Tom Clancy - The Bear and the Dragon

“That stuff we got from Mary Pat ought to help Rutledge.”

“I’m glad that Gant guy is there to translate it for him. Cliff is going to have a lively day while we sleep off the food and the booze, Jack.”

“Is he good enough for the job? I know he was tight with Ed Kealty. That does not speak well for the guy’s character.”

“Cliff’s a fine technician,” Adler said, after another sip of brandy. “And he has clear instructions to carry out, and some awfully good intelligence to help him along. This is like the stuff Jonathan Yardley gave our guys during the Washington Naval Treaty negotiations. We’re not exactly reading their cards, but we are seeing how they think, and that’s damned near as good. So, yes, I think he’s good enough for this job, or I wouldn’t have sent him out.”

“How’s the ambassador we have there?” POTUS asked.

“Carl Hitch? Super guy. Career pro, Jack, ready to retire soon, but he’s like a good cabinetmaker. Maybe he can’t design the house for you, but the kitchen will be just fine when he’s done-and you know, I’ll settle for that in a diplomat. Besides, designing the house is your job, Mr. President.”

“Yeah,” Ryan observed. He waved to an usher, who brought over some ice water. He’d pushed the booze enough for one night, and Cathy was starting to razz him about it again. Damn, being married to a doctor, Jack thought. “Yeah, Scott, but who the hell do I go to for advice when I don’t know what the hell I’m doing?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” EAGLE replied. Maybe some humor, he thought: “Try doing a séance and call up Tom Jefferson and George Washington.” He turned with a chuckle and finished his Hennessey. “Jack, just take it easy on yourself and do the fuckin’ job. You’re doing just fine. Trust me.”

“I hate this job,” SWORDSMAN observed with a friendly smile at his Secretary of State.

“I know. That’s probably why you’re doing it pretty well. God protect us all from somebody who wants to hold high public office. Hell, look at me. Think I ever wanted to be SecState? It was a lot more fun to eat lunch in the cafeteria with my pals and bitch about the dumb son of a bitch who was. But now-shit, they’re down there saying that about me! It ain’t fair, Jack. I’m a working guy.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, look at it this way: When you do your memoirs, you’ll get a great advance from your publisher. The Accidental President ?” Adler speculated for the title.

“Scott, you get funny when you’re drunk. I’ll settle for working on my golf game.”

“Who spoke the magic word?” Vice President Jackson asked as he joined the conversation.

“This guy whips my ass so bad out there,” Ryan complained to Secretary Adler, “that sometimes I wish I had a sword to fall on. What’s your handicap now?”

“Not playing much, Jack, it’s slipped to six, maybe seven.”

“He’s going to turn pro-Senior Tour,” Jack advised.

“Anyway, Jack, this is my father. His plane was late and he missed the receiving line,” Robby explained.

“Reverend Jackson, we finally meet.” Jack took the hand of the elderly black minister. For the inauguration he’d been in the hospital with kidney stones, which probably had been even less fun than the inauguration.

“Robby’s told me a lot of good things about you.”

“Your son is a fighter pilot, sir, and they exaggerate a lot.”

The minister had a good laugh at that. “Oh, that I know, Mr. President. That I know.”

“How was the food?” Ryan asked. Hosiah Jackson was a man on the far side of seventy, short like his son, and rotund with increasing years, but he was a man possessed of the immense dignity that somehow attached to black men of the cloth.

“Much too rich for an old man, Mr. President, but I ate it anyway.”

“Don’t worry, Jack. Pap doesn’t drink,” TOMCAT advised. On the lapel of his tuxedo jacket was a miniature of his Navy Wings of Gold. Robby would never stop being a fighter pilot.

“And you shouldn’t either, boy! That Navy taught you lots of bad habits, like braggin’ on yourself too much.”

Jack had to jump to his friend’s defense. “Sir, a fighter pilot who doesn’t brag isn’t allowed to fly. And besides, Dizzy Dean said it best-if you can do it, it isn’t bragging. Robby can do it … or so he claims.”

“They started talking over in Beijing yet?” Robby asked, checking his watch.

“Another half hour or so,” Adler replied. “It’s going to be interesting,” he added, referring to the SORGE material.

“I believe it,” Vice President Jackson agreed, catching the message. “You know, it’s hard to love those people.”

“Robby, you are not allowed to say such things,” his father retorted. “I have a friend in Beijing.”

“Oh?” His son didn’t know about that. The answer came rather as a papal pronouncement.

“Yes, Reverend Yu Fa An, a fine Baptist preacher, educated at Oral Roberts University. My friend Gerry Patterson went to school with him.”

“Tough place to be a priest-or minister, I guess,” Ryan observed.

It was as though Jack had turned the key in the minister’s dignity switch. “Mr. President, I envy him. To preach the Gospel of the Lord anywhere is a privilege, but to preach it in the land of the heathen is a rare blessing.”

“Coffee?” a passing usher asked. Hosiah took a cup and added cream and sugar.

“This is fine,” he observed at once.

“One of the fringe bennies here, Pap,” Jackson told his dad with considerable affection. “This is even better than Navy coffee-well, we have navy stewards serving it. Jamaica Blue Mountain, costs like forty bucks a pound,” he explained.

“Jesus, Robby, don’t say that too loud. The media hasn’t figured that one out yet!” POTUS warned. “Besides, I asked. We get it wholesale, thirty-two bucks a pound if you buy it by the barrel.”

“Gee, that’s a real bargoon,” the VP agreed with a chuckle.

With the welcoming ceremony done, the plenary session began without much in the way of fanfare. Assistant Secretary Rutledge took his seat, greeted the Chinese diplomats across the table, and began. His statement started off with the usual pleasantries that were about as predictable as the lead credits for a feature film.

“The United States,” he went on, getting to the meat of the issue, “has concerns about several disturbing aspects of our mutual trading relationship. The first is the seeming inability of the People’s Republic to abide by previous agreements to recognize international treaties and conventions on trademarks, copyrights, and patents. All of these items have been discussed and negotiated at length in previous meetings like this one, and we had thought that the areas of disagreement were successfully resolved. Unfortunately, this seems not to be the case.” He went on to cite several specific items, which he described as being illustrative but in no way a comprehensive listing of his areas of “concern.”

“Similarly,” Rutledge continued, “commitments to open the Chinese market to American goods have not been honored. This has resulted in an imbalance in the mercantile exchange which ill serves our overall relationship. The current imbalance is approaching seventy billion U.S. dollars, and that is something the United States of America is not prepared to accept.

“To summarize, the People’s Republic’s commitment to honor international treaty obligations and private agreements with the United States has not been carried out. It is a fact of American law that our country has the right to adopt the trade practices of other nations in its own law. This is the well-known Trade Reform Act, enacted by the American government several years ago. It is my unpleasant obligation, therefore, to inform the government of the People’s Republic that America will enforce this law with respect to trade with the People’s Republic forthwith, unless these previously agreed-upon commitments are met immediately,” Rutledge concluded. Immediately is a word not often used in international discourse. “That concludes my opening statement.”