She stopped short of the door. “I forgot to ask—how did it go with Mr. Tierney?”
“I threw him a red herring. How did your session go with the other two Torquemadas of the Times?”
A shadow played across Angel’s face. “I suppose it’s a compliment when the Times puts three reporters on you. But it feels a bit like a gang bang.”
“Problem?” Bird said.
“We’ll find out when the story appears. They seemed impressed by ICC. They didn’t connect us with the Indian newspaper. So that was good. But I could really, really do without all the questions about former boyfriends.”
“Yeah,” Bird said. “That can’t be much fun.”
“So I’ve had a few relationships. What does that have to do with anything? With my work at ICC? If I were a guy, would the Times be asking, ‘So is it true you were involved with so-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so?’ Is any of that in any way relevant to my work on national-security issues?”
She was hurting.
“Take it as a compliment,” Bird said. “Your friend Dr. Kissinger had lots of girlfriends when he was a bachelor, and it added to his luster.” Bird felt brotherly, suddenly. “Hey, it’s part of your legend—Angel Templeton, policy she-warrior. Enjoy it.”
But Angel wasn’t enjoying. In fact, her face was starting to crumple. She looked on the verge of tears.
“You okay, kiddo?”
“They asked me . . .”
“What?”
“Silo.”
“Aw,” Bird said. “That wasn’t nice of them.”
“It just . . . hurts, you know?”
“I know it does, Ange.”
Looking back, Bird could not recall with total clarity the series of steps—getting up out of the chair, going over to Angel, putting his arms around her, and everything that followed. Maybe it fell into the “it all happened so fast” category. But happen it did, and however hard he tried to morally triangulate his way back out from where he had gone, he knew that this was an infraction of a very different order from the boozy night in Seoul with the woman from the helicopter company.
He was lying on the leather couch in her office. Her head and its attendant abundance of blond tresses rested on his chest: a Botticelli Venus not yet risen on the clamshell. Angel was deep asleep.
Bird regarded his bare feet protruding from under the edge of the fur throw. He wiggled his toes in playful counterpoint to the foreboding he felt forming over him like a rime of black frost.
It was cold in the room from the air-conditioning. His feet were chilly. The ironic thought occurred to him that in the process of trying to comfort Angel over the word silo he had managed to fall, headfirst and headlong into it.
CHAPTER 24
IF THIS WERE A NOVEL
There was this to be said for insomnia, President Fa reflected as he hurriedly dressed: When the emergency phone call came at two-thirty in the morning, you were already awake.
Gang briefed him as they made their way to the secure conference room beneath Zhongnanhai. The two frigates were twenty-five miles from the American vessel and closing fast. The American ship, named for a pugnacious former U.S. defense secretary, was maintaining its course as if all were normal.
But all was not normal. The Americans had retasked a carrier battle group. Fighter-interceptors and surveillance planes were launching off the deck of the George H. W. Bush. People’s Central Air Command was also launching planes. The skies above the East China Sea were becoming dangerously busy.
“Bush . . . Rumsfeld,” Fa muttered to Gang as they hurried along. “Bush. I have had six meals with him. Four dinners. Two lunches. No, three lunches. Seven meals. A gentle person. Very pleasant. Courteous. Rumsfeld I experienced just once. That was enough. Very different from Bush. In college Rumsfeld was on the wrestling team. It’s important to remember such details, Gang.”
They walked through corridors humming with activity despite the hour. It did not escape Fa’s notice that his escort of bodyguards was twice its usual number, but then he remembered that this was normal procedure at times of “national emergency.”
National emergency, Fa thought with a scowl. Yes, and who decided that we should have a national emergency? On top of the one we were already having?
“Technically,” Gang said, as if reading Fa’s mind, “the order came from Admiral Pang in Fuzhou. But”—he made a little scoffing noise—“I suppose we know who it really came from.”
“Pang? Pah. Pang wouldn’t urinate without permission from Han. No, I do not care to speak with Admiral Pang in Fuzhou. General Han I very much desire to speak with.”
“General Han is not in Beijing, Comrade.”
“Why?”
“I am informed that he departed for Wusong earlier this evening.”
“Oh, this is not right, Gang. Not right. No.”
“I am informed that the defense minister felt it was imperative to supervise the operation personally, at People’s Naval Command Shanghai.”
“Personally?” Fa growled. “Yes, well, if you’re going to start a war, you might as well be there to enjoy it.”
“On the positive side,” Gang said, “this way you don’t have to be in the same room with him.”
Fa burst through the doors of the conference room with such alacrity that the four assembled members of the Standing Committee started in their chairs and another spilled his coffee. They rose in greeting.
“Where is Minister Lo?” Fa barked.
“He is not present, Comrade President.”
“I can see that. I asked where is he?”
“In Lhasa, Comrade President. Monitoring the situation.”
Fa thought, So neither the minister of defense nor the minister of state security is present. And my security detail is twice normal size. If this were a novel, one of those so-called thrillers of the vulgar kind, this would be the scene where the leader realizes that a coup is under way.
“Well,” Fa said, “let us hope that the altitude in Lhasa is agreeing with him.”
The chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army, General Men, began to brief the president. Fa cut him off after a few words.
“Thank you, but the only general I wish to hear from is General Han. Get him on the phone.”
“With respect, Comrade President, General Han is occupied supervising the—”
“None of that. Get him on the phone. Now.”
General Men, sensing that his future depended on brisk compliance with this order, scuttled out of the room like an alarmed crab.
The Standing Committee members exchanged looks. Cool Limpidity is very forceful this morning.
Fa, watching them, thought, So which of you scoundrels is in on this? He smiled at them. “Good morning, Comrades.”
“Good morning, Comrade President,” they said in unison, like students.
General Men returned. “I have General Han for you, Comrade President. Would you like privacy?”
“Privacy? We’re Communists. Don’t you know we don’t believe in privacy? Put him over the speaker.”
“This is General Han,” came the voice.
“And this is President and General Secretary Fa Mengyao. What is going on?”
“An American spy vessel is interfering with a sensitive exercise involving three of our nuclear submarines.”
“What’s unusual about that? It’s what navies do to each other when they’re not actually at war.”
“No, Comrade President. I’m afraid this time they have gone too far. They have deployed destructive electronic countermeasures that have damaged our equipment. We must respond.”
“Respond? And the orders issued to our ships—what is the precise wording?”
“Interdict and harass.”
“I am not a military man, as you so often point out. Would you please define for me the term interdict and harass? Harass? Does that include firing on the Americans? Ramming them? Boarding? Sinking?”
“Harass means harass,
Comrade. The objective is to compel them to break off their surveillance. As you yourself say, this is how it goes—a game of cat and mouse. Frankly, Comrade, your agitation surprises me. But then, as you yourself point out, you are not a military man.”
“No, I’m not. So tell me then what words I should use when countermanding an order given by the minister of defense? I should like to issue such an order. Immediately.”
Silence.
“Well, General?”
“I am here, Comrade, at my post.”
“Stand down, General. Rescind the order. Do we understand each other?”
“We understand each other perfectly, Comrade.”
“Then I will say good night to you.”
General Han did not reciprocate the salutation.
THEY SAT ON STOOLS in the presidential bathroom, whiskeys in hand, faucets and shower nozzles opened, toilets flushing.
“It appears, Gang, that I am to have nightmares every night whether or not I’m asleep.”
“I thought you handled the situation well,” Gang said.
Gang was not a flatterer. Fa allowed himself satisfaction at this rare compliment.
“He’ll come back at you for this. He won’t stand for being humiliated in front of his staff.”
“For a moment, Gang, I thought something was . . . under way.”
They drank, listening to the sound of the faucets and shower. Somewhat different from the tranquil drip-drip of the fountain in the carp pond.
“He was looking for another Hainan,” Gang observed.
On 1 April 2001, a Chinese jet interceptor, attempting to interdict and harass an American surveillance plane, collided with it. The Chinese pilot was killed. The wounded American plane was forced into an emergency landing on Hainan Island. The crew was detained. Prevarications, denunciations, remonstrations, explanations, reparations—the predictable trajectory of rhetoric and posturing. But a deeper damage was done: By the end, America, until then held in general esteem by most Chinese, now stood reviled. However multitudinous, vast, and varied, China always united if it felt threatened from outside. The circumstances were irrelevant. A Chinese pilot had been killed by the American military. This could be neither forgiven nor forgotten. Conveniently, from the point of view of the Department of Propaganda, the episode took place when the memory of Tiananmen Square was still fresh.
“Yes,” Fa said, draining his glass. He wanted another scotch but thought it best to have his wits about him tomorrow. Gang was right—Han would not take his humiliation quietly. There would be fallout, radioactive snowflakes.
“So reckless,” Fa said. “It was a different time in 2001. Now? In this climate, with all the world furious with us over the Lotus? You can push the Americans so far. Saddam Hussein learned that. It’s one thing if there’s an accident in the air, two planes colliding. But going after them on the high seas?” He was silent for a moment. “I wished Admiral Zhang had been with me tonight in that room. With him beside me, I always felt confident. Well, Lo saw to that.”
“I had a communication from Zhang. I was going to tell you earlier, but with everything going on. He’s in hospital, in San Diego.”
Fa frowned. “Is he . . .?”
“He’s all right. He took that pill that mimics renal failure.”
“Yes, of course. I forgot.”
“He has determined it will be necessary for him to remain in America. Easier to coordinate things with Beluga.”
“And Operation Flourishing Vine—is it flourishing?”
“Preparations are nearly complete. Another few days. He was adamant that he will not give Beluga the signal to proceed without first getting your express order.”
“Somewhat different from General Han!” Fa smiled. He stared forlornly at the ice cubes in his empty glass. “Did he give you an impression of confidence?”
“As you yourself said, this is not without risks.”
“ ‘Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.’ ”
“What would Sun-tzu make of our modern technology?”
“Oh,” Fa said, “I think he would find that nothing essential had changed. Well, old friend, let’s get some sleep.”
“Do you want a pill?”
“What I would like, Gang, is to drink that entire bottle of whiskey. No, no pills tonight. Tonight? Look at the hour. It’s today, already. I feel old, Gang.”
Fa slept. For the first time in weeks, the nightmare did not come.
CHAPTER 25
NOW THEN, JANGPOM
It had been the weekend from hell. It was Sunday noon now, and Rogers Fancock had slept maybe five hours since Friday morning.
He’d declined Bletchin’s offer to have a cot brought into his office. He felt it was undignified, sleeping on cots. And it was just the kind of detail that those incontinent numbskulls in the White House press office would leak in order to demonstrate how “serious” was the situation. Creating a spate of breathless stories about “the crisis atmosphere at the White House.” Not since the Cuban Missile Crisis . . . Precisely the wrong way to handle it.
Instead he catnapped on the davenport. Dorothy sent in sandwiches—cucumber, pimiento, bacon, and peanut butter—along with thermoses of drinkable coffee, clean shirts, undershorts, and socks.
What in hell was Beijing thinking? First Strecker says he has actionable intelligence that the Chinese are going to try to kill the Dalai Lama. Then they go and deploy two frigates with every indication of hostile intent. And just as they’re coming over the horizon, guns hot, suddenly it’s all engines full stop.
Admiral Doggett said it was a test to see if the Rumsfeld would break off the exercise. Fancock chortled over the idea of a ship by that name “breaking off” anything except for the enemy’s head. Not that there was anything amusing about dozens of U.S. and Chinese fighters circling overhead, hissing at each other like high-tech geese. The Chinese were still fuming over Hainan, which had been their own goddamned fault to begin with. Fancock had long since stopped bringing up the incident in meetings with the Chinese. What point was there? Rather insecure, the Chinese—and quick to perceive insult. Fancock called it PCSD: “post-colonial stress disorder.”
But what were they thinking, with this Rumsfeld stunt? He mused on Barney’s report about the power struggle going on at Zhongnanhai between Fa and the generals. Perhaps Fa had overruled the military and aborted the attack on the Rumsfeld. That would explain the sudden stand-down. But there was no knowing for sure.
Barney hadn’t called back for hours now, which made Fancock uneasy. In his last call, he’d said he was in San Diego. Wouldn’t say any more, even over the secure line. San Diego. Meanwhile the president was in a filthy mood, still in a lather over Fancock’s refusal to vouchsafe the name of the Mephistopheles who had proposed putting His Holiness to sleep like some aged cocker spaniel.
Why is Bletchin taking so damned long getting—
“Sir?”
“Yes, Bletchin,” Fancock said, horizontal upon the davenport, eyes remaining closed.
“I have His Holiness’s secretary on the line.”
“Ah. Finally.”
Fancock rose stiffly and shuffled over toward his desk. He had on an unbuttoned shirt, boxers, and knee socks, and yet there was still something formidable about him.
He sat. Took a deep breath, picked up the phone. His finger hovered above the button. “Bletchin, what’s his name?”
“Jangpom Gadso Plingdam Renzimwangmo—”
Fancock scribbled. “Enough, Bletchin.” He yawned. “What is the correct form of address?”
“They appear to incline toward informality, sir.”
Fancock waved him away. He took another breath and punched the button on his phone.
“This is Rogers Fancock, director of national security at the White House in Washington. Do I have the honor of speaking with the Reverend—with the Honorable Jangpom Gadso? . . . Ah. Splendid. Splendid. And a good morning to you, sir. On behalf of th
e president of the United States, may I convey his most sincere and respectful wishes to His Holiness and to yourself? And his deepest regret about the news with regard to His Holiness’s medical condition. We are all— He is? Ah. Well, I couldn’t be more pleased to hear that . . . Yes . . . Yes, that’s a wonderful way of looking at it. His Holiness is truly one of the most remarkable men of our time. Of all time. An inspiration. Um. Yes, to us all. Um. How’s the food there, by the way? Hospital food can be pretty darned grim . . . Really? Well, I’m glad to hear that. And His Holiness’s spirits? . . . No, I meant his mood . . . Yes? Wonderful, wonderful. Could use a bit of serenity myself. Yes. Now then, Jangpom . . . By all means, of course. It’s actually Rogers—with an s at the end . . . Yes, it does sound rather like a last name, doesn’t it? Used to get teased about it at school . . . I? Harvard, actually. Cambridge, but it’s right next to Boston. Yes, in Massachusetts. Yes, Bunker Hill. How’s that? Beacon Hill? Just down the road, really . . . Yes, lots of hills in old Massachusetts. Ha ha. Of course, nothing like the hills in your part of the world. No, I haven’t. I’ve always wanted to go, but something always came up and . . . I hear it’s just dazzling. Um. Now then, Jungpom, let me explain why I’m calling. Might I ask, is His Holiness feeling up to travel? . . . I see. I see . . . No, of course. He’s been through the meat grinder, poor fellow. Well, the reason I’m asking is, the president and I were thinking that a change of scenery might be just the ticket. Lift his spirits. Nothing against Cleveland, but you couldn’t really call the views there, you know, sweeping or panoramic . . . Yes, wonderful doctors. Oh, some of the very best. Of course, No, Boston’s got top doctors . . . Well here’s what we had in mind. There’s a wonderful place in the mountains . . . No, I’m afraid not. I assure you, Jangpom, we’re trying our utmost best to get Beijing to turn around on that but they just— Yes, very stubborn. Now, Jong . . . Sorry . . . Jansang . . . No, you’re pronouncing it perfectly . . . Rogers. That’s it. Your English is wonderful. Couldn’t be more impressed . . . No, I’m all in favor of prayers, but— Me? Episcopalian. But getting back to the reason I’m calling, what we had in mind was to move His Holiness to a lovely, quiet place in the mountains. Rather like Tibet. Certainly as close as we come to it here. Colorado. Um-hm. The Rocky Mountains. Not the Himalayas, but pretty gosh darned majestic, really . . . Um-hm. As it happens, our government has a first rate facility. Cheyenne Mountain . . . Yes, after the Indian tribe . . . Um-hm . . . No, no, it’s not an Indian reservation. It’s a facility. Been around forever. NORAD. It’s an acronym. To be honest, I can never remember what it stands for, but it’s right up there in the mountains, and you can’t get more secure than that. His Holiness would have complete privacy. Um. So if you’d propose that to him, that would be just the ticket. Meantime why don’t I get things teed up at my end so we can move quickly . . . Yes, well, not to sound gloomy, but under the circumstances I thought perhaps sooner rather than— So you’ ll— He’s sleeping? . . . Um. Yes, of course. The medication. Jangpom, I don’t mean to sound pushy, but would it be possible to nudge him awake just long enough to run our idea by him? He doesn’t need to be awake for the move . . . I see. I see. All right . . . Yes, I’ll be standing by. And, Jongpam, could I ask you to keep this just between ourselves? We don’t want an entire circus . . . Of course the entourage can accompany him. Bring as many lamas as you’d like. There’s lots of room for . . . Yes, I absolutely will give the president your regards . . . And your prayers, yes. And I’m sure I speak for him when I say he sends his prayers . . . The president? Methodist, I believe, but he’s very ecumenical, you know. Goes to all sorts of churches, synagogues . . . Sorry? Hold on, I want to write that down. Make sure I . . . Yes, go ahead . . . Om. Man. E. Pad. Me. Hum. Got it. And that would mean? . . . Jewel . . . Yes . . . Yes . . . Well, I think that’s a lovely sentiment. Truly . . . lovely. Yes, I will pass it along to him. All right then, Jimjong, it’s been wonderful talking with you. Good-bye . . . Yes, God bless you, too.”
They Eat Puppies, Don't They? Page 19
