Executive orders - Tom Clancy [570]
Omani patrol boats were out now, and they were talking back and forth with somebody, perhaps the UIR, asking what was going on.
In confusion, Kemper decided, there was profit. It was dark out, and identifying ships in darkness was never an easy business.
When's nautical twilight?
Five hours, sir, the quartermaster of the watch replied.
That's a hundred fifty miles to the good. We continue as before. Let them sort things out if they can. Getting as far as Bahrain without detection would be miracle enough.
THEY LAID IT all out on Inspector O'Day's desk. It all amounted to three pages of notes and a couple of Polaroid photographs. The most important-looking tidbit was a printout of the phone records, duplicating Selig's scribbling. That was also the only legal piece of evidence they had.
Not exactly the thickest pile of proof I've ever seen, Pat noted.
Hey, Pat, you said to move fast, Loomis reminded him. They're both dirty. I can't prove it to a jury, but that's enough to start a major investigation, assuming we have the luxury of time, which I don't think we do.
Correct. Come on, he said, rising. We have to see the Director.
It wasn't as though Murray weren't busy enough. The FBI wasn't exactly running the epidemiological investigation of all the Ebola cases, but the Bureau's agents were doing a lot of legwork. There was the ongoing, and practically new, case on the attack on Giant Steps, which was both criminal and FCI-and an inter-agency case to boot. And now this, the third put everything else aside situation in less than ten days. The inspector waved his way past the secretaries and walked into the Director's office without a knock.
It's a good thing I wasn't taking a leak, Murray observed.
I didn't think you'd have time for that. I don't, Pat told him. There's probably a mole in the Service after all, Dan.
Oh?
Oh, yeah, and oh, shit. I'll let Loomis and Selig walk you through it.
Can I take this to Andrea Price without getting shot? the Director asked.
I think so.
* * *
58 - THE LIGHT OF DAY
IT WASN'T SOMETHING TO celebrate, but for the second day in a row, new Ebola cases had dropped. Of the new cases identified, moreover, about a third were people who tested positive for the antibodies but were asymptomatic. CDC and USAMRIID rechecked the data twice before reporting it to the White House, also cautioning that it was too preliminary to be released to the public. The travel ban, it seemed, and the spinoff effects it was having on interpersonal contacts, was working-but the President couldn't say it was working, because then it would stop working.
The Giant Steps case was also ongoing, mainly a task of the FBI laboratory division. There, electronic microscopes were being used for something other than the identification of Ebola strands, and were narrowing in on pollen and other tiny particles. This was complicated by the fact that the Giant Steps attack had been made in the spring, when the air was full of pollens.
Mordecai Azir, it was now firmly established, was a quintessential unperson who had sprung into existence seemingly for a single purpose and, fulfilling it, had disappeared. But he had left behind photographs, and there were ways of dealing with that, Ryan learned. He wondered if there might be some good news to end the day. There wouldn't be.
Hi, Dan. He was back in his office. The Situation Room was just one more reminder that his next major order was to send people into combat.
Mr. President, the FBI Director said, entering with Inspector O'Day and Andrea Price.
Why do you look so happy?
And then