Jack Ryan 9 - Executive Orders (26 page)

“Keep going,” CIA said.

“He must have been from outside, a guy with a totally clean record, no connection at all with anybody who made noise in
Baghdad
. This wasn't a guy getting even for somebody taking his mother out, okay? It was somebody who worked his way up the system, slow and careful all the way.”

“
Iran
,” CIA said. “Best guess, anyway. Religious motivation. No way he'd walk away from the hit, so it had to be somebody who didn't care. That could also mean straight revenge, but Ms. Price is correct: his people were clean in that respect. Anyway, it wasn't the Israelis, wasn't the French. The Brits don't do this anymore. The domestic angle is probably taken out by their vetting procedures. So it wasn't for money. It wasn't for personal or family motives. I think we can discount political ideology. That leaves religion, and that means
Iran
.”

“I can't say I'm familiar with all the intelligence side, but from looking at the tape, yeah,” Andrea Price agreed. “It's like he was saying a prayer, the way he killed the guy. He just wanted the moment to be perfect. He didn't care about anything else.”

“Somebody else to check that out?” Ryan asked.

“FBI, their Behavioral Sciences people are pretty good at reading minds. We work with them all the time,” Price responded.

“Good idea,” CIA agreed. “We'll rattle the bushes to ID the shooter, but even if we can get good information, it might not mean anything.” .    “What about the timing?”

“If we can stipulate that the shooter was there for a while—we have enough tapes of public appearances to determine that—then timing is an issue,” CIA thought.

“Oh, that's just great,” the President opined. “Scott, now what?”

“Bert?” SecState said to his desk officer. Bert Vasco was the State Department senior desk officer for that country. Rather like a specialist in the trading industry, he concentrated his efforts on learning everything he could about one particular country.

“Mr. President, as we all know,
Iraq
is a majority Shi'a Muslim country ruled by a Sunni minority through the Ba'ath political party. It has always been a concern that the elimination of our friend over there could topple—”

“Tell me what I don't know,” Ryan interrupted.

“Mr. President, we simply do not know the strength of any opposition group that may or may not exist. The current regime has been very effective at cutting the weeds down early. A handful of Iraqi political figures has defected to
Iran
. None are top-quality people, and none ever had the chance to develop a firm political base. There are two radio stations that broadcast from
Iran
into
Iraq
. We know the names of the defectors who use those transmitters to talk to their countrymen. But there's no telling how many people listen and pay attention. The regime isn't exactly popular, we know that. We do not know the strength of the opposition, or what sort of organization exists to make use of an opportunity such as this one.”

CIA nodded. “Bert's right. Our friend was awfully good at identifying potential enemies and taking them out of play. We tried to help during and after the Persian Gulf War, but all we really managed to do was get people killed. For sure nobody over there trusts us.”

Ryan sipped at his coffee and nodded. He'd made his own recommendations back in 1991, and they hadn't been exercised. Well, he'd still been a junior executive then.

“Do we have any options to play?” the President asked next.

“Honestly, no,” Vasco answered.

CIA agreed: “No assets in place. What few people we have operating in that country are tasked to coverage of weapons development: nuclear, chemical, and so forth. Nobody on the political side. We actually have more people in
Iran
looking at the political side. We can rattle those bushes some, but not in
Iraq
.”

Fabulous, Jack thought, a country may or may not go down in one of the most sensitive areas of the world, and the world's most powerful nation could do nothing more than watch television coverage of the event. So much for the power of the American presidency.

“Arnie?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” the chief of staff replied.

“We bumped Mary Pat off the schedule a couple days ago. I want her in today if we can work the schedule.”

“I'll see what we can do on that, but—”

“But when something like this happens, the President of the
United States
is supposed to have more than his dick in his hand.” Ryan paused. “Is
Iran
going to make a move?”

POLITICS

P
RINCE ALI BIN SHEIK HAD
been ready to fly home on his personal aircraft, an aging but beautifully appointed Lockheed L-1011, when the call came in from the White House. The Saudi embassy was located close to the Kennedy Center, and the ride correspondingly short in his official limousine, accompanied by a security force almost as large as Ryan's and made up of American Diplomatic Protection Service personnel, plus the Prince's own detail, composed of former members of Britain's Special Air Service. The Saudis, as always, spent a lot of money and bought quality with it. AH was no stranger to the White House, or to Scott Adler, who met him at the door and conducted him upstairs and east into the Oval Office.

“Mr. President,” His Royal Highness said, walking in from the secretaries' room.

“Thank you for coming over on such short notice.” Jack shook his hand and waved him to one of the room's two sofas. Some thoughtful person had started a fire in the fireplace. The White House photographer snapped a few shots, and was dismissed. “I imagine you've seen the news this morning.”

Ali managed a worried smile. “What does one say? We will not mourn his passing, but the Kingdom has serious concerns.”

“Do you know anything we don't?” Ryan asked.

The Prince shook his head. “I was as surprised as everyone else.”

The President grimaced. “You know, with all the money we spend on—” His visitor raised a tired hand.

“Yes, I know. I will have the same conversation with my own ministers as soon as my airplane lands back home.”

“
Iran
.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Will they move?”

The Oval Office got quiet then, just the crackling of the seasoned oak in the fireplace as the three men, Ryan, Ali, and Adler, traded looks across the coffee table, the tray and cups on it untouched. The issue was, of course, oil. The Persian—sometimes called the Arabian—Gulf was a finger of water surrounded by, and in some places sitting atop, a sea of oil. Most of the world's known supply was there, divided mainly among the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran, along with the smaller United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar. Of these countries,
Iran
was by far the largest in terms of population. Next came
Iraq
. The nations of the
Arabian Peninsula
were richer, but the land atop their liquid wealth had never supported a large population, and there was the rub, first exposed in 1991, when
Iraq
had invaded
Kuwait
with all the grace of a schoolyard bully's attack on a smaller child. Ryan had more than once said that aggressive war was little more than an armed robbery writ large, and such had been the case in the Persian Gulf War. Seizing upon a minor territorial dispute and some equally trivial economic issues as an excuse, Saddam Hussein had attempted at a stroke to double his country's inherent wealth, and then threatened to double down his bets yet again by attacking Saudi Arabia—the reason he'd stopped at the Kuwait-Saudi border would now remain forever unexplained. At the most easily understood level, it was about oil and oil's resulting wealth.

But there was more to it than that. Hussein, like a Mafia don, had thought about little more than money and the political power that money generated.
Iran
was somewhat more farsighted.

All the nations around the Gulf were Islamic, most of them very strictly so. There were the exceptions of
Bahrain
and
Iraq
. In the former case, the oil had essentially run out, and that country—really a city-state separated from the Kingdom by a causeway—had evolved into the same function that Nevada exercised for the western United States, a place where the normal rules were set aside, where drinking, gambling, and other pleasures could be indulged a convenient distance from a more restrictive home. In the latter case,
Iraq
was a secular state which paid scant lip service to the state religion, which largely explained its President's demise after a long and lively career.

But the key to the region was and would always be religion. The
Saudi
Kingdom
was the living heart of Islam. The Prophet had been born there. The holy cities of
Mecca
and
Medina
were there, and from that point of origin had grown one of the world's great religious movements. The issue was less about oil than about faith.
Saudi Arabia
was of the Sunni branch, and
Iran
of the Shi'a. Ryan had once been briefed on the differences, which had at the time seemed so marginal that he'd made no effort to remember them. That, the President told himself now, was foolish. The differences were large enough to make two important countries into enemies, and that was as large as any difference needed to be. It wasn't about wealth per se. It was about a different sort of power, the sort that grew from the mind and the heart—and from there into something else. Oil and money just made the struggle more interesting to outsiders.

A lot more interesting. The industrial world depended on that oil. Every state on the Gulf feared
Iran
for its size, for its large population, and for the religious fervor of its citizens. For the Sunni religious, the fear was about a perceived departure from the true course of Islam. For everyone else, it was about what would happen to them when “heretics” assumed control of the region, because Islam is a comprehensive system of beliefs, spreading out into civil law and politics and every other form of human activity. For Muslims the Word of God was Law Itself. For the West it was continuing their economies. For the Arabs—
Iran
is not an Arab country—it was the most fundamental question of all, a man's place before his God.

“Yes, Mr. President,” Prince Ali bin Sheik replied after a moment. “They will move.”

His voice was admirably calm, though Ryan knew that inwardly he must be anything but. The Saudis had never wanted
Iraq
's President to fall. Enemy though he was, apostate though he was, aggressor though he was, he had fulfilled a useful strategic purpose for his neighbors.
Iraq
had long been a buffer between the
Gulf states
and
Iran
.

It was a case in which religion played second fiddle to politics, which thereby served religious purposes. By rejecting the Word of Allah,
Iraq
's majority Shi'a population was taken out of play, and the dual border with
Kuwait
and the Kingdom was one of mere politics, not religion. But if the Ba'ath Party fell along with its leader, then
Iraq
might revert to majority religious rule. That would put a Shi'a country on the two borders, and the leader of the Shi'a branch of Islam was
Iran
.

Iran
would move, because
Iran
had been moving for years. The religion systematized by Mohammed had spread from the
Arabian Peninsula
to
Morocco
in the west and the
Philippines
in the east, and with the evolution of the modern world was represented in every nation on earth.
Iran
had used its wealth and its large population to become the world's leading Islamic nation, by bringing in Muslim clergy to its own holy city of
Qom
to study, by financing political movements throughout the Islamic world, and by funneling weapons to Islamic peoples who needed help—the Bosnian Muslims were a case in point, and not the only one.

“Anschluss,” Scott Adler thought aloud. Prince Ali just looked over and nodded.

“Do we have any sort of plan to help prevent it?” Jack asked. He knew the answer. No, nobody did. That was the reason the Persian Gulf War had been fought for limited military objectives, and not to overthrow the aggressor. The Saudis, who had from the beginning charted the war's strategic objectives, had never allowed
America
or her allies even to consider a drive to
Baghdad
, and this despite the fact that with
Iraq
's army deployed in and around
Kuwait
, the Iraqi capital had been as exposed as a nudist on a beach. Ryan had remarked at the time, watching the talking heads on various TV news shows, that not a single one of the commentators remarked that a textbook campaign would have totally ignored Kuwait, seized Baghdad, and then waited for the Iraqi army to stack arms and surrender. Well, not everyone could read a map.

“Your Highness, what influence can you exercise there?” Ryan inquired next.

“In practical terms? Very little. We will extend the hand of friendship, offer loans—by the end of the week we will ask
America
and the U.N. to lift sanctions with an eye to improving economic conditions, but . . .”

“Yeah, but,” Ryan agreed. “Your Highness, please let us know what information you can develop.
America
's commitment to the Kingdom's security is unchanged.”

Ali nodded. “I will convey that to my government.”

“N
ICE, PROFESSIONAL JOB
,” Ding observed, catching the enhanced instant replay. “ 'Cept for one little thing.”

“Yeah, it is nice to collect the paycheck before your will is probated.”
Clark
had once been young enough and angry enough to think in such terms as the shooter whose death he'd just seen repeated, but with age had come circumspection. Now, he'd heard, Mary Pat wanted him to try again for a White House appearance, and he was reading over a few documents. Trying to. anyway.

“John, ever read up on the Assassins?” Chavez asked, killing the TV with the remote.

“I saw the movie,”
Clark
replied without looking up.

“They were pretty serious boys. They had to be. Using swords and knives, well, you have to get pretty close to do the job. Decisively engaged, like we used to say in the 7th Light.” Chavez was still short of his master's degree in international relations, but he blessed all the books that Professor Alpher had forced him to read. He waved at the TV. “This guy was like one of them, a two-legged smart bomb—you self-destruct, but you take out the target first. The Assassins were the first terrorist state. I guess the world wasn't ready for the concept back then, but that one little city-state manipulated a whole region just 'cuz they could get one of their troops in close enough to do the job on anybody.”

“Thanks for the history lesson, Domingo, but—”

“Think, John. If they could get close to him, they can get close to anybody. Ain't no pension plan in the dictator business, y'know? The security around him is, like, real, real tight—but somebody got a shooter in close and blew him into the next dimension. That's scary, Mr. C.”

John Clark continually had to remind himself that Domingo Chavez was no dummy. He might still speak with an accent—not because he had to, but because it was natural for him to; Chavez, like
Clark
, had a gift for language—and he might still interlace his speech with terms and grammar remembered from his days as an Army sergeant, but God damn if he wasn't the quickest learner John had ever met. He was even learning to control his temper and passion. When it suited him to, John corrected himself.

“So? Different culture, different motivation, different—”

“John, I'm talking about a capability. The political will to use it, 'mano. And patience. It must have taken years. Sleeper agents I know about. First time I saw a sleeper shooter.”

“Could have been a regular guy who just got pissed and—”

“Who was willing to die? I don't think so, John. Why not pop the guy on the way to the latrine at
midnight
and try to get the hell out of Dodge? No way, Mr. C. Gomer there was making a statement. Wasn't just his, either. He was delivering a message for his boss, too.”

Clark
looked up from his briefing papers and thought about that one. Another government employee might have dismissed the observation as something out of his purview, but
Clark
had been suborned into government service as a result of his inability to see limits on his activities. Besides that, he could remember being in
Iran
, being part of a crowd shouting “Death to
America
!” at blindfolded captives from the
U.S.
embassy. More than that, he remembered what members of that crowd had said after Operation Blue Light had gone to shit, and how close it had been—how near the Khomeini government had been to taking out its wrath on Americans and turning an already nasty dispute into a shooting war. Even then, Iranian fingerprints were on all manner of terrorist operations worldwide, and
America
's failure to address the fact hadn't helped matters.

“Well, Domingo, that's why we need more field officers.”

S
URGEON HAD ONE
more reason not to like her husband's presidency. She couldn't see him on the way out the door, for one thing. He was in with somebody—well, it had to do with what she'd seen on the morning news, and that was business, and sometimes she'd had to scoot out of the house unexpectedly for a case at
Hopkins
. But she didn't like the precedent.

She looked at the motorcade. Nothing else to call it, a total of six Chevy Suburbans. Three were tasked to getting Sally (now code-named S
HADOW
) and Little Jack (S
HORTSTOP
) to school. The other three would conduct Katie (S
ANDBOX
) to her day-care center. Partly, Cathy Ryan admitted, that was her fault. She didn't want the children's lives disrupted. She wouldn't countenance changing their schools and friends because of the misfortune that had dropped on their lives. None of this was the kids' fault. She'd been dumb enough to agree to Jack's new post, which had lasted all of five minutes, and as with many things in life, you had to accept the consequences. One consequence was increased travel time to their classes and finger-painting, just to keep friends, but, damn it . . . there was no right answer.

“Good morning, Katie!” It was Don Russell, squatting down for a hug and a kiss from S
ANDBOX
. Cathy had to smile at that. This agent was a godsend. A man with grandchildren of his own, he truly loved kids, especially little ones. He and Katie had hit it right off. Cathy kissed her youngest good-bye, and her bodyguard—it was just outrageous, a child needed a bodyguard! But Cathy remembered her own experiences with terrorists, and she had to accept that, too. Russell lifted S
ANDBOX
into her car seat, strapped her in, and the first set of three vehicles pulled away.

“Bye, Mom.” Sally was going through a phase in which she and Mom were friends, and didn't kiss. Cathy accepted that without liking it. It was the same with Little Jack: “See ya, Mom.” But John Patrick Ryan Jr. was boy enough to demand a front seat, which he'd get this one time. Both sub-details were augmented due to the manner in which the Ryan family had come to the White House, with a total of twenty agents assigned to protect the children for the time being. That number would come down in a month or so, they'd told her. The kids would ride in normal cars instead of the armored Suburbans. In the case of S
URGEON
, her helicopter was waiting.