“Where’s the nuclear sub?” Admiral Newman said in a raspy voice.
Somebody said that was being handled over uh there, and they all walked over there, and a female jg started to explain that Libya had diesel subs and so they were working on the scenario that—
“I want a nuclear sub in the opposing force. Victor II. Do it.” But he may have said the last words to one of the O-5s with him, although the jg staffer almost wet himself trying to show how willing he was to do it if only somebody would explain what a Victor II was. Alan looked at the guy next to him and winked.
The admiral took an 0–6 by the elbow (either his flag captain or his chief of staff, Alan guessed) and came to the center of the room and said in a low voice, as if he thought they couldn’t be overheard, “—gotta have more Soviet-style Orange forces; these guys don’t get it. This is not acceptable!” Then he strode out.
The room relaxed. Everybody seemed to think this was a pretty funny scene. The guy next to him said, “Oh, he does that about once a month. He wants to fight Commies!”
A couple of days later, Alan went back to the air wing offices and began to wind up his affairs. A week later, he was to report to the Pentagon. The experience with Fleetex remained as an interesting sideways look at the wheel, at least until he discovered what Rose’s role would be in what was to happen at that dot in the Gulf of Sidra designated Point Alpha.
Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania.
The Dar chief had a very fine job and thought he was a very fine fellow, one successful in an admirable line of work. He was clearly not so convinced of O’Neill’s worth, although willing to give him a little time before a final judgment, probably negative, was made. His name was John Prior, inevitably called Jack; he was white (hence not Black Jack); he had got as high as he would ever get in the Agency but didn’t yet know it. Fiftyish, lean, furrowed, he looked as if he might have a second career in modeling low-end fishing and hunting underwear.
“I understand you didn’t want to come here,” he said.
“Not exactly—”
Prior went right on. “Lots of people think they don’t want to come here. It’s stupid. You go where Uncle needs you, right? Well.” Prior had a very pleasant corner office in the embassy, with an American receptionist sitting outside (also Agency, minimally trained but capable). He had a good house and a fine car, and he lived in clear—that is, no assumed identity. O’Neill would not live in clear, at least some of the time.
“Locals’ll get on to you but not tight, you know? They live and let live, so long’s we share a little and pass some bucks along. That’s my bailiwick, dig? Don’t get into it. Leave it to me. They won’t hassle you much. How good’s your Swahili?”
“Excellent.” O’Neill had done a six-week immersion course.
“Bullshit.” Prior’s Swahili was terrible, therefore everybody’s must be. “Don’t get smart and try to go native or something. Black guys confuse them. Give yourself a year to fit in. Hey?”
“Well, I’ve looked at the files—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He shoved a pile of folders across his desk. “These are Requests for Information from DC. I’ve tagged five of them for my attention. You get six and seven; they’re softballs, so you can learn on them.” He stared at O’Neill. “Don’t recruit anybody until I say so. The word is ‘Go slow.’”
“I would have thought—”
“Don’t think yet. Go slow on that, too. Your predecessor tried to set the world on fire and all that caught was his own pants. I had to get him out of the country before the whole place went up. This is a country where we got things working good for us. I don’t want it screwed up.”
The whole western fringe, O’Neill knew, was in turmoil because of things that were going on in Rwanda and Zaire; there was a neo-Marxist, anti-Mobutu group of Zaireans that had been living in Tanzania for a decade and were supposed to be getting ready to invade their own country; Tanzanian military forces were supposed to be lining up behind them. This was to be ignored?
“Kabila and the Zairean Tutsis—” O’Neill started to say.
“You keep out of that. I’ve got that under control. I want you to focus on the economy. Secondary focus, trans-shipment of drugs from southern Asia.”
“My predecessor had some good contacts in Rwanda.”
“MacPherson inherited some contacts in Rwanda, and he blew them. They’re gone! He was an asshole, I told you. Let it lie.” Prior tried to stare him down, and O’Neill let him. His new boss, after all. “Rwanda is another country,” Prior said, his voice deep with significance.
“‘And besides, the wench is dead,’” O’Neill said. He smiled. Get it? No, you don’t get it. Oh, shit. But he was saved, because Prior didn’t listen to what was said to him by subordinates unless he had asked a direct question.
“Repeat, Rwanda is not in your domain.”
“You don’t want me to even try to contact them?”
“I want you to work with what you got. You got two good clusters of econ-intel contacts that MacPherson didn’t screw up; just stay with them. There’s a couple of business guys that I met socially I’m passing on to you; I want you to bring them along. Thank God, you strike me as the kind of guy might get along here if he behaves himself—you dress well, you talk well, you look okay.”
Okay? There was a compliment for you.
“You play tennis?” Prior said.
“Of course.”
Prior glanced at him. Prior, he guessed, had not grown up in such a way that “of course” he played tennis. “You got a doubles date tomorrow with Amanda and one of the business guys I told you about.” Amanda was the receptionist. “I was supposed to go but I’m going to say I’m suddenly down with a turned ankle and you’re taking my place. If you can beat them, do it; the guy’ll be impressed. He’s in the blue folder.”
“How real is my cover job?” O’Neill said.
Prior snickered. It was a beginner’s question. “Your job is being a case officer. Period.” So much for being the Deputy Attaché for Trade.
O’Neill hugged the folders to his chest and started down the corridor toward his temporary office. Go slow, read the RFIs, and play tennis. It wasn’t quite like being James Bond.
The Pentagon.
Alan Craik walked down the long, long corridor, past a stand of flags and a wall of framed photographs of admirals, past door after door after door. It was early; a hundred, a thousand other men and women were also walking this corridor and all the other corridors exactly like it in the concentric pentagons that gave the building its name. Now and again, through an open door, he could see right through to windows that gave on the vast inner courtyard, and, across it—over the trees, the walks, the tables—other windows, other walls.
He held his attaché case with his orders tight against his right side. His morning coffee burned in his throat. Christ, I’m all tensed up, he thought. Why? This is going to be a piece of cake. Tense because he had already persuaded himself he was going to hate it, he knew. All during that mostly sleepless night, he had told himself not to pre-judge it. Don’t anticipate. Be ready to be pleasantly surprised. Try to love it. If you don’t like your job, there’s something wrong with you, not the job.
He found the right door at last and turned his orders over to a yeoman, and eventually