Executive orders - Tom Clancy [379]
You will be told at the proper time. It will be soon.
The political situation
We are aware of that, and we are confident of your devotion. Be at peace, Aref. Great things are happening. I know not what they are, merely that they are under way, and at the proper time, your act will be the capstone of the Holy Jihad. Mahmoud Haji sends his greetings and his prayers.
Thank you. Raman inclined his head at word of the distant but powerful blessing. It had been a very long time since he'd heard the man's voice over anything but a television, and then he'd been forced to turn away, lest others see his reaction to it.
It has been hard for you, Alahad said.
It has. Raman nodded.
It will soon be over, my young friend. Come to the back with me. Do you have time?
I do.
It is time for prayer.
* * *
38 - GRACE PERIOD
I'M NOT AN AREA SPECIALIST, Clark objected. He'd been to Iran before.
Ed Foley would have none of that: You've been on the ground there, and I think you're the one who always talks about how there's no substitute for dirty hands and a good nose.
He was just laying more of that on the kiddies at the Farm this afternoon, Ding reported with a sly look. Well, today it was about reading people by lookin' in their eyes, but it's the same thing. Good eye, good nose, good senses. He hadn't been to Iran, and they wouldn't send Mr. C. alone, would they?
You're in, John, Mary Pat Foley said, and since she was the DDO, that was that. Secretary Adler may be flying over real soon. I want you and Ding to go over as SPOs. Keep him alive, and sniff around, nothing covert or anything. I want your read on what the street feels like. That's all, just a quick recon. It was the sort of thing usually done by watching footage on CNN, but Mary Pat wanted an experienced officer to take the local pulse, and it was her call.
If there were a curse in being a good training officer, it was that the people you trained often got promoted, and remembered their lessons-and worse, who'd taught them. Clark could recall both of the Foleys in his classes at the Farm. From the start, she'd been the cowboy-well, cowgirl-of the pair, with brilliant instincts, fantastically good Russian skills, and the sort of gift for reading people more often found in a professor of psychiatry but somewhat wanting in caution, trusting a little too much on the baby blues and dumb blonde act to keep her safe. Ed lacked her passion but had the ability to formulate The Big Picture, to take a long view that made sense most of the time. Neither was quite perfect. Together they were a piece of work, and John took pride in having taught them his way. Most of the time.
Okay. We have anything in the way of assets over there?
Nothing useful. Adler wants to eyeball Daryaei and tell him what the rules are. You'll be quartered in the French embassy. The trip is secret. VC-20 to Paris, French transport from there. In and out in a hurry, Mary Pat told them. But I want you to spend an hour or two walking around, just to get a feel for things, price of bread, how people dress, you know the drill.
And we'll have diplomatic passports, so nobody can hassle us, John added wryly. Yeah, heard that one before. So did everyone else in the embassy back in 1979, remember?
Adler's Secretary of State, Ed reminded him.
I think they know that. They know he's Jewish, too, he didn't add.
THE FLIGHT INTO Barstow, California, was how the exercise always started. Buses and trucks rolled up to the airplanes, and the troops came down the stairs for the short drive up the only road into the NTC. General Diggs and Colonel Hamm watched from their parked helicopter as the soldiers formed up. This group was from the North Carolina National Guard, a reinforced brigade. It wasn't often that the Guard came to Fort Irwin, and this one was supposed to be pretty special. Because the state was blessed with very senior senators and congressmen-well, until recently-over