. It seemed so out of place for an aviator to be toting one of those.

"I owe you an apology," Jack said, before Robby could get another word out. "Sorry I blew up."

Admiral Jackson popped his friend on the arm. "Next time we play golf, it's a buck a hole, and if you're going to get mad, do it at me, not them, okay? I've seen your temper before, man. Dial it back. A commander can only get pissed in front of the troops for show—leadership technique, we call it—not for real. Yelling at staff is something else. I'm staff," Robby said. "Yell at me."

"Yeah, I know. Keep me posted and—"

"Jack?"

"Yeah, Rob?"

"You're doing fine, just keep it cool."

"I'm not supposed to let people kill Americans, Robby. That's not what I'm here for." His hands balled into fists again.

"Shit happens, Mr. President. If you think you can stop it all, you're just kidding yourself. And I don't have to tell you that. You're not God, Jack, but you are a pretty good guy doing a pretty good job. We'll have more information for you as soon as we can put it together."

"When things settle down, how about another golf lesson?"

"I am yours to command." The two friends shook hands. It wasn't enough for either of them at this moment, but it had to do. Jackson headed for the door, and Ryan turned back toward his office.

"Mrs. Sumter!" he called on the way in. Maybe a smoke would help.

"SO WHAT GIVES, Mr. Secretary?" Chavez asked. The three-page fax off the secure satellite link told them everything the President had. He'd let them read it, too.

"I don't know," Adler admitted. "Chavez, that thesis paper you told me about?"

"What about it, sir?"

"You should have waited to write it. Now you know what it's like up here. Like playing dodge ball as a kid, except it ain't a rubber ball we're trying to dodge, is it?" The Secretary of State tucked his notes into his briefcase and waved to the Air Force sergeant who was supposed to look after them. He wasn't as cute as the French attendant had been.

"Yes, sir?"

"Did Claude leave us anything?"

"A couple of bottles from the Loire Valley," the NCO replied, with a smile. "You want to uncork one and get some glasses out?"

"Cards?" John Clark asked.

"No, I think I'm going to have a glass or two, and then I'm going to get a little sleep. Looks like I have another trip laid on," SecState told them. "Beijing." No surprise, John thought. "It won't be Philadelphia," Scott said, as the bottle and glasses arrived. Thirty minutes later, all three men pushed their seat backs down all the way. The sergeant closed the window shades for them.

This time Clark got some sleep, but Chavez did not. There was truth in what Adler had remarked to him. His thesis had savagely attacked turn-of-the-century statesmen for their inability to see beyond immediate problems. Now Ding did know a little better. It was hard to tell the difference between an immediate tactical problem and a truly strategic one when you were dodging the bullets on a minute-to-minute basis, and history books couldn't fully convey the temper, the feel of the times on which they supposedly reported. Not all of it. They also gave the wrong impression of people. Secretary Adler, now snoring in his leather reclining seat, was a career diplomat, Chavez reminded himself, and he'd earned the trust and respect of the President—a man he himself deeply respected. He wasn't stupid. He wasn't venal. But he was merely a man, and men made mistakes… and great men made big ones. Someday some historian would write about this trip they'd just taken, but would that historian really know what it had been like—and, not knowing, how could he really comment on what had taken place?

What's going on? Ding asked himself. Iran gets real frisky and knocks over Iraq and starts a new country, and just as America is trying to deal with that, something else happens. An event minor in the great scheme of things, perhaps—but you never knew that until it was all over, did you? How could you tell? That was always the problem. Statesmen over the centuries had made mistakes because when you were stuck in the middle of things, you couldn't step outside and take a more detached look. That's what they were paid to do, but it was pretty hard, wasn't it? He had just finished his master's thesis, and he'd get hooded later this year, and officially proclaimed an expert in international relations. But that was a lie, Ding thought, settling back into his own seat. A flippant observation he'd once made on another long flight came back to him. All too often international relations was simply one country fucking another. Domingo Chavez, soon-to-be master in international relations, smiled at the thought, but it wasn't very funny, really. Not when people got killed. Especially not when he and Mr. C. were front-line worker-bees. Something happening in the Middle East. Something else happening with China… four thousand miles away, wasn't it? Could those two things be related? What if they were? But how could you tell? Historians assumed that people could tell if only they'd been smart enough. But historians didn't have to do the work…

"NOT HIS BEST performance," Plumber said, sipping his iced tea.

"Twelve hours, not even that much, to get a handle on something halfway 'round the world, John," Holtzman suggested.

It was a typical Washington restaurant, pseudo-French with cute little tassels on a menu listing overpriced dishes of mediocre quality—but, then, both men were on expense accounts.

"He's supposed to handle himself better," Plumber observed.

"You're complaining that he can't lie effectively?"

"That's one of the things a President is supposed to do—"

"And when we catch him at it…" Holtzman didn't have to go on.

"Who ever said it was supposed to be an easy job, Bob?"

"Sometimes I wonder if we're really supposed to make the job harder." But Plumber didn't bite.

"Where do you suppose Adler is?" the NEC correspondent wondered aloud.

"That was a good question this morning," the Post reporter granted, lifting his glass. "I have somebody looking into that."

"So do we. All Ryan had to do was say he was preparing to meet with the PRC ambassador. That would have covered things nicely."

"But it would have been a lie."

"It would have been the right lie. Bob, that's the game. The government tries to do things in secret, and we try to find out. Ryan likes this secrecy stuff a little too much."

"But when we burn him for it, whose agenda are we following?"

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, John. Ed Kealty leaked all that stuff to you. I don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Everybody knows it."

Bob picked at his salad. "It's all true, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," Holtzman admitted. "And there's a lot more."

"Really? Well, I know you had a story working." He didn't add that he was sorry to have scooped the younger man, mainly because he wasn't.

"Even more than I can write about."

"Really?" That got John Plumber's attention. Holtzman was one of the younger generation in relation to the TV correspondent, and one of the older generation for the newest class of reporters—which regarded Plumber as a fuddy-duddy even as they attended his seminars at Columbia University's journalism program.

"Really," Bob assured him.

"Like?"

"Like things that I can't write about," Holtzman repeated. "Not for a long time, anyway. John, I've been on part of this story for years. I know the CIA officer who got Gerasimov's wife and daughter out. We have a little deal. In a couple years he tells me how it was done. The submarine story is true and—"

"I know. I've seen a photograph of Ryan on the boat. Why he doesn't let that one leak is beyond me."

"He doesn't break the rules. Nobody ever explained to him that it's okay to do that—"

"He needs more time with Arnie—"

"As opposed to Ed."

"Kealty knows how the game is played."

"Yes, he does, John, maybe a little too well. You know, there's one thing I've never quite been able to figure out," Bob Holtzman remarked.

"What's that?"

"The game we're in, are we supposed to be spectators, referees, or players?"

"Bob, our job is to report the truth to our readers— well, viewers for me."

"Whose facts, John?" Holtzman asked.

"A FLUSTERED AND angry President Jack Ryan…" Jack picked up the remote and muted the CNN reporter who'd zapped him with the China question.

"Angry, yes, flustered, n—"

"Also yes," van Damm said. "You bungled the thing on China, and where Adler is—where is he, by the way?"

The President checked his watch. "He should be getting into Andrews in about ninety minutes. Probably over Canada now, I guess. He comes straight here, and then probably off again to China. What the hell are they up to?"

"You got me," the chief of staff admitted. "But that's why you have a national security team."

"I know as much as they do, and I don't know shit," Jack breathed, leaning back in his chair. "We've go? to increase our human-intelligence capability. The President can't be stuck here all the time not knowing what's going on. I can't make decisions without information, and all we have now are guesses—except for what Robby told us. That's a hard data-point, but it doesn't make sense, because it doesn't fit in with anything else."

"You have to learn to wait, Mr. President. Even if the press doesn't, you do, and you have to learn to focus on what you can do when you can do it. Now," Arnie went on, "we have the first set of House elections coming up next week. We have you scheduled to go out and make speeches. If you want the right kind of people in Congress, then that's what you have to go out and do. I have Callie preparing a couple of speeches for you."

"What's the focus?"

"Tax policy, management improvement, integrity, all your favorites. We'll have the drafts to you tomorrow morning. Time to spend some more time out among the people. Let them love you some, and you can love them back some more." The chief of staff earned himself a wry look. "I've told you before, you can't be trapped in here, and the radios on the airplane work just fine."

"A change of scenery would be nice," POTUS admitted.

"You know what would really be good now?"

"What's that?"

Arnie grinned. "A natural disaster, gives you the chance to fly out and look presidential, meet people, console them and promise federal disaster relief and—"

"God damn it!" It was so loud the secretaries heard it through the three-inch door.

Arnie sighed. "You gotta learn to take a joke, Jack. Put that temper of yours in a box and lock it the hell up. I just set you off for fun, and I'm on your side, remember?" Arnie headed back to his office, and the President was alone again.

Yet another lesson in Presidency 101. Jack wondered when they would stop. Sooner or later he'd have to act presidential, wouldn't he? But he hadn't quite made it yet. Arnie hadn't said that, exactly, and neither had Robby, but they didn't have to. He still didn't belong. He was doing his best, but his best wasn't good enough—yet, his mind added. Yet? Maybe never. One thing at a time, he thought. What every father said to every son, except they never warned you that one at a time was a luxury some people couldn't afford. Fourteen dead Americans on a runway on an island eight thousand miles away, killed on purpose probably, for a purpose he could scarcely guess at, and he was supposed to set that fact aside and get on with other things, like a trip back out to meet the people he was supposed to preserve, protect, and defend, even as he tried to figure out how he'd failed to do so for fourteen of them. What was it you needed in order to do this job? Turn off dead citizens and fix on other things? You had to be a sociopath to accomplish that, didn't you? Well, no. Others had to—doctors, soldiers, cops. And now him. And control his temper, salve his frustration, and focus on something else for the rest of the day.

MOVIE STAR LOOKED down at the sea, six kilometers below, he estimated. To the north he could see an iceberg on the blue-gray surface, glistening in the bright sunlight. Wasn't that remarkable? As often as he'd flown, he'd never seen one of those before. For someone from his part of the world, the sea was strange enough, like a desert, impossible to live on, though a different way. Strange how it looked like the desert in all but color, the surface crinkling in almost-regular parallel lines just like dunes, but uninvitingly. Despite his looks—about which he was quite vain; he liked the smiles he got from flight attendants, for example—almost nothing was inviting to him. The world hated him and his kind, and even those who made use of his services preferred to keep him at arm's length, like a vicious but occasionally useful dog. He grimaced, looking down. Dogs were not favored animals in his culture. And so here he was, back on another airplane, alone, with his people on other aircraft in groups of three, heading to a place where they would be decidedly not welcome, sent from a place where they were scarcely more so.

Success would bring him—what? Intelligence officers would seek to identify and track him, but the Israelis had been doing that for years, and he was still alive. What was he doing this for? Movie Star asked himself. It was a little late for that. If he canceled the mission, then he wouldn't be welcome anywhere at all. He was supposed to be fighting for Allah, wasn't he? Jihad. A holy war.

It was a religious term for a military-religious act, one meant to protect the Faith, but he didn't really believe that anymore, and it was vaguely frightening to have no country, no home, and then… no faith? Did he even have that anymore? He asked himself, then admitted that if he had to ask—he didn't. He and his kind, at least the ones who survived, became automatons, skilled robots—computers in the modern age. Machines that did things at the bidding of others, to be thrown away when convenient, and below him the surface of the sea or the desert never changed. Yet he had no choice.

Perhaps the people who were sending him on the mission would win, and he would have some sort of reward. He kept telling himself that, after all, even though there was nothing in his living experience to support the belief—and if he'd lost his faith in God, then why was it that he could remain faithful to a profession that even his employers regarded with distaste?

Children. He'd never married, never fathered one to his knowledge. The women he'd had, perhaps—but, no, they were debauched women, and his religious training had taught him to despise them even as he made use of their bodies, and if they produced offspring, then the children, too, would be cursed. How was it that a man could chase an idea for all his life and then realize that here he was, looking down at the most inhospitable of scenes—a place where neither he nor any man could live—and be more at home here than anyplace else? And so he would assist in the deaths of children. Unbelievers, political expressions, things. But they were not. They were innocent of any guilt at that age, their bodies not yet formed, their minds not yet taught the nature of good and evil.

Movie Star told himself that such thoughts had come to him before, that doubts were normal to men on difficult tasks, and that each previous time he'd set them aside and gotten on with it. If the world had changed, then perhaps—

But the only changes that had taken place were contrary to his lifelong quest, and was it that having killed for nothing, he had to keep killing in the hope of achieving something? Where did that path lead? If there were a God and there were a Faith, and there were a Law, then—

Well, he had to believe in something. He checked his watch. Four more hours. He had a mission. He had to believe in that.

THEY CAME BY car instead of helicopter. Helicopters were too visible, and maybe this way nobody would notice. To make things more covert still, the cars came to the East Wing entrance. Adler, Clark, and Chavez walked into the White House the same way Jack had on his first night, hustled along by the Secret Service, and they managed to arrive unseen by the press. The Oval Office was a little crowded. Goodley and the Foleys were there, as well, along with Arnie, of course.

"How's the jet lag, Scott?" Jack asked first, meeting him at the door.

"If it's Tuesday, it must be Washington," the Secretary of State replied.

"It isn't Tuesday," Goodley observed, not getting it.

"Then I guess the jet lag is pretty bad." Adler took his seat and brought out his notes. A Navy mess steward came in with coffee, the fuel of Washington. The arrivals from the UIR all had a cup.

"Tell us about Daryaei," Ryan commanded.

"He looks healthy. A little tired," Adler allowed. "His desk is fairly clean. He spoke quietly, but he's never been one to raise his voice in public, to the best of my knowledge. Interestingly, he was getting into town about the same time we were."

"Oh?" Ed Foley said, looking up from some of his own notes.

"Yeah, he came in on a business jet, a Gulfstream," Clark reported. "Ding got a few pictures."

"So, he's hopping around some? I guess that makes sense," POTUS observed. Strangely, Ryan could identify with Daryaei's problems. They weren't all that different from his own, though the Iranian's methods could hardly have been more different.

"His staffs afraid of him," Chavez added impulsively. "Like something from an old World War II Nazi movie. The staff in his outer office was pretty wired. If somebody had yelled 'boo, they would have hit the ceiling."

"I'd agree with that," Adler said, not vexed at the interruption. "His demeanor with me was very old-world, quiet, platitudes, that sort of thing. The fact of the matter is that he said nothing of real significance—maybe good, maybe bad. He's willing to have continued contacts with us. He says he desires peace for everybody. He even hinted at a certain degree of goodwill for Israel. For a lot of the meeting, he lectured me on how peaceful he and his reli-gior) are. He emphasized the value of oil and the resulting commercial relationships for all parties involved. He denied having any territorial ambitions. No surprises in any of it."

"Okay," the President said. "What about body language?"

"He appears very confident, very secure. He likes where he is now."

"As well he might." It was Ed Foley again.

Adler nodded. "Agreed. If I had to describe him in one word, it would be 'serene. "

"When I met him a few years ago," Jack remembered, "he was aggressive, hostile, looking for enemies, that sort of thing."

"None of that earlier today." SecState stopped and asked himself if it was still the same day. Probably, he decided. "Like I said, serene, but then on the way back, Mr. Clark here brought something up."

"What's that?" Goodley asked.

"It set off the metal detector." John pulled the necklace out again, and handed it to the President.

"Get some shopping done?"

"Well, everybody wanted me to do a walkabout," he reminded his audience. "What better place than a market?" Clark went on to report the incident with the goldsmith, while POTUS examined the necklace.

"If he sells these things for seven hundred bucks, maybe we should all get his address. Isolated incident, John?"

"The French station chief was walking with me. He said that this guy was pretty representative."

"So?" van Damm asked.

"So maybe Daryaei doesn't have much to be all that serene about," Scott Adler suggested.

"People like that don't always know what the peasants are thinking," the chief of staff thought.

"That's what brought the Shah down," Ed Foley told him. "And Daryaei is one of the people who made that happen. I don't think it likely that he's forgotten that particular lesson… and we know that he's still cracking down on people who step out of line." The DCI turned to look at his field officer. "Good one, John."

"Lefevre—the French spook—told me twice that we don't have a very good feel for the mood in the street over there. Maybe he was shining me on," Clark continued, "but I don't think so."

"We know there's dissent. There always is," Ben Good-ley said.

"But we don't know how much." It was Adler again. "On the whole, I think we have a man here who wants to project serenity for a reason. He's had a couple of good months. He's knocked over a major enemy. He has some internal problems whose magnitude we need to evaluate. He's hopping back and forth to Iraq—we saw that. He's tired-looking. Tense staff. I'd say he has a full plate right now. Okay, he told me how he wants peace. I almost buy it. I think he needs time to consolidate. Clark here tells me that food prices are high. That's an inherently rich country, and Daryaei can best quiet things down by playing on his political success and turning that into economic success as quickly as possible. Putting food on the table won't hurt. For the moment, he needs to look in instead of looking out.

"So I think it's possible that we have a window of opportunity here," SecState concluded.

"Extend the open hand of friendship?" Arnie asked.

"I think we keep the contacts quiet and informal for the time being. I can pick somebody to handle the meetings. And then we see what develops."

The President nodded. "Good one, Scott. Now I guess we'd better get you up to speed on China."

"When do I leave?" SecState inquired, with a pained expression.

"You'll have a bigger airplane this time," his President promised him.