The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [130]
"Wouldnt be the Germans, would it?" Ryan asked next.
"Probably not. It makes their banks look good. And, yeah, that leaves the Chinese covering it up."
"Any way to confirm that?"
"I have some friends in Germany. I can ask around, or have a friend do it for me. Better that way, I guess. Everybody knows Im a government employee now, and that makes me sinister," Winston observed with a sly grin. "Anyway, I am having lunch with Scott today. What do I tell him about the trade negotiations?
Ryan thought about that for several seconds. This was one of those moments—the frightening ones, as he thought of them—when his words would shape the policy of his own country, and, possibly, others as well. It was easy to be glib or flip, to say the first thing that popped into his mind, but, no, he couldnt do that. Moments like this were too important, too vast in their potential consequences, and he couldnt allow himself to make government policy on a whim, could he? He had to think the matter through, quickly perhaps, but through.
"We need China to know that we want the same access to their markets that weve given them to ours, and that we wont tolerate their stealing products from American companies without proper compensation. George, I want the playing field level and fair for everyone. If they dont want to play that way, we start hurting them."
"Fair enough, Mr. President. I will pass that message along to your Secretary of State. Want I should deliver this, too?" Winston asked, holding up his SORGE briefing sheet.
"No, Scott gets his own version of it. And, George, be very, very careful with that. If the information leaks, a human being will lose his life," SWORDSMAN told TRADER, deliberately disguising the source as a man, and therefore deliberately misleading his Secretary of the Treasury. But that, too, was business, and not personal.
"It goes into my confidential files." Which was a pretty secure place, they both knew. "Nice reading the other guys mail, isnt it?"
"Just about the best intelligence there is," Ryan agreed.
"The guys at Fort Meade, eh? Tapping into somebodys cell phone via satellite?"
"Sources and methods—you really dont want to know that, George. Theres always the chance that youll spill it to the wrong person by mistake, and then you have some guys life on your conscience. Something to be avoided, trust me."
"I hear you, Jack. Well, I have a day to start. Thanks for the coffee and the pastry, boss."
"Any time, George. Later." Ryan turned to his appointment calendar as the Secretary walked out the corridor door, from which hed go downstairs, cross outside because the West Wing wasnt directly connected to the White House proper, dart back inside, and head off into the tunnel leading to Treasury.
Outside Ryans office, the Secret Service detail went over the appointment list also, but their copy also included the results of a National Crime Information Computer check, to make sure that no convicted murderer was being admitted into the Sanctum Sanctorum of the United States of America.
CHAPTER 17—The Coinage of Gold
Scott Adler was regarded as too young and inexperienced for the job, but that judgment came from would-be political appointees whod schemed their way to near-the-top, whereas Adler had been a career foreign-service officer since his graduation from Tufts Universitys Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy twenty-six years earlier. Those whod seen him work regarded him as a very astute diplomatic technician. Those who played cards with him—Adler liked to play poker before a major meeting or negotiation—thought he was one very lucky son of a bitch.
His seventh-floor office at the State Department building was capacious and comfortable. Behind his desk was a credenza covered with the usual framed photographs of spouse, children, and parents. He didnt like wearing his suit jacket at his desk, as he found it too confining for comfort. In this hed