The Disciple

CHAPTER NINE

The destruction of the Tabriz bomb factory by American commandos was even more of a media nonevent than the destruction of the Syrian nuclear reactor the previous May. Not a single drop of ink on newsprint anywhere on the planet recorded the event, nor a single syllable on broadcast media. The fact that the factory had exploded did make the Internet, but in answer to inquiries, the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the factory in question had been manufacturing fertilizer and had had a minor fire in the middle of the night. The American government was asked no questions, so didn’t need to lie.

The irony of his position had President Ahmadinejad in high dudgeon at the cabinet meeting the morning after the raid. Since Iran had repeatedly and publicly denied manufacturing roadside bombs and supplying them to Iraqi and Afghan holy warriors to murder and maim their domestic enemies and American troops, Ahmadinejad found it impossible to complain about a commando raid, an act of war, which resulted in the destruction of an officially nonexistent factory.

He did, however, find it very satisfying to tongue-lash the minister of defense, Habib Sultani. “The glorious armed forces of the Islamic Republic have been humiliated,” the president shouted, his voice filling the cabinet room. “American commandos sneaked across the border undetected and unmolested, sabotaged a vital munitions supplier, destroyed it so thoroughly that nothing was left this morning but a smoking hole, and made a clean escape. The air force radars failed to detect the helicopters on ingress or egress, no fighters scrambled, not a single shot was fired at the godless villains.”

Habib Sultani almost said, “Makes you wonder whose side God is on,” but he didn’t. That remark would have driven Ahmadinejad right over the edge. What he did say was, “You may have my resignation, if you wish.”

Ahmadinejad was tempted-Sultani could see it in his face. Yet Sultani’s departure would not make the armed forces more capable or efficient, nor would it stimulate the Americans to behave themselves. As Ahmadinejad saw it, Iran had to cooperate with the holy warriors if it hoped to have any influence with them, and influence with them was more important than the good graces of the Americans and Europeans, who were, after all, on the other side of the world. “The holy warriors are right here, or just down the road,” he had once remarked. The hard fact that in this small world the Americans and Euro pe ans were also “just down the road” was something the president chose to ignore.

The mottled red in Ahmadinejad’s face faded by degrees. While this transformation was occurring, not a word was spoken in the cabinet room. Most of those present looked at their hands or focused their eyes on the wall-or infinity, which was visible from here. Several shuffled through the papers they had brought with them.

When the president was again in control of himself, he went to the next item on the agenda, which was the economy. Foreign goods were scarce, and inflation was rampant. Critics said that the lack of foreign goods in the shops and stores was due in large part to the international sanctions foreign governments had placed on Iranian banks and international trade due to Ahmadinejad’s nuclear ambitions, and the inflation was due to the government’s easy credit policies, low interest rates and subsidized gasoline prices. The president saw it differently. Today he began outlining new government initiatives to address these problems.

When the meeting was over, Ahmadinejad signaled to Sultani to remain as the other ministers filed out. When they were alone, he asked, “Why were the Americans not detected?”

“Three helicopters-one witness said two, one said four-flew very low to and from Tabriz. They probably flew too low for the radars to detect, and it is possible they used the Americans’ secret technology, this ALQ-199, to hide the machines.”

“The Bushehr reactor-it is surrounded by troops,” Ahmadinejad mused.

“Troops, and layers of radar defenses directing antiaircraft artillery and missiles. Still, with the ALQ-199, the Israelis penetrated a similar protective cocoon to bomb the Syrian reactor.”

“We don’t protect the processing facility,” Ahmadinejad said. The processing facility was the place where enriched uranium was refined into weapons-grade plutonium.

Sultani cocked his head. “The decision was made several years ago to disguise that facility, to keep it hidden. If the enemy doesn’t know where to find it, it will be safe.”

“If they don’t know.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What if they do know?”

“Then they could attack it with commandos or with an air raid.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tapped his fingernails on the table as he mulled the problem. “The Americans could bomb the reactor today with a B-1 stealth bomber, and we wouldn’t see the aircraft on radar, isn’t that correct?”

“It is,” Sultani acknowledged.

“So the only airplanes the technology protects are conventional airplanes, such as those flown by the Israelis, who don’t have stealth bombers.”

Sultani nodded.

“To preserve the peace, the Americans would send the Israelis to do their dirty work.” The expression on Ahmadinejad’s face was not benign. “We must learn the Americans’ secret.”

Sultani nodded again. “Our best hope is the Russians. They have an extensive intelligence network in America. They will buy or steal the secrets and pass them to us.”

“The Russians,” Ahmadinejad said with a sneer. “They are as bad as the Americans. Infidels, criminals, assassins, cheats… They have wanted access to a warm ocean for four centuries and would do anything necessary to get it. They would topple this government and enslave the Iranian people if they could. Don’t ever forget that.”

He rapped once on the table, then continued. “We need to know how to see American and Israeli planes so that we can defend ourselves. Iran must protect itself from its enemies. The events last night proved that beyond any doubt.”

The president of Iran took a deep breath and exhaled. “Get that technology any way you can.”

They discussed other matters for a few moments. When they finished, as the president gathered up his papers, Sultani asked, “Have you ever wondered if we are on the winning side?”

“We are on God’s side,” Ahmadinejad declared. “The Devil has arrayed his forces against us, but the way to Paradise is always there, always open for us. All we need is the courage to fight God’s battles.”

As he rode back to the Defense Ministry, Habib Sultani reflected on Ahmadinejad’s last comment. The president was not a man given to speaking in metaphors. The way to Paradise? What way was he referring to?

Despite the heat, Sultani felt a sudden chill.

Herman Strader stood in front of the huge covered bazaar in central Tehran and looked around without enthusiasm. Beside him his wife, Suzanne, was haggling with a bearded man with a huge nose over the purchase of a leather handbag.

Herman, a building contractor back home in Bridgeport, Connecticut, had been eyeing the buildings around town ever since he and his wife arrived with the tour group three days ago. Half the town looked as if it had been ruthlessly demolished during the last thirty years and rebuilt by graduates of the Joseph Stalin School of Architecture. Wretched blocks of apartments, hideous office buildings… it wasn’t a pretty picture. Unfortunately, the old half of the city, still standing, wasn’t much better.

Oh well, Herman reflected as he reached for a cigar, then remembered where he was, Suzanne was having fun. Of all the places on the planet they could have gone on vacation, she had opted for a church group tour of this third-world bunghole. Herman eyed the lady now. Having a wife who got religion late in life was not easy, and Herman felt a little sorry for himself. Hell, they could be vacationing on the French Riviera, or touring Greece, or eating their way down the boot of Italy, but the churchies voted for mysterious, romantic Persia.

Herman Strader sighed and pulled a map of the city from his hip pocket. He and Suzanne had slipped away from the rest of the thumpers for a few hours of walking, and now he was ready to make a beeline back to the hotel.

Suzanne was in the final stages of negotiations for that purse as Herman unfolded the map, then turned it around because he thought he had it upside down. He decided he had it right the first time. He turned it around again and began studying the squiggles and lines.

In the afternoons when he finished his work at the mapmakers, Mustafa Abtahi liked to walk the streets of Tehran. After his hours at the drawing board, he thought the geometry of the streets had a certain beauty. His employer had a map of New York City, and when he had a few minutes, he liked to study it, comparing it to the hodgepodge of streets that formed this ancient city. New York was much newer, of course-thousands of years newer. It would be so wonderful to actually see it, to walk the streets, to hear all the languages spoken around him, to see the beautiful women and tall buildings and smell the smells…

Dreaming these thoughts, he almost bumped into a couple standing on a street corner. As he started to apologize, he saw that they were studying a map. A map of Tehran. One of his maps.

Now he took them in. Western dress, a couple in their fifties, perhaps, a man with a plain, strong face and a striking woman. Not beautiful, but with a strong, clear face, a face to match the man’s. They were a nice couple. Now they smiled at him and said something in a strange language.

He started to speak, tried to understand.

The realization struck him with the impact of a fist. They were speaking English! This was an opportunity to try out his English, which he had acquired three years ago during a monthlong visit by his brother who lived in New Jersey.

“I am Mustafa Abtahi,” he said, the first two words in English.

He said it so fast his listeners looked blank. He said it again, slowly, and when he saw no comprehension moved right along. “Where you from?”

Now they understood. The light in their faces was wondrous to behold. “America,” they said in unison. Then they smiled.

“I will be an American,” declared Mustafa Abtahi with joy in his heart. “When my visa comes. I take the plane. Fly.” Their faces looked puzzled. “Fly,” Abtahi shouted and stuck his arms out and pretended to be an airplane.

Herman Strader looked at the medium-sized, swarthy, bearded man with an unruly head of black hair spouting barely recognizable English and waving his arms and wondered if this was one of those fundamentalist throat-slitters he had been warned about back in Bridgeport.

Iran, birthplace of taxi drivers! Of all the places on God’s green earth-

Suzanne chattered with the man-she could actually understand his gibberish-and huddled with him over the map.

They finished with the map, and Suzanne listened intently to the maniac. “His name is Mustafa Abtahi,” she reported. More gibberish. “He is awaiting his visa to America.” Blah, blah, blah. “He has a brother in New Jersey. Hoboken.”

She jabbered a while with Mustafa, then finally turned to her husband. “I need a pen and some paper.”

“What on earth for?” Herman Strader asked his wife.

“I am getting his address. I want to send him some English-language instructional tapes.”

Herman knew better than to argue. He gave his wife one of his business cards and a pen. She started to write on one, then realized she had two. She gave one to the Iranian as her husband watched in horror.

God Almighty-they were going to have terrorist cells turning up at their door asking for donations!

Suzanne talked all the time she worked on getting the Iranian’s address. She gave him a warm smile and returned Herman’s pen.

After handshakes all around, Herman grabbed his wife’s arm and escaped the presence of Mustafa Abtahi.

“Are you nuts?” he demanded when they were safely away and marching along the sidewalk. “That guy might be bin Laden’s brother-in-law.”

“My mother’s father came to America from Slovakia when he was twenty-three years old,” Suzanne said, “without a dollar in his pockets, speaking not a word of English, with nothing but the clothes on his back. I don’t want to hear any more bull from you.”

Herman Strader pulled out his cigar, paused to light the damn thing and blow smoke around, then took his wife’s arm and marched on. “Yes, dear,” he said contritely.

The thing about women, he reflected, is that sometimes they are right.

“What do you think of this purse?” Suzanne asked. “Was ten dollars too much?”

“Look on the bottom,” Herman advised. “It was probably made in China.”

His aunt told Ghasem that his grandfather was in the garden. “He had a bad night,” she said.

Ghasem went through the house and into the garden. Dr. Israr Murad was seated in a wooden chair, watching the birds. They had brought him out in a wheelchair, which was sitting empty a few feet away. Apparently he had asked to be moved to the wooden chair. He didn’t look up at Ghasem’s approach. He only looked when Ghasem squatted so that his face was on a plane with his grandfather and said, “Good morning, sir.”

Now the old man saw him, and his face brightened. “Ah, Ghasem, my wise one.” His voice was a whisper, barely audible. Ghasem sat on the ground. The birds fluttered around, then again went after the seeds, ignoring him.

“Your birds are very tame.”

“I suppose so.”

They sat silently watching the birds as the minutes passed. Ghasem had been too busy to start on the manuscript, and he didn’t want to say that, although he had decided to tell the truth if the old man asked. He didn’t. Ghasem wondered if he had forgotten the manuscript.

Finally Ghasem broke the silence with a question. “Is there an afterlife, a Paradise?”

Dr. Murad seemed to consider the question. He tried once to straighten up, then quit trying. Finally he said softly, “I hope so.”

Ghasem couldn’t resist. “I see you are avoiding the question.”

This comment caused the old man to smile. “Since man realized that he was mortal, he has wished for an afterlife. Dreamed of it. Prayed for it. The prophets all promised it. If they didn’t, no one listened to them and they are forgotten by history.”

“And you, what do you believe?”

He took a deep breath and exhaled. “I do not know. A lifetime of study and contemplation, and I realize I know nothing. Or, at any rate, very little. I want there to be an afterlife. I want to see your grandmother again. I want to see my parents, my brother who died so long ago… I can see their faces sometimes, but I get them mixed up, get the wrong person with the wrong face. Sometimes I am thinking about my wife and the face is my mother’s, and when I see my brother I think he is my father. My head is all mixed up.” He rubbed his forehead with two fingers, closed his eyes for a moment.

When he opened them, he put his hand back in his lap and said, “Life is a miracle. That is the only true thing I know. Everything springs from that one hard fact. When you take a religion that has lasted, one that has appealed to people for many generations, and boil it down, render it to a nubbin, all you get is two things. You should love God.”

Dr. Murad paused. “Love God, but how? Ahh…”

He rubbed his forehead again, shifted his weight in his chair.

“And the second thing?” Ghasem asked when he began to fear the old man had lost his train of thought.

“Be kind, compassionate, merciful to your fellow man. There are all manner of ways of saying it, but they all amount to the same thing. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Judge not, that you be not judged. Treat everyone as if he were a true believer.” He sighed and fell silent.

Finally he said, “Everything else is just details.”

He dribbled out some birdseed from the small sack in his lap. After a while his eyes closed, and he slept.

Ghasem crept away.

When the U.S. national security adviser, Jurgen Schulz, arrived at the Mehrabad airport, I was there to meet him. Normally the senior person at the American Interests Section would have been there to meet him, or if he or she was in the hospital dying or recently dead, the number two would go.

Amazingly, the message that arrived yesterday instructed the senior State person, our chargé d’affaires, Eliza Marie Ortiz, to send me, the lowly Carmellini, to carry the great man’s luggage.

Ortiz showed me the message. “You,” she said.

Accustomed as I am to cheerfully obeying orders without question or bitching, I passed up the morning jog that day, put on clean underwear and a clean shirt and drove the State Department’s heap out to the airport. I flashed my diplomatic passport at a heavy-lidded, overweight guard with big lips and a scraggly beard, parked in the diplomat section of the parking lot and wandered into the terminal as jet engines whined and roared and growled their usual insane symphony.

The plane was late. Some Iranian government types, with armed guards circling, waited near the gate. Finally the plane arrived, and people started filing off, first class first, of course. There was a little confusion when they decided some roly-poly guy was the NSA, but I recognized Schulz right off. I gave him the Hi sign, and he nodded at me. Through the interpreter, I was directed to rescue his luggage and take it through the diplomatic line at customs/immigration. With his check slips in hand, I wandered off to baggage claim while the diplomats shook hands. I kept my eye on them, and they marched out and climbed into a stretch limo. Looked like a Chrysler 300.

When I had Schulz’s two bags, I put them in the car and drove off, carefully-because Iran’s drivers are maniacs-and headed for the hotel.

Up in his room, with his bags on the bed, I started looking for bugs. The electronic kind. Found three. Didn’t move them. I was standing at the window with my hands in my pockets when Schulz came in.

“Tommy Carmellini,” I said and shook hands.

I handed him a note that told him the room was bugged. He read the note, nodded and pocketed it.

I asked him about his flight; we chatted amiably, and he said to pick him up in the morning at ten. He had an appointment with Ahmadinejad, he said, and wanted me to come along and take notes.

“Sure.”

I left him there to fight jet lag all by himself.

The next morning when I knocked on his door, he was ready to go. “Where can we talk?” he asked as we walked down the hallway.

“We think the annex is safe, but there’s always a chance. The best place would be a park, on the way to your appointment.”

So that is what we did. I pulled over; we got out and walked away from the traffic.

“I had a little talk with your boss before I left,” he said. “He wanted you to see this building, to go to the interview with Ahmadinejad.”

“I figured.”

“Do you need me to do anything?” he asked.

“Ignore me, let me tag along and pretend to be your aide. That’ll do.”

He made a face, then nodded curtly and headed back for the car with me following him. We went to the embassy annex, I parked and we headed upstairs. I dropped him at Ortiz’s office and hung around in the hallway. Sure enough, in thirty minutes Schulz came out with Ortiz.

She looked me over. I had only met her a couple of times, and of course she knew I was CIA, although that was never discussed. We were in the belly of the beast, so to speak. She was in her midforties, trim and prematurely gray. I knew she had come up through the State Department ranks and was here in Tehran because she was a hot rising star. At that moment I would have given even money that she wished she weren’t.

With a sigh, she led off. We had a limo waiting, and I got to ride facing forward and listen to Ortiz tell Schulz about Ahmadinejad. She actually thought there was a serious underground opposition to the mullahs, who had picked Ahmadinejad and rigged two elections to get him in.

“But does he need the mullahs now?” Schulz asked.

“More than ever,” she said. “Political opposition to the regime is crystallizing. The main opponents call themselves the National Council of Resistance. They have organized open demonstrations here in the capital. A thousand women marched some months ago and were attacked by MOIS agents. Still, a thousand women, parading for equal rights, in Iran… And this ferment is not just in the capital-it’s in the provinces, too. Perhaps more so there than here.”

The ministry was a huge, colorless mausoleum obviously copied from some Moscow masterpiece. Officials met us at the front door and escorted us inside. The chargé was recognized, and the three of us were led through long hallways and rode upstairs in an elevator made in France. Uniformed armed guards, IRGC, were stationed all over, standing in front of doorways and at intersections of hallways. I didn’t see any security cameras or IR sensors, no laser alarms, none of that.

There was a little crowd waiting in Ahmadinejad’s office. Schulz and I were the only two clean-shaven men there. Ahmadinejad was wearing a sports coat without a tie. Iranians, I knew, didn’t do ties these days. Too Western.

He was a little shorter than I thought he would be, but full of machismo and obviously the leader of the pack. Some of the mullahs had turbans wrapped around their heads, but several didn’t. Universally, they ignored our chargé, since there was a man present who outranked her in the enemy government. I wondered how she got anyone in this town to pay any attention to her. To put up with this bullshit on a regular basis-well, I thought she was a tough, classy lady.

As Schulz talked, through an interpreter, I surveyed the mullahs, putting faces to names. Then I saw three guys standing in the back that I recognized from their photographs. They were certainly not mullahs. One was Brigadier General Dr. Seyyed Ali Hosseini-Tash, the head of the weapons of mass destruction program. Another was Major Larijani, chief enforcer for the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Beside him was his boss.

In the back of the room was a woman in a chador, with a black headscarf. I glanced at her several times to make sure. Yep, it was Hazra al-Rashid, the spymaster. I had never seen her in the flesh, but I had seen a couple of poor photos. She always wore a chador. All the mullahs and generals seemed to be ignoring her. It was as if she weren’t even there.

As the introductions ended, I whipped out a pad and pencil and began making notes in my bastard, law-student shorthand, notes that only I could read.

Schulz started with a little speech about the United States’ concern that Iran was manufacturing nuclear warheads. He paused every few sentences for the translator to convert his English into Farsi, which allowed me to stay with him. I glanced at Ahmadinejad a time or two, just to see how he was taking all this.

His face was impassive. I couldn’t read it.

Ahmadinejad didn’t bother repeating his government’s public assertion that they weren’t making weapons, merely developing nuclear power.

When Schulz had said everything he wanted to say, he removed an envelope from a breast pocket. “The president of the United States sent me here to personally deliver this letter to you, President Ahmadinejad,” he said and handed it to the man.

Ahmadinejad took the envelope and tapped it several times on one hand as he thought. “I will read it, and my government will consider the contents,” he said, glancing at the mullahs and generals.

That was pretty much it. After a little milling around, we left, with Schulz following Ortiz.

As we rode away in the limo, I took a last good look at the ministry. Yep, it could be done. If necessary, I could get in there and root through the safe behind Ahmadinejad’s desk-and, if I had enough time, the locked cabinets in the outer offices.

I would need a diversion to occupy the guards, who I knew would be there twenty-four hours a day. As we rode through the streets in the back of the limo and Schulz and Ortiz chattered, I began thinking about what kind of diversion was possible, and about the equipment I would need.

The next day the Iranians invited us back to the president’s office. Thanks to Jake Grafton, I got to go along. I was still noodling about how to create a diversion if I needed one.

Of course I was preoccupied as Jurgen Schulz, Eliza Ortiz and I rode through the streets to the ministry. Schulz and Ortiz conferred in low tones; I paid no attention. I was looking at the streets, the power poles, the wires, a helicopter motoring across the city, thinking about how a clandestine entry could be physically accomplished, how I could stay in there for four or five hours and escape afterward with my hide intact.

The hallways were literally full of soldiers, all armed, who stood shoulder to shoulder along each side of the passageway. Each and every one of them looked us over as we went by. Most of their attention was devoted to Ms. Ortiz, who walked with her head erect and pretended not to notice them. The whole experience was something akin to visual rape.

The president’s office was packed with men. The only woman was Hazra al-Rashid, a black ghost tucked into a corner. She reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West, but as I recall, the witch was better dressed. There were a lot of beards and fashionably grizzled faces; it looked like an actors’ tryout for the part of Rutherford B. Hayes in an upcoming movie. Lots of turbans, too.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was standing in front of his desk, and he wasn’t standing still. He moved nervously from foot to foot; his face was sweaty, his movements jerky. Even his hands were in constant motion as we filed in. The guy looked like he’d had a handful of uppers for breakfast.

Ol’ Mahmoud skipped the social pleasantries and got right down to it. He waved the letter and said loudly, “This is an ultimatum, a threat. If I had known that the Great Satan-the embodiment of evil and cruelty against mankind-was going to threaten me in my own office, I would have refused to see you.”

The translator did this in English for us as Ahmadinejad wiped a hand across his face and shifted his weight from foot to foot.

“Our nuclear program is designed for peaceful purposes, yet the Islamic Republic of Iran is surrounded by enemies. Never in history has a nation had a more righteous reason to gird itself for an onslaught by the forces of Satan.”

He was spouting Farsi, and I was getting most of this, and the translator rendered a faithful translation in English, which allowed me to get the gist in shorthand. Sometimes translators try to tone down more strident politicians. This one knew better. We were going to have to take it neat.

Ahmadinejad took off next on the Jews, on Zionism, on the malignancy of Israel and its supporters around the globe. The stuff was downright vituperative, and he ended with this: “The Zionists control the banks in Europe, the parliaments, the allocation of capital-and they control the American government, which treats us with contempt.” He waved the letter at his audience and at Schulz. So far he had ignored Ortiz, but that changed almost immediately.

“Your president treats us with contempt, as if we were foolish children. We are not children. We know an insult when it is thrown in our faces. You insult us when you send a woman as your representative, a woman who refuses to wear a chador, a woman who parades in Western dress that is an insult to every Muslim.”

A murmur went through his audience. I didn’t bother glancing at them. I scribbled on.

“You insult us with your threats. Now I say to you, tell your president that his threats didn’t work. If we are attacked by the Zionists, we will destroy them. We will bury Israel. We will defend ourselves before Allah and man against the attacks of Satan, and no power on earth can prevent it.”

There was more, but I’ll spare you. Still, I was a little surprised when he got to his peroration. “America is a living fossil, a godless imperialist that interferes with our commerce and prevents us from selling our goods internationally. America’s day is done. Over. Finished. America will soon be groveling in the dirt and begging for mercy from the true believers, who will show no mercy.”

A rumble of approval came from those behind us and to either side who were listening to this rant, and it grew in volume and intensity as he continued. “Death to the spies and provocateurs and saboteurs. Death to all those who sneak across our borders in the dark of night and murder Iranians. Death to all those who oppose the will of Allah. Death to their friends, death to all infidels. Death to America!”

As the audience cheered, Ahmadinejad threw the president’s letter on the floor and stepped on it.

“Be gone,” he said over the noise to Schulz, “and take this shameless woman with you.” He made a shooing motion with his hand.

We went.

We were in the car, creeping through traffic, when Eliza Ortiz swabbed her forehead with a hankie. “When you get back to Washington,” she said to Schulz, “talk to the people at State. I want another assignment, and sooner rather than later.”

“I talked to them before I left,” Schulz shot back. “The reason you are here is because you are the best they have.”

So I wasn’t the only person that heard that lie. I kept that comment to myself, though.

Schulz had more to say. “We can’t let the prejudices of third-world dictators decide the careers of our diplomats. Can’t and won’t.”

“Ahmadinejad is just… impossible,” Ortiz said. “All of them are. They are chauvinists, xenophobes, homophobes… ignorant, self-righteous, ranting prigs, and…” She ran out of words there.

“Assholes,” I put in.

Startled, Ortiz and Schulz looked at me as if I had just cut a stinky wet one.

I smiled broadly.

“Yes,” Ortiz said, nodding her concurrence. “That is the perfect word to describe them.” She turned back to Schulz. “I have had enough. The whole crowd is going straight to hell, and, personally, I think that is precisely where they ought to be. I want another assignment.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Schulz assured her.

“I’d like another assignment, too,” I said brightly. “Assistant visa officer at our embassy in Paris would be just perfect. I’ve been here for six weeks saying no, and I’m getting pretty good at it. As it happens, I know a couple of women in France, and-”

I shut up because Schulz and Ortiz were both staring at me as if I had three eyes. It’s such a bother when the help don’t know their place.