Acts of War

'Constitutions can be amended,' Katzen said. 'Look at Iran.'

'The secular population in Turkey is much higher,' Coffey said. 'If the Fundamentalists ever tried to take over here, there'd be civil war.'

'Who can say there won't be?' Katzen asked. 'Anyway, none of that is the point. You sprinted through NATO regulations, Turkish law, and U.S. policy to get us in here. No one else I know could've done that.'

'So I had to cajole a little,' Coffey said. 'Even so, the Turkish deal was probably the high point of my year. When we return to Washington it'll be business as usual. I'll go to see Senator Fox with Paul Hood and Martha Mackall. I'll nod when Paul assures the senator that everything we did in Turkey was legal, that the soil studies you did in the east will be shared with Ankara and were the 'real' reason we were here, and I'll guarantee that if the Regional Op-Center program receives further funding we will continue to operate legally. Then I'll go back to my office and figure out how to use the ROC in ways not covered by international law.' Coffey shook his head. 'I know that's how things have to be done, but it's not dignified.'

'At least we try to be,' Katzen pointed out.

'You try to be,' Coffey said. 'You spend your career looking into nuclear accidents and oil fires and pollution. You make a difference, or at least you challenge yourself. I went into law to wrestle with real global issues, not to find legal loopholes for spies in Third World sweatboxes.'

Katzen sighed. 'You're schvitzing.'

'What?'

'You're sweating. You're cranky. You're a day shy of forty. And you're being way too hard on yourself.'

'No, too lenient.' Coffey walked toward the cooler nestled in the shade of one of the three nearby tents. He saw the unopened paperback copy of Lord Jim, which he'd brought along to read. It had seemed an appropriate selection when he was standing in the air-conditioned Washington, D.C., bookstore. Now he wished he'd picked up Dr. Zhivago or Call of the Wild. 'I think I'm having an epiphany,' Coffey said, 'like all those patriarchs who used to go into the desert.'

'This isn't desert,' Katzen said. 'It's what we call nonarable pastureland.'

'Thanks,' Coffey said. 'I'll file that next to Batman, Turkey, as something to remember.'

'Jeez,' Katzen said, 'you really are cranky. I don't think being forty is what's doing this. I think the heat's dried up your brains.'

'Could be,' Coffey said. 'Maybe that's why everyone's always been at war in this part of the world. You ever hear about the Eskimos fighting over ice floes or penguin eggs?'

'I've visited the Inuit on the Bering Coast,' Katzen said. 'They don't fight with each other because they have a different outlook on life. Religion is comprised of two elements: faith and culture. The Inuit have faith without fanaticism, and to them it's a very private matter. The culture is the public part. They share wisdom, tradition, and fables instead of insisting that their way is the only way. The same is true of many tropical and sub-tropical peoples in Africa, South America, and the Far East. It has nothing to do with the climate.'

'I don't believe that about the climate,' Coffey said. 'At least, not entirely.' He removed a can of Tab from the melting ice in the cooler and popped it. As he poured the soda into his mouth, he squinted back at the long, gleaming van. For a moment, the despair left him. That seemingly nondescript vehicle was beautiful and sexy. He was proud to be associated with it, at least. The attorney stopped drinking and caught his breath. 'I mean,' he said, panting after the long, unbroken swallow, 'look at cities or prisons where there are riots. Or compounds like Jonestown and Waco where people turn into cult-kooks. It never happens during a cold spell or a blizzard. It's always when it's hot. Look at the Biblical scholars who went out into the desert. Went out men, stayed in the heat, came back prophets. Heat lights our fuses.'

'You don't think that God could have had anything to do with Moses and Jesus?' Katzen asked solemnly.

Coffey raised the canto his lips. 'Touche,' he said before he drank again.

Katzen turned to the young black woman standing to his right. She was dressed in khaki shorts, a sweat- stained khaki blouse, and a white headband. The uniform was 'sterile.' Nowhere did she display the winged- lightning shield of the rapid-deployment Striker force to which she belonged. Nor was there any other sign of military affiliation. Like the van itself, whose side-mounted mirror looked just like a mirror and not a parabolic dish, whose walls were intentionally dented and artificially rusted and didn't show a hint of the reinforced steel underneath, the woman looked like she was a seasoned archaeological field worker.

'What do you think, Sondra?' Katzen asked.

'With all due respect,' said the young black woman, 'I think you're both wrong. I think peace and war and sanity are all questions of leadership. Look at that old city out there.' She spoke with quiet reverence. 'Thirty centuries ago the prophet Abraham was born— right there. That was where he lived when God told him to move his family to Canaan. That man was touched by the Holy Spirit. He founded a people, a nation, a morality. I'm sure he was as warm as we are, especially when God told him to put a dagger into the bosom of his son. I'm sure his sweat as well as his tears fell onto the frightened face of Isaac.' She looked from Katzen to Coffey. 'His leadership was based on faith and love, and he is revered by Jews and Muslims alike.'

'Nicely put, Private DeVonne,' Katzen said.

'Very nicely put,' Coffey agreed, 'but it doesn't contradict my point. We're not all made of the same obedient, determined stuff as Abraham. And for some of us, the heat makes our natural irritability worse.' He took another long drink from his sweating can of Tab. 'There's another thing too. After twenty-seven hours and fifteen minutes of camping here, I hate the living hell out of this place. I like air conditioning and cold water from a glass instead of hot water from a plastic bottle. And bathrooms. Those are good too.'

Katzen smiled. 'Maybe you'll appreciate them a whole lot more when you get back.'

'I appreciated them before I left. Frankly, I still don't understand why we couldn't have tested this prototype in the U.S. We have enemies at home. I could have gotten clearance from any number of judges to spy on suspected terrorists, paramilitary camps, Mafiosi, you-name-it.'

'You know the answer as well as I do,' Katzen said.

'Sure,' Coffey said. He drained the can of soda, dropped it in the plastic trash bag, and walked back to the van. 'If we don't help the moderate True Path Party, the Islamic fundamentalists and their Welfare Party will continue to make gains here. And then you've got the Social Democratic Populist Party, the Democratic Left Party, the Democratic Center Party, the Reform Democratic Party, the Prosperity Party, the Refah Party, the Socialist Unity Party, the Correct Way Party, and the Great Anatolia Party, all of which have to be dealt with and all of whom want their piece of the very small Turkish pie. Not to mention the Kurds, who want freedom from the Turks, Iraqis, and Syrians.' Coffey used his index fingers to wipe sweat from his eyes. 'If the Welfare Party does happen to take control of Turkey and its military, Greece will be threatened. Disputes in the Aegean Sea will come to a head and NATO will be torn apart. Europe and the Middle East will be endangered and everyone will turn to the U.S. for help. We'll gladly provide it, of course, but only in the form of shuttle diplomacy. We can't afford to take sides in a war like that.'

'Excellent summation, counselor.'

'Except for one thing,' Coffey continued. 'For my money, they can all take a flying leap. This isn't like when you took a leave of absence to save the spotted owl from loggers.'

'Stop,' Katzen said. 'You're embarrassing me. I'm not all that virtuous.'

'I'm not talking about virtue,' Coffey said. 'I'm talking about being committed to something worthwhile. You went to Oregon, did your on-site protest, testified at the state legislature, and got the problem solved. This situation is fifty centuries years old. Ethnic factions have always fought one another here and they always will. We can't stop them, and it's a waste of valuable resources even trying.'

'I disagree,' Katzen replied. 'We can mitigate the situation. And who knows? Maybe the next five thousand years will be better.'

'Or maybe the U.S. will get sucked into a religious war that'll tear us apart,' Coffey replied. 'I'm an isolationist at heart, Phil. That's one thing Senator Fox and I have in common. We've got the best country in the history of the world, and those who don't want to join us in the democratic melting pot can shoot, bomb, gas, nuke, and martyr each other until they're all in Paradise. I really don't care.'

Katzen scowled. 'That's one point of view, I suppose.'

'Damn right,' Coffey replied. 'And I'm not apologizing for it. But there is one thing you can tell me.'

'What?' Katzen asked.

Coffey's mouth twisted. 'What is the difference between a porpoise and a