The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [298]
Fang nodded and smiled at that. He liked Qian. The man spoke the truth more faithfully than those who were supposed to listen for it. But Fang kept his peace on this. He, too, was concerned with the political developments caused by those two overzealous policemen, but it was too late to discipline them now. Even if Xu suggested it, Zhang and the others would talk him out of it.
Secretary Winston was at home watching a movie on his DVD player. It was easier than going to the movies, and he could do it without four Secret Service agents in attendance. His wife was knitting a ski sweater—she did her important Christmas presents herself, and it was something she could do while watching TV or talking, and it brought the same sort of relaxation to her that sailing his big offshore yacht did for her husband.
Winston had a multiline phone in the family room—and every other room in his Chevy Chase house—and the private line had a different ring so that he knew which one he had to answer himself.
"Yeah?"
"George, it's Mark."
"Working late?"
"No, I'm home. Just got a call from New York. It may have just started."
"What's that?" TRADER asked TELESCOPE.
"Butterfly—the ladies' clothing firm?"
"Oh, yeah, I know the name," Winston assured his aide. Well he might: His wife and daughter loved the place.
"They're going to bail on their contracts with their PRC suppliers."
"How big?"
"About a hundred forty."
Winston whistled. "That much?"
"That big," Gant assured him. "And they're a trend-setter. When this breaks tomorrow, it's going to make a lot of people think. Oh, one other thing."
"Yeah?"
"The PRC just terminated its options with Caterpillar—equipment to finish up the Three Gorges project. That's about three-ten million, switching over to Kawa in Japan. That's going to be in the Journal tomorrow morning."
"That's real smart!" Winston grumbled.
"Trying to show us who's holding the whip, George."
"Well, I hope they like how it feels going up their ass," SecTreas observed, causing his wife to look over at him.
"Okay, when's the Butterfly story break?"
"It's too late for the Journal tomorrow, but it'll be on CNN-FN and CNBC for damned sure."
"And what if other fashion houses do the same?"
"Over a billion, right away, and you know what they say, George, a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money." It had been one of Everett McKinley Dirksen's better Washington observations.
"How much before their currency account goes in the tank?"
"Twenty, and it starts hurting. Forty, and they're in the shitter. Sixty, and they're fuckin' broke. Never seen a whole country sleeping over a steam vent, y'know? George, they also import food, wheat mainly, from Canada and Australia. That could really hurt."
"Noted. Tomorrow."
"Right." The phone clicked off.
Winston picked up the controller to un-pause the DVD player, then had another thought. He picked up the mini-tape machine he used for notes and said, "Find out how much of the PRC military purchases have been executed financially—especially Israel." He clicked the STOP button, set it down, and picked the DVD controller back up to continue his movie, but soon found he couldn't concentrate on it very well. Something big was happening, and experienced as he was in the world of commerce, and now in the business of international transactions, he realized that he didn't have a handle on it. That didn't happen to George Winston very often, and it was enough to keep him from laughing at Men in Black.
Her minister didn't look very happy, Ming saw. The look on his face made her think that he might have lost a family member to cancer. She found out more when he called her in to dictate his notes. It took fully ninety minutes this time, and then two entire hours for her to transcribe them into her computer. She hadn't exactly forgotten what her computer probably did with them every night, but she hadn't thought about it in weeks. She wished she had the ability to discuss the notes' content with Minister Fang. Over the years of working for him, she'd