The Bear and the Dragon

and so when the various government leaders made it outside, the media learned of it like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. What they did not learn was the real reason for the action. They were told it had to do with the new economic promise in the Russian Federation, which seemed reasonable enough, and when you came down to it, was the root cause in any case.

In fact most of the NATO partners didn’t know the whole story, either. The new American intelligence was directly shared only with Britain, though France and Germany were given some indications of America’s cause for concern. For the rest, the simple logic of the situation was enough to offer appeal. It would look good in the press, and for most politicians all over the world, that was sufficient to make them doff their clothes and run about a public square naked. Secretary Adler cautioned his President about the dangers of drawing sovereign nations into treaty obligations without telling them all the reasons behind them, but even he agreed that there was little other choice in the matter. Besides, there was a built-in escape clause that the media wouldn’t see at first, and hopefully, neither would the Chinese.

The media got the story out in time for the evening news broadcasts in America and the late-night ones in Europe, and the TV cameras showed the arrival of the various VIPs at the official dinner in Warsaw.

“I owe you one, Tony,” Ryan told the British Prime Minister with a salute of his wineglass. The white wine was French, from the Loire Valley, and excellent. The hard liquor of the night had been an equally fine Polish vodka.

“Well, one can hope that it gives our Chinese friends pause. When will Grushavoy arrive?”

“Tomorrow afternoon, followed by more drinking. Vodka again, I suppose.” The documents were being printed up at this very moment, and then would be bound in fine leather, as such important documents invariably were, after which they’d be tucked away in various dusty basement archives, rarely to be seen by the eyes of men again.

“Basil tells me that your intelligence information is unusually good, and rather frightening,” the PM observed, with a sip of his own.

“It is all of that, my friend. You know, we’re supposed to think that this war business is a thing of the past.”

“So they thought a hundred years ago, Jack. It didn’t quite work out that way, did it?”

“True, but that was then, and this is now. And the world really has changed in the past hundred years.”

“I hope that is a matter of some comfort to Franz Ferdinand, and the ten million or so chaps who died as an indirect result of his demise, not to mention Act Two of the Great European Civil War,” the Prime Minister observed.

“Yeah, day after tomorrow, I’m going down to Auschwitz. That ought to be fun.” Ryan didn’t really want to go, but he figured it was something of an obligation under the circumstances, and besides, Arnie thought it would look good on TV, which was why he did a lot of the things he did.

“Do watch out for the ghosts, old boy. I should think there are a number of them there.”

“I’ll let you know,” Ryan promised. Would it be like Dickens’s A Christmas Carol? he wondered. The ghost of horrors past, accompanied by the ghost of horrors present, and finally the ghost of horrors yet to be? But he was in the business of preventing such things. That’s what the people of his country paid him for. Maybe $250,000 a year wasn’t much for a guy who’d twice made a good living in the trading business, but it was a damned sight more than most of the taxpayers made, and they gave it to him in return for his work. That made the obligation as sacred as a vow sworn to God’s own face. Auschwitz had happened because other men hadn’t recognized their obligation to the people whom they had been supposed to serve. Or something like that. Ryan had never quite made the leap of imagination necessary to understand the thought processes of dictators. Maybe Caligula had really figured that the lives of the Roman people were his possessions to use and discard like peanut shells. Maybe Hitler had thought that the German people existed only to serve his ambition to enter the history books-and if so, sure enough it had happened, just not quite the way he’d hoped it would. Jack Ryan knew objectively that he’d be in various history books, but he tried to avoid thinking about what future generations would make of him. Just surviving in his job from day to day was difficult enough. The problem with history was that you couldn’t transport yourself into the future so that you could look back with detachment and see what the hell you were supposed to do. No, making history was a damned sight harder than studying it, and so he’d decided to avoid thinking about it altogether. He wouldn’t be around to know what the future thought anyway, so there was no sense in worrying about it, was there? He had his own conscience to keep him awake at night, and that was hard enough.

Looking around the room, he could see the chiefs of government of more than fifteen countries, from little Iceland to the Netherlands to Turkey. He was President of the United States of America, by far the largest and most powerful country of the NATO alliance-until tomorrow, anyway, he corrected himself-and he wanted to take them all aside and ask each one how the hell he (they were all men at the moment) reconciled his self and his duties. How did you do the job honorably? How did you look after the needs of every citizen? Ryan knew that he couldn’t reasonably expect to be universally loved. Arnie had told him that-that he only needed to be liked, not loved, by half-plus-one of the voters in America-but there had to be more to the job than that, didn’t there? He knew all of his fellow chief executives by name and sight, and he’d been briefed in on each man’s character. That one there, he had a mistress only nineteen years old. That one drank like a fish. That one had a little confusion about his sexual preference. And that one was a crook who’d enriched himself hugely on the government payroll. But they were all allies of his country, and therefore they were officially his friends. And so Jack had to ignore what he knew of them and treat them like what they appeared to be rather than what they really were, and the really funny part of that was that they felt themselves to be his superiors because they were better politicians than he was. And the funniest part of all was that they were right. They were better politicians than he was, Ryan thought, sipping his wine. The British Prime Minister walked off to see his Norwegian counterpart, as Cathy Ryan rejoined her husband.

“Well, honey, how did it go?”

“The usual. Politics. Don’t any of these women have a real job?” she asked the air.

“Some do,” Jack remembered from his briefings. “Some even have kids.”

“Mainly grandkids. I’m not old enough for that yet, thank God.”

“Sorry, babe. But there are advantages to being young and beautiful,” POTUS told FLOTUS.

“And you’re the best-looking guy here,” Cathy replied with a smile.

“But I’m too tired. Long day at the bargaining table.”

“Why are you bringing Russia into NATO?”

“To stop a war with China,” Jack replied honestly. It was time she knew. The answer to her question got her attention.

“What?”

“I’ll fill you in later, babe, but that’s the short version.”

“A war?”

“Yeah. It’s a long story, and we hope that what we agreed to do today will prevent it.”

“You say so,” Cathy Ryan observed dubiously.

“Meet anybody you like?”

“The French President is very charming.”

“Oh, yeah? He was a son of a bitch in the negotiating session today. Maybe he’s just trying to get in your knickers,” Jack told his wife. He’d been briefed in on the French President, and he was reputed to be a man of “commendable vigor,” as the State Department report delicately put it. Well, the French had a reputation as great lovers, didn’t they?

“I’m spoke for, Sir John,” she reminded him.

“And so am I, my lady.” He could have Roy Altman shoot the Frenchman for making a move on his wife, Ryan thought with amusement, but that would cause a diplomatic incident, and Scott Adler always got upset about those…. Jack checked his watch. It was about time to call this one a day. Soon some diplomat would make a discreet announcement that would end the evening. Jack hadn’t danced with his wife. The sad truth was that Jack couldn’t dance a lick, which was a source of minor contention with his wife, and a shortcoming he planned to correct someday … maybe.

The party broke up on time. The embassy had comfortable quarters, and Ryan found his way to the king- sized bed brought in for his and Cathy’s use.