Richard Lowry - Banquos Ghosts

He sat in a ramshackle office chair staring at the little red light in the video camera and let the little red video light stare right back. Sounds trickled into his head from the earpiece, the familiar theme music of the cable news show six thousand miles away and then that raspy voice from the guy who never missed the chance to ask a cream-puff question:

And joining us live from Tehran, the daring journalist Peter Johnson. The same Peter Johnson who has an opinion about everything and now boasts exclusive access to the Iranian government, its officials, its mullahs, its power brokers. Every beard and every turban. The raspy familiar voice did like its own sound. So tell us, Peter, howre they treating you over there?

Fine, Larry. Fine. Johnson smiled. God, he could feel how pasty and blotched he looked. His skin a moist rubber mask. And the strands of hair he tried to comb onto his forehead from his scalp hinted at the merest plausibility of bangs. A suave geek. The perfect intellectualoid. I think theyre glad to have someone over here listening to them for once.

An awkward pause due to satellite delay, then Larry Kings disembodied voice slid into Johnsons ear like sand. But it was too late; Johnson had already started to talk again. He couldnt help it, a natural reflex to fill any dead air. Chat show guestitis. When he finally became disentangled from Larry, the host got out, I noticed youre growing a bearddoes it help you fit in over there?

Not much can help a sophisticated New Yorker fit in over here, Larry. Johnson looked unshaven, with blue circles beneath his eyes. He could guess what anyone familiar with his reputation must have been thinkinghung over, maybe barely sober. If only they knew how hard it was to get a drink in this crummy town. Dry mouth, dry streets.

The dingy studio room at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance-Foreign Press and Media Department smelled of unwashed feet; a faded cityscape poster of exotic Tehran hung on the wall behind him, his backdrop for the CNN setup. An evening shot, streams of cars, the fairy lights of Scheherazade, all frozen. It might have been snatched from an Iran Air tourist officeabout the time of the Shah. Along with the table, the chairs, the grime on the walls. Nothing here was new.

A bearded technician crouched behind the camera, impossible to make out from the glaring single spotlight aimed straight at Johnson. He smelled of tobacco and French cologne. A nice enough fellow when he had introduced himself, helping with the earpiece and mike. Soft, gentle hands; clean, manicured nails. Johnson had already forgotten his name. Was it Mohammed-Muhammed, first name and last?

The gravelly voice came again. Now tell us, Peternuke or no nuke?

This was easy. He hoped no one thought the moisture tickling his shiny forehead was panic sweatoh, what hed give for some powder right now.

Unequivocally, no nuke, Larry. What can I say, except what everyone else knows? This is another put-on, another confabulation by the same people who always lust after another good war. What people dont realize is that Irans oil reserves arent inexhaustible, and that this government is planning for the future by developing an alternative source of energy. I am told by my sources in the Ministry of Energy that by the year 2015 nearly 20 percent of Irans domestic power will be nuclear, and this will preserve oil, this countrys most important source of revenue. Larry, some powerful people in America apparently believe they are the only ones who should be allowed to get rich off of oil.

Huh-han-huhLarry bleated out his practiced laugh that was something between a chuckle and a smokers cough. Now the tough question, or what passed for it: Okay, you know this is coming. Weve got those bloggers claiming you took money from the Hussein government in Iraq back before it fell.

But whos paying them to make those accusations? Web loggers? Why dont we just call them what they are. Web Liars. Lets see the proof, Larry. Otherwise its just a smear.

So no Cypriot vineyards in your portfolio? No stock from the Nigerian Parking Garage Corporation in Lagos?

I dont think so, Larry. I dont even own a car. And... to quote Dracula, I never drinkwine.

Larry harrumphed again. Well leave it right there, with Peter Johnson, the controversial journalist, live from... The earpiece went dead. The light switched off. Mohammed-Muhammed emerged from behind the camera and gave him thumbs up, then chuckled and shook his head.

Johnson wiped his forehead and looked at the technician with an open-palmed gesture. What?

You dont take Saddams money? the technician asked, as he walked beside Johnson toward the door. Then, incredulous: Why not? Everyone take Saddams money. But not you? Hah. Mohammed-Muhammed threw him an easy, gracious smile, before opening the door and stepping aside to usher his journalist out with a broad sweep of the hand. I dont believe you.

Join the club, Johnson thought.

The door shut behind him, and Johnson was out in the stuffy hallway, staring at his bare dry hands. His fingers trembled ever so slightly. From lack of drink? From the daggers of the mans smile? Or from thoughts of the test to come?

Didnt matter. He remembered the promise. It seemed long ago and far away, made by a man sitting at a well-appointed desk. Well provide a gun when the time is right. When the time is right. Sheesh.

He stuffed his dry, shaky hands in his pockets and left the building.

Stewart Banquos office in 30 Rockefeller Plaza overlooked the skating rink and the spill pools of the promenade. The sounds of midtown Manhattan evening traffic, coursing down Fifth Avenue, drifted through the thick glass of the window into his wood-paneled office. The chiseled lettering in gold on the double oaken door read

Or so everyone was told. As for Duncan, a pure cutout, dead as Jacob Marley, since no such personage ever existed at all. Tonight Banquo sat at his desk, a man alone. The bare, polished surface gleamed at him from a green-shaded bankers desk lamp, his own murky reflection featureless, like a face staring up from the vast deep. The rest of the room in shadow.

The large plasma TV screen across his darkened office showed its pretty, high-definition colors, way too effective for the grainy moving images coming through the military satellite broadband feed. Jerky shots as if coming from a small hand-held camera, now posted like YouTube for general dissemination in the intelligence community. A Middle Eastern locale: Southern Lebanon, town of Bint Jbeil read the white caption. A daytime street scene: hovels, rubble, apartment buildings. A dozen men marched three prisoners out into the street, the jerky video following them along. The prisoners stumbled toward a bullet-riddled wall, wearing knock-off jogging sweats, Michael Jordan wear, an Ice T-shirthopelessly out of date. Clumsily, they kneeled. The dozen menexecutioners with hoodslet fly with AK-47s into the prisoners backs and heads. The closed captioning-style line of type at the bottom of the Langley feed read:

So Hezbollah was knocking off some local opposition, while some dung beetle taped it all for posterity and propagandapresumably. Was it a sign of weakness or of strength, of an impending operation or of business as usual? Well, Human Intelligence Operations at Langley cannot confirm. In other words, situation normal: nobody knew jack.