“You’re perfect for this assignment,” he had told her, “or I would never have chosen you. You and I are going to make this dream come true.”
And it does seem like a dream, Mary thought as she faced the battery of cameras.
“Raise your right hand, please.”
Mary repeated after the President: “I, Mary Elizabeth Ashley, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely and without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God.”
And it was done. She was the ambassador to the Socialist Republic of Romania.
The treadmill began. Mary was ordered to report to the European and Yugoslavian Affairs section at the State Department. There she was assigned a small, boxlike temporary office next to the Romanian desk.
James Stickley, the Romanian desk officer, was a career diplomat with twenty-five years in the service. He was in his late fifties, of medium height, with a vulpine face and small, thin lips. His eyes were a pale, cold brown. He looked with disdain on the political appointees who were invading his world. He was considered the foremost expert on the Romanian desk, and when President Ellison had announced his plan to appoint an ambassador to Romania, Stickley was ecstatic, fully expecting that the post would be given to him. The news about Mary Ashley was a bitter blow. It was bad enough to have been passed over, but to have lost out to a political appointee—a nobody from Kansas—was galling.
“Can you believe it?” he asked Bruce, his closest friend. “Half of our ambassadors are fucking appointees. That could never happen in England or France, chum. They use professional career officers. Would the army ask an amateur to be a general? Well, overseas our fucking amateur ambassadors are generals.”
“You’re drunk, Jimbo.”
“I’m gonna get drunker.”
He studied Mary Ashley now, as she sat across from his desk.
Mary was also studying Stickley. There was something mean-looking about him. I wouldn’t want to have him as an enemy, Mary thought.
“You’re aware that you’re being sent to an extremely sensitive post, Mrs. Ashley?”
“Yes, of course, I—”
“Our last ambassador to Romania put one wrong foot forward and the whole relationship exploded in our faces. It’s taken us three years to get back in the door. The President would be damned mad if we blew it again.”
If I blew it, he means.
“We’re going to have to make an instant expert out of you. We don’t have a lot of time.” He handed her an armful of files. “You can start by reading these reports.”
“I’ll dedicate my morning to it.”
“No. In thirty minutes you’re scheduled to begin a language course in Romanian. The course usually takes months, but I have orders to push you through the mill.”
Time became a blur, a whirlwind of activity that left Mary exhausted. Every morning she and Stickley went through the daily files of the Romanian desk together.
“I’ll be reading the cables you send in,” Stickley informed her. “They will be yellow copies for action, or white copies for information. Duplicates of your cables will go to Defense, the CIA, the USIA, the Treasury Department, and a dozen other departments. One of the first issues you’ll be expected to resolve is Americans being held in Romanian prisons. We want their release.”
“What are they charged with?”
“Espionage, drugs, theft—anything the Romanians want to charge them with.”
Mary wondered how on earth one went about getting a charge of espionage dismissed. I’ll find a way.
“Right,” she said briskly.
“Remember—Romania is one of the more independent iron curtain countries. We have to encourage that attitude.”
“Exactly.”
Stickley said, “I’m going to give you a package. Don’t let it out of your hands. It’s for your eyes only. When you’ve read it and digested it, I want you to return it to me personally tomorrow morning. Any questions?”