120.
   Vivian continued its soliloquy as it led us through the ship up to the top deck, all the while patting our backs and shoulders and stroking and ruffling our hair. “No sooner did that hottie Kennedy get his feet wet when he was invoking the domino theory, you know, one bitch goes commie, they all go commie. Whatever works but really, darlings, dominoes? By the way, did anyone ever tell you that you two make a really cute couple? Anyway, before you could say off with their heads, Dragon Lady Nhu calls the Buddhist bonfires “barbeques” and Kennedy’s ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge engineers a coup that results in a little road side firing squad. When that cutie Kennedy heard that Diem was toast, he turned ashen and left the room without a word, a premonition, perhaps. The poor dear was dead himself three weeks later.” Vivian paused and took a deep breath . “I cried and cried, darlings. I cried and cried. What were we going to do about the commie bitches without our dream boat? And now we were saddled with that troll, Johnson. But every cloud has a silver lining as they say, and this silver lining was nine inches long! It takes my breath away just thinking about it. But I digress. When darling Jumbo Johnson, that was his nickname, Jumbo. Oh, goodness me. Ahem. When Jumbo found himself running against that smarmy little Goldwater, he had to butch it up with the commies in order to win the election, so he pretended some of our ships were attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin by the Vietnamese Navy. Apparently, we’ve been using that ploy for a long time. Remember the Maine? Anyway, it worked and the American people swallowed it hook line and sinker. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and watch out commie bitches, here comes Uncle Sam!“

121.
   As we sailed into the majesty of Han Long Bay, Vivian flounced across the deck. “I never get tired of this place. All of this could have been ours. The French never knew what to do with it. And we tried, my dears. For ten years we tried to make it ours. We tried with carpet bombing and napalm, two kinds actually. The first kind didn’t stick to human flesh so we had our girls at Dow Chemical fix things. We tried with agent orange but we’d wipe out whole swathes of virgin jungle and the gook bitches just dug tunnels. We tried with half a million men, with fifty thousand Americans dead at a thousand a month but the commie bitches wouldn’t give up. The anti-war bitches with their endless demonstrations wouldn’t give up. In the end, even our drug addled boys in the field were refusing orders and fragging their superior officers. Finally, there was nothing left to do but bomb North Vietnam back into the stone age. I thought doing it at Christmas time was a nice touch. We can thank Nixon for that, that slimy little grease ball. Just the thought of her gives me the willies, darlings, but I must admit her heart was in the right place. She would just go apoplectic thinking about all the ways to kill gooks. ‘Bomb the dikes!’, she’d screech. ‘That oughta kill a couple hundred thousand.’ And after knocking a couple back it was ‘We gotta nuke ‘em, Henry! We gotta nuke em!’. ”

   “How many million Vietnamese died?” asked Conrad dryly.
   Vivian’s head swiveled on its shoulders like and insect. The coquettish babble was replaced with a dark growl. “And now you, Oliver want to lift the red, white and blue star spangled curtain and show all the nasty things we had to do in order to spread liberty and freedom around the world!”

122.
    Vivian’s face began to warp and bend. A pair of antennae jutted out of its head. Its arms folded inward, its fingers turned into barbed swords. Another pair of legs sprouted out of its body and wings grew out of its shoulders. “But Vivian is not going to let you and your fat friend get away with it, Miss Thing! There have always been curious little bitches like you full of pinheaded hope! You are always oozing saintly love and empathy for the oppressed and downtrodden and your fate has always been the same!” It clasped its pincher arms together. “Come, let us pray. Dear Lord, take these two bitches into your loving arms and throw them to the devil! Rip their ungrateful souls into shreds and toss them into the howling depths of hell! Stomp these unpatriotic whores into dust! Burn away their meddling curiosity with the fires of truth, justice and the American Way!”

   Vivian rose up to its true height and spread its claws over our heads. “Oh, look, two more headless Catamites.”
   Conrad jumped out of the way of the snapping pinchers and threw himself at one of Vivian’s legs. I grabbed another. Vivian cursed and spat, slamming its claws on the deck as it tried to keep its balance. We ducked and dodged. With all our strength we twisted its legs out from under it. Vivian hit the ship’s rail. With a look of startled alarm, it fell back and somersaulted off the deck.

123.
   But before it hit the water its wings roared to life. It hovered in the air for a moment then rushed full bore back at us. We braced ourselves for the onslaught.
    Out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of light. A lance hurtling out of nowhere sank deep into Vivian’s chest. Vivian froze in mid-flight. Its eyes flashed with pain and confusion. An iguana riding a Catamite buzzed past on the follow through with the dogs on their tail. Another lance pierced Vivian’s back. Pat and Nanette clamped their jaws on the antennae flapping wildly on Vivian’s head. Vivian spun around in mid-air like a wounded fly then fell to the deck.

   Conrad reached down and grabbed its head in his hands. He pulled Vivian’s face close to his, wrapped his arms around Vivian’s head and snapped its neck. He let loose a roar of rage as he shook its lifeless body. A cheer went up as iguanas and their Catamites filled the sky. "I think it's time to leave Vietnam to the Vietnamese!", he bellowed. "Come on boys and girls, let's go home!"
   Two Catamites landed by our side. Conrad and I climbed on their backs. They spread their wings and took to the air. I held tight as the Catamite’s wings beat the air in front of my eyes, rhythmically bisecting the view of the jungle below me. Once again, we were miraculously saved from death’s jaws. My head spun with the adrenaline racing through my body. Another good ending. How many did I have left?
   Conrad’s Catamite was ahead of me. I smiled at the sight of his ears flapping in the wind. I was sure I had lost him twice in a matter of hours. It sunk in as I gazed at his broad back. Don’t even think about it, I ordered myself. Appreciate him now. Enjoy him now because now is all you’ve got.

124.   
   There was another party below deck that night, but this one was subdued. Everyone, the crew, the Catamites, the dogs, Conrad and I danced slowly, thankfully. I mulled over our abduction, our captor’s arrogance and American Empire. The beautiful fairy tale about the American Dream and Lady Liberty’s words: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free’ was just that, a fairy tale. And empire? It’s human nature. Why should we claim to be different when it has always been with us from The Trail of Tears to the theft of half of Mexico? We got away with Manifest Destiny. Could we have been satisfied with a magnificent country stretching from sea to shining sea? Perhaps. But we weren’t satisfied. We aren’t satisfied. Empire is power and power is corruption and corruption is the cancer that hollows out a nation, a people, a dream until it crumbles into the dustbin of history.

   Conrad pulled me close and whispered in my ear. “A cloud has drifted over your eyes.”
   I looked up and sighed. “If I don’t want to hear this sordid, blood-soaked tale, who will? Who wants to be told that their beloved country is a monster?”
   Conrad smiled. “No more of a monster than any other country has been, is or will be, but if you don’t know what you have done, you can’t stop repeating yourself. Most of the world looks at the American people as blissfully ignorant at worst and sadly naïve at best. For God’s sake, how old is your country, a couple of hundred years? Europe is a couple of thousand years old, Greece three, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, India, China five. Five thousand years of history and people still learn nothing.”

125.
    As we danced, I glanced across the room to see a sailor walk up to captain Beatrice and whisper something in her ear. A look of alarm crossed her face. She quickly walked over to Conrad and me, took us by the arms and escorted us discretely out. Two sailors followed with the dogs. “We’re in trouble.”, muttered the captain. “We’ve drifted into a pod of sleeping CEOs.”

   We crested the stairs to the deck and were confronted by an obscene vision of naked, bloated goons floating on their backs in the moonlight. They appeared to be human in shape but there was something intangible about their pale, flabby, deeply inhuman forms. “We must get you safe before the Catamites find out about this. They attack any CEO on sight.”
   One of the sailors appeared with our bags. “Put them in a lifeboat and off the ship before all hell breaks loose!”, the captain commanded in a hoarse whisper. “We are not far from our destination.” She slammed a compass into my hand. “Row southwest and you’ll reach the island of Komodo. We have relatives there.”
   “But we can’t just leave you here.”, I pleaded.
   The captain turned to me. Her frown melted and she put a hand to my cheek. “We are capable of defending ourselves, my dear.”
   They moved us quickly and quietly. Any attempt at questioning them or even thanking them was silenced with a stern glare and a shake of the head. As they lowered our boat into the sea, the captain gazed down over the rail at us, blew us a kiss then looked heavenward and genuflected.

126.
   Slowly, silently we rowed our way through the comatose cows as they bobbed blissfully in the quiet sea. I never I imagined anything could smell so bad. It was essence of sour puke. It was the sweet putrescence of rotting corpses. It was a metallic, chemical poison that went for our throats. They were gathered together in ignorant oblivion blind to their naked prurience, lost in their own world of power they thought they held, of fate they thought they controlled. It took all my strength to steady myself against the waves of nausea that pounded at me as I pulled on an oar. The dogs flattened their ears and snarled without a sound.

   Conrad’s eyes squinted and his nose crinkled. His ears fluttered and twitched. He looked over at me and nodded reassuringly as he pulled the other oar. We rowed gingerly, delicately but we couldn’t help brushing against the flanks of the buffoons. I reached out and touched one of the white walls of flesh. A clear slime full of sandy pebbles, sharp twig like objects and brown smears stuck to my fingers. We ducked our heads into our shoulders to try and protect our ears from the roaring snores and rumbling flatulence. The stench of rancid breath and foul methane hung in the air like wet laundry on a line. Every once in a while, one of them would roll on its side wearing a self -satisfied smile on its face. One loosed a thunderous belch. I almost passed out. The dogs dove to the bottom of the boat whimpering.
   After a tortuous eternity, we cleared the bobbing parasites. I got hold of myself and pulled the compass the captain had given me out of my pocket. While I was plotting our course, a squeal shattered the stillness.

127.

   I looked up and saw Catamites filling the air. High-pitched screams rose out of the awakening CEOs. The sea boiled with their churning shapes. The El Telo rocked and bobbed.
   “Row for your life!”, Conrad shouted. As we pulled frantically at the oars, our eyes were riveted to the melee before us. The CEOs seemed to lift themselves out of the water above the steamer and bat at the diving Catamites. I could see the crew swinging the loading masts over the sides like spears to stab at the boiling pod. The Catamites landed on the CEOs and lanced their hides. If they weren’t quick enough, an oily hand grabbed them and crushed them into a ball of shattered bones and ripped flesh. Some of the freaks were trying to climb up onto the ship, pounding and tearing at it as they shrieked and screeched. All four of us looked at each other, fearing for our friends.
   “I’ve been through this before. We must help them.”, I groaned.
   Nanette put a paw on my leg. “The captain put us overboard for a reason.”
   Pat looked up at me. “Oliver, we will die if we go back.”
   “Just row!”, yelled Conrad “Don’t think! Just row!" We rowed into the night as the sounds of battle slowly faded away.
   I lost track of time. The only thing I was aware of was the sound of the oars dipping into
the moonlit waves. Sometime in the night Conrad called to me. “Oliver. I thought I’d lost you when that hood went over my head!”
   I was shocked to look over and see his face contorted in pain. I reached over and brushed his bald pate. “Just row, Conrad. Don’t think, just row.”

128.
   We rowed through the night. By the time we reached the island of Komodo at daybreak we were exhausted. For a while we rested as the boat drifted offshore. We were silent. None of us wanted to speak of what we had left behind. Then in unison Conrad and I took up the oars and rowed ashore. The minute we beached the boat and climbed out, a phalanx of monitors each larger than the four of us put together stomped out of the jungle.

   “Oh great, more lizards.”, moaned Pat. “When are we going to see some dogs?” “Lizards?”, asked Conrad in astonishment. “You call these dragons lizards?”
    “I sure as hell hope these are the relatives the captain was talking about.”, said Nanette
in a quavering voice.
    I decided that the best defense was a good offence. I walked up to the advancing hulks. “I’m Oliver and these are my fellow travelers. Captain Beatrice of the El Telo sent us.” We were surrounded. The sound of their heavy breathing filled the air. Curled black claws scraped next to my feet. Gobs of drool fell from their jaws and slapped onto the sand. The largest one approached me. It lowered its head to mine and looked at me through one eye. I offered a brave grin. 
   A smile broke on its face. “How is the old girl and that greasy old bucket she sails?”
   “In full fighting form!”, bragged Conrad as he lumbered up behind me.
   “Blustery bravado from the both of you.”, smirked the dragon. “Are your dogs poisonous?”
   “Deadly poisonous!”, chimed the dogs.
   “Then we are all in good company!”, it responded grandly. “Come, let us have tea.”

129.

   We marched up the beach and into the jungle until we came upon a clearing. A table was covered with a lace tablecloth and set with porcelain and silver, crumpets and butter and clotted cream. A pile of skulls was offered as a gruesome centerpiece.
   “All of you, sit down with us.” Our host took a seat next to me and poured, balancing the fragile porcelain pot between its claws. “Our world is abuzz with rumor, fear and hope about you, Oliver. The knowledge you are accumulating threatens those in control. Why have you come to Indonesia?”
   “He is here to learn about the genocide.”, answered Conrad.
   “Genocide? You never mentioned -” But I was cut off.
   “Ah, genocide.”, sighed our host. “Jumbo’s Genocide, I call it. Jumbo didn’t have the restraint of his predecessor, no restraint at all, actually. I remember what he told the Greek Ambassador two years before the CIA engineered a military coup in Greece: ‘Fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant, and you are a flea.’ Indonesia was quite a notch in his and the CIA’s belt. I so hate the CIA. Some of them are our guests today at table.” It gestured at the pile of skulls. “I’m afraid I am the wrong dragon to tell you such a sad story. My temper gets out of control at the very thought of it. Let us have our tea with a toast. To Sukarno, our George Washington.”
   “To Sukarno.”, murmured the other dragons reverently. 
   We indulged ourselves silently and respectfully.

130.
   After a while our host broke the silence. “Come with me. I have someone you must meet.”
   It raised itself from the table and led us through the jungle to another beach off which an

old ketch was anchored. A small man in a headdress and colorful clothing sat in the sand. “This priest will tell you our terrible story. Bear its burden with respect. Carry it out into the world for the world to see!”, commanded the dragon before turning and slowly stomping back into the jungle.
   The man led us to a skiff that took us to the ketch. Only when we were well on our way did he speak. “Cousins, you have come a very long way to hear a very sad story and it is my duty to tell it. Sit with me.” We sat down on the deck. A fresh breeze blew off the sea and caressed us. He took my hand. “After the war that brought the Japanese to our islands was over, the Americans who had been so hurt by the aggressors became aggressors themselves. When we reached for independence and freedom, it seemed we would be allowed freedom in name only. Our oil, our forests, our minerals were not ours. We stood small and unarmed between China and the Soviets to the North and America and the Europeans in the West and East. But my country had something that blunted the claws of the Americans and their friends, the PKI, the third largest communist party in the world. Its existence in Indonesia along with the old oligarchy, the middle class and the international corporations was a delicate balancing act for our President Sukarno, but he had led the country out from under the yoke of the Dutch. If anyone could do it, he could.”

131.

   We sailed into a small harbor that fronted a crumbling stone temple. As we disembarked, the priest waved us on. “Welcome to my place of worship. There will be a show today.”
   We followed him into a maze of ancient buildings. In one of them a room was set up with chairs and a small stage. “Have a seat. Does anyone want refreshments?”
   The lights dimmed and puppets dressed in multicolored batik and crowned with elaborate head dresses began to twirl and jerk. Musicians played and singing puppeteers continued the story. “A balance of power was not good enough for the British and Americans. An election was coming, and the PKI had three million members. Fear raged in the halls of the American congress and America let loose the dreaded CIA to kill Sukarno. The CIA stoked the fears of the American leaders with lies. They had tried to defeat Sukarno in a coup in 1958. They were not going to fail again. But there was a great man in the America, and he stood in their way. His name was Kennedy. He had met Sukarno and had admired him. He gave our nation aid, not weapons. He got the hated Dutch out of their last lair in New Guinea. There was hope for us from this American. But our hopes were extinguished on November 19th 1963. Our friend was shot dead, and a new force rose up in America, a friend of the corporations and the CIA, a man named Jumbo. Our aid was stopped. The British created a dark nation in the North called Malaysia. Our president was surrounded.”
   With that, the play came to a crescendo. The priest leaned over to us. “I must tell you the rest of the story in private. It cannot be told in public. I have a house nearby.”

132.

   We followed him through green terraced fields fringed with waving palms to a cottage with a thatched roof as elaborate as the priest’s headdress. It was simply furnished. We sat on the floor. “Our president’s balancing act fell to pieces. He withdrew from the UN, the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. He even banned freedom of the press, but finally, and for him and us fatally he began nationalizing American corporations. On September 30th, 1965, the CIA staged a coup that was planned to fail. Seven generals were attacked. Six moderates were kidnapped and killed. The seventh was right-wing and conveniently escaped. All of the radio stations were down but one and it broadcasted that the PKI was behind the coup attempt. A general named Suharto was chosen by the CIA."  The priest opened an elaborately painted box next to him and pulled out a puppet with fangs protruding out of its smirking mouth. “Now the CIA had a puppet, and the puppet master had an excuse to get rid of our president. Have you heard of the Mighty Wurlitzer? It spread lies, murderous lies of Chinese weapons caches, of PKI plots, of the castrated, blinded, disemboweled corpses of the kidnapped generals. The CIA compiled death lists containing tens of thousands of names. They were handed out to right wing assassins. Our president was powerless. The puppet Suharto was in charge. Every village in the thousands of islands was attacked. One million of my people were hacked, shot or starved to death. When the terror reached my village, my parents hid me in the jungle. I got very hungry. I was old enough to know the way to a village where relatives lived.”

133.
   “I walked through the jungle and came upon a river. A body floated by. Then another body floated by, then another, then a carpet of bodies pouring, gushing, spurting.”

   The old man fell silent. Tears flowed from his eyes and fell on the floor like rain. I looked out a window at the peaceful landscape. I couldn’t comprehend the horror this land had witnessed. What kind of country would we become if some power stepped in and turned our citizens against each other to somewhere beyond civil war, to genocide? What kind of country had we become if we were responsible for unleashing genocide in the world? Were the American agents who scoffed at the horror of genocide and muttered, ‘They’re only communists’ so different than those who once muttered, ‘They’re only Jews’?
   I noticed the priest eyeing me. “The Indonesian communists were squashed like bugs. The CIA was very happy. When it started its coup against Allende in Chile, signs were found all over walls in Santiago that read ‘Jakarta is coming!’. Time magazine was happy. Big letters on the front page read ‘The rise of Suharto is the best news out of Asia in years!’. Most importantly of all, American corporations were happy. Indonesia’s riches were there for the plucking. In 1967, they came to Switzerland. Time-Life corporation was their host. They planned the rape of my country that goes on to this day.”
   The priest looked at us sadly. “That, cousins is our story. Those who want your story silenced are closing in on you. You have escaped many of them so far. The world is watching you and we will do all we can to keep you safe.”

134. 

 

   “Can any of you fly an airplane? She is a very small and simple plane.” The priest led us out the door and behind the house where we found a bizarre sight, a plane like an overgrown dragonfly with only a nose prop and a couple of seats in an open cockpit. “This is my very own stealth plane.”, said the priest reverently. “She has a body of bamboo and wings of snakeskin. You will be invisible to radar and look like a large bird from the ground. Her propeller is made of bat wings and moonbeams. You will be where you want to go before you think of it.”
   The four of us climbed aboard and crammed into the cockpit. The priest put his hands on ours. “She is light as a soap bubble. She is a fleeting thought in a child’s mind. She is the air I breathe. She is my mother, ‘Nyokap’.” The propeller began to turn slowly and without a sound. “She runs on the hope of the future and you, cousins are that hope.” He took hold of my hand. “A wise man once said we have it in our power to begin the world over again.”
   In a heartbeat we were airborne. Conrad tilted Noykap’s wings to the priest, a speck now in the verdant terraces below. As we flew higher, I could feel the land of Indonesia itself breathe a sigh that gently lifted the plane and urged us on our way. Pat leaned out from my lap. “Bat wings and moonbeams? Give me a break.”
   A fog bank clung to the edge of the island. We lost all visibility when we entered it but Conrad seemed unconcerned. I had no idea how long we were in the fog before it finally dissipated. 
   I looked below.

135.
   A chain of islands appeared in the expanse of ocean beneath us. “That’s Mauritius.”, said Conrad. “In the 1960’s the British gave it its independence, most of it that is. After World War II, America and her mother country were determined to carry on and expand what was left of the British Empire. An isolated island in the archipelago named Diego Garcia was a perfect place to establish an air base that could dominate the Middle East and its oil. I was born and raised there. It was a paradise. There was a slight problem however. Diego Garcia had been populated since the 18th Century. What do you do with a population of two thousand people who could trace our ancestry on the island back generations?  I was a child when the soldiers came. There were a thousand dogs on the island that were a beloved part of my culture. The first order of business was to round them up, gas them to death and burn the bodies in front of us. We were told we could take only one suitcase with us. Sound familiar? We were loaded onto freighters and shipped to the island of Mauritius where we were dumped onto the docks. We were penniless strangers in a strange land. Suicide, infant mortality, disease, drug addiction and prostitution tormented us.  More than ten years later we were offered three thousand pounds each on the condition we would never try and return to our island. It’s always best to wait a decade after stealing a country before offering a hand full of coins to its people. We have sued and won in the British courts, but the government refused to abide by the decision. The huge base the Americans have built holds two thousand troops who refer to it as Camp Justice.” Conrad fell silent. I put a hand on his shoulder. He shook his head. No one said a word.

136.
   The priest’s praise of his dear Nyokap was no exaggeration. Almost before the islands of Indonesia disappeared in the fog, we were flying over the Indian Ocean with Diego Garcia beneath us. As soon as Conrad finished its black history, we were gliding over a metropolis framed by snow covered mountains.

   “Welcome to Teheran. Mount Tochal looks angry today.”, said Conrad as he nodded toward the highest peak above the city. The mountain looked ferocious. Its snowdrifts molded a furious scowl.
   “Angry?”, exclaimed Pat. “Don’t get close to it. It looks like it wants to eat us alive!” 
   “From the looks of things, this isn’t going to be pretty.”, moaned Nanette.
   “Iran is where it all began for the CIA.”, said Conrad. “The first democratic government in the Middle East and its Prime Minister fell victim to the CIA’s first coup d’etat, its first regime change, its first conquest, its first destruction of the will of a people. Here the intelligence gathering agency of the United States graduated from a defender of a free people in war time to the covert military weapon of a colonial power. I have a friend here. She is eloquent and passionate. She is angry and beautiful. Her name is Amira.”
   Conrad lowered Nyokap into the city. Over a quiet, tree lined street, the plane hovered for a moment then folded its wings and dropped gently to the pavement. As soon as we had stepped down from her, she took to the sky and was gone.

137.
   We walked up the street and stopped in front of a small apartment building. Conrad pushed a code on the gate. We walked up a couple of flights of stairs and stopped in front of a door. Conrad knocked. 
   The door flew open revealing a beautiful woman. “Conrad, dear heart! It’s been too long! You are bigger and better looking than ever! Who is your handsome friend?”

   “This is Oliver. We sailed together from Valparaiso. Oliver, this is Amira.”
   “Sailed together?”, smiled Amira. “Is that what they’re calling it now days? Tell me, Oliver has my dear friend been taking good care of you?”
   “He broke the neck of a giant praying mantis that was trying to kill us.”

   “Oh, Conrad, did you really? Bravo! And who are these two magnificent canines?” 
   “I am Pat.”
   “I am Nanette.”
   “I am very pleased to meet you both. Come in everyone. Come in and relax. What brings you to Tehran?”
   Conrad put an arm around Amira and leaned down to kiss her. She kissed him back then stepped away. “Conrad, shame on you! That was then and this is now. Oh, look at you, Conrad. You travel the world while I wither away in Tehran under a hideous theocracy. Why is it always the same? When the people throw off the shackles of one tyrant, their leaders become the next tyrant, from Napoleon to Lenin, from Castro to Khomeini. You are an American, aren’t you, Oliver? Your country is an exception, or it was an exception. Why have you come here?”
   I hung my head. "I've learned how my country has been running rabid in the world. I guess I’m here to learn what we did to you."

138.
    She caught her breath. “Conrad! Are you the ones they are looking for?”
    Conrad put an arm around her. “I want you to tell Oliver about 1953.”
    “You must leave the city immediately!”, she gasped. 
      Conrad was insistent. “We have come here to Iran to hear her story. We cannot leave until you tell it.”

    A weary look of resignation settled on Amira’s face. Then her eyes caught fire. “Assholes!”, she shrieked. “You assholes have ruined my country for over fifty years! First the God damned Shah, then Khomeini and now this monkey Ahmadinejad!”
   “We have a monkey of our own.”, I said quietly. “Our monkey used the murder of three thousand Americans as an excuse to conquer a country that had nothing to do with it.”
   She put a hand on her chest. Her fury melted and her eyes welled up. “Oh, Conrad, you are lucky to have found this man.” She looked into my eyes for a long time before making up her mind completely. “I will tell you my country’s story. Your monkey, George Bush has said that he wants to bring democracy to the Middle East when in fact your country snuffed it out when it had just begun to flower. It bloomed right under the nose of the British Empire that had been stealing my country’s oil since 1910 and it bloomed under the nose of the Shah who the British had installed as a puppet monarch. But the British had not counted on the Iranian parliament and their outspoken leader, Mohammed Mossadegh. The British had been taking all but 16% of our oil revenues. When Mossadegh had the temerity to ask them to open their books, they refused. His next offer was fifty-fifty, take it or leave it.”

139.

   Amira slumped in a chair. “Sit with me, Oliver." The story is long and sad.” She pulled off the scarf covering her head. “How I hate this thing! When the British laughed at Mossadegh’s offer we threw them out on their ass! They embargoed our oil and blockaded the Gulf but we stood strong. With parliament behind him, Mossadegh accepted the Shah’s appointment to Prime Minister. He managed to form an alliance with the communists in the country and the radical Muslim factions. We were finally independent from the British but the British ran crying to the Americans with the promise of splitting 80% of our oil if the Americans helped them overthrow Mossadegh. The remaining 20% was no bone to toss us. It was to go to the Dutch and the French. Thus was launched Operation Ajax and the 28 Mordad Coup. And what a show it was to be. Let’s start with the cast. Dr. Donald Wilber was the CIA’s point man. He was an expert on Persian architecture and liked to dress up like Lawrence of Arabia, but any resemblance ended there. The British MI6 sent a senior operative fluent in Farsi with connections to street thugs, disgruntled army officers and Islamic fanatics. His name was Norman Matthew Darbyshire. The two met in Nicosia to plan the coup. Then one Kermit Roosevelt arrived.”
   “The grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt.”, announced Pat.
   “Another CIA thug,”, continued Amira, “who was brought in to organize and lead the coup. Then came General Norman Schwarzkopf.”
   “Father of General Norman H. Schwarzkopf!”, chimed Nanette.
   Amira sighed. “He was drafted to convince the cowardly Shah that the coup would be successful. He was an old friend of the Shah and after all, what are friends for?”