oil field is one to rival the Saudi reserves, and the gold mine is very rich indeed. Potentially, these finds could save our economy, could make us a truly wealthy nation and a fit partner for America.”
“Then you know why Jack sent this over. It’s a better world for both of us if Russia prospers.”
“Truly?” Golovko was a bright man, but he’d grown up in a world in which both America and Russia had often wished each other dead. Such thoughts died hard, even in so agile a mind as his.
“Truly,” John confirmed. “Russia is a great nation, and you are great people. You are fit partners for us.” He didn’t add that, this way, America wouldn’t have to worry about bailing them out. Now they’d have the wherewithal to see to their own enrichment, and America needed only offer expertise and advice about how to enter the capitalist world with both feet, and open eyes.
“This from the man who helped arrange the defection of the KGB chairman?” Golovko asked.
“Sergey, as we say at home, that was business, not personal. I don’t have a hard-on for Russians, and you wouldn’t kill an American just for entertainment purposes, would you?”
Indignation: “Of course not. That would be nekulturniy.”
“It is the same with us, Chairman.”
“Hey, man,” Chavez added. “From when I was a teenager, I was trained to kill your people, back when I was an Eleven-Bravo carrying a rifle, but, guess what, we’re not enemies anymore, are we? And if we’re not enemies, then we can be friends. You helped us out with Japan and Iran, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but we saw that we were the ultimate target of both conflicts, and it was in our national interest.”
“And perhaps the Chinese have us as their ultimate target. Then this is in our interest. They probably don’t like us any more than they like you.”
Golovko nodded. “Yes, one thing I do know about them is their sense of racial superiority.”
“Dangerous way for people to think, man. Racism means your enemies are just insects to be swatted,” Chavez concluded, impressing Clark with the mixture of East LA accent and master‘s-degree analysis of the situation at hand. “Even Karl Marx didn’t say that he was better than anybody else ’cuz of his skin color, did he?”
“But Mao did,” Golovko added.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Ding went on. “I read his Little Red Book in graduate school. He didn’t want to be just a political leader. Hell, he wanted to be God. Let his ego get in the way of his brain—not an uncommon affliction for people who take countries over, is it?”
“Lenin was not such a man, but Stalin was,” Golovko observed. “So, then Ivan Emmetovich is a friend of Russia. What shall I do with this?”
“That’s up to you, pal,” Clark told him.
“I must speak to my president. Yours comes to Poland tomorrow, doesn’t he?”
“I think so.”
“I must make some phone calls. Thank you for coming, my friends. Perhaps another time I will be able to entertain you properly.”
“Fair enough.” Clark stood and tossed off the end of his drink. More handshakes, and they left the way they’d come.
“Christ, John, what happens now?” Ding asked, as they drove back out.
“I suppose everybody tries to beat some sense into the Chinese.”
“Will it work?”
A shrug and arched eyebrows: “News at eleven, Domingo.”
Packing for a trip isn’t easy, even with a staff to do it all for you. This was particularly true for SURGEON, who was not only concerned about what she wore in public while abroad, but was also the Supreme Authority on her husband’s clothes, a status which her husband tolerated rather than entirely approved. Jack Ryan was still in the Oval Office trying to do business that couldn’t wait—actually it mostly could, but there were fictions in government that had to be honored—and also waiting for the phone to ring.
“Arnie?”
“Yeah, Jack?”
“Tell the Air Force to have another G go over to Warsaw in case Scott has to fly to Moscow on the sly.”
“Not a bad idea. They’ll probably park it at some air force base or something.” Van Damm went off to make the phone call.
“Anything else, Ellen?” Ryan asked his secretary.
“Need one?”
“Yeah, before Cathy and I wing off into the sunset.” Actually, they were heading east, but Mrs. Sumter understood. She handed Ryan his last cigarette of the day.
“Damn,” Ryan breathed with his first puff. He’d be getting a call from Moscow sure as hell—wouldn’t he? That depended on how quickly they digested the information, or