the American’s mind for a Yuck! and little else. “So, all the girls in the office trade notes on your minister?”
Ming laughed. It was pretty funny. “Of course. We all do.”
Damn, Nomuri thought. He’d always thought that women would be more ... discreet, that it was just the men who bragged in the locker room over their sweat socks.
“The first time he did me,” she went on, “I didn’t know what to do, so I talked with Chai for advice. She’s been there the longest, you see. She just said to enjoy it, and try to make him happy, and I might get a nice office chair out of it, like she did. Chai must be very good to him. She got a new bicycle last November. Me, well, I think he only likes me because I’m a little different to look at. Chai has bigger breasts than I do, and I think I’m prettier, but she has a sweet disposition, and she likes the old man. More than I do, anyway.” She paused. “I don’t want a new bicycle enough for that.”
What does this mean?" Robby Jackson asked.
“Well, we’re not sure,” the DCI admitted. “This Fang guy had a long talk with our old friend Zhang Han San. They’re talking about the meeting with our trade team that starts tomorrow. Hell”—Ed Foley looked at his watch—“call that fourteen hours from now. And it looks as though they want concessions from us instead of offering any to us. They’re even angrier over our recognition of Taiwan than we’d anticipated.”
“Tough shit,” Ryan observed.
“Jack, I agree with your sentiment, but let’s try not to be over-cavalier about their opinions, shall we?” Foley suggested.
“You’re starting to sound like Scott,” the President said.
“So? You want a yes-man handling Langley, you got the wrong guy,” the DCI countered.
“Fair enough, Ed,” Jack conceded. “Go on.”
“Jack, we need to warn Rutledge that the PRC isn’t going to like what he has to say. They may not be in a mood to make many trade concessions.”
“Well, neither is the United States of America,” Ryan told his Director of Central Intelligence. “And we come back to the fact that they need our money more than we need their trade goods.”
“What’s the chance that this is a setup, this information I mean?” Vice President Jackson asked.
“You mean that they’re using this source as a conduit to get back-channel information to us?” Mary Patricia Foley asked. “I evaluate that chance as practically zero. As close to zero as something in the real world can be.”
“MP, how can you be that confident?” President Ryan asked.
“Not here, Jack, but I am that confident,” Mary Pat said, somewhat to the discomfort of her husband, Ryan saw. It was rare in the intelligence community for anyone to feel that confident about anything, but Ed had always been the careful one, and Mary Pat had always been the cowgirl. She was as loyal to her people as a mother was to her infant, and Ryan admired that, even though he also had to remind himself that it wasn’t always realistic.
“Ed?” Ryan asked, just to see.
“I back Mary up on this one. This source appears to be gold-plated and copper-bottomed.”
“So, this document represents the view of their government?” TOMCAT asked.
Foley surprised the Vice President by shaking his head. “No, it represents the view of this Zhang Han San guy. He’s a powerful and influential minister, but he doesn’t speak for their government per se. Note that the text here doesn’t say what their official position is. Zhang probably does represent a view, and a powerful view, inside their Politburo. There are also moderates whose position this document does not address.”
“Okay, great,” Robby said, shifting in his seat, “so why are you taking up our time with this stuff, then?”
“This Zhang guy is tight with their Defense Minister—in fact he has a major voice in their entire national-security establishment. If he’s expanding his influence into trade policy, we have a problem, and our trade negotiations team needs to know that up front,” the DCI informed them.
So?" Ming asked tiredly. She hated getting dressed and leaving, and it meant a night of not-enough sleep.
“So, you should get in early and upload this on Chai’s computer. It’s just a new system file, the new one, six-point-eight-point-one, like the one I uploaded on your computer.” In fact, the newest real system file was 6.3.2, and so there was at least a year until a write-over would actually be necessary.
“Why do you