Executive orders - Tom Clancy [24]
Attention on deck! The voice of the sergeant-major of the Marine Corps was muted in deference to the sleeping children upstairs, and for the first time since dinner the previous night, Ryan managed a smile.
Settle down, Marines. President Ryan headed toward the coffeepot, but a corporal beat him there. The correct proportions of cream and sugar were added to the mug-again, someone had done some homework-before she handed it across.
The staff is in the dining room, sir, the sergeant-major told him.
Thank you. President Ryan headed that way.
They looked the worse for wear, making Jack feel briefly guilty for his shower-fresh face. Then he saw the pile of documents they'd prepared.
Good morning, Mr. President, Andrea Price said. People started to rise from their chairs. Ryan waved them back down and pointed to Murray.
Dan, the President began. What do we know?
We found the body of the pilot about two hours ago. Good ID. His name was Sato, as expected. Very experienced airplane driver. We're still looking for the co-pilot. Murray paused. The pilot's body is being checked for drugs, but finding that would be a surprise. NTSB has the flight recorder-they got that around four, and it's being checked out right now. We've recovered just over two hundred bodies-
President Durling?
Price handled that one with a shake of the head. Not yet. That part of the building-well, it's a mess, and they decided to wait for daylight to do the hard stuff.
Survivors?
Just the three people who we know to have been inside that part of the building at the time of the crash.
Okay. Ryan shook his head as well. That information was important, but irrelevant. Anything important that we know?
Murray consulted his notes. The aircraft flew out of Vancouver International, B.C. They filed a false flight-plan for London Heathrow, headed east, departed Canadian airspace at 7:51 local time. All very routine stuff. We assume that he headed out a little while, reversed course, and headed southeast toward D.C. After that he bluffed his way through air-traffic control.
How?
Murray nodded to someone Ryan didn't know. Mr. President, I'm Ed Hutchins, NTSB. It's not hard. He claimed to be a KLM charter inbound to Orlando. Then he declared an emergency. When there's an in-flight emergency, our people are trained to get the airplane on the ground ASAP. We were up against a guy who knew all the right buttons to push. There's no way anyone could have prevented this, he concluded defensively.
Only one voice on the tapes, Murray noted.
Anyway, Hutchins continued, we have tapes of the RADAR tracks. He simulated an aircraft with control difficulties, asked for an emergency vector to Andrews, and got what he wanted. From Andrews to the Hill is barely a minute's flying time.
One of our people got a Stinger off, Price said, with somewhat forlorn pride.
Hutchins just shook his head. It was the gesture for this morning in Washington. Against something that big, might as well have been a spitball.
Anything from Japan?
They're in a national state of shock. This came from Scott Adler, the senior career official in the State Department, and one of Ryan's friends. Right after you turned in, we got a call from the Prime Minister. It's not as though he hasn't had a bad week himself, though he sounds happy to be back in charge. He wants to come over to apologize personally to us. I told him we'd get back-
Tell him yes.
You sure, Jack? Arnie van Damm asked.
Does anybody think this was a deliberate act? Ryan countered.
We don't know, Price responded first.
No explosives aboard the aircraft, Dan Murray pointed out. If there had been-
I wouldn't be here. Ryan finished his coffee. The corporal refilled it at once. This is going to come down to one or two nuts, just like