A Twist in the Tale

He pushed open the unlocked door. It was always unlocked. There was nothing in his apartment worth stealing—even the television didn’t work. The one file that would have revealed that the law was not the only field in which he was an expert had been carefully secreted on his bookshelf between “Tax” and “Torts.” He failed to notice the books that were piled up everywhere or the fact that he could have written his name in the dust on the sideboard.

Scott closed the door behind him and glanced, as he always did, at the picture of his mother on the sideboard. He dumped the pile of notes he was carrying by her side and retrieved the mail poking out from under the door. Scott walked across the room and sank into an old leather chair, wondering how many of those bright, attentive faces would still be attending his lectures in two years’ time. Forty percent would be good—thirty percent more likely. Those would be the ones for whom fourteen hours’ work a day became the norm, and not just for the last month before exams. And of them, how many would live up to the standards of the late Dean Thomas W. Swan? Five percent, if he was lucky.

The professor of constitutional law turned his attention to the bundle of mail he held in his lap. One from American Express—a bill with the inevitable hundred free offers which would cost him even more money if he took any of them up—an invitation from Brown to give the Charles Evans Hughes Lecture on the Constitution; a letter from Carol reminding him she hadn’t seen him for some time; a circular from a firm of stockbrokers who didn’t promise to double his money but…; and finally a plain buff envelope postmarked Virginia, with a typeface he recognized immediately.

He tore open the buff envelope and extracted the single sheet of paper which gave him his latest instructions.

* * *

Al Obaydi strolled onto the floor of the General Assembly and slipped into a chair directly behind his Head of Mission. The Ambassador had his earphones on and was pretending to be deeply interested in a speech being delivered by the Head of the Brazilian Mission. Al Obaydi’s boss always preferred to have confidential talks on the floor of the General Assembly: he suspected it was the only room in the United Nations building that wasn’t bugged by the CIA.

Al Obaydi waited patiently until the older man flicked one of the earpieces aside and leaned slightly back.

“They’ve agreed to our terms,” murmured Al Obaydi, as if it was he who had suggested the figure. The Ambassador’s upper lip protruded over his lower lip, the recognized sign among his colleagues that he required more details.

“One hundred million,” Al Obaydi whispered, “Ten million to be paid immediately. The final ninety on delivery.”

“Immediately?” said the Ambassador. “What does ‘immediately’ mean?”

“By midday tomorrow,” whispered Al Obaydi.

“At least Sayedi anticipated that eventuality,” said the Ambassador thoughtfully.

Al Obaydi admired the way his superior could always make the term “my master” sound both deferential and insolent at the same time.

“I must send a message to Baghdad to acquaint the Foreign Minister with the details of your triumph,” added the Ambassador with a smile.

Al Obaydi would also have smiled, but he realized the Ambassador would not admit to any personal involvement with the project while it was still in its formative stage. As long as he distanced himself from his younger colleague for the time being, the Ambassador could continue his undisturbed existence in New York until his retirement fell due in three years’ time. By following such a course he had survived almost fourteen years of Saddam Hussein’s reign while many of his colleagues had conspicuously failed to become eligible for their state pension. To his knowledge one had been shot in front of his family, two hanged and several others posted as “missing,” whatever that meant.

The Iraqi Ambassador smiled as his British counterpart walked past him, but he received no response for his trouble.

“Stuck-up snob,” the Arab muttered under his breath.

The Ambassador pulled his earpiece back over his ear to indicate that he had heard quite enough from his number two. He continued to listen to the problems of trying to preserve the rain forests of Brazil, coupled with a request for a further grant from the UN of a hundred million dollars.

Not something he felt Sayedi would be interested in.