Tom Clancy - Executive Orders

But to have all that, his country needed to be more than it was, and so he could not afford to be not quite. Daryaei had to deliver the things that would show he'd been right all along, that uncompromising faith was the true root of power.

The assassination of the Iraqi leader, the misfortune that had befallen America—these things had to be a sign, didn't they? He'd studied them carefully. Now Iraq and Iran were one, and that had been the quest of decades— and at virtually the same instant, America had been crippled. It wasn't just Badrayn who was telling him things. He had his own America experts who knew the workings of that country's government. He knew Ryan from a single important meeting, had seen his eyes, heard the bold but hollow words, and so he knew the measure of the man who might be his principal adversary. He knew that Ryan had not, and by the laws of his country could not, have a replacement selected for himself, and so there was only this moment, and he had to act in it, or else assume for himself the curse of not quite.

No, he would not be remembered as another Moham-mad Pahlavi. If he did not covet the trappings of power, he lusted for the fact of it. Before his death he would lead all Islam. In a month he would have the oil of the Persian Gulf and the keys to Mecca, secular and spiritual power. From that his influence would expand in all directions. In but a few years his country would be a superpower in every way, and he would leave to his successors a legacy such as the world hadn't seen since Alexander, but with the added security that it was founded in the words of God. To achieve that end, to unite Islam, to fulfill the Will of Allah and the words of the Prophet Mohammed, he would do what was needed, and if that meant moving fast, then he would move fast. Overall, the process was a simple one, three simple steps, the third and most difficult of which was already established and nothing could stop, even if Badrayn's plans all failed completely.

Was he moving too fast? Daryaei asked himself for the last time. No, he was moving decisively, with surprise, with calculation, with boldness. That was what history would say.

"FLYING AT NIGHT is a big deal?" Jack asked.

"Sure is, for them it is," Robby replied. He liked briefing the President this way, late evening in the Oval Office, with a drink. "They've always been more parsimonious with equipment than they are with people. Helicopters— French ones in this case, same model the Coast Guard has a bunch of—cost money, and we haven't seen much in the way of night operations. The operation they're running is heavy on ASW. So maybe they're thinking about dealing with all those Dutch subs the Republic of China bought last year. We're also seeing a lot of combined operations with their air force."

"Conclusion?"

"They're training up for something." The Pentagon's Director of Operations closed his briefing book. "Sir, we—"

"Robby," Ryan said, looking over the new reading glasses Cathy had just gotten him, "if you don't start calling me 'Jack' when we're alone, I'm going to break you back to ensign by executive order."

"We're not alone," Admiral Jackson objected, nodding toward Agent Price.

"Andrea doesn't count—oh, shit, I mean—" Ryan blushed.

"He's right, Admiral, I don't count," she said, with a barely contained laugh. "Mr. President, I've been waiting weeks for you to say that."

Jack looked down at the table and shook his head. "This is no way for a man to live. Now my best friend calls me 'sir, and I'm being impolite to a lady."

"Jack, you are my commander-in-chief," Robby pointed out, with a relaxed grin at his friend's discomfort. "And I'm just a poor sailor man."

First things first, the President thought: "Agent Price?"

"Yes, Mr. President?"

"Pour yourself a drink and sit down."

"Sir, I'm on duty, and regulations—"

"Then make it a light one, but that's an order from your President. Do it!"

She actually hesitated, but then decided that POTUS was trying to make some sort of point. Price poured a large thimbleful of whiskey into the Old Fashioned glass and added a lot of ice and Evian to it. Then she sat next to the J-3. His wife, Sissy, was upstairs in the House with the Ryan family.

"As a practical matter, people, the President needs to relax, and it's easier for me to do that if I don't make ladies stand up, and my friend can call me by my name once in a while. Are we agreed on that?"

"Aye aye," Robby said, still smiling but seeing the logic and desperation of the moment. "Yes, Jack, we are all relaxed now, and we will enjoy it." He looked over at Price. "You're here to shoot me if I misbehave, right?"

"Right in the head," she confirmed.

"I prefer missiles myself. Safer," he added. "You did okay with a shotgun one night, or so the Boss has told me. By the way, thanks."

"Huh?"

"For keeping him alive. We actually like taking care of the Boss, even if he gets too familiar with the hired help." Jack freshened his drink while they relaxed on the other sofa. Remarkable, he thought. For the first time, there was a genuinely relaxed atmosphere in the office, to the point that two people could joke about him, right in front of him, as though he were a human being instead of POTUS.

"I like this a lot better." The President looked up. "Robby, this gal has been around more crap than we have, listened in on all sorts of things. She has a master's degree, she's smart, but I'm supposed to treat her like she's a knuckle-dragger."

"Well, hell, I'm just a fighter jock with a bad knee."

"And I still don't know what the hell I'm supposed to be. Andrea?"

"Yes, Mr. President?" Getting her to call him by his name was an impossible goal, Jack knew.

"China, what do you think?"

"I think I'm no expert, but since you ask, I don't know."

"You're expert enough," Robby observed with a grunt. "All the king's horses and all the king's men don't know much, either. The additional subs are arriving," he told the President. "Mancuso wants them on the north-south line between the two navies. I've concurred on that, and the Secretary's signed off on it."

"How's Bretano doing?"

"He knows what he doesn't know, Jack. He listens to us on operational stuff, asks good questions, and listens some more. He wants to start getting out into the field next week, poke around and see the kids at work to educate himself. His managerial skills are downright awesome, but he's swinging a big ax—he's going to, that is. I've seen his draft plan for downsizing the bureaucracy. Whoa," Admiral Jackson concluded, with an eye-roll.

"You have problems with that?" Jack asked.

"No way. It's about fifty years overdue. Ms. Price, I'm an operator," he explained. "I like greasy flight suits and the smell of jet fuel and pulling g's. But us guys at the sharp end always have the desk-sitters after us like a bunch of little dogs at our ankles all the time. Bretano loves engineers and people who do things, but along the way he's learned to hate bureaucrats and cost accountants. My kind of guy."

"Back to China," Ryan said.

"Okay, we still have the electronics-intelligence flights working out of Kadena. We're getting routine training stuff. We do not know what intentions the ChiComs have. CIA isn't giving us much. Signal intelligence is unremarkable. State says that their government says, 'What's the big deal? And that's it. The Taiwanese navy is big enough to handle the threat, if there is one, unless they get coldcocked. That's not going to happen. They're bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, doing their own training ops. A lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing I can make out."

"The Gulf?"

"Well, we're hearing from our people in Israel that they're taking a very close look, but I gather they're not getting much in the way of hard intel. Whatever sources they had were probably with the generals who bugged out to Sudan—aides and such, probably. I got a fax in from Sean Magruder—"