The crumpled ball of paper bounced off the Halwa Puri and rolled sadly across the mahogany table. With it went the last shred of diplomatic decorum in the room.
"You want to play it this way, Reza?" Brad's voice was dangerously low, the kind of quiet that precedes a drone strike. He leaned over the table, planting his knuckles on the wood. "Let's play. You think Wei's ghost ships are going to save you? Washington's official red line is zero. Zero enrichment. You pack up Natanz, you hand over the centrifuges, or we don't just sanction you—we blockade the entire Strait of Hormuz. Not a single drop of oil leaves the Gulf. Not to China, not to anyone."
Reza didn't flinch. Backed by the invisible safety net of Wei's illicit oil purchases, he felt a surge of revolutionary adrenaline.
"The Strait of Hormuz is our waterway, Brad," Reza spat back, standing up to match the American's posture. "You do not dictate our sovereign rights from six thousand miles away. We will enrich uranium to whatever percentage we please! If you want peace, the United States Navy will immediately vacate the Persian Gulf. Take your aircraft carriers and go float them in Florida!"
"I will sink your entire navy before breakfast!" Brad roared, a vein visibly pulsing in his forehead.
"Our navy is built on the righteous blood of martyrs! Your navy is built on defense contractors who overcharge you for toilet seats!" Reza shouted back.
Wei quietly reached out and selected a particularly flaky piece of paratha from the breakfast cart. He took a delicate bite, chewed thoughtfully, and opened a new tab on his browser to check the spot price of gold.
"Gentlemen! Please! Stop!"
Tariq threw himself between the two angry men, waving his hands like an airline marshaller trying to guide a crashing plane. His matte foundation was completely sweating off, but his smile remained plastered on his face through sheer, terrifying willpower.
"Violence is never the answer!" Tariq pleaded, his voice cracking. "Look at us! We are civilized men! Why can we not find a middle path? A path of compromise and brotherhood!"
Brad glared at Tariq. "There is no middle path when he is building a nuclear bomb, Tariq."
"But there is!" Tariq insisted, clasping his hands together in a gesture of pure, unadulterated earnestness. He puffed out his chest, ready to deliver the ultimate diplomatic masterclass. "If you want a blueprint for peaceful conflict resolution, you need only look at your host nation. Look at Pakistan! Our political parties may disagree, but we always find a way to share power harmoniously! Our democratic tapestry is woven with tolerance, institutional respect, and the undisputed, peaceful mandate of the people!"
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the conference room.
The yelling stopped. The tension completely evaporated, replaced by a profound, shared sense of disbelief.
Brad slowly turned his head to look at Reza. Reza slowly turned his head to look at Brad. Even Wei stopped chewing his paratha.
"Tariq," Reza said, his voice stripped of all revolutionary anger, leaving only genuine confusion. "Are you out of your mind?"
"I am merely pointing out that our vibrant democracy—"
"Tariq," Brad interrupted, rubbing his eyes. "Your last Prime Minister was literally dragged out of a courthouse by paramilitary forces. I watched the video on Twitter. He was wearing a tracksuit."
Tariq swallowed hard. "A minor administrative misunderstanding..."
"A misunderstanding?" Reza scoffed, fully abandoning his fight with Brad to focus on this new, much more ridiculous target. "Tariq, do you know how many Pakistani Prime Ministers have successfully completed a full, five-year constitutional term in your country's entire seventy-nine-year history?"
Tariq's smile flickered. "Well, democracy is a journey, and..."
"Zero," Reza said, holding up his hand to form a circle. "The number is zero. None of them. They all get shot, exiled, jailed, or fired by a general named 'The Boys'."
"And let's talk about the 'peaceful mandate,' buddy," Brad chimed in, leaning back and crossing his arms. "You shut down the internet during your last election so people couldn't use Google Maps to find the polling stations. The State Department has a whole drawer full of memos just about your ballot boxes mysteriously filling up at 3:00 AM."
"It was a server glitch!" Tariq squeaked, sweat now dripping off his nose.
"Your democracy," Reza said, picking up a piece of plastic fruit and tossing it back into the bowl, "is just three generals standing on each other's shoulders in a trench coat, pretending to read a constitution."
Brad snorted, actually laughing. "That's good. That's a good line, Reza."
"Thank you, Brad," Reza nodded respectfully. "It is the truth."
Tariq stood frozen, his grand diplomatic intervention having completely backfired, uniting the United States and Iran in a rare, historic moment of mutual roasting. He looked desperately around the room. The burning house was collapsing, and the mortgage was due.
Tariq slowly reached down to the breakfast cart. He picked up a small wicker basket wrapped in clear cellophane.
"...Would anyone like a complimentary fruit basket?" Tariq whispered, his voice trembling. "It has... a very nice mango."
Brad looked at the mango. He looked at Reza. He looked at Wei, who was now quietly packing his Da Hong Pao tea back into its velvet-lined box.
"No, Tariq," Brad sighed, grabbing his empty Yeti thermos and his briefcase. "Keep the mango. We're done here."