The Diplomatic Coup

by Alan Elsner

  It was already ten and Delphine was tired. She thought about ordering room service. No way was she going down to the bar to hang out with Todd and the boys. They wouldn’t be there much longer anyway; they’d be too busy chasing her scoop. Maybe she should skip eating and just go to bed. While she was thinking about it, Delphine turned the TV on in time to catch Stewart Wentworth’s smiling face filling the screen. Thinking he might be reporting a new development in the arms shipment story, she turned up the volume, catching the anchor in mid-sentence. “….horrific accident on the Washington Beltway yesterday evening. Stewart was on his way to Andrews Air Force Base where he was about to embark on another diplomatic mission with the Secretary of State, as he had so often in the past.”

  The camera switched to images of the accident scene—the truck still blocking two lanes, the small car lying crushed by the side of the road. Delphine realized this was the same wreck she’d passed on the way to the airport.

  “His car was struck by a tractor trailer and pushed off the road. The driver told police his brakes failed. Stewart will be sorely missed by his family, his children, his colleagues and all of us at CNN. He was one of the best.”

  So that’s why Jason called—but she’d been too caught up in her work to listen. Tears filled her eyes. No wonder Todd thought she was cold. The camera zoomed in, capturing the Frostburg Food logo on the side of the truck. Suddenly Delphine was a little girl again, being told about her parents. For years, she’d suffered from night terrors, imagining their crushed bodies. They’d died instantly, without pain, everyone assured her, while Delphine lived on, trying to fill the hole left by their absence. She thought about Stewart’s car, crumpled like a discarded sardine can, and his kids who would spend their childhood years waiting for him to come home, and the rest of their lives pondering the words, “without pain.”

  Secretary Dayton – “call me Julia”—must have known about this while she’d been briefing Delphine only an hour before. Apparently, she hadn’t thought it worth mentioning. She’d been too busy flashing her three-diamond ring and sharing intimacies about her lonely existence. Now Delphine understood Bridget’s tears. Dayton had sent her away to draft a sympathy statement. Delphine recalled her instructions: “Deep sadness, condolences … all the usual stuff.” Once it was printed, someone would push it under her door. Delphine had even asked whether Stewart’s arms shipment story represented a problem. “It’s definitely something that needed to be handled,” Dayton had said. Did that mean as she knew the problem had already been ‘handled?’

  Eventually, Delphine dried her eyes and straightened her clothes. She’d go down to the bar after all to be with her colleagues, those that remained. She owed it to Stewart and to Erik and Don – even in a way to poor, hapless Tom Allstott.

  “I’m sorry I shouted,” Delphine told Todd, sliding into a booth beside him. “I didn’t know what you were talking about; I hadn’t heard. You must believe me. I was working on a story. I only saw the news on TV just now.”

  “Whatever,” he slurred. “You’re here now. Vodka?”

  “Sure.” He poured a shot from a bottle that was almost empty, one of three sitting on the table, and called for a waiter to bring another.

  Across the table, Robin Browne looked stricken, her eyes red, her hair disordered. Bridget was next to her, gazing blankly into space. A few lonely businessmen sat by the bar hunched over drinks like figures from a painting by Edward Hopper. A hockey game played soundlessly on multiple TV screens around the room.

  “Well, here’s to them?” Todd said.

  Everyone lifted their glasses.

  “Them?”

  “Stewart and Andrew.”

  “Andrew?” Delphine repeated.

  “I’m especially going to miss him,” Todd said, downing his shot in one gulp. “God, I feel like we’re cursed. First Don, now this.”

  “You’re saying Andrew is dead too?”

  “I thought you saw it on TV.”

  “They said Stewart. Nobody mentioned Andrew.”

  “They were in the car together. Stewart was killed on the spot. Andrew was still alive when they got him to the hospital. He died a couple of hours later.”

  “Why were they together?” Delphine asked stupidly, as if it mattered.

  “Stewart always gave Andrew a ride to the airport. They live around the corner from each other. Their kids are friends.”

  She was numb. Tears wouldn’t come. Andrew had truly been one of the good guys. Delphine remembered him peering through his thick lenses, trying to fix Ira’s computer in Cairo. When Lisa was arrested, Andrew was the one who urged the other reporters to keep the information private to save her from public disgrace. And Andrew had pleaded with Ira to stop writing his Mark Lazarus columns. He really cared.

  Come to think of it, where was Ira? Why wasn’t he there?

  “Did you call Milstein?” Delphine asked Todd.

  “There was no answer in his room.”

  Immediately, Delphine heard the opening bars of Mission Impossible and knew with certainty yet another tragedy had happened.

  “We’ve got to get up there,” she said, jumping to her feet.

  “What? What are you talking about?” By the looks of him Todd had put away half a bottle of vodka; his eyes were cloudy and unfocused, his arms flapped like insect antennae.

  “Stop drooling, hurry up,” Delphine said grabbing him by the arm, trying to stand him up. “Don’t you see, there’s no way he wouldn’t be here … unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  Delphine didn’t want to even say it – and she didn’t want to go up there alone. She tugged at Todd’s arm but he resisted. “You’re losing it Delphine. Have another drink.”

  “He’s been depressed lately. This could have pushed him over the edge.”

  Reluctantly, Todd allowed her to manhandle him to his feet. They stumbled arm-in-arm to the elevator. All the traveling press had rooms on the same floor with their names stuck on the doors. Delphine began thumping on Ira’s, shouting, “Open up.”

  “He probably went out. Ira has lots of friends in here Moscow, people he’s known for decades,” Todd said.

  “Go back down to the lobby. Get someone up here with a key. Quickly!”

  “Why would I do that? What’s made you so paranoid?”

  “Fine, I’ll go if you won’t.”

  Delphine explained to the desk clerk she was worried about her friend’s health and he agreed to send someone up to open the room. She didn’t know what she expected to see – Ira hanging from the ceiling by one of his ratty old ties or lying on the bed with an empty bottle of pills next to the pillow? Instead, they found him sitting in the dark, silhouetted against the window.

  “Thank God you’re here,” Delphine said, rushing to him. The hotel man gave a brief glance and left, satisfied everything was in order. Todd stood by the door looking green.

  “God, I had too much,” he said and stumbled into the bathroom.

  Ira didn’t move. “I’ve been terminated,” he said dully. He gestured at his laptop which displayed a message. Delphine leaned forward.

  “… gross ethical violations … grave breach of company code of contact … dismissed with immediate effect.”

  “They ordered me to turn in my press pass. I’m to return home tomorrow. I never thought they’d do it after all these years, after everything I’ve done for them. Thirteen secretaries of state—but the fourteenth did me in.”

  “I was afraid you’d done yourself in.”

  “Might as well have. Truthfully, Frenchy, I thought about it – but I decided not to give her the satisfaction. Anyway, I’m a coward. My bosses said they’d try to keep a lid on the scandal if I agreed to go quietly.”

  “What about Dayton?”

  “I don’t know. She may still go after me.”

  �
�The main thing is, you’re alive and you’re healthy. You’ll get through this,” she told him. But he refused to be consoled.

  Chapter 16

  The rest of the trip passed like a strange dream for Delphine. Somehow, by freezing the part of her brain where her emotions resided, she continued functioning. Each day, she attended briefings and press conferences, asked questions, took notes, spoke with sources and analysts and filed stories. There wasn’t time to confront the pain and trauma until after the trip was over and everyone returned home. Soldiers suffer the same phenomenon. As long as the battle rages, they continue performing their duties in a professional, sometimes even an exemplary manner. Only after the guns fall silent and they are safe do they experience a psychological crisis.

  After two days in Moscow, Secretary Dayton proceeded to the Middle East. For the next three weeks, she worked relentlessly to get her peace conference off the ground, shuttling back and forth between Jerusalem and Ramallah, sometimes several times a day. Initially, neither Shoresh nor al-Bakr was enthusiastic. Both faced domestic opposition and understood the personal risks. How could they forget what befell Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president, and Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister, both assassinated by extremists after signing peace agreements? Abdul Muqtadir, armed to the teeth, was lurking in the wings, itching to resume terrorism. As reported by Stewart Wentworth before his death, the Israelis had already intercepted one weapons shipment to Gaza—but it was safe to assume others had gotten through.

  Secretary Dayton calmed their fears and addressed their concerns. Displaying more patience than Delphine would have thought possible, she spent countless hours bolstering their confidence and stroking their egos, responding to their objections one by one, slowly wearing them down. By attending a peace conference, she said, both would ensure their place in history. The alternative was more war, bloodshed and suffering.

  Back in America, Andrew and Stewart were laid to rest. A few more details emerged about the accident. The truck driver, a man named Buck Cooter, told the police his brakes had inexplicably failed. Speaking through a lawyer, he expressed deep sorrow and regret. He was an experienced driver who had lost his own rig due to financial difficulties and had been hired by Frostburg only a few days before the crash. The truck had been due for routine maintenance the following week.

  During this time, Delphine avoided contact with colleagues, eating whenever possible in her hotel room. Finding sleep difficult, she took long pre-dawn walks around Jerusalem, sharing the streets with garbage collectors, night shift workers heading home and black-coated Hasidic Jews on their way to morning prayers. When she did sleep, she kept seeing Erik Jens, his throat horribly slit. Mission Impossible played sporadically in her brain.

  She was summoned most evenings to Julia Dayton’s suite to be briefed about what had happened that day. At first, Delphine had to steel herself to enter the Secretary’s presence. Fortunately, she wasn’t required to say much, just sit attentively with tape recorder and notebook as Dayton talked and talked, often until midnight and beyond. She was in ebullient mood, almost effervescent, never showing fatigue or losing enthusiasm, never doubting her eventual success. Seeing her working so hard, Delphine felt conflicted. Was she a saint who had sinned for a worthy goal, or a sinner who did not mind doing good if it happened to suit her long-term purpose? Delphine tried seeing things from the Secretary’s point of view. What were the lives of a handful of middle-aged reporters against the tens of thousands of lives which might be saved by bringing peace between the Palestinians and Israelis?

  “What’s the matter, Delphine?” Dayton asked one evening. “You haven’t seemed yourself lately.”

  Delphine was immediately on guard. “I guess I’m a little sad, Julia.” She forced herself to say the name from time to time.

  “What have you got to be sad about? You’re young, you’re lovely and you’re about to become rich and famous.”

  Delphine could see that Don and Erik and Stewart and Andrew were truly nothing to Secretary Dayton. It’s not only that she didn’t care about them. It went beyond that. They had been expendable—and now they simply didn’t exist.

  “I hate the thought of those kids growing up without fathers,” Delphine said.

  “Which kids?”

  “Don and Andrew and Stewart’s kids.”

  “They’ll manage. Kids always do,” Dayton replied and changed the subject.

  Of course, kids do manage. Delphine herself had managed. But they would never fully get over such a loss.

  Once Delphine asked the Secretary how long she expected this peace treaty she was brokering to last. They’d flown to Damascus the previous day to meet once again with the Syrian leader. “Long enough,” was her terse response.

  “Long enough for what?”

  “Look, I’ve just endured another eight hours of President Bashir explaining to me yet again how the Crusaders were in Palestine for 200 years. They established a kingdom, built massive castles, imposed their will – but eventually the Arabs drove them out. He truly believes they’ll do the same to the Jews.”

  “Doesn’t sound like he’s committed to peace.”

  “No, for him, the struggle will go on forever. Maybe he’s got a point. Ultimately, it’s survival of the fittest, for nations as well as for individuals. But I don’t have 200 years to wait and see. Anyway, it’s not my job to decide which nations survive and which don’t. The main thing is not to waste any more time than I have to, get the best deal I can and move on. After that, whatever happens here, happens. I have other peaks to conquer.”

  “So you are running for President.”

  Dayton smiled, hardly bothering to deny it. “I think we’ll let the story unfold one step at a time. First let’s have the peace conference; after that, the face-to-face negotiations; then hopefully the peace treaty; then my wedding, then my Nobel Peace Prize—and after that we’ll see what happens.”

  A couple of days after this conversation, the New York Times reported that Elton Schuyler had been holding quiet conversations with political strategists, pollsters and consultants – the first step in putting together a presidential campaign organization.

  Eventually, Shoresh and al-Bakr ran out of objections and agreed to attend the peace talks. Secretary Dayton held a triumphant press conference to announce the news. That evening, she summoned Delphine to her Jerusalem hotel suite one last time. Delphine had been up there so often that the exuberant décor no longer bothered her. An open bottle of champagne sat on the coffee table. Secretary Dayton poured them both a glass and invited Delphine to sit.

  “Kick off your shoes. Here’s to success.”

  They clinked glasses. “You must feel wonderful,” Delphine ventured.

  “I do feel quite fine right now.”

  “And relieved to have all this behind you.”

  “In some ways. It occurred to me while I was waiting for you to arrive just now how much I’ve treasured these evenings, just the two of us, and, frankly how much I’ll miss them.”

  This caught Delphine by surprise.

  “We’ll see each other back in D.C. of course,” Dayton continued. “But it won’t be as intimate. I’m totally over-scheduled and of course I have to spend some of my free time with Elton, though frankly I’d just as soon be with you.” She moved her chair a little closer so that their knees were almost touching.

  Delphine saw she was expected to respond. “It’s been exciting for me too.”

  Dayton’s voice grew quieter, almost coy. “The more hours we spend together, the more I feel there’s a unique and lovely bond growing between us, even though you’re young enough to be my daughter. But perhaps that’s part of it. Do you feel it too?”

  Delphine nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  “When such a spark happens between two women, we should embrace it because it’s so rare and special. Don’t you agree?
” Secretary Dayton reached out and gently touched Delphine’s hair. The younger woman sat completely still, a rabbit transfixed in headlights.

  “You have to know how much I admire you,” Delphine offered, at last, willing to say anything to get the lioness’s paw away from her head.

  “That’s nice, honey but I get plenty of admiration from other people,” Dayton said sharply. “Admiration is great for the ego but it does nothing for loneliness. Sometimes one craves more—affection, closeness, even love.”

  Delphine hesitated, aware she was treading on thin ice. “But surely you receive all those things from Monsieur Schuyler.”

  Dayton snorted. “Elton’s marvelous in his way but of course he’s focused on business. Ours is more a – what shall I say? – a meeting of minds, not the kind of intimate connection you and I have. I know you feel the same need for such a bond, having lost your mother when you were so young. I can’t replace her of course …” She tailed off.

  Delphine wanted to scream ‘No!!!’ but kept her mouth shut.

  Secretary Dayton, perhaps reading her anxiety, backed away a couple of inches. “Perhaps it’s too soon for this conversation. Feelings deepen naturally over time if we allow them to. I hope I haven’t made you uncomfortable.”

  “Um, no—well maybe a bit.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re Madam Secretary and I’m just … I’m just nobody.”

  “Oh come now. Your false modesty doesn’t fool me for a moment. You’re as tough as they come. When you had to stab that poor chump Levin in the back, you didn’t hesitate two ticks. That’s why we get along so well. We’re similar. Here, give me a hug and we’ll say goodnight.”

  They both stood up; Secretary Dayton embraced the younger woman awkwardly, her long arms looping around Delphine’s neck like a noose.

  She was about the same height as Jason. For a dreadful moment, Delphine thought Secretary Dayton was about to kiss her the way he had at the pyramids. She closed her eyes, her body trembling. But no kiss came. Instead, the Secretary just patted her on the back and sent her on her way. Delphine stumbled back to her room, confused and disoriented, like a fly that had somehow extricated itself from a spider’s web.