with two Secret Service agents, took off from the White House in good time for the seven o’clock rendezvous with the ladies. Only Kathy O’Brien was absent, but she had to hold the fort, first thing in the morning, in Admiral Morgan’s office.
The flight was swift, and the pilot brought them in over the Potomac before dark, touching down on the wide back lawn above the river.
There was a chill in the air, as there often is in the late spring on the East Coast. But Scott Dunsmore said that the cool weather would not deflect him from his plans. He was cooking outside tonight, come hell or high water. It would be the first barbecue of the season, and he intended it to be memorable. Therefore, he expected a full attendance around the gas grill while he perfected a flawless butterflied leg of lamb, just the way his cook had taught him during his days in the surface Navy as a Fleet Commander.
The fact that the huge leg of lamb was already carefully cut by Grace’s butcher, and carefully marinated and half-cooked in the oven by Grace herself, did not discourage Admiral Dunsmore from claiming full credit, in advance. Grace mentioned that it would be a real shame if he burned it, like he did the last one, on her birthday two years ago.
“I was under a bit of pressure then,” said the chief of the entire Pentagon. “They’ll be no mistakes tonight. Let’s get in there for some drinks…then you’ll see me in action, putting a forty-minute charcoal finish to this banquet.”
Laura, who had not met the Dunsmores, was captivated by them both. Grace had been charm itself during the late afternoon, and the arrival of the admiral, the most powerful man in the United States Armed Forces, was something she had viewed with some trepidation. Even though both her father and her husband had always told her that Scott was a prince of men, and she would like him, as she had liked all of those high-ranking military Americans she had met. Even Arnold Morgan, who was not precisely everyone’s cup of tea.
Now, as Admiral Morgan assumed, always, that everyone had coffee black, “with buckshot,” Admiral Dunsmore assumed that anyone who had endured a long day would be revived by the dark smooth taste of Johnny Walker Black Label Scotch with club soda. And with this drink he was something of an artist: in the high summer he allowed two cubes of ice in a tall glass, with a lot of soda. On Labor Day he eliminated the ice for the season, and then, as the days drew in and the temperature dropped, he reduced the soda water, until by Christmas, it became quite a short drink.
That night, only six weeks before the summer solstice, when the ice went back in, the drinks were medium long but warm. And, on a silver tray, he brought five Scotch and sodas into the big room at the front of the house. They each took one, and Arnold Morgan stepped forward to propose a toast.
“We are here tonight for several reasons, some of which can be talked about and some of which cannot. So I’ll confine myself to proposing the health of Laura’s father, and our friend, Admiral Sir Iain MacLean, who has, as before, been some way ahead of us.”
They all raised their glasses, smiling at the thought of the urbane Scottish officer, who would have been mortified with embarrassment had he been in attendance. But Arnold Morgan was not prone to mawkish sentimentality. If he said Iain MacLean was out in front in his thinking, then that was so. And if it hadn’t been after midnight on Loch Fyne, they would have all called him right there and then to congratulate him.
By now the gas grill was at full power, and Scott Dunsmore had the leg of lamb in prime position. Wearing sweaters, they all stood around outside, admiring the dusk over the dark Potomac, sipping their drinks and watching the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs strategically adjusting the angle of the gently sizzling lamb.
By common agreement, he had gotten it right this time. And dinner was outstanding, not least because the admiral decided to open his last two bottles of 1961 Haut Brion. “Bill and I drank a bottle to the memory of his brother right after we lost the
The following morning Admiral Morgan’s chauffeur arrived at 0800 to drive his boss and Bill the short distance back to the CIA safe house, where Benjamin Adnam awaited them. They both walked straight into the room where the terrorist was reading the newspaper, and Admiral Morgan wished him, “Good morning, Commander.”
But he did not waste one second on formalities. “Right now,” he said, “I am here to hack out a deal. And this is what I propose. I have a project, and I would like your guidance and general input. If this is deemed to be a success, we will then settle down and make some kind of a long-term agreement for you to work with us along the lines we outlined yesterday. Naturally, we can have nothing in writing, but in your business I expect you are accustomed to that.
“The project we are working on is against Iraq, and will be a one-time one-shot proposition. It will either succeed or fail. If I judge your role to have been critical, and it will be, and we are successful, we will make a one- time payment to you of $250,000 to start off your life here in America. You will not be required in an operational capacity. Only in strategic planning.”
“Since I am sitting here thinking and reading the paper,” replied Adnam, “I suppose I may as well earn some money for it.” But then he smiled, and said, “Admiral, I think that would be an excellent way to start off our relationship. Might save me the trouble of taking cyanide.”
“Then we are agreed? You trust me sufficiently?”
Commander Adnam held up his handcuffed wrists. “I don’t really have very much choice, do I? If I do not agree, you could always go immediately to Option One, despite the uncomfortable consequences for you, as well as me.”
Admiral Morgan nodded. “Yes. And now I would like to talk to you, and so would Bill, whom I believe you know well enough?”
“Yes, I think so. We have a few things in common.”
“Right. If I yell ‘coffee’ loud enough, will something happen?”
“I think so. There is a housekeeper for the agents and the Marine guards.”
“I’ll go and find someone, Arnold,” said Bill. “But I bet they don’t have buckshot.”
The admiral grinned, but he was very preoccupied, and he turned to Ben Adnam, and said deliberately, “My President does not believe that Iraq should get away with shooting down three airliners, in the process murdering our oil-negotiating team, six politicians, and the Vice President of the United States. Neither has it escaped him that we, as yet, have taken no retribution against them for the loss of the aircraft carrier.
“We now propose to attend to these matters, with or without your help. But I hope with.”
Adnam nodded.
“Now, you mentioned yesterday that you could offer a way for us to deal with Iraq on a long-term basis. Could you elaborate on that?”
As the Iraqi again nodded his assent, Bill came in with the coffee. Three mugs. All black. A blue tube of sweeteners on the side.
“That’s one fucking miracle,” said the admiral, firing the little white pellets into the coffee, somehow making the clicker sound like a six-shooter. “Now let’s see if young Ben here can come up with a second.”
Despite himself, Commander Adnam laughed. He thought he might enjoy working with this American cowboy. “Admiral,” he said, “one of the biggest problems in Iraq is water. We have two great rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris. Both of them flow out of Turkey, and the Euphrates crosses Syria. Those two rivers are the lifeblood of Iraq. They are the reasons civilization flourished in ancient Mesopotamia, the old name for modern Iraq.
“The rivers still control the country’s agriculture, wheat and barley, both irrigation and direct pumping. They control fertilizer plants, cement-making plants, light industry, the production of steel, the growing of dates. They control Iraq’s drinking water and hydroelectric power. For centuries, when the water level dropped, and occasionally dried up in some areas, there was something close to national panic. But it was even worse when they flooded, as they often do at the end of the winter. Right back to biblical times…I expect you both know that Noah and his Ark were in Mesopotamia in that great flood.
“In order to control these waters, various governments have built a succession of dams and barrages and canals. These in turn helped to form lakes and reservoirs, which first of all absorb the floodwater, and secondly provide enormous backup when the rivers are very low.
