The Ayatollah's Money

  Chapter 8 – The Big Guy

  The Ayatollah sat in his office that was in the center of a massive complex of concentric circular walls. There were other offices, and laboratories, and meeting rooms, and guard rooms, and guard dorm rooms, and weapons rooms, and munitions rooms, and prayer rooms, and dining rooms. Lots of dining rooms because The Big Guy was big on eating. He didn’t eat langoustines and drink champagne for lunch, the way the Junes did, but he wasn’t on Meals Ready to Eat, either, the way the American solders just over the border in Iraq were. He did all right in the feed department. The Big Guy’s complex was on a par with the Pentagon, because he knew he had to have all that infrastructure to keep his politicoreligious operation humming. After all, he was duking it out with the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, Israel, and just about every other country in the world that wondered if his nuclear program really was just to produce electricity for his subjects' toasters.

  So the complex with twenty layers of circular walls was not only necessary, it was comforting to him, for not only was he in conflict with most of the western world, but quite a few of his subjects were getting restless, too. Only the other day several hundred thousand of them had decided to hang out together in Azadi Square to offer their opinion on the direction down which The Big Guy was driving. He felt secure in his office, but he hadn’t gotten where he was by not covering his bases. His rise to supreme potentate followed the precepts laid down by Machiavelli in The Prince, published in 1532, five years after the author’s death. And precept Number One is, always have an escape route that no one else knows about. He was pretty sure the folks that had assembled in Azadi wouldn’t take their complaints to a revolutionary conclusion, but he was prepared if they did, which contributed to his sense of security. There were the tunnels through all twenty circles of the complex; there were the armor-plated vehicles sitting in the garages, fully fueled; there was the helicopter hidden in the goat barn, with the pilot who doubled as goat herder; and last, but not least, there was the $100 million dollars sitting in the account in the bank on the warm and sunny Caribbean island that no one else in the world knew about. Now, that was personal security.

  He switched the TV to the local news channel and saw there still were a few thousand diehards hanging around Azadi, surrounded by triple their number of Revolutionary Guard Corps special forces. That also produced a secure feeling, but you never really knew what might happen, and The Prince stated very clearly, don’t take chances: complex, guards, armor-plated escape vehicles, secret helicopters, and lots of cash. Cash. Speaking of cash, it had been awhile since he had checked his account. A month at least. He reminded himself to do that sometime soon, but right now it was time for lunch. His second of the day.