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it’s not a fight I want to have right now. More importantly, if you wait for Egypt, I don’t think S/CRU will still exist by the time the election rolls around. I’ve got a budget meeting in
ten days
. We need a big win for S/CRU
right now
.”
    “How about Cuba? I’ve been doing some new analysis on weak links in the Cuban communist party. I have a new approach that could blow it wide open.”
    “No, not Cuba.”
    “So what exactly do you have in mind, sir?”
    “You’re about to find out. I need you to clear your schedule and get to a task force meeting that starts in”—Parker paused to check his watch—“nine minutes. Can you do it, Ryker?”
    “Of course, sir.”
    “Good.”
    “But what’s the issue?”
    “Saving democracy.”
    “What country?”
    “Zimbabwe.”

4.
    Harare, Zimbabwe
Thursday, 3:00 p.m. Central Africa Time
    J ust as the Westminster chimes antique clock struck three, the president’s tea arrived. For as long as anyone could remember, it had been this precise ritual every day. At that very hour, Winston Tinotenda, President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, sat in his tapestry-upholstered chair by the window. At exactly three o’clock a butler would appear with a silver tray bearing a silver pot of Earl Grey tea, a small silver pitcher of heavy cream, and a bowl of local cane sugar crystals. The president would assemble his favorite concoction and stir it daintily with a matching silver spoon. He would then gaze out the window at his garden, watching for the Goliath herons his official bird keeper had brought from the Zambezi river valley. After a few moments he would take a healthy sip.
    “Oh, that’s a lovely cup of tea,” he would declare to the assembled staff, who always responded with enthusiastic agreement. At 3:15 the president would be refreshed and ready to accept visitors.
    President Winston Tinotenda was known to everyone as simply “Tino.” No one called him that to his face, of course. Within earshot he was addressed only by his official name: His Excellency, Father of the Nation, and Warrior of the People, President Winston H. R. Tinotenda. Soon after becoming president, Zimbabwe’s parliament passed a law forbidding public speculation on the true meaning of his middle initials.
    The president’s face had begun to sag, long vertical lines pointing from his eye sockets to the end of his chin. His heavy eyes were still scarred yellow from childhood malnutrition. One of his doctors in Singapore had offered an experimental treatment to re-whiten his eyes, but he’d dismissed it as uncivilized. In truth, he worried that the injections might be an assassination plot.
    A private barber ensured the president’s head and facial hair were kept tight and clean, while abundant moisturizer was flown in from Switzerland to keep his face supple. The newspaper reports of his vigorous daily exercise were, however, mere plants by the Ministry of Information. The president had long ago given up the battle with his waistline. For special occasions, such as state dinners or his annual four-hour address to the nation, he had taken to wearing a slimming girdle. Mentioning this in the press was also punishable with a lengthy prison sentence.
    One thing Winston Tinotenda had certainly not given up was a taste for fine men’s clothing. A great irritant of his diplomatic jousting with Her Majesty’s Government in London was the curtailment of his shopping trips to Savile Row for hand-tailored suits and Jermyn Street for silk shirts. Several years earlier the British government had revoked his travel visa after complaints about one thing or another.
    Human rights? Vote fraud? Elephants? He could never remember.
    It nevertheless irked him every time he was forced to send one of the few serviceable Air Zimbabwe jets to London to fetch his tailor. “The Prime Minister has lost his bearings,” the tailor assured him. “The Queen never would have allowed it in my day.”
    On this day, just two