Permanent Interests by James Bruno

Author:James Bruno [Bruno, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political, Fiction, Mystery Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781430300427
Google: fw6lp0VYrkEC
Publisher: James Bruno
Published: 2006-10-29T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The day had started out particularly badly for the Secretary of State. The U.S. special envoy had delivered the Secretary's peace feelers to the Iraqi Sunni leaders the previous day. In typical Arab fashion, the envoy was received cordially and listened to attentively. Plenty of photographers and reporters were on hand to record the scene. All smiles. Quotable platitudes abounded -- "Peace Through Dialogue," "Weaving the Tapestry of Mutual Understanding," "Expanding the Foundation of Democracy." The NIACT cable Dennison had just finished reading was a dispatch from Embassy Baghdad detailing the massacre that same day of two Sunni villages by Shiite bands. The latters' leaders denounced American trickery in trying to lull the Shiites into a Sunni trap. They furnished to reporters the full text of Dennison's peace feeler. The media were having a field day. Once again, the inscrutable denizens of the Levant had dumped egg all over Uncle Sam's face.

Senator Weems, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had just slashed the foreign aid budget for Pakistan and all of sub-Saharan Africa, and was making threats of going after aid for Israel next. It was PERMANENT INTERESTS

191

being whispered in the corridors on the Hill that the octogenarian, ex-boll weevil, Democrat-turned-Republican was suffering from early Alzheimer's and had it in for South Asians, Africans and Jews.

The

New York Times had printed its umpteenth editorial decrying "disarray in our foreign policy" and calling on the President to implement a "shake-up in his foreign affairs team."

Horvath's memo followed. He still had an hour before his scheduled meeting with the Greek foreign minister to listen to the latest tirades from Athens against Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey, northern Cypriots and all of Greece's other ancient enemies going back to the time of Pericles. Dennison asked to see security chief Ralph Torres right away.

"Ralph, what the hell is going on here? Here's one of our officers going around blabbing about gangsters, Russians, conspiracies, corruption, a dead ambassador who might as well have been Al Capone's godson. The guy's obviously unbalanced."

Torres fidgeted nervously. D.S. Warren was with him.

"Sure. We've pulled his clearances. Scher's fired him from his team. Human Resources has reassigned him to a no-brainer job. That's about as far as we can go."

"Well, then fire the son of a bitch! Have him arrested.

Or, better yet, committed!!" Dennison exploded.

Torres exchanged an uneasy glance with Warren. "Mr.

Secretary, we can't fire the man."

"Why the hell not?!"

"Uh, well, for one, there's no cause."

"Treason! Insanity! Think of something, goddammit!!"

"He doesn't fit the picture for treason, or more accurately, espionage. Why, we couldn't even nail Felix Bloch. As for insanity, Med would have to diagnose that--"

192 JAMES

BRUNO

Dennison pointed a finger at Torres and spluttered, "You get Med to call him in for a physical. Today!"

Silence.

Dennison began to compose himself. "Okay. All right.

What else do you have?"

"Derek here called in his girlfriend, another FSO, and she was totally unforthcoming."

"Have you talked to his Aunt Beatrice yet?" Dennison asked.

"No," Torres replied, not catching the sarcasm. "But her friend, another female FSO named Amy Chen, told us that Mr.

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