A Deceit to Die For (77 page)

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Matt looked across the low table into Gwyn’s eyes. She hadn’t said a word during their five-minute walk from the apartment to the tea house on Istiklal. Her face was hard. He could feel anger emanating from her, forming a force field capable of blocking whatever overture he made.

“Look, I really appreciate you coming,” said Matt. “I know it isn’t easy for you and believe me, it’s not easy for me either.”

She remained silent. Matt didn’t know how to begin either. The silence became more and more uncomfortable. The waiter provided some relief when he arrived with two small plates of baklava and tea. When he was gone, Matt took a deep breath and plunged into the lines he had been rehearsing all night.

“First, I owe you an apology. It was wrong of me to just cut you off after you told me that a romantic relationship was not in the cards. I was so disappointed in how things ended that I couldn’t face you. Still, I know you were hurt by what I did. It wasn’t right.”

“Wrong?” she said sarcastically. “I didn’t think you believed in that sort of stuff. You couldn’t score with me, so like the male of every species, you went looking for another female in heat. What’s wrong with that?”

Matt closed his eyes and bowed his head. This was not going to be easy.

“Well, first of all, that’s not true. I haven’t had a girlfriend since we broke up.”

“Not having a girlfriend is not the same as not having a girl.”

“I haven’t had a girl either.”

She put on a look of mock surprise.

“Are we having performance problems?” she asked with feigned concern.

“Knock it off, Gwyn. I’m trying to tell you that I was wrong and apologize. Psychological revenge isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

“I see you’re still trying to get somewhere.”

“Yeah, I’m trying to get back to the place I was with you, a place where we enjoyed one another as unique and gifted individuals capable of making life beautiful. I miss that.”

“Sounds a bit too metaphysical for someone like you.”

“I’m not the same person, Gwyn. Your pain prevents you from seeing it, but it’s true. I’ve changed.”

“Well, that’s a story I probably need to hear,” she said, picking up her tea and leaning back against the cushioned back. “You can start by telling me why you’ve thrown away a career in the diplomatic core to work with hookers.”

Matt picked up the small dessert fork and knife. This was a side of Gwyn he had only seen once. It was when her father had been passed over for a promotion in favor of a well-connected intellectual pygmy, but borderline schizophrenic professor. She had been angry about it for weeks. He had seen her biting sarcastic genius come out in heated conversations with her dad.

“Have you ever heard of Babek Reza?” he asked, cutting a slice of baklava in half and putting it in his mouth.

“No, I don’t think I have,” she replied.

“And you probably never will,” continued Matt. “He was a nuclear physics professor from Tabriz in the north of Iran. He was also a political dissident who worked for the overthrow of the regime. Normally, he would have wound up in prison or in a garbage dump, but the government needed him, so for years he was forced to work on their nuclear development program. He was tortured when he failed to produce results. He was only allowed to see his wife and children once every two months and that was if certain progress objectives were satisfied.

“To make a long story shorter than it should be, he managed to get a message to the US State Department indicating that he wanted asylum and would cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency to prevent Iran from getting the bomb if we would help him get out of the country. At the end of a clandestine two-year operation, a plan was put into motion to extract him while he was on vacation in his hometown near the Caspian Sea. A team of Navy Seals was sent in to make the grab. Two hours later, a friend of mine in the CIA called and told me that the Seals had been ambushed and were fighting for their life.

“A rescue operation would have created an international incident. It might even have led to war with Iran, and so the men who had risked their lives to save an Iranian dissident were sacrificed. To this day, we have no idea how it happened. Maybe the original message passed to the State Department was actually handled by someone inside the Iranian government trying to bait us. We’ll never know.”

“That was the world that you loved though,” said Gwyn. “I know you didn’t quit because one operation went bad. You weren’t even directly involved.”

“Of course we weren’t, but it was the State Department who had to clean up the mess, and at the time, I was on a special task force responsible for improving the image of America in the Middle East.”

“So, they gave you mission impossible,” Gwyn said, with a roll of her eyes. “I’d rather be Leonidas facing a million Persian soldiers at Thermopylae than work with a bunch of bureaucrats on a job like that.”

“That makes two of us. Anyway, when the whole thing went south, we had a meeting with the spooks. Everyone in the room was split into two camps—those concerned with nothing more than saving their own asses and avoiding political embarrassment and those who wanted to do what was right. Pardon my Spanish, but the ones without the
huevos
to stand up and tell the world the truth are the ones who carried the day. If we aren’t proud of what we do, why in the hell are we doing it?”

He found he was getting too worked up, so he cut another square of baklava and took a sip of tea. Gwyn waited for him to continue.

“Even worse in my mind was the fact that they didn’t give a damn about honoring the men who gave their lives. They couldn’t just hold a press conference and say, ‘We were contacted by an Iranian dissident being held against his will and forced by an oppressive regime to develop nuclear weapons. He asked to be extracted, and we did our best to help him. We failed, but honorable men gave their lives in a brave attempt to do what was right for humanity and for the world. We are not ashamed of what we have done and will gladly do it again.’ Can you imagine how that would have boosted morale in the military and the public at large? After that, I realized I didn’t want a career as a professional bull-shitter.”

“So they sacrificed the Seals,” interrupted Gwyn. “Isn’t that what you call
realpolitik
?”

“If your audience is the UN, then maybe it is. Bu, I was under the misguided notion that we were supposed to do what was best for the United States of America. Letting our allies know that ideals guide our actions, that we still have a soul, and that we stand behind our friends seems politically expedient to me. If they want to improve their image, they’re going to have to change who they are. You can’t bamboozle the whole world in the information age.”

“So, you just walked away from it? Why not stay and change it?” asked Gwyn. Some of the iciness had left her voice.

A sardonic smile flashed across Matt’s face.

“Let me ask you a question? What do you call a leader with no followers?”

Gwyn paused for just a second.

“Delusional? I don’t know. What are you driving at?”

“A leader without followers might be a revolutionary, he might be a prophet, he might be a dissident, but he isn’t a leader. The truth is you can’t lead people who won’t follow, which is why this pipedream we call democracy will only work if citizens are noble enough to follow noble leaders. I’m not sure that is true anymore. When the only people the citizens will vote for are sweet-talking villains drowning in corruption, the end of the republic is near. The kind of man we need is feared and hounded by the establishment, Gwyn. A perfect example is John. He learned that the cost of confrontation was first incarceration and then decapitation.”

“John?” she asked quizzically.

“John the Baptist,” he replied.

“Right,” she said, cocking her head sideways and staring at him with a look of disbelief on her face. He didn’t notice her surprise.

“Anyway,” he continued, “That’s the problem. We say we want leaders with character and integrity, men and women who will put the good of their country ahead of everything else, people who will stand up for our values and stand behind actions that reflect those values. But, we get a never-ending stream of self-serving, disingenuous low-life trash masquerading as statesmen and intent only on maintaining the status quo of the new American aristocracy.
 

“And, who is to blame? The followers, of course. After all, in a democracy, it is followers who make and mold leaders, not the other way around. We need leaders who will give us our medicine, not leaders who give the dying cancer patient a clean bill of health. We are sick.”

Gwyn took another bite of her baklava and stared out the window at a group of Turkish students in white and blue uniforms streaming out of the schoolyard across the street on their lunch break. Matt’s honesty was softening the anger she felt.

“Listen, Matt,” she said, “I think you made a mistake in leaving. Politics, especially foreign relations, is what you were cut out to do. I’m sorry you left.”

Matt thought he was going to choke on his baklava.

“You hated the thought of me going into politics. Surely you haven’t forgotten all the grief you gave me?”

She held the tea glass by the rim between her thumb and forefinger. It looked a bit like an hour glass or maybe a perfect 34-26-34 woman.

“You want the truth?” she asked quietly, swirling the tea in the glass and staring at it blankly.

It was a rhetorical question. He didn’t respond. Without looking at him, she continued, “My reasons were totally selfish, Matt. I couldn’t see myself married to a diplomat or a politician and for some bizarre reason I thought you and I were made for each other. That is why I tried so hard to dissuade you.”

Matt had always known this to be true. He sat there looking at her until their eyes met. He wanted to stare into those beautiful eyes of ocean blue and green forever. He held her gaze, and she let him. He felt it, and knew that she did too. That barely perceptible transfer of energy released when two souls connected. His heart began to race.

“But, you were right,” he said at last. “You said that statesmanship and honor had been wrung out of the fabric of society and that politics would leave me disillusioned. You were right. Look at me now.”

“Disillusionment is not sufficient grounds for quitting,” she replied quietly.

“I’m not so sure our leaders have the heart to win. We damn sure can’t win if we lose our honor. We can’t defeat our enemies by pretending to be their friends either, or worse, getting in bed with them.”

“How do you define our enemy?” asked Gwyn. “You surely don’t mean that we are at war with Islam?”

“I’m sure you want me to qualify it by saying radical Islamic terrorists or some other media-inspired claptrap. You haven’t lived in the Middle East like I have. Those people see us as the enemy. This is a direct result of their faith. I have seen how they play in the Middle East. They say Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say anything to the contrary, they want to kill you! The Pope apologizes for the Crusades, which, by the way, were only Christianity’s answer to jihad. But, where are the clerics speaking out against killing in the name of Allah? Why do we constantly catch Middle Eastern governments funding terrorist groups or providing them with intel? You haven’t seen the reports.”

“I haven’t, of course, but you are making sweeping accusations.”

“Gwyn, it is a totally different paradigm. How many times have you seen the American flag desecrated in the Middle East or one of our presidents being burned in effigy?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a dozen times. Maybe more.”

“And how many times have you seen Americans doing the same thing to their flag or leaders?” he asked.

“I don’t remember ever seeing that.”