Professor Yi nodded, a faint glitter in his aged eyes. “were all most fortunate in this matter. Most fortunate.”
“It has been my experience, gentlemen, that we usually create our own fortune … and that has certainly been the case here. Hasn’t it?”
The faces of both Chinese diplomats subtly froze.
“What do you mean, Mr. Secretary?” Professor Yi inquired softly.
“I mean that the conference is over. The media has gone home, and now, maybe, we can do a little real statesmanship. In short, gentlemen, cut the bullshit! We know!”
“You believe that you know what, Mr. Secretary. And who constitutes?”
The list didn’t include Lucena Sagada, as her puzzled expression indicated. Van Lynden’s conversations on this subject had taken place on levels rarefied even for her. Now was as good a time as any to bring her into the loop.
“They are the other ministers of the Pacific Rim states. And we know that you set us up! This whole thing. This crisis. The nuclear civil war. Our intervention in Shanghai. This was all part of a plan. Yours.”
“That is a remarkable statement, Mr. Secretary,” Ho said. “What could prompt you to say such a thing?”
“Are you asking for evidence?” Van Lynden smiled. “We’re beginning to compile it in bits and pieces. Primarily, at the moment, it’s just instinct. And what we’ve learned from watching you operate.
“For example, I must congratulate you for conducting one of the most magnificent acts of realpolitik to be conducted in the past century. The first Chinese civil war really didn’t end back in 1949, did it? You have been planning this operation, the reconquest of the mainland, for almost fifty years, haven’t you? Piece by piece. Detail by meticulous detail. Planning for every eventuality. Except apparently one.” Van Lynden watched the two men like a mongoose studies cobras. “It was the atomic eventuality. How were you going to get around the Red Chinese nuclear arsenal?”
“We had made our preparations there as well, Mr. Secretary,” Ho replied, the last vestige of the statesman’s professional bonhomie evaporating. “We trusted in the deterrence of our own force of arms.”
“No, you didn’t, sir. You knew full well that the handful of bombs that you possessed would be inadequate to deter a cornered and desperate Communist government. You had to know! They were of your people! Your culture!
“Your arsenal was just large enough to guarantee that any use of atomic weapons would rapidly escalate into a full scale nuclear exchange. One that would prove cataclysmic to the entire Pacific Rim if it occurred. One that would force the United States and the other nations here to intervene to prevent it from happening.”
Van Lynden leaned in across the table. “You set us up,” he said, pronouncing each word with deliberate succinctness. “This entire crisis was a Nationalist sting operation from the start. You used us to help take out the last of the Red atomic arsenal. The one remaining block on your road back to Beijing-”
Professor Yi smiled as he might have at a favored student.
“Well, Mr. Secretary, think of us as encouraging your nation to make an appropriate choice. The Red dragon is dying. Soon, China shall be free again. Is this not a good thing?”
“Yes,” Van Lynden said, straightening. “Yes, it is. But you took us all out on the edge to do it. The end justifying the means’ is a line out of the dragon’s book.”
“Mayhap so. But it is over now.”
Harrison Van Lynden chuckled. Even to Lucena Sagada, it was not a pleasant sound. “But you are wrong, gentlemen. We’re going to be working together for a long, long time on a number of things.”
“What do you mean?” Secretary Ho demanded sharply.
“There is an ancient tradition in your country, Mr. Ho. If one man saves another’s life, then the first man becomes responsible for the second’s actions. Well, guess what, gentlemen, we’ve just saved yours and we are now in the loop.”
Van Lynden didn’t give them a chance to answer. He leaned in across the table again, bracing his hands on the white cloth that covered it, his voice sinking dangerously.
“Soon there are going to be any number of very critical decisions to be made about the form postrevolutionary China is going to take. Its government. Its constitution. Its borders. And we are going to be there. The United States, Japan, Korea, the Philippines … everyone who would have been trapped in the fallout pattern if you had miscalculated. You have invited us in, and now, by God, we are not going home until the party’s over!
“Congratulations on a successful operation, gentlemen.”
“Good evening, my friend.”
“Good evening, General,” Van Lynden replied, sinking down on the concrete bench beside the Red Chinese officer.
The fountain played at their backs and the first stars glinted out over Manila Bay. Looking around, the secretary of state noted that General Ho’s usual cadre of security guards were not present. Van Lynden also noted a strange air about the man. Resignation? Maybe even peace.
“Do you wish to know something funny, Mr. Secretary?” Ho said quietly.
“What, General?”
“I find that I am grateful that your nation has attacked mine.”
“That is a little unusual.”
“Not really. Because tonight I know that I may go to sleep with the knowledge that there will still be a China when I awake. Soon, perhaps, it will not be my China. But it will be China. Had events been allowed to run their full course … who could say what would have remained?”
“I don’t know, General,” Van Lynden replied, tugging the knot of his necktie down a couple of inches and releasing the button of his collar. “In my experience, there are usually men of good conscience on both sides of any conflict. Men such as yourself. You might have found alternatives.”
Ho smiled grimly. “I think you overrate me, Mr. Secretary. As with many others, I, too, would be a desperate man with the tools of desperation at hand. For a warrior, the temptation to take one’s foes down with you when you fall is strong. It is best that the temptation is gone. We shall die with the People’s Republic. But our homeland will live on.”
“As I said, General,” Van Lynden replied slowly, “you may be able to find alternatives. I notice that you came without your security team tonight. The United States Embassy is only a short walk across the park. I can guarantee you political asylum. The new China is going to need good men and strong leaders.”
“That will be a task for the new Chinese. I am of the old. Perhaps the People’s Republic was not the best of states. But still, I have served it all of my life. I will die with it now — hopefully, in a battle lost before it was begun. Possibly, before the firing squad of some tribunal.
“Be that as it may, there comes a time in a man’s life when he is too old to change allegiance to his beliefs just because they happen to be wrong.”
“I understand.”
Ho rose to his feet. “I have enjoyed our conversations, Mr. Secretary.”
“As have I, General,” Van Lynden replied, also getting to his feet. “Goodbye, sir.”
“Goodbye.”
The two men shook hands and then walked away along separate paths into the night.
60
“How does it look?”
“Mr. President, according to our last set of projections, the probability of the China conflict going nuclear has been reduced to between ten and fifteen percent.”
“A ten-to fifteen-percent chance that a million people could still die. That’s not good enough, Sam. But I guess that it’s better than it was. Maybe enough so that I won’t dream about it tonight.”