Tom Clancy - Executive Orders

DIGGS HAD NOT REceived proper mission orders yet and what was even more disturbing, his Operation BUFORD did not really have much of a plan yet, either. The Army trained its commanders to act swiftly and decisively, but as with doctors in hospitals, emergency situations were not as welcome as planned procedures. The general was in continuous contact with the commanders of his two Cavalry regiments, the senior Air Force commander, the one-star who'd brought the 366th over, the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, and various intelligence assets, just trying to get a feel for what the enemy was actually doing, and from that to determine what the enemy might be planning—from which he would try to formulate some sort of plan of his own aside from mere ad-hoc reaction.

The orders and rules of engagement arrived on his fax machine around 11:00 Washington time, 16:00 Zulu time, and 19:00 Lima, or local time. Here was the explanation he'd lacked. He relayed it at once to his principal subordinates, and assembled his staff to brief them. The troops, he told the assembled officers, would learn from their Commander-in-Chief. Their officers would have to be with their people when that word came down.

Things were busy enough. According to the satellites, the Army of God—as the intelligence people had determined the name to be—was within one hundred miles of the Kuwaiti border, approaching from the west in good order, and following the roads as expected. That made the Saudi deployment look pretty good, since three of their five brigades were covering the approaches to the oil fields.

They still weren't ready. The 366th Wing was in the Kingdom, but it wasn't enough to have the airplanes on the right airfields. A thousand minor details had to be sorted out, and that job wasn't even half done yet. The F-16s from Israel were pretty well spun up, all forty-eight of their single-engine fighters running, and even some kills recorded in the initial skirmishes, but the rest needed another day. Similarly, the 10th Cav was fully ready, but the 11th was not; it was still assembling and moving to its initial deployment area. His third brigade had just started drawing equipment. An army wasn't a collection of weapons. It was a team composed of people with an idea of what they were supposed to be doing. But picking the time and place for war was usually the job of an aggressor, which was a role his country hadn't practiced very much.

He looked at the three-page fax again. It seemed quite literally explosive in his hands. His planning staff read their copies and were eerily quiet until the 1 Ith's S-3, the regimental operations officer, said it for all of them:

"We're gonna get some."

THREE RUSSIANS HAD recently arrived. Clark and Chavez had to remind themselves that this wasn't some sort of alcohol-induced dream. The two CIA officers were being supported by Russians under mission orders from Langley by way of Moscow. Actually, they had two missions. The Russians had drawn the hard one, and had brought the necessary equipment in the diplomatic pouch for the two Americans to have a try at the easier one. A dispatch had also come from Washington, via Moscow, that all of them read.

"Too fast, John," Ding breathed. Then his mission face came on. "But what the hell."

THE PRESS ROOM was still underpopulated. So many of the regulars were elsewhere, some caught out of town and blocked by the travel ban, others just missing, and nobody quite sure why.

"The President will be making a major speech in one hour," van Damm told them. "Unfortunately, there will be no time to give you advance copies of the speech. Please inform your networks that this is a matter of the highest importance."

"Arnie!" a reporter called, but the chief of staff had already turned his back.

THE REPORTERS IN Saudi knew more than both their friends back in Washington, and they were moving out to join their assigned units. For Tom Donner, it was B-Troop, 1st of the llth. He was fully outfitted in a desert battle-dress uniform, or BDU, and found the twenty-nine-year-old troop commander standing by his tank.

"Howdy," the captain said, halfway looking up from his map.

"Where do you want me?" Donner asked. The captain laughed.

"Never ask a soldier where he wants a reporter, sir."

"With you, then?"

"I ride this," the officer responded, nodding at the tank. "I'll put you in one of the Brads."

"I need a camera crew."

"They're already here," the captain told him, pointing. "Over that way. Anything else?"

"Yeah, would you like to know what this is all about?" Donner asked. The journalists had been virtual prisoners in a Riyadh hotel, not even allowed to call home to tell their families where they were—all they'd known was that the reporters had been called up, and their parent corporations had signed agreements not to reveal the purpose of their absences for such deployments. In Donner's case, the network said that he was "on assignment," a difficult thing to explain with the travel ban. But they had been told the overall situation—there'd been no avoiding it—which put them one up on a lot of soldiers.

"We hear that in an hour or so, or that's what the colonel told us." But the young officer was interested now.

"This is something you need to know now. Honest."

"Mr. Donner, I know what you pulled on the President and—"

"If you want to shoot me, do it later. Listen to me, Captain. This is important."

"Say your say, sir."

THERE SEEMED SOMETHING perverse in being made up at a time like this. It was, as always, Mary Abbot doing the job, wearing her mask, and this time gloves as well, while both TelePrompTers ran their copy. Ryan hadn't had the time or really the inclination to rehearse. Important as the speech was, he only wished to do it once.

"THEY CAN'T DO cross-country," the Saudi general insisted. "They haven't trained for it, and they're still road-bound."

"There is information to suggest otherwise, sir," Diggs said.

"We are ready for them."

"You're never ready enough, General. Nobody is."

IT WAS TENSE but otherwise normal at PALM BOWL. Downloaded satellite photos told them that the UIR forces were still moving, and if they continued, then they would be met by two Kuwaiti brigades fighting on their own turf, and an American regiment in reserve, and the Saudis ready to provide rapid support. They didn't know how the battle would turn out—the overall numbers weren't favorable—but it wouldn't be like the last time, Major Sabah told himself. It seemed so foolish to him that the allied forces could not strike first. They knew what was coming.

"Getting some radio chatter," a technician reported. Outside, the sun was just starting to set. The satellite photos the intelligence officers looked at were four hours old. More would not be available for another two.

STORM TRACK WAS close to the Saudi-UIR border, too far for a mortar round, but not safe from real tube artillery. A company of fourteen Saudi tanks was now arrayed between the listening post and the berm. There also, for the first time in days, they were starting to copy radio transmissions. The signals were scrambled, more like the command sets than the regular tactical radios, which were far too numerous for easy encryption systems. Unable to read them immediately—that was the job of the computers back at KKMC—they did start trying to locate their points of origin. In twenty minutes, they had thirty point-sources. Twenty represented brigade headquarters. Six for the division command posts. Three for the corps commanders, and one for the army command. They seemed to be testing their commo net, the ELINT people decided. They'd have to wait for the computers to unscramble what was being said. The direction-finders had them arrayed on the road to Al Busayyah, still doing their approach march to Kuwait. The radio traffic wasn't all that remarkable. Maybe, most thought, the Army of God needed more practice in march discipline… though they hadn't done all that badly in their exercise….