The Bear and the Dragon - By Tom Clancy Page 0,317

he realized that there was one more large but false god out there, Mao Zedong, awaiting final interment in history’s rubbish heap. When would that come? Did this mission have a role to play in that funeral? Nixon’s opening to China had played a role in the destruction of the Soviet Union, which historians still had not fully grasped. Would its final echo be found in the fall of the People’s Republic itself? That remained to be seen.

The car pulled into the Kremlin through the Spaskiy Gate, then proceeded to the old Council of Ministers Building. There Adler alighted and hurried inside, into an elevator to a third-floor meeting room.

“Mr. Secretary.” The greeting came from Golovko. Adler should have found him an eminence gris, he thought. But Sergey Nikolay’ch was actually a man of genuine intellect and the openness that resulted directly from it. He was not even a pragmatist, but a man who sought what was best for his country, and would search for it everywhere his mind could see. A seeker of truth, SecState thought. That sort of man he and America could live with.

“Chairman. Thank you for receiving us so quickly.”

“Please come with me, Mr. Adler.” Golovko led him through a set of high double doors into what almost appeared to be a throne room. EAGLE couldn’t remember if this building went back to the czars. President Eduard Petrovich Grushavoy was waiting for him, already standing politely, looking serious but friendly.

“Mr. Adler,” the Russian president said, with a smile and an extended hand.

“Mr. President, a pleasure to be back in Moscow.”

“Please.” Grushavoy led him to a comfortable set of chairs with a low table. Tea things were already out, and Golovko handled the serving like a trusted earl seeing to the needs of his king and guest.

“Thank you. I’ve always loved the way you serve your tea in Russia.” Adler stirred his and took a sip.

“So, what do you have to say to us?” Grushavoy asked in passable English.

“We have shown you what has become for us a cause for great concern.”

“The Chinese,” the Russian president observed. Everyone knew all of this, but the beginning of the conversation would follow the conventions of high-level talk, like lawyers discussing a major case in chambers.

“Yes, the Chinese. They seem to be contemplating a threat to the peace of the world. America has no wish to see that peace threatened. We’ve all worked very hard—your country and mine—to put an end to conflict. We note with gratitude Russia’s assistance in our most recent conflicts. Just as we were allies sixty years ago, so Russia has acted again lately. America is a country that remembers her friends.”

Golovko let out a breath slowly. Yes, his prediction was about to come true. Ivan Emmetovich was a man of honor, and a friend of his country. What came back to him was the time he’d held a pistol to Ryan’s head, the time Ryan had engineered the defection of KGB chairman Gerasimov all those years before. Sergey Nikolay’ch had been enraged back then, as furious as he had ever been in a long and stressful professional life, but he’d held back from firing the pistol because it would have been a foolish act to shoot a man with diplomatic status. Now he blessed his moderation, for now Ivan Emmetovich Ryan offered to Russia what he had always craved from America: predictability. Ryan’s honor, his sense of fair play, the personal honesty that was the most crippling aspect of his newly acquired political persona, all combined to make him a person upon whom Russia could depend. And at this moment, Golovko could do that which he’d spent his life trying to do: He could see the future that lay only a few short minutes away.

“This Chinese threat, it is real, you think?” Grushavoy asked.

“We fear it is,” the American Secretary of State answered. “We hope to forestall it.”

“But how will we accomplish that? China knows of our military weakness. We have de-emphasized our defense capabilities of late, trying to shift the funds into areas of greater value to our economy. Now it seems we might pay a bitter price for that,” the Russian president worried aloud.

“Mr. President, we hope to help Russia in that respect.”

“How?”

“Mr. President, even as we speak, President Ryan is also speaking with the NATO chiefs of state and government. He is proposing to them that we invite Russia to sign the North Atlantic Treaty. That will ally the Russian Federation with