Executive Orders by Tom Clancy

“Mr. Minister, peace serves everyone’s best interests, does it not? America appreciates the actions of both parties in these informal proceedings. The People’s Republic has indeed been gracious in more than one way, and the government in Taiwan is willing to match your actions. What more is required than that?”

“Very little,” the Foreign Minister replied. “Merely compensation for the deaths of our four aviators. Each of them left a family behind.”

“Their fighters did shoot first,” Zhang pointed out.

“That may be true, but the question of the airliner is still undetermined.”

“Certainly, we had nothing to do that that.” This came from the Foreign Minister.

There were few things more boring than negotiations

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between countries, but there was actually a reason for that. Sudden or surprise moves could force a country into making impromptu decisions. Unexpected pressure caused anger, and anger had no place in high-level discussions and decisions. Therefore, important talks were almost never decisive, but were, rather, evolutionary in nature, which gave each side time to think through its position, and that of the other side, carefully, so to arrive at a final communique with which both sides could be relatively content. Thus the demand for compensation was a violation of the rules. More properly done, this would have been said at the first session, and Adler would have taken it to Taipei and probably presented it as his own suggestion after the Republic of China government had agreed to cooperate in the reduction of tension. But they had already done that, and now the PRC wanted him to take back the request for compensation instead of a formula for local detente. That was an insult to the Taiwanese government, and also a measured insult to the American government for having been used as a stalking horse for another country.

This was all the more true since Adler and the ROC knew who’d killed the airliner, and who had therefore shown contempt for human life–for which the PRC now demanded compensation! And now Adler wondered again how much of what he knew of the incident was known to the PRC. If they knew a lot, then this was definitely a game whose rules had yet to be decoded.

“I think it would be more useful if both sides were to cover their individual losses and needs,” Secretary Adler suggested.

“I regret that we cannot accept that. It is a matter of principle, you see. He who commits the improper act must make amends.”

“But what if–I do not have any evidence to suggest this, but what if it is determined that the PRC inadvertently damaged the airliner? In such a case your request for compensation might appear unjust.”

“That is not possible. We have interviewed our surviving pilots and their reports are unequivocal.” Again it was Zhang.

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“What precisely do you request?” Adler asked.

“Two hundred thousand dollars for each of the four aviators lost. The money will go to their families, of course,” Zhang promised.

“I can present this request to–”

“Excuse me. It is not a request. It is a requirement,” the Foreign Minister told Adler.

“I see. I can present your position to them, but I must urge you not to make this a condition of your promise to reduce tension.”

“That is our position.” The Foreign Minister’s eyes were quite serene.

“. . . AND GOD BLESS America,” Ryan concluded. The crowd stood and cheered. The band struck up there had to be a band everywhere he went, Jack supposed–and he made his way off the dais behind a wall of nervous Secret Service agents. Well, the President thought, no gunfire out of the blinding lights this time, either. He stifled another yawn. He’d been on the move for over twelve hours. Four speeches didn’t seem to be all that much physical work, but Ryan was learning just how exhausting public speaking could be. You had the shakes every time before getting up there, and though you got over it in a few minutes, the accumulated stress did take its toll. The dinner hadn’t helped much. The food had been bland, so carefully chosen to offend no one that it wasn’t worth anyone’s attention. But it had given him heartburn anyway.

“Okay,” Arnie told him, as the presidential party assembled to head out the back door. “For a guy who was ready to chuck it yesterday, you did awfully well.”

“Mr. President!” a reporter called.

“Talk to him,” Arnie whispered.

“Yes?” Jack said, walking over, to the displeasure of his security force.

“Do you know about what John Plumber said this evening on NEC?” The reporter was ABC, and unlikely to pass on the chance to slam a competing network.

“Yes, I’ve heard about it,” the President replied soberly.

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“Do you have any comment?”

“Obviously, I do not like learning about all this, but as far as Mr. Plumber is concerned, that’s as gracious an act of moral courage as I’ve seen in quite a while. He’s okay in my book.”

“Do you know who it was who–”

“Please, let Mr. Plumber handle that. It’s his story, and he knows how to tell it. Now if you will excuse me, I have a plane to catch.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” the ABC reporter said to Ryan’s back.

“Just right,” Arnie said, with a smile. “We’ve had a long day, but it’s been a good day.”

Ryan let out a long breath. “You say so.”

“OH, MY GOD,” Professor Klein whispered. There it was on the display monitor. The Shepherd’s Crook, right out of a medical text. How the hell had it come to Chicago?

“That’s Ebola,” Dr. Quinn said, adding, “That’s not possible.”

“How thorough was your physical examination?” the senior man asked again.

“Could have been better, but–no bite marks, no needle marks. Mark, it’s Chicago. I had frost on my windshield the other day.”

Professor Klein pressed his hands together, and pushed his gloved fingers up against his nose. Then he stopped the gesture when he realized that he was still wearing a surgical mask. “Keys in her purse?”

“Yes, sir.”

“First, we have cops around the ER. Get one, tell him we need a police escort to go to her apartment and allow us to look around. Tell him this woman’s life is in danger. Maybe she’s got a pet, a tropical plant, something. We have the name of her physician. Get him up, get him in here. We need to find out what he knows about her.”

“Treatment?”

“We cool her down, we keep her hydrated, we medicate for pain, but there isn’t anything that really works on this.

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Rousseau in Paris has tried interferon and a few other things, but no luck so far.” He frowned at the display again. “How’d she get it? How the hell did she contract this little bastard?”

“CDC?”

“You get the cop up here. I’ll get a fax off to Gus Lorenz.” Klein checked his watch. Damn.

THE PREDATOR DRONES were back in Saudi, having never been discovered. It was felt that having them circle over a stationary position, like a divisional encampment, was a little too dangerous, however, and now the overhead work was being done by satellites, whose photos downloaded to the National Reconnaissance Office.

“Check this out,” one of the night crew said to the guy at the next workstation. “What are these?”

The tanks of the UIR “Immortals” division were grouped in what was essentially a large parking lot, all evenly spaced in long, regular lines so that they could be counted–a stolen tank with a full basic load of shells was a dangerous thing to have on the loose, and all armies took security of the tank laagers seriously. It also made things more convenient for the maintenance personnel to have them all together. Now they were all back, and men were swarming over the tanks and other fighting vehicles, doing the normal maintenance that followed a major exercise. In front of every tank in the first row were two dark lines, each about a meter across, and ten meters long. The man on the screen was ex-Air Force, and more expert on airplanes than land-combat vehicles.

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,

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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.