War of Eagles

FOURTEEN

Prime Minister Le Kwan Po went home to his wife and a late snack of tea and apricots. Ever since he was a child he had liked dipping fruit in tea. The apartment in Beijing was a privilege of office. The very tart Mongolian apricots were his one indulgence.

They had also been an education.

The delicacy had taught him the joy of mixing elements to produce something new. It had showed him that different blends produced different results. It had proven to him that two of anything is superior to one. What he had still been puzzling over was how to convince Chou and Tam Li of that fact.

The prime minister sat across the table from his wife Li-Li. They were in a small dining alcove off the kitchen, Beijing spread below them. The rain had stopped and the streetlights shone like candles in the misty night.

Li-Li was a handsome woman with a round face framed by long, gray hair worn in a bun. She was dressed in a red silk robe and matching scarf. She was smoking a cigarette. When Le Kwan Po finished his apricots, he would join her in another smoke. Throughout Le Kwan Po’s adult life, Li-Li had been his most valuable and trusted friend and adviser. She possessed a calm wisdom that was characteristic of those who had been raised in a temple. In the case of Li-Li, it was the seventeenth-century Qingshui Yan Temple in the state of Fujian. Her widowed mother cooked meals for the priests, the acolytes, and the pilgrims. The women lived in a very small room behind the mountainside structure. Some might have described it as a boring life. To Li-Li it was a reflective life. She met her future husband when he came through the region with fellow soldiers. The mountain unit stayed at the temple for nearly three weeks while they pursued remnants of the Guomindang, the nationalists who were hiding in these remote regions. “The soldier and the lady,” as her mother called them, quickly discovered they shared a love of two things. One was the mountains. They enjoyed being where they could look up at the sun yet down upon the clouds. They enjoyed the grandeur of the sharp-edged peaks and the flora that dug its roots into the rock to thrive there. Li-Li marveled that such a small, delicate tendril could split stone.

Just as the revolutionary ideology of Mao did in 1919. He did not work and study in Europe as all the other Communist leaders did. He moved among the peasants to invent his own form of government. He put small roots in the rich soil of the Chinese working class where they grew into a powerful nation.

A hybrid, like apricots and tea.

The other thing Li-Li and Le Kwan Po enjoyed was a lively discussion. She was always confident, soft-spoken, but very, very sure of her point of view. Some would say smug. Perhaps that was because Li-Li was raised in an environment where rules were incontrovertible. Le Kwan Po was more balanced in his thinking, more willing to listen to all sides.

The prime minister and his wife had been discussing the radical differences between the two men. She believed her husband should work behind the scenes to undermine the men.

“Remove their support structure, and they will fall,” she counseled. “What you must do is relocate their aides, their allies, their confidants.”

“This does not need to be so complicated,” he replied dismissively.

“Not this,” she agreed. “But you are not doing it just to stop these men. This situation is about the future. By undermining their network of conspirators, you will discourage others.”

“Fear is not a deterrent,” Le replied. “Even overwhelming force can be resisted, if not at the moment, then over time. The only thing that causes a permanent change is reason.”

“We have had this discussion before,” the woman reminded him. “The stakes are higher now. Do you believe you can convince these men that compromise is better than whatever they are after?”

Le nodded once. “They want power. But apart from that, men want to survive.”

“You just said fear does not work.”

“Not the act,” Le replied. “But the threat. That is different.”

Li-Li took a long puff on her cigarette. “What can you do to threaten their security? You cannot dismiss them. You cannot demote them.”

That was when De Ming Wang, the minister of foreign affairs, called on the prime minister’s cell phone. De Ming informed him about the explosion in Taipei. Le was not happy to learn of the disaster nor to hear of it from De Ming. The foreign minister wanted very much to become prime minister. Typically, De Ming withheld information to make rivals look ineffective. If the foreign minister were providing information, it was to maneuver someone into a situation that could prove difficult or embarrassing.

“Three incidents in one day,” De Ming said in conclusion. “We need to contain this situation immediately.”

His motives did not change the fact that the foreign minister was right. Which is what made him a danger.

“Was this Chou’s doing?” Le asked. “Those clubs in Taiwan host disreputable sorts—”

“This was very elite, and it employed girls from Guangdong province. The freighter this morning carried workers from Guangdong.”

That was not proof. But it was not a good sign.

“I will handle this,” the prime minister said.

“What can I do to assist?” De Ming asked solicitously.

Le lit a cigarette, blew smoke, and thought for a moment. This was a delicate situation. If De Ming were directly involved in any talks, he could sabotage the prime minister’s efforts at peacemaking. If De Ming were not involved, and those efforts failed, the foreign minister could go to the National People’s Congress and ask for a noconfidence vote on the prime minister. In a situation like this, Le felt it might be best to keep his enemy close.

“I will call Chou and Tam Li and arrange a meeting,” the prime minister replied. “I would like you to attend.”

“Certainly. When would you like to meet?”

“I will let you know,” Le replied cautiously. He folded away the phone and tapped it as he looked across the table at his wife. He told her what had happened. “War between these two men will force others to take sides,” he concluded. “I need to do something about it.”

“You are anxious. You should wait until morning before contacting them,” Li-Li suggested softly.

“I cannot afford to let the situation escalate.”

“You are also tired,” his wife insisted. “Mao said that a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.”

“They are tired as well.”

“Not so tired that they won’t perceive this as what it is,” Li-Li said.

“Oh? And what is that?”

“Desperation, not strength. Wait. And let the foreign minister wait.”

Le Kwan Po shook his head. “There is a difference between someone who is desperate and someone who is decisive. I have to find out if either of these men were involved in the attack.”

“Why would they tell you?” Li-Li asked. “You were reluctant to pressure them earlier.”

“I have no choice now,” the prime minister said. “The foreign minister will use this against me.”

“Then you are desperate.”

Le took two quick puffs, then reached for his phone. “I am motivated,” he replied.

“What will you say to them when you meet?”

“I will reason with them,” he replied. “That is what I do.”

“Please. If you must, call them now but see them tomorrow,” Li-Li urged. “If you sit together tonight, they will say nothing or throw charges at one another. You will simply be a mediator.”

“What will I be tomorrow?”

“More in control of the situation,” she replied. “They will wonder why you waited to see them.”

“They will wonder with good reason. I myself don’t see the sense of it,” Le protested.

The prime minister was not comfortable playing these psychological games. His success in politics was due to evenhandedness. He possessed a tireless devotion to the party but a willingness to allow that what worked in the twentieth century could not be cleanly adapted to the twenty-first.

Still, Li-Li was correct. These were very different circumstances. Chou and Tam Li had always fought for position and influence, but they had never resorted to murder or attacks on one another’s holdings.

But silence? he thought. The prime minister regarded his wife. How does one turn silence into a perfect weapon? he asked himself. Silence is like clay. Others can read into it what they wish. The question Le had to ask himself was whether his wife was correct, and the men would perceive it as strength. Or whether he was right, and they would regard it as weakness. He continued to look across the table. Li-Li looked back. Her sweet face was visible through the snaking smoke of their cigarettes, through the fainter mist of their tea. Her eyes were impassive, the thin lips of her mouth pulled in a firm yet delicate line. Le did not know for certain what she was thinking. He assumed it was critical of haste.

You assume the worst based on her silence. That supported what his wife had been saying about the value of silence. But you know her, he reminded himself. You already know how she feels.

Unfortunately, the men he was dealing with would regard his silence as indecision. He had to confront them.

Le crushed his cigarette in the ashtray and picked up his telephone. He scrolled through the stored listing of cell phone numbers.

“You are calling them,” his wife said.

“Yes.”

“To meet when?”

“Now,” he replied.

“To reason with them?”

“At first.”

Li-Li stubbed out her own cigarette. “They will not listen. And what will you do if it fails?”

Le Kwan Po regarded her before accessing the first number. “Three nations suffered covert attacks today. As the prime minister of China, I have ways of passing information to those nations. Information such as the names of the people who organized the bombings. I need never soil my hands.”

Li-Li smiled as she rose. “I like that reasoning,” she said as she left the small kitchen area to give her husband privacy.