Tom Clancy - The Bear and the Dragon

“We’re rolling now, sir.” The line went dead. Ryan tossed the phone to Special Agent Price-O’Day.

“Good news?” she asked.

“Yep.” Ryan nodded and walked into the conference room.

“Mr. President.” Sir Basil Charleston came up to him. The chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service, he’d known Ryan longer than anyone else in the room had. One odd result of Ryan’s path to the Presidency was that the people who knew him best were all spooks, mainly NATO ones, and these found themselves advising their chiefs of government on how to deal with America. Sir Basil had served no less than five Prime Ministers of Her Majesty’s Government, but now he was in rather a higher position than before.

“Bas, how are you?”

“Doing quite well, thank you. May I ask a question?”

“Sure.” But I don’t have to answer it, Jack’s smile added in reply.

“Adler is in Moscow now. Can we know why?”

“How will your PM react to inviting Russia into NATO?”

That made Basil blink, Ryan saw. It wasn’t often that you could catch this guy unawares. Instantly, his mind went into overdrive to analyze the new situation. “China?” he asked after about six seconds.

Jack nodded. “Yeah. We may have some problems there.”

“Not going north, are they?”

“They’re thinking about it,” Ryan replied.

“How good is your information on that question?”

“You know about the Russian gold strike, right?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. President. Ivan’s been bloody lucky on both scores.”

“Our intel strike in Beijing is even better.”

“Indeed?” Charleston observed, letting Jack know that the SIS had also been pretty much shut out there.

“Indeed, Bas. It’s class-A information, and it has us worried. We’re hoping that pulling Russia into NATO can scare them off. Grushavoy just agreed on it. How do you suppose the rest of these folks will react to it?”

“They’ll react cautiously, but favorably, after they’ve had a chance to consider it.”

“Will Britain back us on this play?” Ryan asked.

“I must speak with the PM. I’ll let you know.” With that, Sir Basil walked over to where the British Prime Minister was chatting with the German Foreign Minister. Charleston dragged him off and spoke quietly into his ear. Instantly, the Prime Minister’s eyes, flaring a little wide, shot over to Ryan. The British PM was somewhat trapped, somewhat unpleasantly because of the surprise factor, but the substance of the trap was that Britain and America always supported each other. The “special relationship” was as alive and well today as it had been under the governments of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. It was one of the few constants in the diplomatic world for both countries, and it belied Kissinger’s dictum that great nations didn’t have friendships, but rather interests. Perhaps it was the exception proving the rule, but if so, exception it was. Both Britain and America would hurl themselves in front of a train for the other. The fact that in England, President Ryan was Sir John Ryan, KCVO, made the alliance even more firm. In acknowledgment of that, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom walked over to the American chief of state.

“Jack, will you let us in on this development?”

“Insofar as I can. I may give Basil a little more on the side, but, yeah, Tony, this is for real, and we’re damned worried about it.”

“The gold and the oil?” the PM asked.

“They seem to think they’re in an economic box. They’re just about out of hard currency, and they’re hurting for oil and wheat.”

“You can’t make an arrangement for that?”

“After what they did? Congress would hang me from the nearest lamppost.”

“Quite,” the Brit had to agree. BBC had run its own news miniseries on human rights in the PRC, and the Chinese hadn’t come off very well. Indeed, despising China was the new European sport, which hadn’t helped their foreign-currency holdings at all. As China had trapped themselves, so the Western nations had been perversely co-opted into building the wall. The citizens of these democracies wouldn’t stand for economic or trade concessions any more than the Chinese Politburo could see its way to making the political sort. “Rather like Greek tragedy, isn’t it, Jack?”

“Yeah, Tony, and our tragic flaw is adherence to human rights. Hell of a situation, isn’t it?”

“And you’re hoping that bringing Russia into NATO will give them pause?”

“If there’s a better card to play, I haven’t seen it in my deck, man.”

“How set are they on the path?”

“Unknown. Our intelligence on this is very good, but we have to be careful making use of it. It could get people killed, and deny us the information we need.”

“Like our chap Penkovskiy in the 1960s.” One thing about Sir Basil, he knew how to educate his bosses on how the business of intelligence worked.

Ryan nodded, then proceeded with a little of his own disinformation. It was business, and Basil would understand: “Exactly. I can’t have that man’s life on my conscience, Tony, and so I have to treat this information very carefully.”

“Quite so, Jack. I understand fully.”

“Will you support us on this?”

The PM nodded at once. “Yes, old boy, we must, mustn’t we?”

“Thanks, pal.” Ryan patted him on the shoulder.

It took all day, lengthening what was supposed to have been a pro forma meeting of the NATO chiefs into a minor marathon. It took all of Scott Adler’s powers of persuasion to smooth things over with the various foreign ministers, but with the assistance of Britain, whose diplomacy had always been of the Rolls-Royce class, after four hours there was a head-nod-and-handshake agreement, and the diplomatic technicians were sent off to prepare the documents. All this was accomplished behind closed doors, with no opportunity for a press leak, 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.