Jack Ryan 9 - Executive Orders Read Online Free PDF Page B

moment, giving Newsweek its cover photo for the following week.
     
     
    “A
    S YOU SEE
    , President Ryan is now leaving the Hill in what looks like a military vehicle instead of a Secret Service car. What do you suppose he's up to?” the anchor asked.
    “In all fairness to the man,” John the commentator said, “it's unlikely that he knows at the moment.”
    That opinion rang across the globe a third of a second later, to the general agreement of all manner of persons, friends and enemies alike.
     
     
    S
    OME THINGS HAVE
     to be done fast. He didn't know if they were the right things—well, he did, and they weren't—but at a certain level of importance the rules got a little muddled, didn't they? The scion of a political family whose public service went back a couple of generations, he'd been in public life practically since leaving law school, which was another way of saying that he hadn't held a real job in his entire life. Perhaps he had little practical experience in the economy except as its beneficiary-his family's financial managers ran the various trusts and portfolios with sufficient skill that he almost never bothered meeting with them except at tax time. Perhaps he had never practiced law—though he'd had a hand in passing literally thousands of them. Perhaps he had never served his country in uniform—though he deemed himself an expert in national security. Perhaps a lot of things militated against doing anything. But he knew government, for that had been his profession for all of his active—not to say “working”—life, and at a time like this, the country needed someone who really knew government. The country needed healing, Ed Kealty thought, and he knew about that.
    So, he lifted his phone and made a call. “Cliff, this is Ed . . .”
     

Jack Ryan 9 - Executive Orders
    1
    STARTING NOW
     
     
    T
    HE FBI'S EMERGENCY
     command center on the fifth floor of the
    
    
     Hoover
    
    
     building is an odd-shaped room, roughly triangular and surprisingly small, with room for only fifteen or so people to bump shoulders. Number sixteen to arrive, tieless and wearing casual clothes, was Deputy Assistant Director Daniel E. Murray. The senior watch officer was his old friend, Inspector Pat O'Day. A large-framed, rugged man who raised beef cattle as a hobby at his northern
    
    
     Virginia
    
    
     home—this “cowboy” had been born and educated in
    
    
     New Hampshire
    
    
    , but his boots were custom-made— O'Day had a phone to his ear, and the room was surprisingly quiet for a crisis room during a real crisis. A curt nod and raised hand acknowledged
    
    
     Murray
    
    
    's entry. The senior agent waited for O'Day to conclude the call.
    “What's going on, Pat?”
    “I was just on the phone with Andrews. They have tapes of the radar and stuff. I have agents from the Washington Field Office heading there to interview the tower people. National Transportation Safety Board will have people there, too, to assist. Initial word, looks like a Japan Airlines 747 kamikaze'd in. The Andrews people say the pilot declared an emergency as an unscheduled KLM flight and drove straight over their runways, hung a little left, and . . . well . . .” O'Day shrugged. “WFO has people on the Hill now to commence the investigation. I'm assuming this one goes on the books as a terrorist incident, and that gives us jurisdiction.”
    “Where's the ADIC?”
    
    
     Murray
    
    
     asked, meaning the Assistant Director in Charge of the Bureau's
    
    
     Washington
    
    
     office, quartered at Buzzard's Point on the
    
     Potomac River
    
    .
    “
    
    
     St. Lucia
    
    
     with Angie, taking a vacation. Tough luck for Tony.” The inspector grunted. Tony Caruso had gotten away only three days earlier. “Tough day for a lot of people. The body count's going to be huge, Dan, lots worse'n
    
    
     Oklahoma
    
    
    . I've sent out a general alert for foren-sics experts. Mess like this, we'll have to identify a lot of bodies from DNA. Oh,