The United Nations, the West African told the great man, was a magnificent freighter that was running out of fuel, which was to say, money. It was the simple fact of the matter.

“In many respects, our resources are enormous,” the secretary-general said. “We have hundreds of thousands of soldiers seconded to us, proudly wearing the blue helmets. We have offices in every capital, staffed with teams of experts who enjoy ambassadorial status. We’re privy to what goes on in these countries at every level. We know their military secrets, their development plans, their economic schemes. A partnership with the Liberty Foundation is simply a matter of common sense—a pooling of resources and competencies.”

That much was preamble.

“U.N. officials operate freely in just about every country on the planet,” Zinsou continued. “We see the suffering of people victimized by the incompetence and greed of their leaders. Yet we cannot reshape their policies, their politics. Our rules and regulations, our bylaws and systems of oversight—they hamstring us into irrelevance! The successes of your Liberty Foundation have put the United Nations to shame. And meantime our ongoing financial crisis has crippled us in every way.”

“All this is true,” said Peter Novak. “But it is not new.”

“No,” Zinsou agreed. “It is not new. And we could wait and, as we have in the past, do nothing. In ten years, the U.N. would be as poverty-stricken as any of its wards. Utterly ineffective—nothing more than a debate club for bickering emirs and tin-pot despots, discredited and ignored by the developed nations of the world. It will be a beached whale upon the shore of history. Or we can take action now, before it is too late. I have just been elected to another five-year term, with the near unanimous support of the General Assembly. I am uniquely in a position to make decisive, unilateral executive decisions. I have the popularity and the credibility to do so. And I must do so to save this organization.”

“I’ve always thought your reputation for foresight was well earned,” Novak said. “But so is your reputation for strategic ambiguity, mon cher. I wish I had a better sense of what you’re proposing.”

“Simply put, there can be no salvation for us except through partnership with you. A special joint division can be established—joint between the Liberty Foundation and the U.N.—devoted to economic development. Over time, more and more of the U.N.’s institutional resources and responsibilities would migrate to this joint division. It will be a powerful, invisible directorate within the United Nations. I can serve as the bridge between the two empires, yours and mine. U.N. appropriations would continue, of course, but the Liberty Foundation would be able to make intimate use of the U.N.’s extensive assets.”