Banquo's Ghosts Read Online Free
Author: Richard Lowry
glanced at his hands—steady as a rock.
The Golden Martyrs of the Revolution May-They-Ever-Be-Blessed Tea Lounge was the official place of unofficial business, of promises that would never be kept and lies that told the truth. But with no gin to cut the tonic. Two men waited for him at a low coffee table surrounded by low, deep couches.
The shill from Al Jazeera, Mr. Jazril Mahout—or the Jazz Man, as Johnson nicknamed him—wore a suit, open shirt, no tie, hand-sewn Ferragamo loafers. The suit was an expensive one, $2,000 at least, the cloth impregnated with threads that made it shimmer slightly.
He stood up to greet Johnson, extending his hand—the grip firm, not the banana handclasp that made you want to wash your hands.
“Mr. Johnson, thank you for coming. I’m sorry we’re so late tonight, but His Eminence, Sheik Kutmar, could only see His Holiness in the interval between prayers and therefore could make time for us only now.”
The more forbidding figure of the two was Sheik Kutmar, little sheik to the big mullah who would decide matters of access. Johnson tried not to stare at the dark prayer callus directly in the middle of the man’s forehead. He was in the presence of the next line of eyes, the next level of ears. Sheik Kutmar sat at right angles to the American, neither looking him directly in the eye, nor getting up to shake his hand, nor even speaking. His presence was enough. A thin, wiry, and arrogant man deigning to appear and listen like some carved stone idol waiting for his due offering.
The Jazz Man went on as if he and Johnson were alone, eyes directly on the westerner, “Our Washington, DC, bureau chief has expressed his desire to do the story as a large special, twenty-five to thirty minutes. He would do the wrap-around, the context. You’d be reporting on the ground.”
“That’s fine, but that doesn’t avoid our primary problem,” Johnson said. “Your network is widely recognized as one-stop shopping for beheading videos, ransom demands, and goons in black hoods sitting beside guys in turbans muttering about Zionist pigs and monkeys. As you know, I’m not under contract to any one news service, but if you want your story to get legs and credibility, if you want the story to go beyond chanting and ranting, I’ve got to be able to draw a Western network into the reportage. Since no one has a bureau here any more, that’s not as difficult as it seems, but that might leave your DC man out of it. Everyone recognizes me as a partisan figure, but the mainstream networks have a way of overlooking such matters when exclusive access is involved.”
The Al Jazeera producer sighed, his liquid brown eyes veiling themselves for a moment. “We were so hoping to make the segment our premier, signature breakthrough.”
“Who says it can’t be?”
The veils went away. “Explain.”
“Rome wasn’t burned in a day, my friend. On this story we start as a western network exclusive, CNN or MSNBC. But since none of the cable or big three networks have bureaus here, Al Jazeera should handle the tactical aspect, getting our road show from point A to point B, filming, and translation. A significant obligation. Now, imagine we do two reports—two separate pieces. The first: ‘The Mullah Bomb: Fact or Fiction?’ And as we know the answer already, this will come as something of a disappointment to those who want to see an underground test sometime soon. Peaceful uses, brilliant scientists, yawning energy needs in a country beset by American sanctions. For the second segment we do a teaser. We call the second piece ‘The Scimitar of Faith.’ We show the military strength of the Republic of Iran, how futile it is to attack or resist it. In this way we actually give the world something to see. Footage of secret military exercises and tests. Top defense officials
talking candidly about their power to slaughter the infidel. Fortress Iran. Invincibility. Certain defeat at the hands of the Mahdi’s
The Golden Martyrs of the Revolution May-They-Ever-Be-Blessed Tea Lounge was the official place of unofficial business, of promises that would never be kept and lies that told the truth. But with no gin to cut the tonic. Two men waited for him at a low coffee table surrounded by low, deep couches.
The shill from Al Jazeera, Mr. Jazril Mahout—or the Jazz Man, as Johnson nicknamed him—wore a suit, open shirt, no tie, hand-sewn Ferragamo loafers. The suit was an expensive one, $2,000 at least, the cloth impregnated with threads that made it shimmer slightly.
He stood up to greet Johnson, extending his hand—the grip firm, not the banana handclasp that made you want to wash your hands.
“Mr. Johnson, thank you for coming. I’m sorry we’re so late tonight, but His Eminence, Sheik Kutmar, could only see His Holiness in the interval between prayers and therefore could make time for us only now.”
The more forbidding figure of the two was Sheik Kutmar, little sheik to the big mullah who would decide matters of access. Johnson tried not to stare at the dark prayer callus directly in the middle of the man’s forehead. He was in the presence of the next line of eyes, the next level of ears. Sheik Kutmar sat at right angles to the American, neither looking him directly in the eye, nor getting up to shake his hand, nor even speaking. His presence was enough. A thin, wiry, and arrogant man deigning to appear and listen like some carved stone idol waiting for his due offering.
The Jazz Man went on as if he and Johnson were alone, eyes directly on the westerner, “Our Washington, DC, bureau chief has expressed his desire to do the story as a large special, twenty-five to thirty minutes. He would do the wrap-around, the context. You’d be reporting on the ground.”
“That’s fine, but that doesn’t avoid our primary problem,” Johnson said. “Your network is widely recognized as one-stop shopping for beheading videos, ransom demands, and goons in black hoods sitting beside guys in turbans muttering about Zionist pigs and monkeys. As you know, I’m not under contract to any one news service, but if you want your story to get legs and credibility, if you want the story to go beyond chanting and ranting, I’ve got to be able to draw a Western network into the reportage. Since no one has a bureau here any more, that’s not as difficult as it seems, but that might leave your DC man out of it. Everyone recognizes me as a partisan figure, but the mainstream networks have a way of overlooking such matters when exclusive access is involved.”
The Al Jazeera producer sighed, his liquid brown eyes veiling themselves for a moment. “We were so hoping to make the segment our premier, signature breakthrough.”
“Who says it can’t be?”
The veils went away. “Explain.”
“Rome wasn’t burned in a day, my friend. On this story we start as a western network exclusive, CNN or MSNBC. But since none of the cable or big three networks have bureaus here, Al Jazeera should handle the tactical aspect, getting our road show from point A to point B, filming, and translation. A significant obligation. Now, imagine we do two reports—two separate pieces. The first: ‘The Mullah Bomb: Fact or Fiction?’ And as we know the answer already, this will come as something of a disappointment to those who want to see an underground test sometime soon. Peaceful uses, brilliant scientists, yawning energy needs in a country beset by American sanctions. For the second segment we do a teaser. We call the second piece ‘The Scimitar of Faith.’ We show the military strength of the Republic of Iran, how futile it is to attack or resist it. In this way we actually give the world something to see. Footage of secret military exercises and tests. Top defense officials
talking candidly about their power to slaughter the infidel. Fortress Iran. Invincibility. Certain defeat at the hands of the Mahdi’s
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