Debt of Honor - Tom Clancy [71]
"Many would say that," Goto allowed with the most perfect manners. "And I salute you for your courage. Alas, objective conditions have hurt our country. For example, the relative change of dollar and yen has had devastating effects on our investments abroad, and these could only have been the result of deliberate policy on the part of our esteemed trading partners."
There was something about his delivery, the Prime Minister thought. His words sounded scripted. Scripted by whom? Well, that was obvious enough. The PM wondered if Goto knew that he was in even a poorer position than the man he sought to replace. Probably not, but that was scant consolation. If Goto achieved his post, he would be even more in the pawn of his masters, pushed into implementing policies that might or might not be well considered. And unlike himself, Goto might be fool enough to believe that he was actually pursuing policies that were both wise and his own. How long would that illusion last?
It was dangerous to do this so often, Christopher Cook knew. Often? Well, every month or so. Was that often? Cook was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, not an intelligence officer, and hadn't read that manual, assuming there was one.
The hospitality was as impressive as ever, the good food and wine and the exquisite setting, the slow procession through topics of conversation, beginning with the polite and entirely pro forma inquiries as to the state of his family, and his golf game, and his opinion on this or that current social topic. Yes, the weather was unusually pleasant for this time of year—a perennial remark on Seiji's part; fairly enough, since fall and spring in Washington were tolerably pleasant, but the summers were hot and muggy and the winters wet and dank. It was tedious, even to the professional diplomat well versed in meaningless chitchat. Nagumo had been in Washington long enough to run out of original observations to make, and over the past few months had grown repetitive. Well, why should he be different from any other diplomat in the world? Cook asked himself, about to be surprised.
"I understand that you have reached an important agreement with the Russians," Seiji Nagumo observed as the dinner dishes were cleared away.
"What do you mean?" Cook asked, thinking it a continuation of the chitchat.
"We've heard that you are accelerating the elimination of ICBMs," the man went on, sipping his wine.
"You are well informed," Cook observed, impressed, so much so that he missed a signal he'd never received before. "Thai's a rather sensitive subject."
"Undoubtedly so, but also a wonderful development, is it not?" He raised his glass in a friendly toast. Cook, pleased, did the same.
"It most certainly is," the State Department official agreed. "As you know, it has been a goal of American foreign policy since the late 1940's back to Bernard Baruch, if memory serves—to eliminate weapons of mass destruction and their attendant danger to the human race. As you well know—"
Nagumo, surprisingly, cut him off. "I know better than you might imagine, Christopher. My grandfather lived in Nagasaki. He was a machinist for the naval base that was once there. He survived the bomb—his wife did not, I regret to tell you—but he was badly burned in the ensuing fire, and I can well remember his scars. The experience hastened his death, I am sorry to say." It was a card skillfully played, all the more so that it was a lie.
"I didn't know, Seiji. I'm sorry," Cook added, meaning it. The purpose of diplomacy, after all, was to prevent war whenever possible, or, failing that, to conclude them as bloodlessly as possible.
"So, as you might imagine, I am quite interested in the final elimination of those horrible things."