Tom Clancy - The Bear and the Dragon

“I expect the language will be profane.”

“They’ve said nasty things about me lately,” Jack assured him.

“That you should have carnal relations with your mother, no doubt.”

“Actually, that I should have oral sex with her,” the President confirmed distastefully. “I suppose everybody says things like that in private.”

“In person, it can get a man shot.”

Ryan grunted grim semi-amusement. “Bet your ass, Sergey.”

“Will this work?” Golovko asked.

“I was going to ask you that. You’re closer to them than we are.”

“I do not know,” the Russian said, with a tiny sip of his vodka glass. “And if it does not..:”

“In that case, you have some new allies.”

“And what of the precise wording of Articles Five and Six of the treaty?”

“Sergey, you may tell your president that the United States will regard an attack on any part of the territory of the Russian Federation as operative under the North Atlantic Treaty. On that, Sergey Nikolay’ch, you have the word and the commitment of the United States of America,” SWORDSMAN told his Russian acquaintance.

“Jack, if I may address you in this way, I have told my president more than once that you are a man of honor, and a man of your word.” The relief on his face was obvious.

“Sergey, from you those words are flattering. It’s simple, really. It’s your land, and a nation like ours cannot just stand by and watch a robbery of this scale taking place. It corrupts the foundations of international peace. It’s our job to remake the world into a peaceful place. There’s been enough war.”

“I fear there will be another,” Golovko said, with characteristic honesty.

“Then together your country and mine will make it the very last.”

“Plato said, ‘Only the dead have seen the end of war.’ ”

“So, are we to be bound by the words of a Greek who lived twenty-five centuries ago? I prefer the words of a Jew who lived five centuries later. It’s time, Sergey. It’s fucking time,” Ryan said forcefully.

“I hope you are right. You Americans, always so madly optimistic…”

“There’s a reason for that.”

“Oh? What would that be?” the Russian asked.

Jack fixed his eyes on his Russian colleague. “In my country, all things are possible. They will be in your country, too, if you just allow it. Embrace democracy, Sergey. Embrace freedom. Americans are not genetically different from the rest of the world. We’re mongrels. We have the blood of every country on earth in our veins. The only thing different between us and the rest of the world is our Constitution. Just a set of rules. That’s all, Sergey, but it has served us well. You’ve been studying us for how long?”

“Since I joined the KGB? Over thirty-five years.”

“And what have you learned of America and how it works?” Ryan asked.

“Obviously not enough,” Golovko answered honestly. “The spirit of your country has always puzzled me.”

“Because it’s too simple. You were looking for complexity. We allow people to pursue their dreams, and when the dreams succeed, we reward them. Others see that happen and chase after their own dreams.”

“But the class issues?”

“What class issues? Sergey, not everybody goes to Harvard. I didn’t, remember? My father was a cop. I was the first guy in my family to finish college. Look how I turned out. Sergey, we do not have class distinctions in America. You can be what you choose to be, if you are willing to work at it. You can succeed or you can fail. Luck helps,” Ryan admitted, “but it comes down to work.”

“All Americans have stars in their eyes,” the Chairman of the SVR observed tersely.

“The better to see the heavens,” Ryan responded.

“Perhaps. Just so they don’t come crashing down on us.”

So, what does this mean for us?” Xu Kun Piao asked, in an entirely neutral voice.

Zhang Han San and his premier had been watching the CNN feed in the latter’s private office, complete with simultaneous translation through headphones now discarded. The senior Minister Without Portfolio made a dismissive wave of the hand.

“I’ve read the North Atlantic Treaty,” he said. “It does not apply to us at all. Articles Five and Six limit its military application to events in Europe and North America only-all right, it includes Turkey, and, as originally written, Algeria, which was part of France in 1949. For incidents at sea, it applies only to the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, and then only north of the Tropic of Cancer. Otherwise, the NATO countries would have been compelled to join in the Korean War and Vietnam on the American side. Those things did not happen because the treaty did not apply outside its defined area. Nor does it apply to us. Treaty documents have discrete language and discrete application,” he reminded his party chief. “They are not open-ended.”

“I am concerned even so,” Xu responded.

“Hostilities are not activities to be undertaken lightly,” Zhang admitted. “But the real danger to us is economic collapse and the resulting social chaos. That, comrade, could bring down our entire social order, and that is something we cannot risk. But, when we succeed in seizing the oil and gold, we need not worry about such things. With our own abundant oil supply, we will not face an energy crisis, and with gold we can buy anything we require from the rest of the world. My friend, you must understand the West. They worship money, and they base their economies on oil. With those two things they must do business with us. Why did America intervene in the Kuwait affair? Oil. Why did Britain, France, and all the other nations join in? Oil. He who has oil is their friend. We shall have oil. It is that simple,” Zhang concluded.

“You are very confident.”

The minister nodded. “Yes, Xu, I am, because I have studied the West for many years. The way they think is actually very predictable. The purpose of this treaty might be to frighten us, I suppose, but it is at most a paper tiger. Even if they wished to provide military assistance to Russia, they do not have the ability to do so. And I do not believe that they have that wish. They cannot know our plans, because if they did, they would have pressed their advantage over us in terms of currency reserves at the trade talks, but they did not, did they?” Zhang asked.

“Is there no way they could know?”

“It is most unlikely. Comrade Tan has no hint of foreign espionage in our country at anything approaching a high level, and his sources in Washington and elsewhere have not caught a sniff of such information being available to them.”

“Then why did they just broaden NATO?” Xu demanded.

“Is it not obvious? Russia is becoming rich with oil and gold, and the capitalist states wish to partake in the Russians’ good fortune. That is what they said in the press, isn’t it? It is fully in keeping with the capitalist ethos: mutual greed. Who can say, perhaps in five years they will invite us into NATO for the same reason,” Zhang observed with an ironic leer.

“You are confident that our plans have not been compromised?”

“As we come to a higher alert level and begin moving troops, we may expect some reaction from the Russians. But the rest of them? Bah! Tan and Marshal Luo are confident as well.”

“Very well,” Xu said, not entirely persuaded, but agreeing even so.

It was morning in Washington. Vice President Jackson was de facto boss of the crisis-management team, a place assured by his previous job, Director of Operations-J-3-for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One nice thing about the White House was the good security, made better still by bringing people in via helicopter and car, and by the fact that the Joint Chiefs could teleconference in from their meeting room-“the Tank”-over a secure fiber-optic link.