Tom Clancy - The Bear and the Dragon

“Then you were right to adjourn the talks. We will give them a chance to reconsider their position. If they think they can dictate to us, then they are mistaken. You canceled the airplane order?”

“Of course, as we agreed last week.”

“Then that will give them something to think about,” Zhang observed smugly.

“If they do not walk out of the talks.”

“They wouldn’t dare.” Walk away from the Middle Kingdom? Absurd.

“There is one other thing that Gant man said. He said, not in so many words, that we need them-their money, that is-more than they need us. And he is not entirely wrong in that, is he?”

“We do not need their dollars more than we need our sovereignty. Do they really think they can dictate our domestic laws to us?”

“Yes, Zhang, they do. They apply an astounding degree of importance to this incident.”

“Those two policemen ought to be shot for what they did, but we cannot allow the Americans to dictate that sort of thing to us.” The embarrassment of the incident was one thing-and embarrassing the state was often a capital offense in the People’s Republic-but China had to make such a decision on its own, not at the order of an outsider.

“They call it barbaric,” Shen added.

“Barbaric? They say that to us? ”

“You know that Americans have tender sensibilities. We often forget that. And their religious leaders have some influence in their country. Our ambassador in Washington has cabled some warnings to us about this. It would be better if we had some time to let things settle down, and truly it would be better to punish those two policemen just to assuage American sensibilities, but I agree we cannot allow them to dictate domestic policy to us.”

“And this Gant man says his ji is bigger than ours, does he?”

“So Xue tells me. Our file on him says that he’s a stock trader, that he’s worked closely with Minister Winston for many years. He’s a Jew, like lots of them are-”

“Their Foreign Minister is also a Jew, isn’t he?”

“Minister Adler? Yes, he is,” Shen confirmed after a moment’s thought.

“So, this Gant really does tell us their position, then?”

“Probably,” Foreign Minister Shen said.

Zhang leaned forward in his chair. “Then you will make them clear on ours. The next time you see this Gant, tell him chou ni ma de bi.” Which was rather a strong imprecation, best said to someone in China if you had a gun already in your hand.

“I understand,” Shen replied, knowing that he’d never say anything like that except to a particularly humble underling in his own office.

Zhang left. He had to talk this one over with his friend Fang Gan.

Over the last week Ryan had come to expect bad news upon waking up, and as a result so had his family. He knew that he was taking it too seriously when his children started asking him about it over breakfast.

“What’s happening with China, Dad?” Sally asked, giving Ryan one more thing to lament. Sally didn’t say “daddy” anymore, and that was a title far more precious to Jack than “Mr. President.” You expected it from your sons, but not from your daughter. He’d discussed it with Cathy, but she’d told him that he just had to roll with the punch.

“We don’t know, Sally.”

“But you’re supposed to know everything!” And besides, her friends asked her about it at school.

“Sally, the President doesn’t know everything. At least I don’t,” he explained, looking up from the morning Early Bird.“And if you never noticed, the TVs in my office are tuned to CNN and the other news networks because they frequently tell me more than CIA does.”

“Really?”Sally observed. She watched too many movies. In Hollywood, CIA was a dangerous, lawbreaking, antidemocratic, fascist, and thoroughly evil government agency that nonetheless knew everything about everybody, and had really killed President Kennedy for its own purposes, whatever they were (Hollywood never quite got around to that). But it didn’t matter, because whoever the star was always managed to thwart the nasty old CIA before the credits, or the last commercial, depending on the format.

“Really, honey. CIA has some good people in it, but basically it’s just one more government agency.”

“What about the FBI and Secret Service?” she asked.

“They’re cops. Cops are different. My dad was a cop, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” and then she went back to the “Style” section of The Washington Post, which had both the comics and the stories that interested her, mainly ones having to do with the sort of music that her father put quotation marks around.

Then there was a discreet knock at the door, and Andrea came in. At this time of day, she also acted as his private secretary, in this case delivering a dispatch from the State Department. Ryan took it, looked at it, and managed not to pound on the table, because his children were present.

“Thanks, Andrea,” he told her.

“Yes, Mr. President.” And Special Agent Price-O’Day went back out to the corridor.

Jack saw his wife looking at him. The kids couldn’t read all his facial expressions, but his wife could. To Cathy, Ryan couldn’t lie worth a damn, which was also why she didn’t worry about his fidelity. Jack had the dissimulation ability of a two-year-old, despite all the help and training he got from Arnie. Jack caught the look and nodded. Yeah, it was China again. Ten minutes later, breakfast was fully consumed and the TV was turned off, and the Ryan family headed downstairs to work, to school, or to the day-care center at Johns Hopkins, depending on age, with the requisite contingent of Secret Service bodyguards. Jack kissed them all in their turn, except for little Jack-SHORTSTOP to the Secret Service-because John Patrick Ryan, Jr., didn’t go in for that sissy stuff. There was something to be said for having daughters, Ryan thought, as he headed for the Oval Office. Ben Goodley was there, waiting with the President’s Daily Brief.

“You have the one from SecState?” CARDSHARP asked.

“Yeah, Andrea delivered it.” Ryan fell into his swivel chair and lifted the phone, punching the proper speed-dial button.

“Good morning, Jack,” SecState said in greeting, despite a short night’s sleep gotten on the convertible sofa in his own office. Fortunately, his private bathroom also had a shower.

“Approved. Bring them all back,” SWORDSMAN told EAGLE.

“Who handles the announcement?” Secretary Adler asked.

“You do it. We’ll try to low-key it,” the President said, with forlorn hope in his voice.

“Right,” Adler thought. “Anything else?”

“That’s it for now.”

“Okay, see ya, Scott.” Ryan replaced the phone. “What about China?” he asked Goodley. “Are they doing anything unusual?”

“No. Their military is active, but it’s routine training activity only. Their most active sectors are up in their northeast and opposite Taiwan. Lesser activity in their southwest, north of India.”

“With all the good luck the Russians are having with oil and gold, are the Chinese looking north with envy?”

“It’s not bad speculation, but we have no positive indications of that from any of our sources.” Everybody envied rich neighbors, after all. That’s what had encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait, despite having lots of oil under his own sand.

“Any of our sources” includes SORGE , the President reminded himself. He pondered that for a second. “Tell Ed I want a SNIE on Russia and China.”

“Quick?” Goodley asked. A Special National Intelligence Estimate could take months to prepare.