"What reason?"
"Otto," Castillo said. "Stop right there."
"What reason, Otto?" Kocian pursued.
"I know who gave him his orders."
"Otto, goddammit!" Castillo said.
"He told you who did, or you know?"
"Let me put it this way, Eric," Goerner said. "I know he's not as junior an intelligence officer as you might think he is; quite the opposite."
"Are you going to tell me how you know that?"
"Not unless Karl tells me I can," Goerner said.
"And are you, Herr Gossinger, going to give Herr Goerner permission to tell me?"
"No," Castillo said. Then he chuckled.
"What's funny, Herr Gossinger?" Kocian asked, politely.
"If I told you that, Herr Kocian, I would have to kill you."
Kranz laughed.
"I'm only kidding, Herr Kocian," Castillo said. "That's a special operations joke."
Kocian met Castillo's eyes for a long moment. Then he shrugged and said, almost sadly, "I'd be more comfortable, Karl, if I was sure you were not kidding."
Castillo didn't reply.
"All right. May God forgive me, but all right," Eric Kocian said. "I will tell you what I know. Come with me."
He started to wade toward the side of the pool, pushing the floating table before him. When he reached the side, he carefully put his cigar in the ashtray, then moved the ashtray to the low-tiled coping surrounding the pool. He did the same thing with his cellular telephone, the metal pitcher, the newspapers, and the copy of the American Conservative. Then he pushed the floating table away into the center of the pool and with surprising agility hoisted himself out of the pool and sat with his feet dangling into the water.
Out of the water, Kocian looked his age. The flesh on his arms and chest and legs sagged. His jockstrap was almost hidden by a roll of flesh that sagged down from his abdomen. There were angry scars on his upper shoulder, his abdomen, and his left leg.
"You speak German," Kocian said to Kranz. "I could tell."
"Yes, sir, I do."
"These two don't," he said, gesturing at Fernando and Torine. "You want all these people to hear what I have to say, Karl?"
"Bitte," Castillo said.
"Then I will speak English," Kocian said in English. "Very softly, because speaking English in here will attract attention." He switched back to German and pointed at Kranz. "In each of those cubicles," he went on, pointing, "there is a bucket and a water glass or two. Go get two buckets and six-no, eight-glasses, and bring them here."
Kranz hoisted himself out of the pool.
He then switched to English and quietly ordered, "The rest of you get out, and lay close to me-there are towels in the cubicles-and if you have something to say, say it very softly."
In a minute, after two trips to the dressing cubicles lining one wall of the pool, Kranz had arranged on the tile coping two white buckets, capable of holding perhaps a gallon each, and eight water glasses about six inches high, and everybody was sitting or lying on thick white towels on the tiled floor beside the pool.
"This," Kocian said softly, splashing his feet in the pool, "is the nearly limitless pool of oil under Iraq. It was controlled-owned-by Saddam Hussein. When Hussein was quote President of Iraq end quote, he was more of an absolute ruler than the king of Arabia.
"He had many vices, including greed, which did him in. He wasn't satisfied with what he had. He wanted the oil which lay under the sands of Kuwait… down there."
He pointed.
"If Hussein had not invaded Kuwait, we almost certainly would not be sitting here today, but he did.
"This bothered the Americans, and even some members of the United Nations. Some say the Americans rushed to defend poor little Kuwait because they believed that Saddam Hussein was naughty, and needed to have his wrist slapped. Others suggest that they were afraid Saddam also had his eyes on the oil under Arabia… over there… which was and is essential to the American economy.
"Whatever the reasons, there was a war. Iraq lost. Some of you may remember that."
"We were all there, Herr Kocian," Castillo said. "Can we get to the end of the history lesson?"
"I'm surprised that no one has taught you, Karl, that those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it," Kocian said. "Would you like me to go on?"
"Sorry," Castillo said.
"It was not a total victory," Kocian resumed. "President Bush the First decided he did not need to occupy Baghdad to win the war. Ten years later, President Bush the Second decided that it would take American flags flying over Saddam Hussein's castles to win that war.
"At the end of the first Iraqi war, to make Saddam Hussein live up to what he promised to do at the armistice, and of course did not do, the Americans got the UN to place an embargo on the sale of Iraqi oil. That meant Iraq would have no money from the sale of their oil.
"France and Russia primarily, with some other nations, were suddenly deeply concerned with the helpless women and children of Iraq. Without some income to buy food, the French and the Russians cried, Iraqi babies would starve. Without medicine and medical supplies for Iraqi hospitals, Iraqi women and the elderly would die in agony.
"Oil for Food was born. Iraq would be permitted to sell enough of its oil to buy food and medicine. The United Nations would monitor the sale of the oil, and ensure that nothing entered Iraq that wasn't food or medicine.
"United Nations inspectors were stationed-primarily at Basra on the Persian Gulf… down there… and in other places-to count the barrels of oil-the allocations-that would be shipped out for sale, and to make sure that nothing was shipped into Iraq that wasn't supposed to be."
Kocian examined the two buckets Kranz had fetched for him.
He dipped the larger bucket in the pool and hauled it out.
"This is how much oil it would take to buy food and medicine. You will notice that when I took it out, it did not noticeably lower the level of the water in the pool."
He leaned forward, took his cigar from the ashtray, relit it, puffed on it, examined the coal, took another puff, and went on.
"Saddam found himself sitting on-swimming in?-a sea of black stuff that was worthless to him, but considered black gold by the rest of the world. All he had to do was figure some way to get it out of Iraq, past the wall the UN had set up."
He tapped the tiled coping.
"First, he tried diplomacy. He would get the UN to relax or remove the embargo. To do this, he would have to have important friends in the UN. How does one acquire friends? Give them something. He arranged to have the oil allocations assigned to people he thought might become his friends. Many of these were French and Russians, but there were others, too.
"To keep this simple, what he did was arrange-by bribing a UN official-for his oil allocations to come into the hands of these people at prices lower than the going price for crude oil. Say, fifty cents a barrel lower. Fifty cents a barrel becomes a lot of money when one is dealing in terms of, say, two million barrels of oil-one tanker full of oil.
"All these people had to do to turn a quick profit of a million dollars was sign over their allocation of two million barrels of oil-for-food oil to someone else. Saddam also let it be known that if he were permitted to export more oil, there would be more millions-many more millions-of dollars coming into the hands of those who caused the UN to relax the embargo.
"He also made friends by not complaining when the medicine shipped into Iraq for the poor Iraqi children and women had a high price. Aspirin at five dollars a pill, for example. Flour at twenty dollars a kilo. Und so weiter.
"Now to do this, of course, he had to have friends among the UN officials who were checking to see that he didn't get anything he wasn't supposed to have. How to make these friends? Give them something. What did he have to give? This black stuff that was worthless to him anyway. How was he going to get it to them? Bribe the UN official checking the outgoing oil. If he happened to be looking the other way when, say, a hundred thousand barrels of oil was mistakenly pumped into a tanker hauling off the legitimate oil-for-food allocation, he could expect to have party or parties unknown drop off a package of crisp brand-new U.S. one-hundred-dollar bills at his grandmother's apartment."