“I just now had a telephone call from Deputy Foreign Minister Alvarez, Mr. Ambassador.”
“At your home, presumably?”
“Yes, sir. At my home.”
“And what did Deputy Foreign Minister Alvarez want?”
“He asked if I was going to be in the office about nine,” Detweiller reported, “and, if so, if I would be kind enough to offer him a cup of coffee.”
McGrory stopped himself just in time from saying, “Well, give him one, Ted. And offer my best regards.”
Instead, he asked: “He didn’t say what he wanted, huh?”
“No, sir. He didn’t. And I thought the call to my home, at this hour…”
“A bit unusual, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir, I thought so.”
“You did tell Deputy Foreign Minister Alvarez that you’d give him a cup of coffee, Ted, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir, I did. Mr. Ambassador, may I give you my gut feeling?”
“Of course.”
“I have the feeling, sir, that this is not a social call, but that Alvarez wants to keep it unofficial, if you take my meaning.”
“I see. And why would he want to do that?”
“I haven’t a clue, but that’s my gut feeling and I thought I should mention it.”
“And you should have. And just as soon as you find out what he wanted, if anything, besides a cup of coffee, let me know.”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
“Anything else, Ted?”
“No. That’s it. Again, sorry to have to disturb you at home, Mr. Ambassador.”
“Not at all, Ted,” Ambassador McGrory said and hung up.
The ambassador picked up his coffee cup, took a sip, and found that it was tepid.
“Goddamn it,” he exclaimed, then returned the cup to the table with a bang and walked briskly out of the dining room and to his bedroom to get dressed.
Since he really wanted a cup of fresh hot coffee when he got to his office, McGrory was not surprised to find that Señora Susanna Obregon, his secretary, had not yet prepared any.
He did not remonstrate with her. It would be a waste of his time. She would have some excuse, ranging from she liked to time the preparation of it so that it would be fresh and hot when he got to the office (and today he was almost an hour early) to the fact that her second cousin’s wife had just given birth to quadruplets.
He went into his office and sat at his desk. There was only one sheet of paper in his in-box, which meant that for a change there had not been radioed overnight at least a dozen friendly suggestions from the under secretary of state on how he could better do his job.
Having nothing else to do until his coffee arrived, he reached for the message in the in-box, slumped back in his chair, and began to read it.
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