MAMista. Len Deighton

Washington, DC, the President was about to say, but after seeing the earnest look on Curl’s face said, ‘Conclusion?’

      ‘Conclusions are your prerogative, Mr President. But Admiral Benz has had a long uphill struggle to bring democratic government to a primitive country that is essentially feudal. Money from oil could give him the chance to build schools and roads and hospitals and make his country into a show-case.’

      ‘Is this a plea to do nothing?’

      ‘Steve says the Japanese would do a deal with him … or maybe buy his whole South American outfit. Japan needs energy sources.’

      The President thought about that and didn’t like the sound of it. ‘Should this go on the Security Council agenda, John?’

      ‘Leave it for a few days, Mr President. The fewer who are party to this the better.’

      ‘And if Steve starts talks with his Japanese buddies?’

      ‘If Steve talks to his mother we’ll put him into Leavenworth. I told him that, Mr President.’

      The President stabbed the TV control and produced fleeting glimpses of an old British war film, ‘The Odd Couple’, a Honda commercial and then a blank screen again. ‘It would be best if Steinbeck held exclusive mineral rights.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Curl.

      ‘Let the British in there and they will start building a refinery; they can’t afford to ship crude across the water. We must keep it as crude, brought Stateside for refining. That way if the government there falls, we have a breathing space before anyone can raise the money and get a refinery built.’

      Curl nodded.

      ‘I’m damned if I can remember who we have out there.’

      ‘Junk-bond Joey.’

      ‘Junk-bond Joey,’ said the President. The two men looked at each other. They were remembering the flamboyant entrepreneur who had purchased his backwoods embassy for untold millions in campaign funds. This was the man who had almost gone to prison for insider trading, a man who had recently created a minor diplomatic crisis by offering a punch in the head to an Algerian diplomat at a Washington cocktail party.

      ‘Tepilo is not Washington,’ said Curl reassuringly. ‘Tepilo is Latin America; very much Latin America.’

      ‘But does Joey know that?’

      ‘There’s a lot to do,’ said Curl. ‘We must tell Benz that he’s got an oilfield, and make sure he knows what will happen if he steps out of line. Most importantly, we must appoint a tough someone we can trust, to sit in on the meetings between Steve’s people and the Benz government. A tough someone! Benz won’t be easy to deal with.’

      ‘A trap,’ said the President. Curl raised an eyebrow. ‘An oil trap, until it starts producing, and then it’s an oilfield.’ He sipped his cognac and ginger. ‘We must be very careful … Article Fifteen, remember.’

      Article Fifteen of the Charter of the Organization of American States declares that: ‘… no state, or group of states, has the right to intervene, directly or in-directly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other state.’ Past Presidents had sometimes ignored that dictum, but lately political opponents had used a literal interpretation of Article Fifteen to beat the incumbent over the head. ‘Whatever it is,’ said Curl, ‘Benz has got one.’

      ‘Is Benz right for us?’ the President asked.

      ‘Who else is there?’ asked Curl. The President stared right through him as he drew upon his prodigious memory. He could quote long passages from documents that Curl had watched him skim through, seemingly without much interest. Curl waited.

      ‘There is Doctor Guizot,’ said the President.

      ‘At present under house arrest,’ said Curl without hesitation.

      The President didn’t respond to that item of information. Curl bit his lip. He knew that his over-prompt reply had been noted as evidence that Curl – like the CIA and the Pentagon too – were prejudiced against Doctor Guizot’s liberal policies. The President’s next remark confirmed this: ‘We always back the Admiral Benzes don’t we?’

      ‘Mr President?’

      ‘America always puts its resources behind these anachronistic strong-arm men. And we are always dismayed when they are toppled, and we get spattered with the crap. Korea, Vietnam … Marcos, Noriega. Why do our “experts” in State fall in love with these bastards?’

      ‘Because there are sometimes no alternatives,’ said Curl calmly. ‘Could we support communist revolution, however pure its motives?’ It was a rhetorical question.

      ‘Sometimes, John, I wonder how it happened that in 1945 the State Department didn’t offer military aid to the Nazis.’

      ‘I’ve heard people say communism might have collapsed more quickly if we had.’

      The President did not hear him. ‘Doctor Guizot. Not that bastard Benz. Not after that slavery business and the human rights investigation.’

      Curl wanted to point out that the slavery allegations referred to peóns allowed a strip of land on the big haciendas in return for labour. But the President had paused only to clear his throat and, in his present state of mind, such remarks would not help.

      The President continued: ‘Yes, the liberal press would make Benz into some kind of Hitler. Better Guizot. Guizot has a chance of reconciling the liberal middle-class element with the Indians, peasants and workers.’

      ‘Guizot is committed to removing the literacy qualification for voters.’

      ‘And that makes him sound like a dangerous radical, eh John?’

      Curl didn’t smile. ‘A split vote could mean a victory for the Marxists.’ When no response came he added, ‘Karl Marx didn’t die in Eastern Europe; he sailed to South America and is alive and well and flourishing there.’

      ‘Just like all those Nazi war criminals, eh John?’ He scratched his head. ‘I recall there are other – rival – guerrilla outfits down there.’

      ‘Several,’ said Curl, who’d spent the previous couple of hours reading up on the subject. ‘But none that we could cosy up to.’

      ‘Are you quite sure? What about the Indians?’

      ‘The Indian farmers have a Marxist leader who calls himself Big Jorge. But Big Jorge rules in the coca-growing regions and lets the drug barons go unmolested in exchange for a piece of the action.’

      ‘Ummm. I see what you mean,’ said the President.

      ‘The revenues from oil will bring prosperity enough to establish someone in political power for at least a decade. Whatever creed the government preaches, the oil money will make their politics seem worth copying elsewhere in Latin America. Give it to the Marxists and we will be perpetuating the myth of Marxist economics. We will live to regret it.’

      The President’s face didn’t change but there was a rough edge to his voice: ‘Sit in my chair and you worry less about the teachings of Karl Marx. My supporters are inclined to think crime here at home is the number one issue on the ticket, John. Crime and drug abuse. Stop the drugs and we reduce violent crime. That’s the way the voters see it.’

      ‘It’s too simplistic.’

      ‘I don’t care what you call it,’ said the President with a harshness one seldom heard from him. ‘I don’t even care if it’s right. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows that drug abuse has become the number one public concern, and we’ve got an election coming up.’ He scowled and sipped his drink. ‘Did you see those figures Drug Enforcement came up with? … How many of my own White House staff are sniffing their goddamned heads off?’

      Gently Curl corrected him. ‘It was just an assessment based upon national figures, Mr President.