“Scott?” Ryan asked his Secretary of State.
“Jack, I can’t say. This ought to discourage them, but we can’t be sure how tight a corner they think they are in. If they think they’re trapped, they might still lash out.”
“God damn it, Scott, is this the way nations do business?” Jack demanded. “Misperceptions? Fears? Outright stupidity?”
Adler shrugged. “It’s a mistake to think a chief of government is any smarter than the rest of us, Jack. People make decisions the same way, regardless of how big and smart they are. It comes down to how they perceive the question, and how best they can serve their own needs, preserve their own personal well-being. Remember that we’re not dealing with clergymen here. They don’t have much in the way of consciences. Our notion of right and wrong doesn’t play in that sort of mind. They translate what’s good for their country into what’s good for themselves, just like a king in the twelfth century, but in this case there isn’t any bishop around to remind them that there may be a God looking down at them with a notebook.” They’d gone out of their way, Adler didn’t have to say, to eliminate a cardinal-archbishop just to get themselves into this mess.
“Sociopaths?” the President asked.
Secretary Adler shrugged. “I’m not a physician, just a diplomat. When you negotiate with people like this, you dangle what’s good for their country—them—in front of their eyes and hope they reach for it. You play the game without entirely understanding them. These people do things neither one of us would ever do. And they run a major country, complete with nuclear weapons.”
“Great,” Ryan breathed. He stood and got his coat. “Well, let’s go watch our new ally sign up, shall we?”
Ten minutes later, they were in the reception room of the Lazienski Palace. There was the usual off-camera time for the various chiefs of government to socialize over Perrier-and-a-twist before some nameless protocol official opened the double doors to the table, chairs, documents, and TV cameras.
The speech from President Grushavoy was predictable in every detail. The NATO alliance had been established to protect Western Europe against what his country had once been, and his former country had established its own mirror-image alliance called the Warsaw Pact right here in this very city. But the world had turned, and now Russia was pleased to join the rest of Europe in an alliance of friends whose only wish was peace and prosperity for all. Grushavoy was pleased indeed to be the first Russian in a very long time to be a real part of the European community, and promised to be a worthy friend and partner of his newly close neighbors. (The military ramifications of the North Atlantic Treaty were not mentioned at all.) And everyone present applauded. And Grushavoy pulled out an ancient fountain pen borrowed from the collection at The Hermitage in St. Petersburg to sign in the name of his country, and so bring membership in NATO up by one. And everyone applauded again as the various chiefs of state and government walked over to shake their new ally’s hand. And the shape of the world changed yet again.
“Ivan Emmetovich,” Golovko said, as he approached the American President.
“Sergey Nikolay’ch,” Ryan said in quiet reply.
“What will Beijing think of this?” the chief of the Russian intelligence service asked.
“With luck, we’ll know in twenty-four hours,” Ryan answered, knowing that this ceremony had gone out on CNN’s live global feed, and positive that it was being watched in China.
“I expect the language will be profane.”
“They’ve said nasty things about me lately,” Jack assured him.
“That you should have carnal relations with your mother, no doubt.”
“Actually, that I should have oral sex with her,” the President confirmed distastefully. “I suppose everybody says things like that in private.”
“In person, it can get a man shot.”
Ryan grunted grim semi-amusement. “Bet your ass, Sergey”
“Will this work?” Golovko asked.
“I was going to ask you that. You’re closer to them than we are.”
“I do not know,” the Russian said, with a tiny sip of his vodka glass. “And if it does not. . .”
“In that case, you have some new allies.”
“And what of the precise wording of Articles five and six of the treaty?”
“Sergey, you may tell your president that the United States will regard an attack on any part of the territory of the Russian Federation as operative under the North Atlantic Treaty. On that, Sergey Nikolay’ch, you have the word and the commitment of the United States of America,” SWORDSMAN told his Russian acquaintance.
“Jack, if I may address you in this way, I have told my president more than once that you are a man of honor, and a man of your word.” The relief on his face was obvious.
“Sergey, from you those words are flattering. It’s simple, really. It’s your land, and a nation like ours cannot just stand by and watch a robbery of this scale taking place. It corrupts the foundations of international peace. It’s our job to remake the world into a peaceful place. There’s been enough war.”
“I fear there will be another,” Golovko said, with characteristic honesty.
“Then together your country and mine will make it the very last.”
“Plato said, ‘Only the dead have seen the end of war.’ ”
“So, are we to be bound by the words of a Greek who lived twenty-five centuries ago? I prefer the words of a Jew who lived five centuries later. It’s time, Sergey. It’s fucking time,” Ryan said forcefully.
“I hope you are right. You Americans, always so madly optimistic…”
“There’s a reason for that.”
“Oh? What would that be?” the Russian asked.
Jack fixed his eyes on his Russian colleague. “In my country, all things are possible. They will be in your country, too, if you just allow it. Embrace democracy, Sergey. Embrace freedom. Americans are not genetically different from the rest of the world. We’re mongrels. We have the blood of every country on earth in our veins. The only thing different between us and the rest of the world is our Constitution. Just a set of rules. That’s all, Sergey, but it has served us well. You’ve been studying us for how long?”
“Since I joined KGB? Over thirty-five years.”
“And what have you learned of America and how it works?” Ryan asked.
“Obviously not enough,” Golovko answered honestly. “The spirit of your country has always puzzled me.”
“Because it’s too simple. You were looking for complexity. We allow people to pursue their dreams, and when the dreams succeed, we reward them. Others see that happen and chase after their own dreams.”
“But the class issues?”
“What class issues? Sergey, not everybody goes to Harvard. I didn’t, remember? My father was a cop. I was the first guy in my family to finish college. Look how I turned out. Sergey, we do not have class distinctions in America. You can be what you choose to be, if you are willing to work at it. You can succeed or you can fail. Luck helps,” Ryan admitted, “but it comes down to work.”
“All Americans have stars in their eyes,” the Chairman of the SVR observed tersely.
“The better to see the heavens,” Ryan responded.
“Perhaps. Just so they don’t come crashing down on us.”
“So, what does this mean for us?” Xu Kun Piao asked, in an entirely neutral voice.
Zhang Han San and his premiere had been watching the CNN feed in the latter’s private office, complete with simultaneous translation through headphones now discarded. The senior Minister Without Portfolio made a dismissive wave of the hand.
“I’ve read the North Atlantic Treaty,” he said. “It does not apply to us at all. Articles Five and six limit its military application to events in Europe and North America only—all right, it includes Turkey, and, as originally written, Algeria, which was part of France in 1949. For incidents at sea, it applies only to the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, and then only north of the Tropic of Cancer. Otherwise, the NATO countries would have been compelled to join in the Korean War and Vietnam on the American side. Those things did not happen because the treaty did not apply outside its defined area. Nor does it apply to us. Treaty documents have discrete language and discrete application,” he reminded his party chief. “They are not open-ended.” “I am concerned even so,” Xu responded.
“Hostilities are not activities to be undertaken lightly,” Zhang admitted. “But the real danger to us is economic collapse and the resulting social chaos. That, comrade, could bring down our entire social order, and that is something we cannot risk. But, when we succeed in seizing the oil and gold, we need not worry about such things. With our own abundant oil supply, we will not face an energy crisis, and with gold we can buy anything we require from the rest of the world. My friend, you must understand the West. They worship money, and they base their economies on oil. With those two things they must do business with us. Why did America intervene in the Kuwait affair? Oil. Why did Britain, France, and all the other nations join in? Oil. He who has oil is their friend. We shall have oil. It is that simple,” Zhang concluded.