Executive Orders

by Tom Clancy

  “GUIDON, BUFFALO,” came the return call from Colonel Sean Magruder, commander of the 10th “Buffalo” Armored Cavalry Regiment.

  “I think this one’s about concluded, Colonel, over. The fire sack is full.”

  “Roger that, Duke. Come on down for the AAR. We’re going to have one really pissed Israeli in a few minutes.” Just as well the radio link was encrypted.

  “On the way, sir.” Masterman stepped down off the turret as his HMMVW pulled up. His tank crew started back up, heading down toward the squadron laager.

  It didn’t get much better than this. Masterman felt like a football player allowed to play every day. He commanded 1st “Guidon” Squadron of the 10th ACR. It would have been called a battalion, but the Cav was different, to the yellow facings on their shoulder straps and the red-and-white unit guidons, and if you weren’t Cav, you weren’t shit.

  “Kickin’ some more ass, sir?” his driver asked as his boss lit up a Cuban cigar.

  “Lambs to the slaughter, Perkins.” Masterman sipped some water from a plastic bottle. A hundred feet over his head, some Israeli F-16 fighters roared past, showing outrage at what had happened below them. Probably a few of them had run afoul of the administrative SAM “launches.” Masterman had been especially careful today siting his Stinger-Avenger vehicles, and sure enough, they’d come in just as he’d expected. Tough.

  The local “Star Wars Room” was a virtual twin to the original one at Fort Irwin. A somewhat smaller main display screen, and nicer seats, and you could smoke in this one. He entered the building, shaking the dust off his chocolate-chip cammies and striding like Patton into Bastogne. The Israelis were waiting.

  Intellectually, they had to know how useful the exercise had been to them. Emotionally, it was something else. The Israeli 7th Armored was as proud an outfit as any in the world. Practically alone, it had stopped an entire Syrian tank corps on the Golan Heights back in 1973, and their current CO had been a lieutenant then who’d taken command of a headless company and fought brilliantly. Not accustomed to failure, he’d just seen the brigade in which he’d practically grown up annihilated, in thirty brutal minutes.

  “General,” Masterman said, extending his hand to the chastened brigadier. The Israeli hesitated before taking it.

  “Not personal, sir, just business,” said Lieutenant Colonel Nick Sarto, who commanded the 2nd “Bighorn” Squadron, and who had just played hammer to Masterman’s anvil. With the Israeli 7th in the middle.

  “Gentlemen, shall we begin?” called the senior observer-controller. As a sop to the Israeli Army, the OC team here was a fifty-fifty mix of experienced American and Israeli officers, and it was hard to determine which group was the more embarrassed.

  There was, first, a quick-time replay of the theoretical engagement. The Israeli vehicles in blue marched into the shallow valley to meet GUIDON’S reconnaissance screen, which leapfrogged back rapidly, but not toward the prepared defense positions of the rest of the squadron, instead leading them away at an angle. Thinking it a trap, the Israeli 7th had maneuvered west, so as to loop around and envelop their enemies, only to walk into a solid wall of dug-in tanks, and then to have Bighorn come in from the east much faster than expected—so fast that Doug Mills’s 3rd “Dakota” Squadron, the regimental reserve, never had a chance to come into play for the pursuit phase. It was the same old lesson. The Israeli commander had guessed at his enemy’s positions instead of sending his reconnaissance screen to find out.

  The Israeli brigadier watched the replay, and it seemed that he deflated like a balloon. The Americans didn’t laugh. They’d all been there before, though it was far nicer to be on the winning side.

  “Your reconnaissance screen wasn’t far forward enough, Benny,” the senior Israeli OC said diplomatically.

  “Arabs don’t fight that way!” Benjamin Eitan replied.

  “They’re supposed to, sir,” Masterman pointed out. “This is standard Soviet doctrine, and that’s who trained ‘em all, remember. Pull ’em into the fire sack and slam the back door. Hell, General, that’s exactly what you did with your Centurions back in ’73. I read your book on the engagement,” the American added. It defused the mood at once. One of the other things the American officers had to exercise here was diplomacy. General Eitan looked sideways and managed something approaching a smile.

  “I did, didn’t I?”

  “Sure as hell. You clobbered that Syrian regiment in forty minutes, as I recall.”

  “And you, at 73 Easting?” Eitan responded, grateful for the compliment, even though he knew it was a deliberate effort to calm his temper.

  It was no accident that Magruder, Masterman, Sarto, and Mills were here. All four had participated in a vicious combat action in the Persian Gulf War, where three troops of the 2nd “Dragoon” Cav had stumbled into an elite Iraqi brigade force under very adverse weather conditions—too bad for the regimental aircraft to participate, even to warn of the enemy’s presence—and wiped it out over a period of a few hours. The Israelis knew it, and therefore couldn’t complain that the Americans were book soldiers playing theoretical games.

  Nor was the result of this “battle” unusual. Eitan was new, only a month in command, and he would learn, as other Israeli officers had learned, that the American training model was more unforgiving than real combat. It was a hard lesson for the Israelis, so hard that nobody really learned it until he’d visited the Negev Training Area, the NTA, and had his head handed to him. If the Israelis had a weakness, it was pride, Colonel Magruder knew. The OpFor’s job here, as in California, was to strip that away. A commander’s pride got his soldiers dead.

  “Okay,” the senior American OC said. “What can we learn from this?”

  Don’t fuck with the Buffalo Soldiers, all three squadron commanders thought, but didn’t say. Marion Diggs had reestablished the regiment’s gritty reputation in his command tour before moving on to command Fort Irwin. Though the word was still percolating down through the Israeli Defense Forces, the troopers of the 10th had adopted a confident strut when they went out shopping, and for all the grief they caused the Israeli military on the playing fields of the NTA, they were immensely popular. The 10th ACR, along with two squadrons of F-16 fighters, was America’s commitment to Israeli security, all the more so that they trained the Jewish state’s ground forces to a level of readiness they hadn’t known since the Israeli army had nearly lost its soul in the hills and towns of Lebanon. Eitan would learn, and learn fast. By the end of the training rotation he’d give them trouble. Maybe, the three squadron commanders thought. They weren’t in the business of giving freebies.

  “I REMEMBER WHEN you told me how delightful democracy was, Mr. President,” Golovko said chirpily, as he walked through the door.

  “You must have caught me on TV this morning,” Ryan managed to reply.

  “I remember when such comments would have gotten such people shot.” Behind the Russian, Andrea Price heard the comment and wondered how this guy had the chutzpah to twist the President’s tail.

  “Well, we don’t do that here,” Jack responded, taking his seat. “That will be all for now, Andrea. Sergey and I areold friends.” This was to be a private conversation, not even a secretary present to take notes, though hidden microphones would copy down every word for later transcription. The Russian knew that. The American knew that he knew that, but the symbolism of no other people in the room was a compliment to the visitor, another fact which the American knew the Russian to know as well. Jack wondered how many sets of interlocking wheels he was supposed to keep track of, just for an informal meeting with a foreign representative.

  When the door closed behind the agent, Golovko spoke on. “Thank you.”

  “Hell, we are old friends, aren’t we?”

  Golovko smiled. “What a superb enemy you were.”

  “And now ... ?”

  “How is your family adjusting?”

  “About as well as I am,” Jack admitted, then shifted gears. “You
had three hours at the embassy to get caught up.”

  Golovko nodded; as usual, Ryan was well briefed for this meeting, covert though it was. The Russian embassy was only a few blocks up Sixteenth Street, and he’d walked down to the White House, a simple way to avoid notice in a town where official people traveled in official cars. “I didn’t expect things in Iraq to fall so quickly.”

  “Neither did we. But that’s not why you came over, Sergey Nikolay’ch. China?”

  “I presume your satellite photos are as clear as ours on the issue. Their military is at an unusually high state of readiness.”

  “Our people are divided on that,” Ryan said. “They might be building up to put some more pressure on Taiwan. They’ve been building their navy up.”

  “Their navy isn’t ready for combat operations yet. Their army still is, and their rocket forces. Neither is going to cross the Formosa Strait, Mr. President.”

  That made the reason for his trip clear enough. Jack paused to look out the window at the Washington Monument, surrounded as it was by a circle of flagpoles, rather like a garland. What was it George had said about avoiding entangling foreign alliances? But it had been a far simpler world back then, two months to cross the Atlantic, not six or seven hours....

  “If you are asking what I think you are, yes—or should I say, no.”

  “Could you clarify?”

  “America would not look kindly upon an attack by China against Russia. Such a conflict would have very adverse effects upon world stability, and would also impede your progress to full democratic status. America wants to see Russia become a prosperous democracy. We were enemies long enough. We should be friends, and America wants her friends safe and peaceful.”

  “They hate us, they covet what we have,” Golovko went on, not satisfied with America’s statement.

  “Sergey, the time for nations to steal what they cannot earn is past. It’s history, and not to be repeated.”

  “And if they move on us anyway?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, Sergey,” the President answered. “The idea is to prevent such actions. If it appears that they are really thinking about a move, we’ll counsel them to reconsider. We are keeping an eye on things.”

  “I don’t think you understand them.” Another push, Ryan saw. They really were worked up about this.

  “Do you think anyone does? Do you think they themselves know what they want?” The two intelligence officers—that was how both men would always think of themselves—shared a look of professional amusement.

  “That is the problem,” Golovko admitted. “I try to explain to my President that it is difficult to predict the behavior of undecided people. They have capabilities, but so do we, and the calculus of the matter appears different from both sides—and then the personalities come into play. Ivan Emmetovich, those are old men with old ideas. Their personalities are the major consideration here.”

  “And history, and culture, and economics, and trade—and I haven’t had the chance to look them in the eye yet. I’m weak on that part of the world,” Jack reminded his guest. “I spent most of my life trying to figure you people out.”

  “So you will stand with us?”

  Ryan shook his head. “It’s too early and too speculative to go that far. We will do everything in our power, however, to prevent a possible conflict between the PRC and Russia. If it happens, you’ll go nuclear. I know it. You know it. I think they know it.”

  “They don’t believe it.”

  “Sergey, nobody’s that stupid.” Ryan made a mental note to discuss this with Scott Adler, who knew the region far better than he did. It was time to close the book on that issue for the moment, and open another. “Iraq. What are your people saying?”

  Golovko grimaced. “We had a network go down three months ago. Twenty people, all shot or hanged—after interrogation, that is. What we have left doesn’t tell us much, but it appears that senior generals are preparing to do something.”

  “Two of them just showed up in the Sudan this morning,” Ryan told him. It wasn’t often he caught Golovko by surprise.

  “So fast?”

  Ryan nodded, handing over the photographs from the Khartoum airport. “Yep.”

  Golovko scanned them, not knowing the faces, but not really needing to. Information passed along at this level was never, ever faked. Even with enemies and former enemies, a nation had to keep its word on some things. He handed the photos back. “Iran, then. We have some people there, but we’ve heard nothing in the last few days. It’s a dangerous environment in which to operate, as you know. We expect that Daryaei had something to do with the assassination, but we have no evidence to support it.” He paused. “The implications of this are serious.”

  “You’re telling me that you can’t do anything about it, either, then?”

  “No, Ivan Emmetovich, we cannot. We have no influence there, and neither do you.”

  18

  LAST PLANE OUT

  THE NEXT SHUTTLE FLIGHT got off early. The shell corporation’s third and last business jet was recalled from Europe, and with a change of flight crews, was ready three hours early. That meant that the first of the G-IVs could fly to Baghdad, pick up two more generals, and return. Badrayn felt rather like a travel agent or dispatcher in addition to his unusual role as diplomat. He just hoped it wouldn’t take too long. It might be dangerous to be a passenger on the last plane, because the last one—well, there was no telling which would be the last, was there? The generals didn’t grasp that yet. The last one might well be pursued by tracer fire, leaving people on the ground to face the music, and Badrayn knew he would be with them ... in a region where selectivity wasn’t an integral part of the justice system. Well, he shrugged, life had risks, and he was being well paid. They’d told him, at least, that there would be another pickup flight in less than three hours, and a fourth five hours beyond that one. But the sum total would be ten or eleven, and that would go for another three days on the current schedule, and three days could be a lifetime.

  Beyond the confines of this airport, the Iraqi army was still in the streets, but there would be a change now. Those conscript soldiers, and even the elite guardsmen, would have been out there for several days, settled into a dull and purposeless routine, and that was something destructive to soldiers. They’d be shuffling around on their feet, smoking cigarettes, starting to ask questions amongst themselves: What exactly is going on? Initially there would be no answers. Their sergeants would tell them to mind their duties, so advised by their company officers, so advised in turn from battalion staffs, and so on all the way up the line ... until somewhere that same question would be repeated, and there would be no one farther up the chain of command to tell the questioner to sit down and shut up. At that point the question would rebound back down the line. It was something an army could sense, as a thorn in the foot instantly told the brain that something was amiss. And if the thorn was dirty, then an infection would follow that could spread and kill the entire body. The generals were supposed to know such things—but, no, they didn’t anymore. Something very foolish happened to generals, especially in this part of the world. They forgot. It was that simple. They just forgot that the villas and the servants and the cars were not a divine bequest, but a temporal convenience that could disappear as quickly as morning fog. They were still more afraid of Daryaei than of their own people, and that was foolish. It would have merely been annoying to Badrayn, except that his life now depended on theirs.

  THE SEAT ON the right side of the cabin was still damp. This time it was occupied by the youngest daughter of the general who had, until minutes before, commanded the 4th Guards Division (Motorized), and who was now conferring with an air force colleague. The child felt the lingering damp on her hand and, puzzled, licked at it, until her mother saw it and sent her off to wash her hands. Then the mother complained to the Iranian steward who rode in the back with this group. He had the child moved, and made a note to have the seat clean
ed or replaced at Mehrabad. There was less tension now. The first pair of officers had reported in from Khartoum that all was well. A Sudanese army platoon guarded the large house which they shared, and all appeared to be secure. The generals had already determined that they would make a sizable “contribution” to that country’s treasury, to ensure their own safety for the time—hopefully brief—they’d spend in that country before moving on. Their intelligence chief, still back in Baghdad, was on the phone now, calling around to various contacts in various countries to find secure permanent housing for them. Switzerland? They wondered. A cold country in terms of both climate and culture, but a safe one, and for those with money to invest, an anonymous one.

  “WHO OWNS THREE G-IVs over there?”

  “The registration of the aircraft is Swiss, Lieutenant,” Major Sabah reported, having just learned the fact. From the photos shot at Khartoum he’d gotten the tail number, and that was easily checked on a computer database. He flipped the page to determine the ownership. “A corporately owned jet. They have three of them, and a few smaller turboprops for flying around Europe. We’ll have to check further to learn more about the corporation.” But somebody would be working on that, and they’d find the obvious. Probably some import-export concern, more a letter-drop than anything else, perhaps with a small storefront that conducted real, if negligible, business for appearance’s sake. The corporation would have a medium-sized account in a commercial bank; it would have a law firm to make sure that it scrupulously obeyed every local rule; its employees would be fully briefed on how to behave—Switzerland was a law-abiding country—and how to keep everything in order; the corporation would vanish into the woodwork, because the Swiss didn’t trouble people who deposited money in their banks and kept within their laws. Those who broke the rules severely could find the country as inhospitable as the one the generals were leaving. That was well understood, too.