Executive orders - Tom Clancy [137]
That's correct.
Martin thought about that. Did you have any discussions on that issue?
No, sir.
Pity, Martin thought.
* * *
15 - BLOOD IN THE WATER
ED FOLEY'S aircraft was big and ugly, a Lockheed C-141B cargo carrier, known to the fighter community as a trash hauler, in whose cargo area was a large trailer. The trailer's history was interesting. It had originally been built by the Airstream company as a receiving facility for the Apollo astronauts, though this one was a backup and had never actually been used for that purpose. It allowed senior officials to travel with homelike amenities and was used almost exclusively by senior intelligence officers. This way they could travel in both anonymity and comfort. There were lots of Air Force Starlifters, and from the outside Foley's looked like any other-big, green, and ugly.
It touched down at Andrews just before noon, after an exhausting flight of almost seven thousand miles, seventeen hours, and two aerial refuelings. Foley had traveled with a staff of three, two of them security and protection officers, called SPOs. The ability to shower had improved the attitude of each, and their night's sleep hadn't been interrupted by the signals that had started to arrive a few hours earlier. By the time the cargo lifter stopped rolling and the doors opened, he was refreshed and informed. That didn't happen often enough for the ADDO to regard it as anything short of a miracle. So much the better that his wife was there to greet him with a kiss. It was enough that the Air Force ground crew wondered what the hell this was all about. The flight crew was too tired to care.
Hi, honey.
We really need to fly together this way once, her husband observed with a twinkle in his eye. Then he shifted gears in a heartbeat. What's the word on Iraq?
Something's happening. At least nine, probably twenty or so senior officers got together for a quiet little meeting. We don't know what about, but it wasn't to pick the menu for the wake. They got in the back of the car, and she handed over a folder. You're getting promoted, by the way.
What? Ed's head came up from the document package.
DCI. We're moving with Plan Blue, and Ryan wants you to front it for the Hill. I stay DDO, and I get to run my shop the way I want to, don't I, honey? She smiled sweetly. Then she explained the other problem of the day.
CLARK HAD HIS own office at Langley, and his seniority guaranteed him a view of the parking lot and the trees beyond, which beat a windowless cubby. He even shared a pool secretary with four other senior field officers. In many ways Langley was alien country for him. His official job title was that of a training officer down at the Farm. He came to headquarters to deliver reports and get briefed in on new jobs, but he didn't like it here. There was a smell to any headquarters facility. The desk weenies wanted things their way. They didn't want irregularities. They didn't care to work overtime, and miss favorite TV shows as a result. They didn't much like surprises and data that made them rethink stuff. They were the bureaucratic tail in an intelligence agency, but at CIA the tail had become so massive that it wagged the dog without ever moving itself. The phenomenon wasn't exactly unusual, but when things went bad, his was the life at risk in the field, and if he were ever killed out there, he'd turn into one residual memo, to be quickly filed and forgotten by people who did National Intelligence Estimates based often as not on newspaper stories.
Catch the news this morning, Mr. C.? Chavez asked lightly on entering the room.
I got in at five. He held up a folder with PLAN BLUE printed on it. Because he so hated paperwork, when he did it he worked with supreme intensity, the more quickly to be rid of it.
Then turn your set to CNN. John did, expecting a news story that would surprise his Agency. And that's what he got, but not