Executive orders - Tom Clancy [542]
Admiral DeMarco, that equipment has to be delivered, the President said, his own face coloring up.
The Air Force is deploying to Saudi now. Two extra days and we can deal with it, but until then-
Admiral, call your relief. Secretary Bretano looked down at his briefing folder. Your services are not needed here anymore. We don't have two days to bicker.
That was actually a violation of protocol. The Joint Chiefs were presidential appointments, and while they were titularly military advisers to the Secretary of Defense and the President, supposedly only the latter could ask one to resign. Admiral DeMarco looked to Ryan's place in the center of the conference table.
Mr. President, I have to give you my best feel for this.
Admiral, we have fifteen thousand men standing in harm's way. You can't tell us that the Navy will not support them. You are relieved of duty effective now, the President said. Good day. The other uniformed Chiefs glanced at one another. This hadn't happened before. How long before contact with the Indians? Ryan asked, moving on.
About twenty-four hours, sir.
Any way we can provide additional support?
There's a submarine there also, loaded with torpedoes and missiles. She's about fifty miles in advance of Anzio, Jackson said, as a stunned admiral and his aide left the room. We can speed her up. That risks detection, but the Indians aren't all that swift on ASW. She would be an offensive weapon, sir. Submarines can't defend passively. They sink ships.
I think the Indian Prime Minister and I need to have a little chat, POTUS observed. After we get through them, then what?
Well, then we have to transit the strait and make it up to the unloading ports.
That I can help you with, the Air Force chief of staff promised. We'll have the F-16s in-country and in range for that part of the passage. The 366th Wing won't be ready yet, but the boys from Israel will be.
We're going to need that cover, General, Jackson emphasized.
Well, God damn, the Navy's asking for help from us Air Scouts, the Air Force said lightly, then turned serious. We'll kill every rag-head son of a bitch who gets in the air, Robby. Those forty-eight-16-Charlies are locked and cocked. As soon as you're within a hundred miles of the Strait, you have a friend overhead.
Is it enough? the President asked.
Strictly speaking, no. The other side has four hundred top-of-the-line airplanes. When the 366th gets fully set up-in three days, minimum-we'll have eighty fighters for air-to-air, but the Saudis aren't bad. We have AWACS in place. Your tanks will fight under a neutral sky at worst, Mickey. The general checked his watch. They should be getting off right about now.
THE FIRST FLIGHT of four F-15C fighter-interceptors rotated aloft together. Twenty minutes later, they formed up with their KC-135R tankers. There were six of them from their own wing, and others would join from the Montana and North and South Dakota Air National Guard, their home states as yet untouched by the epidemic. For most of the way to the Arabian Peninsula, they'd hold position ten miles from the lead commercial aircraft coming out of California. The flight path took them north to the Pole, then over the hump and south toward Russia, continuing over Eastern Europe. West of Cyprus, they would be joined by an Israeli escort, which would convey them as far as Jordan. From there on, the American Eagle fighters would be augmented by Saudi F-15s. They might make the first few arrivals covertly, the planning officers thought in their own commercial transports, but if the other side woke up, then there would be an air battle. The pilots in the lead Eagle flight really didn't mind that very much.
There was no extraneous chatter on the radios as they saw dawn to their right. It would be a flight of two dawns. The next one would be to their left.
OKAY, LADIES AND gentlemen, the public affairs officer told the fifteen assembled journalists. Here's the scoop. You have been called up for a military deployment. Sergeant Astor is now handing out consent