Minute Zero (3 page)

“Exactly. Once the Libyan people were convinced that Qaddafi’s reign was over, he was dead,” Judd said. “But here is the critical thing about Minute Zero: It’s only a minute. It’s fleeting. It doesn’t take long for events to sway in one direction and then realignment happens in an instant. People quickly choose sides and then a new equilibrium is established. The opportunity, and the challenge, is to influence events
during Minute Zero
. That means being ready and willing to act quickly to shape history. If we wait too long, the window closes. Preparation and speed are everything.”

“Two things the United States government is not very good at,” Parker said.

“We can do better,” Judd said.

Someone at the back guffawed. Several heads shook.

“So what exactly does this mean for our preparations for the Egyptian elections?” asked the veteran.

“If we want to shape events in Egypt, we should first be looking for early warning signs of Minute Zero.”

“Which are?”

“Politicians suddenly changing sides. Or asking us what outcomes the American government might find acceptable. Anything that hints things may be turning and no one knows what is going to happen next.” Several nods around the table.

“And then what, Dr. Ryker?” Landon Parker asked.

“And then you prepare. If Minute Zero arrives, who’s the ambassador calling first? Who’s on our side? Who’s untouchable? You can’t wait for the crisis and then expect to have time to answer these questions back here in Washington.”

“If you were advising NEA on Egypt, Dr. Ryker, where would you start?” Parker asked.

“I would start mapping the actors, the potential hotspots, and the leverage points. I’d have at least a dozen contingency plans in place and locked down. This should all be happening now, months ahead of the vote. You can’t wait for the last minute. The worst position for the U.S. is to sit back and watch and then just pronounce judgment on the outcome.”

“Why?”

“That only gives us a thumbs-up or thumbs-down option. If we do that, we would be just witnesses, not shapers of history.”

“What about the voting?”

“If we believe there’s serious cheating, we need to act before the vote.
And definitely before election results are ever announced.
Afterward it’s just too late.”

Judd paused to let people take notes.

“One thing we’ve learned from reviewing events during Congo’s civil war and after the Haitian hurricane,” he continued, “is the U.S. embassy is in a unique position. If there are riots on the streets, or no one knows who is in charge, then the public looks to the foreign embassies for signals.”

“Or refuge,” added Parker. “We’ve got over a hundred people camped out right now on the grounds of our embassy in Jordan.”

“Yes, that’s true. Refuge, too. But if Minute Zero arrives, the ambassadors of the big powers can influence events. And no one is bigger than the United States. It’s a platform we don’t use nearly enough. If the United States ambassador goes on the radio with a declaration, we can make it true by just saying so. The streets are under control. There is no fuel shortage. The president has lost the election and will step down. The message to the army, to the police, to the politicians can be clear: The tide is turning and you better get on the right side of history. This is how the United States can shape events if we know what we want and are prepared to act swiftly. Otherwise we are just bystanders.”

Landon Parker glanced at his watch. “Okay, people. Thank you for coming. Thank you, Dr. Ryker. I think your Minute Zero concept is a useful one and I hope it will inform NEA’s planning for Egypt. Meeting closed.”

Parker grabbed Judd’s arm. “Thanks, Ryker. Very interesting. Can I have a word?”

“Of course.”

“Walk with me, Ryker,” he said, gesturing for Judd to follow.

The two left the conference room and strolled down the long hallway, illuminated with flickering fluorescent light.

“You know I’ve always been a champion of S/CRU, right?”

“Yes, sir. I appreciate your support,” Judd said.

“You know I stuck my neck out to create your whole goddamn office in the first place, right?”

“Yes, sir. I know that.”

“I did it because I want the Secretary to have a legacy. I want to be able, when we are all done here, to point to a few things and say:
We. Did. That.
Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course. That’s why I’m here, too.”

“Then we are on the same page.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So I need you to help me.”

“Of course.”

“Actually, Ryker, to be precise, I need you to help me
to help you
.”

“Sir?”

“The Mali coup worked out a few months ago. President Maiga is back in power, Senator McCall has his daughter home safely, and we’ve been able to restart our counterterrorism operations in the Sahara Desert. It’s a good outcome all around. As far as I’m concerned, our success in Mali is a credit to you and to S/CRU.”

“Thank you.”

“But not everybody agrees with me on that, as I’m sure you know. There’s been blowback right here inside the building. People are complaining to the Secretary about S/CRU, about your office encroaching on their issues. No one wants that.”

Judd nodded.

“To put it bluntly, Ryker,
no one wants you
.”

“I realize S/CRU is still new and some people are resistant to a new way of doing things.”

“It’s the goddamn State Department, Ryker. Of course they are going to resist. It’s part of the DNA of the bureaucracy. It’s just part of the culture. It’s in their blood.”

“So what do you want me to do, sir?”

“We need a win for S/CRU. Something big that no one can ignore. We still have to prove the concept. It’s been, what, a year?”

“Coming up on fifteen months.”

“Okay, fifteen months. The budget is up for review, and if we are going to keep S/CRU afloat, I’ve got to justify it to the Secretary. She’s supportive, don’t get me wrong. But she’s got a lot of requests on her plate, and the budget office is desperate to cut something. It doesn’t help to have her senior staff bitching about your office. It puts a big fat target on your back.”

“What you’re saying is S/CRU is facing its own Golden Hour.”

“Exactly, Ryker. I knew you’d get it.” Parker placed a hand on Judd’s shoulder. “And that’s why I wanted you to brief the NEA team on the Egyptian elections. To get them to seize the initiative. To get them excited about Minute Zero. It’ll help make the case to give S/CRU more time. Got it?”

“Yes. So you’d like me to join the Egypt team and help them with election planning.”

“Hell, no, Ryker!” Parker withdrew his hand with a laugh. “The NEA Bureau won’t let you anywhere near Egypt. It’s too damn important. The White House is breathing down their necks. I’d be all for it. But, frankly, it’s not a fight I want to have right now. More importantly, if you wait for Egypt, I don’t think S/CRU will still exist by the time the election rolls around. I’ve got a budget meeting in
ten days
. We need a big win for S/CRU
right now
.”

“How about Cuba? I’ve been doing some new analysis on weak links in the Cuban communist party. I have a new approach that could blow it wide open.”

“No, not Cuba.”

“So what exactly do you have in mind, sir?”

“You’re about to find out. I need you to clear your schedule and get to a task force meeting that starts in”—Parker paused to check his watch—“nine minutes. Can you do it, Ryker?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Good.”

“But what’s the issue?”

“Saving democracy.”

“What country?”

“Zimbabwe.”

Harare, Zimbabwe
Thursday, 3:00 p.m. Central Africa Time

J
ust as the Westminster chimes antique clock struck three, the president’s tea arrived. For as long as anyone could remember, it had been this precise ritual every day. At that very hour, Winston Tinotenda, President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, sat in his tapestry-upholstered chair by the window. At exactly three o’clock a butler would appear with a silver tray bearing a silver pot of Earl Grey tea, a small silver pitcher of heavy cream, and a bowl of local cane sugar crystals. The president would assemble his favorite concoction and stir it daintily with a matching silver spoon. He would then gaze out the window at his garden, watching for the Goliath herons his official bird keeper had brought from the Zambezi river valley. After a few moments he would take a healthy sip.

“Oh, that’s a lovely cup of tea,” he would declare to the assembled staff, who always responded with enthusiastic agreement. At 3:15 the president would be refreshed and ready to accept visitors.

President Winston Tinotenda was known to everyone as simply “Tino.” No one called him that to his face, of course. Within earshot he was addressed only by his official name: His Excellency, Father of the Nation, and Warrior of the People, President Winston H. R. Tinotenda. Soon after becoming president, Zimbabwe’s parliament passed a law forbidding public speculation on the true meaning of his middle initials.

The president’s face had begun to sag, long vertical lines pointing from his eye sockets to the end of his chin. His heavy eyes were still scarred yellow from childhood malnutrition. One of his doctors in Singapore had offered an experimental treatment to re-whiten his eyes, but he’d dismissed it as uncivilized. In truth, he worried that the injections might be an assassination plot.

A private barber ensured the president’s head and facial hair were kept tight and clean, while abundant moisturizer was flown in from Switzerland to keep his face supple. The newspaper reports of his vigorous daily exercise were, however, mere plants by the Ministry of Information. The president had long ago given up the battle with his waistline. For special occasions, such as state dinners or his annual four-hour address to the nation, he had taken to wearing a slimming girdle. Mentioning this in the press was also punishable with a lengthy prison sentence.

One thing Winston Tinotenda had certainly not given up was a taste for fine men’s clothing. A great irritant of his diplomatic jousting with Her Majesty’s Government in London was the curtailment of his shopping trips to Savile Row for hand-tailored suits and Jermyn Street for silk shirts. Several years earlier the British government had revoked his travel visa after complaints about one thing or another.

Human rights? Vote fraud? Elephants? He could never remember.

It nevertheless irked him every time he was forced to send one of the few serviceable Air Zimbabwe jets to London to fetch his tailor. “The Prime Minister has lost his bearings,” the tailor assured him. “The Queen never would have allowed it in my day.”

On this day, just two days before he stood for reelection for a historic seventh term, President Tinotenda was pondering the past. With the weight of history on his shoulders, he was reflecting on those great leaders who’d created the nation of Zimbabwe. The names of the Shona kings of the Monomotapa Empire and Great Zimbabwe had mostly been lost in oral history, but their ruins remained standing.

The Matabele people in southwestern Zimbabwe, his country’s largest minority, knew their ancestors well. A Zulu warrior named Mzilikazi had fled the powerful Shaka Zulu in the early nineteenth century, crossing north over the Limpopo River to create Matabeleland. Tinotenda had mixed feelings about the pesky Matabele. They were unwilling to cede authority to his government, so he was periodically forced to send in his troops. But he respected the Matabele’s plucky resolve.

He held no such ambiguity about Cecil Rhodes. The British imperialist, through trickery and military force, had stolen the land of Zimbabwe from its rightful African owners and claimed it in the name of Anglo commerce. In his early days as president, Tinotenda had sworn to erase, as much as possible, any memory of Rhodes: streets and towns were renamed, memorials torn down, his accomplishments—if not the details of his treachery—carefully expunged from school history books.

A better precedent for the Tinotenda legacy, he believed, was Mbuya Nehanda. She was a famous spirit medium who had led the First Chimurenga, a revolt against the British in 1896. An old woman, she’d been fierce and brave. She even managed to capture the British native commissioner and cut off his head.
Oh, if only I could have been there!
wished Tinotenda.

Mbuya Nehanda was eventually captured and hanged by the British army, but Winston Tinotenda could feel her alive within his body. Her spirit was one reason he, too, had risen up against the British to fight the Second Chimurenga, the war for independence. A fight he was proud to have won. But he was always on the watch for new plots. For the return of his enemies.

This day, his first post-tea visitor was the head of the army and his personal national security advisor. His name was, by no coincidence, General Simba Chimurenga. Tinotenda had discovered Simba long before he became president. The small boy had grown up not far from Tino’s home village, an orphan raised by a family friend. The young Simba had shown a knack for killing things swiftly and covering his tracks. Tinotenda had noticed.

After independence, the boy who had grown up on stories of the glory of war couldn’t wait for military service. He longed to prove he was a true patriot. When Simba joined the army at the age of sixteen, he formally changed his last name to Chimurenga in honor of his predecessors. Tinotenda had approved of his nom de guerre and taken the promising young man under his wing. The president had then guided Simba through the army ranks, providing discreet but unmistakable orders to the military promotion boards. Simba was selected for special training in Romania and Ethiopia. After he had been handpicked by the president to command a particularly sensitive mission and performed marvelously, Simba Chimurenga was promoted yet again, becoming the youngest general in Zimbabwe’s history.

He’d further burnished his reputation when, just after his ascendance, he stood before his men and bit the head off a deadly green mamba snake. In a country where snakes are feared as spirits of evil, this was an extraordinary show of bravery and—his men believed—magical powers.

—

G
eneral Simba Chimurenga now stood, in full military dress and a chest covered in medals, waiting outside the president’s parlor. He tapped his feet with impatience.

“His Excellency, Father of the Nation and Warrior of the People, President Winston H. R. Tinotenda, will see you now,” said the butler, with a dramatic bow at the waist.

“My dear Simba,” the president greeted him.

“Thank you, Your Excellency. I am not interrupting your tea?”

“Of course not.”

“I have come to brief you on preparations for Saturday.”

“Yes, yes, I want to hear. I have been worried about the voting in Matabeleland and the central provinces. They are a stubborn people. They cannot be reasoned with.”

“Your Excellency, I agree.” Simba gestured toward the butler, whom the president then ordered to leave.

Once they were alone, the general continued, “I want to assure you we have taken measures to ensure security. The army and police are already positioned in enemy territory and we have our networks deployed to watch for troublemakers. I am confident the outcome will be satisfactory.”

“Good, good. That is very good, my Simba.”

“We are also watching the foreigners. The embassies are once again attempting to interfere with our election, but we will not allow any threat to our sovereignty. That is also taken care of. I beg you not to worry,
Sekuru
.”

The younger man’s usage of the Shona title of “Grandfather” to address the president of the republic was technically illegal. But an exception was made for Simba Chimurenga.

“I have confidence in you, my son.”

“Thank you,
Sekuru
.”

“But one thing is troubling me. If the unthinkable should happen . . . if the forces of evil succeed and convince our own people to turn against the nation . . . if somehow the people are weak and they vote for the sellouts and the traitors . . . what will become of everything we have built?”

“Do not worry,
Sekuru
. I will never allow that to happen,” Chimurenga said firmly.

“I will not worry,” said the president. “But I am an old man and I am getting tired. I have fought my whole life. But I am not sure I have another war within me.”

“You need not fight. Leave it to me.
That woman
will not win.”

“Perhaps an old man who has given so much to his country deserves a quiet ending?”

“Your Excellency, no! If you need quiet and a peaceful rest, you can do that when the time is right. When we decide. We can never concede to the stooges and turncoats. Retire when you wish. But lose—never!”

“Very well, Simba.”

“If we must fight a third Chimurenga, Your Excellency, then we will fight. We will never lose. We will never surrender.”

“Simba,
you
are the Third Chimurenga.”