"We both hate subt.i.tles," Jack informed his aide, with a look.

"I'll have Langley get it done for you, then," Goodley promised.

"She'll flip out when she sees that pelt." With the money from his investment portfolio, Ryan had become a connoisseur of fine jewelry and furs. For the former, he had an arrangement with Blickman's, a very special firm in Rockefeller Center. Two weeks before the previous Christmas, one of their salespeople had come by train to Washington, accompanied by two armed guards, who hadn't been allowed into the White House proper-the outside guards had gone slightly nuts on learning that armed men were on campus, but Andrea Price-O'Day had smoothed that over-and shown the President about five million dollars' worth of estate jewelry, and some pieces newly made just across the street from their office, some of which Ryan had purchased. His reward had been to see Cathy's eyes pop nearly out of her head under the Christmas tree, and lament the fact that all she'd gotten him was a nice set of Taylor golf clubs. But that was fine with SWORDSMAN. To see his wife smile on Christmas morning was as fine a prize as he expected in life. Besides, it was proof that he had taste in jewelry, one of the better things for a man to have-at least in his woman's eyes. But d.a.m.n, if he could have gotten her one of those wolf-fur coats . . . could he cut a deal with Sergey Golovko? Jack wondered briefly. But where the h.e.l.l could you wear such a thing? He had to be practical.

"Would look nice in the closet," Goodley agreed, seeing the distant look in his boss's eyes.

Color would go so nice with her b.u.t.ter-blond hair. Ryan mused on for a few more seconds, then shook his head to dismiss the thought.

"What else today?"

"SORGE has developed new information. It's being couriered down even as we speak."

"Important?"

"Mrs. Foley didn't say so, but you know how it works."

"Oh, yeah, even the minor stuff fits together into a real pretty picture when you need it." The major download still sat in his private safe. The sad truth was that while he did, technically, have the time to read it, that would have entailed taking time away from his family, and it would have had to have been really important for the President to do that.

So, what will the Americans do?" Fang asked Zhang.

"On the trade issue? They will, finally, bow to the inevitable, and grant us most-favored-nation status and remove their objection to our full entry into the World Trade Organization," the minister replied.

"None too soon," Fang Gan observed.

"That is true," Zhang Han San agreed. The financial conditions in the PRC had been well concealed to this point, which was one advantage of the communist form of government, both ministers would have agreed, if they had ever considered another form of government. The cold truth of the matter was that the PRC was nearly out of foreign exchange, having spent it mainly on armaments and armsrelated technology all over the world. Only incidental goods had come from America-mainly computer chips, which could be used in nearly any sort of mechanical contrivance. The overtly military material they'd purchased came most often from Western Europe, and sometimes from Israel. America sold what arms it released to this part of the world to the renegades on Taiwan, who paid cash, of course. That was like a mosquito bite to the mainland regime, not large, not life-threatening, but an annoyance that they continuously scratched at, in the process making it worse instead of better. There were over a billion-a thousand million-people in mainland China, and less than thirty million on the island across the strait. The misnamed Republic of China used its people well, producing more than a quarter of the goods and services the PRC turned out in a given year with forty times as many workers and peasants. However, while the mainland coveted the goods and services and the riches that resulted, they did not covet the political and economic system that made it possible. Their system was far superior, of course, because theirs was the better ideology. Mao himself had said so.

Neither of these two Politburo members, nor any of the others, reflected much on the objective realities at hand. They were as certain in their beliefs as any Western clergyman was in his. They even ignored the self-evident fact that what prosperity the People's Republic possessed came from capitalist enterprise allowed by previous rulers, often over the screams and howls of other ministerial-rank politicians. The latter contented themselves by denying political influence to the people who were enriching their country, confident that this situation would go on forever, and that those businessmen and industrialists would be satisfied to make their money and live in relative luxury while they, the political theorists, continued to manage the nation's affairs. After all, the weapons and the soldiers belonged to them, didn't they? And power still grew out of the barrel of a gun.

"You are certain of this?" Fang Gan asked.

"Yes, Comrade, I am quite certain. We have been 'good' for the Yankees, haven't we? We have not rattled our saber at the Taiwanese bandits lately, have we?"

"What of American trade complaints?"

"Do they not understand business?" Zhang asked grandly. "We sell goods to them because of their quality and price. We shop the same way. Yes, I admit, their Boeing airplane company makes fine airplanes, but so does Airbus in Europe, and the Europeans have been more . . . accommodating to us politically. America rants on about opening our markets to their goods, and we do this-slowly, of course. We need to keep the surplus they so kindly give us, and spend it on items of importance to us. Next, we will expand our automobile production and enter their auto market, as the j.a.panese once did. In five years, Fang, we will be taking another ten billion dollars from America annually-and that, my friend, is a very conservative estimate."

"You think so?"

An emphatic nod. "Yes! We will not make the mistake the j.a.panese made early on, selling ugly little cars. We are already looking for American styling engineers who will help us design automobiles which are aesthetically pleasing to the white devils."

"If you say so."

"When we have the money we need to build up our military, we will be the world's leading power in every respect. Industrially, we will lead the world. Militarily, we are at the center of the world."

"I fear these plans are too ambitious," Fang said cautiously. "They will take more years than we have to implement in any case, but what legacy will we leave to our country if we point her on a erroneous path?"

"What error is this, Fang?" Zhang asked. "Do you doubt our ideas?"

Always that question, Fang thought with an inward sigh. "I remember when Deng said, 'It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.' To which Mao responded with a livid snarl: 'What emperor said that?' "

"But it does matter, my old friend, and well you know it."

"That is true," Fang agreed with a submissive nod, not wanting a confrontation this late in the day, not when he had a headache. Age had made Zhang even more ideologically pure than he'd been in his youth, and it hadn't tempered his imperial ambition. Fang sighed once more. He was of a mind to set the issue aside. It wasn't worth the trouble. Though he'd mention it just once more, to cover his political backside.

"What if they don't?" Fang asked finally.

"What?"

"What if they don't go along? What if the Americans are troublesome on the trade issue?"

"They will not be," Zhang a.s.sured his old friend.

"But if they are, Comrade, what then will we do? What are our options?"

"Oh, I suppose we could punish with one hand and encourage with the other, cancel some purchases from America and then inquire about making some other ones. It's worked before many times," Zhang a.s.sured his guest. "This President Ryan is predictable. We need merely control the news. We will give him nothing to use against us."

Fang and Zhang continued their discussion into other issues, until the latter returned to his office, where, again, he dictated his notes of the discussion to Ming, who then typed them into her computer. The minister considered inviting her to his apartment, but decided against it. Though she'd become somewhat more attractive in the preceding weeks, catching his eye with her gentle smiles in the outer office, it had been a long day for him, and he was too tired for it, enjoyable though it often was with Ming. Minister Fang had no idea that his dictation would be in Washington, D.C., in less than three hours.

What do you think, George?"

"Jack," TRADER began, "what the h.e.l.l is this, and how the h.e.l.l did we get it?"

"George, this is an internal memorandum-well, of sorts-from the government of the People's Republic of China. How we got it, you do not, repeat, not need to know."

The doc.u.ment had been laundered-scrubbed-better than Mafia income. All the surnames had been changed, as had the syntax and adjectives, to disguise patterns of speech. It was thought-hoped would be a better term-that even those whose discourse was being reported would not have recognized their own words. But the content had been protected-even improved, in fact, since the nuances of Mandarin had been fully translated into American English idiom. That had been the hardest part. Languages do not really translate into one another easily or well. The denotations of words were one thing. The connotations were another, and these never really paralleled from one tongue to another. The linguists employed by the intelligence services were among the best in the country, people who regularly read poetry, and sometimes published journal pieces, under their own names, so that they could communicate their expertise in-and indeed, love of-their chosen foreign language with others of a similar mind. What resulted were pretty good translations, Ryan thought, but he was always a little wary of them.

"These c.o.c.ksuckers! They're talking about how they plan to f.u.c.k us over." For all his money, George Winston retained the patois of his working-cla.s.s origins.

"George, it's business, not personal," the President tried as a tension-release gambit.

The Secretary of the Treasury looked up from the briefing doc.u.ment. "Jack, when I ran Columbus Group, I had to regard all of my investors as my family, okay? Their money had to be as important to me as my money. That was my professional obligation as an investment counselor."

Jack nodded. "Okay, George. That's why I asked you into the cabinet. You're honest."

"Okay, but now, I'm Sec-f.u.c.king-Treas, okay? That means that every citizen in our country is part of my family, and these c.h.i.n.k b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are planning to f.u.c.k with my country-all those people out there"-Secretary Winston waved toward the thick windows of the Oval Office-"the ones who trust us to keep the economy leveled out. So, they want MFN, do they? They want into the WTO, do they? Well, f.u.c.k them!"

President Ryan allowed himself an early-morning laugh, wondering if the Secret Service detail had heard George's voice, and might now be looking through the spy holes in the door to see what the commotion was. "Coffee and croissants, George. The grape jelly is Smuckers, even."

TRADER stood and walked around the couch, tossing his head forcefully like a stallion circling a mare in heat. "Okay, Jack, I'll cool down, but you're used to this s.h.i.t, and I'm not." He paused and sat back down. "Oh, okay, up on The Street we trade jokes and stories, and we even plot a little bit, but deliberately f.u.c.king people over-no! I've never done that! And you know what's worst?"

"What's that, George?"

"They're stupid, Jack. They think they can mess with the marketplace according to their little political theories, and it'll fall into line like a bunch of soldiers right out of boot camp. These little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds couldn't run a Kmart and show a profit, but they let them d.i.c.k around with a whole national economy-and then they want to d.i.c.k with ours, too."

"Got it all out of your system?"

"Think this is funny?" Winston asked crossly.

"George, I've never seen you get this worked up. I'm surprised by your pa.s.sion."

"Who do you think I am, Jay Gould?"

"No," Ryan said judiciously. "I was thinking more of J. P. Morgan." The remark had the desired effect. SecTreas laughed.

"Okay, you got me there. Morgan was the first actual Chairman of the Fed, and he did it as a private citizen, and did it pretty well, but that's probably an inst.i.tutional function,'cuz there ain't that many J. P. Morgans waiting around on deck. Okay, Mr. President, sir, I am calmed down. Yes, this is business, not personal. And our reply to this miserable business att.i.tude will be business, too. The PRC will not get MFN. They will not get into the WTO-as a practical matter, they don't deserve it yet anyway, based on the size of their economy. And, I think we rattle the Trade Reform Act at them nice and hard. Oh, there's one other thing, and I'm surprised it's not in here," Winston said, pointing down at the briefing sheet.

"What's that?"

"We can get 'em by the short hairs pretty easy, I think. CIA doesn't agree, but Mark Gant thinks their foreign-exchange account's a little thin."

"Oh?" the President asked, stirring his coffee.

Winston nodded emphatically. "Mark's my tech-weenie, remember. He's very good at modeling stuff on the computers. I've set him up with his own little section to keep an eye on various things. Pulled the professor of economics out of Boston University to work there, Morton Silber, another good man with the microchips. Anyway, Mark's been looking at the PRC, and he thinks they're driving off the edge of the Grand Canyon because they've been p.i.s.sing away their money, mainly on military hardware and heavy-manufacturing equipment, like to make tanks and things. It's a repeat of the old communist stuff, they have a fixation on heavy industry. They are really missing the boat on electronics. They have little companies manufacturing computer games and stuff, but they're not applying it at home, except for that new computer factory they set up that's ripping off Dell."

"So you think we ought to shove that up their a.s.s at the trade negotiations?"

"I'm going to recommend it to Scott Adler at lunch this afternoon, as a matter of fact," SecTreas agreed. "They've been warned, but this time we're going to press it hard."

"Back to their foreign exchange account. How bad is it?"

"Mark thinks they're down to negative reserves."

"In the hole? For how much?" POTUS asked.

"He says at least fifteen billion, floated with paper out of German banks for the most part, but the Germans have kept it quiet-and we're not sure why. It could be a normal transaction, but either the Germans or the PRC wants to keep it under wraps."

"Wouldn't be the Germans, would it?" Ryan asked next.

"Probably not. It makes their banks look good. And, yeah, that leaves the Chinese covering it up."

"Any way to confirm that?"

"I have some friends in Germany. I can ask around, or have a friend do it for me. Better that way, I guess. Everybody knows I'm a government employee now, and that makes me sinister," Winston observed with a sly grin. "Anyway, I am having lunch with Scott today. What do I tell him about the trade negotiations?'

Ryan thought about that for several seconds. This was one of those moments-the frightening ones, as he thought of them-when his words would shape the policy of his own country, and, possibly, others as well. It was easy to be glib or flip, to say the first thing that popped into his mind, but, no, he couldn't do that. Moments like this were too important, too vast in their potential consequences, and he couldn't allow himself to make government policy on a whim, could he? He had to think the matter through, quickly perhaps, but through.

"We need China to know that we want the same access to their markets that we've given them to ours, and that we won't tolerate their stealing products from American companies without proper compensation. George, I want the playing field level and fair for everyone. If they don't want to play that way, we start hurting them."

"Fair enough, Mr. President. I will pa.s.s that message along to your Secretary of State. Want I should deliver this, too?" Winston asked, holding up his SORGE briefing sheet.

"No, Scott gets his own version of it. And, George, be very, very careful with that. If the information leaks, a human being will lose his life," SWORDSMAN told TRADER, deliberately disguising the source as a man, and therefore deliberately misleading his Secretary of the Treasury. But that, too, was business, and not personal.

"It goes into my confidential files." Which was a pretty secure place, they both knew. "Nice reading the other guy's mail, isn't it?"

"Just about the best intelligence there is," Ryan agreed.

"The guys at Fort Meade, eh? Tapping into somebody's cell phone via satellite?"

"Sources and methods-you really don't want to know that, George. There's always the chance that you'll spill it to the wrong person by mistake, and then you have some guy's life on your conscience. Something to be avoided, trust me."

"I hear you, Jack. Well, I have a day to start. Thanks for the coffee and the pastry, Boss."

"Any time, George. Later." Ryan turned to his appointment calendar as the Secretary walked out the corridor door, from which he'd go downstairs, cross outside because the West Wing wasn't directly connected to the White House proper, dart back inside, and head off into the tunnel leading to Treasury.

Outside Ryan's office, the Secret Service detail went over the appointment list also, but their copy also included the results of a National Crime Information Computer check, to make sure that no convicted murderer was being admitted into the Sanctum Sanctorum of the United States of America.

CHAPTER 17.

The Coinage of Gold Scott Adler was regarded as too young and inexperienced for the job, but that judgment came from would-be political appointees who'd schemed their way to near-the-top, whereas Adler had been a career foreign-service officer since his graduation from Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy twenty-six years earlier. Those who'd seen him work regarded him as a very astute diplomatic technician. Those who played cards with him-Adler liked to play poker before a major meeting or negotiation-thought he was one very lucky son of a b.i.t.c.h.

His seventh-floor office at the State Department building was capacious and comfortable. Behind his desk was a credenza covered with the usual framed photographs of spouse, children, and parents. He didn't like wearing his suit jacket at his desk, as he found it too confining for comfort. In this he'd outraged some of the senior State Department bureaucrats, who thought this an entirely inappropriate informality. He did, of course, don the jacket for important meetings with foreign dignitaries, but he didn't think internal meetings were important enough to be uncomfortable for.

That suited George Winston, who tossed his coat over a chair when he came in. Like himself, Scott Adler was a working guy, and those were the people with whom Winston was most comfortable. He might be a career government puke, but the son of a b.i.t.c.h had a work ethic, which was more than he could say for too many of the people in his own department. He was doing his best to weed the drones out, but it was no easy task, and civil-service rules made firing unproductive people a non-trivial exercise.

"Have you read the Chinese stuff?" Adler asked, as soon as the lunch tray was on the table.

"Yeah, Scott. I mean, holy s.h.i.t, fella," TRADER observed to EAGLE.

"Welcome to the club. The intelligence stuff we get can be very interesting." The State Department had its own spook service, called Intelligence and Research, or I&R, which, while it didn't exactly compete with CIA and the other services, occasionally turned up its own rough little diamonds from the thick diplomatic mud. "So, what do you think of our little yellow brothers?"

Winston managed not to growl. "Buddy, I might not even eat their G.o.dd.a.m.ned food anymore."

"They make our worst robber barons look like Mother Teresa. They're conscienceless motherf.u.c.kers, George, and that's a fact." Winston immediately started liking Adler more. A guy who talked like this had real possibilities. Now it was his turn to be coldly professional to counterpoint Adler's working-cla.s.s patois.

"They're ideologically driven, then?"

"Totally-well, maybe with a little corruption thrown in, but remember, they figure that their political astuteness ent.i.tles them to live high on the hog, and so to them it's not corruption at all. They just collect tribute from the peasants, and 'peasant' is a word they still use over there."

"In other words, we're dealing with dukes and earls?"

The Secretary of State nodded. "Essentially, yes. They have an enormous sense of personal ent.i.tlement. They are not used to hearing the word 'no' in any form, and as a result they don't always know what to do when they do hear it from people like me. That's why they're often at a disadvantage in negotiations-at least, when we play hardball with them. We haven't done much of that, but last year, after the Airbus shoot-down I came on a little strong, and then we followed up with official diplomatic recognition of the ROC government on Taiwan. That really put the PRC noses seriously out of joint, even though the ROC government hasn't officially declared its independence."

"What?" Somehow SecTreas had missed that.

"Yeah, the people on Taiwan play a pretty steady and reasonable game. They've never really gone out of their way to offend the mainland. Even though they have emba.s.sies all over the world, they've never actually proclaimed the fact that they're an independent nation. That would flip the Beijing Chinese out. Maybe the guys in Taipei think it would be bad manners or something. At the same time, we have an understanding that Beijing knows about. If somebody messes with Taiwan, Seventh Fleet comes over to keep an eye on things, and we will not permit a direct military threat to the Republic of China government. The PRC doesn't have enough of a navy to worry our guys that much, and so all that flies back and forth, really, is words." Adler looked up from his sandwich. "Sticks and stones, y'know?"

"Well, I had breakfast with Jack this morning, and we talked about the trade talks."

"And Jack wants to play a little rougher?" SecState asked. It wasn't much of a surprise. Ryan had always preferred fair play, and that was often a rare commodity in the intercourse among nation-states.

"You got it," Winston confirmed around a bite of his sandwich. One thing about working-cla.s.s people like Adler, the SecTreas thought, they knew what a proper lunch was. He was so tired of fairyfied French food for lunch. Lunch was supposed to be a piece of meat with bread wrapped around it. French cuisine was just fine, but for dinner, not for lunch.