Jimmie sighed into the phone. "Van, I so wish I’d gotten that great post you wanted for me at the CCIAB. But the feds weren’t having any of me, for security reasons I guess . . . Anyway, it is just so impossibly bad up here on the global level . . . You would never believe what is going on behind the scenes here in Geneva . . . The French and Germans really get it about the American hyperpower thing, they are all over our case diplomatically . . . All the delegates here hate each other, Van. They hate each other, they can’t speak the same language, and they are crooked. Plus they have no idea what they are trying to do, technically. That is the worst part. They’ve got nobody to fill this job of technical director."