Executive orders - Tom Clancy [510]
Three bags full, sir. It was their only light moment. The military version of the Gulfstream business jet had a ton of communications gear, and a sergeant to run it. The documents coming over the equipment threatened to exhaust the on-board supply of paper as they passed over Cape Verde, inbound to Kinshasa.
Second stop is Kenya, sir. The communications sergeant was really an intelligence specialist. She read all the inbound traffic. You have to see a man about some monkeys.
Clark took the page-he was the colonel, after all-and read it, while Chavez figured out how the ribbons went on the blue uniform shirt. He decided he didn't have to be too careful. It wasn't as though the Air Force were really a military service-at least according to the Army in which he'd once served, where it was an article of faith.
Check this out, John said, handing the page over.
That's a lead, Mr. C., Ding observed at once. They traded a look. This was a pure intelligence mission, one of the few on which they'd been dispatched. They were tasked to gather vitally important information for their country, and nothing else. For now. Though they didn't say so, neither would have objected to doing something more. Though both were field officers of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, both were also former combat soldiers (in Clark's case, a former SEAL) who more often than not dropped into the DO's paramilitary side, where they did things that the pure spooks regarded as a little too exciting. But often satisfying, Chavez told himself. Very satisfying. He was learning to control his temper-in fact, that part of his genetic heritage, as he called it now, had always been under tight control-but it didn't stop him from thinking about finding whoever it was who had attacked his country, and then dealing with him as soldiers did.
You know him better than I do, John. What's he going to do?
Jack? Clark shrugged. That depends on what we get for him, Domingo. That's our job, remember?
Yes, sir, the younger man said seriously.
THE PRESIDENT DID not sleep well that night, though he told himself, and was told by others, that sleep was a prerequisite to making good decisions-and that, everyone emphasized, was his only real function. It was what the citizens expected him to do above all other things. He'd only had about six hours the previous day after an exhausting schedule of travel and speeches, but even so, sleep came hard. His staff and the staffs of many other federal agencies slept less, because, as sweeping as the executive orders were, they had to be implemented in a practical world, and that meant interpretation of the orders in the context of a living nation. A final complication was the fact that there was a problem with the two Chinas, who were thirteen hours ahead of Washington; another potential problem with India, ten hours ahead; and the Persian Gulf, eight hours ahead; in addition to the major crisis in America, which stretched across seven time zones all by itself, if one counted Hawaii-or even more if you added lingering possessions in the Pacific. Lying in bed on the residence floor of the White House, Ryan's mind danced around the globe, finally wondering what part of the world wasn't an area of some kind of concern. Around three he gave up the effort and rose, put on casual clothes and headed to the West Wing for the Signals Office, with members of the Detail in tow.
What's happening? he asked the senior officer present. It was Major Charles Canon, USMC, who'd been the one to inform him of the Iraqi assassination which had seemed to start everything, he remembered. People started to jump to their feet. Jack waved them back into their seats. As you were.
Busy night, sir. Sure you want to be up for all this? the major asked.
I don't feel much like sleeping, Major, Ryan replied. The three Service agents behind him made faces behind SWORDSMAN'S back. They knew better even if POTUS didn't.
Okay, Mr. President, we're linked in now with CDC and USAMRIID communications