"Neal Stephenson & J. Frederick George - The Cobweb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

all-penetrating insight, there were no masters. They were a self-proclaimed, self-regulating corps of
professionals, the last of the true diplomats, the last generation of a craft that had begun in Italy after the
Peace of Lodi in 1454.

Millikan understood that now, in 1990, with the Soviet Union collapsing into itself, the Chinese
Communist party making the improbable transition into the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and even
South Africa backing away from chaos, the United States had one enemy: Iran, and Iran's worldwide
terrorist network. Aziz knew the same thing, for his country had spent most of the previous decade in a
gargantuan struggle with the vastly stronger--in virtually all respects--Iranians. He knew that only a deftly
manipulated program of assistance, led both openly and covertly by the Americans, had allowed Iraq to
survive. And so the two men, great respecters of each other's skills, had the added advantage of being
allies in all but name.

A slight young Iraqi man sat next to Aziz--his assistant, and Dellinger's counterpart. Another Iraqi, a dead
ringer for the young Saddam Hussein, stood by the door, his jacket bulging conspicuously. Standing near
the table was a middle-aged Frenchman, Gérard Touvain, the French Foreign Ministry liaison.

Aziz bounded out from behind the table and headed straight for Millikan. It was a deliberate breach of
protocol, no doubt carefully planned by Aziz to look like a spontaneous gesture. Gérard Touvain tried
halfheartedly to intercede and make the proper introductions. He would listen in, but for both Aziz and
Millikan would be no more functional than the designs on the wallpaper, and less efficient than the
listening devices both knew were implanted in the room.

Millikan shook Touvain's hand perfunctorily. “Dr. Millikan," Touvain said, “allow me to present His
Excellency Tariq Aziz."

Millikan gave his best warm, two-handed grasp to his old colleague. “Zdraustvui, tovarishch," Millikan
said--the two had served in Moscow at the same time. “Salut, mon vieux," Aziz responded, and the
two sat down at the table. Touvain tried to make small talk, pointing out for whomever would listen the
"belle lumière" of the hotel. The assistants were introduced, the Iraqi bodyguard was ignored, and
Touvain, after a few minutes, was politely told to beat it.

On the small table was a tray laid to Millikan's specifications with a bottle of iced Stolichnaya, beluga
caviar, and plates of black bread, butter, onions, chopped hard-boiled eggs. "I thought that you might
have had too much champagne by this time, old friend," Millikan explained, knowing the contempt in
which Aziz held the French for, among other things, their sheltering of the Ayatollah Khomeini in
the1970s.

"You couldn't be more correct, Jim," Aziz responded.

Millikan hated to be called Jim, had got into fights as a child when somebody had called him Jim, but Aziz
had called him Jim for the past twenty years, and he was not about to ask him to change.

"A toast," Millikan said when the shot glasses were filled with the vodka, syrupy in its subzero cold. "To
diplomacy."

The four clinked their glasses and downed the Stoli in a single gulp. They carefully prepared, consumed,
and savored their slices of black bread with butter, onions, pieces of egg, and caviar. Aziz then proposed
a toast. "To us, Jim, and the continued cooperation of our countries."