As War Winds Down in Libya, Enter the Consultants

Want to do a deal in post-Qaddafi Libya? Head to the Cafe Oya in the back of Tripoli’s Radisson Blu Al Mahary, where visitors without proper ID must check their AK-47s at the hotel door. Diplomats, reporters, businessmen, and representatives of the National Transitional Council (NTC)—the rebel government set up in February—sit at a dozen small tables discussing the country’s volatile future through a haze of cigarette smoke. Conversation over strong coffee flits between the fighting around Sirte, who will hold positions in the soon-to-be-created interim government—delayed by bickering between Islamists and secular Libyans—and who gets the billions of dollars of still-frozen Qaddafi assets.

Never far from view are the hulking frames of security details, mostly British ex-military men, transparent wires corkscrewing out of their ears. Their taciturn shadows tail the diplomats and visiting NTC members they protect.