“Mr. Winston?” a man asked.
“That’s right.” The man held up a leather ID holder, identifying himself as a federal agent. He had a partner, Winston noted, standing thirty feet away with his topcoat unbuttoned.
“Follow me, please, sir.” With that they were merely three more busy people heading off to an important meeting.
THERE WERE MANY such dossiers, each of them so large that the data had to be edited so as not to overflow the file cabinets, and it was still more convenient to do it with paper than a computer, because it was hard to get a computer that worked well in his native language. Checking up on the data would not be difficult. For one thing, there would be more press coverage to confirm or alter what he had. For another, he could confirm a lot very simply, merely by having a car drive past a few places once or twice, or by observing roads. There was little danger in that. However careful and thorough the American Secret
232
Service might be, they were not omnipotent. This Ryan fellow had a family, a wife who worked, children who went to school; and Ryan himself had a schedule he had to keep. In their official home they were safe–reasonably so, he corrected himself, since no fixed place was ever truly safe–but that safety did not follow them everywhere, did it?
It was more than anything else a matter of financing and planning. He needed a sponsor.
“HOW MANY DO you need?” the dealer asked.
“How many do you have?” the prospective buyer asked.
“I can get eighty, certainly. Perhaps a hundred,” the dealer thought aloud, sipping at his beer.
“When?”
“A week will suffice?” They were in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, and a major center for this particular trade. “Biological research?”
“Yes, my client’s scientists have a rather interesting project under way.”
“What project might that be?” the dealer asked.
“That I am not at liberty to say,” was the not unexpected answer. Nor would he say who his client was. The dealer didn’t react, and didn’t particularly care. His curiosity was human, not professional. “If your services are satisfactory, we may be back for more.” The usual enticement. The dealer nodded and commenced the substantive bargaining.
“You must understand that this is not an inexpensive undertaking. I must assemble my people. They must find a small population of the creature you desire. There are the problems of capture and transport, export licenses, the usual bureaucratic difficulties.” By which he meant bribes. Trade in African green monkeys had picked up in the last few years. Quite a few companies used them for various experimental purposes. That was generally bad for the monkeys, but there were a lot of monkeys. The African green was in no way endangered, and even if they were, the dealer didn’t especially care. Animals were a national
233
resource for his country, as oil was for the Arabs, to be marketed for hard currency. He didn’t get sentimental about them. They bit and spat, and were generally unpleasant little beggars, “cute” though they might appear to the tourists at Treetops. They also ate the crops tended by the numerous small farmers in the country, and were thoroughly detested for that reason, whatever the game wardens might say.
“These problems are not strictly our concern. Speed is. You will find that we are willing to reward you handsomely in return for reliable service.”
“Ah.” The dealer finished his beer, and, lifting his hand, snapped his fingers for a refill. He named his price. It included his overhead, pay to the gatherers, the customs people, a policeman or two, and a mid-level government bureaucrat, plus his own net profit, which in the terms of the local economy was actually quite fair, he thought. Not everyone did.
“Agreed,” the buyer said without so much as a sip of his soft drink.
It was almost a disappointment. The dealer enjoyed haggling, so much a part of the African marketplace. He’d scarcely begun to depose on how difficult and involved his business was.
“A pleasure doing business with you, sir. Call me in … five days?”
The buyer nodded. He finished his drink and took his leave. Ten minutes after that, he made a call, the third such communication to the embassy in the day, and all for the same purpose. Though he didn’t know it, yet more such calls had been made in Uganda, Zaire, Tanzania, and Mali.
JACK REMEMBERED HIS first time in the Oval Office, the way you shuffled left to right from the secretaries’ room through what turned out to be a molded door set in a curved wall, much in the manner of an eighteenth-century palace, which the White House actually was, if a modest one in the context of the times. You tended to notice the windows first of all, especially on a sunny day. Their thick-
234
ness made them look green, rather like the glass walls of an aquarium designed for a very special fish. Next you saw the desk, a large wooden one. It was always intimidating, all the more so if the President was standing there, waiting for you. All this was good, the President thought. It made his current job all the easier.
“George,” Ryan said, extending his hand.
“Mr. President,” Winston responded pleasantly, ignoring the two Secret Service agents standing immediately behind him, there to grab him if he did something untoward. You didn’t have to hear them. The visitor could feel their eyes on the back of his neck, rather like laser beams. He shook Ryan’s hand anyway, and managed a crooked smile. Winston didn’t know Ryan very well. They’d worked together well during the Japanese conflict. Previously they’d bumped into each other at a handful of minor social functions, and he knew of Ryan’s work in the market, discreet but effective. All that time in the intelligence business hadn’t been entirely wasted.
“Sit down.” Jack waved to one of the couches. “Relax. How was the trip down?”
“The usual.” A Navy mess steward appeared seemingly from nowhere and poured two cups of coffee, because it was that time of the day. The coffee, he found, was excellent, and the china exquisite with its gold trim.
“I need you,” Ryan said next.
“Sir, look, there was a lot of damage done to my–”
“Country.”
“I’ve never wanted a government job, Jack,” Winston replied at once, speaking rapidly.
Ryan didn’t even touch his cup. “Why do you think I want you? George, I’ve been there and done that, okay? More than once. I have to put a team together. I’m going to give a speech tonight. You might like what I’m going to say. Okay, first, I need somebody to run Treasury. Defense is okay for the moment. State’s in good hands with Adler. Treasury is first on my list of things that have to be filled with somebody new. I need somebody good. You’re it. Are you clean?” Ryan asked abruptly.
“What–bet your ass I am! I made all my money within
235
the rules. Everybody knows that.” Winston bristled until he realized that he was expected to.
“Good. I need somebody who has the confidence of the financial community. You do. I need somebody who knows how the system really works. You do. I need somebody who knows what’s broke and needs fixing, and what isn’t and doesn’t. You do. I need somebody who isn’t political. You aren’t. I need a dispassionate pro–most of all, George, I need somebody who’s going to hate his job as much as I hate mine.”
“What exactly do you mean by that, Mr. President?”
Ryan leaned back for a second and closed his eyes before going on. “I started working inside when I was thirty-one. I got out once, and I did okay on the Street, but I got sucked back, and here I am.” The eyes opened. “Ever since I started with the Agency, I’ve had to watch how things work on the inside, and guess what? I never did like it. I started on the Street, remember, and I did okay then, too, remember? I figured I’d become an academic after I made my pile. History’s my first love, and I thought I’d teach and study and write, figure out how things worked and pass my knowledge along. I almost made it, and maybe things didn’t work out that way, exactly, but I’ve done a lot of studying and learning. So, George, I’m going to put a team together.”
“To do what?”
“Your job is to clean up Treasury. You’ve got monetary and fiscal policy.”
“You mean–”
“Yes.”
“No political bullshit?” He had to ask that.
“Look, George, I don’t know how to be a politician, and I don’t have time to learn. I never liked the game. I never liked most of the people in it. I just kept trying to serve my country as best I could. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. I didn’t have a choice. You remember how it started. People tried to kill me and my family. I didn’t want to get sucked in, but God damn it, I learned that somebody has to try to get the job done. I’m not going to do it alone anymore, George, and I’m not going to fill