Well, Jack reminded himself,
“So, what do we know about our heathen Chinese friends?” Winston asked. “The current ones, that is.”
“Not much. We’re working on that. The Agency has a long way to go, though we are started on the road. We still get intercepts. Their phone system is leaky, and they use their cell phones too much without encrypting them. Some of them are men of commendable vigor, George, but nothing too terribly scandalous that we know about. Quite a few of them have secretaries who are very close to their bosses.”
The Secretary of the Treasury managed a chuckle. “Well, a lot of that going around, and not just in Beijing.”
“Even on Wall Street?” Jack inquired, with a theatrically raised eyebrow.
“I can’t say for sure, sir, but I have heard the occasional rumor.” Winston grinned at the diversion.
And even right here in this room, Ryan reminded himself. They’d changed the rug long since, of course, and all the furniture, except for the Presidential desk. One of the problems associated with holding this job was the baggage piled on your back by previous officeholders. They said the public had a short memory, but that wasn’t true, was it? Not when you heard the whispers, followed by chuckles, and accompanied by knowing looks and the occasional gesture that made you feel dirty to be the subject of the chuckles. And all you could do about it was to live your life as best you could, but even then the best you could hope for was for people to think you were smart enough not to get caught,
Jack knew that he was far too thin-skinned to hold this job. Professional politicians typically had hides that made a rhinoceros’s look like rose petals, because they expected to have things hurled at them, some true, some not. By cultivating that thick covering, they attenuated the pain somehow, until eventually people stopped hurling things at them, or such was the theory. Maybe it actually worked for some. Or maybe the bastards just didn’t have consciences. You paid your money and you took your choice.
But Ryan did have a conscience. That was a choice he’d made long before. You still had to look in the mirror once a day, usually at shaving time, and there was no easy fix for not being able to like the face you saw there.
“Okay, back to the PRC’s problems, George,” the President commanded.
“They’re going to juice up their trade-one way, that is. They’re discouraging their own citizens from buying American, but all they can sell, they sell. Including some of Mao’s young virgins, probably.”
“What do we have to prove that?”
“Jack, I pay close attention to results, and I have friends in various businesses who shake the bushes and talk to people over drinks. What they learn frequently gets back to me. You know, a lot of ethnic Chinese have some weird medical condition. You get one drink into them, it’s like four or five for us-and the second drink is like chugging a whole bottle of Jack Daniel‘s, but some of the dummies try to keep up anyway, some hospitality thing, maybe. Anyway, when that happens, well, the talk becomes freer, y’know? It’s been going on quite a while, but lately Mark Gant set up a little program. Senior executives who go to certain special places, well, I
“I’m impressed, George. You cross-deck it to CIA?”
“I suppose I could, but I was afraid they’d get all pissy over turf rights and stuff.”
Ryan rolled his eyes at that bit of information. “Not Ed Foley. He’s a real pro from way back, and the bureaucracy over at Langley hasn’t captured him yet. Have him over to your office for lunch. He won’t mind what you’re doing. Same thing with Mary Pat. She runs the Directorate of Operations. MP’s a real cowgirl, and she wants results, too.”
“Duly noted. You know, Jack, it’s amazing how much people talk, and the things they talk about under the proper circumstances.”
“How’d you make all that money on The Street, George?” Ryan asked.
“Mainly by knowing a little more than the guy across the street,” Winston replied.
“Works the same way for me here. Okay, if our little friends go forward with this, what should we do?”
“Jack-no, now it’s
“I remember, George. It kinda started a little shooting war in which some people got killed,” POTUS observed dryly. Worst of all, perhaps, it had begun the process that had ended up with Ryan in this very room.
SecTreas nodded. “True, but it’s still the law, and it was not a bill of attainder meant only to apply to Japan. Jack, if we apply the same trade laws to China that the Chinese apply to us, well, it’ll put a major crimp in their foreign-exchange accounts. Is that a bad thing? No, not with the trade imbalance we have with them now. You know, Jack, if they start building automobiles and play the same game they’re playing on everything else, our trade deficit could get real ugly real fast, and frankly I’m tired of having us finance their economic development, which they then execute with heavy equipment bought in Japan and Europe. If they want trade with the United States of America, fine, but let it be
“I hear you, George. But we don’t want to put a gun to their head, do we? You don’t do that to a nation- state, especially a
“Maybe, Jack. What I was thinking was a little friendly encouragement on our part, not a pointed gun exactly. The gun is always there in the holster-the big gun is most-favored-nation status, and they know it, and we know they know it. TRA is something we can apply to any country, and I happen to think the idea behind the law is fundamentally sound. It’s been fairly useful as a club to show to a lot of countries, but we’ve never tried it on the PRC. How come?”
POTUS shrugged, with no small degree of embarrassment. “Because I haven’t had the chance to yet, and before me too many people in this town just wanted to kiss their collective ass.”
“Leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you do that, Mr. President, doesn’t it?”
“It can,” Jack agreed. “Okay, you want to talk this over with Scott Adler. The ambassadors all work for him.”
“Who do we have in Beijing?”
“Carl Hitch. Career FSO, late fifties, supposed to be very good, and this is his sunset assignment.”
“Payoff for all those years of holding coats?”
Ryan nodded. “Something like that, I suppose. I’m not entirely sure. State wasn’t my bureaucracy.” CIA, he