“I’ll tell our bankers tomorrow. They’re not scheduled to cut the money loose for another thirty-six hours.” This meant that one hundred forty million dollars would not be transferred to a Beijing account as scheduled. And now the CEO could contemplate going ahead with his order for the G. The corporate logo of a monarch butterfly leaving its cocoon, he thought, would look just great on the rudder.
We don’t know for sure yet,” Qian told his colleagues, “but I am seriously concerned.”
“What’s the particular problem today?” Xu Kun Piao asked.
“We have a number of commercial and other contracts coming due in the next three weeks. Ordinarily I would expect them to proceed normally, but our representatives in America have called to warn my office that there might be a problem.”
“Who are these representatives?” Shen Tang asked.
“Mainly lawyers whom we employ to manage our business dealings for us. Almost all are American citizens. They are not fools, and their advice is something a wise man attends carefully,” Qian said soberly.
“Lawyers are the curse of America,” Zhang Han San observed. “And all civilized nations.” At least here we decide the law, he didn’t have to explain.
“Perhaps so, Zhang, but if you do business with America you need such people, and they are very useful in explaining conditions there. Shooting the messenger may get you more pleasant news, but it won’t necessarily be accurate.”
Fang nodded and smiled at that. He liked Qian. The man spoke the truth more faithfully than those who were supposed to listen for it. But Fang kept his peace on this. He, too, was concerned with the political developments caused by those two overzealous policemen, but it was too late to discipline them now. Even if Xu suggested it, Zhang and the others would talk him out of it.
Secretary Winston was at home watching a movie on his DVD player. It was easier than going to the movies, and he could do it without four Secret Service agents in attendance. His wife was knitting a ski sweater—she did her important Christmas presents herself, and it was something she could do while watching TV or talking, and it brought the same sort of relaxation to her that sailing his big offshore yacht did for her husband.
Winston had a multiline phone in the family room—and every other room in his Chevy Chase house—and the private line had a different ring so that he knew which one he had to answer himself.
“Yeah?”
“George, it’s Mark.”
“Working late?”
“No, I’m home. Just got a call from New York. It may have just started.”
“What’s that?” TRADER asked TELESCOPE.
“Butterfly—the ladies’ clothing firm?”
“Oh, yeah, I know the name,” Winston assured his aide. Well he might: His wife and daughter loved the place.
“They’re going to bail on their contracts with their PRC suppliers.”
“How big?”
“About a hundred forty.”
Winston whistled. “That much?”
“That big,” Gant assured him. “And they’re a trend-setter. When this breaks tomorrow, it’s going to make a lot of people think. Oh, one other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“The PRC just terminated its options with Caterpillar—equipment to finish up the Three Gorges project. That’s about three-ten million, switching over to Kawa in Japan. That’s going to be in the Journal tomorrow morning.”
“That’s real smart!” Winston grumbled.
“Trying to show us who’s holding the whip, George.”
“Well, I hope they like how it feels going up their ass,” SecTreas observed, causing his wife to look over at him.
“Okay, when’s the Butterfly story break?”
“It’s too late for the Journal tomorrow, but it’ll be on CNN-FN and CNBC for damned sure.”
“And what if other fashion houses do the same?”
“Over a billion, right away, and you know what they say, George, a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.” It had been one of Everett McKinley Dirksen’s better Washington observations.
“How much before their currency account goes in the tank?”
“Twenty, and it starts hurting. Forty, and they’re in the shitter. Sixty, and they’re fuckin’ broke. Never seen a whole country sleeping over a steam vent, y’know? George, they also import food, wheat mainly, from Canada and Australia. That could really hurt.”
“Noted. Tomorrow.”
“Right.” The phone clicked off.
Winston picked up the controller to un-pause the DVD player, then had another thought. He picked up the mini-tape machine he used for notes and said, “Find out how much of the PRC military purchases have been executed financially—especially Israel.” He clicked the stop button, set it down, and picked the DVD controller back up to continue his movie, but soon found he couldn’t concentrate on it very well. Something big was happening, and experienced as he was in the world of commerce, and now in the business of international transactions, he realized that he didn’t have a handle on it. That didn’t happen to George Winston very often, and it was enough to keep him from laughing at Men in Black.
Her minister didn’t look very happy, Ming saw. The look on his face made her think that he might have lost a family member to cancer. She found out more when he called her in to dictate his notes. It took fully ninety minutes this time, and then two entire hours for her to transcribe them into her computer. She hadn’t exactly forgotten what her computer probably did with them every night, but she hadn’t thought about it in weeks. She wished she had the ability to discuss the notes’ content with Minister Fang. Over the years of working for him, she’d acquired rather a sophisticated appreciation for the politics of her country, to the point that she could anticipate not only the thoughts of her master, but also those of some of his colleagues. She was in effect, if not in fact, a confidant of her minister, and while she could not counsel him on his job, if he’d had the wit to appreciate the effect of her education and her time inside his head, he might have used her far more efficiently than as a mere secretary. But she was a woman in a land ruled by men, and therefore voiceless. Orwell had been right. She’d read Animal Farm some years ago. Everyone was equal, but some were more equal than others. If Fang were smart, he’d use her more intelligently, but he wasn’t, and he didn’t. She’d talk to Nomuri-san about that tonight.
For his part, Chester was just finalizing an order for one thousand six hundred sixty-one high-end NEC desktops at the China Precision Machine Import and Export Corporation, which, among other things, made guided missiles for the People’s Liberation Army. That would make Nippon Electric Company pretty happy. The sad part was that he couldn’t rig these machine to talk as glibly as the two in the Council of Ministers, but that would have been too dangerous, if a good daydream over a beer and a smoke. Chester Nomuri, cyber-spy. Then his beeper started vibrating. He reached down and gave it a look. The number was 745-4426. Applied to the keys on a phone, and selecting the right letters, that translated in personal code to shin gan, “heart and soul,” Ming’s private endearment for her lover and an indication that she wanted to come over to his place tonight. That suited Nomuri just fine. So, he’d turned into James Bond after all. Good enough for a private smile, as he walked out to his car. He flipped open his shoephone, dialed up his e-mail access, and sent his own message over the ‘Net, 226-234: bao bei, “beloved one.” She liked to hear him say that, and he didn’t mind saying it. So, something other than TV for tonight. Good. He hoped he had enough of the Japanese scotch for the apres-sex.
You knew you had a bad job when you welcomed a trip to the dentist. Jack had been going to the same one for nineteen years, but this time it involved a helicopter flight to a Maryland State Police barracks with its own helipad, followed by five minutes in a car to the dentist’s office. He was thinking about China, but his principal bodyguard mistook his expression.
“Relax, boss,” Andrea told the President. “If he makes you scream, I’ll cap him.”
“You shouldn’t be up so early,” Ryan responded crossly.
“Dr. North said I could work my regular routine until further notice, and I just started the vitamins she likes.”
“Well, Pat looks rather pleased with himself.” It had been a pleasant evening at the White House. It was always good to entertain guests who had no political agenda.
“What is it about you guys? You strut like roosters, but we have to do all the work!”
“Andrea, I would gladly switch jobs with you!” Ryan joked. He’d had this discussion with Cathy often enough, claiming that having a baby couldn’t be all that hard—men had to do almost all of the tough work in life. But he couldn’t joke with someone else’s wife that way.