“Mr. Rice?”
He swallowed another macaroon, pressed an intercom button, and said, “Yes?”
“Mr. Yu is here.”
“Send him right hi.”
Mr. Yu Miao-sheng, Formosa's ambassador to the United States, was a short, wiry man who wore excellent Hong Kong suits and thick wire-framed glasses. He smiled quite a bit; and his teeth were very sharp, almost canine.
Rice greeted him at the door, and they shook hands. “Please have a seat, Mr. Yu.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rice.”
“Can I get you something to drink, Mr. Yu?”
“Would you possibly have any dry sherry, Mr. Rice?”
“Certainly.”
“Dry Sack, perhaps?”
“I believe it is.”
“Could I possibly have some of that over ice?”
Rice got the drink, put it on the coffee table, and sat in the armchair opposite the ambassador. When Mr. Yu had taken a sip of his drink and smiled approval, Rice said, “How was your meeting with the President?”
“Very strained,” Mr. Yu said. He was quite amused by this; he laughed softly. “The President insisted that I knew something about a CIA plan to overthrow the government of the People's Republic of China. And I insisted that I knew nothing. We were both adamant, but we managed to behave like statesmen.”
Rice smiled. “I am happy to hear that.”
Frowning, Mr. Yu said, “However, the President made one point which causes me great concern.”
“Oh?”
“According to intelligence reports from which he quoted, the Russians are now aware of Taiwan's preparations for war.”
“Yes.”
“And the Soviet army is making preparations of its own.”
“That's true enough; however, there is really nothing to worry about, Mr. Yu.”
“But might not the Russians sweep in from the west and take a substantial part of the homeland before we can secure and defend it? The Russians are far better armed, far better prepared for war than are the Communist Chinese. You must know that if the Russians decided to take such risks — even if they were to forsake nuclear weapons — they would be too powerful an adversary for our Taiwanese forces.”
“Yes, of course. But remember that mainland China is a vast country. The Russians will need weeks if not months to consolidate their gains in the west. Before they can get near Peking or the other eastern cities you will seize in the invasion — well, we will have taken care of the Russians.”
Mr. Yu blinked stupidly for a long moment. Then: “There is a Dragonfly for Russia too?”
“Something of that sort,” Rice said. “We hadn't planned to launch that operation for a few years. But if the Russians take advantage of the confusion in China to acquire some new territory, we'll have to advance our schedule.”
“I am amazed.”
Rice smiled tolerantly. “Now, tell me, how are things coming along in Taipei?”
“I received a coded message from the capital just this morning,” Mr. Yu said. “We are virtually one hundred percent prepared.”
“Excellent.”
“Two thousand paratroopers will be in the air within three hours of your go-ahead signal. Within nine to twelve hours they will have seized every one of Communist China's nuclear weapons.”
“The seaborne troops?”
Pausing only to take an occasional sip of sherry, Mr. Yu spent the next ten minutes discussing the preparations which had been made for the invasion. When he had nothing more to report, he said, “As you can see, we need no advantage except the confusion caused by the plague in Peking.”
Rice said, “I too, have received a coded message.”
“From Taipei?”
“From Peking.”
“Sir?”
“Dragonfly is on the move at last,” Rice said. “He will arrive in Peking around nine o'clock Saturday night, their time.”
Mr. Yu was delighted. He slid to the edge of his chair. “And when will he be triggered?”
“As soon as possible,” Rice said. “Within twenty-four hours of his arrival in the capital.”
“I will alert my people.” Mr. Yu finished his sherry and got to his feet. “This is a momentous occasion, Mr. Rice.”
“Momentous,” Rice agreed as he struggled out of his chair.
They shook hands.
At the door, Rice said, “How are your wife and daughters, Mr. Yu?”
“Quite well, thank you, Mr. Rice.”
“Will you give them my best, Mr. Yu?”
“I certainly will, Mr. Rice.”
“Good day, Mr. Yu.”
“Good luck, Mr. Rice.”
After giving the President a progress report by telephone at five o'clock, McAlister had gone straight to dinner. He was not at all hungry, but dinner gave him an excuse for drinks. By six he was at his favorite corner table in an expensive Italian restaurant that was popular with Cabinet officials, White House aides, senators, congressmen, and reporters. This early in the evening, there were very few customers. McAlister sat alone with his back to the wall, the Washington Post in front of him and a glass of iced bourbon ready at his right hand.
As it had been for more years than he liked to think about, the news was sprinkled liberally with insanity, with signs of a society enduring a prolonged attack of schizophrenia. In Detroit three men had been killed when a group of young Marxist factory workers, all of whom earned salaries that provided them with a Cadillac-standard of living, planted a bomb under a production-line conveyor belt. In Boston, an organization calling itself The True Sons of America was taking credit for a bomb explosion in the offices of a liberal newspaper, where a secretary and bookkeeper were killed. And in California the left-wing Symbionese Liberation Army had surfaced once again. Eight SLA “soldiers” had crashed a birthday party in a wealthy San Francisco suburb and murdered two adults and five small children. They had kidnapped three other children, leaving behind a tape recording which explained that after much consideration and discussion among themselves about what would be best for the People, they had decided to stop the capitalist machine by either murdering or “reeducating” its children. Therefore, they had kidnapped three children for reeducation and had slaughtered those for whom they had no available SLA foster parents.
McAlister picked up his bourbon and finished nearly half of it in one long swallow.
In the past he had read this sort of news and had been appalled; now he was outraged. His hands were shaking. His face felt hot, and his throat was tight with anger. These SLA bastards were no different from the crackpots who were behind the Dragonfly project. One group was Marxist and one fascist, but their methods and their insensitivity and their self-righteousness and even their totalitarian goals were substantially the same. Was it possible for even the most single-minded liberal to support fair trial, mercy, and parole for these bastards? Was it possible for anyone to try to explain their behavior as having its source in poverty and injustice? Was it possible, even now, for anyone to express equal sympathy for killers and victims alike? He wished it were possible to execute these people without trial… But that would be playing right into the hands of men like A. W. West — who, of course, deserved the same treatment, the same quick and brutal punishment, but who would probably wind up administering it to the left-wingers. None of these people, revolutionaries or reactionaries, deserved to live among men of reason. They were all animals, throwbacks, forces for chaos who had none but a disruptive function in a civilized world. They should be sought, apprehended, and destroyed—