“Yeah, yeah.”
“There’s this big split in the Standing Committee. Over whether to let Saffron Man come home. The Standing Committee? With me?”
“Yes.” Bird rolled his eyes. “The Politburo Standing Committee. The nine who rule China. Want me to name them? Dopey, Grumpy, Sneezy—”
Angel lowered her voice to a whisper. “Han, the general, the defense minister, and Lo, the security minister, are hard-core Lama haters. If it were up to them, they’d pave Tibet and put up a parking lot. But Henry says there are others on the Standing Committee who think this could be an opportunity to score points at the UN by letting Saffron Man back in. Meanwhile Fa—the president—word is he doesn’t know whether to crap or go crazy. Remember, they didn’t make him chairman of the Central Military Commission. It would be like the U.S. president wasn’t in charge of the Pentagon. Tricky. So he’s got to watch it, or General Han could fire an RPG up his ass. Han and Lo think Fa’s gone totally squish on Tibet. Why, exactly, no one can quite figure out. When Fa was party boss in Lhasa, the firing squads were working overtime. Then he lightened up a bit and managed to get things calmed down.” She chuckled. “The poor guy barfed in the middle of some speech he was giving. Altitude sickness. Projectile-vomited over the podium into the laps of the delegation from Zimbabwe. What I’d give to have been there. Anyway, Henry says things could get ugly over there. Very, very ugly.” She grinned. “Wouldn’t that just be terrible?”
“Is terrible desirable?”
Angel said almost tenderly, “Dear sweet Bird, we’ve got to work on your strategic thinking. I’ll give you some books to read. Listen to Momma. So there’s a power struggle going among the nine guys who rule China. You’ve got your hawks and your ducks. Assuming Henry is right—and on China, Henry is always right—Fa is leading the ducks. Which is logical, because Fa is all about harmony. His nickname is ‘Iced Tea’ or ‘Cool Tranquillity,’ or something like that. Wants everyone to get along. So there’s the Big Picture. Now, more important—what’s in this for us? You tell me. Why have we been doing everything we’ve been doing?”
Bird said, “Well, I think I know why you’re doing it. This is your idea of fun. Why am I doing it? As I explained, the foundation I represent wants to show the world the”—Bird sounded tired all of a sudden—“true nature of the threat. And all that.”
“You sound like you’re reading off cue cards. Okay, pay attention to Momma. Fa. Harmony. Smiles. Looks like a dentist. Imagine him surrounded by grandchildren, dandling them on his knee. How do we make our case that China is Public Enemy Number One when the top guy looks and sounds like a guest on Sesame Street? He can’t get through a sentence without saying ‘harmony’ and ‘mutual understanding’ and ‘panglobalism’ and ‘interconnectivity’ and all that cuddly yap. But General Han—he’s like an actual reincarnation of Genghis Khan, only this time No More Mr. Nice Khan. And Lo? Sca-ry. If they shove Fa out the door and take over, then Americans will see the real face of China. The one with fangs. And it’s going to scare the shit out of them.” Angel smiled. “And our job will become so much easier. Questions?” She checked her watch. “God, I’m late.”
“Just so I’m clear,” Bird said. “We don’t actually want a war with China. Right?”
“Well”—Angel smiled—“I’m not sure I’d go that far.”
“Oh, Angel.”
“Calm down. Not a full-scale war. But I wouldn’t say no to a little naval bang-bang in the Taiwan Strait. A little wingtip-to-wingtip in disputed airspace? Incidents like that can be so clarifying.”
Bird stared.
“Sweetheart,” Angel said, tousling his hair. “Sometimes I think your way of flirting with me is pretending to be obtuse. But assuming you really are obtuse, don’t you see? There’s a larger purpose here. If our country, the greatest country in the world—in the history of the world—is going to remain strong, we’ve got to wean ourselves off that big yellow tit.”
“Which tit?”
“The Central Bank of China tit. But because we can’t get our act together, we go on suckling and running up all this debt. Which we’re passing along to the next generation. You don’t have children because—excuse me for saying this—it would interfere with Mrs. McIntyre’s dressage practice. I, however, do have a child. And someday, if we go on this way, my little Barry will go to the ATM machine and it’ll say, ‘Would you like to continue in Mandarin or in Cantonese?’ I’m not going to let that happen. This country is going to come to its senses about China if I have to smash every dish in the cupboard.”
She stood up, and as she did, her miniskirt rose rather too high. She blushed, suddenly girlish, tugging down the hem.
“Oops, wardrobe malfunction.”
Just then her bodyguards entered the war room: Burka and the two new guys.
“I know,” she said. “I’m calamitously late.”
Angel had been getting more and more death threats because of her increasingly high media profile. Two more myrmidons had been added to her security entourage: unsmiling, crew-cut cinder blocks with dark glasses, earpieces, and webbed vests that bulged. They clinked when they walked.
“Delta,” she explained to Bird. “Expensive. But this is not an area where you skimp.”
“Do you think they’d like to come over some night for hot chocolate and charades?”
Bird himself was trying to maintain as low a profile as possible. It would hardly do if Groepping-Sprunt’s allegedly “former” top lobbyist were unmasked as Angel’s co– China-baiter. And his “foundation,” Pan-Pacific Solutions, existed only on paper. Any investigative reporter ten minutes out of J school would connect the dots. And there was an even more pressing reason for Bird to keep his China profile horizontal. Things on the home front were tricky enough without having Myndi learn that her husband was spending his days spinning lies about the country that was hosting the Tang Cup International Equestrian Competition, for the high moral purpose of lubricating some mysterious weapons system through Congress.
But keeping a low profile was getting harder. The Dalai Lama was now on U.S. soil, in Cleveland, and hot news. In a few hours, the world was going to be told whether he had a mortal illness. And with Angel leading the charge, media interest was intense. The side-walk in front of the Institute for Continuing Conflict had become a bivouac of satellite vans and stand-ups. Bird was reduced to sneaking in and out of the ICC via the basement. At this rate they’d have to start smuggling him in and out disguised as a pizza deliveryman. Exciting as it all was, he chafed at the indignity of having to slink through an underground entryway next to a dumpster that reeked of sour garbage. He consoled himself with the thought that it was good research for the novel, which was going very well indeed.
CHAPTER 16
WE’RE LOOKING FOR A SAFFRON REVOLUTION
Truly, it had been an exhausting day. Too weary to wait up to hear the announcement, Fa retired at eleven. Gang would wake him.
He was asleep within minutes of his head touching the pillow. Asleep, but not soundly, for the grim phantasm had been resummoned from the synaptic abyss. Once again Cool Limpidity tossed and turned on a bed damp with sweat, staring into a steaming bowl of dumplings, each bearing the grotesque, distinct visage of his father, him of blessed memory.
The president of the People’s Republic awoke with a gasp. Madam Fa was away in Shenzhen, opening a new maternity hospital, part of the new propaganda office campaign to counter the unfortunate publicity occasioned by the large number of newborn female infants being found in China’s garbage.
Fa could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He wiped the perspiration from his face with the sleeve of his pajama top, poured a glass of ice water from the thermos on his beside table, and gulped down the cool water.
He turned on the light and saw the time. One-fifteen. He contemplated a sleeping pill. Must get a grip. His heart was beating even faster now—like a drum. Surely this was not healthy. The dreadfulness of the nightmare had made hi
m forget entirely about the business going on halfway around the world. At that very moment . . .
. . . At a podium in the auditorium of the Duncan-Neuhauser Institute in Cleveland stood a Dr. Daniel Coit, identified at the bottom of a million television screens as
WORLD’S TOP PHEOCHROMOCYTOMA EXPERT
It fell to the pleasant-faced, white-coated Dr. Coit to convey the grave news that His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s condition was “inoperable” and “end-stage.” He avoided the words fatal and terminal and he’s toast.
Back on the other side of the globe, President Fa arrived at the decision that he would take a pill. Perhaps even two pills. A good thing Madam Fa was not here; she would have forbidden him the second pill.
As he was unscrewing the cap on the bottle, a soft knock on the door announced the presence of the faithful Gang. The knock reminded Fa of the events transpiring in Ohio, USA. He saw from Gang’s expression what the news was.
“How long?”
“The doctor who made the announcement tried to make it sound like a bad head cold,” Gang said. “Cheerfulness—the great American passion. Always they want to be cheerful. A month, maybe. There’s no treatment for it. Even in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.”
The two men looked at each other and nodded. On cue, Gang said in a slightly louder voice, “So our Minister Lo was right after all?”
“Yes,” Fa replied evenly, following the script. “And I was wrong. China is fortunate to have a man like Lo. A true servant of the party. I should never have questioned his instincts.”
Fa enunciated this pabulum with as much enthusiasm as he could muster in the middle of the night, his nerves still jangly from the nightmare. He made a face at Gang as if to say, Enough of that.
Gang looked at his boss with concern. He saw how rattled he was. “Comrade, are you . . . well?”
Fa stared at the floor.
Gang knew straightaway. “It’s back?”
Fa nodded. “Yes. The indigestion is back.”
“Let me send for Physician Hu,” Gang said. Physician Hu looked after the party elite. He was an excellent doctor—Harvard trained. Thoroughly modern, yet also an ardent herbalist.
“What can Hu do?” Fa said. “For something like this?”
Fa and Gang had kept the nightmare a secret. Little good could come if it were known by State Security. MSS kept a vigilant eye on all the medical files. If the leadership had been aware that their rising star Fa suffered from bizarre night terrors— Well, no, that would not do. Calmness and equanimity—conscious and otherwise—were the qualities prized in the top echelons of the CCP.
Fa had even kept the dream and the lama’s curse from his own wife. Why trouble her with superstition and witchery? Lacking the real explanation for her husband’s troubled sleep, Madam Fa put it down to an incident from his childhood, when at age eight Fa had eaten a bad shrimp dumpling and endured a traumatic episode of food poisoning.
As for telling Physician Hu about the nightmares—it was out of the question. There was danger enough without handing Lo Guo-wei information that the leader of the nation and the party, the president of China, was convinced that an evil spell had been cast on him by a hysterical Tibetan monk being dragged off to the firing squad.
Gang said, “I only thought . . . perhaps one of his soothing teas, to help with the indigestion.”
“Soothing,” Fa snorted. “Yes, I could use some soothing.” Petulantly, impulsively, he reached for the cigarette case. He lit one and inhaled deeply. He held out the case to Gang. Gang had been practicing the Fourth Improvement even before it had been formulated as state policy, but he took one out of companionship. The president lit it for him. Gang pretended to inhale.
“In view of the news, then, shall I convene the committee, Comrade President?”
“Yes. Nine o’clock.” He took another long pull on the cigarette—it was soothing—and exhaled. He smiled. “No, best make it eight. If I wait until nine, they’ll say, ‘Aha, President Fa thinks his sleep is more important than this!’ ”
“Very well. Eight o’clock. Oh, Comrade President, I almost forgot. That report you asked me for?”
“Report?”
“From the Guizhou Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau. Regarding the leak from the lithium plant in Zunyi into Lake Lengung?”
“Ah,” Fa said, picking up the cue. “Yes, yes. I want very much to see that. Terrible business. Show me.”
Gang removed from his jacket a folded piece of paper and handed it to Fa. Fa opened it and read.
It was in Gang’s handwriting. Gang never used a computer for matters of strict confidentiality. Anything typed on a computer in Zhongnanhai—even in the presidential secretariat, especially in the presidential secretariat—mirrored on a screen at MSS. No, such notes as these—not that there had been any quite like this one—Gang took care to write in light pencil, on a single sheet of paper atop a hard, nonimpressionable surface.
Fa read.
Have established contact with Shihong . . .
“Shihong” was their code name for Admiral Zhang, Fa’s old mentor, Lo’s predecessor as minister of state security. Zhang had chosen the name himself, which translated as “Mankind Is Red.” “Protective coloring!” Zhang explained. Zhang was an unrepentant maker of puns, many of them truly awful. He loved practical jokes as well. If these characteristics seemed unusual in someone of his profession, it helped to remember that before he took over State Security, he’d been a sailor. And sailors . . . are, well, sailors.
Fa read on:
Extends warmest personal wishes and expresses keenest enthusiasm in this endeavor. Proposes as operational code name “CHANGPU.”
Approve?
Changpu. “Flourishing vine.”
Fa thought, Dear Zhang—he cannot help himself. Well, why not “flourishing vine”? Fa nodded at Gang and continued to read.
Shihong confirms that he remains under continuous MSS surveillance—on personal orders Lo. Therefore proposes the following: that a request be made to Deputy Commercial Minister Xu Finma (I can arrange this myself) that Shihong be added to a delegation departing Shanghai this Thursday for San Diego USA to attend an int’l fisheries conference. (Rationale: Shihong’s prior navy role and involvement in sea treaty negotiation.) Shihong confident this will not raise alarms MSS. In San Diego, Shihong will establish contact with Beluga. Shihong has maintained cordial relations with Beluga. Shihong estimates chance of Beluga agreeing to the plan at 70 percent.
Fa nodded.
In event Beluga is agreeable to plan, Shihong and he will implement and execute CHANGPU. In event Shihong and Beluga deem Shihong continued presence USA vital, Shihong will contrive illness requiring hospitalization. (Has means to effect this.)
Approve?
Fa folded the piece of paper and handed it back to Gang. He nodded.
Gang lit a match and held it to the paper, then dropped it flaming into the wastebasket. He took the wastebasket into the presidential bathroom and flushed the ashes down the toilet.
“I must say, Gang, a most disturbing report,” Fa said. “Let us hope that the provincial environmental deputies are up to this. One’s heart breaks for the poor fishermen.”
“What about the fish?” Gang said. “Not that there are any left. Well, Comrade President, try to get some sleep. It will be a busy morning, I think.”
BUSIER, AS IT TURNED OUT, than either Fa or Gang might have supposed.
Minister Lo and General Han arrived wearing their gravest expressions, as if China had been fiercely attacked by enemy forces in the middle of the night.
President Fa opened the meeting by stifling a yawn, not from boredom but from the sleeping pill that he finally took at 4:00 a.m. after hours of fruitless pillow thrashing over the fear that sleep would bring back the dream. He took care to begin with a bit of flattery that he had to force up his gorge centimeter by centimeter.
“Comrades,” he said, “our Comrade Minister Lo is to be most warmly congratul
ated. The information that he provided at the beginning of this unfortunate business has now been verified. His performance and that of his ministry have been exemplary. If only this could be made widely known, so that all China would realize what a true party servant it has in him.” Fa paused. “Let us show our appreciation.”
The room filled with the sound of soft hands clapping and murmurs of “Yes, well done, well done.” All this, Lo accepted without expression. His face put Fa in mind of the strange stone creatures on Easter Island, those low-browed totems of hewn volcanic rock, persistently enigmatic despite the explanations for them by archaeologists and anthropologists: absurd perhaps, yet still terrifying. General Han, sitting beside Lo, had on his best totemic-warrior face, but it was more terra-cotta than rock: reddish, grimacing, the face of a man simultaneously sharpening his sword and straining at stool.
“So, Comrades,” Fa said. “Now it’s a matter of time, perhaps very little time, until we will be hearing from the Dung Lotus.” That bit of tactical terminology also required a deliberate shove up the gullet. Eyebrows rose around the table.
He continued, “As you all know, I have expressed my opinion on how we should proceed. Now I ask for your wise counsel, adding only this caution: If we are to seize the initiative, it would be best not to delay.”
The discussion went around the table for a half hour. It was clear that Lo and Han had been lobbying and arm-twisting. Two of the committee members made such identically worded speeches against Fa’s proposal that he was at pains to suppress amusement. Some others, however, seemed to incline toward Fa.
Lo said nothing. Then, clearing his throat, he said everything.
“With your permission I should like to share something with the committee,” he said. “But I must ask for your assurance that this remain inside this room.”
Fa stiffened. Well now, what’s this? He said in a pleasant tone, “Comrade, we are all here in the service of the party. I think we can be trusted.”
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