Free Jack Ryan 9 - Executive Orders by Tom Clancy Page B

at the shoulders. Three stripes on each of them, he saw. He wondered what that meant, too tired to do much in the way of thinking. The fireman turned and waved to his lieutenant, who in turn tapped the arm of a woman wearing a vinyl FBI windbreaker.
    This agent walked over, sipping at a plastic cup and wishing she could light a cigarette—still too many lingering fumes for that, she grumbled.
    “Just found this one. Funny place, but—” “Yeah, funny.” The agent lifted her camera and snapped a couple of pictures which would have the exact time electronically preserved on the frame. Next she took a pad from her pocket and noted the placement for body number four on her personal list. She hadn't seen many for her particular area of responsibility. Some plastic stakes and yellow tape would further mark the site; she started writing the tag for it. “You can turn him over.”
    Under the body, they saw, was an irregularly shaped piece of flat glass—or glass-like plastic. The agent snapped another photo, and through the viewfinder things somehow looked more interesting than with the naked eye. A glance up showed a gap in the marble balustrade. Another look around revealed a lot of small metallic objects, which an hour earlier she'd decided were aircraft parts, and which had attracted the attention of an NTSB investigator, who was now conferring with the same fire-department officer with whom she'd been conferring a minute earlier. The agent had to wave three times to get his attention.
    “What is it?” The NTSB investigator was cleaning his glasses with a handkerchief.
    The agent pointed. “Check the shirt out.”
    “Crew,” the man said, after putting them back on. “Maybe a driver. What's this?” It was his turn to point.
    There was a strange delicacy to it. The white uniform shirt had a hole in it just to the right of the pocket. The hole was surrounded by a red-rust stain. The FBI agent held her flashlight close, and that showed that the stain was dried. The current temperature was just under twenty degrees. The body had been thrown into this harsh environment virtually at the moment of impact, and the blood about the severed neck was frozen, the purple-red color of some horrid plum sherbet. The blood on the shirt, she saw, had dried before having the chance to freeze.
    “Don't move the body anymore,” she told the fireman. Like most FBI agents, she'd been a local police officer before applying to the federal agency. It was the cold that made her face pale.
    “First crash investigation?” the NTSB man asked, seeing her face, and mistaking her pallor.
    She nodded. “Yes, it is, but it's not my first murder.” With that she switched on her portable radio to call her supervisor. For this body she wanted a crime-scene team and full forensics.
     
     
    T
    HE TELEGRAMS CAME
     from every government in the world. Most were long, and all had to be read—well, at least the ones from important countries.
    
    
     Togo
    
    
     could wait.
    “Interior and Commerce are in town and standing by for a Cabinet meeting along with all the deputies,” van Damm said while Ryan flipped through the messages, trying to read and listen at the same time. “The Joint Chiefs, all the vices, are assembled, along with all the command CINCs to go over national security—”
    “Threat Board?” Jack asked without looking up. Until the previous day he'd been President Durling's National Security Advisor, and it didn't seem likely that the world had changed too much in twenty-four hours.
    Scott Adler handled the answer: “Clear.”
    “
    
    
     Washington
    
    
     is pretty much shut down,”
    
    
     Murray
    
    
     said. “Radio and TV announcements for people to stay home, except for essential services. The D.C. National Guard is out. We need the warm bodies for the Hill, and the D.C. Guard is a military-police brigade. They might actually be useful. Besides, the firemen must be about worn out by now.”
    “How long before the