"Hard to forget it," Rutledge groused. He'd never be Undersecretary of State while that yahoo sat in the White House, and Undersecretary was the job he'd had his eye on for the last fifteen years. But neither would he get the job if he allowed his private feelings, however justified, to cloud his professional judgment. "We're going to be called home or sent home," he estimated.

"Probably," Hitch agreed. "Be nice to catch some baseball. How do the Sox look this season?"

"Forget it. A rebuilding year. Once again."

"Sorry about that." Hitch shook his head and checked his desk for new dispatches, but there were none. Now he had to let Washington know what the Chinese Foreign Minister had said. Scott Adler was probably sitting in his seventhfloor office waiting for the secure direct line to ring.

"Good luck, Cliff."

"Thanks a bunch," Rutledge said on his way out the door.

Hitch wondered if he should call home and tell his wife to start packing for home, but no, not yet. First he had to call Foggy Bottom.

So, what's going to happen?" Ryan asked Adler from his bed. He'd left orders to be called as soon as they got word. Now, listening to Adler's reply, he was surprised. He'd thought the wording of the note rather wimpy, but evidently diplomatic exchange had even stricter rules than he'd appreciated. "Okay, now what, Scott?"

"Well, we'll wait and see what happens with the trade delegation, but even money we call them and Carl Hitch home for consultations."

"Don't the Chinese realize they could take a trade hit from all this?"

"They don't expect that to happen. Maybe if it does, it'll make them think over the error of their ways."

"I wouldn't bet much on that card, Scott."

"Sooner or later, common sense has to break out. A hit in the wallet usually gets a guy's attention," SecState said.

"I'll believe that when I see it," POTUS replied. "'Night, Scott."

"'Night, Jack."

"So what did they say?" Cathy Ryan asked.

"They told us to stick it up our a.s.s."

"Really?"

"Really," Jack replied, flipping the light off.

The Chinese thought they were invincible. It must be nice to believe that. Nice, but dangerous.

The 265th Motor Rifle Division was composed of three regiments of conscripts-Russians who hadn't chosen to avoid military service, which made them patriotic, or stupid, or apathetic, or sufficiently bored with life that the prospect of two years in uniform, poorly fed and largely unpaid, didn't seem that much of a sacrifice. Each regiment was composed of about fifteen hundred soldiers, about five hundred fewer than full authorized strength. The good news was that each regiment had an organic tank battalion, and that all of the mechanized equipment was, if not new, then at least recently manufactured, and reasonably well maintained. The division lacked its organic tank regiment, however, the fist which gave a motor-rifle division its offensive capabilities. Also missing was the divisional ant.i.tank battalion, with its Rapier ant.i.tank cannons. These were anachronistic weapons which Bondarenko nonetheless liked because he'd played with them as an officer cadet nearly forty years before. The new model of the BMP infantry carrier had been modified to carry the AT-6 ant.i.tank missle, the one NATO called "Spiral," actually a Russian version of the NATO Milan, courtesy of some nameless KGB spy of the 1980s. The Russian troops called it the Hammer for its ease of use, despite a relatively small warhead. Every BMP had ten of these, which more than made up for the missing battalion of towed guns.

What worried Bondarenko and Aliyev most was the lack of artillery. Historically the best trained and best drilled part of the Russian army, the artillery was only half present in the Far East's maneuver forces, battalions taking the place of regiments. The rationale for this was the fixed defense line on the Chinese border, which had a goodly supply of fixed and fortified artillery positions, albeit of obsolete designs, though with trained crews and ma.s.sive stocks of sh.e.l.ls to pour into predetermined positions.

The general scowled in the confines of his staff car. It was what he got for being smart and energetic. A properly prepared and trained military district didn't need a man like him, did it? No, his talents were needed by a s.h.i.thole like this one. Just once, he thought, might a good officer get a reward for good performance instead of another "challenge," as they called it? He grunted. Not in this lifetime. The dunces and dolts drew the comfortable districts with no threats and lots of equipment to deal with them.

His worst worry was the air situation. Of all the Russian military arms, the air forces had suffered the most from the fall of the Soviet Union. Once Far East had had its own fleets of tactical fighters, poised to deal with a threat from American aircraft based in j.a.pan or on aircraft carriers of their Pacific Fleet, that plus what was needed to face off the Chinese. No more. Now he had perhaps fifty usable aircraft in theater, and the pilots for those got perhaps seventy flight hours per year, barely enough to make sure they could take off and land safely. Fifty modern fighter-cla.s.s aircraft, mainly for air-to-air combat, not air-to-ground. There were several hundred more, rotting at their bases, mainly in hardened shelters to keep them dry, their tires dry-rotted and internal seals cracked from lack of use because of the spare-parts shortage that grounded nearly the entire Russian air force.

"You know, Andrey, I can remember when the world shook with fear of our country's army. Now, they shake with laughter, those who bother to take note of us." Bondarenko took a sip of vodka from a flask. It had been a long time since he'd drunk alcohol on duty, but it was cold-the heater in the car was broken-and he needed the solace.

"Gennady Iosifovich, it is not as bad as it appears-"

"I agree! It is worse!" CINC-FAR EAST growled. "If the c.h.i.n.ks come north, I shall learn to eat with chopsticks. I've always wondered how they do that," he added with a wry smile. Bondarenko was always one to see the humor in a situation.

"But to others we appear strong. We have thousands of tanks, Comrade General."

Which was true. They'd spent the morning inspecting monstrous sheds containing of all things T-34/85 tanks manufactured at Chelyabinsk in 1946. Some had virgin guns, never fired. The Germans had shaken in their jackboots to see these tanks storm over the horizon, but that's what they were, World War II tanks, over nine hundred of them, three complete division sets. And there were even troops to maintain them! The engines still turned over, serviced as they were by the grandchildren of the men who'd used them in combat operations against the fascisti. And in the same sheds were sh.e.l.ls, some made as recently as 1986, for the 85-mm guns. The world was mad, and surely the Soviet Union had been mad, first to store such antiques, then to spend money and effort maintaining them. And even now, more than ten years after the demise of that nation-state, the sheer force of bureaucratic inertia still sent conscripts into the sheds to maintain the antique collection. For what purpose? No one knew. It would take an archivist to find the doc.u.ments, and while that might be of interest to some historian of a humorous bent, Bondarenko had better things to do.

"Andrey, I appreciate your willingness to see the lighter side of every situation, but we do face a practical reality here."

"Comrade General, it will take months to get permission to terminate this operation."

"That is probably true, Andruska, but I remember a story about Napoleon. He wished to plant trees by the side of the French roads to shade his marching troops. A staff officer said, but, Marshal, it will take twenty years for the trees to grow enough to accomplish that. And Napoleon said, yes, indeed, so we must start at once! And so, Colonel, we will start with that at once."

"As you say, Comrade General." Colonel Aliyev knew that it was a worthwhile idea. He only wondered if he would have enough time to pursue all of the ideas that needed accomplishing. Besides, the troops at the tank sheds seemed happy enough. Some even took the tanks out into the open to play with them, drive them about the nearby test range, even shoot the guns occasionally. One young sergeant had commented to him that it was good to use them, because it made the war movies he'd seen as a child seem even more real. Now that, Colonel Aliyev thought, was something to hear from a soldier. It made the movies better. d.a.m.n.

Who does that slant-eyed motherf.u.c.ker think he is?" Gant demanded out in the garden.

"Mark, we laid a rather firm note on them this morning, and they're just reacting to it."

"Cliff, explain to me why it's okay for other people to talk like that to us, but it's not okay for us to talk that way to them, will you?"

"It's called diplomacy," Rutledge explained.

"It's called horses.h.i.t, Cliff," Gant hissed back. "Where I come from, if somebody disses you like that, you punch him right in the face."

"But we don't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because we're above it, Mark," Rutledge tried to explain. "It's the little dogs that yap at you. The big powerful dogs don't bother. They know they can rip your head off. And we know we can handle these people if we have to."

"Somebody needs to tell them that, Cliffy," Gant observed. "Because I don't think they got the word yet. They're talking like they own the world, and they think they can play tough-guy with us, Cliff, and until they find out they can't, we're going to have a lot more of their s.h.i.t to deal with."

"Mark, this is how it's done, that's all. It's just how the game is played at this level."

"Oh, yeah?" Gant countered. "Cliff, it's not a game to them. I see that, but you don't. After this break, we're going back in there, and they're going to threaten us. What do we do then?"

"We brush it off. How can they threaten us?"

"The Boeing order."

"Well, Boeing will have to sell its airplanes to somebody else this year," Rutledge said.

"Really? What about the interests of all those workers we're supposed to represent?"

"Mark, at this level, we deal with the big picture, not the little one, okay?" Rutledge was actually getting angry with this stock trader.

"Cliffy, the big picture is made up of a lot of little ones. You ought to go back in there and ask if they like selling things to us. Because if they do, then they have to play ball. Because they need us a f.u.c.king lot more than we need them."

"You don't talk that way to a great power."

"Are we a great power?"

"The biggest," Rutledge confirmed.

"Then how come they talk that way to us?"

"Mark, this is my job. You're here to advise me, but this is your first time to this sort of ball game, okay? I know how to play the game. It's my job."

"Fine." Gant let out a long breath. "But when we play by the rules and they don't, the game gets a little tedious." Gant wandered off on his own for a moment. The garden was pretty enough. He hadn't done this sort of thing enough to know that there was usually a garden of some sort for diplomats to wander in after two or three hours of talking at each other in a conference room, but he had learned that the garden was where a lot of the real work got done.

"Mr. Gant?" He turned to see Xue Ma, the diplomat/spook he'd chatted with before.

"Mr. Xue," TELESCOPE said in his own greeting.

"What do you think of the progress of the talks?" the Chinese diplomat asked.

Mark was still trying to understand this guy's use of language. "If this is progress, I'd hate to see what you call an adverse development."

Xue smiled. "A lively exchange is often more interesting than a dull one."

"Really? I'm surprised by all this. I always thought that diplomatic exchange was more polite."

"You think this impolite?"

Gant again wondered if he was being baited or not, but decided the h.e.l.l with it. He didn't really need his government job anyway, did he? And taking it had involved a considerable personal sacrifice, hadn't it? Like a few million bucks. Didn't that ent.i.tle him to say what the h.e.l.l he thought?

"Xue, you accuse us of threatening your national ident.i.ty because we object to the murders your government-or its agents, I suppose-committed in front of cameras. Americans don't like it when people commit murder."

"Those people were breaking our laws," Xue reminded him.

"Maybe so," Gant conceded. "But in America when people break the law, we arrest them and give them a trial in front of a judge and jury, with a defense lawyer to make sure the trial is fair, and we d.a.m.ned sure don't shoot people in the head when they're holding a G.o.dd.a.m.ned newborn infant!"

"That was unfortunate," Xue almost admitted, "but as I said, those men were breaking the law."

"And so your cops did the judge/jury/executioner number on them. Xue, to Americans that was the act of a barbarian."

The "B" word finally got through. "America cannot talk to China in that way, Mr. Gant."

"Look, Mr. Xue, it's your country, and you can run your country as you wish. We're not going to declare war on you for what you do inside your own borders. But there's no law that says we have to do business with you either, and so we can stop buying your goods-and I have news for you: The American people will stop buying your stuff if you continue to do stuff like that."

"Your people? Or your government?" Xue asked, with a knowing smile.

"Are you really that stupid, Mr. Xue?" Gant fired back.

"What do you mean?" The last insult had actually cracked through the sh.e.l.l, Gant saw.

"I mean America is a democracy. Americans make a lot of decisions entirely on their own, and one of them is what they spend their money on, and the average American will not buy something from a f.u.c.king barbarian." Gant paused. "Look, I'm a Jew, okay? Sixty-some years ago, America f.u.c.ked up. We saw what Hitler and the n.a.z.is were doing in Germany, and we didn't act in time to stop it. We really blew the call and a lot of people got killed unnecessarily, and we've been seeing things on TV about that since I was in short pants, and it ain't never going to happen again on our watch, and when people like you do stuff like what we just saw, it just sets off the Holocaust light in American heads. Do you get it now?"

"You cannot talk to us in that way."

Again with the broken record! The doors were opening. It was time to head back inside for the next round of confrontational diplo-speak.

"And if you persist in attacking our national sovereignty, we will buy elsewhere," Xue told him with some satisfaction.

"Fine, and we can do the same. And you need our cash a lot more than we need your trade goods, Mr. Xue." He must have finally understood, Gant thought. His face actually showed some emotion now. So did his words: "We will never kowtow to American attacks on our country."

"We're not attacking your country, Xue."

"But you threaten our economy," Xue said, as they got to the door.

"We threaten nothing. I am telling you that my fellow citizens will not buy goods from a country that commits barbarities. That is not a threat. It is a statement of fact." Which was an even greater insult, Gant did not fully appreciate.

"If America punishes us, we will punish America."

Enough was G.o.dd.a.m.ned enough. Gant pulled the door open halfway and stopped to face the diplomat/spook: "Xue, your d.i.c.ks aren't big enough to get in a p.i.s.sing contest with us." And with that, he walked on inside. A half hour later, he was on his way out again. The words had been sharp and heated, and neither side had seen any purpose in continuing that day-though Gant strongly suspected that once Washington heard about that morning's exchanges, there wouldn't be any other day.

In two days, he'd be totally jet-lagged but back at his office on 15th Street. He was surprised that he was looking forward to that.

Anything from WestPac?" Mancuso asked.

"They just put three submarines to sea, a Song and two of the Kilos the Russians sold them," BG Lahr answered. "We're keeping an eye on them. La Jolla and Helena are close by. Tennessee is heading back to Pearl as of midday." The former boomer had been on patrol for fifty days, and that was about enough. "Our surface a.s.sets are all back to sea. n.o.body's scheduled to get back into Taipei for twelve days."

"So, the Taipei hookers get two weeks off?" CINCPAC asked with a chuckle.

"And the bartenders. If your sailors are like my soldiers, they may need the relaxation," the J-2 replied, with a smile of his own.

"Oh, to be young and single again," Bart observed. "Anything else out there?"

"Routine training on their side, some combined air and ground stuff, but that's up north by the Russian border."

"How good do they look?"

Lahr shrugged. "Good enough to give the Russians something to think about, sir. On the whole, the PLA is trained up as good as I've ever known them to be, but they've been working hard for the past three or four years."

"How many of them?" Bart asked, looking at his wall map, which was a lot more useful for a sailor than a soldier. China was just a beige shape on the left border.

"Depends on where. Like, if they go north into Russia, it'd be like c.o.c.kroaches in some ghetto apartment in New York. You'd need a lot o' Raid to deal with it."

"And you said the Russians are thin in their East?"

Lahr nodded. "Yep. Admiral, if I was that Bondarenko guy, I'd sweat it some. I mean, it's all theoretical as a threat and all, but as theoretical threats go, that's one that might keep me awake at night."

"And what about reports of gold and oil in eastern Siberia?"

Lahr nodded. "Makes the threat less theoretical. China's a net importer of oil, and they're going to need a lot more to expand their economy the way they plan to-and on the gold side, h.e.l.l, everybody's wanted that for the last three thousand years. It's negotiable and fungible."

"Fungible?" That was a new word for Mancuso.