the Ayatollah and a bunch of fundamentalists who do not have the West's best interests at heart and suddenly we have a whole flood of crisp new dollars that are so technically perfect they are almost impossible to tell from the real thing.
'It gets worse. The Syrians see the Iranian playing the game and Uncle Sam sitting idly by doing nothing, and they set up a raft of printing presses in the BekaaValley. Their quality is not as good but, hey, they've got volume on their side and they go after the lower end of the market.'
'How much are we talking about here?' said Fitzduane.
'We say in our briefings a billion dollars a month because a higher figure is hard to swallow. Actually, we estimate a multiple of that – year after year for well over a decade. We are getting close to talking real money! The situation has gotten so bad that in parts of the world you have to sign each note and leave your address so that they have a comeback if someone down the line complains. So much for confidence in the dollar. No wonder it's worth less every year.'
Fitzduane laughed. 'So where does Treasury come into all this?'
'We are talking economic terrorism here,' said Warner, 'we are talking forgery on a scale so huge that Treasury, who will set the Secret Service on you if you so much as photocopy a dollar bill, do diddly. They are afraid if it gets out the dollar will take a dive, so they say and do nothing. Also, the Secret Service are not rally set up to invade foreign countries. So we are going to end up changing our currency, but the guys we are up against are bright, so they won't just fold their tents and steal away. Goddamn it, they can now certainly afford the latest gear and we have been only too happy to sell them it. The U.S. has a balance-of-trade problem. We need exports. It's a hell of a thing. But the bottom line is that the United States government is nearly its own worst enemy.'
Fitzduane's spread hands and the look on his face indicated acknowledgment of the validity of at least some of what was being said, but also a mild impatience that the question he had already asked twice had not been answered.
Warner grinned. 'Okay,' he said. 'Let's focus. You want to know what we do and how we operate. We run an intelligence and analysis group based upon a very large network of contacts. There are many people who think like we do in structures like the CIA and State. The structures may be ossified and gridlocked by policy, but individuals have not lost their desire to do the right thing. We have connections as far afield as Afghanistan and as near as down the hall. We link them together, make sense of the pieces, and analyze the result. Then we feed our reports to the right people. Sometimes we get a result. More often we get filed. It's not easy.'
'And you also legislate?' said Fitzduane.
'Sure,' said Warner. 'We work in Congress and that's what Congress does. And within the legislative process we pursue our own agenda. If we strengthen a program that can stem the terrorist tide, that is what we do. We have some successes. Mostly, it's a whole lot of work for very little return. The Founding Fathers did not set up this place to be efficient. That is understandable, but today's threats did not exist when they were around. Nor were they foreseen.'
'It sounds like a great deal of work for a modest return,' said Fitzduane carefully. 'It also sounds exceedingly frustrating.'
'Well, Hugo,' said Warner, 'now you are getting to the real meat. There are some situations where we cannot just sit on our hands like good citizens. Sometimes the threat is so major and the response so minimal that we have to take some action.'
'So how does that work?' said Fitzduane.
'We find the right people and light the blue touch-paper,' said Warner. 'It is not exactly subcontracting – more a case of facilitating.' He looked steadily at Fitzduane. 'Like right now we have a situation in Mexico.'
'No,' said Fitzduane flatly. 'And this being a political town, that is not – ‘no’ meaning I'm willing to negotiate.' He smiled. 'Just so we understand each other.'
'I think you may change your mind,' said Warner cheerfully, 'when you have heard a little more. As far as Mexico is concerned, you're already involved. Drafted by circumstances, you might say.'
Fitzduane looked at Warner blankly and then shook his head firmly. He had great respect for the subcommittee's counterterrorism reports and he was looking forward to meeting the people who did the work, but that was where it ended.
He could not conceive of any reason why he would want to be involved with Mexico in any way except to visit Acapulco and work on his suntan. That notion did have some appeal given the state of Ireland's weather. Even the snakes had fled because they were sick of the rain.
'No,' he repeated, 'or as you say over here – 'no way!'
Warner grinned. 'You didn't say ‘positively,’' he said. His belt began to cheep.
He answered the mobile and then looked at Fitzduane. 'Maury has stopped swinging from the chandelier and Patricio has just passed through security. Time to enlighten you, Hugo, about some dirty work south of the border. And then I know you will do the right thing. You may be Irish and your grandmother Spanish, but where it counts you are a true-blue American.'
'Lead on, Ollie,' said Fitzduane wearily. But his curiosity was aroused, and the Fitzduanes, as a family, were nothing if not curious.
Over the centuries it had killed more than a few of them.
For all the talk of congressional perquisites, the FarnsworthBuilding was a utilitarian structure.
Inside, once you got past the entrance lobbies, it was little more than floor after floor of wide, imposing corridors with rather poky office suites leading off them for individual congressmen. The splendid marbled hallways had been given a higher priority than the humans who worked in the building.
A major corporation would have been embarrassed by the crowded conditions of most of the offices. Typically, a congressman had a three-room suite with a tiny reception lobby and waiting area. One room housed the congressman, the second his chief of staff, and the third as many of his staff as could be squeezed in. If you were a staffer, it helped greatly if you were small and thin. Or even tall and thin. The offices had high ceilings.
'Hugo, the U.S. of A. is run by kids,' said Warner as they ambled back to the office. He glanced across at Fitzduane and grinned. 'It confuses the shit out of the other side, whoever they are these days. God! Bring back the Cold War. It was so beautifully simple.'
Fitzduane raised an eyebrow.
Warner needed no further encouragement. 'The workload in this place is ridiculous,' he said happily. 'The average elected official spends most of his time working on being reelected – on his image – and commuting to and from his constituency. Any surplus time is spent taking his TV makeup off, bogged down in procedure, sitting in meetings, and getting drunk and screwing around because he or she is working so hard. So he hasn't a snowball's chance of actually reading the stuff he votes on, and certainly not in detail.
'Hell, man, consider the numbers and the crazy way this place operates. A single bill can run to thousands of pages. And the House rules are of a scale of complexity that even Machiavelli would admire. And they keep changing.'
'So where do the kids come in?' asked Fitzduane obligingly.
'Since the elected have not the time to do the job they were voted in to do, the staffers have to do it. However, there is a twist here too. Members do not like being accused of spending too much money on themselves, so they have voted a peanut budget for staffers.
'That means two things. First, few people with a useful body of experience can afford to stay here. As they get older they acquire family commitments, and this is an expensive town. They leave and become lobbyists or head back to the boonies and live on their war stories. Second, staffs are heavily padded out with teenage interns who work for honor and glory and an entry on their CV. They get paid nothing.
'It's a mighty peculiar system. It means the U.S. legislature, if you get right down to it, is operated by a bunch of teenagers working for free. And since the U.S. is the superpower these days, it explains a lot. God bless America!'
'So what about you and Lee and Maury?' said Fitzduane. 'You're not exactly still in diapers.'
Warner halted and faced Fitzduane. 'Well, Hugo,' he said lightly, 'I guess we're kind of unusual.'
Fitzduane was getting used to Dan Warner's exuberance, but on this point he did not think the deputy chief of
