the wine was superb even by the standards of the French diplomatic service. Then came business.
'We're not sure. We wonder about the death of the Turkoman Premier.'
'You don't wonder about the death of—'
'I do not believe anyone has doubts about that, Scott, but that is a long-standing business, is it not?'
'Not exactly.' Another sip. 'Claude, you're still the best authority on wine I know. What's he thinking about?'
'Probably many things. His domestic troubles—you Americans don't appreciate them as well as you should. His people are restless, less so now that he's conquered Iraq, but the problem is still there. We feel that he must consolidate before he does anything else. We also feel that the process may turn out to be unsuccessful. We are hopeful, Scott. We are hopeful that the extreme aspects of the regime will moderate over time, perhaps not very much time. It must. It is no longer the eighth century, even in that part of the world.'
Adler took a few seconds to consider that, then nodded thoughtfully. 'Hope you're right. The guy's always scared me.'
'All men are mortal. He is seventy-two, and he works a hard schedule. In any case, we have to check on him, do we not? If he moves, then we will move, together, as we have done in the past. The Saudis and we have talked on this matter also. They are concerned, but not overly so. Our assessment is the same. We counsel you to keep an open mind.'
Claude might be correct, Adler thought. Daryaei HUY old, and consolidating the rule over a newly acquired country wasn't exactly a trivial undertaking. More than that, the easiest way to bring a hostile country down, if you have the patience for it, was to be nice to the bastards. A little trade, a few journalists, some CNN, and a couple of G-rated movies, such things could do wonders. If you have the patience. If you had the time. There were plenty of Iranian kids in American universities. That could be the most effective means for America to change the UIR. Problem was, Daryaei had to know that, too. And so here he was, Scott Adler, Secretary of State, a post he'd never expected to approach, much less have, and he was supposed to know what to do next. But he'd read enough diplomatic history to know better.
'I'll listen to what he has to say, and we're not looking to make any new enemies, Claude. I think you know that.'
'D'accord.' He topped off Adler's glass. 'Unfortunately, you will find none of this in Tehran.'
'And two is my limit when I'm working.'
'Your flight crew is excellent,' Claude assured him. 'They fly our own ministers.'
'When has your hospitality ever been lacking?'
FOR CLARK AND Chavez it was Perrier, cheaper to buy here, they both imagined, though the
lemons probably were not. 'So how are things in Washington?' a French counterpart asked, just killing time, or so it seemed.
'Pretty strange. You know, it's amazing how quiet the country is. Maybe having a lot of the government turned off helps,' John said, trying to dodge.
'And this talk of your President and his adventures?'
'Sounds like a lot of movie stuff to me,' Ding said, with the open face of honesty. 'Stealing a Russian sub? All by himself? Damn.' Clark grinned. 'I wonder who made that up?'
'But the Russian spy chief,' their host objected. 'It is he, and he's been on the television.'
'Yeah, well, I bet we paid him a ton of money to come across, too.'
'Probably wants to do a book and make some more.' Chavez laughed. 'Sumbitch'll get it, too. Hey, mon ami, we're just worker bees, okay?'
It didn't fly any better than a lead glider. Clark looked into their interrogator's eyes and they just clicked. The man was DGSE, and he knew Agency when he saw it. 'Then be careful of the nectar you will find where you are going, my young friend. It is, perhaps, too sweet.' It was like the start of a card game. The deck was out, and he was shuffling. Probably just one hand, and maybe a friendly one, but the hand had to be played.
'What do you mean?'
'The man you go to meet, he is dangerous. He has the look of one who sees what we do not.'
'You've worked the country?' John asked.
'I have traveled through the country, yes.'
'And?' This was Chavez.
'And I have never understood them.'
'Yeah,' Clark agreed. 'I know what you're saying.'
'An interesting man, your President,' the Frenchman said again, and it was pure curiosity, actually an endearing thing to see in the eyes of an intelligence officer.
John looked right in those eyes and decided to thank the man for his warning, one pro to another. 'Yeah, he is. He's one of us,' Clark assured him.
'And those entertaining stories?'
'I cannot say.' Delivered with a smile. Of course they're true. You think reporters have the wit to make such things up?
Both men were thinking the same thing, and both men knew it, though neither could speak it aloud: A shame we cannot get together some evening for a dinner and some stories. But it just wasn't done.
'On the way back, I will offer you a drink.'
'On the way back, I will have it.'
Ding just listened and watched. The old bastard still had it, and there were still lessons to learn from how he did it. 'Nice to have a friend,' he said five minutes later on the way to the French aircraft.
'Better than a friend, a pro. You listen to people like him, Domingo.'
NOBODY HAD EVER said that governance was easy, even for those who invoked the word of God for nearly everything. The disappointment, even for Daryaei, who'd been governing Iran for nearly twenty years in one capacity or another, was in all the petty administrative rubbish that reached his desk and took from his time. He'd never grasped that it was almost entirely his fault. His rule was fair by his own reckoning, but harsh by most others. Most violations of the rules mandated death for the miscreant, and even small administrative errors on the part of bureaucrats could entail the end of a career—that degree of mercy depended on the magnitude of the error, of course. A bureaucrat who said no to everything, noting that the law was clear on an issue, whether it was or not, rarely got into trouble. One who broadened the scope of the government's power over the most minor of day-to-day activities was merely adding to the scope of Daryaei's rule. Such decisions came easily and caused little in the way of difficulty to the arbiter in question.
But real life wasn't that simple. Practical questions of commerce, for example, just the way in which the country did business in everything from the sale of melons to the honking of auto horns around a mosque required a certain degree of judgment, because the Holy Koran hadn't anticipated every situation, and neither had the civil law been based upon it. But to liberalize anything was a major undertaking, because any liberalization of any rule might be seen as a theological error—this in a country where apostasy was a capital crime. And so the lowest-level bureaucrats, when stuck with the necessity of saying yes to a request, from time to time, tended to hem and haw and kick things upstairs, which gave a higher-level official the chance to say no, which came just as easily to them after a career of doing so, but with somewhat greater authority, somewhat greater responsibility, and far more to lose in the event that someone higher still disagreed with the rare and erroneous yes decision. All that meant was that such calls kept perking up the pyramid. In between Daryaei and the bureaucracy was a council of religious leaders (he'd been a member under Khomeini), and a titular parliament, and experienced officials, but, disappointingly to the new UIR's religious leader, the principle held, and he found himself dealing with such weighty issues as the business hours for markets, the price of petrol, and the educational syllabus of grade-school females. The sour expression he'd adopted for such trivial issues merely made his lesser colleagues all the more obsequious in their presentation of the pros and cons, which added an additional measure of gravity to the absurd, while they sought favor for being strict (opposing whatever change was on the table) or for being practical (supporting it). Earning Daryaei's favor was the biggest political game in town, and he inevitably found himself as tied down as an insect in amber by small issues, while he needed all his time to deal with the big ones. The amazing part is that he never understood why people couldn't take some initiative, even as he destroyed people on occasion for taking any.
So it was that he landed in Baghdad this evening to meet with local religious leaders. The issue of the day
