Executive orders - Tom Clancy [366]
LONG DAY? JACK asked, after everyone had gone home, and just the usual squad of guards patrolled outside.
Yeah. Grand rounds tomorrow with Bernie. Some procedures the next day, though. Cathy changed into her nightgown, as tired as her husband was.
Anything new?
Not in my shop. Had lunch with Pierre Alexandre. He's a new associate professor working under Ralph Forster, ex-Army, pretty smart.
Infectious diseases? Jack vaguely remembered meeting the guy at some function or other. AIDS and stuff?
Yeah.
Nasty, Ryan observed, getting into bed.
They just dodged a bullet. There was a mini-outbreak of Ebola in Zaire, Cathy said, getting in the other side. Two deaths. Then two more cases turned up in Sudan, but it doesn't look like it's going anywhere.
Is that as bad as people say? Jack turned the light off.
Eighty percent mortality-pretty bad. She adjusted the covers and moved toward him. But enough of that stuff. Sissy says she's got a concert scheduled for two weeks from now at Kennedy Center. Beethoven's Fifth, with Fritz Bayerlein conducting, would you believe? Think we can get tickets? He could sense his wife's smile in the dark.
I think I know the theater owner. I'll see what I can do. A kiss. A day ended.
SEE YOU IN the morning, Jeff. Price went to the right for her car. Raman went to the left for his.
A mind could be dulled by this job, Aref Raman told himself. The sheer mechanics of it, the hours, the watching and waiting and doing nothing-but always being ready.
Hmph. Why should he complain about that? It was the story of his adult life. He drove north, waited for the security gate to open and headed northwest. The empty streets made it go quickly. By the time he got to his home, the bled-off stress of working the Detail in the White House had him nodding, but there were still mechanics.
Unlocking the door, he next turned off the security system, picked up the mail that had come through the slot in the door and scanned it. One bill, and the rest was junk mail offering him the chance of a lifetime to buy things he didn't need. He hung up his coat, removed the pistol and holster from his belt, and walked into the kitchen. The light was blinking on the answering machine. There was one message.
Mr. Sloan, the digital recorder said to him in a voice that was familiar, though he'd only heard it once before, this is Mr. Alahad. Your rug just came in, and is ready for delivery.
* * *
37 - DISCHARGES
AMERICA WAS SLEEPING when they boarded their flights in Amsterdam, and London, and Vienna, and Paris. This time no two were on the same aircraft, and the schedules were staggered so that the same customs inspector would not have the chance to open two shaving kits and find the same brand of cream and then wonder about it, however unlikely that might be. The real risk had been in placing so many men on the same flights out of Tehran, but they'd been properly briefed on how to act. While the ever-watchful German police, for example, might have taken note of a gaggle of Middle Eastern men huddling together after arriving on the same flight, airports have always been anonymous places full of semi-confused wandering people, often tired and usually disoriented, and one lonely, aimless traveler looked much like another.
The first to board a transatlantic flight walked onto a Singapore Airlines 747 at Amsterdam's Schiphol International Airport. Coded as SQ26, the airliner pulled away at eight-thirty A.M. and got into the air on time, then angled northwest for a great-circle course that would take it over the southern tip of Greenland. The flight would last just under eight hours. The traveler was in a first-class window seat, which he tilted all the way back. It was not even three in the morning in his next destination city, and he preferred sleep to a movie, along with most of the other