Tom Clancy's op-center_ acts of war - Tom Clancy [116]
"This is the same President who once kept our Secretary of State waiting for two days before granting him an audience," Dr. Nasr interrupted.
"And kept the French President sitting in an ante-chamber for four hours," Bicking added. "The President still doesn't get it."
"Get what?" Hood asked.
"The lessons of his ancestors," said Bicking. "Through most of the nineteenth century, they used to invite enemies to their tents and seduce them with kindness. Pillows and perfume won more wars out here than swords and bloodshed."
"Yet those victories still left the Arabs in disunity," Dr. Nasr said. "The President does not seek to seduce us with kindness. He abuses foreigners in an effort to seduce his Arab brothers."
"Actually," said Haveles, "I think you're both missing the point. If I may finish, the President has also invited the Russian and Japanese ambassadors to this meeting. I suspect that we will be with him until the crisis has passed."
"Of course," Hood nodded. "If anything happens to him, it'll happen to you and the others."
"Assuming the President even shows up," Bicking pointed out. "He may not even be in Damascus."
"That's possible," Haveles admitted.
"If an attack occurs," said Dr. Nasr, "even with the President away from the palace, Washington, Moscow, and Tokyo will find it impossible to support whoever staged the attack, whether it's the Kurds or Turks."
"Exactly," said Haveles.
"They could even be Syrian soldiers masquerading as Kurds," said Bicking. "They conveniently kill everyone except the President. He survives and becomes a hero to millions of Arabs who dislike the Kurds."
"That's also possible," Haveles said. He looked at Hood. "Which is why, Paul, any intelligence you can come up with will be helpful."
"I'll get in touch with Op-Center right away," Hood said. "In the meantime, what about my meeting with the President?"
Haveles looked at Hood. "It's all been arranged, Paul."
Hood didn't like the smooth way the ambassador had said that. "When?" he asked.
Haveles grinned for the first time. "You've been invited to join me at the palace."
* * *
THIRTY-SEVEN
Tuesday, 1:33 p.m.,
the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon
Phil Katzen crouched on the mesh floor of the dark pit. He had quickly grown accustomed to the stale smell in his little prison. To the stench of the sweat and waste of those who had been incarcerated before him. Any lingering discomfort he felt passed when Rodgers's torture began. Then it was the smell of burning flesh which filled his nostrils and lungs.
Katzen had wept when Rodgers finally screamed, and he was weeping still. Beside him, Lowell Coffey sat with his chin against his knees and his arms around his legs. Coffey was staring through Katzen.
"Where are you, Lowell?" Katzen asked.
Coffey looked up. "Back in law school," he said. "Arguing in moot court on behalf of a laid-off factory worker who had taken his boss hostage. I do believe I'd try that one differently now."
Katzen nodded. School didn't prepare a person for much. In graduate school, he had taken specialized courses as part of his training for extended visits to other countries. One of these was a semester-long series of lectures by visiting professor Dr. Bryan Lindsay Murray of the Rehabilitation and Research Center for Victims of War in Copenhagen. At that time, just over a decade before, nearly half a million victims of torture alone were living in the United States. They were refugees from Laos and South Africa, from the Philippines and Chile. Many of those victims spoke to the students. These people had had the soles of their feet beaten mercilessly and had lost their sense of balance. They had had eardrums punctured and teeth pulled, tacks thrust under fingernails and toenails and cattle prods pushed down their throats. One woman had been enclosed in the bell, a glass dome which remained over her until her sweat had reached her knees. The course was supposed to help students understand torture and help them