Currency War

by Lawrence B. Lindsey

  “Thank you, Webb. And promise me you won’t let this go to my head.”

  “Ma’am?”

  She looked out the window of the limo. “I live in a place where people show their status by the vehicle they drive. Mercedes, Lexuses, Beemers. And yet—” She shook her head as they passed a van the color of Florida coastal water. “The ultimate status symbol around here is the Aqua Blue service vehicle. What better way to show the neighbors you have a pool in your back yard?”

  “Pools are no big shakes,” Webb said. “Most everyone around here has one.”

  Bernadette nodded. “And to my point. With this little parade I’m riding grand marshall in, I think I’ve got most folks in this neighborhood trumped. Except for maybe my husband.”

  “This is small by comparison,” Webb said. “To some.”

  “That’s where you promise to not let this go to my head. In ancient Rome, the emperors would come home from war and throw a big party.”

  “A victory parade,” Webb said. “Showing off animals from captured lands, treasures, lines of defeated people who were now slaves.”

  “I knew I liked you,” Bernadette said. “And the most important thing. A slave riding in the chariot with the emperor. His sole duty—” She waited on him.

  “To stand behind him and whisper over and over into the emperor’s ear, ‘You are mortal. You are mortal.’ ”

  “Exactly.”

  “You don’t seem the type to be prone to that,” Webb said. “But I promise I’ll do my best. So when does Aqua Blue come around to your place?”

  “We don’t have a pool.”

  “Well, then. You’re mortal after all.”

  “Thank you, Webb,” Bernadette said, thinking that perhaps the twinge of nerves she’d been feeling were just first day jitters, and that today would be a great day after all.

  * * *

  The identification check at the gate was rather perfunctory—at least by modern standards—and the car drove right into the garage, sparing her having to walk across the outdoor lot if she had driven herself. An advantage of being a guest of the Director. She was dropped off at the VIP elevator and instructed to push the button for the eighth floor. There she was greeted by an unenthusiastic suit with a manufactured smile and escorted straight to the Director’s office.

  “Bernadette.” Hector Lopez smiled. “It is so wonderful to have you on board.” He seemed genuine enough about his sentiments for now.

  “Thank you, sir. I hope you can assure me that all of your staff will be as happy about my arrival.”

  “Point taken. We are team players here. Perhaps too much so. How strange it is that we recruit for the capacity for independent thought and action. After a few years the bureaucratic instinct tends to vanquish any real independence. I’m sure MI6 was a hotbed of deviant thinking, unlike us here.”

  “Fair enough,” Bernadette said. “I suppose I was cut more slack than most because of my father. But the pressure to conform was still there. Ultimately, it came down to the individual’s willingness to tell his or her employer to go fuck themselves. Not an easy thing to do, is it? I was ready. I had acted all along that I could do it, and the act was largely believed. It was what a poker player would call a semi-bluff. But it was Ben who actually provided me the opportunity to do it.”

  “That is why our current arrangement might work well. Between Ben and your novels, you have financial independence. But your relationship with the First Lady is what gives you real independence and power.”

  Bernadette raised an eyebrow.

  Hector handed her a printout. “This was added to the Drudge Report about half an hour ago. It was designed to look like a scoop, but it was actually a leak intended to send a signal.”

  Bernadette read the headline. “What’s Up Between the Colemans and the Turners?” The story went on. “Fed Chair Ben Coleman and his wife Bernadette (a/k/a bestselling author Edmund Whitehall) had dinner last night in the residence portion of the White House with President and Mrs. Turner. The arrangement was highly unusual as the residence is usually reserved only for family and their closest friends. Word has it that the First Lady and Bernadette Coleman have become very close. That would make it the ultimate power friendship in Washington.”

  “Straight from the First Lady’s office,” Hector said. “She wants the world to know that you are not to be messed with. Don’t expect a lot of outright hostility to manifest itself. That snippet has already made the rounds here.” He paused to chuckle. “Funny how the world works, isn’t it? All news is manufactured, produced in a way to make it seem spontaneous and unearthed by the hard work of the fourth estate. That narrative serves everyone, source and reporter. Shall we go into the lion’s den?”

  Bernadette and Hector entered the conference room at precisely ten o’clock. Everyone stood as the Director entered. He signaled Bernadette to take the chair at the front end of the table and the room sat as she did. Hector remained standing to make introductions.

  “Ladies and gentlemen it is my pleasure to introduce Mrs. Bernadette Coleman. She is probably better known to you over the years as the Red Ninja of MI6 fame, and to some of you as author Edmund Whitehall, author of such novels as Dragon Heart and Dragon Rising. She has graciously agreed to provide her insights on China at this delicate moment. I have other matters to attend to so I will leave you to get acquainted.” And with that he exited, leaving her to face the lions on her own.

  * * *

  As Lopez strode back into his office, Bob Franks stood at a civilian version of attention—sort of a cross between a rigid body and at ease. Lopez knew the signal. Franks had something to tell him. “What is it, Bob?”

  “Sir, I could not help overhearing Dr. Jenkins and Mr. Wei discussing General Deng.”

  Lopez was taken aback. Then realized there must be import behind this or Franks would not have stood the way he did. He decided to encourage Franks to be as candid and open as any person could be to the director of the CIA.

  “Real creep, don’t you think? Sure hope they broke the mold when they made that one.” Then to underscore the point in a military way that would leave no doubt, “Permission to speak freely.”

  “Yes, sir. It’s funny you should refer to General Deng as a creep. I may have some intelligence you could find useful in that regard.”

  “Speak.”

  “The man is a real pervert. Among certain members of, shall we say, my community, sexual tourism is a thing. Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, some other places where you can… get what you want. I mean, straight people go, too, usually underage girls, but—”

  “Tell you what, let’s skip the political correctness. It’s getting in the way of this conversation.”

  “Yes, sir.” He seemed to relax at this. “Like any community, there’s talk, advice, places to go, what to avoid. Especially important to have an information network if you’re in the military—”

  “To the point, Bob.”

  “Sir, it has come to my attention that General Deng is a regular at a certain place in Laos. See, a bunch of us ex-military intel types hang out together every Thursday. Started as kind of a support group as we transitioned out. We’re like any of those cliques in this town that share just enough to get things to move. Deng’s picture had been in the paper for some reason and one of my buds said, ‘Hey, I saw that guy last time I was on vacation in Laos.’ He goes to one of the resorts in the Golden Triangle for a week or so every year. His favorite is the King’s Roman. Right across the street from the Mekong—literally where Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand come together. Wild place.”

  “Always has been,” Lopez said. “Too far away from the capital for any of them to care. Forty years ago it was the opium capital of the world, before Afghanistan took over.”

  “Yes, sir, and sex tourism is now the dominant industry. China runs the whole area, as it does most of Laos. But this is like a lawless extension of Yunnan province. Laotian nationals aren’t even allowed to buy land there. Only
Chinese, and only those very well connected with the PLA. Perfect place for a guy like Deng to go to, uh, unwind.”

  “And how does Deng prefer to unwind? Anything we can use?”

  “I believe so. He loves whipping teenage boys. It’s his thing. Bloody shirt kind of stuff. Has a special belt with a steel inner shaft just for the job. Sometimes he does two or three boys at the same time.”

  “Yes, perfect….” Lopez muttered, his mind in fast forward, thinking how best to deploy this new intel.

  “His aide pays them off,” Bob continued. “A kid can feed his family a month for a few hours of rough play. Maybe it’s a way of getting some repeats or maybe he hopes they will tell their friends. Seems to be an open secret around the area. Doesn’t seem to be a shortage of kids willing to put themselves through it. Deng can go through a dozen in a weekend.”

  “Who else knows about this, Bob?”

  “Here at the agency? Nobody.”

  “Over there?”

  “Like I said, an open secret. Everybody knows. Nobody talks.”

  Lopez thought about this. “You have any documentation of this?”

  “Nothing that could be lifted out of a trash can, sir. Deng plays pretty clean over there, has his assistant do all the dirty work, acting as a firewall, keeping away anything that might taint the General’s reputation. I’m sorry I don’t have more. I thought this might be the kind of thing you want to keep in your back pocket. In case.”

  “In case,” Hector said. “Yes, indeed. It’s nice to have a card up one’s sleeve when the game gets tense, even better when it’s an ace. And that, Mr. Franks, is one hell of an ace.”

  * * *

  As if on some prearranged cue, the meeting continued as if Lopez hadn’t been there at all. The woman to Bernadette’s left began.

  “Mrs. Coleman, I am Monica Jenkins, head of the Agency’s China Division.”

  “I recognized you from your file,” Bernadette said, then caught herself. “I’m sorry. I’m falling back into my old habits. Didn’t think it would happen so easily. Please, call me Bernadette. I think the American custom of starting off with first names is the right way to go. So Monica, I think that your report on the passing of the Red Guard generation a few years back was absolutely brilliant.’ She could see the faintest hint of a smile on Monica’s face. Bernadette knew she was being a classic politician, and maybe this hardened group of professionals knew it too. But although flattery might not get you everything, as the saying claimed, it was a good place to start. The tension in the room began to dissipate noticeably. This was Organizational Behavior 101.

  The man to Monica’s left then spoke. “I’m Richard Wei, deputy director of the China Division.”

  The conversation then went around the table with each person identifying themselves. When it came around to Bernadette, she said, “I am here to learn. So if you would be kind enough to give me your standard briefing and how you see the situation. I will do my best to be a fast learner.”

  At around eleven-fifteen Wei went to the coffee machine and brought Bernadette a cup of dark roast along with packets of half-and-half and sugar. He whispered, “Agency policy is I bring you the first cup. After that you’re on your own.” Bernadette rewarded him with her best smile.

  By twelve-thirty sandwiches arrived along with sides. People helped themselves when there was a lull in the action. By one-thirty the group had gone through the entire standard briefing—who the players were, how they interacted, where the decision nodes were in the bureaucracy. Both very thorough and very conventional, Bernadette thought.

  As division head, Monica made the break. “So you’ve heard our analysis. What do you think? I’ve got to tell you that your reputation precedes you. All of us want to know what Red Ninja’s assessment of the situation is.” The words were spoken genuinely enough, but Bernadette knew that this was the trickiest part of the transition. To be effective they really had to stop thinking of one another as competing teams and work on the cross-fertilization of ideas.

  “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” Bernadette said. “And I am going to need a few days to come up with a real assessment. But let me try out a few initial thoughts and see what you think. First and foremost, I think we need to be careful about our classification system—hawks and doves, hardliners and moderates. Factionalism tends to be overdone everywhere, even here. We talk about Republicans and Democrats but there are really one hundred separate parties in the Senate and 435 in the House. Politicians at this level here and in China didn’t get where they are by blending into the crowd.

  “What intrigued me most in your analysis was the perceived tradeoff between external cohesion and internal paranoia. I have my own prejudices on that score, but I will admit they might be a bit out of line. Monica, could you give me your thought process on that?”

  And so it continued for the entire afternoon. Around five fifteen Director Lopez came back to be greeted by an intense discussion. “So how’s it going?” The question was rhetorical; it was obvious that his team and Bernadette had bonded. “May I join you?” He pulled up a chair. Bernadette moved slightly to her right to make room and Hector sat directly between her and Monica.

  Bernadette motioned to Monica to do the honors.

  “Well, sir,” Monica said, “we are at the strategizing stage, gaming out different responses on the part of the Chinese. Bernadette has pointed out something that may be an even more fatal flaw than what we had thought. The question to ask is, ‘Who is going to take the bullet if something goes wrong?’ Does that person know it? Will everyone else in the group let that happen to save their own skin?

  “We think we have a consensus. The scapegoat is going to be Governor Li. It is his area of operations. He is, by the nature of his job, more outwardly focused than everyone else. He is also to some extent isolated at the central bank, with no obvious allies. He must understand his situation. Any look at his resume shows that he’s a man who understands office politics quite well. He’s been in the lynch mob himself a number of times, but never the guest of honor. He understands the dynamics quite well. He is the perfect candidate.

  “He therefore becomes our weak link in the decision tree. In an ideal world we should simultaneously stoke his paranoia and give him an out. And I mean that last one in the literal sense.”

  “You mean asylum?” Hector couldn’t help himself. It would be an almost impossible stunt to pull off.

  Bernadette decided it was time to come in on the side of the newly forged consensus. “Hector, it would only be a last resort. Asylum wouldn’t necessarily be the best outcome, which would be for us to somehow make him look like the hero who saved China from a tough situation that others had gotten the country into. He would save face and maybe his life, and would actually gain face in the process. He would also know that we did that for him. As a way to produce smooth economic relations with the People’s Republic that would be, as you Americans say it, a home run.”

  This inspired a number of conversations to break out around the table. Bernadette decided to take advantage of the break and reached for her cell phone.

  “Sorry,” said Hector. “That won’t work in here. No phone, no text, and no email, at least on that device. I suspect you intended to call Ben. We’ve already let him know you’re running late, so don’t worry.” To help Bernadette recover from her embarrassment, he went on. “Ben is working late too. We all have the same problem. No, let’s call it an opportunity. The President is giving a nationally televised address to the nation on Tuesday night.”

  The pained expressions were on every face around the table. The last thing anyone in the bureaucracy wanted was for the President to be out there winging it. It would complicate their lives, their planning, and inevitably limit their options. There was a constant tension in Washington between who was the boss in theory, constitutionally, and who actually thought that they were in charge.

  “I did say opportunity, didn’t I?” Hector said. “Speechwriters ha
ve it now. First draft will be around tomorrow. We are on the distribution list. So is Chairman Coleman. And so, I understand, is the First Lady.” Hector looked briefly at Bernadette who was doing her best to maintain a poker face.

  “Input to the speechwriters?” Monica asked.

  “Secretary Steinway has asked me, Ben Coleman, and Secretary Reynolds to put together something preliminary for tonight. Recommendations?”

  With that began two hours of give and take. Bernadette thought about being back in the joys of life in the civil service. Her first day was going to run 11 hours. But then again, to be honest with myself, she thought, it’s really great being back in the fight.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “MY FELLOW AMERICANS. TONIGHT I come before you at a time of grave peril for our nation.”

  “No, Mr. President, I don’t think we can use the term ‘grave.’ ” It was the Secretary of State, Dianne Reynolds. Her job was to advocate for maximum calm in the world stage. “It means deadly. Too bellicose and scary. How about ‘a time of challenge’?”

  “When have we not been challenged?” This was Roger Lombardi, the President’s chief of staff. It was his job to protect the President’s interests, and he felt that Secretary Reynolds was tarnishing the President’s reputation as a tough man who tackled tough challenges. A president needed someone who could say things that a president could not and get it right about ninety-five percent of the time. Everyone needed to assume that when the chief of staff spoke, he was carrying the authority of the president. If he stepped out of line the president would tell him so, but privately. “The President cannot sound namby-pamby about this. With all due respect, Madam Secretary.”

  “Dianne,” said the President, “I think Roger has a point. But folks, this is only the first line. I’ve got a speech to give in just over twenty-four hours. I can’t have you bickering over each and every word.”

  “Mr. President, perhaps we could balance the risks with something more upbeat,” said Lombardi. “At a time of genuine peril, but also one that offers great opportunity.”