“I'd like to hear about it,” the President said.
“There's a way we can defuse The Committee and yet avoid all of the investigations, trials, and public agony. There's a way we can keep the lid on the assassinations and all the rest of it — and still punish the guilty.”
The chief executive's eyes narrowed. “What you're going to suggest is… unorthodox, isn't it?”
“Yes, sir.”
The President looked at the tape recorder for several minutes. He said nothing; he did not move. Then: “Maybe I'm ready for the unorthodox. Let's hear it.”
“I want to play some more of the tape first,” McAlister said. “I want you to be even readier than you are now.” He switched on the machine:
mcalister: Then Chai Po-han is Dragonfly?
rice: Yes.
mcalister: If he was back in China way last March, why haven't you triggered him by now?
rice: In order to cover his absence from his room that night in Washington, we made it look like he'd been out carousing. We put him back to bed, soaked him in cheap whiskey, and put a pair of — a pair of lacy women's — panties in his hands…
mcalister: Oh, for God's sake!
rice: Because his roommate, Chou P'eng-fei, was more lightly sedated than Chai, we knew he would wake up first in the morning, smell the whiskey, see the lace panties. We didn't foresee, couldn't foresee, how these crazy damned Chinks would react. When they got back to China, Chai was sent straight to a farm commune instead of to Peking. He was punished for what they call “counterrevolutionary” behavior.
mcalister: The People's Republic is an extraordinarily puritanical society.
rice: It's crazy.
mcalister: Most developing countries are puritanical. We were like that for a couple of hundred years, although not quite so fiercely as China today.
rice: We wouldn't send an American boy to a slave-labor camp just because he got drunk and took up with a hooker. It's crazy, I tell you.
mcalister: They didn't see it as just “taking up with a hooker.” To them it was a political statement.
rice: Craziness. Crazy Chinks.
mcalister: Chai wasn't an American. Didn't you see, didn't you even suspect, that American standards might not apply? Christ, you fouled up the project at the very beginning! You screwed up on such a simple bit of business — yet you think you know how to run the world!
rice: It was an oversight. Anybody could have made the same mistake.
mcalister: You're dangerous as hell, but you're a real buffoon.
rice: (Silence)
mcalister: Chai is still on this commune?
rice: No. He was released. He arrived in Peking at five o'clock this morning, our time.
mcalister: When will he be triggered?
rice: As soon as possible, within the next twelve hours.
mcalister: Who is the trigger man in Peking?
rice: General Lin Shen-yang.
mcalister: What? General Lin?
(A flurry of indistinct conversation)
mcalister: Is General Lin a part of The Committee?
rice: No.
mcalister: Does he know he's the trigger?
rice: No.
mcalister: He's been used, just like Chai?
rice: That's right.
mcalister: How was it done?
rice: General Lin keeps a mistress in Seoul. We went to her, threatened her, and got her cooperation. When he visited her last March, we drugged his wine, planted a series of subliminal commands deep in his subconscious mind. When he woke, he had no knowledge of what had been done to him. When he is told to do so, he will seek out Chai Po-han and trigger him.
mcalister: When he's told to do so?
rice: Yes.
mcalister: Then you've established a sort of double trigger. Is that right?
rice: Yes.
mcalister: Why so complex a mechanism?
rice: The sophisticated surgical facilities we needed to implant the spansule of bacteria existed only here in the States. We couldn't haul it off to Korea and turn General Lin into Dragonfly. We had to operate on someone who was visiting the Washington area. Then we had a problem setting up a trigger man. We couldn't use any of the three deep-cover agents the CIA has in China, because they're not Committeemen. So we had to rely on a Westerner who was one of us. Now, Chai Po-han doesn't have much contact with Westerners in Peking. Our man would have a difficult time getting to him without causing a spectacle. General Lin, on the other hand, has a great deal of contact with Westerners and with his countrymen alike. Our man, we realized, could trigger General Lin; the general could then trigger Dragonfly.
mcalister: I understand. But who is your first trigger man, the one who gives the word to Lin?
rice: Alexander Webster.
mcalister: Our ambassador to China?
rice: Yes.
(A babble of voices)
mcalister: Are you saying our embassy in Peking is a nest of Committeemen?
rice: No. Just Webster.
mcalister: You're positive of that?
rice: Yes.
(Ten seconds of silence)
mcalister: What disease is Chai Po-han carrying?
rice: A mutated strain of the bubonic plague.
mcalister: In what way is it mutated?
rice: First of all, it's transmitted differently from every other kind of plague. Most strains are carried by fleas, ticks, or lice. Wilson's plague is totally airborne.
mcalister: It's transmitted through the air? Through the lungs?
rice: Yes. You're contaminated simply by breathing.
mcalister: What are the other mutations?
rice: It's extremely short-lived and has a very low level of fertility. In three days it will be dead and gone.
mcalister: So the Nationalist Chinese can move in then?
rice: Yes.
mcalister: What other mutations?
rice: The bug needs just nine to twelve hours after it hits your lungs to kill you.
mcalister: Is there a vaccine?
rice: Yes. But Wilson didn't produce much of it. You don't need much if the plague's one hundred percent abated by the time you send in troops.
mcalister: How much vaccine is there?
rice: One vial. Webster has it.
mcalister: What about the other Americans at the embassy?
rice: They will be sacrificed.
mcalister: How noble of you.
rice: It was necessary. They aren't in sympathy with The Committee. They couldn't have been trusted.
mcalister: How many people will die if Dragonfly is triggered?
rice: We have computer projections on that. Somewhere between two million and two and a quarter million deaths in the Peking area.
mcalister: God help us.
When McAlister switched off the tape recorder, the President said, “You sounded badly shaken on the tape, but now you're so damned calm. And it isn't over!”
“I've sent my message to Canning,” McAlister said. “I have faith in him.”
“Let's hope it's well founded, or we're all finished.”
“In any event,” McAlister said, “there's nothing more that you or I can do. Let's talk about that unorthodox plan of mine.”
SEVEN
The CIA's third deep-cover agent in Peking was very much like the first two deep-cover agents in Peking. He was in his sixties, just as Yuan and Ku had been. His name was Ch'en Tu-hsiu. Like Yuan and Ku, he had lost his family and money when the Maoists assumed power. Like Yuan and Ku, he had fled to Taiwan, but had returned soon enough as a dedicated CIA operative who would live under the Maoists for the rest of his life and pass out what information he could obtain. He had worked hard to prove what a loyal Maoist he was. As a result, and because he was an intelligent man to begin with (as were Yuan and Ku), he was promoted and promoted until he became Vice-Secretary of the Party in the Province of Hopeh, which included the capital city of Peking. And finally, just like Yuan and Ku, he was judged a truthful man by the computerized polygraph.