Washington ? The scene: A solitary figure sits in the sun-filled den of the secretary of state’s elongated seventh-floor office. A pre-avalanche calm prevails before the day’s endless meetings, telephone calls and infighting begin. He rises to walk downstage. The spotlight captures movements that are composed to communicate the inner toughness and the supreme confidence of an American hero, as he has styled himself without provoking serious public demur. The command voice booms without waver as the soliloquy proceeds:

The Powell Plan? Maybe. But you don’t invest your name and an 85 percent approval rating in uncertain enterprises like the Middle East. I’ll wait until I see how much heat the president is willing to put on Sharon to get a conference going. If it still looks dicey, the Bush Plan will do.

Yeah, I know. Warren Christopher used to go on about “taking arrows in the chest” to protect the president. So look what happened to him: Clinton sent Vernon Jordan to ask me if I wanted Christopher’s job. I was smart enough to wait then. I am smart enough to go on waiting until I get where I want to go.

My Near East people want to push Sharon and Arafat into concentrating now on process so they won’t be shooting at each other because of substance. Agree to declare a Palestinian state and spend years negotiating its borders and the other details. That’s long-term interim and confidence building, as Kissinger says. So we do need to call it something else. Does “transformational interim” sing for you?

Pragmatism is what this job is really about. You can’t be more pragmatic than this: The Arabs get the symbol they want, and the Israelis keep control. That ought to keep them out of my office for a while and let me get back to integrating Russia and China into the global system. That’s what I came here to do, not to hold Arafat’s hand 24/7 and keep the disputatious Indians from whacking the devious Pakistanis. George C. Marshall would have sent somebody else to do those things, too.

You worry that these headlines about CIA Director George Tenet in Middle East, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld going to India, Vice President Cheney touring the Persian Gulf, make it look like I’m not engaged or I don’t have Bush’s full confidence? You just don’t get it.

We maneuvered Rummy into the India-Pak trip to open his eyes to what is going on. You got China and Russia involved, you got these two raggedy nuclear states playing great power politics, and all he sees is Afghanistan. Anyway, Rich Armitage will be there just before Rummy, protecting my flank as only Richie can. And if things go boom, well, Rummy was last man there.

Just think: My rival Rumsfeld, who takes shots at me at the end of principals’ meetings for the way I pronounce Kabul as if to remind the president I didn’t go to Princeton like he did, or for my saying there may have been a “massacre” on the West Bank this very same Rumsfeld having to walk in the diplomatic footsteps in South Asia of Rich, my best friend and my deputy secretary of state.

Too bad the original plan to have that ex-senator, Dan Coats, as defense secretary and Rich as his deputy actually running the place did not work out. Coats bombs in the interview with Bush, then Rumsfeld goads Rich into flaring up during their hiring talk. Thank goodness Ed Djerejian couldn’t take the offer to be my deputy. I was able to bring Rich here, and keep him in position for the CIA if Tenet leaves.

That was the key step in our winning the battle with Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz in the media even when we lose at the White House. Advantage two: Rich and I can finish each other’s sentences, while Rumsfeld never debriefs his staff on what happens at policy meetings. Those Pentagon guys are clueless when we spring this Middle East stuff on them at decision points.

It’s jihad inside the administration, too. Everybody thinks Bush’s heart is with Rumsfeld and Cheney. That may be true. But we play for his head. Eventually he comes around: On North Korea, on a Palestinian state, on NATO at 20, on arms control. He will on Iraq, too.

I’ve got the Europeans, the Chinese, the Saudis on my side, convincing Bush of what’s right. History’s on my side, too. So is that 85 percent approval rating. Bush is only at 75.

He grins. He turns. Exit Powell, stage center-left.