Currency War

by Lawrence B. Lindsey

  “I never—”

  “No, I’m exaggerating, but that’s the point. It was the emotional contagion. The need to get in there, get closer, not just see what was going on, but be immersed. Feel the people moving as one, hearing their shouts, and, yes, the smell of sweat and desperation.”

  Bernadette nodded. “Okay. Then what about jumping into a dumpster? Did that help you observe the bank run?”

  “There was a riot going on around me. What should I have done?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “For starters—” She caught herself and stopped.

  “That’s it,” Ben said. “You know exactly what I should have done, and I didn’t do it. So you’re upset because—” He looked in her eyes. “You’re jealous. I went out and did something you’re trained for and made a hash of it, and you know you could have done it better.”

  Her nostrils flared. “I don’t know what I could have done. All that training was so long ago, it’s like muscles that haven’t been used in a while. They’ve atrophied. Maybe if I’d been there, I would have gotten us both killed.”

  “That’s not the case and you know it.”

  She set her jaw. “No. The case is that you should’ve listened to your handler when she told you no and let them drive you to the airport. It was more than a bank run you were stepping into. If something had happened to you, it could’ve led to an international incident.”

  Ben knew when he was licked. “Honey, you’re right. You’re not jealous. I was foolish and reckless. I’m sorry you were worried for me.”

  Bernadette knew he hadn’t learned his lesson but decided to press her point. “If you had the chance to do it all over again, would you have done the same thing?”

  Ben knew that Bernadette wanted the truth. “You know I would. And I am not the only person in this room who is like that.”

  “Touché,” said Bernadette. “But there are unavoidable risks and ones you can prevent. You’re married to me and I love you, and I can’t imagine life without you. So if there are risks that are avoidable, I expect you to avoid them in the future.”

  “You know I can’t promise that.”

  “Then you’re being damn selfish.”

  “Who is being selfish here? You’ve had your share of preventable, unavoidable risks and I’ve been nothing but a policy wonk. Why shouldn’t I have some moments of risk-taking?”

  “Is this a midlife crisis rearing its head?”

  “No. I’m not seeking it. If I were, I’d take up wingsuit flying. I’m saying if risk comes my way in the line of my work, I’m not going to run from it.”

  Bernadette gave him that tight-lipped look. Time to backpedal, he thought.

  “Besides, I’m a policy wonk, remember? This is probably the only time in my life something like this will happen.”

  “It had better be.” She gave him a perfunctory kiss.

  “Me too.”

  Then he put his head down on the pillow and she covered him up, tucking him in for a sleep she knew he needed.

  * * *

  Ben leaned forward to get up, his high-backed chair protesting at the request. Stretching his lower back, he moved to the window passing the collection of family photos documenting toothless grins and graduations, all organized on bookshelves holding tales of Washington’s evolution. He watched at the traffic on Constitution Avenue, contemplating his next move. He removed his glasses and rubbed his deep-set blue eyes with the heel of his hand.

  He had spent the last hour at his desk, staring at his computer screen, trying to get information on the Beijing bank run out of Google. He was surprised at how little information there actually was. The Chinese were clamping down on the information flow, and it didn’t help that Google was working with the Chinese government to enhance their censorship capabilities. Don’t be evil, my ass, he thought.

  Ben tossed his glasses on to his desk and opened the door to his secretary’s office. “Peggy, get me the Secretary of the Treasury on the phone. I suspect he’s going to want a personal debriefing before I submit to the CIA’s proctological exam. Please check my calendar, see what kind of openings we can make.”

  “I’m on the case.” Her voice was bright as it always was. Ben wondered how she could keep that tone, day in and day out, with the hours that were often required of her.

  “And a heads up,” he added. “The next few days are going to be a meat grinder until everyone’s done reaming me out for my Cub Scout antics. Fair warning.”

  “Don’t worry Mr. Chairman. You can count on me to have your back.” Peggy pulled her well-pilled cardigan together and set to work.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I don’t appreciate you enough.”

  She peered at Ben over the top of her glasses, her bright pink lips revealing a crooked smile. “Mr. Chairman, is there anything else I can do for you?”

  They had known each other for almost thirty years. He preferred she call him “Ben,” but titles played a critical role in Washington. They showed respect for the office, but more importantly, put officeholders in their place. It was a way of being reminded, You’ve got a job to do and those who report to you expect you to do it. That is what you are here for. Don’t make it personal. This is duty.

  As he returned to his desk, Peggy’s voice came through the intercom. “It’s Governor Li on the line.”

  He raised his eyebrows as he picked up the phone. “Governor Li. So good of you to call.”

  “Mr. Chairman. I am calling to apologize for everything you went through during your visit. Not only did you take the time to fly to Beijing for our first meeting, but your trip turned out to be more eventful than anyone might have anticipated. Your visit convinced me that we are going to have to work together more than I had ever anticipated. To reciprocate, I want to follow the American custom and ask that you call me by my first name. Please, call me Xue.”

  “I like that custom, particularly in this case,” Ben said. “And please call me Ben.”

  “It would be a pleasure and a great honor to do so,” said Li.

  “So, Xue, I reflected on your comment about the importance of the Chinese people coming to treasure the yuan as much as they treasure gold. I think now I understand how complex your situation is.”

  “Ben, you should have been a diplomat. Complex is a word that covers a host of sins.”

  “I understand the nature of bank runs. The closest America has come in recent times was on 9/11.”

  He thought back on that day, the rush on ATMs as people tried to get cash to hold them through the emergency. It was particularly rough in the New York metropolitan area. The staff at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York worked as fast as they could to deliver cash to bank branches to satisfy the demand and keep ATMs filled with twenties. They knew what would happen if, on top of seeing buildings collapse, people couldn’t get access to their money. They would lose confidence in their banks, and subsequently, American currency.

  “What I learned then,” he continued, “is that money and banking are both based on confidence. So the need for the Chinese people to treasure the yuan is now painfully apparent to me.”

  “I chose the word treasure deliberately,” said Li. “We both have an interest in minimizing the collateral damage that might occur from an economic conflict between our two countries. As you know, when emergencies begin, time is never on our side. Perhaps we could commit to each other to communicate the possibility of an emergency developing as soon as we become aware of it.”

  Ben said, “Xue, I completely concur. I can assure you at this time that the U.S. has no intention of increasing the strain on the Chinese banking system. I hope that the politicians in your country understand that certain actions they might take could exacerbate your problems.”

  “I suppose politicians are the same everywhere,” Li said. “They seem to think that desperate times require desperate measures. But you and I know that desperate times require calming measures.”

  “So we have a personal agreement to work t
ogether as much as possible to calm the waters. Agreed?”

  “Absolutely,” said Li. There was a brief pause, then he continued. “Please forgive my rudeness. I should have inquired about your shoulder at the beginning. I hope you are okay. Economic wars are one thing. Damage to one’s person is quite another. You have gone above and beyond the call of duty for a central banker for your country and to promote global calm.”

  “Thank you. It was nothing. Just a little blood drawn. Fortunately, your doctors did a good job. Their expertise meant that it only required three stitches.”

  “It’s good to know you weren’t in any real danger,” Xue said. “I look forward to our next conversation.”

  “And I as well.”

  They exchanged goodbyes and Ben hung up the phone. He exhaled slowly. With all the chaos of his leaving Beijing under less-than-ideal circumstances, he hadn’t had much opportunity to worry about the unsure footing that had begun his relationship with the Governor. And while Li’s comments had sounded natural, it was obvious that the two were not alone in their conversation. Still, Ben felt secure in knowing that he and Governor Li Xue were seeing eye-to-eye on their need to manage the relationship between their nations. Putting it into play, however, would be quite another matter. It would start with explaining his actions to his own government.

  * * *

  Li Xue hung up his phone and looked at the two people who had been listening in on headphones. The first was a diminutive man, small even by Chinese standards. Except for his ostentatious uniform adorned with insignias that bore witness to the many honors bestowed upon him as a commander of the People’s Liberation Army, he was nondescript. The other was a slight woman with a downcast look, not a surprise considering what she had been through in the past forty-eight hours. She removed her headphones, carefully folded them, and put them on Li’s desk.

  General Deng pulled his headphones off and tossed them down without regard. It was a loud gesture, like everything he did. “Li Xue,” he said. “Are you confident you have Chairman Coleman where you want him?”

  “I am, Comrade General.”

  “You had better be. Personally, I found your groveling for his favor to be distasteful. Humiliating.” He looked over at Zhang Jin, who kept her eyes on the floor.

  Deng stared at her. He didn’t like her, didn’t like the way she deferred to him, more fear than the respect he deserved. Yet there was more respect in her voice when she spoke of that American, Ben Coleman. Her relationship with Coleman, he felt, was suspect. Did she see him as an eventual way out of China? Worse yet, did she love him? That had happened before with handlers. And what people thought of as love could make them do very strange things. Even betray China. He learned that at an early age.

  He remembered his first lesson in love and treason. It happened when he was eight and the Cultural Revolution was in full swing. The Red Guards came for his father and dragged him into the town square along with his mother. The mob surrounded the stage where his father was being paraded around with a dunce cap on his head and a big character sign hung around his neck proclaiming, “Traitor to China.”

  The mob was shouting “Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!” Deng and his mother were put in the front row below the stage and forced to watch the proceedings. The chanting went on forever, or so it seemed.

  Then his father was brought forward at bayonet point. He was forced to confess his faults. Whenever he hesitated one of the guards would push a bayonet point just far enough forward to hurt but not to break the skin while the other guard shouted in this ear—“Traitor!” The mob would resume its chant of “Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!”

  Finally his father broke. “Yes. I am a traitor to China. I am deeply ashamed.”

  “Louder!” screamed the guard into his left ear. His father confessed his crimes at the top of his lungs.

  Deng felt so ashamed. His father had betrayed China. He had betrayed Chairman Mao. He felt the anger well up inside. His father had betrayed him. He had been tricked into loving a man who was an enemy to China and an enemy of the people.

  The guards shouted to the crowd, “What should we do to the traitor?”

  The crowd dutifully responded, “Death, death, death! Death to all traitors!”

  Deng felt his mother squeeze his hand harder. Was his mother a traitor too? He knew that she loved the man on the stage before them. Was she part of his father’s conspiracy against China? He had no evidence but knew he could never trust her again.

  The guards forced his father down on his knees. They removed the dunce cap and pulled his hair forcing him to bow his head. He stared down at his son as the guard put his revolver to the back of his head. Deng joined the crowd’s chant.

  “Death, death, death! Death to all traitors!”

  It was the last thing his father ever saw as the bullet pierced his head.

  The next day the guard who had pulled the trigger came into Deng’s classroom. He motioned for Deng to come to the front of the room and put one hand on each of his shoulders. “Deng Wenxi is the son of a traitor. But he is not a traitor! He denounced his father’s crimes and rightly demanded his death!” His classmates all applauded. Then they began to chant, “Deng! Deng! Deng!” Each student pulled out a copy of the little red book, The Thoughts of Chairman Mao. In truth, it was the only book in the classroom and reading Mao’s thoughts was the curriculum. With each chant of Deng’s name, they thrust the book upward toward the ceiling.

  His head filled with that moment. There he was, a hero to his peers, a hero of the Ancestor Land. Tears ran from his eyes, at first, he thought, from the image of his father’s body being dragged off, leaving a trail of blood on the ground. But no, he told himself. It was because he loved China, more than Mother, more than Father, more than anything.

  But that glory of love was short-lived.

  It was only a few nights later when Deng was wakened in the middle of the night by his mother’s sobs. This was nothing new since the execution of his father, but there was more to it now. Pleading was part of the sobbing, her voice in distress.

  Deng hopped out of bed and wandered to her room to find a man standing over her bed, clad only in his underwear and gesturing wildly at her. She was curled up in a corner of the bed, the sheets wadded up before her.

  “Mama?”

  The word slipped out of his mouth. She saw him and said No, and the man turned to face him.

  It was one of the soldiers who had dragged away his father’s body.

  “Get out of here,” the man said, “bastard son of a traitor.”

  “I am no traitor,” Deng said. “I am a hero of China.”

  The man cuffed him in the side of the head. Deng went down to the floor, hand clutched over his left ear. Then, swearing, the man kicked and slapped at him, cursing his father, his mother, his name, and it went on and on until he wasn’t in the room any longer and awoke, bruised and sore, in his bed the next day, confused.

  Why had the soldier treated him that way? Was his mother a traitor as well? He would never figure it out. All he would figure out was about love. No matter who or what it was for, it had gotten him nothing. All there was to be had was duty.

  It was something this Zhang Jin needed to learn. But even if she did, he knew that he could never trust her. Like his mother.

  “It was not groveling.”

  Deng was thrown from his thoughts by Li’s voice. “What?”

  “It was not groveling, Comrade General. I wanted to express concern for his welfare and build a bridge of trust we can exploit later. We did not get off to a great footing in our first meeting, especially due to the events that surrounded his departure, and this allowed me to extend an olive branch.”

  “If I knew it would come to this, we could have arranged for him not to make it out of the country. It is beneath our dignity.” He turned to glare at Jin. “I don’t understand how this could have gotten out of our control.”

  “It was fortunate for us that it did,” Li said. “Remembe
r the expression, ‘Better the devils you know?’ Chairman Coleman is a known quantity. I have read his papers, know how he thinks. And, of course, there are other advantages to gaining his favor that we all know.” He looked at Zhang Jin, offering her a hopeful look. With her eyes still on the floor, she didn’t see it. “If something had happened to him, it would have multiplied our problems.”

  “As long as the situation is back in control.” Deng turned his icy glare from Zhang Jin to Li. “You both understand the roles you’re going to play, don’t you? Li, you are to keep the Chairman from doing anything rash and explaining away any actions on our side that might cause him alarm.

  “Zhang Jin, were it up to me, you would be in permanent exile for the grief you brought us. But I also see the protocol division’s wisdom in promoting you. You have great skills and useful information about the Chairman, so you are still valuable to us, at least for now.”

  “Of course, Comrade General,” said Jin. “I am most grateful for your compliment. I am proud to be able to serve the people of China in this capacity.”

  “I expect the both of you to do your duty to the people with the utmost of your ability,” Deng continued.

  Li said, “Comrade General, my devotion to our cause is complete. We need to project calmness until the moment is right to strike. That moment is still some time away.”

  “Comrade Governor, that is for the Politburo to determine.”

  Apparently, my line about desperate measures did not sink in, Li thought. Subtleties apparently don’t work on Deng.

  General Deng stood, signaling the meeting was over. He turned and left Li’s office, not bothering to shake hands.

  When he was down the hall, Zhang Jin finally looked up. They exchanged a look, neither one liking what they saw on the other’s face.

  * * *

  Ben had barely hung up with Li when Peggy’s voice again crackled over the intercom.