Ultimatum

by Matthew Glass

  Olsen shrugged, as if the thought that Benton was prevaricating had never entered his mind.

  Benton glanced at Eales. Eales nodded slightly. The president turned back to Olsen and Ball.

  “You two get together. Find me someone who can get to Wen. Someone you can agree on.”

  ~ * ~

  Monday, May 9

  Oval Office, The White House

  F. William Knight was sixty-eight, a silver-haired banker who had first gone to China as a young Morgan Stanley associate in the gold rush days of the nineties and had been there, more or less, ever since. During the financial crisis of 2013, he was one of the few respected Western voices in the country when party officials were blaming foreign banks for everything from the collapse of the stock market to the condition of the roads in downtown Beijing. At that time Wen Guojie, a young party leader and nephew of a former premier of China with a power base of his own in Shanghai, was given the post of finance minister and told to clean up the mess. Knight had known him for years. Wen gave Knight a desk in his office and for the next eighteen months they worked literally side by side. The fact that the Chinese banking system didn’t disappear into the almost bottomless pit that had been dug for it by the failure to introduce adequate reforms over the previous decade was attributed to Wen and fuelled his subsequent rise to the top of the hierarchy. In reality, to the extent that any one man was responsible, it was F. William Knight.

  Larry Olsen was with the president when Alan Ball brought Knight into the Oval Office. Ball, who knew the banker better than Olsen, did the introductions.

  Knight was a tall man. Thin. Almost gaunt. The skin hung loose at his throat. Joe Benton wondered whether he was ill.

  “I think Dr. Ball has explained something to you of what this is about,” said the president when they were sitting.

  “Some, Mr. President.”

  “Enough to get you to take the trouble of coming back from Shanghai. I thank you for that, Mr. Knight. I’m sure your time is scarce.”

  Knight nodded slightly.

  “I want to ask you, Mr. Knight, about your relationship with President Wen. Perhaps you can give me a quick summary of the history.”

  Knight cleared his throat. “President Wen, as you know, had a background in ...” He cleared his throat again, frowning as he did, as if there was something he couldn’t quite get out of there. “Wen was always in the banking and the financial side, so I had quite a lot to do with him, probably from about 2003 or four. I first met him . . . this was before he was a minister, he was a vice president of the Bank of China at the time. I was senior vice president for Morgan Stanley, as it was then, for China. This was around the time when the first wave of foreign ownership was coming into the big four banks in China, you may remember, and of course Morgan Stanley was a player. And I would say, after that time, there would rarely have been more than a few weeks when I didn’t meet Wen in one context or another.”

  “Tell me about 2013.”

  “Well, 2013 was something else.” Knight gave the story of how he had worked with Wen.

  “What about the Hong Kong massacre? Did Wen have anything to do with that?”

  Knight closed his eyes briefly, as if being asked to look at something distasteful. “There was enormous repression across China in 2013 and fourteen, more than most people in the West knew about. To my knowledge, Wen wasn’t directly involved. He was utterly focused on the financial issues at that point and, in fact, as far as Hong Kong goes, I remember him being totally incredulous because of what it would mean for the recovery.”

  “Slowing it, you mean?”

  Knight nodded.

  “And that was the only reason?”

  “Wen Guojie is no more an advocate of massacre than you or I, Mr. President. But I concede there was a serious wave of repression at the time— I remember people saying it was the biggest crackdown since Tiananmen, and actually it extended quite a lot further, and certainly went on for longer—and I guess any senior party leader must have had some knowledge of that and at the minimum must have acquiesced. So I’m not trying to exonerate Wen Guojie. I’m just saying he had little direct responsibility, and in fact, given his role, repression, at least in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and the other financial centers, worked against what he was trying to achieve.”

  “I’m just trying to understand what his mindset might be,” said the president.

  Knight didn’t reply.

  “What about since then? After the crisis? What’s your relationship?”

  “I would say that Wen has always treated me as a private advisor on economic affairs. He’ll receive his advice from his ministries and then he might call me in and we’ll have a discussion. He rarely invites me to be present when there are officials around. The discussions we have, you understand, Mr. President, are quite informal. It’s usually over a drink.”

  The president smiled. “What beverage does President Wen favor, as a matter of interest?”

  “Single malts,” said Knight.

  “When you have these talks, does he do what you say?”

  “Sometimes,” said Knight. “The quality of his advisors has vastly improved over the years. His need for my input is far less than it was.”

  “Do you ever disagree with him?”

  “Often,” said Knight.

  “Do you tell him that?”

  “Of course. I doubt he would have asked my advice all these years if I didn’t.”

  “Then he’s a wise man,” said the president.

  Knight nodded.

  “Tell me about him. What’s he like?”

  Knight frowned. He cleared his throat. “I regard him as a friend, sir. That’s . . . pretty much all I would say.”

  Benton nodded. Nothing the banker had said until now couldn’t have been discovered from other sources. Benton hadn’t heard anything he hadn’t already seen in the briefing on Knight that he had been given. Except the part about Wen favoring single malts, and that was probably well known, anyway.

  “You don’t want to say anymore?” said Benton.

  “Not gratuitously, Mr. President. Friendship involves trust. Trust isn’t a thing I take lightly.”

  Benton watched him.

  “How can I put this, Mr. President?” Knight cleared his throat. “Any American businessman living in China for any length of time is almost certain to be approached by various agencies of our government. This complicates things enormously, as you can understand. I’ve always avoided entanglements. I’m sure the briefing you must have seen about me mentions this.”

  “President Wen knows this, I presume? That you avoid entanglements.”

  “I presume he does. I also presume he knows I’m here now, or will very soon.”

  “But you didn’t tell him?”

  “No, sir. I don’t feel obliged to tell him about my activities, nor does he expect me to. As I said, we count each other as friends.”

  “And you don’t think this is an entanglement, as you put it?”

  “Not yet.” Knight cleared his throat. “I didn’t feel it was my place to refuse, sir. I’m an American citizen. It would be an act of unconscionable pride to refuse a request to speak to one’s president.”

  The president gazed at F. William Knight. The other man was detached, controlled. He was a proud man, with a strong sense of honor. An act of unconscionable pride to refuse to speak to one’s president, he had said. But possibly not to refuse to carry out one’s president’s request.

  “Tell me something,” said Joe Benton. “I’m curious. You’ve lived in China for...”

  “Forty years, give or take.”

  “You care about China?”

  “Of course. I’ve seen the country progress on every front. In my opinion it still has an enormous way to go, but if you compare the China of today to the China I found when I first went there in 1991, it’s just not the same place. “

  “And you’re proud of that. Proud of the contribution you’ve made.”

&
nbsp; “I think I have made a contribution. If I have, yes, I’m proud of it.”

  “So if it came to choosing between the United States and China, what would you do?”

  Knight looked at the president, eyes slightly narrowed.

  “Say it was a choice, Mr. Knight. I’m curious. How do you deal with something like that?”

  The president waited. The security assessment on F. William Knight had been in the briefing Benton had been given, as Knight himself realized. The president knew that Knight had repelled so many advances from the CIA that the Agency had stopped trying. He also knew there was no evidence that Knight had ever worked in any covert way for the other side. It really must be very easy, thought Benton, to find oneself entangled, living the life F. William Knight had lived, with contacts reaching to the very top of the Chinese regime. To have avoided even the suggestion of such an entanglement over a period stretching forty years must have required exceptional, scrupulous care.

  “That’s a hypothetical question, Mr. President, and a very difficult one,” said the banker at last. “Everything I’ve done to help China…” Knight cleared his throat. “I’ve always felt that a vibrant, prosperous China is a good thing for the United States. I’ve never felt there’s been a conflict.”

  “I don’t think anyone in this room would say there has been,” replied the president. He paused, as if to give a chance for Olsen or Ball to dissent. “But what if there was, Mr. Knight? Sometimes circumstances can lead to that. You wouldn’t be the first citizen with divided loyalties.”

  “Well...” Knight cleared his throat. “As I said, I haven’t felt circumstances have lead to that until now.”

  “I’m not saying they have now either, by the way. On the contrary. I was just interested, that’s all.”

  Knight nodded.

  “Let’s hope we never get to that point, huh?”

  “Let’s hope so, Mr. President.”

  The president smiled. He wasn’t warming to F. William Knight. He found him cold, passionless. But if everything Ball and Olsen had said about the banker was correct, Knight had access to Wen. The only person outside Wen’s closest circle in the party, perhaps, who could get thirty minutes with him alone. That far outweighed the question of whether he was likable or not. And he was trustworthy, the president could see that. Knight would certainly deliver a message, if he first agreed to do it.

  “Mr. Knight, let me ask you straight out,” said Benton. “If I asked you to deliver a message directly to President Wen on my behalf, would you be prepared to do it?”

  “Why me, sir?”

  The president smiled. “That’s a fair question. We have, as you know, a vast hierarchy of people all dedicated to making contact with their Chinese counterparts. Yet, the funny thing is, it’s very difficult to be sure that one is getting to President Wen himself. Almost impossible.” The president paused. “As it is to me, I guess.”

  “Surely you’ll be meeting President Wen,” said Knight. “You’ll be able to give him your message then.”

  “I would like to do it much sooner than that, Mr. Knight. Tomorrow, if I could. And much less publicly.”

  Knight cleared his throat. But he didn’t reply.

  “You’re not comfortable with what I’m asking, Mr Knight?”

  Knight didn’t reply to that. “May I ask, Mr. President, have any attempts already been made to deliver this message to President Wen?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re sure the message didn’t get through?”

  “No, Mr. Knight, we’re not sure of that. In fact we think the message did get through. What we don’t know is what form it got through in.”

  “Have you reason to believe it was distorted in some way?”

  “Mr. Knight, the issue we’re talking about is of such gravity that I can’t afford to take even the slightest chance that some kind of miscommunication has taken place. I need to be one hundred percent sure the message I am giving reaches President Wen in precisely the form I’m sending it. The whole message and nothing but the message. I’m sure you can understand the importance of that.”

  F. William Knight nodded.

  “Let me assure you, Mr. Knight, in case that’s what’s worrying you, this is not something that pits the United States against China. On the contrary, this is very much a matter that is to our mutual benefit, one that’s in the interest of the entire world.”

  Knight was silent.

  “This is something that will hopefully mean that people like yourself, Mr. Knight, don’t have to make that terrible choice we were talking about. Between one country and the other.” Benton paused. Knight was gazing at the rug, a frown on his face. “You still don’t look comfortable, Mr. Knight.”

  Knight shook his head. “I. . .” He cleared his throat. “I’ve always tried to avoid being caught in the middle. That happens to people in China all the time. That’s how you lose your credibility.”

  It occurred to Joe Benton that the gaunt, silver-haired banker might really be about to turn him down. He glanced at Ball.

  “Bill,” said Alan Ball. “You’ve got forty years of credibility behind you. We both know that’s not going to disappear overnight.”

  Knight shook his head, still staring at the rug. “I realize this must be important,” he murmured. He cleared his throat.

  Joe Benton wondered once again whether the other man was ill. He was agonizing over the decision, Benton could see that. He was really torn.

  “Bill,” said Alan Ball, “what’s the point of all that credibility if you never get to use it? It’s like money in the bank. At some point you’ve got to take it out and spend a little.”

  Knight looked at Alan Ball.

  “Now’s the time, Bill. If there ever was a time, trust me, this is it.”

  F. William Knight was silent for a moment. Then he turned to Benton and nodded. “All right, Mr. President. I’ll do it.”

  Joe Benton leaned forward. “Now, you know, before we go any further, you have to be a hundred percent clear you’re prepared to do it. You can still say no, Mr. Knight. I want you to be clear. You’re making a commitment.”

  “I realize that, sir.”

  “Your commitment is to take my message quickly and secretly to President Wen—and only to President Wen—and to deliver it exactly as you’re given it, and to bring back to me exactly his answer, whether written or verbal. Nothing more and nothing less. I need you to make that commitment before we go any further. If you need to think about it a little more, tell me.”

  “I don’t need to think about it any more.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Benton stood up. He put out his hand. “I thank you, sir. Your country is in your debt.”

  Knight stood up and shook the president’s hand.

  “How soon do you think you can talk to President Wen?” asked Benton.

  “Within a few days, I would imagine. Is that soon enough?”

  “It is. Secretary Olsen and Dr. Ball will brief you. You’ll be given a packet to deliver.”

  ~ * ~

  Saturday, May 14

  Family Residence, The White House

  “You looked distracted tonight,” said Heather.

  “Did I?” The president, taking off a sock, looked up at her.

  He had been guest of honor at a dinner for the Young Democratic Achiever award. There had been some truly extraordinary stories of courage and determination, and he hoped he hadn’t given any sense that he didn’t value them.

  “You didn’t like my speech?”

  “Your speech was fine. It was the way you wandered off during the conversation.”

  “Maybe it was the conversation.”

  It was the stories of the young achievers that were inspiring. Unfortunately, the young achievers were seated with families and friends, all brought in for the event, and the presidential couple were seated with Mai Jackson, chair of the Democratic Party, his wife and a bunch of pa
rty apparatchiks.

  Heather laughed. “I’ve seen you survive worse than that, Joe Benton.”

  “Well, maybe that’s true. Being president requires a fine ability to tolerate banal conversation. They ought to put that in a warning somewhere.”

  Heather folded her arms. “So what is it?”