Diplomacy

Washington, something that’s not so exciting; she’s not going to be so keen to hang around then, is she?”
    “I can’t just walk out in the middle of all this mess, Sean. I have loose ends to tie up. After that… I don’t know, sometimes I think I want to see this through and then sometimes I think I can’t do this to him.”
    “What do you mean, do this to him? What are you worrying about him for? You’re the one losing the job, the career, the partner...” D i p l o m a c y | 139

    “It’s not just me, Sean.” Jack looked up at the ceiling and murmured to himself, “jeez, three marriages…” and then directly at Sean,
    “There’s two of us in this relationship!”
    “You’re not telling me this bloke is married with some kind of high profile career too?”
    “I’m not telling you anything more, Gallagher!”
    “No, you’re not... and that’s what’s worrying me. So what are you going to do? And what can I do?”
    “I’ll have to get back to you on that one, Sean.”
    “Because you don’t know, or because you’re not telling?”
    “I have to try and sort it out with Maria first, then if I really can’t make her change her mind...”
    “She’s one hell of a determined woman, Jack. Reminds me of our dear old Maggie, the lady’s not for turning and all that.”
    “I might need your support in the talks with the Belgians.”
    “Well, I’m sure Lucas will help you there. He’s quite the up and coming star at our Embassy, you know. If only he had a wife like Maria…”
    Jack tried to keep a straight face. The last thing he wanted was Sean picking up on his reaction to that last statement. “Listen, I better go home before Maria has the locks changed.”
    “Thatcher would have done it the moment you left!”
    “Well, technically I haven’t left yet.”
    Jack got up and threw ten Euros in Sean’s direction.
    “Ten bloody Euros? Fine, I won’t take it personally. I guess I always knew I was a cheap date.”
    Jack couldn’t help but smile. Sean was a good friend. He just hoped it would stay that way.

    ALL week long, Lucas arrived early for work. He’d been having trouble sleeping. He missed Jack and found that burying himself in work was preferable to lying there mulling over their relationship. It didn’t ease the ache, but at least it occupied his mind.

    140 | Z a h r a O w e n s

    Jack had told Lucas he loved him and proved it numerous times, but now Maria knew and the doubts crept in after Jack had asked him to lay low. So this was what it was like sleeping with a married man.
    Lucas finished a lengthy report on his liaison duties and the Anglo-American alliance concerning the war and realized he had time for a cup of tea before presenting the paper to Sean. The drinks counter was behind all the secretaries and above it was a TV screen that was usually muted but invariably tuned to show the BBC World broadcast. Lucas’s eye was drawn to the CNN logo and the news ticker. Although the crawling words were just moving out of sight, he read ‘KIDNAPPED IN BRUSSELS‘
    Lucas stared at the TV wondering how long it would take for the item to roll across the screen again, but when it didn’t re-appear within a few seconds, he turned to one on the secretaries.
    “Who has the remote? Can you turn up the volume, please?” One of the young girls dipped into her drawer and produced the remote control. “We can’t turn it up too loudly, and it should really be tuned to BBC World.”
    She pointed the controls and clicked one of the buttons making the busy CNN screen disappear and the much calmer background of the BBC
    World News desk come into view.
    “No!” Lucas snapped at the girl. “There was something on the news ticker I wanted to know more about, change the channel back!” She raised her eyebrow at him, clearly not impressed, but turned the TV back to CNN anyway. The volume was up now and the reports were all about car bombings in Iraq and suicide bombings on buses in Israel. Lucas watched the news ticker intently, waiting for the Brussels item. Lucas was unsure why reading those words had made him so anxious and he tried to tell himself it was probably nothing, but something in the back of his mind reminded him that Mark had told him there was a reason for all the security around the American Embassy. He just wanted to be sure, he wanted to be able to go back to his office with his cup of tea and laugh about it, maybe later tell Jack on the phone what had