Divide and conquer - Tom Clancy [12]
Other people began arriving at the table. Chatterjee turned and smiled at Agriculture Secretary Richard Ortiz and his wife. That left Hood staring at the back of the secretary-general's head. He exited the awkward moment by reaching for his napkin, putting it on his lap, and looking the other way.
Hood tried to put himself in Chatterjee's position. The attorney-turned-diplomat had only been on the job for a short while when the terrorists struck. She had joined the United Nations as an avowed peacekeeper, and here were terrorists executing diplomats and threatening to shoot children. Chatterjee's negotiating tactics had failed, and Hood had embarrassed her publicly by infiltrating the Security Council and ending the crisis with quick, violent action.
Chatterjee was further humiliated by the way many member nations loudly applauded Hood's attack.
But Hood and Secretary-General Chatterjee were supposed to be putting that ill will behind them, not nurturing it. She was an avowed advocate of first move detente, in which one party demonstrated trust by being the first to lay down arms or surrender land.
Or maybe she only believes in that when she advocates others to make the first move. Hood thought.
Suddenly, someone appeared behind Hood and spoke his name. He turned and looked up. It was the First Lady.
"Good evening, Paul."
Hood rose.
"Mrs. Lawrence. It's good to see you."
"It's been too long," she said, taking his hand in hers and holding it tight.
"I miss those Los Angeles fund raisers
"We had fun," Hood said.
"We made some history, and hopefully we did some good, too."
"I like to think so," the First Lady said.
"How is Harleigh?"
"She took a very hard hit, and is having a rough time," Hood admitted.
"I can't even imagine," the First Lady said.
"Who's working with her?"
"Right now, it's just Liz Gordon, our staff psych at Op-Center," Hood said.
"Liz is getting a little trust going.
Hopefully, in a week or two, we can bring in some specialists."
Megan Lawrence smiled warmly.
"Paul, maybe there's something we can do to help each other. Are you free for lunch tomorrow?"
"Sure," he said.
"Good. I'll see you at twelve-thirty." The First Lady smiled, turned, and went back to her table.
That was strange. Hood thought.
"Maybe there's something we can do to help each other." What could she possibly need his help for? Whatever it was, it must be important. A First Lady's social calendar was usually well-booked months in advance.
She would have had to move her engagements around to make room for him.
Hood sat back down. The table had been joined by Deputy Secretary of State Hal Jordan and his wife Barri Alien-Jordan as well as two diplomats and their spouses who Hood did not know. Mala Chatterjee did not introduce him, so he introduced himself. The secretary general continued to ignore him, even after the president rose at his table to offer a toast and say a few words about how he hoped this dinner and its show of unity would send a message to terrorists that the civilized nations of the world would never yield to them. As the White House photographer took pictures and a C-SPAN camera unobtrusively recorded the event from the southwest corner of the hall, the president underscored his faith in the United Nations by announcing officially, and to great applause, that the United States was about to retire its nearly two billion dollar debt to the United Nations.
Hood knew that paying off the debt had very little to do with terrorists. The United Nations didn't scare them, and the president knew it, even if Mala Chatterjee didn't.
What the two billion dollars did was get the United States out of the doghouse with poor countries like Nepal and Liberia. With thawed economic relations in the Third World, we could then convince them to take loans with the provision that they buy American goods, services, and military intelligence. That would become a self-perpetuating source of income for American companies, even when other nations started putting money into