A skier stopped dead in front of him with a beautifully executed parallel christie. The moment the skier raised his black goggles, Nubar recognized him and bowed his head in courtesy. It was the Shah of Iran.

The Shah looked a good deal older than thirty-two. His hair was gray at the temples, his brow was cut by deep wrinkles, and his eyes seemed sad. About six feet tall, he looked extremely handsome in his raw silk parka.

He stood ramrod straight as he greeted Nubar by his formal name, Nubar Sarkis Gulbenkian, son of Calouste. He also pointed him back toward the path to the chalet, which he strayed from.

Plunging his poles into the snow, the Shah continued his downhill course. Two bodyguards shadowed him as he zigzagged down the slope.

The shah seemed nervous, Nubar thought, as he trudged up the path. But why shouldn't he be? Nubar knew that there had been three recent attempts to assassinate him, and his throne in Iran was becoming increasingly shaky. His dynasty, after all, was only twenty-seven years old. His father had told him the Shah's father, Reza Khan, was, a man of great strength and daring. He had begun his rise to power as an uneducated soldier in a Russian-trained Cossack regiment. When a virtual civil war broke out among the Russian officers of the regiment during the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, he took advantage of the confusion to seize control of the Cossacks. With the only disciplined military force in Iran under his command, he went on in 1921 to engineer a coup d'etat against the reigning Qajar dynasty. As a military dictator, he was not a man to tolerate distractions. He had his enemies in the army hanged by their heels, and whenever he slept in a village he had all the dogs in the area killed lest he be wakened by the barking of one. And, of course, he had himself proclaimed "Shah Reza Pahlaver," taking his new surname from the ancient Persian word for language. He was crowned "King of Kings" on the Peacock Throne, an emerald encrusted trophy that the Persians had stolen from India centuries earlier. It was Iran's only asset at the time except for oil.

Nubar also had heard from his father how Shah Reza had turned his attention to the rich oil fields in the south of Iran. They were then leased to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and provided the oil that floated Britain to victory in the First World War. Anglo-Iranian was paying only a million pounds a year rent for these fields, and the Shah thought he could negotiate a higher price by threatening to nationalize them. The company cut the payments to three hundred thousand pounds, and the Shah, threatened with imminent bankruptcy, gave in and granted the company a new sixty-year lease. That was in 1933. A few years later, the Shah tried to escape from his dependency on the British by inviting the Germans to build a railroad. He loved to ride on trains. The British responded in August of 1941 by dropping paratroopers into the southern provinces of Iran. They had made a secret deal with the Soviet Union, which invaded the northern provinces at the same time, to partition Iran for the duration of the war. That had been the end of Reza Shah. He abdicated in favor of his twenty-two-year-old son, Mohammed, and then went in exile to Africa, where he died three years later. The new Shah had no choice but to reign as a British puppet while the occupation continued. In 1946, when the British and Soviet troops finally left, a group of feudal lords used the Iranian parliament to gain personal power for themselves, and retained the Shah only as a convenient figurehead. Mossadeq, one of the more feudal lords, had now consolidated power to such an extent that it was doubtful that the Shah would remain, even as a token ruler.

Nubar pulled himself up the wooden steps of the chalet, using the rope handrail for support. His handcrafted leather boots were heavy with snow and felt cold and clammy on his feet. He wondered who would be inside in she middle of such a brilliant skiing day, except for Ali Darius, who he come there to meet.

Darius had the proportions of a bear, but an extraordinarily gentle face. He practically lifted Nubar off the steps with his hug.

Inside, Nubar shuffled across the Isfahan hunt carpet to the stone fireplace, shaking the snow out of his hair as he moved. He sat on the fender of the fireplace, which was covered in needlepoint. Leaning the weight of his torso on his right arm, he stiffly extended first one leg, then the other, to a servant who, with a dazzling zigzag motion, unlaced and pulled off his boots. A magnificent tapestry of stylized lions chasing a deer filled the wall opposite him.

Darius brought him some mulled wine and asked, "What happened to the mysterious guest you were bringing for lunch?"

"Raven decided to charter a helicopter. Perhaps the weather held him up." Nubar drew a leather case from a pocket deep inside his gray wool jacket and handed Darius one of his custom-blended cigars. He also put one in his own mouth. A servant promptly lit them both.

"And who exactly is this man?"

"Anthony Raven? His title is director of the Coordinating Committee of the Petroleum Export Association, or whatever its called. But in fact, he does what needs to be done."

"A hatchet man for the cartel." Darius gritted his teeth. The word "cartel" pained him. As one of the Shah's most informed economic advisors, he was well acquainted with the nefarious activities of the oil conspiracy. Yet, he had received a request from Calouste Gulbenkian to help Raven, and he could not prudently turn it down.

"My father greatly appreciates your help," Nubar said.

Darius did not need to be reminded of the golden rule that would benefit him. "There was a time when I assumed that all the things that happened in the Middle East assassinations, revolutions, tribal wars, coups d'etat were unconnected events."

"And now?" Nubar asked. "Now I know that no matter how random events seem, they are pulled into position by a single force, oil..." His voice trailed off, then he raised his hand and pointed outside. "Your friend Raven has just arrived."

Raven burst through the door, beaming and exhilarated, bringing with him a pocket of cold air from outside. Apart from a slight reddening of his ears, he seemed oddly untouched by the storm outside. He transformed himself from a traveler to a guest with great dispatch. Before Nubar had even finished the introductions, Raven had thrust his parka into the outstretched arms of one servant and taken a goblet of wine from another. Quickly, he shed his zippered boots and stepped into a pair of felt slippers, all the while apologizing for arriving late. Raven always made himself instantly at home wherever he was. His air seemed easy, his brown suit still crumpled from long hours of travel, his hair unruly, and his tie-made of alligator skin-skewed slightly to the left. Though usually unaware of his own appearance, he was keenly alert to all that was going on around him.

Extending his hand to Darius, he said warmly, "I've so looked forward to meeting you."

"I've heard a great deal about you, Sir Anthony," Darius answered, leading his guests to a small wood-paneled dining room.

As the three of them sat down, a waiter placed a bowl of pearly caviar on the table and uncorked a bottle of champagne. Darius performed the ritual of preparing caviar sandwiches on black bread for his guests. "I hope you don't mind eating black-market caviar," he said smilingly as he passed a sandwich to Raven. "Unfortunately, we granted the Russians the concession to market Iranian caviar. It's rather sad what has happened to Iran: the British claim our oil, the Russians our caviar." He passed another sandwich to Nubar.

"A temporary situation," Raven said, without looking up from his caviar. Running his tongue over his teeth, he savored the individuality of each tiny egg's oily contents as he crushed them. "The future will be much brighter for Iran."

"I understand that you are interested in our future."

"Let me be perfectly frank with you, Darius." Raven's amber eyes softened with affected sincerity. "I am primarily interested in helping the oil combine I represent, not Iran, but in the case of the Shah, I think we have a coincidence of interest."

Nubar marveled at the speed with which the conversation turned from caviar to politics.

Raven explained. "We all know that Mossadeq's time is limited. According to our calculations, denied oil sales, he does not have the money to last another nine months. He won't survive past August, and someone will have to take his place in Iran. It will either be the local Communists with Soviet backing, or the Shah. We want to make sure it is the Shah."

"But Mossadeq plans to sell the oil in the world market. What will stop him?" Darius asked, confronting Raven." Mossadeq is counting on Mattei."

"Negotiations between Mattei and Mossadeq will not be resumed."

"And the United States. Will they help?"

"With Eisenhower as president, there is no chance that Mossadeq will receive any last-minute aid. "

"If you're right and the Mossadeq government collapses. How can you be sure it will be the Shah and not the Communists who pick up the pieces?"

Nubar nodded. He had been just about to ask the same question.

"There is only one way to be sure." Raven paused for effect. "Before Mossadeq actually collapses The Shah be in control of the sinews of power the army, the police, Savak, the broadcasting center."

"That in itself would require a coup Mossadeq's supporters hold all those positions."

"A coup is precisely what we propose," Raven said, as two waiters waited at the door.

The three men fell silent while the waiters carried a tray of veau en papillotes into the room and placed it in front of Darius. Then they brought fresh glasses for each man. The wine, Nubar noticed, was Batard Montrachet, which went perfectly with the veal. Nubar looked on as Darius carefully unwrapped the veal from the paper parcels. He knew how important food was to oriental transactions. He remembered his father explaining to him that the Sultan in Turkey insisted on serving sweet, syrupy pastries such as baklava, because they would perfectly conceal the taste of any poison, and therefore those who did business with him knew that they were always at his mercy. And now, he mused, the fate of Iran was waiting in abeyance for veal to be unwrapped and served.

When Darius had finished serving the portions of veal, he asked, with a tinge of sarcasm, "How will you manage that? Will British paratroopers land in Teheran or lead a tribal revolt in the desert?"

Raven raised a scraggy eyebrow. He now realized that Darius hated the British. He also assumed he would do what Gulbenkian instructed. "it wont be the British, I assure you. It will be the Americans the CIA. They have the means, very subtle means, to bring about a silent coup. No one in the country will even realize it has taken place."

Darius now understood, the message he was to convey. He excused himself, asking his waiters to serve the dessert, cerises au kirsch, in his absence.

"His Majesty would like you to stop by his villa for tea at two-thirty," he said, when he returned. Nubar turned to Raven, who seemed unsurprised by the invitation.

It took them less than five minutes to walk from the chalet to an immense house across the road. They passed six armed guards policing the compound. Promptly at 2:30, they were ushered into a sitting room of palatial proportions. Almost sixty feet long, it was divided midway by a set of six steps into an upper and a lower level. The eaves, roof, and exposed rafters gave it the feeling of a hunting lodge, which somehow seemed appropriate. The windows were completely shrouded with heavy velvet drapes. The carpets were all from the Teheran museum that the Shah had flown in from Iran, along with his wife, twin sister and forty members of the royal entourage.

On the lower level, about fifty guests in casual after-ski clothes milled about in small clusters while an almost equal number of tuxedoed waiters circulated, pouring tea from ornate samovars and offering pastries from silver dishes. Four huge Cossack guards in their native tunics stood at attention at the top of the stairs, part of the formidable barrier that separated the king from his court.

On the upper level, four people sat conspicuously at a table playing bridge. The Shah peered at his cards through horn-rimmed glases. He had on now his military uniform with its gold braid. He chain smoked gold-tipped cigarettes and drew in his cheeks in moments of deep concentration. The dark woman across from him was his twin sister, Princess Ashraf. Darius guided Raven past the guards towards the table. "After you meet His Highness, back slowly away. Be sure not to turn your back on him," he advised, and looking at the cards on the table, added." He's just in the process of making a grand slam."

The Shah laid down his hand, claiming the rest of the tricks. All congratulated him on the slam. When he looked up, Darius presented Raven.

"Have you recovered yet from your flight?" the Shah asked. The Shah rose, taking Raven to one side of the Cossack Guards. "Calouste Gulbenkian is a serious man," he said in a deep, melodious voice. "I have less trust of British interests." He could never forget that the British invaded his country when he was Crown Prince, sent his father. off under armed guard to die in exile in South Africa, and then humiliated him for five years by making him issue royal decrees protecting the privileges of British subjects in Iran. He would rather be deposed as Shah than accept help from the British.

"There will be no British involved. None, whatsoever," he stressed. He knew he only had only a few minutes before the Shah returned to his bridge game.

"I will take your suggestion under advisement." He then rejoined his bridge game. As he studied the new hand he had been dealt Raven discretely backed away.

The audience with the Shah was over. Darius beckoned him towards the door. "No British," Darius whispered.

"You will have your American," Raven promised.