"That's what Sandra meant when she said she thought you were through with the AALs?"
Britton nodded, then suddenly realized: "And speaking of Homeland Security, I'm going to have to tell them about this before they see it on Fox News. Excuse me."
He took his cellular telephone from its holster and punched an autodial number.
[FOUR]
The Consulate of the United States of America
Parkring 12a
Vienna, Austria
2105 24 December 2005
The counselor for consular affairs of the United States embassy in Vienna, Miss Eleanor Dillworth, was aware that many people--including many, perhaps most, American citizens--were less than thrilled with the services the consular section offered, and with the very consular officials who offered them.
An American citizen who required consular service--for example, having pages added to a passport; registering the birth of a child; needing what amounted to notary public services--could acquire such services only from eight to eleven-thirty each morning, Monday through Friday--provided, of course, that that day was neither an American nor an Austrian holiday and, of course, with the understanding that the said American citizen could not get the passport pages added and make any inquiry of any consular official regarding visas.
Consular officials could not be troubled by being asked about the status of a visa application by anyone--including, for example, but not limited to, an American citizen wondering when his foreign wife was going to get the visa that she not only had applied for but was entitled to under the law.
Miss Dillworth understood that such dissatisfaction spread around the world.
A colleague--one Alexander B. Darby, who was the commercial attache of the United States embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina--had told her that a well-known American artist living in Buenos Aires was going about loudly saying to anyone who would listen that whenever he went to the embassy there, he was made to feel by the consular officials as welcome as a registered sex offender seeking overnight lodging at a Girl Scout camp.
Eleanor and Alex had exchanged horror stories for at least a half hour when they had run into each other in Washington. They had even come up with an explanation why the Foreign Service got away with its arrogance and, indeed, incompetence.
It was, they concluded, a question of congressional oversight . . . or wanton lack thereof.
A farmer, for example, who felt that he had been mistreated by a farm agent would immediately get on the phone to his congressman or senator and complain, whereupon the congressman or senator would call the secretary of Agriculture, expressing his displeasure and reminding the secretary that the function of his agency was to serve the public, not antagonize it.
Doctors--and maybe especially lawyers--thought nothing, when they felt they were being improperly serviced, of going directly to the surgeon general, or the attorney general, with their complaints. Similarly, bankers would raise hell with the secretary of the Treasury, businessmen with the secretary of Commerce, und so weiter.
And they got results.
The only people who took a close look at the Foreign Service were members of Congress. They performed this duty by visiting embassies around the world--usually in places like Paris, London, and Tokyo--traveling in either USAF VIP jets or in the first-class compartment of a commercial airliner, and accompanied by their wives. On their arrival, they were housed in the best hotels and lavishly entertained, the costs thereof coming from the ambassadors' "representational allowance" provided by the U.S. taxpayer. Then they got back on the airplanes and went home, having become "Experts in International Affairs" and bubbling all over with praise for the charming people of the State Department, those nobly serving their country on foreign shores.
There were exceptions, of course. Alex Darby couldn't say enough nice things about the ambassador in Buenos Aires, even though he didn't seem able to do much about his consular staff enraging American citizens--not to mention the natives--living in Argentina.
But Alex and Eleanor were agreed that the Foreign Service could be greatly improved if every other diplomat arriving for work in his chauffeur-driven embassy car--with consular diplomatic tags, which permitted him to ignore speed limits and park wherever he wished--were canned, and those dips remaining were seriously counseled to get their act in gear or be canned themselves.
At first glance--or even second--it might appear that Counselor for Consular Affairs Eleanor Dillworth and Commercial Attache Alexander B. Darby were disgruntled employees and probably should never have been employed by the Foreign Service in the first place.
The truth here was that neither was a member of the Foreign Service, despite the good deal of effort expended to make that seem to be the case. In fact, Dillworth and Darby were the Central Intelligence Agency station chiefs in, respectively, Vienna and Buenos Aires, and the salary checks deposited once a month to their personal banking accounts came from the funds of the Clandestine Services Division of the Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, Virginia.
It was in this latter--which was to say real--role that Eleanor Dillworth sat in her consul general's office on Parkring, waiting to have a word with a bona fide diplomat, Ronald J. Spearson, who was, as no one at the moment served as ambassador to Austria, the Charge d'Affaires, a.i. of the American embassy.
"In case this somehow slipped by you, Eleanor, it's Christmas Eve,"
Spearson said when he walked into the office. He was a tall, trim man in his early forties.
"Well, in that case, Merry Christmas, Ronnie."
Spearson believed that embassy staff should address him as "Mister," and he did not like to be called "Ronnie," not even by his wife.
He gave her a dirty look.
"I'm in no mood for your sarcasm," she said. "I know what day this is, and I wouldn't have asked you to come here unless it was important."