The Mandarin Club (21 page)

M
artin Booth had a theory about duty. He believed it offered the promise of fulfillment—the satisfaction of knowing a commitment had been met. It was a burdensome rationalization.

“Every man is guilty for the good he does not do,” Voltaire had written. Booth’s father had borne the notion like a stigmata, this idea that debts to society were the first that must be paid. It was an ethic handed down through the generations of Booths, from minister to minister. It was burned deep into Martin’s soul, this sense of community obligation that led him to a life of service.

It took years of unanticipated happiness to erode the overarching priority he attached to his work. The more joy he found in marriage and family, the less compelled he felt to make all the world’s troubles his own, to take every struggle so personally. As he matured, he began to let go. It was as if he was on an airplane about to descend from its cruising altitude—those moments just before the seat belt sign comes on for the last time. He could sense a distinct slowing of the persistent motion, an ever so gentle glide back to a welcoming terra firma.

For Booth, duty remained a certain compass, impossible to ignore. On this night, after the heady dinner with what had been such an odd mixture of old compatriots at Mr. K’s, duty was undeniable. So he trudged Willy Loman-like to this last chore, his rendezvous with the irksome caller Kwan.

“It is imperative that I see you!” The voicemail was insistent as he replayed it on the brief drive over to Georgetown. The man was practically hyperventilating, running on in his heavily accented English. The anxiety, the apparent lack of professionalism, bothered Booth.

“I have landed in New York from Vienna, to arrive in Washington early this evening,” Kwan had exclaimed. There was some airport announcement crackling in the background. “I have critical information about nuclear weapons developments in Asia and must see you. I will meet you at the Latham Hotel on M Street, at the bar. Ten o’clock tonight, please.”

Booth had ridden an emotional roller coaster all day—from the unnerving business with Landle about Taiwan, to Alexander’s story and the disastrous China vote, topped off by the weird encounters with Mickey and Barry at Mr. K’s. He wished he was home in Amy’s arms, with the covers over his head. He felt spent, pulled in different directions, all too conscious of the troubles of others around him. But public purpose propelled him forward over the M Street bridge to the tony hotel above Citronelle, another of his favorite eateries. They had another “live one,” as Smithson liked to call such tipsters, some spook appearing out of the blue with insights into the world of clandestine nuclear developments.

It was a peculiar role Booth had come to play—a magnet for weapons proliferation tips—and the senator was unswervingly supportive. As the leading Washington critic of lax technology export controls, Chairman Smithson had developed something of a cult following among the international think tanks. There was a steady stream of visitors to the senator and his aide from obscure research institutes. Swedes. Pakistanis. Israelis. Brits. An eclectic cast of characters they were, too. “Retired” diplomats. Arms peddlers. Awkward professors.

They were spies, all of them. Plants, sent out by various foreign intelligence agencies to troll for fresh morsels, furnished with their own tidbits to offer up in trade.
Did you know Pakistan is drilling at the Baluchistan test site again? Have you heard the Iranians are importing unemployed Soviet bomb designers? How about those latest Chinese missile deliveries to Teheran?
The guests invariably asked leading questions, sprinkling their conversations with nuggets gleaned from their own digging. Teasers from their control officers. Bait for Booth.

The game was high stakes intelligence poker. Even the sober Booth got a big charge out of the play. He was good at it, usually knowing just when to call a bluff and when to bail. He relished the tips. He enjoyed the riddles waiting to be unraveled, the motives not yet ascribed, the challenge of sorting wheat from chaff and discerning who was reliable and who was just another con artist.

Most of his take he would bounce off his own intelligence sources. CIA. Pentagon. NSA and NGA. He liked to road test his haul before proposing that Smithson go public with his conclusions. Then they would make a sensation; Senator Smithson’s latest warnings about weapons proliferation often made page one, leading the national news, above the fold.

The cycle was self-renewing. Publicity begat more tips, which in turn yielded still more coverage. New streams of information were brought forward from foreign adversaries, eager to link up with nuclear control advocates in the American capital. Through it all, Smithson had shone bright. The national press portrayed him as the sage uncle, much beloved for his righteous alarums, and he was always good copy. Booth, the staffer in the shadows, felt validated, gaining the satisfaction of moderating the dramas, his sense of public purpose fulfilled by the Good Works.

The challenge was before him once more as he strode into the bar at the Latham and a slim Asian gentleman with silver framed glasses motioned toward him from a table in the corner. The game was on.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Booth.” It was Kwan, anxious yet dignified as he offered a limp handshake. He beckoned Booth to sit on the chair opposite him. “It is most urgent that we speak.”

Booth was squinting, his legs weighty. A headache, a real pounder, was cranking up. Kwan, playing host on Booth’s turf, signaled to their waiter. On the table were remnants of a meal, the soda he was sipping, and the day’s
Washington Times
.

“I used to work in this city, you might know. A detailee to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” Kwan began. “Export Safeguards Division.”

Booth put in an order for yet another cup of coffee, and nodded.

“In Bethesda. Before I joined the International Atomic Energy Agency overseas.” Kwan paused, grinning nervously again. “So, you checked me out?”

“Yes, I did,” Booth replied, waiting to understand the urgency.

Kwan gathered himself. “I come to you and your senator to avert a great disaster. There is a cover-up going on. I assure you, I have no need of this trouble. The job in Vienna is a—how do you say?—a plum assignment. Over one hundred thousand dollars per year, American. Tax free. Lots of travel. People line up for years to be international inspectors.”

Kwan was Korean, it seemed, not American-born, judging by the overhanging accent.
Maybe British trained. Perhaps Hong Kong.

“I work in the most interesting section. I am an inspector for—I should say I
was
inspector for—the East Asia mission. I covered Tokai-Mura, the big Japanese plutonium recovery facility. The Indian reactors, the ones subject to international inspection. South Korea. China. . .”

He paused here for dramatic effect, milking the moment as he leaned in. “And Taiwan.”

Kwan began to accelerate again, his accent growing more distinct. “I wasn’t on every mission to the region, mind you. But I have access to all files. I’ve seen them all, Mr. Booth.”

Kwan reached quickly below the table, producing a locked briefcase, which he placed on his knees. Booth shifted a bit opposite him, badly needing to take a leak, but not wanting to miss the next part of Kwan’s show-and-tell.

The engineer spun the numbers and snapped open the lock. He glanced about them; they were unnoticed at their table—only a few late diners passing in the stairwell across the room. Their corner of the bar felt quite safe.

“Now, some of our IAEA inspections are better than others. We go into a place like Korea or Taiwan. We look only at facilities subject to IAEA safeguards. We check inventories of fresh uranium fuel going into the power reactors. We count spent fuel rods coming out. We verify that none of the used rods are diverted to extract plutonium to make a nuclear weapon.

“We are quite thorough, really. We also check to see that no fuel has been diverted between the reactors and the ponds where the used nuclear fuel is stored. We check seals on everything. Of course, we can’t be looking for some ‘undeclared facility’ that isn’t on our list. If a host country has a secret plant they haven’t declared to IAEA where they are up to mischief, the Agency has no authority to inspect. But we can report our suspicions.”

Kwan drew closer. At the bar, two waiters were watching the early news on Channel 5.

“Most are very routine. We are like accountants. But sometime, you pick up information. Get a peek behind the curtain, you can say.” He was opening a clean manila envelope. It disgorged an impressive collection of technical papers. IAEA charts stamped “classified.” Photographs with circles and arrows marked in black pen.

Kwan’s tone grew triumphant. “Now, I will tell you about Taiwan.”

The case he laid out was straightforward and, to Booth’s horror, all too plausible. The Republic of China on Taiwan, Kwan asserted, was taking steps to develop a clandestine nuclear weapons capability. The Taiwanese were systematically siphoning small increments of plutonium from their civil power program, diverting spent fuel rods from their peaceful electrical generating program, then expertly sneaking dummy rods back into their spent fuel ponds.

Their books were square with the IAEA. But their secret plutonium source on the side gave them the critical ingredient to develop crude warheads. Presumably, a nuclear capability was envisioned as the last line of defense against their overbearing Communist Party cousins on the Mainland—a Doomsday deterrent, for revelation only during some future crisis with Beijing.

“What about the monitoring cameras?” Booth asked. He had been following the Iran situation closely and knew well the significance of cameras to the monitoring regime.

Kwan seemed delighted by the question. He produced internal IAEA reports chronicling numerous discrepancies, alleged “fogging” of cameras monitoring spent fuel rods, thus requiring frequent replacements.

“What corroborative evidence is there that Taiwan is weaponizing?” Booth said.

“That is what’s most alarming!” Kwan had an annoying habit of accelerating through his sentences until his words ran together like an onrushing stream. “InterPol is getting reports of krytrons being brought in. You know, those high speed electrical switches. They are used as precision triggers in implosion warheads. Ask your Customs people about it. You’ll get verification about a strange krytron export from California, you will see.”

“And what is Vienna doing with this information?”

“Nothing! They just shuffle their paper. Deny that they have hard information. That is why I took my files and come to you, so somebody will expose what the Taiwan authorities are doing.”

Booth felt his calf about to cramp. “But why in the hell would Taiwan risk something like this?”

“Don’t you see? This is from the new independence crowd in charge there now. The separatists, native Taiwanese. They try to look reasonable, but they reject their Chinese heritage. They don’t answer to the people. Their generals are out of control, secretly developing some bomb-in-the-basement.”

A long silence passed between them as Booth ran through the implications in his weary mind. “Taiwan has occasionally flirted with this stuff—even before the current pro-independence government was on the ropes. But I still don’t see what evidence you have that they are preparing actual weapons, what evidence that—”

“What evidence?” Kwan erupted in a violent whisper. “Mr. Booth, I ask you, please! I risk my job, my life, to bring this evidence to you, to your Senator. You have a reputation for fairness, for action. The evidence is here.”

“What makes you—”

“I would like to know what you are going to do about it.”

“Well, with all due respect,” Booth was on the defensive and resorted to formalisms. The coffee was kicking hard at his kidneys. “What exactly do you expect Senator Smithson to do for you?”

“For
me
?” Booth was sorry he had said it, but it was too late, as Kwan hammered away. “This all is not about me, Mr. Booth. I resigned from IAEA, before they could fire me for taking these classified documents.”

“But—”

“And, no, I won’t be making testimony for your hearings. You won’t find me tomorrow. I will go—disappear. I just want to know what
you
will do. There are some reckless separatists in Asia making nuclear weapons that can only bring big trouble. I want to know what the USA is going to do about this.”

“I can’t say.”

“Maybe you will send them more Patriot missiles so they feel more brave to provoke China? Maybe you will hide your head in the sand and pretend you can have more business as usual in Asia. When will you see that you have a nasty little problem? When radioactive cloud floats around to California?”

Kwan stuffed the IAEA documents back into his envelope so violently that he sliced his index finger on the edge. He cursed, sucking furiously at the wound with his thin lips.

“Here!” He slid the package at Booth, a faint sheen of blood at the top. “I do my part. This is all
your
problem now.”

Kwan stood abruptly, banging the table with his knee, before pivoting and walking away.

Booth simmered as he drove home up Wisconsin Avenue, trying to determine his next move. His conflict of interest could not be more acute. Sure, Senator Smithson was Mr. Nuclear Nonproliferation, and they were equal opportunity whistle-blowers. Over the years, they had ticked off the Indians
and
the Pakistanis, the Chinese—even the Israelis—with a scorched earth series of revelations on the Senate floor.

Booth could see all too clearly where these new Taiwan allegations led, however. If Smithson was to go public demanding that Taiwan’s friends prove a negative, he would alienate yet another valued constituency while providing crucial ammunition to his pro-China adversaries. It was not the ground they wanted to be plowing in the weeks before Smithson launched his presidential campaign. Booth didn’t need a clever campaign strategist to explain this to him.