a good thing, I suppose, but not when it impedes the objective, and I think your minister is missing something.”
“What is that, Mr. Gant?”
“It is we who will have what we wish to have out of these meetings,” Gant told the little Chinese man, and realized instantly that he’d stuck his own foot into his mouth about to the knee. He finished his coffee and excused himself, then headed unnecessarily for the bathroom, where he washed his hands before heading back outside. He found Rutledge standing alone, examining some spring flowers.
“Cliff, I think I fucked something up,” Gant confessed quietly.
“What’s that?” the Assistant Secretary asked, then listened to the confession. “Don’t sweat it. You didn’t tell them anything I haven’t already told them. You just don’t understand the language.”
“But they’ll think we’re impatient, and that makes us vulnerable, doesn’t it?”
“Not with me doing the talking inside,” Rutledge answered, with a gentle smile. “Here I am Jimmy Connors at the U.S. Open, Mark. This is what I do.”
“The other side thinks so, too.”
“True, but we have the advantage. They need us more than we need them.”
“I thought you didn’t like taking this sort of line with people,” Gant observed, puzzled by Rutledge’s attitude.
“I don’t have to like it. I just have to do it, and winning is always fun.” He didn’t add that he’d never met Minister Shen before, and therefore had no personal baggage to trip over, as often happened with diplomats who had been known to put personal friendship before the interest of their countries. They usually justified it by telling themselves that the bastard would owe them one next time, which would serve their country’s interest. Diplomacy had always been a personal business, a fact often lost on observers, who thought of these verbose technicians as robots.
Gant found all of this puzzling, but he would play along with Rutledge because he had to, and because the guy at least acted as though he knew what the hell he was doing. Whether he did or not ... Gant wondered how he’d be able to tell. Then it was time to go back indoors.
The ashtrays had been cleaned and the water bottles replenished by the domestic help, who were probably all politically reliable functionaries of one sort or another, or more likely professional intelligence officers, who were here because their government took no chances with anything, or at least tried not to. It was, in fact, a waste of trained personnel, but communists had never been overly concerned with utilizing manpower in an efficient way.
Minister Shen lit a smoke and motioned for Rutledge to lead off. For his part, the American remembered that Bismarck had counseled the use of a cigar in negotiations, because some found the thick tobacco smoke irritating and that gave the smoker the advantage.
“Minister, the trade policies of the People’s Republic are set in place by a small number of people, and those policies are set in place for political reasons. We in America understand that. What you fail to understand is that ours truly is a government of the people, and our people demand that we address the trade imbalance. The People’s Republic’s inability to open markets to American goods costs the jobs of American citizens. Now, in our country it is the business of the government to serve the people, not to rule them, and for that reason, we must address the trade imbalance in an effective way.”
“I fully agree that it is the business of government to serve the interests of the people, and for that reason, we must consider also the agony that the Taiwan issue imposes on the citizens of my country. Those who should be our countrymen have been separated from us, and the United States has assisted in the estrangement of our kinsmen ...” The remarkable thing, Rutledge thought, was that this droning old fart hadn’t died from smoking those damned things. They looked and smelled like the Lucky Strikes his grandfather had died of, at age eighty. It had not been a death to please a physician, however. Grandpa Owens had been driving his great-grandson to South Station in Boston when, lighting one, he’d dropped it into his lap and, in retrieving it, strayed onto the wrong side of the road. Grandpa hadn’t believed in seat belts, either ... the bastard actually chain-smoked, lighting a new one with the butt of the previous one, like Bogie in a ’30s movie. Well, maybe it was a way for the