Kompromat

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Chinese President Liu Wang-Ji sat at his desk in Zhongnanhai, the old imperial enclave that lay immediately west of the Forbidden City, waiting for Zhang Fu-Shen, the minister of State Security, to arrive. The two men had known each other a long time. They both belonged to the small group of people who could trace their ancestry back to the men or women who had been with Mao Tse-Tung on the Long March more than seventy years earlier. On the first of October each year, the anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People’s Republic, these direct descendants of the Heroes of the Revolution climbed up to the great wide balcony above the Gate of Heavenly Peace to gaze down on the crowds in Tiananmen Square.

‘Hello, old friend,’ Liu Wang-Ji said, when Zhang Fu-Shen arrived. ‘Have some tea.’

They sat in armchairs side by side. Liu poured tea.

Zhang had brought a small parcel with him, wrapped in brown paper with a red ribbon around it tied in a neat bow. He placed it on the ornamental carved-wood table in front of them.

‘Please open it, Mr President,’ he said. ‘My people couldn’t find the film, but they found these instead.’

The Chinese president unwrapped the package. ‘What are these?’ he asked, holding up the silk boxer shorts, emblazoned with the US Flag and the embroidered message: ‘PUT AMERICA FIRST’.

‘They are the proof we need,’ Zhang replied.

‘Proof of what?’

‘Proof that we have been barking up the wrong tree. The DNA evidence was conclusive. No American was involved in the Golden Shower episode. Certainly not an American presidential candidate. The boxer shorts belonged to the FSB operative in St Petersburg who set up the whole scam in the first place.’

The president fingered the shorts. He examined the label. ‘It says “Bloomingdales Finest. Made in China”. That’s something to be proud of anyway, I suppose.’

Liu Wang-Ji lit a cigarette. His doctor had advised him to give up smoking, but to no avail. He might as well have asked a wolf to stop baying at the moon.

‘So what do we do now?’ President Liu asked. ‘You don’t seem to have made much progress so far. You failed to neutralize Edward Barnard. Britain voted to Leave and now the EU itself seems to be about to break up. Who knows what is going to happen in France, or even Germany? You thought you had a big fish there in the Kempinski Hotel, but you ended up with a minnow. I hope you have something else up your sleeve.’

The Chinese president’s voice still sounded friendly enough, but Zhang noticed a steely tone which had not been there before. He realized that his own future was poised on a knife-edge. Liu Wang-Ji, in his rise to the highest post in the land, had treated his rivals with extreme ruthlessness. Some of them had met with ‘unfortunate accidents’; others had gone to jail in remote provinces. Still others had simply disappeared and their bodies had never been found.

He knew he was sipping his green-leaf tea not in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, but in the Last Chance Saloon.

‘Well, yes, I do have a plan,’ he said, ‘a way to turn the tables.’

‘It had better be good,’ Liu Wang-Ji observed.

For the next fifteen minutes the Chinese president listened with increasing interest as Zhang Fu-Shen explained his new scheme in detail.

‘Do you remember that meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee we had back in May, here in Zhongnanhai, when we discussed US–China relations?’ Zhang asked.

‘Of course, I remember it. I chaired it.’

‘Then you will also remember,’ Zhang continued, ‘that we discussed the famous Amur tiger incident.’

‘I certainly do,’ Liu replied. ‘I dined out on that story for weeks.’

‘And do you remember that at that same Politburo meeting I reported that Ronald Craig, at that time a presidential candidate, had been treated in Khabarovsk General Hospital for a buttock wound?’

President Li smiled. ‘I laughed like a drain, as I recall.’

Zhang came to the point. ‘The Politburo’s instructions to the Ministry of State Security were recorded in the minutes of the May meeting of the Standing Committee. I have brought them with me. Shall I read out the precise words?’

Zhang fished the paper from his pocket. ‘Point 9 of the Minutes reads as follows:

Zhang laid the paper on the little wooden table next to the US-Flag boxer shorts. ‘What I am about to say now, Mr President, is for your ears only.’

‘Go ahead, Minister Zhang.’ Their friendship might have dated back for decades, but business was business. Zhang was going to have to come up with something pretty good or he was for the chop. Literally.

Zhang took his time. He knew this was a make-or-break moment.

‘As you know,’ he began, ‘Khabarovsk is situated on the Russia–China border. There are many ethnic Chinese living and working there. One of the surgeons in Khabarovsk General Hospital is Professor Gung Ho-Min. Professor Gung is also one of the MSS key agents in Khabarovsk. One day Gung was informed by the hospital authorities that he might be required to attend to a high-level patient who, in the very near future, would be brought into the hospital suffering from a wound to the buttocks. He was instructed, when tending the wound, to insert subcutaneously in the patient’s upper right arm a mini radio-transmitter which would be made available to him at the appropriate time.’

‘And Professor Gung didn’t query these instructions?’ Liu asked.

‘No, he didn’t,’ Zhang replied. ‘This is Russia, remember. People do what they’re told, particularly when, like Professor Gung, they belong to a vulnerable ethnic minority. But in my opinion,’ Zhang continued, ‘Gung showed particular brilliance and insight. He was able to procure from MSS sources within Khabarovsk one of our own mini radio-transmitters. While the patient was anaesthetized, he inserted the Russian transmitter, as instructed, in the patient’s upper right arm, while inserting the Chinese transmitter in the left buttock.’

President Li whistled. ‘Are you saying that Ronald Craig, the man I met in St Petersburg at the World Tiger Conference and who is now quite possibly about to be elected President of the United States, has been bugged both by the Russians and by us? We both have something on him, in the most literal sense!’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying,’ Zhang replied.

He took out his mobile phone, put it on the table and turned up the volume.

‘Listen to this, Mr President. This is a recording of a conversation which took place yesterday in Washington, around 2:30p.m., Eastern Standard Time. The system we have installed sends the actual GPS location of the originating transmission, give or take ten metres on either side. In this particular case we know that the transmission originated at 2650 Wisconsin Avenue, North-West Washington. That happens to be the address of the Russian Embassy.’

‘Hold on a moment,’ President Liu Wang-Ji protested. ‘There’s no reason why a presidential candidate shouldn’t visit the Russian Embassy. A presidential candidate can call on the Russian ambassador, might even have drink or dinner. Russian officials can talk to American officials in their own homes too.’

‘In theory, that’s right,’ Zhang agreed. ‘The US doesn’t have an Official Secrets Act like other countries, but don’t forget that the US has the Logan Act which makes it a crime for an unauthorized person to actually negotiate with a foreign power. That’s the key issue.

‘I ought to explain,’ Zhang continued as they settled down to listen to the tape, ‘that there seem to be three people in the room at the Russian Embassy. One of them is Ronald Craig himself. The other we believe is Bert Rumbold, Craig’s right-hand man and Director of Strategy for Craig’s presidential campaign. The third person is Georgiy Reznikov, the Russian ambassador to the United States, who is hosting the meeting.’

He pressed the ‘play’ button. ‘You’ll hear Craig’s voice first,’ Zhang said.

Given that the mini-radio-transmitter was placed several millimetres below the tough skin of Ronald’s Craig’s gluteus maximus, the clarity of the recording was remarkable.

‘Okay guys,’ they heard Craig say. ‘This is what we’re offering if I’m elected President. Number One, the US is going to drop the current sanctions against Russia, as regards Crimea and the Ukraine. We would hope that NATO will follow us in this, but even if they don’t we will act unilaterally.

‘Number Two: if I’m elected President, the United States will not challenge the deployment by Russia of the ground-based, nuclear-capable 9M729 missiles, even though possession of these missiles is a violation of the terms of the INF. Bert, what the hell does INF stand for?’

‘Now we’re going to hear Bert Rumbold,’ Zhang commented.

Sitting there in Zhongnanhai, Beijing, seven thousand miles from Washington, they heard a low throaty comment: ‘INF means the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Ron.’

‘Thanks so much, Bert. We understand the 9M729s have a range of 620 to 3240 miles. Apparently they hit Syria from the Caspian the other day. So if we agree that their use is compatible with the INF, then Russia can legally hit every capital in Europe. More to the point, perhaps, Russia will able to blast the living daylights out of every city in China.

‘Let’s take China’s build-up in the South China Seas. I believe the United States must be ready to go to war with China over these illegal bases. But it would be better still if Russia and the US could take a coordinated approach. We can say to China “Pull back from the Spratlys” or the Russians will whack Chengdu or Xian or wherever with their 9M729 missiles can reach. We could also put pressure on them to deal with North Korea, tell North Korea to nix their nuclear testing programme, for example. And if the Chinese don’t deal with North Korea, we will!’

‘Good God,’ President Liu Wang-Ji exclaimed. ‘This is dynamite!’

A new silky, cultivated voice, speaking perfect English, was to be heard on the recording:

‘Interesting. Very interesting,’ Georgiy Reznikov said. ‘Let’s talk about global warming too? As you may know, President Popov believes that Siberia should blossom like the rose. He believes Russia needs the massive increase of productivity in Siberia that global warming will make possible. How can a Craig Administration help here?’

‘We can help bigly,’ they heard Craig reply. ‘Global warming’s bullshit, a giant hoax perpetrated by the Chinese to grab American jobs. I’ll make sure we pull out of the Paris Agreement. I’ll dismember the EPA – the Environmental Protection Agency – and revive the American coal industry. Believe you me, we can warm up Siberia in no time at all. One degree, two degrees, three degrees, ROCK! We’ll rock around the clock tonight! Remember Bill Haley and his Comets, Ambassador?’

Sensing that the US Republican presidential candidate was on a roll, Georgiy Reznikov quickly interrupted. ‘Thank you, gentlemen. This has been a most productive meeting. I can assure you that President Popov will be pleased. In view of what I have heard today I am authorized to tell you that between now and Election Day we will make sure that our cache of emails from the Democratic National Committee, including those from Caroline Mann, the Democratic presidential candidate, is deployed to the fullest possible extent. We further undertake to offer Craig Shipping and Craig Oil the most favourable terms possible as far as their operations in the Russian Arctic are concerned.’

Reznikov paused. ‘Of course, we will, I hope, have further conversations, many further conversations when Ron – may I call you Ron? – is elected. But perhaps our discussions today will do for starters.’

‘Just one thing,’ Craig intervened. ‘Don’t forget about my old friend Mickey Selkirk. Selkirk Global is planning a major expansion in Russia. I think he has his eyes on Pravda and Izvestia as well as RT, Russian television!’

‘I am sure President Popov will be pleased to hear that too,’ Reznikov replied.

Zhang turned the recording off. ‘There’s more where that came from. Of course, we don’t listen to all of it. Normally, we just store the recordings after checking electronically for key words. What we’ve just heard happens to be particularly interesting.’

President Liu Wang-Ji stood up and put his arm round Zhang’s shoulder. ‘Well done, old friend. You have been tested and have not been found wanting. Don’t forget to take those US-Flag boxer shorts with you when you go.’

Halfway to the door, President Liu Wang-Ji paused: ‘That Logan Act you mentioned. That’s a pretty old statute, isn’t it? Dates from 1799? Is it still in force?’

‘It certainly is,’ Zhang replied.

President Liu Wang-Ji didn’t miss a trick, he thought. That was probably why Liu was President and he wasn’t.