he’d known Ryan longer than anyone else in the room had. One odd result of Ryan’s path to the Presidency was that the people who knew him best were all spooks, mainly NATO ones, and these found themselves advising their chiefs of government on how to deal with America. Sir Basil had served no less than five Prime Ministers of Her Majesty’s Government, but now he was in rather a higher position than before.
“Bas, how are you?”
“Doing quite well, thank you. May I ask a question?”
“Sure.” But I don’t have to answer it, Jack’s smile added in reply.
“Adler is in Moscow now. Can we know why?”
“How will your PM react to inviting Russia into NATO?”
That made Basil blink, Ryan saw. It wasn’t often that you could catch this guy unawares. Instantly, his mind went into overdrive to analyze the new situation. “China?” he asked after about six seconds.
Jack nodded. “Yeah. We may have some problems there.”
“Not going north, are they?”
“They’re thinking about it,” Ryan replied.
“How good is your information on that question?”
“You know about the Russian gold strike, right?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. President. Ivan’s been bloody lucky on both scores.”
“Our intel strike in Beijing is even better.”
“Indeed?” Charleston observed, letting Jack know that the SIS had also been pretty much shut out there.
“Indeed, Bas. It’s class-A information, and it has us worried. We’re hoping that pulling Russia into NATO can scare them off. Grushavoy just agreed on it. How do you suppose the rest of these folks will react to it?”
“They’ll react cautiously, but favorably, after they’ve had a chance to consider it.”
“Will Britain back us on this play?” Ryan asked.
“I must speak with the PM. I’ll let you know.” With that, Sir Basil walked over to where the British Prime Minister was chatting with the German Foreign Minister. Charleston dragged him off and spoke quietly into his ear. Instantly, the Prime Minister’s eyes, flaring a little wide, shot over to Ryan. The British PM was somewhat trapped, somewhat unpleasantly because of the surprise factor, but the substance of the trap was that Britain and America always supported each other. The “special relationship” was as alive and well today as it had been under the governments of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. It was one of the few constants in the diplomatic world for both countries, and it belied Kissinger’s dictum that great nations didn’t have friendships, but rather interests. Perhaps it was the exception proving the rule, but if so, exception it was. Both Britain and America would hurl themselves in front of a train for the other. The fact that in England, President Ryan was Sir John Ryan, KCVO, made the alliance even more firm. In acknowledgment of that, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom walked over to the American chief of state.
“Jack, will you let us in on this development?”
“Insofar as I can. I may give Basil a little more on the side, but, yeah, Tony, this is for real, and we’re damned worried about it.”
“The gold and the oil?” the PM asked.
“They seem to think they’re in an economic box. They’re just about out of hard currency, and they’re hurting for oil and wheat.”
“You can’t make an arrangement for that?”
“After what they did? Congress would hang me from the nearest lamppost.”
“Quite,” the Brit had to agree. BBC had run its own news miniseries on human rights in the PRC, and the Chinese hadn’t come off very well. Indeed, despising China was the new European sport, which hadn’t helped their foreign-currency holdings at all. As China had trapped themselves, so the Western nations had been perversely co-opted into building the wall. The citizens of these democracies wouldn’t stand for economic or trade concessions any more than the Chinese Politburo could see its way to making the political sort. “Rather like Greek tragedy, isn’t it, Jack?”
“Yeah, Tony, and our tragic flaw is adherence to human rights. Hell of a situation, isn’t it?”
“And you’re hoping that bringing Russia into NATO will give them pause?”
“If there’s a better card to play, I haven’t seen it in my deck, man.”
“How set are they on the path?”
“Unknown. Our intelligence on this is very good, but we have to be careful making use of it. It could get people killed, and deny us the information we need.”
“Like our chap Penkovskiy in the 1960s.” One thing about Sir Basil, he knew how to educate his bosses on how the business of intelligence worked.
Ryan nodded, then proceeded with a little of his own disinformation. It