Zetternick let his hand brush against his trousers. “I cannot say,” he smiled and winked, “just who it was who called me here.” The parry, as given, would satisfy the lurid imaginings of a younger diplomat.
Zetternick turned to the others who had gathered to meet him. The rest of the guests had already resumed their interrupted conversations and were presently ignoring him. Of those who moved to greet him, most were inconsequentials—cultural attaches and third and fourth ministers who knew him only by reputation. But at the end of the line one man waited whom Zetternick did recognize, and after finally shaking that hand, he said, “Hold a minute, will you, Henry?”
The stocky man with the military bearing nodded, and Zetternick flagged down a passing waiter, hoping the shake in his arm wouldn’t show. He lifted a glass of champagne with his right hand as he fished a tablet from his watch-pocket with the other; his cane he held hooked over his left wrist. A moment later, having chased the pill with the liquid, Zetternick turned back to his acquaintance. “At my age,” Zetternick said, “tablets and capsules supply the greater portion of my fiber.”
Major Henry Cheswick-Howell smiled, then sobered once more. “The situation’s not so bad that they dragged you out of retirement, is it?”
“I came of my own accord,” Zetternick said flatly.
“It’s that bad, then.” Cheswick-Howell sighed and glanced at a wiry, weather-beaten man standing in the corner of the great hall, a man who had clustered around him a small but rapt audience of listeners. “Nojon thinks he’s the incarnation of old Ghengis, and he’s ready to prove it. But I don’t understand it, Walter. The Mongolian-Siberian combination has some kind of logic to it, geographically at least, but I’d always thought the Kazakhs had more sense—certainly enough to stay out of it.”
“Influence, Henry.” Zetternick took another sip of his champagne. “And history. Bad political unions often come in threes, though I’m not certain why.”
“Do you think the States will support China in this mess? Militarily, I mean?”
Zetternick nodded. “They’ve no choice. China’s too large a market to have a portion of it devastated and annexed by the Combine. And the People’s Republic would never have stood down militarily if it hadn’t been for the Sino-American defense pact, so there’s a moral commitment as well.”
“For as much as moral commitment has value in a political crisis,” Cheswick-Howell said dryly. “Are you going to be at the conference tomorrow?”
Zetternick smiled weakly. “I have no standing. And tomorrow I shall be elsewhere.”
As Zetternick sipped again, a third man joined them. White-haired, with a trace of original thick blond waves, the man offered his hand, which Zetternick graciously took. Later, he again casually smeared his right hand against his cummerbund.
The third man introduced himself as Petyaski, undersecretary attached to the Russian mission. He said to Zetternick, “It is an honor to meet you, Ambassador. Even after all these years, your efforts in the disagreeable Persian affair are still a matter for discussion in my country.”
Zetternick bowed slightly. “Not ambassador any longer, my friend. But how is Mme. Kharkova?”
Petyaski glanced at Cheswick-Howell. Zetternick said, “He’s all right.”
Petyaski answered, “The Ambassador is in Hanoi, as you suggested. She still has influence with old Ho, and she may be able to keep the Vietnamese out of the coming conflict. Perhaps.”
“Wolves,” Cheswick-Howell muttered. “The Norasian Combine threatens the Sinos and all the other border countries sit ready, salivating, just waiting to take their piece. I understand the Indians have troops massing—”
“Shhh,” Zetternick advised as a dark-skinned, turbaned man approached and passed. “Fine now. Yes, I know about the build-up.”
“You have kept yourself remarkably informed,” Petyaski said.
Zetternick ignored the compliment. “Have you seen Gauchard?”
Both Petyaski and Cheswick-Howell shook their heads. The major said, “He likes to come in late. Gives him a better entrance. More dramatic.”
Petyaski nodded. “M. Gauchard appears pleasant, but everywhere he goes—”
“Trouble follows,” Zetternick finished. “I tried to meet him once, do you know? I was vacationing in Paris eight years ago, during the Algerian crisis. But my attempts were unsuccessful.”
“He was working for the Lybians then,” Petyaski sniffed, “just as he works for Nojon now. A man without loyalty.”
“Technically,” Cheswick-Howell corrected, “he works for the Combine as a whole, in the federal branch of their foreign office.”
“But Nojon gives him direction,” Petyaski countered. “You never see him sidling up to the Kazakh or Siberian ministers.”
“Nojon is the driving force behind the Combine,” the major agreed, and as he and Petyaski traded comments, Zetternick put down his champagne and worked his legs and cane in the direction of a dark-skinned, sharp-featured man with heavy lines etched into his face.
It took Zetternick the better part of minute to cross the twenty paces. First, he had to avoid bumping into others moving more swiftly and less carefully, who crossed his path. And second, the bright lights and reflections—reflections that poured off glasses and mirrors and shiny metal shelving—were smearing in his vision, a side-effect of the tablets in his watch pocket.
First Minister Ben-Aban started when Zetternick addressed him. The Kazakh could hardly have missed seeing the old man approach, no more than a man sitting at a railroad terminal could miss seeing a train grow large in his face.
It was a measure of Ben-Aban’s preoccupation.
Zetternick shook the man’s hand. “It is not a happy time, is it, M. Minister?” Zetternick quietly wiped his hand against the side of his trousers.
Ben-Aban spoke directly. “Will you be there tomorrow—at the conference?”
Zetternick shook his head.
“Pity. There might have been hope, like in Baku—”
“My efforts in the Persian crisis have been exaggerated,” Zetternick interrupted gently. Inwardly, he remembered the strain that crisis had put on him, how in fact spreading his influence across so many angry people had nearly killed him, and how the Baku conference had led directly to his retirement. In his current state of health, he could never survive the tensions of the upcoming Sino-American-Norasian summit.
Ben-Aban stared into the old man’s eyes. “Then why are you here?”
Zetternick spoke carefully. “Gauchard takes much heed of what Nojon says.”
“Nojon is President of the Combine at this moment. That is to be expected.”
“And Gauchard draws his pay from Combine accounts.”
Ben-Aban only blinked.
“Kazakhstan is not a poor country, M. Minister.” Zetternick paused, waiting for the man to blink once more. “With the oil flowing easily,” Zetternick added, “and the uranium deposits now being mined, there are funds that could be used to greater influence—to make certain the Kazakh point of view is heard in the Combine foreign office.”
Ben-Aban blinked a third time.
Zetternick offered his hand once more, and Ben-Aban took it.
—
Zetternick found the Siberian minister’s attitude more sanguine than that of the Kazakh Ben-Aban. With the discovery of accessible on-shore oil, and with the new platinum deposits near the Pacific coast, the great arctic giant had become, almost overnight, a rich country. Combined with the practical Kazakhs and the aggressive Mongolians, Siberia had attained for the first time a measure of international respect. But while Zetternick found no innate malevolence in the Minister, he detected an undercurrent of unease. As with Ben-Aban, Zetternick mouthed a few pithy phrases designed to augment that unease, to put strain on the unity of the Combine. Zetternick did not delude himself into thinking he could disrupt the Combine, but perhaps he could foster enough disunity to make a difference at the next-day’s conference.
Zetternick concluded his talk with the Siberian minister with another handshake and another wipe. He then made his way to the wiry man in the corner with the circle of listeners: Nojon.
An orator of the old school, the Mongolian could worry a topic for hours. Since Zetternick had arrived at the party, Nojon had been pushing the Combine’s position to anyone who would listen. And those who would not, he would stop and make listen.
He has a way, Zetternick thought, of wearing people down, of wearing down their better judgments. Zetternick slowly elbowed his way into the semicircle, and when Nojon’s eyes fell on him, the President of the Norasian Combine—for the first time, perhaps, that evening—fell silent.
Zetternick spoke first. “I am very much pleased to meet you, M. President.” The hand he extended could not, in diplomatic grace, be refused. Not with the audience that stood about.
Nojon warily shook the hand, and an aide to the Mongolian whispered in his ear, apparently giving the Asian a quick biography of the old man with the wrinkles and the folds and the black eyes.
“Ah yesss,” Nojon hissed, “the inimitable Ambassador Zetternick—who played such a large role in resolving the old Persian crisis.” The wiry diplomat’s eyes narrowed. “Do you intend to repeat that performance tomorrow?”
Zetternick winced at the grip Nojon put on his bones, and he felt, too, the heat of power, the lust that coursed through Nojon’s being, and he absorbed as much of that as he could.
“I am retired,” Zetternick said, gasping as he pulled back his hand. He had felt much, but not the raw, unabated evil he had expected. Perhaps Nojon could be swayed, or weakened.
Zetternick fell into a prepared discourse, casually wiping his right hand against his left sleeve, against his right trousers and against one tail of his tux. He brought the conversation around to the standing Combine army, despite several attempts by Nojon to dodge the topic.
“An army of three million armed and ready,” Zetternick said, “backed by artillery and twenty thousand tanks, is hardly a force for defense, M. President. Not for a country, or countries, as sparsely populated as those in the Norasian Combine.”
Nojon colored, even under his tan complexion. Zetternick could tell the man’s voice was carefully controlled when he responded. “Our borders are long, and many of our neighbors have made claims against our territory. Especially,” he added, “since the discovery of the oil and the minerals.”
Zetternick smiled. “Just as the Combine has made claims against the Inner Mongolian region of the People’s Republic of China.”
Nojon by this time was ready for the remark. “History is on our side in this issue. The location of the Great Wall itself supports our claim!”
“History,” Zetternick said dryly, “can be rolled back to any convenient era, depending on the needs—or wants—of the present. Do you really expect this Sudetenland maneuver to succeed?”
Nojon stared blankly, not understanding the reference, but the people who had listened to Zetternick’s exchange with the Mongolian leader gasped audibly. Nojon’s assistant again whispered in the Asian’s ear, and as Nojon’s eyes widened, and as he was about to respond—forcefully, it seemed to Zetternick—the old diplomat raised the stakes once more. “M. President, two million of your army are mercenaries. Their loyalty is not to a country, but to their wallets. What do you think would happen if the Chinese and the Americans offered each man $50,000 to defect? That is, after all, only one hundred billion, much cheaper than fighting a war and rebuilding a country.”
Nojon sputtered, “Preposterous!”
Zetternick said, “I have passed this idea along.”
Nojon drew a deep breath, but his expected reply was interrupted by the announcer.
“His Excellency, the Ambassador at Large for the Combined Republics of Northern Asia, Albert Gauchard!”
The crowd around them turned in one motion, craning their necks for a look. It had been Gauchard who engineered the summit. Few of the crowd realized it had been Gauchard who had also engineered the crisis.
Zetternick had one more point to make, so he did not turn with the others. Instead, he said to Nojon, “Gauchard, too, is a mercenary. I suppose you and the Kazakhs and the Siberians each contribute to his fee?”
It was undiplomatic in the extreme. But Zetternick had lowered his already-weakening voice, and he had the advantage of suspected senility. His words would not be taken the same way they would have been taken from a younger man. But his words might make Nojon think, might make him question the unity of the Combine and the ultimate loyalty of his Ambassador-at-Large.
Nojon’s face purpled, but he said nothing. Instead, he looked beyond Zetternick, following—Zetternick knew—Gauchard as he made his way to Nojon’s side.
Zetternick turned his head to watch, as well.
Gauchard, standing a full two meters in height, towered over most who surrounded him. He had a slim and athletic build made even more imposing by a carefully-tailored tux of formidable expense. From the hang of the jacket, Zetternick guessed the garment was lined with bullet-proof plastics.
A not indefensible precaution, Zetternick thought dryly.
Zetternick watched as Gauchard smiled and shook one hand. Gauchard kept smiling and shook another. He kissed a woman’s hand. He put his hand on the shoulder of one of the younger diplomats, as if welcoming a son into the business.
Zetternick wondered if he alone heard the crackle, the electric discharge, as Gauchard smiled and touched, as Gauchard advanced and touched, as Gauchard spread his influence. And touched.
Gauchard met Zetternick’s eyes long before he finally arrived at Nojon’s side. For the flash of that eyeblink, Gauchard’s easygoing manner and savoir-faire hiccuped, but few in the large chandeliered hall would have noticed.
When Gauchard arrived, Nojon introduced Zetternick. Zetternick set his lips and held out his hand.
But Gauchard only bowed, in the eastern tradition.
Zetternick felt the edges of his lips tug upward. He held his hand out just long enough to embarrass Nojon and Gauchard before he let it fall to his side.
“Of course I am familiar with the career of the famous Ambassador Zetternick,” Gauchard said, working to recover from the awkward moment.
Zetternick said, “And I, yours, M. Gauchard.”
“Shall you be attending the meeting tomorrow?” Gauchard asked. “I had not heard.”
“I shall be elsewhere tomorrow,” Zetternick answered.
“I see. So you have come this evening to—see old friends?”
“And to see that they remain old friends. And you?”
“My duty is at the side of my President.” Gauchard nodded deferentially at Nojon. “I intend to stay at this affair until the President’s position has been properly explained to the guests.” Gauchard looked knowingly at Zetternick.
Zetternick understood. Gauchard would make it a point to wait until Zetternick left. Then Gauchard would make the rounds again, shaking hands, kissing rings, patting shoulders, and wholly undoing what little Zetternick had accomplished. And if Zetternick waited until the affair closed, Gauchard would make it a point to be one step behind him. The result: the same.
For a moment, the room swayed, and Zetternick shifted his cane.
He must have staggered, but neither Nojon nor Gauchard reached out to steady him.
The room firmed. Zetternick said, “Perhaps, M. Gauchard, we shall have occasion to talk again.”
Gauchard said dryly, “Perhaps.”
Zetternick turned aside and worked his way to a chair. He deliberately ignored Nojon as he stepped away from the pair, a final attempt to make the Mongolian feel even more subordinate to Gauchard than he must already feel. At the moment, it was all Zetternick could think to do.
—
The spires and tall buildings of the city stood in the night sky like dark prisms dotted with flecks of light. Above, the wing lamps of jetliners marked the comings and goings of everyman and everywoman—most ob
livious to the history about to be made.
First Minister Ben-Aban stared out at the view. Here, on the second-floor balcony of the old Victorian building, the political tensions of the soiree going on just one floor below seemed far away. He leaned back in the stone armchair that sat on the balcony, and somehow the cold lifeless rock wrapped itself around his shoulders and gave him comfort.
He turned slightly to the man who sat in the other armchair. “It is as lovely as you promised, M. Zetternick. Thank you for showing me this place.”
The old man with the wrinkles and folds said softly, “Thank you for helping me up the stairs to see it again. I could not have negotiated the steps myself. And the building has no elevator.”
Ben-Aban nodded. “I was happy to assist you.”
“Do you know,” Zetternick said, “I arranged for the approval of the old Andorran accord right here on this balcony—on these very chairs? It was my first accomplishment, albeit a minor one.”
Ben-Aban looked at the lights again. The old man continued to talk. His voice was rasping, an artifact of age, but not unpleasant. He spoke of men and women long dead, of names that would later be but footnotes in a history book, of treachery and espionage and diplomatic quid-pro-quos. But as the old man spoke, in his soft droning voice, Ben-Aban listened, and Ben-Aban could almost picture himself in the scenes that Zetternick described ...
—
Zetternick felt the outline of the pills in his watch pocket and counted. One. Two. Three. He reached in and worked pills one and two into his palm. He swallowed them dry.
He stood in the darkness behind the easternmost chair of the balcony. In the westernmost chair, First Minister Ben-Aban stared out at the city lights.
Zetternick bent over as he stifled a cough. Silence was paramount now; he had managed to get Ben-Aban away from the reception, but had made certain Nojon had seen the two of them leave. After a time, Nojon would become worried. But would he come himself? To search for Ben-Aban? Zetternick thought not.
The Dinosaur Chronicles Page 3