“You are thinking what I am thinking, da?” the general asked, seeing the man’s face and gesturing for him to speak.
“Someone has made a calculation ...”
“And it is not an accurate one. I think we need to find out who has done so. I think a systematic attack on American interests, an attempt to weaken America, Comrade Chairman, is really an attack against our interests. Why is China doing what she is doing, eh? Why did they force America to change her naval dispositions? And now this? American forces are being stretched, and at the same time a strike at the very heart of the American leader. This is no coincidence. Now we can stand aside and do nothing more than observe, or—”
“There is nothing we can do, and with the revelations in the American press—”
“Comrade Chairman,” Bondarenko interrupted. “For seventy years, our country has confused political theory with objective fact, and that was almost our undoing as a nation. There are objective conditions here,” he went on, using a phrase beloved of the Soviet military—a reaction, perhaps, to their three generations of political oversight. “I see the patterns of a clever operation, a coordinated operation, but one which has a fatal flaw, and that flaw is a misestimation of the American President. Do you disagree?”
Golovko gave that a few seconds of thought, noting also that Bondarenko might just be seeing something real—but did the Americans? It was so much harder to see something from the inside than the outside. A coordinated operation? Back to Ryan, he told himself.
“No. I made that mistake myself. Ryan appears much less than what he is. The signs are all there, but people don’t see them.”
“When I was in America, that General Diggs told me the story of the time terrorists attacked Ryan’s house. He took up arms and defeated them, courageously and decisively. From what you say, it appears he is also highly effective as an intelligence officer. His only flaw, if one may call it that, is that he is not politically adept, and politicians invariably take that for weakness. Perhaps it is,” Bondarenko allowed. “But if this is a hostile operation against America, then his political weaknesses are far less important than his other gifts.”
“And?”
“Help the man,” the general urged. “Better that we should be on the winning side, and if we do not help, then we might be on the other. Nobody will attack America directly. We are not so fortunate, Comrade Chairman.” He was almost right.
44
INCUBATION
RYAN AWOKE AT DAWN, wondering why. The quiet. Almost like his home on the Bay. He strained to listen for traffic or other sounds, but there were none. Moving out of the bed was difficult. Cathy had decided to have Katie in with them, and there she was in her pink sleeper, looking angelic as toddlers did, still babies at that age whatever others might say. He had to smile, then made his way to the bathroom. Casual clothes had been set out in the dressing room, and he put them on, with a pair of sneaks and a sweater, to head outside.
The air was brisk, with traces of frost on the boxwoods, and the sky clear. Not bad. Robby was right. This wasn’t a bad place to come to. It put a distance between himself and other things, and he needed that right now.
“Morning, sir.” It was Captain Overton.
“Not bad duty, is it?”
The young officer nodded. “We do the security. The Navy does the petunias. It’s a fair division of labor, Mr. President. Even the Secret Service guys can sleep in here, sir.”
Ryan looked around and saw why. There were two armed Marines immediately around the cabin, and three more within fifty yards. And those were just the ones he could see.
“Get you anything, Mr. President?”
“Coffee’ll do for a start.”
“Follow me, sir.”
“Attention on deck!” a sailor shouted a few seconds later, when Ryan went into the cook shed—or whatever they called it here.
“As you were,” the President told them. “I thought this was the Presidential Retreat, not boot camp.” He picked a seat at the table the staff used. Coffee appeared as if by magic. Then more magic happened.
“Good morning, Mr. President.”
“Hi, Andrea. When did you get in?”
“Around two, helicopter,” she explained.
“Get any sleep?”
“About four hours.”
Ryan took a sip. Navy coffee was still Navy coffee. “And?”
“The investigation is under way. The team’s put together. Everybody’s got a seat at the table.” She handed over a folder, which Ryan would get to read before his morning paper. Anne Arundel County and Maryland State Police, Secret Service, FBI, ATF, and all the intelligence agencies were working the case. They were running IDs on the terrorists, but the two whose documents had so far been checked turned out to be non-persons. Their papers were false, probably of European origin. Big surprise. Any competent European criminal, much less a terrorist organization, could procure phony passports. He looked up.
“What about the agents we lost?”
A sigh, a shrug. “They all have families.”
“Let’s get it set up so that I can meet with them ... should it be all at once or one at a time?”
“Your choice, sir,” Price told him.
“No, it has to be what’s best for them. They’re your people, Andrea. You work that out for me, okay? I owe them my daughter’s life, and I have to do what’s right for them,” POTUS said soberly, remembering why he was in this quiet and peaceful place. “And I presume that they will be properly looked after. Get me the details on that, insurance, pensions, and stuff, okay? I want to look that over.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do we know anything important yet?”
“No, not really. The terrorists who’ve been posted, their dental work definitely isn’t American, that’s it for now.”
Ryan flipped through the papers he had. One preliminary conclusion leaped off the page at him: “Eleven years?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So this is a major operation for somebody—a country.”
“That’s a real possibility.”
“Who else would have the resources?” he asked, and Price reminded herself that he’d been an intelligence officer for a long time.
Agent Raman came in and took his seat. He’d heard that observation, and he and Price traded a look and a nod.
The wall phone rang. Captain Overton walked over to get it. “Yes?” He listened for a few minutes, then turned. “Mr. President, this is Mrs. Foley at CIA.”
The President went to take the call. “Yeah, Mary Pat.”
“Sir, we had a call a few minutes ago from Moscow. Our friend Golovko asks if he can be of any assistance. I recommend a ‘yes’ on that.”
“Agreed. Anything else?”
“Avi ben Jakob wants to talk to you later today. Ears-only,” the DDO told him.
“About an hour, let me get woke up first.”
“Yes, sir.... Jack?”
“Yeah, MP?”
“Thank God about Katie,” she said, mother to father, then going on as mother alone: “If we can get a line on this, we will.”
“I KNOW YOU’RE our best,” Mrs. Foley heard. “We’re doing okay right now.”
“Good. Ed and I will be in all day.” She hung up.
“How’s he sound?” Clark asked.
“He’ll make it, John.”
Chavez rubbed his hand over the night’s growth of beard. The three of them plus quite a few others had spent the night reviewing everything CIA had on terrorist groups. “We have to do something about this, guys. This is an act of war.” His voice was devoid of accent now, as it tended to be when he got serious enough to call on his education instead of his L.A. origins.
“We don’t know much. Hell,” the DDO said, “we don’t know anything yet.”
“Shame he couldn’t have taken one alive.” This observation, to the surprise of the two others, came from Clark.
“He probably didn’t have much of a cha
nce to snap the cuffs on the guy,” Ding replied.
“True.” Clark lifted the set of crime-scene photos that had been couriered over from the FBI just after midnight. He’d worked the Middle East, and it had been hoped that he might have recognized a face, but he hadn’t. Mainly he’d learned that whichever FBI puke had been inside, the gent could shoot as well as he ever had. Lucky man, to have been there, to have had that chance, and to take it.
“Somebody’s taking one hell of a big chance,” John said.
“That’s a fact,” Mary Pat agreed automatically, but then they all wondered about it.
The question was not how big the chance was, but rather how big the chance was perceived to be by whoever had tossed the dice. The nine terrorists had all been throwaways, as surely marked for death as the Hezbollah fanatics who’d gone strolling down Israeli streets in clothing made by DuPont—that was the CIA joke about it, though in fact the plastic explosives had probably come from the Skoda Works in the former Czechoslovakia. “Not-so-smart bombs” was the other in-house sobriquet. Had they really believed that they could pull it off? The problem with some of the fanatics was that they didn’t weigh things very well ... maybe they hadn’t even cared.
That was also the problem of those who sent them. This mission had been different, after all. Ordinarily, terrorists boasted widely of what they did, however odious the act, and at CIA and elsewhere they’d waited for fifteen hours for the press release. But it never came, and if it hadn’t by now, then it never would. If they didn’t make the release, then they didn’t want anyone to know. But that was an illusion. Terrorists always proclaimed their acts, but they didn’t always appreciate that police agencies could figure things out anyway.
Nation-states knew better, or were supposed to. Okay, fine, the dealers hadn’t had anything that could identify their point of origin—or so some might think. But Mary Pat was under no such illusions. The FBI was better than good, good enough that the Secret Service was letting the Bureau handle all of the forensics. And so it was likely that whoever had initiated the mission might actually expect that the story would eventually unravel. Knowing that—probably—they’d gone ahead with it anyway. If this line of speculation were true, then—
“Part of something else?” Clark asked. “Not a stand-alone. Something else, too.”
“Maybe,” Mary Pat observed.
“If it is, it’s big,” Chavez went on for them. “Maybe that’s why the Russians called in to us.”
“So big ... so big that even if we figure it out, it won’t matter when we do.”
“That’s pretty big, Mary Pat,” Clark said quietly. “What could it be ...?”
“Something permanent, something we can’t change after it’s done,” Domingo offered. His time at George Mason University hadn’t been wasted.
Mrs. Foley wished her husband were in on this, but Ed was meeting with Murray right now.
SATURDAYS IN THE spring are often days of dull but hopeful routine, but in just over two hundred homes little was done. Gardens were not planted. Cars were not washed. Garage sales were not attended. Paint cans went unopened. That wasn’t counting government employees or news personnel working the big story of the week. Mainly the people suffering from the flu were men. Thirty of them were in hotel rooms. Several even tried to work, attending their trade shows in the new cities. Wiping their faces, blowing their noses, and wishing the aspirin or Tylenol would kick in. Of the last group, most went back to the hotel rooms to relax—no sense in getting the customers sick, was there? In not a single case did anyone seek medical attention. There was the usual winter/spring flu bug circulating around, and everybody got it sooner or later. They weren’t that sick, after all, were they?
NEWS COVERAGE OF the incident at Giant Steps was entirely predictable, starting with camera shots taken from about fifty yards away, and the same words repeated by all of the correspondents, followed by the same words delivered by “experts” in terrorism and/or other fields. One of the networks took the viewer all the way back to Abraham Lincoln for no other reason than that it was otherwise a very slow news day. All of the coverage pointed to the Middle East, though the investigating agencies had declined any comment at all on the event so far, except to cite an FBI agent’s heroic interference and the spirited battle put up by the Secret Service bodyguards of little Katie Ryan. Words like “heroic,” “dedicated,” and “determined” were bandied about with great frequency, leading to the “dramatic conclusion.”
Something very simple had gone wrong, Badrayn was certain, though he wouldn’t know for sure until his colleague got back to Tehran from London, via Brussels and Vienna, on several different sets of travel documents.
“The President and his family are at the Presidential Retreat at Camp David,” the reporter concluded, “to recover from the shock of this dreadful event just north of peaceful Annapolis, Maryland. This is ...”
“Retreat?” Daryaei asked.
“It means many things in English, first among them is to run away,” Badrayn answered, mainly because he was sure that’s what his employer would like to hear.
“If he thinks he can run away from me, he is mistaken,” the cleric observed in dark amusement, the spirit of the moment getting the better of his discretion.
Badrayn didn’t react to the revelation. It was easy at the instant of his realization, since he was looking at the TV and not at his host, but things then became more clear. There was not all that much risk at all, was there? Mahmoud Haji had a way to kill this man, perhaps whenever he wished to do so, and it was all being orchestrated. Could he really do it? But, of course, he already had.
IVIS MADE LIFE hard on the OpFor. Not all that hard. Colonel Hamm and the Blackhorse had won this one, but what only a year before would have been a wipeout of cosmic proportions—Fort Irwin was in California, and some linguistic peculiarities were inevitable—had been a narrow victory. War was about information. It was always the lesson of the National Training Center: Find the enemy. Don’t let the enemy find you. Reconnaissance. Reconnaissance. Reconnaissance. The IVIS system, operated by halfway competent people, shot the information out to everyone so fast that the soldiers were leaning in the right direction even before the orders came down. That had nearly negated a maneuver on the OpFor’s part, which would have been worthy of Erwin Rommel on his best day, and as he watched the fast-play of the exercise on the big screen in the Star Wars Room, Hamm saw just how close it had been. If one of those Blue Force tank companies had moved just five minutes faster, he would have lost this one, too. The NTC would surely lose its effectiveness if the Good Guys won regularly.
“That was a beautiful move, Hamm,” the colonel of the Carolina Guard admitted, reaching in his pocket for a cigar and handing it over. “But we’ll whip your ass tomorrow.”
Ordinarily, he would have smiled and said, Sure you will. But the cracker son of a bitch just might pull it off, and that would take a lot of the fun out of Hamm’s life. The colonel of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment would now have to come up with ways of spoofing IVIS. It was something he’d thought about, and had been the subject of a few discussions over beers with his operations officer, but so far they had only agreed that it was no small feat, probably involving dummy vehicles ... like Rommel had used. He’d have to get funding for those. He walked outside to smoke his cigar. It had been honorably won. He found the Guard colonel there, too.
“For Guardsmen, you’re pretty damned good,” Hamm had to admit. He’d never said such a thing to a Guard formation before. He rarely said it to anyone at all. Except for one deployment error, the Blue Force plan had been a thing of beauty.
“Thank you for saying that, Colonel. IVIS came as a rude surprise, didn’t it?”
“You might say that.”
“My people love it. A lot come in on their own time to play on the simulators. Hell, I’m surprised you took us on this one.”
“Your reserve was too close in,” Hamm told him. “You thought you knew wha
t to exploit. Instead, I caught you out of position to meet my counterattack.” It wasn’t a revelation. The senior observer/controller had made that lesson clear to the momentarily contrite tank commander.
“I’ll try to remember that. Catch the news?”
“Yeah, that sucks,” Hamm thought aloud.
“Little kids. I wonder if they award medals to the Secret Service?”
“They have something, I imagine. I can think of worse things to die for.” And that’s what it was all about. Those five agents had died doing their jobs, running to the sound of the guns. They must have made some mistakes, but sometimes you didn’t have a choice in the matter. All soldiers knew that.
“God rest their brave souls.” The man sounded like Robert Edward Lee. It triggered something in Hamm.
“What’s the story on you guys? You, Colonel Eddington, you’re not supposed—what the hell do you do in real life?” The guy was over fifty, very marginal for an officer in command of a brigade, even in the Guard.
“I’m professor of military history at the University of North Carolina. What’s the story? This brigade was supposed to be the round-out for 24th Mech back in 1991, and we came here for workups and got our ass handed to us. Never got to deploy. I was a battalion XO then, Hamm. We wanted to go. Our regimental standards go back to the Revolution. It hurt our pride. We’ve been waiting to come back here near on ten years, boy, and this IVIS box gives us a fair chance.” He was a tall, thin man, and when he turned, he was looking down at the regular officer. “We are going to make use of that chance, son. I know the theory. I been readin’ and studyin’ on it for over thirty years, and my men ain’t’a’gonna roll over and die for you, you he’ah?” When aroused, Nicholas Eddington tended to adopt an accent.
Executive Orders (1996) Page 102