"Your wedding band might have been part of Pharaoh Ramses II's double-crown once," Lahr explained. "Or Caligula's necklace, or Napoleon's royal scepter. You take it, hammer it, and it's just raw material again, and it's valuable raw material. If the Russian strike's as big as our intel says, it'll be sold all over the world. Everybody'll use it for all sorts of purposes, from jewelry to electronics."

"How big's the strike supposed to be?"

Lahr shrugged. "Enough to buy you a new Pacific Fleet, and then some."

Mancuso whistled. That was real money.

It was late in Washington, and Adler was up late, again, working in his office. SecState was usually a busy post, and lately it had been busier than usual, and Scott Adler was getting accustomed to fourteen-hour days. He was reading over post reports at the moment, waiting for the other shoe to drop in Beijing. On his desk was a STU-6 secure telephone. The "secure telephone unit" was a sophisticated encryption device grafted onto an AT&T-made digital telephone. This one worked on a satellite-communications channel, and though its signal therefore sprinkled down all over the world from its Defense Department communications satellite, all the casual listener would get was raspy static, like the sound of water running out of a bathroom faucet. It had a randomized 512-bit scrambling system that the best computers at Fort Meade could break about a third of the time after several days of directed effort. And that was about as secure as things got. They were trying to make the TAPDANCE encryption system link into the STU units to generate a totally random and hence unbreakable signal, but that was proving difficult, for technical reasons that n.o.body had explained to the Secretary of State, and that was just as well. He was a diplomat, not a mathematician. Finally, the STU rang in its odd trilling warble. It took eleven seconds for the two STU units on opposite sides of the world to synchronize.

"Adler."

"Rutledge here, Scott," the voice said on the other side of the world. "It didn't go well," he informed SecState at once. "And they're canceling the 777 order with Boeing, as we thought they would."

Adler frowned powerfully into the phone. "Super. No concessions at all on the shootings?"

"Zip."

"Anything to be optimistic about?"

"Nothing, Scott, not a d.a.m.ned thing. They're stonewalling like we're the Mongols and they're the Chin Dynasty."

Somebody needs to remind them that the Great Wall ultimately turned out to be a waste of bricks, EAGLE didn't bother saying aloud. "Okay, I need to discuss this with the President, but you're probably going to be flying home soon. Maybe Carl Hitch, too."

"I'll tell him. Any chance that we can make some concession, just to get things going?"

"Cliff, the likelihood that Congress will roll over on the trade issue is right up there with Tufts making the Final Four. Maybe less." Tufts University did have a basketball team, after all. "There's nothing we can give them that they would accept. If there's going to be a break, they're the ones who'll have to bend this time. Any chance of that?"

"Zero" was the reply from Beijing.

"Well, then, they'll just have to learn the hard way." The good news, Adler thought, was that the hard lessons were the ones that really did teach you something. Maybe even the Chinese.

What did that capitalist diao ren say?" Zhang asked. Shen told him what Xue had relayed, word-for-word. "And what does he represent?"

"He is personal a.s.sistant to the American Treasury Minister. Therefore we think he has the ear of both his minister and the American president," Shen explained. "He has not taken an active part in the talks, but after every session he speaks privately with Vice Minister Rutledge. Exactly what their relationship is, we do not know for certain, and clearly he is not an experienced diplomat. He talks like an arrogant capitalist, to insult us in so crude a way, but I fear he represents the American position more forthrightly than Rutledge does. I think he gives Rutledge the policy he must follow. Rutledge is an experienced diplomat, and the positions he takes are not his own, obviously. He wants to give us some concessions. I am sure of that, but Washington is dictating his words, and this Gant fellow is probably the conduit to Washington."

"Then you were right to adjourn the talks. We will give them a chance to reconsider their position. If they think they can dictate to us, then they are mistaken. You canceled the airplane order?"

"Of course, as we agreed last week."

"Then that will give them something to think about," Zhang observed smugly.

"If they do not walk out of the talks."

"They wouldn't dare." Walk away from the Middle Kingdom? Absurd.

"There is one other thing that Gant man said. He said, not in so many words, that we need them-their money, that is-more than they need us. And he is not entirely wrong in that, is he?"

"We do not need their dollars more than we need our sovereignty. Do they really think they can dictate our domestic laws to us?"

"Yes, Zhang, they do. They apply an astounding degree of importance to this incident."

"Those two policemen ought to be shot for what they did, but we cannot allow the Americans to dictate that sort of thing to us." The embarra.s.sment of the incident was one thing-and embarra.s.sing the state was often a capital offense in the People's Republic-but China had to make such a decision on its own, not at the order of an outsider.

"They call it barbaric," Shen added.

"Barbaric? They say that to us?"

"You know that Americans have tender sensibilities. We often forget that. And their religious leaders have some influence in their country. Our amba.s.sador in Washington has cabled some warnings to us about this. It would be better if we had some time to let things settle down, and truly it would be better to punish those two policemen just to a.s.suage American sensibilities, but I agree we cannot allow them to dictate domestic policy to us."

"And this Gant man says his ji is bigger than ours, does he?"

"So Xue tells me. Our file on him says that he's a stock trader, that he's worked closely with Minister Winston for many years. He's a Jew, like lots of them are-"

"Their Foreign Minister is also a Jew, isn't he?"

"Minister Adler? Yes, he is," Shen confirmed after a moment's thought.

"So, this Gant really does tell us their position, then?"

"Probably," Foreign Minister Shen said.

Zhang leaned forward in his chair. "Then you will make them clear on ours. The next time you see this Gant, tell him chou ni ma de bi." Which was rather a strong imprecation, best said to someone in China if you had a gun already in your hand.

"I understand," Shen replied, knowing that he'd never say anything like that except to a particularly humble underling in his own office.

Zhang left. He had to talk this one over with his friend Fang Gan.

CHAPTER 34.

Hits Over the last week Ryan had come to expect bad news upon waking up, and as a result so had his family. He knew that he was taking it too seriously when his children started asking him about it over breakfast.

"What's happening with China, Dad?" Sally asked, giving Ryan one more thing to lament. Sally didn't say "daddy" anymore, and that was a t.i.tle far more precious to Jack than "Mr. President." You expected it from your sons, but not from your daughter. He'd discussed it with Cathy, but she'd told him that he just had to roll with the punch.

"We don't know, Sally."

"But you're supposed to know everything!" And besides, her friends asked her about it at school.

"Sally, the President doesn't know everything. At least I don't," he explained, looking up from the morning Early Bird. "And if you never noticed, the TVs in my office are tuned to CNN and the other news networks because they frequently tell me more than CIA does."

"Really?" Sally observed. She watched too many movies. In Hollywood, CIA was a dangerous, lawbreaking, antidemocratic, fascist, and thoroughly evil government agency that nonetheless knew everything about everybody, and had really killed President Kennedy for its own purposes, whatever they were (Hollywood never quite got around to that). But it didn't matter, because whoever the star was always managed to thwart the nasty old CIA before the credits, or the last commercial, depending on the format.

"Really, honey. CIA has some good people in it, but basically it's just one more government agency."

"What about the FBI and Secret Service?" she asked.

"They're cops. Cops are different. My dad was a cop, remember?"

"Oh, yeah," and then she went back to the "Style" section of The Washington Post, which had both the comics and the stories that interested her, mainly ones having to do with the sort of music that her father put quotation marks around.

Then there was a discreet knock at the door, and Andrea came in. At this time of day, she also acted as his private secretary, in this case delivering a dispatch from the State Department. Ryan took it, looked at it, and managed not to pound on the table, because his children were present.

"Thanks, Andrea," he told her.

"Yes, Mr. President." And Special Agent Price-O'Day went back out to the corridor.

Jack saw his wife looking at him. The kids couldn't read all his facial expressions, but his wife could. To Cathy, Ryan couldn't lie worth a d.a.m.n, which was also why she didn't worry about his fidelity. Jack had the dissimulation ability of a two-year-old, despite all the help and training he got from Arnie. Jack caught the look and nodded. Yeah, it was China again. Ten minutes later, breakfast was fully consumed and the TV was turned off, and the Ryan family headed downstairs to work, to school, or to the day-care center at Johns Hopkins, depending on age, with the requisite contingent of Secret Service bodyguards. Jack kissed them all in their turn, except for little Jack-SHORTSTOP to the Secret Service-because John Patrick Ryan, Jr., didn't go in for that sissy stuff. There was something to be said for having daughters, Ryan thought, as he headed for the Oval Office. Ben Goodley was there, waiting with the President's Daily Brief.

"You have the one from SecState?" CARDSHARP asked.

"Yeah, Andrea delivered it." Ryan fell into his swivel chair and lifted the phone, punching the proper speed-dial b.u.t.ton.

"Good morning, Jack," SecState said in greeting, despite a short night's sleep gotten on the convertible sofa in his own office. Fortunately, his private bathroom also had a shower.

"Approved. Bring them all back," SWORDSMAN told EAGLE.

"Who handles the announcement?" Secretary Adler asked.

"You do it. We'll try to low-key it," the President said, with forlorn hope in his voice.

"Right," Adler thought. "Anything else?"

"That's it for now."

"Okay, see ya, Scott." Ryan replaced the phone. "What about China?" he asked Goodley. "Are they doing anything unusual?"

"No. Their military is active, but it's routine training activity only. Their most active sectors are up in their northeast and opposite Taiwan. Lesser activity in their southwest, north of India."

"With all the good luck the Russians are having with oil and gold, are the Chinese looking north with envy?"

"It's not bad speculation, but we have no positive indications of that from any of our sources." Everybody envied rich neighbors, after all. That's what had encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait, despite having lots of oil under his own sand.

"Any of our sources" includes SORGE, the President reminded himself. He pondered that for a second. "Tell Ed I want a SNIE on Russia and China."

"Quick?" Goodley asked. A Special National Intelligence Estimate could take months to prepare.

"Three or four weeks. And I want to be able to hang my hat on it."

"I'll tell the DCI," Goodley promised.

"Anything else?" Ryan asked.

"That's it for now, sir."

Jack nodded and checked his calendar. He had a fairly routine day, but the next one would largely be spent on Air Force One flying hither and yon across America, and he was overnighting in-he flipped the page on the printout-Seattle, before flying home to Washington and another full day. It was just as easy for him to use the VC-25A as a red-eye . . . oh, yeah, he had a breakfast speech in Seattle to the local Jaycees. He'd be talking about school reform. That generated a grunt. There just weren't enough nuns to go around. The School Sisters of Notre Dame had taught him at St. Matthew's Elementary School in northeast Baltimore back forty-plus years earlier-and taught him well, because the penalty for not learning or for misbehaving did not bear contemplation for a seven-year-old. But the truth of the matter was that he'd been a good, and fairly obedient-dull, Jack admitted to himself with a wry smile-child who'd gotten good marks because he'd had a good mom and a good dad, which was a lot more than too many contemporary American kids could say-and how the h.e.l.l was he supposed to fix that? Jack asked himself. How could he bring back the ethos of his parents' generation, the importance of religion, and a world in which engaged people went to the altar as virgins? Now they were talking about telling kids that h.o.m.os.e.xual and lesbian s.e.x was okay. What would Sister Frances Mary have said about that? Jack wondered. A pity she wasn't around to crack some senators and representatives over the knuckles with her ruler. It had worked on him and his cla.s.smates at St. Matthew's . . .

The desk speaker buzzed. "Senator Smithers just arrived at the West Entrance." Ryan stood and went to his right, the door that came in from the secretaries' anteroom. For some reason, people preferred that one to the door off the corridor opposite the Roosevelt Room. Maybe it was more businesslike. But mainly they liked to see the President standing when the door opened, his hand extended and a smile on his face, as though he really was glad to see them. Sure, Wilbur.

Mary Smithers from lowa, matronly, three kids and seven grandkids, he thought, more talk about the Farm Bill. What the h.e.l.l was he supposed to know about farms? the President wondered. On those rare occasions that he purchased food, he did it at the supermarket-because that's where it all came from, wasn't it? One of the things on the briefing pages for his political appearances was always the local price for bread and milk in case some local reporter tested him. And chocolate milk came from brown cows.

Accordingly, Amba.s.sador Hitch and a.s.sistant Secretary Rutledge, will be flying back to Washington for consultations," the spokesman told the audience.

"Does this signal a break in relations with China?" a reporter asked at once.

"Not at all. 'Consultations' means just that. We will discuss the recent developments with our representatives so that our relations with China can more speedily be brought back to what they ought to be," the spokesman replied smoothly.

The a.s.sembled reporters didn't know what to make of that and so three more questions of virtually identical content were immediately asked, and answers of virtually identical content repeated for them.

"He's good," Ryan said, watching the TV, which was pirating the CNN (and other) coverage off the satellites. It wasn't going out live, oddly enough, despite the importance of the news being generated.

"Not good enough," Arnie van Damm observed. "You're going to get hit with this, too."

"I figured. When?"

"The next time they catch you in front of a camera, Jack."

And he had as much chance of ducking a camera as the leadoff hitter at opening day at Yankee Stadium, the President knew. Cameras at the White House were as numerous as shotguns during duck season, and there was no bag limit here.

Christ, Oleg!" It took a lot to make Reilly gasp, but this one crossed the threshold. "Are you serious?"

"So it would appear, Mishka," Provalov answered.

"And why are you telling me?" the American asked. Information like this was a state secret equivalent to the inner thoughts of President Grushavoy.

"There is no hiding it from you. I a.s.sume you tell everything we do together to Washington, and it was you who identified the Chinese diplomat, for which I and my country are in your debt."

The amusing part of that was that Reilly had darted off to track Suvorov/Koniev without a thought, just as a cop thing, to help out a brother cop. Only afterward-about a nanosecond afterward, of course-had he thought of the political implications. And he'd thought this far ahead, but only as speculation, not quite believing that it could possibly have gone this far forward.

"Well, yes, I have to keep the Bureau informed of my operations here," the legal attache admitted, not that it was an earthshaking revelation.

"I know that, Mishka."

"The Chinese wanted to kill Golovko," Reilly whispered into his vodka. "f.u.c.k."

"My word exactly," Provalov told his American friend. "The question is-"

"Two questions, Oleg. First, why? Second, now what?"

"Third, who is Suvorov, and what is he up to?"

Which was obvious, Reilly thought. Was Suvorov merely a paid agent of a foreign country? Or was he part of the KGB wing of the Russian Mafia being paid by the Chinese to do something-but what, and to what purpose?

"You know, I've been hunting OC guys for a long time, but it never got anywhere near this big. This is right up there with all those bulls.h.i.t stories about who 'really' killed Kennedy."