Tom Clancy - Executive Orders

"Yes, sir!" The NCO had seen this man tear the driver a new asshole.

"Fax this to Langley, please. You have the right number to use. Quick as you can, ma'am," he added, since she was a lady, and not just a sergeant. The NCO didn't get it, but didn't mind, either.

"Cinch those belts in tight," the pilot called over the intercom as the VC-20B started to taxi.

IT TOOK THREE tries because of electrical interference from the storm, but the facsimile transmission went through the satellite, downlinked to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and reappeared in Mercury, the Agency's communications nexus. The senior watch officer had his deputy run it to the seventh floor. By that time, Clark was on the phone to him.

"Getting some interference," the watch officer said. Digital satellite radio and all, a thunderstorm was still a thunderstorm.

"It's a little bumpy at the moment. Run the registration number and the names on that manifest. Everything you can get on them."

"Say again."

Clark did. It got through this time.

"Will do. Somebody's got a file on this. Anything else?"

"Back to you later. Out," he heard.

"SO?" DING ASKED, reefing his belt in tighter as the G took a ten-foot drop.

"Those names are in Farsi, Ding—oh, shit." Another major bump. He looked out the window. It was like a huge arena, a cylindrical formation of clouds with lightning all over the place. It wasn't often he looked down at that. "The bastard's doing this on purpose."

But he wasn't. The lieutenant colonel on the controls was scared. Air Force regulations not to mention common sense prohibited what he was doing. The weather radar in the nose showed red twenty degrees left and right of his projected course to Nairobi. Left looked better. He turned thirty degrees, banking the executive jet like a fighter, searching for a smooth spot as he continued the climb-out. What he found wasn't smooth, but it was better. Ten minutes later the VC-20B broke into sunlight.

One of the spare pilots turned in her front row seat: "Satisfied, Colonel?" she asked.

Clark unbuckled his belt in defiance of the sign and went to the lavatory to splash water in his face. Then he knelt down on the floor next to her and showed her the paper that had just been transmitted. "Can you tell me anything about this?" She only needed one look.

"Oh, yeah," the captain said. "We got a notice on that."

"What?"

"This is essentially the same aircraft. When one breaks, the manufacturer tells everybody about it—I mean, we'd ask anyway, but it's almost automatic. He came out of here, flew north to Libya, landed to refuel, right? Took off right away, practically—medical flight, I think, wasn't it?"

"Correct. Go on."

"He called emergency, said he lost power on one engine, then the other, and went in. Three radars tracked it. Libya, Malta, and a Navy ship, destroyer, I think."

"Anything funny about it, Captain?"

She shrugged. "This is a good airplane. I don't think the military's ever broke one. You just saw how good. A couple of those bumps were two and a half, maybe three gees, and the engines—Jerry, have we ever lost an engine in flight on a -20?"

"Twice, I think. First one there was a defect on the fuel pump—Rolls-Royce sent out a fix on all of those. The other one, it was in November, a few years back. They ate a goose."

"That'll do it every time," she told Clark. "Goose weighs maybe fifteen, twenty pounds. We try to keep clear of them."

"This guy lost both engines, though?"

"They haven't figured out why yet. Maybe bad fuel. That happens, but the engines are isolated units, sir. Separate everything, pumps, electronics, you name it—"

"Except fuel," Jerry said. "That all comes out of one truck."

"What else? What happens when you lose an engine?"

"If you're not careful you can lose control. You get a full shutdown, the aircraft yaws into the dead engine. That changes airflow over the control surfaces. We lost a Lear, a VC-21, that way once. If it catches you in a transition maneuver when it happens, well, then it can get a little bit exciting. But we train for that, and the flight crew on this one, that was in the report. They were both experienced drivers, and they go in the box—the training simulator— pretty regular. You have to, or they take your insurance away. Anyway, the radar didn't show them maneuvering. So, no, that shouldn't have done it to them. The best guess was bad fuel, but the Libyans said the fuel was okay."

"Unless the crew just totally screwed up," Jerry added. "But even that's hard. I mean, they make these things so you really have to try to break 'em, y'know? I got two thousand hours."

"Two and a half for me," the captain said. "It's safer 'n driving a car in D.C., sir. We all love these things."

Clark nodded and went forward.

"Enjoying the ride?" the pilot in command said over his shoulder. His voice wasn't exactly friendly, and he didn't exactly have to worry about insubordination. Not with an «officer» wearing his own ribbons.

"I don't like leaning on people, Colonel. This is very important shit. That's all I can say."

"My wife's a nurse in the base hospital." He didn't have to say more. He was worried about her.

"So's mine, down in Williamsburg."

The pilot turned on learning that, and nodded at his passenger. "No real harm done. Three hours to Nairobi, Colonel."

"WELL HOW DO I get back?" Raman asked over the phone.

"You don't for now," Andrea told him. "Sit tight. Maybe you can help the FBI with the investigation they have running."

"Well, that's just great!"

"Deal with it, Jeff. I don't have time for this," she told her subordinate crossly.

"Sure." He hung up. That was odd, Andrea thought. Jeff was always one of the cool ones. But who was cool at the moment?

"EVER BEEN HERE BEFORE John?" Chavez asked as their aircraft descended to meet its shadow on the runway.

"Passed through once. Didn't see much more than the terminal." Clark slipped off his belt and stretched. Sunset was descending here, too, and with it not the end of a very long day for the two intelligence officers. "Most of what I know comes from books by a guy named Ruark, hunting and stuff."

"You don't hunt—not animals, anyway," Ding added.

"Used to. I still like reading about it. Nice to hunt things that don't shoot back." John turned with part of a smile.

"Not as exciting. Safer, maybe," the junior agent allowed. How dangerous could a lion really be? he wondered.

The rollout took them to the military terminal. Kenya had a small air force, though what it did was a mystery to the visiting CIA/Air Force "officers," and seemed likely to remain so. The aircraft was met, again, by an embassy official, this one the Defense attache, a black Army officer with the rank of colonel, and a Combat Infantryman's Badge that marked him as a veteran of the Persian Gulf War.

"Colonel Clark, Major Chavez." Then his voice stopped. "Chavez, do I know you?"

"Ninja!" Ding grinned. "You were brigade staff then, First of the Seventh."

"Cold Steel! You're one of the guys who got lost. I guess they found you. Relax, gentlemen, I know where you're from, but our hosts do not," the officer warned.

"Where's the CIB from, Colonel?" the former staff sergeant asked on the walk over to where the cars were. "I had a battalion of the Big Red One in Iraq. We kicked a few and took a few." Then his mood changed. "So how are things at home?"

"Scary," Ding replied. "Something to remember, bio-war is mainly a psychological weapon, like the threat of gas was against us back in 91."

"Maybe so," Clark responded. "It sure as hell's got my attention, Colonel."

"Got mine, too," the Defense attache admitted. "I got family in Atlanta. CNN says there's cases there."