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I knew that the only way to make sure this did not get out of control was to get it into Mrs. Assad’s hands first. In democracies and dictatorships alike, solving problems effectively is all about access to power. In all my months in Syria as an “expert” with FIRDOS, I had had little direct contact with Mrs. Assad. However, I had a way of getting a message to her—through the FIRDOS daily mailbag. On the afternoon of May 18, I sent the letter to the palace via FIRDOS. I attached a note to the first lady telling her that I thought I was being paid for my work by FIRDOS, but Rola indicated that I was being paid by MAWRED as well. I added, “I was hoping you could help Rola straighten this out.”

Copies of the letter were also delivered to Rola and Dunya the next morning. At around 9 AM the day after, Rola and Dunya were summoned to Mrs. Assad’s office for an urgent meeting. Leila and I, who had reported the problem and knew all of its most intimate details, were not invited to the meeting or ever questioned concerning the contents of the letter.

To this day, my only account of what happened in the meeting is from Dunya and Rola themselves. Dunya said that after asking a series of questions, Mrs. Assad asked Rola why the money was on her desk in cash. When Rola replied that it was because she thought other members of MAWRED would take it, Mrs. Assad reportedly shook her head in disgust.

Rola had a completely different story. She insisted that she had “played her cards very well”—a none-too-subtle reference to the framing of facts in accordance with reported conflicts between various power bases in the country. I imagine that Rola tried to spin Dunya as working with the old guard to take down MAWRED, thus making the Assads’ efforts to reform Syria appear insincere.

Around the time that Rola and Dunya received their copies of the letter, I received a phone call from the first lady’s secretary, Lina Kinaye. After greeting me and talking a bit, she said, “Oh yes, and by the way, the letters you have sent up through the FIRDOS mailbag? They have been received. Thank you very much for those.”

“My pleasure,” I said. “I’d like to see the first lady sometime soon to talk about this.”

“I’ll put in the request,” she said. Then she hung up.

I sat at my desk and just stared at the wall in disbelief. What an incredibly strange way to work. No one had actually stolen or misappropriated anything, but it was clear that the system lacked even the most basic of financial controls and checks. I realized that the NGOs were experimental, but wouldn’t it just be easier to pass a law governing these institutions? Without laws, the conditions were rife for corruption. But this situation also had an important ancillary benefit for the Assads: they became the only players empowered to investigate malfeasance and arbitrate in disputes between parties. In a rapidly changing society opening up to the outside world, this gave the Assads tremendous power to control society—even more than the political repression that had maintained Bashar’s father’s grip on Syria.

A few days later, Rola asked me to come to her office. The gloomy and stressed Rola of the past few weeks was gone; color had returned to her cheeks and a smile to her face. She looked me straight in the eyes for at least a minute.

“The first lady would like you to go with us to China,” she announced triumphantly.

“What?” I asked, while immediately thinking of the crisis of the previous week. I knew that President Assad was planning a state visit to China soon, but I had no idea when it would occur. Unlike his father, Bashar enjoyed foreign visits and had already traveled to the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Turkey in the first four years of his presidency.

“Do you want to go?” Rola said, smiling wryly. No foreign journalist—let alone an American—had ever been permitted to travel with a Syrian president. If Rola was telling the truth, and I actually made it on the trip, I knew