Spy Dance

by Allan Topol

  “That’s a helluva choice for an outfit for you,” Chambers remarked.

  “Meaning that you don’t think godliness is one of my virtues?”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  She replied, “Maybe that woman in the blue suit thinks you’re going to give a contribution to my convent.” Then she laughed.

  “Look, can we get on with this?” he said testily. “I’m afraid I don’t have much of a sense of humor today. First of all, did you stop that Israeli woman before she got back to Washington with the documents from the Zurich bank?”

  “I’m afraid not,” she said, screwing up her face in anger as she thought about how incompetently Victor had handled Sagit’s visit to Zurich.

  Chambers took a deep breath. “I didn’t think you would.”

  She pretended to be embarrassed. “But everything else is taken care of.”

  “Okay. Tell me.”

  As they sat down across from each other, she said, “One of my private planes is standing by at Geneva Airport waiting to fly you to Bali.”

  Her words blew General Chambers away. Nonplussed, he shook his head in disbelief. “Bali?”

  “Oui, Bali. It’s part of Indonesia, which doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S.,” she explained patiently. “The other two options I considered for you were Lebanon and South Korea. Legally, you would be all right in both of those places as well, but I figured you’d live a lot better in a paradise like Bali. If I’m wrong, I can easily change the destination.”

  The picture of a huge house on a hill overlooking the sea, and a scantily clad dark-skinned young woman to share it with, popped into his mind. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. It was certainly a helluva lot better than Lebanon or South Korea. “No, Bali’s the right choice.”

  “Now, let’s talk about your money.” She pointed to the box. “I assume you have the three million U.S. dollars in there.” He nodded. “Which leaves you twenty-seven million in your account here at Alliance. Correct?”

  “Exactly. And another two payments of fifteen million each I have coming from you.”

  He expected her to object, but instead she said, “Of course. My recommendation is that you divide the twenty-seven million and the other thirty, as it comes in, equally among banks in Andorra, Beirut and Bali.”

  At first he wondered why she had selected these places. Then he decided that U.S. authorities probably couldn’t touch money in their banks. Not wanting to show his ignorance, he went along with her. “That sounds good.”

  “To expedite the process, I brought with me all of the forms you’ll need to set up the numbered accounts and to transfer the money by wire.” She unzipped her briefcase resting on the floor, reached inside, extracted several bank forms and placed them on the table.

  “Very efficient,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “It’s the least I could do. You gave up a lot for me.”

  He sighed, thinking about how close he had been to succeeding. His aching jaw reminded him very well why he had failed. There was one reason and only one. “And it all would have worked if it weren’t for that damn Greg Nielsen.” As he said the name, a wave of intense anger surged through his body.

  She frowned. It was a bloody miracle that the animosity of those two hadn’t destroyed her as well. Somehow she had survived being in a ring with two pit bulls. Well, now the fight’s over, boys. She decided not to share any of those thoughts with the general. She simply said, “Life’s sometimes like that. We have to roll with the punches.”

  He glanced at the documents, and she saw his hesitation. “Take your time and read them,” she said. “Our planes don’t have a schedule.”

  Chambers wasn’t familiar with bank forms, but they all seemed to be what she had represented: withdrawals from Alliance and deposits into three new accounts identified by number at banks in Andorra, Beirut and Bali.

  “Where do I sign?”

  “I’ve placed an X at each place that needs your signature.”

  She watched him carefully as he took a pen out of his pocket, leaned over the documents and began signing. When he was fully engrossed in signing the papers, she reached back into her briefcase. Stealthily, she pulled out a syringe. With a single swift motion, she brought it up and stuck it into his prominently visible jugular vein.

  Caught in the midst of writing he was slow to react. By the time he did, it was too late. The potassium chloride solution had done its work. He fell back into his chair. His entire body convulsed. His eyes bulged. Then his heart stopped beating.

  Coldly, she sat in her chair and watched him die, muttering to herself, “So sorry, General Chambers, you were no longer of any use to me. Only a liability.”

  Methodically, she put the syringe back into her briefcase. She extracted the three million dollars from the vault box and put that in there as well. Then she used his pen to complete his signature on the documents he hadn’t signed, copying his scrawl from the ones already signed. The three new numbered accounts were in her name. She had now recovered the entire thirty million dollars. With the bank forms in her briefcase as well, she exited the room and closed the door behind her.

  The blue-suited attendant looked up from her desk.

  “Monsieur will need at least another hour,” Madame Blanc said. “He asked that no one disturb him.”

  She proceeded to take the elevator up to the main floor. Walking slowly and deliberately to avoid drawing any attention to herself, she left the bank and stepped into a waiting limousine. The windows were one-way glass, and she soon had changed back into her business clothes. When they stopped for a traffic light, she spotted a green trash can on the corner. She handed a shopping bag with the nun’s habit to the driver and asked him to place it in the green can. Meantime, she used an alcohol-based solution to take off her excessive makeup.

  “Take me to the airport,” she said to the driver.

  * * *

  They assembled at ten in the morning around the conference table on one side of the Oval Office.

  David couldn’t believe that he was back in this room. His last visit had been in January 1979, when Jimmy Carter was president and David had been asked to explore for him what the fall of the Shah of Iran would mean to American interests in the Middle East. He had been instructed by the CIA director at the time, Stafford Turner, to moderate his predictions of the dismal developments that would occur in Iran as the Ayatollah would, in his view, “turn the clock back to the tenth century” and “American interests would suffer a powerful and long-term political blow.” David refused to heed the director’s instruction. It was a stormy session, and Jimmy Carter became furious at him for being “such a Cassandra.” Yet time had proven him prophetic.

  He leaned forward in his chair and stared at President Waltham at the other end of the table. The head of the world’s only superpower was looking tense and concerned. The prospect of a major military intervention coupled with the risk of losing Saudi oil was not something that he wanted to deal with so close to the vote on his reelection. Not to mention the disappearance of the man he had selected to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

  Just as the meeting was about to begin, Kathy, his secretary, came in and handed him a small piece of pink paper. He read it quickly and shook his head. “Oh, boy!” he exclaimed. “General Chambers is dead. He was found in a bank vault in Geneva, Switzerland. According to Swiss medical authorities, he died of a massive heart attack. He was DOA at a local hospital.”

  Reactions around the table were mixed. Laurence and Hayes were delighted that they wouldn’t have to deal with the issue of Chambers’ disappearance. Frost was stunned, and his lower lip began quivering. Joyner was thinking to herself: Harry, Christmas just came early for you this year. And David didn’t believe the story of the heart attack at all. He knew exactly what had happened. Chambers was no longer any use to Madame Blanc, and was disposed of. He had to go. But David kept his views to himself.

  The President said, �
��I want some spin control on the Chambers story. I’ll call the Swiss president right now and tell him we want to keep the part about the Swiss bank out of the press. He’ll readily agree to that. It doesn’t do them any good. I’ll tell him we want the body shipped home quietly via military transport. We’ll get him back to Walter Reed at night, and then we’ll release the official version that General Chambers suffered a heart attack when he was home in bed. That’s it. Nothing else. And we don’t release anything to the media until we’re all set up at Walter Reed. Anyone here have any trouble with that?”

  When no one responded, Waltham placed the call to the Swiss president. Returning to the conference table, he said, “General Chambers gets a hero’s funeral and burial at Arlington. I won’t let those sharks from the press have a feeding frenzy like they did with Vince Foster. Now, let’s get down to business. Who wants to tell me what to do about this Saudi mess?”

  Ralph Laurence picked up the ball. He pointed to David and said, “since your credibility has been established, we can now start with the premise that a coup is planned for October 6, which is five days from now. We know that a Colonel Khalid is planning the coup and that it’s financed and organized in part by Madame Blanc, who owns PDF, a large French oil company. Those are the basic facts.”

  “None of us is a moron, Ralph,” the President said irritably “We know all of that. The question is, what do we do in response to this situation?”

  The national security adviser sucked in his breath. He was getting tired of being berated by the President and the press. After the first of the year, he planned to resign and to go back to his foreign policy think tank, where his views were given respect. But in the meantime, he had to deal with this crisis.

  “I recommend we do two things. First, we send my deputy Wesley Scott to Paris in the morning. He’ll present our evidence to the French government that one of their business executives was bribing an American general and plotting a conspiracy to overthrow the king in Saudi Arabia.”

  Margaret interjected, “Oh c’mon, Ralph, the French government’s probably behind Madame Blanc, tacitly at least, right now. Even if they’re not, they’ll pretend to react with outrage while secretly encouraging her to make the effort to oust us from the dominant foreign position in Saudi Arabia.”

  He was sick of her meddling in foreign policy issues, where she had no expertise. In a condescending voice, as if he were patiently lecturing a schoolgirl, he said, “You’re far too cynical, Margaret. But that’s only half my plan. Also tomorrow morning, I’ll fly to Riyadh to talk to the Saudi king, to tell him everything we know about Colonel Khalid’s planned coup, and to ask him how he wants to deal with it.”

  Bill Hayes interjected, “And if he wants American military help, what do we do then?”

  Laurence responded, “I say we give it to him. Whatever he needs to stay in power. At least we know what we have. Who knows what we’ll get if he goes, and with all of that oil at stake, we can’t afford to take a chance.”

  Hayes fired back, “Have you estimated how many casualties we’ll take in a Saudi civil war? Or what the state of preparedness is of our forces to deal with a situation like this on short notice?”

  Before Laurence could reply, the President, clearly troubled by what he was hearing, said to the secretary of State: “Okay, Professor Frost, you’re unusually quiet, what do you think?”

  Visibly confused, Frost was running his hand through what was left of his thinning gray hair. “Right now, I just don’t know.”

  “Okay, you get a pass.” Waltham looked at Greg Nielsen at the far end of the table and said, “Nielsen, you’re supposed to be an expert in this part of the world. What do you think?”

  All eyes turned toward him.

  “I start from a different premise, Mr. President,” he said politely, trying very hard to speak slowly, rather than in his usual rapid-fire pace, which had annoyed Jimmy Carter. “I don’t like the idea of French involvement in Saudi Arabia because it’s our sphere of influence, and I want to keep it that way. But we’ve got to realize that the House of Saud is on its last legs as the rulers of that country. As they say on Broadway, ‘We’ve had a good run.’ We got about all we could out of the House of Saud, but it’s winding down. It’s not a question of whether, but when and how they’ll be thrown out.”

  “Why are you so certain that they’re on the way out?” the President asked.

  “Because their corruption has achieved epidemic levels. Far too many people are unhappy. Regardless of whether the price of oil goes up or down, the vast majority of the Saudis are getting poorer while the royal family and all of its multitude of princes pull more and more golden eggs out of that goose. The plain fact is that enormous resentment against the royal family has emerged in all segments of the society as the economy has soured. At the same time, the religious fundamentalists, who hate the United States, are on the rise and becoming more violent. As Colonel Khalid demonstrates, the rulers have lost the support of much of the military. So the question for us is how to ensure that the next group of rulers who take over is friendly to us and will insure the flow of oil as well as our other economic relationships. It might be nice if Colonel Khalid and his supporters would do something to increase democracy in the country if they gained control, but I’m not so naive to think that will be their top priority.”

  Clearly, taken aback, the President asked: “Are you telling me that I should support this Colonel Khalid against the Saudi king?”

  David took a deep breath. “Colonel Khalid’s not perfect, but he’s the best available. If we make it clear that we’re behind him, I think we can lure him away from the French. So I guess the short answer to your question, Mr. President, is yes, I think you should support Colonel Khalid. I don’t think you want to be presiding over another situation like the fall of the Shah, which left a critical and strategic Middle Eastern country in very unfriendly hands, continuing to this day. Actually, it’s even worse this time because with Saudi oil we’re not just concerned with the value of that oil alone. They’re the linchpin for the entire world oil market. If a fundamentalist regime should gain power in Saudi Arabia and team up with the regime in Iran on oil policy, then our problems will be magnified exponentially.”

  “But if we use our military, we can help the king defeat this Colonel Khalid and shore up his regime? Right?”

  “There’s a catch-22 here.” David started to move his arms and pick up speed in his voice, but caught himself as he continued. “You could help the king defeat Colonel Khalid, but if the king’s perceived by the Saudi people as needing American military support to remain in power, the opposition will coalesce. There will be constant hit-and-run attacks on American troops, with resulting deaths. It’ll be Vietnam all over on a smaller scale.”

  The President got up and paced around the room, evaluating what he had just heard. “The way you present it, Nielsen, I don’t have much choice. Do I?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. It’s not a good situation. It’s not your fault. Rather, it’s a mess you inherited. This country’s leaders have been in denial about what’s been happening in Saudi Arabia and to the House of Saud, as we were in Iran and to the Shah. Even when we weren’t in denial, we’ve been too afraid of saying anything that would upset the Saudi king, as if he would take his oil and go home. Years ago we could have helped ourselves by persuading the House of Saud to change its approach to ruling the country. But it’s too late for that now.”

  The President looked at Joyner. “What do you think, Margaret?”

  She was nodding with approval, impressed with David’s analysis. “I think that Nielsen here presents a good case. The fact that my station chief was just pulled out of a prince’s swimming pool with rocks tied to his ankles, and that the protests our ambassador made are being ignored, demonstrates that the rule of law isn’t exactly prevalent in that country. The last thing we want is another Iran. It’s been a nightmare for us in so many ways. Besides, the fundamentalists could c
ombine forces in those two countries on oil policy and cripple our economy.”

  No one else spoke. As a heavy silence descended on the Oval Office, everyone was looking at the man at the end of the table, who had been elected by the American people to make decisions like this.

  “Okay, here’s where I am,” the President finally said “The tax cut bill is my number one priority right now. The House has already passed the bill. The Senate will vote and hopefully pass it in two days. Then they’ll recess for the election. If I make any move on this Saudi thing, regardless of whether I follow Ralph’s recommendation or that of Nielsen and Margaret, I’ll have to brief key congressional leaders. The press will be certain to pick it up, and we’ll have a circus in town. Opponents of the tax cut bill will use that distraction to put off the Senate vote, which will effectively kill the legislation. I don’t want that to happen. So for the next two days we’ll go into a holding pattern about this Saudi business. That still gives me enough time to go either way before the 6th. In the meantime, Margaret you and Ralph each give me something in writing presenting your respective positions. No more than two pages. Don’t keep any copies. I don’t want this leaking out. I’ll shred the documents after I read them. Then I’ll let you know what I decide. Anybody disagree with that approach?”

  David thought for an instant about resuming the argument for immediate support for Khalid, but decided to bite his tongue. Nothing had changed in Washington, he thought sadly. It was politics first, second and third.

  * * *

  Sagit was waiting for David in the living room of a suite in the Hay-Adams Hotel just across Lafayette Park from the White House. They had checked in early that morning. She took one look at his face, and said, “I gather that you didn’t get a commitment for supporting Khalid.”