Executive Orders (1996), a Jack Ryan Novel by Tom Clancy: summary

“It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to became conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes, JR, an American Jurist (1902-1932)

“Eventually a corrupt system was itself corrupted, and the logic of terror reached its logical conclusion: a humble rabbit, cornered by fox, has nothing to lose by striking out, and rabbits have teeth, and sometimes the rabbit get lucky.” (p.193, the Executive Order, Tom Clancy)

  

An old friend has sent me this book as a Christmas gift in 2007 and I had tried to read the book for months. Back then, to be honest, I will say I did not enjoy the book so much, I had a hard time focusing on it and understanding what I was reading. It was not just a long book to me, but at that time I was not interested about espionage and political fiction at all. 

Years passed. Then I’ve read three books of Clancy: the Hunt for Red October, Op-Center, and Threat Vector, so I now get familiar with the characters and their issues. Despite inspiring, most of Clancy’s books are simplistic, details, realistic, and informative. The first President had resign in disgrace, the second was dead. Jack Ryan sat on the office and it was unpredictable to everyone. He never had campaign, even he was not a politician. A historian, a National Security Advisor, had become new President on the day after a 747 Boeing kamikaze hit the Capitol Building. His life had never be the same since then, he was POTUS.

The book give us information about the White House and Capitol Building, the job description of POTUS, FLOTUS, Secret Service, the White House Protocol Office, Diplomatic Activities, and also the boringness as a POTUS. The deadly Ebola Zaire virus in Congo linked to an Iranian physician, and the Iraqi President killed linked to Iranian spy, and espionage ring to kill POTUS. Daryaei was the man who sent the virus, the man who attack president's child, and the man who sent his army on a mission of conquest that turned into a mission of death. 

The book is very lengthy one, it contains 1358 pages. The original edition published in 1996, and this is Berkley Books edition printed in 1997.

Executive Orders (1996), a Jack Ryan Novel by Tom Clancy: summary

A Japan Airlines (JAL) 747 Kamikaze at Capitol Building

The end of the Capitol building was devastated. One could recognized the steps, but the columns and roof were gone, and the House chamber, lip of stones, their white color scorched and blackened with soot. To the north, the dome was down, sections of it recognizable, for it had been built of wrought iron during the Civil War. But the real story of the scene was the collection of ambulances, several knots of them, their paramedic crews standing with bitterness idleness, folding stretchers before them, the skilled crews with nothing to do but look at the red crane painted on it, also blackened from the fire, but still hatefully recognizable. The war with Japan had ended. The scattered property belonged to Japan Airlines. The tail of the 747 was remarkably intact. 

Too late to stop the fire in time. Too save the lives they were sworn to rescue. Too late to make much of a difference at all. The President was dead, John Patrick Ryan was the new President. Special Agent Price also informed Ryan, Mrs. Durling, the First Lady, was dead too.

Sister M. Jean Baptiste in Congo

She was over sixty, her small framed bowed down by years of selfless work, made all the worse because there were so few young ones to give her rest. Her sister, every bit as religious as she, had chosen the most common of the vocations and was now a grandmother, and Sister M. Jean Baptiste wondered what that was like. She had made her choice long time ago, in a youth she could remember. In her distance youth she could seeing the German occupation troops nod politely to their passing, for even though it was widely suspected that the nuns aided Allied airmen, and maybe even Jews trying to escape.

Sister Jean Baptiste was a skilled and experienced nurse. She had come to this place when it had still belonged to her parent country, stayed after its status had changed. In the time she had done her job same way, with the same skill, despite the tornadic political changes that had gone around her, no matter that her patients were African or European.  Christianity had been trying to establish itself here for centuries. Fully a third of the patients in hospital had AIDS.

The boy was only eight, too young to be sexually active. A handsome boy, well- formed and bright, he had been an honor student at nearby Catholic school. African customs allowed priests to marry, a secret that was not widely known through the rest of the world.

Jack Ryan

Jack Ryan was not a politician. He has no political background or experience. He was a national security specialist in an age when national security was not the issue it once was. He was a serious student of history. He didn’t The Secret Service, smaller than FBI, with fewer resources, did have some superb investigators, and some of the finest technical experts around. NTSB knew more about airplane crashes than anyone in the world. But the Bureau had to lead agency for the investigation.

Ryan had come to White House a thousand times, to visit, to deliver briefings, for meeting important and otherwise, and most recently to work in his own office as National Security Advisor. He now was a president, didn’t need to show ID and walk through the metal detectors. White House was now his house, here Kennedy had faced down Khrushchev, and nobody had cared that doing so had covered a multitude blunder. But it was not this house. He was a historian. From the moment the aircraft had struck the Capitol building, he was President. His daily life would have no privacy, and even in death he would not be safe from scrutiny by people who had no idea what it was like merely to walk into this oversized dwelling-office museum and know that it was your prison into all eternity.

Arnold van Damm, chief of staff to two Presidents, he would now set an all-time record as chief of staff to a third. His first President had resigned in disgrace. His second was dead. The Protocol Office had arranged a state funeral to plan for Roger and Anne Durling. Banks, stock markets, all federals offices were closed. They had a bunch of ambassadors in chamber. The Secret Service was empowered to protect him from physical danger. The housekeeping staff would feed him, iron his shirts, and fetch coffee. But none of them would allow him to run away, either from his place and his duties. It was a prison. He was now President, the giver of orders, which they could carry out; the man who made the speeches which others would analyze for nuance and correctness; the man who decided what USA would do.

He was surrounded by others now. There was an FBI contingent, another from Secret Service, the D.C. Metropolitan Police, NTSB, the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and his own fire investigators, all looking for someone to be in charge so that they could claim command themselves. They found the body of pilot. His name was Sato. NTSB had the flight recorder. They just recovered over two hundred bodies. The aircraft flew out of Vancouver International. They filed a false flight plan for London Heathrow, they D.C. After that he bluffed his way through air-traffic control.

It was a Japanese airlines, and in fact a government owned carrier. The Japanese Prime Minister Koga. Sato was very experienced command pilot. The Japanese police have gotten a pile data on US.  The co-pilot was murdered. He was stabbed, and it appeared as though that took place prior to take-off. Sate acted alone. The lab had already determined the weapon used a thin-bladed steak knife with serrated edge, of the sort used on the airline. Sato was an international pilot. His friends was his colleagues. He lived quietly in a modest house near Narita Airport. But his brother was senior officer in Maritime self-Defense Force, and his son was a fighter pilot. Both died during the hostilities.

Marine Corps, Major Canon, the watch officer in Signal, had reported to Ryan with high confidence that the President of Iraq was assassinated about ten minutes ago. The Source was both Kuwait and Saudi. The initial word was a pistol right in the head, at close range. The Iraqi President just killed.

Mahmoud Haji Daryaei

It was also a good news for Mahmoud Haji Daryaei had met Ryan before. He was seventy two, Iranian. The overall mission had been his idea, not nearly dramatic enough for the “professionals” worming in his intelligence service. Largely leftovers from the Shah’s Savak-trained by the Israelis in the 1960s and 1970s-they were effective, but they were mercenaries at heart however much they might protest their religious fervor, and their loyalty to the new regime.  

One man, operating alone, one faithful man who would do whatever was necessary to accomplish his mission. Eleven such men had dispatched into Iraq for this specific purpose, told to go deep under cover, trained to forget everything they had ever been, and all the records of their existence destroyed so that even an Iraqi spy in his own agencies could not discover the mission without a name. Daryaei didn’t hate Saudis and the others on the far side of Persian Gulf. They were believers, and despite their differences with him and his country, they never be denied to Mecca. But their way wasn’t the Way, and that couldn’t be helped.  They had grown fat and rich and corrupt, and that had to be changed. Daryaei had to control Mecca in order to reform Islam. To do that meant acquiring worldly power.  It meant making enemies. He had just won his first major battle.

CIA concluded Iranian did it with religion motivation. Iraqi was a majority Shia Muslim country ruled by a Sunni minority through the Ba’ath political party. The issue was of course, oil. Saddam Hussein, like a Mafia don, had thought about little more than money and political power that money generated. Iran was somewhat  more farsighted. All the nations around the Gulf were Islamic, most of them very strictly so. There were the exceptions of Bahrain and Iraq. The dual border with Kuwait and the Kingdom was one of mere politics, not religion.

Ebola Zaire Case Dr. Mohammed Moudi was an Iranian national working with the WHO.  He wanted Baptiste to be the last Ebola case in that hospital. Ebola Zaire had a mortality rate of roughly eighty percent. It appeared and disappeared, like some of malignant spirit. Africa was still primitive. The structure of the virus somewhat understood and it symptoms recognized, but the mechanism was still mystery. Patient Zero, Benedict Mkusa was dead, his body incinerated by gasoline, the virus dead with him. Dr. Moudi had a small blood sample. He thought about it for a moment, then lifted the phone call the Iranian embassy in Kinshasa.

FlOTUS, Professor Caroline Ryan, was a physician, an eye surgeon. The America news media said that she was continuing to work at her profession despite her official duties and their children. The Ebola Zaire Mayinga case was an issue at John Hopkins, the institution where Dr. Ryan worked. Somewhat worse with AIDS, but that agent gave you ten years. Ebola only gave the victim maybe in ten days.

Vice President Edward J. Kealty had not slept all night, but no one would have known it from looking at him. He strode into CNN building with his wife and aides, there he met by producer who whisked him into an elevator for the trip upstairs. He claimed John Ryan had filled his post as interim Vice President. His TV statement covered the issue. Ryan was never Vice President, because he never resigned. The New York Times shouted first Vice President Edward Kealty claimed that he was the President.

In his interview Ryan stated that the resignation happened when the officer holder conveyed the instrument of resignation – a letter suffices- to the proper official. But the man who accepted the instrument was dead. Secretary State probably called the President to inform him of the resignation. That was politics, not law. So long as President Durling was President, Kealty had to leave because of the sexual harassment investigation. Kealty resigned his position at the request of President Durling. He was under investigation by the FBI for sexual misconduct while he was a senator. The investigation was in the matter of a sexual assault- rape of one of his Senate aid. Ryan chose to place the interests of country first than personal animosity did.

Ali Badrayn, Iraq His real name was Ali Badrayn, and while he had lived and worked under several others name, he had finally returned to own because it was Iraqi in origin. His family had left Iraq for the supposed economic opportunity in Jordan, but then been caught up like everyone else in region’s turmoil, a situation not exactly helped by their son’s decision to become part of the movement which would put an end to Israel. The life of a terrorist paled with the accumulating years, and though he was one of the best in that line of work, especially gathering information. Clearly the other man that was with him, the general, had not slept since the death of his president. This general had a family and children in addition to his mistress. It was a dangerous job, being intelligence chief for a dictator, and one which made many enemies.

Monkey Experiment in Tehran, Iran The 707 landed, finally, at Tehran-Mehrabad International Airport, well after night. The airport is also the site of Iranian military and air force headquarters. The aircraft was well and truly stuffed with cages, and short of climbing out the windows. Soldiers did unloading, a process made all the more difficult by the fact that no one had warned their commander to issues gloves, as the Africans had done. The procedure was noisy. It was barely fifty degrees in Tehran that night, far below what the monkeys were accustomed to. The monkeys headed north. The farm was state-owned, used as an experiment station to test new corps and fertilizer.

Ali Badrayn aka the Movie Star aka Dieter Klob He liked the sobriquet “Movie Star,” and having learned of it fifteen years before, he had also learned to make it work for him. The mission was reconnaissance, and the weapon was charm. He had a choice of accents in his repertoire. Since he had German travel documents, he affected the speeches of a person from Frankfurt to go along with German clothing, complete to shoes and wallet, all purchased with money that came from whatever sponsor Ali Badrayn had recently found. Movie Star liked he saw. Though the danger to him was greater, the risk was balanced. There was one house close enough with an attached garage that actually faced the day care center. Probably the Secret Service had made an arrangement with the owners. It was an ideal, fifty meters from demi-school, facing in the right direction.

With a smile of a confusion and embarrassment, he walked to the counter asking for the maps. He said he was new in that area. His name was Dieter Kolb, a German citizen from Frankfurt, a teacher of English, currently out of the country. There was a community college on a hill nearby. It was just a matter of finding a good spot. The same was true of the preschool itself. Kolb lifted a pair of compact binoculars and scanned. He watched the children cavort on the playground.

General Bondarenko didn’t believe in coincidences. The southern part of the country once known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) held little charm for him. His time in Afghanistan and a frantic night in Tajikistan had seen to that. Bondarenko had learned the possibility that Iran was making a bid for superpower status. In uniting with Iraq, they increased their oil wealth by something like forty percent. That would give the contagious borders with Kuwait and Saudi. The conquest those nations would redouble their wealth. Iran wished to move to north also, he named them: Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. That would triple their population, add a significant resource base to their United Islamic Republic.

The Soviet Union had operated on the principle of fear. Fear of KGB had kept the citizens in line, and fear of what the Red Army could and would do to any systematic rebellion. But what happened when the fear went away? The Soviet failure to pacify Afghanistan, that despite the most brutal measures imaginable, had been a signal to the Muslim republics that their fear was misplaced. Now Soviet Union was gone, and what remained was a mere shadow. Russia didn’t have the power she needed. The classical formula was first to cripple the strong, then crush the weak, and then later confront the strong again in one’s own problems. Bondarenko could do nothing about it. He was the weak one. He had his own problems. His nations could not count on friends, only the enemies she had labored so long and so hard to create. 

   

Sohaila was ill, but she stabilized. Dr. Ian MacGregor, the WHO doctor, one of British visitors, based in Khartoum. Dr. MacGregor thought jet lag at first, until there had been blood in her vomit and stool. The young girl was from Iraq, too, just as Patient Saleh was. Saleh had Ebola. Sohaila showed symptoms of flu. Same disease, same time. Two different outcomes.

Agent Domingo Chavez and teams had identified a business jet that brought Sister Jean Baptiste and Sister Maria Magdalena. They were both nurses at a Catholic hospital in Congo. The jet supposedly crashed into sea after taking off after refueling stop in Libya. Domingo and Clark had accompanied Secretary Adler to Tehran a week before.

Two hundred files meant two hundred birth certificates, two hundred driver’s licenses, houses or apartments, set of credit cards, and all manner of other permutations to be checked out. It was inevitable that one such investigation started,  Special Agent Aref Raman would garner special attention from the three hundred FBI agents assigned to the case. Three agents were on the Details turned out to be immigrants. The two agents were clear, but that left “Jeff” Raman as an agent with some missing documentation, which was reasonably explained by his parents’ reported refugee status. 

It was on record that he had been born in Iran and had come to America when his parents had fled the country with the fall of the Shah’s regime. Every indicator since showed that he had fully adapted to his new country. He was always one to enjoy a beer with his colleagues. He had developed outstanding service reputation as a field agent. He was unmarried. It was certain that he had no contacts at all with other Iranian-born citizens or aliens, that he was not the least bit religious, that he had never once brought up Islam in a conversation, except to say, as he had told the President once, that religion had caused his family so much grief that it was a subject he was just as happy to leave alone.

Aref Raman was a little neat for a single man living alone. There was a photo of his parents, both dead. He owned a digital recording system, and again there was a punch code programmed in by the manufacturer. Raman had forgotten to erase the messages from before. The fed found a name of rug dealer: Sloan and Alahad.

There was a quiet to the streets in Tehran. Agent John Clark didn’t remember them that way from 1979-80. Being journalists, they acted like journalist. Their first day had been both a waste and part of their cover. Their Russian colleagues would arrive tomorrow. The first order of business was to check out the name of Sloan and Alahad.    

Supervisor Special Agent Hazel Loomis finally found Mrs. Joseph Sloan. She was over sixty, dressed neatly. His husband died last year. She didn’t have any rug, and was allergic to wool. 

The number calling was overseas, code 44, which made it from the U.K. Fed dialed headquarters, and gave them the U.K. number for a quick check. Alahad wasn’t doing anything. Bugs planted in his house had determined that he was watching TV. Another called from Mr. Alahad. Mohammed Alahad was under arrest, when he went into the store to buy a quart of milk, and from there he walked directly back home. He had to use a key to enter his apartment house, and was surprised to find a man and a woman inside. A conspiracy murder the POTUS. He sold rug to a dead man. Joseph Sloan died a year before. They had broken an Iranian espionage ring. Raman’s body collapsed in on itself. He dropped the pistol to the rug with the Seal of the President ton it and fell to his knees.

In the last twenty-four hours, American soldier had killed at least ten thousand soldier of the UIR. Clark and Chavez left Mahmoud Haji Daryaei’s house. Daryaei was the man who attack their country with disease, the man who attacked the president’s child, the man who tried to attack President Ryan, and the man who sent his army on a mission of conquest that turned into a mission of death. The noise was awful. The echoes were punctuated by the tinkle of glass from half a mile around.

*****

July 16, 2017

Sekapur Sirih

Karya pertama dari Tom Clancy yang saya nikmati, dan merupakan hadiah Natal di tahun 2007 lalu kenangan dari seorang kawan lama, seseorang dari komunitas gereja. Awalnya sampai heran juga ketika dihadiahi buku politik dan espionase setebal 1358 halaman tapi tapi saya berterima kasih pada sang kawan karena akhirnya mengenal karya Clancy. Benar-benar fiksi sulit dicerna bagi saya, banyaknya plot dan tokoh yang dihadirkan bersamaan, ditambah lagi kurang meminati tema politik keras. Sudah sempat dibaca selama berbulan-bulan kala itu, namun tidak begitu menikmati dan sudah banyak terlupa, sehingga dibaca ulang kembali untuk yang ke dua kalinya.

Tiga karya Clancy yang telah saya baca (telah dipost-kan pada blog ini) akhirnya sangat membantu memahami karya ini. Presiden baru terlantik Ryan langsung dihadapkan serangkaian masalah serius: upaya pembunuhan pada anaknya, penyebaran virus Ebola sebagai serangan senjata biologi yang mematikan ribuan penduduk AS, upaya pembunuhan dirinya. Pemimpin UIR (Republik Islam Serikat), Daryaei, dengan ambisinya ingin menguasai Timur Tengah bahkan negara-negara di wilayah utarabekas Uni Soviet untuk menambah kekuatan baik penduduk dan kekayaan minyaknya. Setelah membunuh Presidedn Irak, ia juga ingin menghabisi negara adidaya tersebut dengan mengirimkan virus.  

Novel ini memuat sejarah, protokol kepresidenan, politik luar negeri, espionase, dan kondisi politik global dikaitkan dengan penyebaran virus Ebola yang mematikan dia akhir tahun 90’an, tahun di mana buku ini ditulis. Buku ini tepat bagi mereka yang belajar atau peminat politik, hubungan internasional berikut dengan persenjataan, Gedung Putih, dan sejarah perpolitikan dunia di antaranya Timur Tengah, dan Afrika, serta pemaparan virus Ebola.

Terjemahan dalam Bahasa Indonesia: Executive Orders (1996), Tom Clancy 

Serangan kamikaze baru saja menghantam gedung Capitol Hill di Washington DC. Menewaskan ratusan orang, dan di antaranya adalah Presiden Roger Durling dan istrinya. Sebuah Boieng 704 bertuliskan JAL, Japan Airlines, menabrakkan diri membuat gempar. Sang pilot adalah pilot senior internasional asal Jepang membalas kematian keluarganya pada PD II. Saat sang presiden dinyatakan tewas, maka saat itu pula Jack Ryan dilantik resmi menjadi presiden Amerika Serikat yang baru.

Doktor sejarawan, pengajar, dan penasehat kepresidenan tersebut tidak menyangkan dirinya akan menjabat sebagai POTUS. Tetapi tidak banyak yang mengetahui bahwa ia adalah agen rahasia dan handal dalam perburuan kapal selam (sub marine) Red October. Baru saja ia diangkat menjadi wapres mendadak, wapres sebelumnya bermasalah hukum, skandal seks. Bagi orang-orang partai dan rumah tangga kepresidenan Ryan dikenal sebagai orang cerdas dan baik hati. Dia bukan seorang politisi, tidak seperti presiden pendahulunya. Sifat lembut dan sekaligus menjadi kelemahannya terbaca oleh negara-negara kerabat saat ia berpidato pada penguburan Presiden Durling yang juga sudah seperti teman baginya. Ucapan duka pada ke dua anak-anak mendiang presiden yang sangat menyentuh, Presiden Ryan sendiri memiliki dua anak yang masih belia.

Belum lama dilantik, serangan dari mantan Wapres Edward Kealty menyeruak di media. Dia mengklaim dirinya adalah presiden, Jack Ryan hanya berperan sebagai pelaksana tugas, dia mengaku tidak pernah menyerahkan surat pengunduran diri. Dalam wawancaranya di TV, Presiden Ryan mengungkap selama Presiden Durling berkuasa Wapres Kealty dipaksa mundur. Kealty tengah dalam penyidikan FBI dalam kasus pelecehan seks; pemerkosaan asisten semasa ia menjabat sebagai Senator. Pengunduran diri diminta bukan secara hukum, namun ini masalah politik. Presiden Ryan pun menegaskan jika ia hanya akan fokus pada masalah kepentingan negara daripada masalah pribadi.

Ryan sedang menghadapi sejumlah masalah serius, di mana ada serangan pembunuhan anaknya yang masih belia di sekolah. Walau sebelum menjadi presiden ia dan keluarganya juga pernah diserang, namun kali ini ia sangat geram. 

Daryaei lelaki berusia tujuh puluhan, pemimpin negara UIR, Republik Islam Serikat, berambisi menguasai Timur Tengah hingga ke bagian Utara yakni negara-negara bekas jajahan Uni Soviet. Ia baru saja berhasil dalam sebuah misi yang menggemparkan. Intelijen Amerika pun mencium, tidak terhindarkan, ada kaitannya dengan kabar terbunuhnya Presiden Irak.

Presiden Ryan juga menerima laporan serius virus Ebola Zaire yang menyebar secara pandemik di beberapa wilayah dan kota Amerika. Kebetulan Ibu negara, Profesor Caroline M. Ryan, adalah seorang ahli bedah mata juga pengajar Rumah Sakit John  Hopkins, sehingga keahliannya sangat membantu, terutama dalam menjelaskan virus Ebola pada sang presiden. Ryan pun melakukan tindakan cepat termasuk travel warning, menutup layanan pemerintahan, penutupan fasilitas umum dan sekolah-sekolah. Masyarakat diminta berdiam diri di rumah dalam batas waktu tertentu.

Awalnya puluhan jatuh sakit dan meninggal akibat serangan virus Ebola. Oleh pihak federal dan ilmuwan mendeteksi bahwa ini serangan perang biologi. Dari korban dan keluarga tidak pernah bepergian ke Afrika atau kontak dengan pasien Ebola. Saat itu virus baru saja ditemukan. Namun ada kesamaan semua korban menghadiri sebuah pameran otomotif di kotanya masing-masing.

Pimpinan Republik Islam Serikat (UIR), Mahmoud Haji Daryaei, memanfaatkan orang-orang seperti Ali Badrayn, mantan pilot peneyrang, untuk mencapai keinginanya. Pemimpin Republik Islam Serikat tidak cukup baginya, ia ingin menguasai Saudi Arabia dan Kuwait. Berniat menyatukan semua negara Arab di bawah kekuasaannya, selain jumlah warga negara yang berlipat-ganda dan sumber kekayaan minyak melimpah, ia ingin melakukan reformasi besar-besaran dalam agama.

Moudi kerap melakukan telepon ke Iran, dan membohongi dua suster yang merawat Benedict Mkusa, pasien pertama Ebola. Kedua suster dan sampel darah pasien dibawa ke Tehran. Moudi rupanya menjadi bagian dari proyek Daryei. Oleh agen Ali Badrayn alias Movie Star alias Dieter Kolb, berhasil menyebarkan virus itu ke Amerika pada acara pameran otomotif di berbagai kota di negara itu. Kunjungannya berikutnya ia dalam penyamaran seorang guru Jerman untuk misi pembunuhan anak presiden.

Setelah berhasil membunuh Presiden Irak, misi berikut menghancurkan Amerika dengan serangan virus Ebola (bio-attack), dan telah menewaskan ribuan korban tak bersalah dan menyisakan penyintas Ebola Zaire, sebelumnya serangan terhadap anak-anak Presiden di sekolah, namun gagal tetapi menewaskan personel paspamprea.

Daryaei, seorang mantan intelijen, lihai menempatkan mata-mata terbaik dalam misinya, seorang pengaman presiden bergabung dalam tim the Detail, berdarah Iran bernama Aref “Jeff” Raman. Dari dua ratus agen yang berstatus imigran, dokumen Raman agak ganjil. Apartemennya pun dalam pemantauan, ditemukan rekaman suara yang belum sempat ia hapus pada mesin digital teleponnya. Ia berkomunikasi dengan seorang penjual karpet dengan dua nama, dari nama itu jaringan konspirasi terungkap. Namun sebelum berhasil membunuh POTUS, lingkaran espionase terbongkar, hingga menangkap mata-mata Daryaei yang bertugas di Inggris. Lelaki berusia tujuh puluh tahunan itu juga sempat membujuk perdama Menteri India agar sepaham dengannya. Russia juga sudah membaca pergerakan Daryaei dan bekerjasama dengan Amerika, karena pada dasarnya negara itu tengah lemah dalam diplomasi.

Agen John Clark dan Domingo Chavez menyamar menjadi jurnalis Rusia, melakukan penyerangan balik ke Iran, meledakkan kediaman Daryaei. Presiden mengumumkan dalam dua puluh empat jam, tentara Amerika telah menaklukkan puluhan ribu tentara UIR. Para ahli tengah dalam perjalanan ke Tehran untuk memfasilitasi penetralan virus.      

 *****

 Minggu, 16 Juli, 2017