In that sense, Raman thought, he was the perfect spy. Trained by the United States of America to be a law enforcement officer, he had performed brilliantly in the field, mainly in counterfeiting cases. He was a proficient marksman, and a very organized thinker—a trait revealed all the way back in his schooling; he'd graduated from Duke summa cum laude, with nothing less than an A grade on his transcript, plus he'd been a varsity wrestler. It was useful for an investigator to have a good memory, and he did. Photographic, in fact, a talent which had attracted the Detail leadership to him early on, because the agents protecting the President needed to be able to recognize a particular face instantly from the scores of photographs which they carried when the Boss was out pressing flesh. During the Fowler administration, as a junior agent gazetted to the Detail from the St. Louis field office to cover a fund-raising dinner, he'd ID'd and detained a suspected presidential stalker who'd turned out to have a.22 automatic
in his pocket. Raman had pulled the man from the crowd so quietly and skillfully that the subject's processing into the Missouri state mental-health system had never made the papers, which was just what they tried to achieve. The young agent had «Detail» written all over him, the then-Director of the United States Secret Service had decided on reviewing the case, and so Raman had been transferred over soon after Roger Durling's ascension to the Presidency. As a junior member of the Detail he'd stood boring hours on post, run alongside the Presidential limousine, and gradually worked his way up rather rapidly for a young man. He'd worked the punishing hours without complaints, only commenting from time to time that, as an immigrant, he knew how important America was, and as his distant ancestors might have served Darius the Great as one of the 'Immortals,' so he relished doing the same for his new country. It was so easy, really, much easier than the task his brother—ethnic, not biological—had performed in Baghdad a short time earlier. Americans, whatever they might say to pollsters, truly loved immigrants in their large and foolish hearts. They knew much, and they were always learning, but one thing they had yet to learn was that you could never look into another human heart.
'No assets we can use on the ground,' Mary Pat was saying.
'Good intercepts, though,' Goodley went on. 'NSA is really coming through for us. The whole Ba'ath leadership is in the jug, and I don't think they're going to be coming out, at least not standing up.'
'So Iraq is fully decapitated?'
'A military ruling council, colonels and junior generals. Afternoon TV showed them with an Iranian mullah. No accident,' Bert Vasco said positively. 'The least that comes out of this is a rapprochement with Iran. At most, the two countries merge. We'll know that in a couple of days—two weeks at the outside.'
'The Saudis?' Ryan asked.
'They're having kittens, Jack,' Ed Foley replied at once. 'I talked with Prince Ali less than an hour ago. They cobbled together an aid package that would just about have paid off our national debt in an effort to buy the new Iraqi regime—did it overnight, biggest goddamned letter of credit ever drafted—but nobody's answering the phone. That has 'em shook in Riyadh. Iraq's always been willing to talk business. Not now.'
And that would be what frightened all the states on the Arabian Peninsula, Ryan knew. It wasn't well appreciated in the West that the Arabs were businessmen. Not ideologues, not fanatics, not lunatics, but businessmen. Theirs was a maritime trading culture that predated Islam, a fact remembered in America only in remakes of Sinbad the Sailor movies. In that sense they were very like Americans, despite the difference in language, clothing, and religion, and just like Americans they had trouble understanding people who were not willing to do business, to reach an accommodation, to make some sort of exchange. Iran was such a country, changed from the previous state of affairs under the Shah by the Ayatollah Khomeini into a theocracy. They're not like us was the universal point of concern for any culture. They're not like us ANYMORE would be a very frightening development for Gulf States who'd always known that, despite political differences, there had always been an avenue of commonality and communication.
'Tehran?' Jack asked next. Ben Goodley took the question unto himself.
'Official news broadcasts welcome the development— the routine offers of peace and renewed friendship, but nothing beyond that at this point,' Goodley said. 'Officially, that is. Unofficially, we're getting all sorts of intercept traffic. People in Baghdad are asking for instructions, and people in Tehran are giving them. For the moment they're saying to let the situation develop apace. The revolutionary courts come next. We're seeing a lot of Islamic clergy on TV, preaching love and freedom and all that nice stuff. When the trials start, and people start backing into walls to pose for rifle-fire, then there's going to be a total vacuum.'
'Then Iran takes over, probably, or maybe runs Iraq like a puppet on a string,' Vasco said, flipping through the latest set of intercepts. 'Goodley may be right. I'm reading this SiolNT stuff for the first time. Excuse me, Mr. President, but I've been concentrating on the political side. This stuff is more revealing than I expected it to be.'
'You're saying it means more than I think it does?' the NIO asked.
Vasco nodded without looking up. 'I think it might. This is not good,' the desk officer opined darkly.
'Later today, the Saudis are going to ask us to hold their hand,' Secretary Adler pointed out. 'What do I tell them?'
Ryan's reply was so automatic that it startled him. 'Our commitment to the Kingdom is unchanged. If they need us, we're there, now and forever.' And with two sentences, Jack thought a second later, he had committed the full power and credibility of the United States of America to a nondemocratic country seven thousand miles away. Fortunately, Adler made it easier for him.
'I fully agree, Mr. President. We can't do anything else.' Everyone else nodded agreement, even Ben Good- ley. 'We can do that quietly. Prince Ali understands, and he can make the King understand that we're not kidding.'
'Next stop,' Ed Foley said, 'we have to brief Tony Bretano in. He's pretty good, by the way. Knows how to listen,' the DCI-designate informed the President. 'You plan to do a cabinet meeting about this?'
Ryan shook his head. 'No. I think we should play this one cool. America is observing regional developments with interest, but there's nothing for us to get excited about. Scott, you handle the press briefing through your people.'
'Right,' SecState replied.
'Ben, what do they have you doing at Langley now?'
'Mr. President, they went and made me a senior watch officer for the Operations Center.'
'Good briefing,' Ryan told the younger man, then turned to the DCI. 'Ed, he works for me now. I need an NIO who speaks my language.'
'Gee, do I at least get a decent relief pitcher back?' Foley replied with a laugh. 'This kid's a good prospect, and I expect to be in the pennant race this fall.'
'Nice try, Ed. Ben, your hours just got worse. For now, you can have my old office around the corner. The food's a lot better here,' the President promised.
Throughout it all, Aref Raman stood still, leaning against the white-painted walls while his eyes flickered automatically from one visitor to another. He was trained not to trust anyone, with the possible exceptions of the President's wife and kids. No one else. Of course, they all trusted him, including the ones who had trained him not to trust anyone, because everybody had to trust somebody.
It was just a matter of timing, really, and one of the things his American education and professional training had conferred upon him was the patience to wait for the chance to make the proper move. But other events on the other side of the globe were bringing that moment closer. Behind expressionless eyes Raman thought that maybe he needed guidance. His mission was no longer the random event he'd promised to fulfill twenty years earlier. That he could do almost any time, but he was here now, and while anyone could kill, and while a dedicated person could kill almost anyone, only a truly skilled assassin could kill the proper person at the proper moment in pursuit of a larger goal. So deliciously ironic, he thought, that while his mission came from God, every factor in its accomplishment had come directly from the Great Satan himself, embodied in the life of one man who could best serve Allah by departing this life at just the proper moment. Picking the moment would be the hard part, and so after twenty years, Raman decided that he might just have to break cover after all. There was a danger in that, but, he judged, a slight one.
'YOUR OBJECTIVE IS a bold one,' Badrayn said calmly. Inwardly he was anything but calm. It was breathtaking.
'The meek do not inherit the earth,' Daryaei replied, having for the first time explained his mission in life to someone outside his own inner circle of clerics.
