by David Poyer
“We have an obligation.” Andres tried to keep his voice level. “This guy’s spent the war in prison camps, then in the mountains with the rebels. If his health’s impaired, it’s been in the line of duty. Kaylie, Tony’s right. He’s a military member, remember, only seconded to us. Not an Agency asset, strictly speaking.”
“If you mean he’s our problem, we can wash our hands of him,” the DoD rep said. “His service record can show he went MIA on his raid. Or we can carry him as deceased in captivity.”
The State rep said, “The Chinese might dispute that.”
Kaylie shrugged. “And admit to his escape? I think not. Anyway, do you really think they kept records on their death camps? Did they ever give the Red Cross a POW accounting on him?”
“Not that we know of.” The desk officer sighed.
“So as far as any records go, he went MIA years ago. He’s a ghost.” The Defense rep folded her arms. “Fuck him.”
Andres looked from face to face. An interagency dispute? Really? He said again, more forcefully, “Somebody has an obligation here. If DoD’s planning to disavow him—”
“He hasn’t been under our orders for years,” Kaylie said, rolling her eyes again. “No, you ran him, he’s your mess. You clean it up.”
Andres clenched his fists under the table. “You may want to write him off, but the Agency shouldn’t. In my book, he deserves a star on our wall.”
“Those stars are reserved for deaths in the line of duty,” Provanzano observed.
“Well, maybe not that then. But the guy came through for us, at great personal risk. We gave him an award, remember? The Intelligence Medal. We owe him more than ‘fuck him.’ Extraction, treatment, care, rehabilitation. At the very least.”
The senior CIA man pushed back from the table. “I get your standing up for him, Andy. Does you credit. But you said he refused repatriation. Correct?”
Andres nodded unwillingly. He could see where this was going.
“So it would be an involuntary extraction. Essentially, a kidnapping, as Josh pointed out. Let’s look at the downsides. A, we lose people pulling him out. B, his existence goes public, and we get linked to enabling a mad dog, supporting genocide and terrorism.
“I just don’t see the advantage to bringing him back, Andy. He’s a spent asset. And a risky one to keep around, even if we could get him back. What if he goes back here? Decides to start his own little franchise of the jihad right here at home?”
Andres stood without words. He looked down at his hands, then around at the faces around the table. “We owe him,” he said again.
“He knew the risks,” the DoD rep said.
“The downside’s too steep, I agree,” said the State rep.
“Beverly? It’s your department.” Provanzano turned to Andres’s desk officer.
She too shook her head, and made another note.
The deputy massaged his chin for a few seconds as the others watched him. Finally he said, “Some tough choices have been made in this room. Probably, some well beyond what we’d think of as moral, in our personal lives. But I’m gonna quote Machiavelli here.
“‘The way men live is so far removed from the way they ought to live, that anyone who abandons what is for what should be pursues his downfall, rather than his preservation.’”
He looked around the table. “He said the prince had to set aside his personal feelings and act for the good of the state. Bearing only that in mind, and not what people deserved, or what anyone thought of as justice.
“Granted, it’s four hundred years later now, but what’s changed? We, here in this room, are in the position of the prince. We’re not free to act the way we would prefer to in private life.
“We’ve looked at the downsides. Considered the upsides. I’m confident we’ve examined this case to the extent we need to, or can at present. The next step, if there is a next step, is going to depend on what the policymakers decide.”
He nodded to Beverly. “Okay, let’s go to the decision tree.”
She passed out a single piece of paper to each participant, and waited as everyone studied it.
The deputy resumed, “If the heads of state approve independence for this part of the world, as part of the final treaty, we have to ask: Can ITIM transform into a viable political party, willing to participate in a democratic process? If they seem willing to, we can help. Subject to budget and manning constraints, of course. One stage in that process is to gauge whether the instigators of violence can be publicly rehabilitated into more acceptable figures, both to the international community and local opinion leaders. Then, whether they have enough popular support to become a viable political movement.
“Beverly, can we look for an assessment from you on that point?”
“Yes sir,” the desk officer said, making a note.
Provanzano went on, “If, on the other hand, the final treaty retains Xinjiang as part of China, ITIM will have to undergo a harsher process. Shut it down, and remove the leadership, possibly coordinating action with whoever emerges as the final authority in Beijing.”
Andres said, “And give our agent a last chance to return?”
Provanzano smiled thinly and nodded toward the door. “Thanks, Andy. Good report. We’ll take it from here. And let you know what we send up the line.”
At the door he glanced back over his shoulder. At the gleaming table, the scraps of paper on it, the bent heads around it. He wanted to go back and argue the point. Pound the table. Insist.
But would it do any good? Unlikely. Had he fought hard enough? He thought he had. But it was out of his hands.
As he walked back down the corridor, toward the little cubicle office he got to use only two or three days a year, he kept telling himself this.
But he couldn’t make himself believe it.
14
Singapore
THE lights in the eighty-fifth-floor conference room dimmed and brightened automatically as clouds slid across the face of the sun. If she glanced over from her notebook she found herself looking down at a vertiginous drop of hundreds of feet. So far that her head swam and she had to close her eyes and fight for composure.
Far below, across a wide expanse of manicured garden threaded with footpaths, shone the Singapore Strait. Dozens of ships lay moored out there, along with massive shining white structures many blocks long: floating apartment complexes, built to accommodate the swelling population of the land-poor island. To her right stretched piers and breakwaters, unloading cranes, and varicolored mountain ranges of shipping containers. International trade through the South China Sea, shut down during hostilities, had reopened since the armistice. Today a steel queue of containerships, tankers, and liquid natural gas carriers marched away over the hazy curve of the planet eastward and then out of sight.
She sighed, and turned back to her screen.
She’d left the Sands only once since getting here, for a brief foray to a mall and tea garden. Just to say she had …
She and Shira had walked there via an elevated way lined with trees and vaulted above a highway thronged with nearly silent electric cars, vans, and trucks. Vertical wind turbines spun between the lanes, recovering energy from the passing vehicles. Singapore seemed to be taking its obligations under the new climate treaty seriously. The city, futuristic and wealthy, was densely populated but carefully planned. Compared to it, postwar Washington seemed shabby and worn. Deteriorating, with its potholed, flooding roads, abandoned plywood-covered storefronts, whole neighborhoods even the Loyalty League didn’t dare go into at night.
Now, back in the office, Shira Salyers sat across from her, head down, intent on her own computer. Behind her, pinned up on the wall, was a large, minutely detailed, brilliantly colored geographic and political map of China. At other tables, or collaborating on the same documents in real time from other rooms, sat Australian, Japanese, Russian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Indian staff members. They were searching the minutes of the day before, embodying voted-o
n agreements and amendments into the final report.
She glanced out the window again, unable to resist. Then gritted her teeth, steering her mind back from the image of hurtling hundreds of feet down to the pavement. You just have too much imagination, Blair, she told herself.
The hotel was three huge towers of pale curved concrete. Across their tops cantilevered a pool and topiary garden as large as the deck of an aircraft carrier. She hadn’t been up there yet, though, and had absolutely no desire to go.
But aside from that hour at the mall, she’d been locked indoors since she got here, either sitting in the tight circle of wallflowers and aides around the semicircular tables of the bigger conference rooms down on the second and third floors, or toiling deep into the night to reconcile the clashing positions and embody the compromises in black-and-white text for the ages.
But the work was drawing to an end. The final session of the heads of state conference would take place today, with the treaty-signing ceremony tonight. And as usual in most negotiations, the final terms were being fought tooth and nail down to the closing bell.
Leading the Allied Powers was the United States, represented by the deputy SecState, Ransome Teague, since the secretary was too ill to travel. Adam Ammermann was “assisting” him, which really meant keeping him toeing the line—this administration being deeply suspicious of bureaucrats, even if they were their own appointees. The president of Australia was here, as were the foreign ministers of Japan, India, and Indonesia. Only Russia was represented by a military man, Marshal Yevgeny Sharkov. Britain and the EU had attended as nonvoting observers.
And each ally had come fully primed to fight for its own country’s utmost advantage.
The Chinese, putatively the defeated power, were right in there with brass knuckles ready as well: the disadvantage of not insisting on unconditional surrender … Chen Jialuo represented the provisional government, as he’d done at the meetings with the advance mission in the Forbidden City. He denied any responsibility for the war itself, blaming everything on Zhang, while insisting on China’s continued status as a superpower. He’d schemed, coaxed, and threatened the smaller allies, especially those who’d have to live cheek by jowl with his still-powerful country whatever the postwar government looked like. Chen was trying hard to break the united front and weaken the terms of the final settlement.
Fortunately, he didn’t have a vote. But his arguments and proposals had to be heard, evaluated, debated, and rebutted. The smaller countries had to be reassured that their allies would stand behind them in case of renewed aggression. It all took endless palavering and horse-trading behind the scenes.
Over the past days, four resolutions had been introduced, hotly debated, amended, and voted on again and again.
Blair sat back, sighing, and like some weird pull of gravity the drop attracted her gaze once more. She turned her head away, and reviewed each point, one by one.
The first resolution specified territorial adjustments and residual military forces. Point One included formal independence for Tibet, for “Miandan,” the Chinese puppet state in northern Myanmar, and ceding of the islands in the South China Sea that Zhang Zurong’s regime had fortified. They were going to Vietnam, Indonesia, and Brunei. The Allies would retain permanent military bases in Itbayat and Pratas Reef, with a ten-year lease in Hainan.
Point Two dealt with a second tranche of adjustments. Taiwan and Hong Kong were to decide their own futures by plebiscite, choosing between full independence or participation in a democratic, federal Chinese state. Xinjiang had been on this list too, until State had struck it off. Without explanation; but Blair had a pretty good idea why. The Islamist rebels there were gaining ground. The administration feared it would become another radical fundamentalist state. With a choice between that and leaving it to China to police … that decision had been made.
During the Point Two negotiations the Russians had put in a claim, insisting that Manchuria be added to the list of newly independent states and that Dalian, formerly Port Arthur, become a Russian leasehold once more. After considerable argument, Sharkov had agreed to a compromise. Manchuria would also go on the plebiscite list, to vote for either China or independence. In turn, Russia would abandon her claim to Dalian.
It sounded to her like a recipe for another gray war, like the ones Moscow was already fomenting in Eastern Europe and Finland. Low-grade infections, to sap the health of fragile states. Still, that was how the Allies had finally voted.
Point Three dealt with the postwar military and government. China’s conventional armed forces would be reduced to ten divisions, her nuclear deterrent to one hundred warheads, and research into artificial intelligence and quantum technologies would be subject to international supervision for a period of ten years. As to its government, Minister Chen had arrived armed with a modified version of Bankey Talmadge’s sketch constitution, with a return to the 1912 flag and a new name, the Federation of Chinese States. Talmadge wasn’t mentioned, but Sun Yat-Sen was. China’s twenty-some provinces would be federated under a central government in Beijing. It would have five branches, headed by a president elected for no more than two four-year terms.
The Allies had debated it at length, with Russia pushing for acceptance and finally moving the question. Unfortunately, the bill of rights Talmadge had drawn up had vanished along the way, and Chen had added language continuing a leading role for the Communist Party. So the other allies had voted against, and the motion was defeated.
At that, Ammermann had spoken up. As a junior White House staffer, he’d been involved in the writing of the Iraqi constitution following Saddam’s fall. He’d outlined a process where a committee appointed from Chinese elements drafted a constitution during a transitional period. The first assembly elected under that constitution, whatever it was called, would review it, amend it as necessary, then submit it to the population for ratification. There would be no mention of parties at all.
Everyone except the Chinese seemed to like this, and it passed on a voice vote while they sat with arms crossed and angry scowls.
“Excuse me, Blair?”
Recalled from her mental review, she opened her eyes to an anxious young face. Harold Lichtman worked for the US trade representative. She pushed her chair back, caught another glimpse of the fall to the pavement below, and was suddenly tense again.
Okay, yeah, now she got it: why she felt so threatened. Having been trapped in the North Tower on 9/11 meant she would never thereafter feel comfortable more than ten stories off the ground. She couldn’t help glancing up, searching the sky, but it was empty of approaching airliners.
“Ms. Titus?” He cleared his throat nervously.
She flinched, jerked back from the memories of story after story collapsing above her, like the heavy footsteps of an enraged giant striding closer. “Sorry, I was … never mind. What do you need, Harry?”
“Well, you know what we’re pushing for, right? Dismantle wartime barriers. Open Chinese markets to American businesses, and build in hard protections for copyrights, patents, intellectual property. That was one of the causes of the war, right? Unfair trade.”
“Okay, sure.” She tried to keep impatience from her voice. “I understand. So what’s the problem? I’m Defense, you know that, right?”
“Um, right. But you did a study once about floating the yuan?”
“Oh.” She blinked. “Why, yes … for the Congressional Research Service. But that was ages ago. Way before the war.”
“I came across it looking up references … See, now we have to make some decisions on whether to insist on a stable new yuan, or couple it to the US dollar, or let it float, or—or, well, what?” He swallowed. “I’m sorry—didn’t mean to interrupt. I know you’re busy…”
She frowned. Did she really come across as that scary? The kid looked totally intimidated. She gestured to the chair opposite. “Grab a seat, Harry, and I’ll try to help. Well, you know that their currency regime’s been state-controlled. Their
central planners tried to keep up with the market, the money supply, interest rates. They screwed up as often as they got it right, but it gave them weapons we don’t have in the Fed, for example. For one thing, they can devalue on demand.”
He blinked. “Which means…”
“They can commit to, say, a huge loan, then devalue, and suddenly it’s twenty-five percent less in hard money.”
Lichtman said, “That would also make their products cheaper. Right?”
“Not only their products.” She suddenly saw where this was going. “Um, is this linked to the state enterprise liquidation scheme? Where they have to go to the highest bidder, even if it’s a foreign company?”
“It could work to our advantage,” Lichtman said, gaze sliding away.
“Meaning, fire-sale Chinese industry to multinationals at pennies on the dollar? Hmm. I’m not comfortable with that, Harry. I know, victors and spoils. But if anyone really owns those companies, it’s the Chinese people.”
He leaned forward. Said earnestly, “But it’s not like that, really. We did it wrong in Russia. Sold off to domestic entities, and they ended up being owned by the old KGB and the Mafia. This will be the free market at work, Ms. Titus. Spurring development through the private sector. Integrating China with the international community. And they did lose. After all.”
She exhaled, searching her brain for historical parallels, but couldn’t think of any. Even after the fall of Germany, Krupp had stayed German. Boeing hadn’t taken over Mitsubishi. The Bush administration hadn’t appropriated Iraq’s oil.
But really, bottom line, this question was outside her wheelhouse. “Um, sorry, but I can’t really give you any useful advice, Harry. Postwar currency stabilization’s a balancing act. You want to peg the exchange rate at a realistic level. Reassure business, so they can convert to peacetime production, restore the living standard, rebuild some kind of social safety net. All of it, all at once … um, do you know Mr. Ammermann? He was in Iraq. At least he’ll be able to tell you what not to do.”
