environs of Washington. The same was true of Golovko, a man who preferred to serve rather than to rule, in which he was rather like the American President. “Back to the issue at hand. Are the Chinese making some sort of play, and if so, what?”
“Nothing that I see, Jack,” Foley replied, speaking for his agency in what was now an official capacity. “But remember that even with SORGE, we don’t see that much of their inner thinking. They’re so different from us that reading their minds is a son of a bitch, and they’ve just taken one in the teeth, though I don’t think they really know that yet.”
“They’re going to find out in less than a week.”
“Oh? How’s that?” the DCI asked.
“George Winston tells me a bunch of their commercial contracts are coming up due in less than ten days. We’ll see then what effect this has on their commercial accounts-and so will they.”
The day started earlier than usual in Beijing. Fang Gan stepped out of his official car and hurried up the steps into the building, past the uniformed guard who always held the door open for him, and this time did not get a thank-you nod from the exalted servant of the people. Fang walked to his elevator, into it, then stepped off after arriving at his floor. His office door was only a few more steps. Fang was a healthy and vigorous man for his age. His personal staff leaped to their feet as he walked in-an hour early, they all realized.
“Ming!” he called on the way to his inner office.
“Yes, Comrade Minister,” she said, on going through the still-open door.
“What items have you pulled off the foreign media?”
“One moment.” She disappeared and then reappeared with a sheaf of papers in her hand.
“What time is it in Washington?” Fang asked next.
“Twenty-one hours, Comrade Minister,” she answered.
“So, they are watching television and preparing for bed?”
“Yes, Comrade Minister.”
“But their newspaper articles and editorials are already prepared.”
“That is the schedule they work, Minister. Most of their stories are done by the end of a normal working day. At the latest, news stories-aside from the truly unusual or unexpected ones-are completely done before the reporters go home for their dinner.”
Fang looked up at that analysis. Ming was a clever girl, giving him information on something he’d never really thought about. With that realization, he nodded for her to go back to her desk.
For their part, the American trade delegation was just boarding their plane. They were seen off by a minor consular official who spoke plastic words from plastic lips, received by the Americans through plastic ears. Then they boarded their USAF aircraft, which started up at once and began rolling toward the runway.
“So, how do we evaluate this adventure, Cliff?” Mark Gant asked.
“Can you spell ’disaster’?” Rutledge asked in return.
“That bad?”
The Assistant Secretary of State for Policy nodded soberly. Well, it wasn’t his fault, was it? That stupid Italian clergyman gets in the way of a bullet, and then the widow of that other minister-person had to pray for him in public,
“That bad, Mark. China may never get a decent trade agreement if this crap keeps going on.”
“All they have to do is change their own policies a little,” Gant offered.
“You sound like the President.”
“Cliffy, if you want to join a club, you have to abide by the club rules. Is that so hard to understand?”
“You don’t treat great nations like the dentist nobody likes who wants to join the country club.”
“Why is the principle different?”
“Do you really think the United States can govern its foreign policy by
“The President does, Cliff, and so does your Secretary of State,” Gant pointed out.
“Well, if we want a trade agreement with China, we have to consider their point of view.”
“You know, Cliff, if you’d been in the State Department back in 1938, maybe Hitler could have killed all the Jews without all that much of a fuss,” Gant observed lightly.
It had the desired effect. Rutledge turned and started to object: “Wait a minute-”
“It was just his internal policy, Cliff, wasn’t it? So what, they go to a different church-gas ’em. Who cares?”
“Now look, Mark-”
“You look, Cliff. A country has to stand for certain things, because if you don’t, who the fuck are you, okay? We’re in the club-hell, we pretty much run the club. Why, Cliff? Because people know what we stand for. We’re not perfect. You know it. I know it. They all know it. But they also know what we will and won’t do, and so, we can be trusted by our friends, and by our enemies, too, and so the world makes a little sense, at least in our parts of it. And that is why we’re respected, Cliff.”
“And all the weapons don’t matter, and all the commercial power we have, what about them?” the diplomat demanded.
“How do you think we got them, Cliffy?” Gant demanded, using the diminutive of Rutledge’s name again, just to bait him. “We are what we are because people from all over the world came to America to work and live out their dreams. They worked hard. My grandfather came over from Russia because he didn’t like getting fucked over by the czar, and he worked, and he got his kids educated, and they got
“But we have so many flaws ourselves,” Rutledge protested.
“Of course we do! Cliff, we don’t have to be perfect to be the best around, and we never stop trying to be better. My dad, when he was in college, he marched in Mississippi, and got his ass kicked a couple of times, but you know, it all worked out, and so now we have a black guy in the Vice Presidency. From what I hear, maybe he’s good enough to take one more step up someday. Jesus, Cliff, how can you represent America to other nations if you don’t get it?”
The morning sun that lit up Beijing had done the same to Siberia even earlier in the day.
“I see our engineers are as good as ever,” Bondarenko observed. As he watched, earthmoving machines