The Bear and the Dragon

CHAPTER 16

Pavel Petrovich Gogol could believe his eyes, but only because he’d seen the whole Red Army armored corps on the move in the Western Ukraine and Poland, when he was a younger man. The tracked vehicles he saw now were even bigger and knocked down most of the trees, those that weren’t blown down by engineers with explosives. The short season didn’t allow the niceties of tree-felling and road-laying they used in the effete West. The survey team had found the source of the gold dust with surprising ease, and now a team of civil and military engineers was pushing a road to the site, slashing a path across the tundra and through the trees, dropping tons of gravel on the path which might someday be properly paved, though such roads were a problem in these weather conditions. Over the roads would come heavy mining equipment, and building materials for the workers who would soon make their homes in what had been “his” woods. They told him that the mine would be named in his honor. That hadn’t been worth much more than a spit. And they’d taken most of his golden wolf pelts-after paying for them and probably paying most generously, he allowed. The one thing they’d given him that he liked was a new rifle, an Austrian Steyr with a Zeiss scope in the American.338 Winchester Magnum caliber, more than ample for local game. The rifle was brand-new-he’d fired only fifteen rounds through it to make sure it was properly sighted in. The blued steel was immaculate, and the walnut stock was positively sensuous in its honeyed purity. How many Germans might he have killed with this! Gogol thought. And how many wolves and bear might he take now.

They wanted him to leave his river and his woods. They promised him weeks on the beaches at Sochi, comfortable apartments anywhere in the country. Gogol snorted. Was he some city pansy? No, he was a man of the woods, a man of the mountains, a man feared by the wolves and the bear, and even the tigers to the south had probably heard of him. This land was his land. And truth be told, he knew no other way to live, and was too old to learn one in any case. What other men called comforts he would call annoyances, and when his time came to die, he would be content to die in the woods and let a wolf or a bear pick over his corpse. It was only fair. He’d killed and skinned enough of them, after all, and good sport was good sport.

Well, the food they’d brought in-flown in, they’d told him-was pretty good, especially the beef, which was richer than his usual reindeer, and he had fresh tobacco for his pipe. The television reporters loved the pipe, and encouraged him to tell his story of life in the Siberian forests, and his best bear and wolf stories. But he’d never see the TV story they were doing on him; he was too far away from what they occasionally called “civilization” to have his own TV set. Still, he was careful to tell his stories carefully and clearly, so that the children and grandchildren he’d never had would see what a great man he’d been. Like all men, Gogol had a proper sense of self-worth, and he would have made a fine storyteller for any children’s school, which hadn’t occurred to any of the bureaucrats and functionaries who’d come to disturb his existence. Rather, they saw him as a TV personality, and an example of the rugged individualist whom the Russians had always worshipped on the one hand and brutally suppressed on the other.

But the real subject of the forty-minute story that was being put together by Russian national television wasn’t really here. It was seventeen kilometers away, where a geologist tossed a gold nugget the size of his fist up and down like a baseball, though it weighed far more than the equivalent volume of iron. That was merely the biggest nugget they’d found. This deposit, the geology team explained to the cameras, was worthy of a tale from mythology, the garden, perhaps, of Midas himself. Exactly how rich it was they’d learn only from tunneling into the ground, but the chief of the geology team was willing to wager his professional reputation that it would beggar the South African mine, by far the richest found to date on the planet. Every day the tapes the cameras made were uploaded to the Russian communications satellite that spent most of its time hanging over the North Pole-much of the country is too far north to make proper use of the geosynchronous birds used by the rest of the world.

This was not a problem for the National Security Agency. NSA has stations worldwide, and the one located at Chicksands in England took the feed of the Russian satellite and instantly cross-loaded it to an American military-communications satellite, which dispatched the signal to Fort Meade, Maryland. Agreeably, the signal was not encrypted and so could be immediately forwarded to Russian linguists for translation, and then off it went to CIA and other national assets for evaluation. As it played out, the President of the United States would see the footage a week before the average Russian citizen.

“Damn, who is that guy, Jim Bridger?” Jack asked.

“His name is Pavel Petrovich Gogol. He’s the guy credited with discovering the gold deposit. See,” Ben Goodley said. The camera took in the row of gilded wolf pelts.

“Damn, those could be hung in the Smithsonian… like something out of a George Lucas movie… SWORDSMAN observed.

“Or you could buy one for your wife,” Goodley suggested.

POTUS shook his head. “Nah… but…, maybe if it was a gilded sable coat…, you think the voters could handle it?”

“I think I defer on such questions to Mr. van Damm,” the National Security Adviser said after a moment’s consideration.

“Yeah, might be fun to see him have a cow right here in the Oval Office. This tape isn’t classified, is it?”

“Yes, it is, but only ‘confidential.’”

“Okay, I want to show this one to Cathy tonight.” That level of classification wouldn’t faze anybody, not even a major city newspaper.

“You want one with subtitles or a voice-over translation?”

“We both hate subtitles,” 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 damn, 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 hell 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 butter-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 arms-related 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 assured 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 assured 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 hell is this, and how the hell 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 document 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 in to 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 cocksuckers! They’re talking about how they plan to fuck us over.” For all his money, George Winston retained the patois of his working-class 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 document. “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-fucking-Treas, okay? That means that every citizen in our country is part of my family, and these Chink bastards are planning to fuck 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,fuck 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 shit, 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 fucking 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 bastards couldn’t run a Kmart and show a profit, but they let them dick around with a whole national economy-and then they want to dick 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 passion.

“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 institutional 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 attitude 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 pissing 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 ass 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 pass 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.