“We’ve been through that.” Berquist glowered. “What you’re proposing amounts to
nothing less than blackmail.”
“Let’s not get sidetracked by the formalities,” Janson said blandly.
The president rose, his face tight, blinking hard. Wordlessly, he sat down
again. He had talked down recalcitrant opponents before, had directed the high
beams of his charm at the disaffected and resistant, and had brought them
around. He could do this.
“I have devoted my life to public service,” he told Janson, his rich baritone
swelling with grave sincerity. “The welfare of this country is my life. I need
you to understand that. The decisions that have been made in this room have not
been made thoughtlessly or cynically. When I was sworn into office, I took an
oath to protect and defend this nation—the same oath my father had taken twenty
years before. It is an obligation I take with utmost seriousness … ”
Janson yawned.
“Derek,” the president said, turning to the director of Consular Operations and
the one man at the table who had said nothing so far. “Talk to your guy. Make
him understand.”
Undersecretary Derek Collins removed his heavy black glasses and massaged the
reddened grooves they left on the bridge of his nose. He had the look of someone
who was about to do something he would probably regret. “I kept trying to tell
you—you don’t know this man,” Collins said. “None of you do.”
“Derek?” The president’s request was clear.
“To protect and defend,” Collins said. “Heavy words. A heavy burden. A beautiful
ideal that sometimes requires doing some ugly things. Uneasy rests the head,
right?” He looked at Janson. “There aren’t any saints in this room, make no
mistake about that. But let’s show some respect to the basic idea of democracy.
There’s one person in this room who’s gone a long way on some scraps of common
sense and some common decency. He’s a tough son of a bitch, and he’s as true a
patriot as they come, and, agree with him or not, at the end of the day, this
has to be his call … ”
“Thanks, Derek,” President Berquist said, solemn but pleased.
“I’m talking about Paul Janson,” the undersecretary finished, facing the man at
the head of the table. “And if you don’t do what he says, Mr. President, you’re
a bigger fool than your father.”
“Undersecretary Collins,” the president barked, “I’d be happy to accept your
resignation.”
“Mr. President,” Collins said in a level tone, “I’d be happy to accept yours.”
President Berquist froze. “Goddamn it, Janson. Do you see what you’ve done?”
Janson stared at the director of Consular Operations. “An interesting song for a
hawk,” he said with a half smile.
Then he turned to the president. “You know what they say. ‘Consider the source.’
The advice you’ve been given may say more about your advisers’ concerns than
your own. You really ought to think in terms of alignment of interests. Goes for
you, too, Mr. Secretary.” He glanced at the now queasy-looking secretary of
state and returned to Berquist. “As I said, as far as most of the people in this
room are concerned, you’re just passing through. They’ve been around before you,
they’ll be here after you. Your immediate, personal interests don’t really mean
a whole lot to them. They want you to take the ‘long view.’ ”
Berquist was silent for half a minute. He was a pragmatist at heart, and used to
making the cold, hard calculations that political survival depended upon.
Everything else was secondary to that essential arithmetic. His forehead gleamed
with sweat.
He forced a smile. “Paul,” he said, “I’m afraid this meeting got off to a bad
start. I’d really like to hear you out.”
“Mr. President,” Douglas Albright protested. “This is entirely inappropriate.
We’ve gone through this again and again, and—”
“Fine, Doug. Why don’t you tell me that you know how to nullify what Paul
Janson’s gone and done? I haven’t heard anybody here bother to address that
particular matter.”
“These aren’t comparables!” Albright stormed. “We’re talking about the long-term
interests of this geopolitical entity, not the greater glory of the second
Berquist administration! There’s no comparison! Mobius is bigger than all of us.
There’s only one right decision.”
“And what about, oh, a looming political scandal?”
“Suck it up, Mr. President,” Albright said quietly. “I’m sorry, sir. You’ve got
a decent chance of toughing it out. That’s what you politicians specialize in,
isn’t it? Cut taxes, launch a decency campaign against Hollywood, go to war in
Colombia—do whatever your pollsters say. Americans have the attention span of a
gnat. But, if you’ll forgive my directness, you cannot sacrifice this program on
the altar of political ambition.”
“Always interesting to hear what you think I can and cannot do, Doug,” Berquist
said, leaning over and squeezing the analyst’s beefy shoulders, “But I’ve think
you’ve said enough today.”
“Please, Mr. President—”
“Put a sock in it, Doug,” Berquist said. “I’m thinking here. Doing some deep
presidential-level policy revaluation.”
“I’m talking about the prospects of reengineering global polities.” Albright’s
voice rose to a squawk of indignation. “You’re just talking about your
reelection chances.”
“You got that one right. Call me a stick-in-the-mud. I kinda have a hankering
for the scenario where I’m still president.” He turned to Janson. “Your game,
your rules,” he said. “I can live with that.”
“Excellent choice, Mr. President,” Janson said neutrally.
Berquist gave him a smile that combined command and entreaty. “Now give me my
goddamn presidency back.”
THE NOVAK TO YIELD CONTROL OF THE LIBERTY FOUNDATION
BILLIONAIRE PHILANTHROPIST TURNS OVER FOUNDATION TO
AN INTERNATIONAL BOARD OF TRUSTEES.
MATHIEU ZINSOU TO SERVE AS NEW DIRECTOR
By Jason Steinhardt
AMSTERDAM—In a press conference held at the Amsterdam headquarters of the
Liberty Foundation, the legendary financier and humanitarian Peter Novak
announced that he would be relinquishing control of the Liberty Foundation, the
global organization that he created and ran for more than fifteen years. Nor
would the organization have any foreseeable difficulties in funding: he also
announced that he was turning over all his capital assets to the foundation,
which would be reconstituted as a public trust. An international board of
directors would include prominent citizens from around the world, under the
chairmanship of the U.N. Secretary General, Mathieu Zinsou. “My work is done,”
Mr. Novak said, reading from a prepared statement. “The Liberty Foundation must
be greater than any one man, and my plan, all along, had been to delegate
control of this organization to a public board, with broad accountability among
its directors. As the foundation enters this new phase, transparency must be the
watchword.”
Reactions were generally positive. Some observers expressed surprise, but others
said they had long anticipated such a move. Sources close to Mr. Novak suggested
that the recent death of his wife had helped catalyze his decision to retire
from the operations of the foundation. Others point out that the financier’s
reclusive habits were increasingly in conflict with the xposed and highly public
position that his work at the foundation demanded. Novak was sketchy about his
future plans, but some aides suggested that he planned to remove himself from
the public eye entirely. “You won’t have Peter Novak to kick around anymore,
gentlemen,” one deputy told members of the press with cheerful irony. Yet the
mysterious plutocrat has long had a gift for the unexpected, and those who know
him best agree that it would be a mistake to count him out.
“He’ll be back,” said Jan Kubelik, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic,
who was in town for a G-7 Conference. “Depend on it. You haven’t seen the last
of Peter Novak.”
EPILOGUE
The lithe woman with the spiky brown hair lay prone and perfectly still, the
four-foot rifle braced by sandbags fore and aft. The shadows of the belfry
rendered her perfectly invisible from any distance. When she opened her nonscope
eye, the cityscape of Dubrovnik seemed oddly flattened, red-tiled roofs
scattered before her like colored faience, shards of ancient pottery. Beneath
the bell tower where she had been positioned for the past several hours, there
was a sea of faces that continued several hundred yards to the wooden platform
that had been erected in the center of Dubrovnik’s old town.
They were the faithful, the devoted. It was lost on none of them that the pope
had decided to start off his visit to Croatia by addressing an audience in a
city that had come to symbolize the suffering of its people. Though more than a
decade had passed since the Yugoslav army laid siege to the Adriatic port city,
the memory of the assault remained undimmed among the town’s citizens.
Many of them had stamp-sized laminated photographs of the beloved pontiff. It
wasn’t merely that he was someone known to be willing to speak truth to power;
it was the unmistakable radiance he had about him—charisma, yes, but also
compassion. It was typical of him that he would not merely decry violence and