Han said, “Sign that at the top. If anyone asks if you actually saw or heard all those things, you should of course tell them that you did.”
“But none of it is true!” Wu objected vehemently. “I didn’t hear General Sheng plotting against the defense minister with the commander of the Beijing Military District!”
“That’s really beside the point!” Han replied testily.
“You’re trying to set Sheng up!” Wu accused. “But General Sheng isn’t the one who has committed treason!”
Han glared at his son through squinted eyes. “Just what do you mean by that?” he asked coolly and in tones carefully measured to contain his outrage.
“General Sheng isn’t a politician,” Wu asserted. “He’s a soldier.”
“But the defense minister is a politician,” Han replied. “He’ll believe that Sheng is plotting a coup because that is what makes sense in his world. If the army wins the war, Sheng will be a political threat because he will be a national hero. Never mind that several million Chinese soldiers died in the process and that Sheng’s brutality virtually destroyed the intangible spirit that makes America what it is! You’ve seen what Sheng is doing in those camps, Wu!”
“There have been partisan attacks,” Wu justified halfheartedly.
Han cocked and shook his head. “What would you do,” Han asked, “if your country were invaded? I know you better than you think. You secretly admire the Americans for every fanatical, suicidal partisan attack, don’t you?”
Wu’s head rose so quickly that Han’s observation was confirmed. Wu’s averted gaze merely completed the picture of a boy at war with himself.
“And so,” a dejected Wu mumbled, “you plan to falsely accuse General Sheng of treason? To destroy him?”
Han smiled and unlocked a drawer electronically by pressing in a combination on a touchpad. “The facts,” Han said, laying the report in front of Wu. “The numbers are summarized in the table at the top.” Han waited while Wu read. Number of American civilians taken prisoner by the army. One million. Number of American civilians confirmed in labor battalions. Six hundred thousand. Number of American civilians confirmed killed in captivity. Forty thousand. Number of American civilians estimated killed in captivity. Three hundred thousand. “I can take you to the camps,” Han offered.
Wu shook his head and in a daze took a pen from his father’s desk and signed the top of the memorandum.
Good, Han thought. One less thing — Wu’s trustworthiness — to worry about. Complicity made for good allies.
“Now,” Han said, “any progress learning the identity of Sheng’s spy in the White House?”
Wu stared at the pictures on television. In an old clip from some campaign victory, the president’s mistress, then just a girl, stood beside her mother on a stage. “Clarissa Leffler” the caption read beneath the clear oval centered on her image. The rest of the picture was masked in a muted gray.
“Wu?” Han snapped impatiently, noting his son’s fixed gaze. “If Sheng has someone highly placed in Baker’s administration, she could be of incalculable intelligence value to him. She might just be the deciding factor in this war. Have you found out who she might be?” Han asked.
“What about her?” Wu asked, indicating Clarissa Leffler on the television. “The American press is reporting charges that she is a Chinese sympathizer.”
Han sat perfectly still. “The daughter of the Speaker of the House?” he asked. “President Baker’s mistress? You think she is an army spy?”
“She’s the head of the China Desk at the State Department,” Wu ventured. “She has probably spent time in China. Studied there.”
Han’s mouth curled in a parody of a smile. Wu was guessing. He had nothing.
Han’s reaction obviously angered Wu. “Have you had any contact with the Americans since your meeting with Baker in the Bahamas?” Wu asked brusquely.
“What?” Han asked in surprise both at the question and Wu’s tone.
“Have you had any direct contact with the American government since your trip to the Bahamas?” Wu repeated.
“We’re at war,” Han replied. “Such things are difficult to arrange.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Wu noted.
“Who are you to ask me anything?” Han exploded. Wu didn’t look away. He stared back, further infuriating Han.
“I am an officer in the Chinese army,” Wu answered, heading for the door. He stopped and turned. “And treating with the enemy during time of war is treason.”
Wu left Han, his heart pounding, sitting in shocked silence at his desk.
Clarissa had taken the George Washington Parkway from Washington through heavy construction traffic. Military policemen had blocked civilian autos for convoys of cement trucks headed out from the city. The outermost of the concentric rings of defenses were under construction twenty-five miles away. The engineers — working inward — had yet to fell the wine-colored maple trees lining the Potomac River to clear the way for the capital’s last-ditch defenses.
She pulled into the stone-rimmed observation park. It offered a vantage that almost brought tears to her eyes. The rocky cliffs overlooked Georgetown. A lone oarsman plied the silky waters of the Potomac. She got out of her car into the crisp air of her home.
“They’ll lay guns right on the city,” Bill had said to her the night before with tears in his eyes. She looked across the narrow river. “Direct lines of sight to… everything. The Washington Monument. The Lincoln Memorial. They’ll level the city if they breach our last line in Virginia and make it across the river. It’ll be Stalingrad.”
Her father sat on a stone wall looking across at Georgetown, both his and her alma mater. She noted that he wore the same coat, gloves, and hat — all black — that he had worn to her mother’s funeral. She wondered if he’d even been shopping in the two years since. As she neared, she saw that he was muttering to himself. Arguing with some inner self that somehow, in him, found voice.
“I know, I know,” he said.
Tom Leffler didn’t look at his daughter, but he quieted. She waited some time for him to speak. “I remember,” he finally said without looking her way, “when you were a child. Yesterday. It was only yesterday. Your mother and I brought you here for picnics, do you remember?”
Clarissa curled her lips in imitation of a smile. “Mom would never let us pick up a hamburger on the way.”
“She would always make something special,” Tom Leffler said distantly. He could no longer remember anything, his appointments secretary had told Clarissa. But he remembered all the details of decades past, both important and trivial. “Always something special,” he mumbled.
When did he get so old? Clarissa wondered. Her earliest memories of her father had been speeches. Boring dinners in hotels where she never ate because her mother had fed her long before. Every year, he gave a speech at her school. More and more, he appeared on television. She was twelve when she first had been moved to tears by his fiery oratorical skills at a Republican convention. He was a junior congressman, but he had been mentioned as a future candidate for the presidency after his thrilling keynote speech. To her, he had become not only a national leader, but practically one of the Founding Fathers. His name, in Clarissa’s starry-eyed opinion, belonged in the pantheon of great American patriots.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “for embarrassing you.” Her father said nothing and stared blankly out through bleary eyes. His paper-white skin was wrinkled into ridges and lines.