simple fact of the matter.
“In many respects, our resources are enormous,” the secretary-general said. “We
have hundreds of thousands of soldiers seconded to us, proudly wearing the blue
helmets. We have offices in every capital, staffed with teams of experts who
enjoy ambassadorial status. We’re privy to what goes on in these countries at
every level. We know their military secrets, their development plans, their
economic schemes. A partnership with the Liberty Foundation is simply a matter
of common sense—a pooling of resources and competencies.”
That much was preamble.
“U.N. officials operate freely in just about every country on the planet,”
Zinsou continued. “We see the suffering of people victimized by the incompetence
and greed of their leaders. Yet we cannot reshape their policies, their
politics. Our rules and regulations, our bylaws and systems of oversight—they
hamstring us into irrelevance! The successes of your Liberty Foundation have put
the United Nations to shame. And meantime our ongoing financial crisis has
crippled us in every way.”
“All this is true,” said Peter Novak. “But it is not new.”
“No,” Zinsou agreed. “It is not new. And we could wait and, as we have in the
past, do nothing. In ten years, the U.N. would be as poverty-stricken as any of
its wards. Utterly ineffective—nothing more than a debate club for bickering
emirs and tin-pot despots, discredited and ignored by the developed nations of
the world. It will be a beached whale upon the shore of history. Or we can take
action now, before it is too late. I have just been elected to another five-year
term, with the near unanimous support of the General Assembly. I am uniquely in
a position to make decisive, unilateral executive decisions. I have the
popularity and the credibility to do so. And I must do so to save this
organization.”
“I’ve always thought your reputation for foresight was well earned,” Novak said.
“But so is your reputation for strategic ambiguity, mon cher. I wish I had a
better sense of what you’re proposing.”
“Simply put, there can be no salvation for us except through partnership with
you. A special joint division can be established—joint between the Liberty
Foundation and the U.N.—devoted to economic development. Over time, more and
more of the U.N.’s institutional resources and responsibilities would migrate to
this joint division. It will be a powerful, invisible directorate within the
United Nations. I can serve as the bridge between the two empires, yours and
mine. U.N. appropriations would continue, of course, but the Liberty Foundation
would be able to make intimate use of the U.N.’s extensive assets.”
“You intrigue me, Mathieu,” said Novak. “But we both know the rules of
bureaucratic inertia. You tell me you envy and admire the extraordinary
effectiveness of the Liberty Foundation, and I thank you for the kind words. But
there’s a reason for our record: the fact that I have always retained absolute,
top-to-bottom control of it.”
“I am deeply aware of that fact,” said the secretary-general. “And when I speak
of ‘partnerships,’ I need you to understand my meaning. ‘Strategic ambiguity,’
as you call it, is something my role at the United Nations often requires. But
on one issue there can be no ambiguity. Ultimate control would be exercised by
you, Peter.”
There was a long moment of silence, and Zinsou briefly wondered whether Novak’s
phone had gone dead. Then the man spoke again. “You are indeed a man of vision.
It’s always nice to meet another one.”
“It is a grave, an immense responsibility. Are you prepared for it?” Zinsou did
not wait for an answer but continued to speak, with passion, eloquence, and
urgency, elaborating on his vision.
Twenty minutes later, the man who called himself Peter Novak maintained an odd
reticence.
“We have so much to discuss,” Zinsou said, winding up. “So much that can only be
discussed face-to-face, just you and me, together. Perhaps it is grandiose of me
to say it, but I truly believe the world is depending on us.”
At last, a mirthless laugh came from the phone: “Sounds like you’re offering to
sell me the United Nations.”
“I hope I didn’t say that!” Zinsou exclaimed lightly. “It is a treasure beyond
price. But yes, I think we understand each other.”
“And in the short term, my Liberty Foundation people would have ambassadorial
rank, diplomatic immunity?”
“The U.N. is like a corporation with a hundred and sixty-nine CEOs. Nimble it is
not. But yes, the charter I’ll draft will make that quite clear,” answered the
secretary-general.
“And what about you, mon cher Mathieu? You’ll be serving out your second
term—and then what?” The voice on the phone grew friendly. “You have served your
organization selflessly for so many years.”
“You’re kind to say so,” the secretary-general said, catching his drift. “The
personal element is an entirely subsidiary one, you appreciate. My real concerns
are for the survival of this institution. But, yes, I will be frank. The U.N.
job does not exactly pay well. A job as, let us say, a director of a new Liberty
Foundation institute … obviously with the salary and benefits to be negotiated …
would be the ideal way to continue my work for international peace. Forgive me
for being so forward. The complexity of what I propose makes it imperative that
we be absolutely straightforward with each other.”
“I believe I’m coming to a better understanding, and find it all very
encouraging,” said the man who was Peter Novak, now sounding positively genial.
“Then why don’t we have dinner. Something très intime. At my residence. The
sooner the better. I’m prepared to clear my schedule.”
“Mon cher Mathieu,” the man on the phone repeated. A warm glow suffused his
voice, the glow of a man who had just been offered the United Nations. It would
be a final ornament to his redoubtable empire, and a fitting one. Abruptly, he
said: “I’ll get back to you.” And the line went dead.
The secretary-general held on to the handset for a few moments before returning
it to its cradle. “Alors?”
He turned to Paul Janson, who had been sitting in the corner of the darkening
office.
The operative looked at the master diplomat with frank admiration. “Now we
wait,” said Janson.
Would he take the bait? It was a bold proposal, yet threaded through with truth.
The financial straits of the U.N. were genuinely dire. And Mathieu Zinsou was
nothing if not ambitious for his organization. He was also known to be a
farseeing man. In his five years at the helm of the U.N., he had reshaped it
more vigorously than any SG had ever imagined. Was this next step so
unthinkable?
It had been a chance remark of Angus Fielding’s that had inspired the ploy, and
Janson recalled yesterday’s conversation with the man who, not that long ago,
had threatened him with a gun. Of course, that was the order of the day, wasn’t
it—allies and adversaries switching sides with abandon? The conversation had
been awkward at first; Fielding had not missed Novak’s CNN appearance, and was
clearly abashed, bewildered, and humiliated, unaccustomed emotions for Trinity’s
laureled master. And yet, without so much as hinting at the explosive secret,
Janson was able to pick the scholar’s agile brain on the question of how one
might reach the reclusive billionaire.
There was another element that Janson calculated might lend plausibility to the
scenario. Zinsou had for years been dogged by a reputation for benign,
small-scale corruption. When Zinsou was a young commissioner at UNESCO, a
lucrative contract had been taken away from one medical corporation and awarded
to another. The spurned rival put it out that Zinsou had received “special
preferments” from the victorious corporation. Had payment been made in a
numbered account somewhere? The accusations were groundless, yet in some circles
curiously adhesive. The half-remembered hint of corruption would, ironically,
make his proposition all the more persuasive.
But what would seal it would be an elemental feature of human psychology:
Demarest would want it to be true. Intense desire always had a subtle
gravitational effect upon belief: we are more likely to credit what we wish to
be so.
Now Janson stood at Zinsou’s desk and, from a bulky device there, extracted the
digital cassette on which the call had been recorded for later study.
“You astonish me,” Janson said, simply.
“I’ll take that as an insult,” the secretary-general said with a small smile.
“The implication being that my expectations were not high? Then I spoke
poorly—and you should take it, rather, as proof that there is only one true
diplomat in this room.”
“The fate of the world should not hang on a lapse of etiquette. I feel that in
this case it well may. Have you considered all the things that could go wrong?”
“I have absolute confidence in you,” Janson parried.
“An expression of confidence I find dismaying. My confidence in myself is high:
it is not absolute. Nor should yours be. I speak, of course, in principle.”