Tom Clancy - Executive Orders

His neighbor only needed one look. "Tracks."

"What?"

"They're rotating the tires, like. Tracks wear out, and you put new ones on. The old ones go into the shop to be worked on, replacing pads and stuff," the former soldier explained. "It's no big deal."

Closer examination showed how it was done. The new tracks were laid in front of the old ones. The old ones were then disconnected, and attached to the new, and the tank, its motor running, simply drove forward, the sprocket wheel pulling the new track in place over the road wheels. It required several men and was hot, heavy work, but it could be done by a well-trained tank crew in about an hour under ideal conditions, which, the ex-soldier explained, these were. Essentially, the tank drove onto the new tracks.

"I never knew how they did that."

"Beats having to jack the sumbitch off the ground."

"What's a track good for?"

"On one of these, cross-country in a desert? Oh, call it a thousand miles, maybe a little less."

SURE ENOUGH, THE two couches in Air Force One's forward cabin folded out to make beds. After dismissing his staff, Ryan hung up his clothes and lay down. Clean sheets and everything, and he was weary enough that he didn't mind being on an airplane. Flight time to Washington was four and a half hours, and then he'd be able to sleep some more in his own-bed. Unlike normal red-eye travelers, he might even be able to do some useful work the next day.

In the big cabin, aft, the reporters were doing the same, having decided to leave the issue of Plumber's astounding revelation to the next day. They had no choice in the matter; a story of this magnitude was handled at least at the assistant managing editor level. Many of the print journalists were dreaming about the editorials that would appear in the papers. The TV reporters were trying not to cringe at what this would mean to their credibility.

In between were the President's staff members. They were all smiles, or nearly so.

"Well, I finally saw his temper," Arnie told Gallic Weston. "Big-time."

"And I bet he saw yours, too."

"And mine won." Arnie sipped at his drink. "You know, the way things are going, I think we have a pretty good President here."

"He hates it." Weston had one of her own.

Arnie van Damm didn't care: "Fabulous speeches, Gallic."

"There's such an engaging way about how he delivers them," she thought. "Every time, he starts off tight, embarrassed, and then the teacher in him takes over, and he really gets into it. He doesn't even know it, either."

"Honesty. It really does come out, doesn't it?" Arnie paused. "There's going to be a memorial service for the dead agents."

"I'm already thinking about it," Weston assured him. "What are you going to do about Kealty?"

"I'm thinking about that. We're going to sink that bastard once and for all."

BADRAYN WAS BACK on his computer, checking the proper Internet sites. Still nothing. In another day he might start worrying, though it wasn't really his problem if nothing happened, was it? Everything he'd done had gone perfectly.

PATIENT ZERO OPENED her eyes, which got everyone's attention. Her temperature was down to 101.6, entirely due to the cold packs that now surrounded her body like a fish in the market. The combination of pain and exhaustion was plain on her face. In that way, she looked like a patient with advanced AIDS, a disease with which the physician was all too familiar.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Klein," the professor told her from behind his mask. "You had us a little worried there for a minute, but things are under control now."

"Hurts," she said.

"I know, and we're going to help you with that, but I need to ask you a few questions. Can you help me with a few things?" Klein asked.

"Okay."

"Have you been doing any traveling lately?"

"What do you mean?" Every word she spoke drew down on her energy reserves.

"Have you been out of the country?"

"No. Flew to Kansas City… ten days ago, that's all. Day trip," she added.

"Okay." It wasn't. "Have you had any contact with someone who's been out of the country?"

"No." She tried to shake her head. It moved maybe a quarter inch.

"Forgive me, but I have to ask this. Do you have any ongoing sexual relationships at the moment?"

That question shook her. "AIDS?" she gasped, thinking that was the worst thing she might have.

Klein shook his head emphatically. "No, definitely not. Please don't worry about that."

"Divorced," the patient said. "Just a few months. No new… men in my life yet."

"Well, as pretty as you are, that'll have to change soon," Klein observed, trying to get a smile out of her. "What do you do at Sears?"

"Housewares, buyer. Just had… big show… McCormick Center… lots of paperwork, orders and things." This was going nowhere. Klein tried a few more questions. They led nowhere. He turned and pointed to the nurse. "Okay, we're going to do something about the pain now," the professor told her. He stepped away so as not to crowd the nurse when she started the morphine on the IV tree. "This will start working in a few seconds, okay? I'll be back soon."

Quinn was waiting out in the hall with a uniformed police officer, a checkerboard band around his cap.

"Doc, what's the story?" the cop asked.

"The patient has something very serious, possibly very contagious. I need to look over her apartment."

"That's not really legal, you know. You're supposed to go to a judge and get—"

"Officer, there's no time for that. We have her keys. We could just break in, but I want you there so that you can say we didn't do anything wrong." And besides, if she had a burglar alarm, it wouldn't do for them to be arrested. "There's no time to waste. This woman is very sick."

"Okay, my car is outside." The cop pointed and the doctors followed.

"Get the fax off to Atlanta?" Quinn asked. Klein shook his head.

"Let's look at her place first." He decided not to wear a coat. It was cold outside, and the temperature would be very inhospitable to the virus in the unlikely event that it had somehow gotten on his scrubs. Reason told him that there was no real danger here. He'd never encountered Ebola clinically, but he knew as much about it as any man could. It was regrettably normal for people to show up with diseases whose presence they could not explain. Most of the time, careful investigation would reveal how it had been contracted, but not always. Even with AIDS, there was the handful of unexplained cases. But only a handful, and you didn't start with one of those as your Index Case. Professor Klein shivered when he got outside. The temperature was in the low thirties, with a north wind blowing down off Lake Michigan. But that wasn't the reason for his shaking.

PRICE OPENED THE door to the nose cabin. The lights were off except for a few faint indirect ones. The President was lying on his back and snoring loudly enough to be heard over the whining drone of the engines. She had to resist the temptation to tiptoe in and cover him with a blanket. Instead, she smiled and closed the door.

"Maybe there is such a thing as justice, Jeff," she observed to Agent Raman.

"The newsie thing, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"Don't bet on it," the other agent said.

They looked around. Finally everyone was asleep, even the chief of staff. Topside, the flight crew was doing their job, along with the other USAF personnel, and it really was like a red-eye flight back to the East Coast, as Air Force One passed over central Illinois. The two agents moved back to their seating area. Three members of the Detail were playing cards, quietly. Others were reading or dozing.

An Air Force sergeant came down the circular steps, holding a folder.

"FLASH-traffic for the Boss," she announced.

"Is it that important? We get into Andrews in about ninety minutes."