“The obvious. We get on the main road and look like everyone else.”
“We’ll run into another roadblock.”
“That’s true,” he conceded. “But we’ll be just another truck of farmers in a long line of trucks. Maybe the soldiers won’t be so interested in rape if we’re in a crowd.”
“They’ll see Avidar and—”
“We tell them up front that he’s sick — delirious and violent — and we’re taking him to a doctor. If they get too curious, I’ll tell them that he was bitten by a mad dog. They won’t mess with a case of rabies.”
Shoshana brightened, feeling more confident. “Maybe we can get directions to a doctor at a roadblock.” Habish didn’t answer and they drove in silence until they joined the main road and fell in behind a string of trucks moving toward Kirkuk.
Of all things available to Zack Pontowski, privacy was the hardest to come by and he was enjoying the unscheduled break in the clay’s schedule. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, his fingers interlaced across his stomach, for all appearances asleep. It was the picture of an old man dozing on a park bench. But he was working. He sorted through the jumble of facts, opinions, and guesses that were piling up around the events taking place in Russia and the Middle East, evaluating them with his own set of mental filters and prisms.
Pontowski had a view of the world created by long and hard experience and knew better than to try to interpret events by holding them up against a fixed belief of what should be. That was a sure formula for failure. Instead of lamenting about the perversity of a world that did not match the vision of a true believer, he relished the challenge of creating a foreign policy, a course of action for his country, that was as clever, varied, and devious as the world itself.
He also knew that the immense power he wielded from the White House could be checked in thousands of way he had never thought of. That didn’t bother him in the least and he savored the chance to enter the arena of geopolitics and contest with the brilliant, stupid, greedy, fanatical men and women who moved on the stage of world power.
For a few moments, Pontowski allowed his mind to wander down the corridor of remembrance. A warm feeling of awe and pleasure surged through him when he recalled the time he met Winston Churchill during World War II. The scene had not dimmed with time and was clear and focused in his memory. That was when I started down this path, he thought, when I knew what I wanted to be. Winston, you old sea dog, I had no idea what you meant when you said, “The oceans we travel are stormed-tossed on the surface and dangerous with shoals and barrier reefs. Yet with cunning navigation we can reach safe harbor. But the ever-changing seas move with a force beyond our feeble imaginations and you must contend with the sea as it is and not as you would want it to be.” You must have been practicing a speech that day.
He gave a little snort and brought himself back to the problems at hand and hit his intercom button. “Tom, what’s next on the schedule?”
“National Security Council meeting in the Cabinet Room. The CIA has an update on the fun and games going on in the Kremlin.”
“Anything on the Middle East?” Pontowski asked.
“Nothing new there, Mr. President.”
“Get Lieutenant Colonel Carroll to join us. I’d like an update.”
The line was quiet for a moment. “Ah, sir, we haven’t heard of anything new for a while and things are quiet in that part of the world. Besides, I doubt that Carroll could be ready on such short notice. And we are pressed for time. You’ve got a delegation of CEOs from the oil companies scheduled in immediately after.”
“Have Carroll there. This is what he gets paid for.” Pontowski cut the connection.
There was no sign that Bill Carroll had been unprepared when he wound up his presentation on the Middle East. The first thing he did every morning when he came to work in the basement of the White House office building was to prepare an updated briefing. But he was nervous. It was the first time he had briefed Pontowski alone. “Finally, Mr. President,” he concluded, “we have monitored a joint command and control exercise between the Syrians and Egyptians. There is only one logical conclusion — they have now consolidated the command and control functions of their armed forces.”
Pontowski leaned forward and looked at Fraser. “Then that part of the world is far from being quiet. Have the Soviets increased their support of Syria?”
“No, sir,” Carroll answered. “Their level of support remains unchanged but they would like to increase it. Selling weapons to the Arabs is a good source of foreign credits, which they badly need. They did deliver some weapons to Iraq contracted for before the invasion of Kuwait — that was part of the deal that was cut with the Iraqi colonels who took over. That delivery gave Iraq an operational squadron of Su-Twenty-seven Flankers which are based at Mosul. It complements a squadron of MiG-Twenty-nines based at Kirkuk.”
“Have the Syrians or Egyptians kissed and made up with Iraq?” This from National Security Adviser Cagliari. He had keyed on the President’s question and understood what he was getting at.
“I believe they have,” Carroll replied.
Bobby Burke, the director of central intelligence, snorted. “My people don’t subscribe to that at all. Besides,” he quipped, “the Arabs always have a hard time figuring out who’s the bride when they try to arrange a meeting.” Laughter worked around the table. “Mr. President,” he continued, “I know the mutual assistance pact between Syria and Egypt is strongly reminiscent of the relationship between Syria and Egypt before the Yom Kippur War in 1973. But things have changed.” He glanced at Fraser. “First, Egypt is at peace with the Israelis and in spite of many disagreements with them is still honoring the peace treaty. Second, the situation in the Kremlin has the Soviets totally preoccupied. Until the Russkies sort out who’s in charge, no one is going to start a shooting match in the Middle East. God only knows how the Soviets would react if Syria, their most important client state, was threatened. No sane person would chance that.”
Pontowski didn’t comment on the saneness of the tribal politics of the Middle East. “Gentlemen, thank you for your time. Keep watching the situation in the Kremlin and I want no surprises coming out of the Middle East. That’s it until next week.” He rose and left the room with Fraser close in trail.
“Tom, bring on the CEOs. We need to talk about a national energy policy. Be a good chance for a photo opportunity.”
“Ah, Mr. President, could we slip that meeting five minutes. There are some papers I would like to have you sign.”
Pontowski paused before he entered the Oval Office. “Tom, is B. J. Allison late?”
Fraser nodded. “Sir, she is an old lady… Maybe if we gave her a few more minutes?”
“Bring ‘em in now.” The President smiled. “And I want you there. Please tell Melissa not to disturb us.”
The sergeants who normally worked in the mission planning section of Intelligence had given up on Matt and tried to ignore him and the clutter around the room. The major who ran Intelligence yelled at them to get the place cleaned up in case one of the colonels with a well-developed anal compulsive complex dropped in and got bent out of shape over the mess around Matt. The sergeants relayed the message to Matt who ignored them. Caught between a rock and the Air Force belief that neat and tidy means good and efficient, they cornered Master Sergeant Charlie Ferguson and asked him to talk to Matt. Ferguson told them to lock the door to the mission planning room and put a sign up that restricted entrance to CNWDI security clearances.
“What’s a CNWDI?” they asked, almost in unison.
“A security clearance that allows access to Classified Nuclear Weapons Design Information.” Ferguson grinned. ‘You can’t believe the hassle that goes with it. Nobody wants one.” The sergeants did as they were told and Matt was left in peace to work on Gunslinger IV.