Executive Orders

26 WEEDS

THERE WERE FEW THINGS sadder than a sick child. Sohaila, her name was, Dr. Mac-Gregor remembered. A pretty name, for a pretty, elfin little girl. Her father carried her in his arms. He appeared to be a brutish man—that was MacGregor's first impression, and he'd learned to trust them—but if so, one transformed by concern for his child. His wife was in his wake, along with another Arabic-appearing man wearing a jacket, and behind him was an official-looking Sudanese, all of which the physician noted and ignored. They weren't sick. Sohaila was.

"Well, hello again, young lady," he said, with a comforting smile. "You are not feeling at all well, are you? We'll have to see about that, won't we? Come with me," he said to the father.

Clearly these people were important to someone, and they would be treated accordingly. MacGregor led them to an examining room. The father set the little girl down on the table and backed away, letting his wife hold Sohaila's hand. The bodyguards—that's what they had to be—remained outside. The physician touched his hand to the child's forehead. She was burning up—39 at least. Okay. He washed his hands thoroughly and do

"What seems to be the problem with your daughter?" The father answered this time.

"She ca

"Vomiting and diarrhea?" MacGregor asked, checking her eyes out next. They seemed unremarkable as well.

"Yes, Doctor."

"You've arrived here recently, I believe?" He looked up when the answer was hesitation. "I need to know."

"Correct. From Iraq, just a few days."

"And your daughter has a mild case of asthma, nothing else, no other health problems, correct?"

"That is true, yes. She's had all her shots and such. She's never been ill like this." The mother just nodded. The father clearly had taken over, probably to get the feeling of authority, to make things happen, the physician surmised. It was fine with him.

"Since arriving here, any unusual things to eat? You see," MacGregor explained, "travel can be very unsettling to some people, and children are unusually vulnerable. It could just be the local water."

"I gave her the medicine, but it got worse," the mother said.

"It is not the water," the father said positively. "The house has its own well. The water is good."

As though on cue, Sohaila moaned and turned, vomiting off the examining table and onto the tile floor. It wasn't the right color. There were traces of red and black. Red for new blood, black for old. It wasn't jet lag or bad water. Perhaps an ulcer? Food poisoning? MacGregor blinked and instinctively checked to be sure his hands were gloved. The mother was looking for a paper towel to—

"Don't touch that," he said mildly. He next took the child's blood pressure. It was low, confirming an internal bleed. "Sohaila, I'm afraid you will be spending the night with us so that we can make you well again."

It could have been many things, but the doctor had been in Africa long enough to know that you acted as though it were the worst. The young physician consoled himself with the belief that it couldn't be all that bad.

IT WASN'T QUITE like the old days—what was? — but Mancuso enjoyed the work. He'd had a good war—he thought of it as a war; his submarines had done exactly what they'd been designed to do. After losing Asheville and Charlotte— those before the known commencement of hostilities—he'd lost no more. His boats had delivered on every mission assigned, savaging the enemy submarine force in a carefully pla

"So what are they supposed to be up to?" he asked his immediate boss, Admiral Dave Seaton.

"Nobody seems to know." Seaton had come over to look around. Like any good officer, he tried to get the hell out of his office as much as possible, even if it only meant visiting another. "Maybe just a FleetEx, but with a new President, maybe they want to flex their muscles and see what happens." People in uniform did not like such international examinations, since they were usually the ones whose lives were part of the grading procedure.

"I know this guy, boss," Bart said soberly.

"Oh?"

"Not all that well, but you know about Red October."

Seaton gri

"You need to know, Admiral. You need to know what National Command Authority has hanging between his legs. I've been shipmates with the guy."

That earned Mancuso a hard blink from CiNCPAC. "You're kidding."

"Ryan was aboard the boomer with me. Matter of fact, he got aboard before I did." Mancuso closed his eyes, delighted that he could finally tell this sea story and get away with it. Dave Seaton was a theater commander-in-chief, and he had a right to know what sort of man was sending the orders down from Washington.

"I heard he was involved in the operation, even that he got aboard, but I thought that was at Norfolk, when they parked her at the Eight-Ten Dock. I mean, he's a spook, right, an intel weenie…"

"Not hardly. He killed a guy—shot him, right in the missile room—before I got aboard. He was on the helm when we clobbered the Alfa. He was scared shitless, but he didn't cave. This President we've got's been there and done that. Anyway, if they want to test our President, my money's on him. Two big brass ones, Dave, that's what he's got hangin'. He may not look like it on TV, but I'll follow that son of a bitch anywhere." Mancuso surprised himself with the conclusion. It was the first time he'd thought it all the way through.

"Good to know," Seaton thought.

"So what's the mission?" SuePAC asked.

"J-3 wants us to shadow."

"You know Jackson better than I do. What are the parameters?"

"If this is a FleetEx and nothing else, we observe covertly. If things change, we let them know we care. You've got point, Bart. My cupboard's pretty damned bare."

They had only to look out the windows to see that. Enterprise and John Ste