Jack Ryan 9 - Executive Orders Read Free

place, 'cording to these here plans. We might get a couple people out alive. I seen it happen before. But most of 'em . . .” Magill just shook his head for a moment. “The line's holding, ought not to spread much more.”
    “Nobody from the chamber?” Agent Raman asked. He really wanted to know the name of the agent who'd been blown clear, but it would not have been professional to ask. Magill just shook his head in any case.
    “No.” He stared off at the diminishing glow, and added, “It would have been real quick.” Magill shook his head again.
    “I want to see,” Jack said impulsively.
    “No,” Magill replied at once. “Too dangerous. Sir, it's my fire, and my rules, okay?”
    “I have to see,” Ryan said, more quietly. The two pairs of eyes met and communicated. Magill still didn't like it. He saw the people with guns again, and decided, wrongly, that they would support this new President, if that's what he was. Magill hadn't been watching TV when the call had come.
    “Ain't gonna be pretty, sir.”
     
         
    I
    T WAS JUST
     after sundown in
    
    
     Hawaii
    
    
    . Rear Admiral Robert Jackson was landing at Barbers Point Naval Air Station. His peripheral vision took note of the well-lit hotels on
    
     Oahu
    
    's south shore, and a passing thought wondered what it cost to stay in one of them now. He hadn't done it since his early twenties, when two or three naval aviators would share accommodations in order to save money for hitting the bars and impressing the local women with their worldly panache. His Tomcat touched down gently, despite the lengthy ride and three aerial refuelings, because Robby still thought of himself as a fighter pilot, and therefore an artist of sorts. The fighter slowed down properly during its run-out, then turned right onto the taxiway.
    “Tomcat Five-Zero-Zero, continue down to the end—”
    “I've been here before, miss,”
    
    
     Jackson
    
    
     replied with a smile, breaking the rules. But he was an admiral, wasn't he? Fighter pilot and admiral. Who cared about rules?
    “Five-Zero-Zero, there's a car waiting.”
    “Thank you.” Robby could see it, there by the farthest hangar, along with a sailor waving the usual lighted wands.
    “Not bad for an old guy,” the backseater noted as he folded up his maps and other unnecessary but gravely important papers.
    “Your vote of approval is noted.” I was never this stiff before,
    
    
     Jackson
    
    
     admitted to himself. He shifted himself in the seat. His butt felt like painful lead. How could all feeling be gone, yet there still be pain? he asked himself with a rueful smile. Too old, was how his mind answered the question. Then his leg made its presence known. Arthritis, damn it. He'd had to make it an order to get Sanchez to release the fighter to him. It was too far for a COD to take him from USS John C. Stennis back to
    
    
     Pearl
    
    
    , and the orders had been specific enough: Expedite return. On that basis he'd borrowed a Tom whose fire-control system was down, and therefore was non-mission-capable anyway. The Air Force had supplied the tankers. So after seven hours of blessed silence, he'd flown half the Pacific in a fighter—doubtless for the last time.
    
    
     Jackson
    
    
     moved again as he turned the fighter toward the parking spot, and was rewarded with a back spasm.
    “Is that CiNCPAC?”
    
    
     Jackson
    
    
     asked, spotting the white-clad figure by the blue Navy car.
    Admiral David Seaton it was, and not standing erect, but leaning against the car and flipping through messages as Robby cut the engines and opened the canopy. A sailor rolled up a stepladder, the sort used by mechanics, to make Robby's descent easier. Another enlisted man— woman, actually—extracted the arriving admiral's bag from the storage compartment underneath. Somebody was in a hurry.
    “Trouble,” Seaton said the moment Robby had both boots on the ground.
    “I thought we won,”
    
    
     Jackson
    
    
     replied, stopping