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have a special American envoy visiting. Let’s go.”
    And with that she spun around and climbed into the Suburban. Judd ambled around the other side, where one of the men was holding the door. The police siren wailed and the rest of the security guards clambered into the back of the pickup. Judd ducked his head and hopped into the car. The door slammed shut with a slight creak and an unexpectedly heavy thud.
Armored car.
The caravan lurched forward, and the little American flags on the truck’s bumper sprang to life.
    Beats the death-trap minibus I rode in last time I was in Mali.
    Ten seconds later, the cars abruptly halted in front of a concrete building. “VIP lounge.” The ambassador shrugged. Judd followed her out of the vehicle and through a door flanked on both sides by stoic soldiers holding automatic rifles.
    Inside was a column of men wearing bright blue and stark-white boubous, the full-length flowing robes common in this part of the world. The room had about a dozen shabby burgundy velvet sofas and two brand-new wide-screen televisions sitting side by side, one showing a soccer game, the other Al Jazeera cable news in Arabic with French subtitles. Both were on high volume. Above the TVs was a crooked portrait of a stern-looking President Boubacar Maiga, wearing a modest white cap and watching over the lounge with paternal benevolence.
    But the thing Judd most noticed, amid the sudden assault of noise and color, was the unexpected chill. In a far corner, a massive air-conditioning unit was blowing frigid air across the room. It fogged his sunglasses, and he took them off, sliding them into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
    The ambassador, apparently unfazed by the shocking change in climate, walked Judd up to the receiving line and introduced him to each man in succession. Judd shook hands, smiled politely, but the names and titles were a meaningless jumble.
I’m on the edge of the world’s largest desert and I’m freezing.
    “You’ll see many of them again later,” said the ambassador after the introductions were complete. The men had retreated to the sofas and were busy fishing mobile phones out from inside their boubous.
    “Ahmed will take your passport and bring your bag to the residence. Let’s go.”
    Judd handed over his diplomatic passport and followed Ambassador James out of the lounge and back into the Suburban.The caravan, now joined by several more cars, sped out the airport gates, lights blazing, sirens wailing, and down the highway toward the city center.
    “Sorry to hit you with all of this right off the plane, but I’m sure you’re used to it by now, Dr. Ryker,” she said, exposing a slight Texan drawl.
    “It’s Judd, please. And yes, it’s been quite a trip so far.”
    “You’re coming from Senegal, right?” Judd guessed she was in her late fifties, close to retirement, and probably beautiful back in the day.
The Foreign Service takes a toll.
    “Yes, and I hit Mauritania, Guinea, and Liberia before that,” Judd said. “I’m leaving for Niger tomorrow evening.”
    “That does sound exhausting. I hope you’ll be able to get what you need while you’re here in Mali. It’s a risk assessment, right?”
    “Correct. We’re meeting with all the country and security teams to be sure that our conflict and coup risk metrics are aligned with the data our people on the ground are getting. It’s a ground-truth tour.”
    “Plus, you can get to know the people on the other side of the table,” she added. “I’ve been in the Foreign Service twenty-six years. I’ve served in Honduras and Japan, in Congo and El Salvador. And one thing I’ve learned, no matter where you are, is that diplomacy is rarely about policy. It’s all about personal relationships.”
    Judd nodded politely and turned away to take in the city of Bamako. Along both sides of the road, people were walking,women with rainbow bundles atop their heads, crowds of young men waiting for bush taxis, little