“Look, I care about the two of you too. Let’s think of you as one big package. You still have to get the evidence into the right hands. We have a small jet with good range a few miles from here. It may not have been on your itinerary, but you two are headed Down Under.”
“Australia,” Bob said, putting it all together. “Five Eyes. Secure communications. Something better than Advil and Solarcaine. The whole thing. We’re really and truly out. Thank you, Boonsri.”
“We’re all doing our jobs, right,” she said. “That’s what the Agency trains us to believe. But the non-agent in me wants to thank you both for what you did for people. That bastard hurt a lot of people. You two know how much. So I am going to give you a non-agent thank you.” She hugged them both, putting her hands on their backs very gingerly, then gave them a kiss on both cheeks. “You are true heroes.”
* * *
The private jet carrying Bob and Tom landed at the Five Eyes intelligence base about one hundred miles north of Brisbane. There were stretchers waiting for them at the bottom of the ramp, but both men waved them off. The Solarcaine they carried on the plane had been used generously and they had switched from Advil to vodka. They weren’t feeling much pain.
Their bag was carried straight to the commander’s office along with their cell phones. They had snapped a few pictures on the plane while applying Solarcaine and those were added to the ones of Deng in the casino. Meanwhile the men were taken straight to the medical unit. About halfway across the tarmac Tom grabbed the shoulder of one of the medics and Bob followed suit. They told themselves it was the vodka, but in truth they had each lost about half a pint of blood as well.
More pictures were taken. They were given a shot for everything that might be carried in the Mekong: tetanus, diphtheria, giardia, malaria, and smallpox, with penicillin for good measure. Boonsri had called ahead and reported their swim for shore as well as their overall medical condition. Then came military grade topical anesthetic and antibiotics, which had to be administered as a cream as their backs were bandaged up.
“On top of being heroes, you guys are damn lucky,” the doctor told them. “Orders from above, you’re going to be staying with us for about five days for observation.”
“Is that really necessary?” asked Bob. “I want to get back to work.”
The doctor keyed a number into the phone in the corner of the infirmary. “Tell your boss that.”
Lopez came on over the speaker phone. “Bob, Tom. I am relieved to hear you’re safe. You have done your country an enormous service. The photos just arrived here. What you went through is unimaginable. But getting that belt was genius. Outstanding fieldcraft, both of you.”
“Sir, thank you, sir.”
“I told you that you wouldn’t get any parades, or even a story in the newspaper. We don’t want to tip off the gentleman to whom the belt belongs.” Lopez let out a loud laugh. “That god-damned bastard. A bullet to the head with the bill for the bullet sent to his family would be too good for him. But when I tell the President what you did, he’s going to want to personally shake your hands.
“So a photo op with the President in the Oval Office will have to suffice for your ticker-tape parade. By the way, I heard that line about you wanting to get back to work. You are on the clock as of right now. Your job is to make a complete recovery. We can’t have you bleeding all over the carpet in the Oval Office now, can we?”
Bob and Tom exchanged glances, then said in unison, “Sir, no, sir.”
* * *
When Ben and Bernadette arrived at the White House, they were surprised to see Hector Lopez had gotten there just ahead of them, briefcase in tow.
“Hector,” said Bernadette. “Are you and your wife joining our little party tonight?”
He shook his head. “I’m in and out, in an official capacity. Glad you’re here, though. It’ll save me a trip.”
“Do tell,” Bernadette said. “Can you give me a hint?”
Hector shook his head. “As much as I would love to repeat this over and over, it’ll be best if I only have to say it once.”
The Turners were waiting for them at the elevator to the second floor. Uncharacteristically, the President stepped over to shake Lopez’s hand before greeting the Colemans.
“I understand you have some news for me,” he said. “I hope it’s good. As you see, I’m entertaining guests this evening.”
“Particularly good news,” Hector said. “It is in regard to Governor Li’s position with General Deng.”
He pulled manila folders out of his briefcase and passed one to the President and one each to Ben and Bernadette. Inside was a set of glossy photographs. One was of General Deng at the blackjack table with Bob at the side of the picture. There was a picture of the belt. Fingerprints were shown in the lower right-hand corner of the picture. Then were two pictures of Bob and Tom’s backs. Cynthia Turner covered her mouth and looked away.
“Good Lord,” said Bernadette, “isn’t that Bob Franks? Is this the mission they volunteered for that you couldn’t discuss?”
The President had a look of revulsion on his face. “Hector, you told me you had something going inside China that would give us an edge in this little war we’re having with them. Would you care to explain to me what the hell this is?” He waved one of the photos for emphasis.
Lopez explained the identities of the two wounded men and the reason for the mission that had taken them into Laos.
“So they set themselves up to get this on Deng?” asked Cynthia Turner.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Lopez. “The pictures came from Five Eyes base in Queensland right after we got the men there. They are safe. We are keeping them there for a few days for medical observation and let things heal a bit. The belt was Deng’s tool of choice. We have confirmed that those fingerprints are his. The Chinese regime is really quite puritanical, and this would ruin Deng if the pictures ever got out.”
The President shook one of the photos. “Let’s see that it happens! I will hand-deliver these to the Politburo myself!”
“Sir,” said Hector, “as much as I would like to see Deng and his nephew share a prison cell with some really special prisoners, I think there’s a better purpose for these.
“The plan is to get these photos to Governor Li. He can hold them over Deng’s head. We have already wired copies to our embassy in Beijing. Monday morning the Fed’s attaché there is going to request a meeting with Li, ostensibly to provide documents related to Li and Ben’s discussion at the Bank of England. Deng can’t stop that meeting from happening, but he can insist on seeing the documents. We will be delivering two sets, one for Deng to hold as a keepsake and one for Li. It will be obvious to Deng that we have the evidence and are simply letting Li use them as he sees fit.”
The President chuckled. “Looks like my little call to Yale will doubtless be met with a prompt acceptance by all concerned, won’t it?”
“Even better,” Ben said, “Li will be able to cripple Deng’s ability to oppose him on currency and monetary issues.”
The President said, “Hector, these young men have done a great service for our country. I’d like to meet them.”
“Yes, sir. And if I can be candid, I already promised them a handshake and a photo op.”
“That’s not enough. I’d like to do something special for them. Can you come up with something appropriate, given the nature and security level of what they have done?”
Hector smiled. “It would be my pleasure, sir.”
They shook hands all around and Hector Lopez turned to exit. The elevator door opened, and as the two couples boarded, the President turned to Ben.
“Meantime, I have a bone to pick with you, Mr. Chairman.”
“Sir?”
“I thought you handled the press masterfully after my speech, but didn’t you go off script a bit?”
Ben knew what was coming, but to be on the safe side, he feigned ignorance. “Sir?”
“ ‘Citizens will hav
e the option to melt down the coins if the value of gold goes above face value.’ Damn it, we don’t want to turn the Fed into the source of a new gold rush. Isn’t the idea to keep the coins in play?”
“Sir, I called an audible when I said that,” Ben said. “I told the press that the coins could be melted down because I don’t want the coins to be melted down.”
The elevator door opened and the quartet stepped out.
“Is this more economic speak?” said the President. “I told them to melt the coins because I don’t want the coins melted? Or is it reverse psychology?”
“It’s to keep us honest,” Ben said. “If we get too excited about printing money again, that’s going to send the price of gold up. When that happens, the coins will be worth more than face value, inspiring people to melt them down for the metal. If we don’t want that to happen, then we damn well better be careful about taking measures like that, otherwise the coins will become rare collector’s items and we’ll blow up our debt again.”
Turner laughed and clapped Ben on the back. “Okay. You’re forgiven. Just let me know if you decide to go off script again.”
“If there’s time,” Ben said.
The President turned to his wife. “See? This is why I keep him around.”
The second-floor residence portion of the White House had become old hat for the Colemans. But Bernadette had never been in the family room with the television and Ben had only once their first time here. If it were part of the tour, ordinary Americans might be shocked that it looked just like the family living room in their own house. A couple of couches and La-Z-Boy recliners scattered around a coffee table. Each seat focused on the large-screen television in the center.
The only real difference was the complexity of the television. It had split screen capability, up to nine separate boxes. Lyndon Johnson, who liked to watch all of the nightly news shows, had had three separate televisions installed. With the modern proliferation of news sources, this new setup made much more sense.
Tonight they had two screens on, one tuned to CNBC World, reporting from Singapore, the other Bloomberg, which ran with the sound off. Bloomberg had better live quotes than CNBC running on a hot board at the bottom of the screen, Ben explained.
The Japanese Ministry of Finance made its announcement just before the market opened. The result was predictable. The dollar caught a bid against most major currencies, but the real action was in dollar/yuan. In this case it was only the offshore yuan that was trading. The domestic yuan exchange rate was controlled by interventions by the Bank of China and would not trade until Chinese markets opened in an hour. A chart of the minute-by-minute trading was put on screen by both networks. The yuan was skidding downward. It had closed at 14.8 to the dollar on Friday and was now running about 15.75.
Ben played his expected role as commentator. “Yuan down six percent. The authorities in Beijing are going to have to take some action. Wouldn’t surprise me if there wasn’t another crash in the Shanghai exchange server before the open. They really don’t want trading.
“The best news is that dollar/yen is stable even as the dollar trades up against both the euro and pound sterling. That means that the switch to our gold coins by the Japanese is viewed as a positive by the currency markets. I am certain the other Asian central banks have taken notice. Should help us with both the Reserve Bank of India and the Saudis.
“The Nikkei is opening off a touch. No big surprise. A relatively stronger yen and a decidedly weaker yuan is bad news for Japanese exporters.”
Cynthia turned to Bernadette, “Is he like this all the time?”
Bernadette chuckled softly. “I could tell you stories—”
“What the hell,” said Will Turner.
They turned back to the TV to see a headline flashing across the screen: China Suffers Nationwide Internet Outage.
“Now we know what the Chinese reaction is,” Ben said.
“But nationwide?” asked the President. “That is overdoing it a bit, isn’t it?”
“Sir, I think they don’t want the public to know what just happened. Best way for them to limit the news flow is to shut it down. I think this goes back to our hypothesis of the situation. The authorities don’t know what to do and are scrambling for time. With no internet, the ATMs are going to be down at the banks, the stock market can’t open, and the public won’t hear about the purchase of U.S. gold coins by the Asian central banks. At a minimum it buys time.”
“Bernadette, if that is the minimum, what is the maximum?”
“We will know soon enough. My guess is that if the hardliners have gained the upper hand the outage will be blamed on sabotage and the saboteurs will be alleged to be American agents. This creates a patriotic pretext for a nonfinancial strike at us in response.”
“Nonfinancial, meaning?”
“Military is a possibility, but my suspicion is that it will be tit-for-tat. A cyberattack, probably more limited in scope, may just be a threat. Even the hardliners will want to dial this one up slowly, gauge our response. Too big a move by them might cause a massive escalation by us, and they really don’t want to take that risk.
“Besides, Chinese military doctrine is that America is far more vulnerable to cyber warfare as our society is more dependent on the internet than theirs. Logically, any kind of measured response would be targeted. Not nationwide. Perhaps just Washington or New York.”
“Just Washington? Just New York?” The President picked up the phone and called a meeting of the China Crisis group for nine the next morning. “Let us hope the response is minimal.”
Both Ben’s and Bernadette’s cell phones vibrated. The text regarding the meeting had gone out. Even though both knew what the message said, they were both so conditioned to checking their cell phones they reached to check them anyway. “Absolutely Pavlovian,” Ben muttered when he realized what he’d done.
The television screen flashed another set of hot boards, this time indicating the open of the markets in the China region. Shanghai was closed, but Hong Kong was down nearly six percent. Singapore and Taiwan were also trading down, by two and three percent respectively.
Cynthia surveyed the faces on the others. “Is a drink in order? Something stronger than wine, perhaps?”
“My usual may be in order, thanks.” The President was not known for declining a drink at times like these, at least as long as a decision was not imminent.
“A splash of what he’s having,” Bernadette said.
Cynthia turned to Ben. “Can our commentator handle the analysis and something stronger?”
Ben was staring intently at the screen and the comment simply flew by him.
Bernadette spoke for him. “Give him what you give the President. This one goes into never-never land when it comes to analyzing numbers. It’s some form of nerd heaven. He listens to numbers the way most people listen to music.” She patted his hand.
Ben momentarily snapped out of his study. “Oh, sorry. Yes, Cynthia, I will have something. Sorry to be rude, I really did hear the question, just a bit focused.” He said all of this without taking his eyes from the television screen.
“And what do those numbers tell you?”
“The Hong Kong market reaction was to be expected. They are pegged to the U.S. dollar, which is rising sharply against the yuan. But a good portion of their revenue comes from mainland visitors, who now are decidedly poorer. Worse, the price of Hong Kong real estate is bound to drop since mainlanders can now afford to pay less for their pied-à-terre.
“The boys at HKMA are tough, though. They know they will be out of business if they break the peg with the dollar. They have to differentiate their product from the yuan somehow and this would do it. If it were not for Beijing’s reaction, I would bet they would love to buy some of our gold coins.
“As to Taiwan and Singapore, they have not made their announcement regarding coin purchases. My sense is that may be deliberate. They are going to face the same kind of choice Tokyo faced. Sen
d a geopolitical signal or help their economy by letting their currencies fall. Bernadette will have the better answer to that one.
“My instinct is that they go with geopolitics. Dianne Reynold’s presence in the region was a very important signal, Mr. President. Some presidents talked about a pivot to Asia, but her sustained presence in Tokyo while this crisis was developing was a real pivot. The economic equivalent of sending the fleet.”
“I am sure the Chairman is correct,” said Bernadette. “I would hesitate to intrude in his area of expertise, but if I were playing their hand, I would wait for the inevitable market sell-off to run its course and then step in with my announcement on coin purchases. The market will have hit a bottom and so it would appear that a rally was developing on the decision. If memory serves me correctly, the opening move usually takes about half an hour.”
As if on cue, CNBC cut to the press briefing room at the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The spokesman read a prepared statement announcing the intended purchase of $1.5 billion of the gold coins. A partial sale of the Authority’s gold stock would pay for half of the coins, other foreign currency holdings would pay for the other half. There would be no questions.
Ben reached over and gently grabbed Bernadette’s hand. “Did I ever tell you that you have a career waiting for you at a trading desk in case you get bored doing what you’re doing now?”
He then leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She responded by giving him one on the lips, though aware of where they were sitting, she made sure she held back a bit.
“You two lovebirds are certainly welcome to spend the night in the Lincoln bedroom if you wish,” Turner said.
“Thank you, sir,” said Ben. “Under different circumstances it would be a real honor. But I think it is going to be an early morning if I read my text message correctly.”
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