Ultimatum (42 page)

The four men sat down and buckled themselves in. The tone of the plane’s engines changed and the aircraft began to move.

“All right, Mr. Knight, tell me what happened.”

Knight cleared his throat. “I told President Wen what I had been asked to say, and then I gave him the dossier that I was given.” The banker paused. The plane was gathering speed.

“Go on.”

“He…um, he looked through the dossier while I was there and said he would need time to consider it. Then he asked me to come back the next day, and then there was another delay of a day so it was only yesterday I met him again.”

“And did he make any other remarks at your first meeting?”

“We exchanged news,” said Knight. “Personal things.”

The president nodded. The plane took off and pitched up.

“We also exchanged thoughts on the economy. After President Wen had looked at the dossier and said I would have to come back, we had a brief discussion, just as we would normally do.”

“What happened when you went back?”

“President Wen said the issues you raised are grave.”

“Was that his exact word?”

“I’m translating, sir.”

“What language do you use with him?”

“Mandarin, mostly. Technical economic stuff, we sometimes go into English. He has excellent English.”

The president nodded. “I interrupted you.”

Knight cleared his throat. “He said the issues are grave. They require much thought. They will affect the lives of our children and our children’s children. He gave me a letter, sir. He asked me to be sure to deliver it to you personally.”

Knight pulled a plain envelope out of his jacket pocket. He unbuckled his seat belt and handed it to the president.

On the envelope was written, “For the President of the United States.” For a moment it struck Benton as funny, like something a kid would write if they had to send a letter to the president.

Benton slid a finger under the flap of the envelope and tore it open. He pulled out the single page that was inside.

To His Excellency Joseph Benton, President of the United States of America.

I thank you for your letter and the information you have sent me. You have chosen a good man to carry your word. Our world faces a grave danger. As you have written, this is truly a historic moment, and it is our duty, as the leaders of the two greatest economies in the world, to lead the world out of this danger. The People’s Republic of China is prepared to fulfill its historic role at this time. Together, our two great countries can lead the world to a brighter future. Let us try to find the way. Let us not have people who come between us. When we speak, let our words be carried direct to the other.

Sincerely yours,

Wen Guojie

President of the People’s Republic of China.

The president looked up. Ball, Olsen and Knight were watching him.

He handed the letter to Ball, who was sitting closest to him. Ball scanned it and gave it to Olsen.

Knight cleared his throat. “President Wen asked me to say, after you had read the letter, that he would consider a channel to take this matter further.”

“Bill, “ said Alan Ball, “is he expecting you to come back with an answer?”

Knight nodded.

“Mr. Knight,” said the president. “You’ve done a fine job for your country. I want to ask if you’ll wait outside.”

“Yes, sir.” Knight unbuckled his harness and stood.

Ball got up as well and took him out.

The president looked at Olsen. “This is good, huh?”

Larry Olsen nodded cautiously. “He didn’t say any of the information we gave him was new.”

“So what?”

“Why’s he changed his mind?”

Ball came back. “We’re in business!”

Benton smiled. “Larry’s got doubts.”

“You don’t say.”

“All I’m saying is that he didn’t say the information was new. So why does he want to do anything different than he did before? And by the way, he had a channel. Chen.”

“Maybe he doesn’t trust Chen.”

“Then why not send someone he does trust? Why act so aggressively and then change course just because we send him the same information we sent before.”

“Because he finally realizes he’s talking to someone who’s serious,” said Ball.

“Or because he thinks he can still keep control as long as he’s talking to us. That’s how he can keep stringing us out.”

“Hell’s bells, Larry! What else could you have wanted?” Benton glanced at Alan Ball in exasperation.

“A rationale,” said Olsen. “I want him to say, ‘Gee, I didn’t realize things were that bad. Now I see why I have to act.’”

“Look at what he does say. He recognizes the historical imperative to do something.”

“And he didn’t recognize that before? You mean someone had to point it out to him? Are we going to believe that?”

“Larry, I’m sorry.” Benton found himself straining to control his frustration. “It may be that he’s not going to give you everything you want in exactly the way you want it. Live with it.”

“I’m not saying we don’t talk to him. I’m just saying—”

“Mr. President,” said Ball, “we’re not laying on sanctions after a letter like that.”

“Of course not.”

“That’s exactly the point,” said Olsen.

“Larry, I don’t know what the hell
more
you could have wanted!” Benton struggled to restrain himself. “We’re going to talk to him. All right? The man says he wants to talk, we’re going to talk. We’re going to tell Bill Knight to go back and say we’ll talk, we’re serious about negotiating, we’re nominating someone who’ll have a direct line to me. That’s what we’re going to do, period.”

Olsen nodded.

Benton sat back in his chair and shook his head. “All right. Let’s focus on what we do next.”

“We need a negotiator,” said Ball. “Someone really good. I’ve got a couple of—”

“This is a State responsibility,” said Larry Olsen. “State will find a negotiator.”

“Two minutes ago you didn’t even want—”

“This is a
State
responsibility.” Olsen gazed at the president. “State will find a negotiator.”

Benton glanced at Ball. “Larry’s right.”

Ball clenched his jaw.

“Just keep Alan in the loop.”

“Sure,” said Olsen. He looked at Ball.

“How quick can we make this happen?”

“As quick as Wen wants,” said Olsen.

“Then to your point, Larry, that’ll show how serious Wen is. All right, where are we going to do it? It can’t be Washington. Can’t be Beijing.”

“Oslo,” said Olsen. “We tell them there’s some incredibly sensitive negotiation between us and China. They’ll think it’s about Taiwan. We’ll tell them it has to take place in utter secrecy and would they mind hosting it?” Olsen smiled sardonically. “Norwegians love stuff like that. They’ll wet themselves.”

~ * ~

Thursday, May 26

Eidsvoll, outside Oslo, Norway

The road led through a forest of fir and spruce. In the back of the car, alongside Oliver Wu, sat Pete Lisle, a tall, reddish-haired man in his fifties with a big blade of a nose and a chiseled chin. A State veteran, he had brokered the Turkish-Kurdish autonomy deal that put an end to decades of bloodshed in eastern Turkey. That had taken four long years of his life, half of it on horseback in the mountains of Kurdistan. He had succeeded through incredible patience on detail combined with unsentimental, ruthless decisiveness in forcing the crucial compromises at the crucial times, together with an uncanny ability to gain the trust of the people he negotiated with. No one at State knew more about getting a deal on the table and making it stick.

It was a warm spring morning. It reminded Lisle somewhat of spring mornings in the forest valleys east of Diyarbakir.

“I bet this place is cold as hell in the winter,” he murmured, staring out the window.

Oliver Wu nodded.

“I hate the cold. Comes from growing up in Chicago. When I retire I’m going to southern California.”

Wu began to laugh at that, then stopped, thinking of the data they had in their briefcases. Southern California wasn’t necessarily going to be much of a place to live.

Lisle turned to look at him. “Believe an agreement can be reached, Dr. Wu.” Pete Lisle held up a finger. “Lisle’s first law of negotiation. You have to believe it can be done. And then it can. It’s never rocket science. The answer’s never something no one’s thought of before—it’s just something one side or the other hasn’t been prepared to accept.”

Wu nodded, wondering whether the Chinese side was really prepared to accept the full cost of what had to be done. Or whether the United States was either, when it came to it.

Eventually the car turned onto a drive and pulled up at a house. It was a classical Scandinavian country lodge, two-story, white, formerly a hunting lodge for the Norwegian royal family. A pair of small pointed turrets poked up out of the roof.

A man from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry was waiting to welcome them. The driver, another Foreign Ministry employee, pulled their cases out of the trunk.

“We the first ones here?” asked Lisle.

“The other parties are scheduled to arrive this afternoon, Mr. Lisle,” said the man from the Foreign Ministry, and he led them inside.

They knew who to expect. The Chinese side had forwarded two names, and the CIA had provided background on each one. Lin Shisheng was a talented Bank of China executive who had worked closely with Wen back in his Finance Ministry days and was often called upon, according to the CIA, when Wen needed someone for a particularly sensitive mission. Gao Jichuan was a more shadowy figure who had been around Wen for years as a kind of general aide or factotum. The creativity in the negotiation, if there was any, would come from Lin. Gao’s role was probably to hold him within the limits of whatever bounds Wen had set.

The objective of the initial phase of the discussion was limited. At this point, the aim was to share information with the Chinese side. In the planning sessions with Larry Olsen, there had been much discussion about the amount of information they should provide. Pete Lisle had been insistent that they supply everything they were going to provide up front. Olsen wanted to keep some of the data up his sleeve, but Lisle wouldn’t budge. The day he had to admit he had something more, he said, was the day he would lose his credibility with the other side. Eventually Olsen agreed, with the exception of data that would reveal the specialized sources operated by Dr. Richards’s unit. Lisle still wasn’t sure he had everything, but he knew he had as much as he was going to get.

The Norwegians had arranged for the negotiators to have a light meal together in the evening before a first, brief discussion session. Lin was of middle height, with receding hair and a round, lively face, and it was soon obvious that he was talkative and sociable. Gao was taller, heavy-featured. As they ate, Lin launched into a long story about his first visit to the United States as a student, culminating in a ludicrous incident when he was mistaken for the brother of a notorious gangster in San Francisco’s Chinatown. It was hilarious the way he told it, but almost lethal at the time. Lisle reciprocated with a story about being caught in the crossfire between two warlords in Kurdistan. Or what he and his guides thought was crossfire, but turned out to be two wedding parties on either side of a valley that had become a little too competitive with the celebrations. Lin laughed appreciatively. Gao gave a slight smile. It wasn’t clear how good Gao’s English was. Wu said something in Mandarin about his closest brush with death being the time he tried to teach his sister to drive. Lin laughed at that as well. Gao smiled the same stiff smile.