was not one of them. 'Then we start going crazy. They have to know that.'
'They know us a lot better than they did back then. So much interaction. Besides, we have tons of their people over here, too.'
'Don't forget, Scott, that their culture is fundamentally different from ours. Their religion is different. Their view of man's place in nature is different. The value they place on human life is different,' the National Security Advisor said darkly.
'This isn't a place for racism, Jack,' Adler observed narrowly.
'Those are all facts. I didn't say they're inferior to us. I said that we're not going to make the mistake of thinking they're motivated in the same way we are—okay?'
'That's fair, I suppose,' the Deputy Secretary of State conceded.
'So I want people who really understand their culture in here to advise me. I want people who think like they do.' The trick would be finding space for them, but there were offices downstairs whose occupants could move out, albeit kicking and screaming about how important protocol and political polling were.
'I can find a few,' Adler promised.
'What are we hearing from the embassies?'
'Nobody knows much of anything. One interesting development in Korea, though.'
'What's that?'
'The defense attache in Seoul went to see some friends about getting some bases moved up in alert level. They said no. That's the first time the ROKs ever said no to us. I guess their government is still trying to figure all this out.'
'It's too early to start that, anyway.'
'Are we going to do anything?'
Ryan shook his head. 'I don't know yet.' Then his phone buzzed.
'NMCC on the STU, Dr. Ryan.'
'Ryan,' Jack said, lifting the phone. 'Yes, put him through. Shit,' he breathed so quietly that Adler hardly caught it. 'Admiral, I'll be back to you later today.'
'Now what?'
'The Indians,' Ryan told him.
'I call the meeting to order,' Mark Gant said, tapping the table with his pen. Only two more than half of the seats were filled, but that was a quorum. 'George, you have the floor.'
The looks on all the faces troubled George Winston. At one level the men and women who determined policy for the Columbus Group were physically exhausted. At another they were panicked. It was the third that caused him the most pain: the degree of hope they showed at his presence, as though he were Jesus come to clean out the temple. It wasn't supposed to be this way. No one man was supposed to have that sort of power. The American economy was too vast. Too many people depended on it. Most of all, it was too complex for one man or even twenty to comprehend it all. That was the problem with the models that everyone depended on. Sooner or later it came down to trying to gauge and measure and regulate something that simply was. It existed. It worked. It functioned. People needed it, but nobody really knew how it worked. The Marxists' illusion that they did know had been their fundamental flaw. The Soviets had spent three generations trying to command an economy to work instead of just letting it go on its own, and had ended up beggars in the world's richest nation. And it was not so different here. Instead of controlling it, they tried to live off it, but in both cases you had to have the illusion that you understood it. And nobody did, except in the broadest sense.
At the most basic level it all came down to needs and time. People had needs. Food and shelter were the first two of those. So other people grew the food and built the houses. Both required time to do, and since time was the most precious commodity known to man, you had to compensate people for it. Take a car-people needed transportation, too. When you bought a car, you paid people for the time of assembly, for the time required to fabricate all the components; ultimately you were paying miners for the time required to dig the iron ore and bauxite from the ground. That part was simple enough. The complexity began with all of the potential options. You could drive more than one kind of car. Each supplier of goods and services involved in the car had the option to get what he needed from a variety of sources, and since time was precious, the person who used his time most efficiently got a further reward. That was called competition, and competition was a never-ending race of everyone against everyone else. Fundamentally, every business, and in a sense every single person in the American economy, was in competition with every other. Everyone was a worker. Everyone was also a consumer. Everyone provided something for others to use. Everyone selected products and services from the vast menu that the economy offered. That was the basic idea.
The true complexity came from all the possible interactions. Who bought what from whom. Who became more efficient, the better to make use of their time, benefiting both the consumers and themselves at once. With everyone in the game, it was like a huge mob, with everyone talking to everyone else. You simply could not keep track of all the conversations. And yet Wall Street held the illusion that it could, that its computer models could predict in broad terms what would happen on a daily basis. It was not possible. You could analyze individual companies, get a idea of what they were doing right and wrong. To a limited degree, from one or a few such analyses you could see trends and profit by them. But the use of computers and modeling techniques had gone too far, extrapolating farther and farther away from baseline reality, and while it had worked, after a fashion, for years, that had only magnified the illusion. With the collapse three days earlier, the illusion was shattered, and now they had nothing to cling to.
The former president of the Columbus Group knew his limitations. He knew the degree to which he understood the system, and knew roughly where that understanding ended. He knew that nobody could quite make the whole thing work, and that train of thought took him almost as far as he needed to go on this dark night in New York.
'This looks like a place without a leader. Tomorrow, what happens?' he asked, and all the 'rocket scientists' averted their eyes from his, looking down at the table, or in some cases sharing a glance with the person who happened to be across it. Only three days before, someone would have spoken, offered an opinion with some greater or lesser degree of confidence. But not now, because nobody knew. Nobody had the first idea. And nobody spoke up.
'You have a president. Is he telling you anything?' Winston asked next.
Heads shook.
It was Mark Gant, of course, who posed the question, as Winston had known he would.
'Ladies and gentlemen, it is the board of directors which selects our president and managing director, isn't it? We need a leader now.'
'George,' another man asked. 'Are you back?'
'Either that or I'm doing the goddamnedest out-of-body trip you people have ever seen.' It wasn't much of a joke, but it did generate smiles, the beginning of a little enthusiasm for something.
'In that case, I submit the motion that we declare the position of president and managing director to be vacant.'
'Second.'
'There is a motion on the floor,' Mark Gant said, rather more strongly.
'Those in favor?'
There was a chorus of 'ayes.'
'Oppose?'
Nothing.
'The motion carries. The presidency of the Columbus Group is now vacant. Is there a further motion from the floor?'
'I nominate George Winston to be our managing director and president,' another voice said.
'Second.'
'Those in favor?' Gant asked. This vote was identical except in its growing enthusiasm.
'George, welcome back.' There was a faint smattering of applause.
'Okay.' Winston stood. It was his again. His next comment was desultory: 'Somebody needs to tell Yamata.' He started pacing the room.
