Jack Ryan 9 - Executive Orders (63 page)

But the game had rules, and one of the rules was that honest people were assumed not to produce forbidden weapons, and overnight
Iraq
had become an honest member of the world community.

This fact was made clear at the meeting of the United Nations Security Council. The Iraqi ambassador spoke from his seat at the annular table, using charts to show what had already been opened to the inspection teams, and lamenting the fact that he'd been unable to speak the truth before. The other diplomats in the room understood. Many of them lied so much that they scarcely knew what the truth was. And so it was now that they saw truth and didn't recognize the lie behind it.

“In view of the full compliance of my country with all United Nations resolutions, we respectfully request that, in view of the needs of the citizens of my country, the embargo on foodstuffs be lifted as quickly as possible,” the ambassador concluded. Even his tone was reasonable now, the other diplomats noted with satisfaction.

“The chair recognizes the ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said the Chinese ambassador, who currently had the rotating chairmanship for the Security Council.

“No country in this body has greater reason to dislike
Iraq
. The chemical-weapons plants inspected today manufactured weapons of mass destruction which were then used against the people of my country. At the same time, we feel it is incumbent upon us to recognize the new day that has dawned over our neighbor. The citizens of
Iraq
have suffered long because of the actions of their former ruler. That ruler is gone, and the new government shows every sign of reentering the community of nations. In view of that, the Islamic Republic of Iran will support an immediate suspension of the embargo. We will, moreover, initiate an emergency transfer of foodstuffs to bring relief to the Iraqi citizens.
Iran
proposes that the suspension should be conditional upon
Iraq
's continued good faith. To that end, we submit Draft Resolution 3659 . . .”

Scott Adler had flown up to
New York
to take the American seat at the Council. The American ambassador to the UN was an experienced diplomat, but for some situations the proximity of
Washington
was just too convenient, and this was one. For what little good it did, Adler thought. The Secretary of State had no cards to play at all. Often the cleverest ploy in diplomacy was to do exactly what your adversary requested. That had been the greatest fear in 1991, that Iraq could have simply withdrawn from Kuwait, leaving America and her allies with nothing to do, and preserving the Iraqi military to fight another day. It had been, fortunately, an option just a little too clever for
Iraq
to exercise. But someone had learned from that. When you demanded that someone should do something or else be denied something that he needed, and then that person did it—well, then you could no longer deny what he wanted, could you?

Adler had been fully briefed on the situation, for all the good it did him. It was rather like sitting at a poker game with three aces after the draw, only to learn that your opponent had a straight flush. Good information didn't always help. The only thing that could delay the proceedings was the turgid pace of the United Nations, and even that had limitations when diplomats had an attack of enthusiasm. Adler could have asked for a postponement of the vote to ensure Iraqi compliance with the long-standing UN demands, but
Iran
had already handled that by submitting a resolution that specified the temporary and conditional nature of the embargo suspension. They'd also made it very clear that they were going to ship food anyway—in fact already had, via truck, on the theory that doing something illegal in public made it acceptable. The SecState looked over at his ambassador—they'd been friends for years—and caught the ironic wink. The British ambassador was looking down at a pad of penciled doodles. The Russian one was reading dispatches. Nobody was listening, really. They didn't have to. In two hours, the Iranian resolution would pass. Well, it could have been worse. At least he'd have a chance to speak face-to-face with the Chinese ambassador and ask about their naval maneuvers. He knew the answer he'd get, but he wouldn't know if it was the truth or not. Of course. I'm the Secretary of State of the world's most powerful nation, Adler thought, but I'm just a spectator today.

WEEDS

T
HERE WERE FEW THINGS SADDER
than a sick child. Sohaila, her name was, Dr. MacGregor remembered. A pretty name, for a pretty, elfin little girl. Her father carried her in his arms. He appeared to be a brutish man—that was MacGregor's first impression, and he'd learned to trust them—but if so, one transformed by concern for his child. His wife was in his wake, along with another Arabic-appearing man wearing a jacket, and behind him was an official-looking Sudanese, all of which the physician noted and ignored. They weren't sick. Sohaila was.

“Well, hello again, young lady,” he said, with a comforting smile. “You are not feeling at all well, are you? We'll have to see about that, won't we? Come with me,” he said to the father.

Clearly these people were important to someone, and they would be treated accordingly. MacGregor led them to an examining room. The father set the little girl down on the table and backed away, letting his wife hold Sohaila's hand. The bodyguards—that's what they had to be—remained outside. The physician touched his hand to the child's forehead. She was burning up—39 at least. Okay. He washed his hands thoroughly and donned gloves, again because this was
Africa
, and in
Africa
you took every precaution. His first considered action was to take her temperature via the ear: 39.4. Pulse was rapid but not worrisome for a child. A quick check with a stethoscope confirmed normal heart sounds and no particular problem with the lungs, though her breathing was rapid as well. So far she had a fever, something hardly uncommon with young children, especially those recently arrived into a new environment. He looked up.

“What seems to be the problem with your daughter?” The father answered this time.

“She cannot eat, and her other end—”

“Vomiting and diarrhea?” MacGregor asked, checking her eyes out next. They seemed unremarkable as well.

“Yes, Doctor.”

“You've arrived here recently, I believe?” He looked up when the answer was hesitation. “I need to know.”

“Correct. From
Iraq
, just a few days.”

“And your daughter has a mild case of asthma, nothing else, no other health problems, correct?”

“That is true, yes. She's had all her shots and such. She's never been ill like this.” The mother just nodded. The father clearly had taken over, probably to get the feeling of authority, to make things happen, the physician surmised. It was fine with him.

“Since arriving here, any unusual things to eat? You see,” MacGregor explained, “travel can be very unsettling to some people, and children are unusually vulnerable. It could just be the local water.”

“I gave her the medicine, but it got worse,” the mother said.

“It is not the water,” the father said positively. “The house has its own well. The water is good.”

As though on cue, Sohaila moaned and turned, vomiting off the examining table and onto the tile floor. It wasn't the right color. There were traces of red and black. Red for new blood, black for old. It wasn't jet lag or bad water. Perhaps an ulcer? Food poisoning? MacGregor blinked and instinctively checked to be sure his hands were gloved. The mother was looking for a paper towel to—

“Don't touch that,” he said mildly. He next took the child's blood pressure. It was low, confirming an internal bleed. “Sohaila, I'm afraid you will be spending the night with us so that we can make you well again.”

It could have been many things, but the doctor had been in
Africa
long enough to know that you acted as though it were the worst. The young physician consoled himself with the belief that it couldn't be all that bad.

I
T WASN
'
T QUITE
like the old days—what was?—but Mancuso enjoyed the work. He'd had a good war—he thought of it as a war; his submarines had done exactly what they'd been designed to do. After losing
Asheville
and
Charlotte
— those before the known commencement of hostilities—he'd lost no more. His boats had delivered on every mission assigned, savaging the enemy submarine force in a carefully planned ambush, supporting a brilliant special operation, conducting deep-strike missile launches, and, as always, gathering vital tactical intelligence. His best play, C
OM
S
UB
P
AC
judged, had been in recalling the boomers from retirement. They were too big and too unwieldy to be fast-attack boats, but God damn if they hadn't done the job for him. Enough so that they were all down the hill from his headquarters, tied alongside, their crews swaggering around town a bit, with brooms still prominent on their sails. Okay, so he wasn't Charlie Lockwood exactly, modesty told him. He'd done the job he'd been paid to do. And now he had another.

“So what are they supposed to be up to?” he asked his immediate boss, Admiral Dave Seaton.

“Nobody seems to know.” Seaton had come over to look around. Like any good officer, he tried to get the hell out of his office as much as possible, even if it only meant visiting another. “Maybe just a FleetEx, but with a new President, maybe they want to flex their muscles and see what happens.” People in uniform did not like such international examinations, since they were usually the ones whose lives were part of the grading procedure.

“I know this guy, boss,” Bart said soberly.

“Oh?”

“Not all that well, but you know about Red October.”

Seaton grinned. “Bart, if you ever tell me that story, one of us has to kill the other, and I'm bigger.” The story, one of the most closely guarded secrets in the Navy's history, still was not widely known, though the rumors—one could never stop those—were many and diverse.

“You need to know, Admiral. You need to know what National Command Authority has hanging between his legs. I've been shipmates with the guy.”

That earned Mancuso a hard blink from C
IN
CP
AC
. “You're kidding.”

“Ryan was aboard the boomer with me. Matter of fact, he got aboard before I did.” Mancuso closed his eyes, delighted that he could finally tell this sea story and get away with it. Dave Seaton was a theater commander-in-chief, and he had a right to know what sort of man was sending the orders down from
Washington
.

“I heard he was involved in the operation, even that he got aboard, but I thought that was at
Norfolk
, when they parked her at the Eight-Ten Dock. I mean, he's a spook, right, an intel weenie . . .”

“Not hardly. He killed a guy—shot him, right in the missile room—before I got aboard. He was on the helm when we clobbered the Alfa. He was scared shitless, but he didn't cave. This President we've got's been there and done that. Anyway, if they want to test our President, my money's on him. Two big brass ones, Dave, that's what he's got hangin'. He may not look like it on TV, but I'll follow that son of a bitch anywhere.” Mancuso surprised himself with the conclusion. It was the first time he'd thought it all the way through.

“Good to know,” Seaton thought.

“So what's the mission?” S
UB
P
AC
asked.

“J-3 wants us to shadow.”

“You know
Jackson
better than I do. What are the parameters?”

“If this is a FleetEx and nothing else, we observe covertly. If things change, we let them know we care. You've got point, Bart. My cupboard's pretty damned bare.”

They had only to look out the windows to see that.
Enterprise
and John Stennis were both in drydock. C
IN
CP
AC
did not have a single carrier to deploy, and wouldn't for two more months. They'd run Johnnie Reb on two shafts for the retaking of the Marianas, but now she lay alongside her older sister, with huge holes torched from the flight deck down to the first platform level while new turbines and reduction gears were fabricated. The aircraft carrier was the usual means for the United States Navy to make a show of force. Probably that was part of the Chinese plan, to see how
America
would react when a substantive reaction was not possible, or so it would appear to some.

“Will you cover for me with DeMarco?” Mancuso asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Bruno's from the old school. He thinks it's bad to get detected. Personally, I think sometimes it can be a good thing. If you want me to rattle John Chinaman's cage, he has to hear the bars shake, doesn't he?”

“I'll write the orders accordingly. How you run it is your business. For the moment, if some 'can skipper talks to his XO about getting laid on the beach, I want it on tape for my collection.”

“Dave, that's an order a man can understand. I'll even get you the phone number, sir.”

“A
ND NOT A
damned thing we can do,” Cliff Rutledge concluded his assessment.

“Gee, Cliff,” Scott Adler responded. “I kinda figured that one out for myself.” The idea was that subordinates gave you alternatives instead of taking them away—or in this case, telling you what you already knew.

They'd been fairly lucky to this point. Nothing much had gotten out to the media.
Washington
was still too shell-shocked, the junior people filling senior posts were not yet confident enough to leak information without authorization, and the senior posts President Ryan had filled were remarkably loyal to their Commander-in-Chief, an unexpected benefit of picking outsiders who didn't know from politics. But it couldn't last, especially with something as juicy as a new country about to be born from two enemies, both of whom had shed American blood.

“I suppose we could always just do nothing,” Rutledge observed lightly, wondering what the reaction would be. This alternative was distinct from not being able to do anything, a metaphysical subtlety not lost on official
Washington
.

“Taking that position only encourages developments adverse to our interests,” another senior staffer observed crossly.

“As opposed to proclaiming our impotence?” Rutledge replied. “If we say we don't like it, and then we fail to stop it, that's worse than our taking no position at all.”

Adler reflected that you could always depend on a Harvard man for good grammar and finely split hairs and, in Rutledge's case, not much more than that. This career foreign service officer had gotten to the seventh floor by never putting a foot wrong, which was another way of saying that he'd never led a dance partner in his life. On the other hand, he was superbly connected—or had been. Cliff had the deadliest disease of a FSO, however. Everything was negotiable. Adler didn't think that way. You had to stand and fight for some things, because if you didn't, the other guy would decide where the battlefield was, and then he had control. The mission of diplomats was to prevent war, a serious business, Adler thought, which one accomplished by knowing where to stand firm and where the limits on negotiation were. For the Assistant Secretary of State for Policy, it was just an unending dance. With someone else leading. Alas, Adler didn't yet have the political capital to fire the man, or maybe make him an ambassador to some harmless post. He himself still had to be confirmed by the new Senate, for example.

“So just call it a regional issue?” another senior diplomat asked. Adler's head turned slowly. Was Rutledge building a consensus?

“No, it is not that,” the Secretary of State pronounced, making his stand within his own conference room. “It is a vital security interest of the
United States
. We have pledged our support to the Saudis.”

“Line in the sand?” Cliff asked. “There's no reason to do that yet. Look, let's be sensible about this, okay?
Iran
and
Iraq
merge and form this new United Islamic Republic, fine. Then what? It takes them years to get the new country organized. In that time, forces which we know to be under way in
Iran
weaken the theocratic regime that's been giving us such a royal pain in the butt. This is not a one-way deal, is it? We can expect that from the influence the secular elements in Iraqi society will necessarily have in
Iran
. If we panic and get pushy, we make life easier for Daryaei and his fanatics. But if we take it easy, then we lessen the imperative for them to stoke up the rhetoric against us. Okay, we can't stop this merger, can we?” Rut-ledge went on. “So if we can't, what do we do? We think of it as an opportunity to open a dialogue with the new country.”

There was a certain logic to the proposal, Adler noted, noting also the tentative nods around the conference table. He knew the proper buzzwords.
Opportunity
. Dialogue.

“That'll really make the Saudis feel warm and fuzzy,” a voice objected from the far end of the table. It was Bert Vasco, the most junior man here. “Mr. Rutledge, I think you underestimate the situation.
Iran
managed the assassination—”

“We have no proof of that, do we?”

“And Al Capone was never convicted for Valentine's Day, but I saw the movie.” Being called into the Oval Office had enlivened the desk officer's rhetoric. Adler raised an amused eyebrow. “Somebody is orchestrating this, starting with the shooting, continuing with the elimination first of the military high command, and then second with the slaughter of the Ba'ath Party leadership. Next, we have this religious revival now under way. The picture I have of this is one of renewed national and religious identity. That will attenuate the moderating influences you referred to. The internal dissent in
Iran
will be knocked back a full year at least by these developments—and we don't know what else might be going on. Daryaei's a plotter, and a good one. He's patient, dedicated, and one ruthless son of a bitch—”

“Who's on his last legs,” one of Rutledge's allies in the room objected.

“Says who?” Vasco shot back. “He's managed this one pretty sharp.”

“He's in his seventies.”

“He doesn't smoke or drink. Every tape we have of him in public, he looks vigorous enough. Underestimating this man is a mistake we've made before.”

“He's out of touch with his own people.”

“Maybe he doesn't know that. He's having a good year so far, and everybody likes a winner,” Vasco concluded.

“Bert, maybe you're just worried about losing your desk when they form the UIR,” someone joked. It was a low blow, aimed by a senior man at a junior, with chuckles around the table to remind him of that. The resulting silence told the Secretary of State that there was a consensus forming, and not the one he wanted. Time to take control again.