Never, page 21
All those at the table were men, although some of the aides sitting around the walls were women. Kai thought the Chinese governing elite needed more women. His father thought the opposite.
The director, Hu Aiguo, asked Foreign Minister Wu Bai to outline the problem they had gathered to discuss.
“There is an economic crisis in North Korea,” Wu began.
“As usual.” The comment came from Kong Zhao, a friend and political ally of Kai’s. It was mildly disrespectful to interrupt the foreign minister like this, but Kong could get away with it. In a brilliant military career, he had completely modernized the army’s communications technology, and now he was national defense minister.
Wu ignored him and went on: “The government in Pyongyang has asked for massive aid.”
“As usual,” Kong said again.
Kong was the same age as Kai, but he looked younger; in fact he looked like a precocious student, with his carefully disarranged hairstyle and his cheeky grin. In Chinese politics most people were careful to look conservative—as Kai was—but Kong allowed his appearance to advertise his liberal attitudes. Kai liked his nerve.
Wu said: “The demand arrived late yesterday, though I knew it was coming, thanks to advance intelligence from the Guoanbu.” He looked at Fu Chuyu, who bowed his head in acknowledgment of the compliment, happy to take the credit for Kai’s work.
Wu said in conclusion: “The message comes from Supreme Leader Kang U-jung to our president, Chen Haoran, and it is our task today to advise President Chen on his response.”
Kai had thought in advance about this meeting and he knew how the discussion would go. There would be a clash between the Communist old guard on the one hand and the progressive element on the other. That much was predictable. The question was how the conflict would be resolved. Kai had a plan for that.
Kong Zhao spoke first. “With your permission, Director,” he began, perhaps compensating for his earlier disrespectful attitude, and Hu nodded. Kong said: “In the past year or more the North Koreans have blatantly defied the Chinese government. They have mischievously provoked the South Korean regime in Seoul with minor incursions into their territory, both on land and at sea. Worse, they have continued to stir up international hostility by testing long-range missiles and nuclear warheads. This led to the United Nations’ imposing trade sanctions on North Korea”—he held a finger up for emphasis—“those sanctions being one of the principal reasons for their continued economic crises!”
Kai nodded. Everything Kong said was true. The supreme leader was the author of his own problems.
Kong went on: “Our protests have been ignored in Pyongyang. We must now punish the North Koreans for defying us. If we do not, what conclusion will they draw? They will think they can continue their nuclear program, and thumb their noses at UN sanctions, because Beijing will always step in and save them from the consequences of their actions.”
Hu said: “Thank you, Kong, for those characteristically trenchant comments.” Across the table from Kong, General Huang Ling was drumming his blunt fingers on the polished woodwork, desperately impatient to speak. Hu noticed and said: “General Huang.”
Huang was a friend of Fu Chuyu and of Kai’s father, Chang Jianjun. All three were members of the powerful National Security Commission and shared a hawkish view of international affairs. “Allow me to make a few points,” Huang said. His voice was an aggressive growl, and he spoke Mandarin with a harsh Northern Chinese accent. “One: North Korea forms a vital buffer zone between China and American-dominated South Korea. Two: if we refuse aid to Pyongyang the government there will collapse. Three: there will immediately be an international demand for so-called reunification of North and South Korea. Four: reunification is a euphemism for takeover by the capitalist West—remember what happened to East Germany! Five: China will end up with its implacable enemy on its border. Six: this is part of the Americans’ long-term encirclement plan whose ultimate aim is to destroy the People’s Republic of China the way they destroyed the Soviet Union. I conclude that we cannot refuse aid to North Korea. Thank you, Director.”
Hu Aiguo looked faintly baffled. “Both of these perspectives make a good deal of sense,” he said. “Yet they contradict one another directly.”
Kai said: “Director, if I may, I do not have the experience or wisdom of my older colleagues around the table, but it so happens that I debriefed a high-level North Korean source just the day before yesterday.”
“Go ahead, please,” said Hu.
“North Korea has six weeks’ supply of food and other essentials. When that runs out, there will be mass starvation and social breakdown—not forgetting the danger of millions of starving Koreans walking across the border and throwing themselves on our mercy.”
Huang said: “So we should send them aid!”
“But we also would like to punish their bad behavior by withholding our help.”
Kong said: “We have to, otherwise we lose all control!”
Kai said: “My suggestion is simple. Refuse help now, to punish Pyongyang, but send aid in six weeks, just in time to prevent the collapse of the government.”
There was a moment of silence as they took this in.
Kong spoke first. “That’s an improvement on my proposal,” he said generously.
“It might be,” said General Huang reluctantly. “The situation would have to be closely monitored, day by day, so that if the crisis is worse than expected we can bring forward the dispatch of aid.”
Hu said: “Yes, that would be essential, thank you, General.”
Kai saw that his plan was going to be accepted. It was the right solution. He was on a roll.
Hu looked around the table. “If everyone is in agreement . . . ?”
No one demurred.
“Then we will propose this to President Chen.”
Chapter 12
Tamara and Tab were both invited to the wedding, but separately: their relationship was still secret. They arrived in different cars. Drew Sandberg, head of the press office at the American embassy, was marrying Annette Cecil from the British mission.
The marriage took place at the palatial home of a British oilman who was a relative of Annette’s, and the guests crowded into a large air-conditioned room with awnings shading the windows.
It was a humanist ceremony. Tamara was intrigued: she had never been to such a wedding before. The celebrant, a pleasant middle-aged woman called Claire, spoke briefly and sensibly about the joys and challenges of marriage. Annette and Drew had written their own vows and said them with such feeling that Tamara teared up. They played one of her favorite old songs, “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. She thought: If I ever get married again I want it to be like this.
Four weeks ago she would not have had that thought.
She glanced discreetly across the room at Tab. Did he like the ceremony? Did the vows touch his emotions? Was he thinking about his own wedding? She could not tell.
The oilman had offered his house for the party, as well as the ceremony, but Annette had said that her friends were rowdy and might wreck the place. After the service, the bride and groom went to register their marriage and the guests were directed to a large local restaurant that had closed to the public for the day.
The place was owned by Christian Chadians who made North African food and had no problem serving alcohol. There was a big dining room fragrant with spicy cooking, plus a shaded courtyard where a fountain played. The buffet was mouthwatering: crisp golden sweet-potato fritters garnished with fragrant cut limes, a goat stew with okra that had the kick of chilies, fried millet dough balls called aiyisha with a peanut sauce dip, and more. Tamara particularly liked a brown-rice salad made with cucumber and banana slices in a spicy honey dressing. There was Moroccan wine and Gala beer.
The guests were mostly younger members of the N’Djamena diplomatic circuit. Tamara talked for a while to Nick Collinsworth’s secretary, Layan, a tall, elegant Chadian woman who had studied in Paris, as Tamara had. Layan had a somewhat aloof manner, but Tamara liked her. They talked about the wedding ceremony, which they had both enjoyed.
At the same time Tamara was constantly aware of Tab and had to make an effort not to follow him around the room with her eyes, though she always knew where he was. She had not yet spoken to him. Every now and again she met his glance and looked away without acknowledging him. She felt as if she were walking around in a space suit, unable to touch or speak to him.
Annette and Drew reappeared dressed in party gear and looking deliriously happy. Tamara stared, envying them.
A band started playing and the party began to swing. Tamara at last allowed herself to talk to Tab. “Boy, oh boy, this is difficult,” she said quietly. “Pretending we’re still no more than colleagues.”
He had a bottle of beer in his hand, to look convivial, but he had drunk hardly any. “For me too.”
“I’m glad you’re suffering as well.”
He laughed. “Just look at those two,” he said, nodding at the bridal couple. “Drew can’t keep his hands off Annette. I know just how he feels.”
Most of the guests were dancing to the band. “Let’s step into the courtyard,” said Tamara. “Not quite so many people.”
They went out and stood looking at the fountain. There were half a dozen other people out there, and Tamara wished they would go away.
Tab said: “We need more time together. We always meet and part, meet and part. I want us to be more intimate.”
“More intimate?” she said with a grin. “Is there any part of me you don’t know as well as you know your own body?”
His brown eyes looked at her in a way that always gave her a little internal twinge. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know. I just enjoyed saying it.”
But he was serious. “I want a whole weekend, somewhere else, without interruptions, without people we have to pretend to.”
Tamara was beginning to find this exciting, but she did not see how it could be done. “You mean, like, take a vacation?”
“Yes. It’s your birthday soon, I know.”
She did not remember telling him that. But it would have been easy for him to find out. He was a spy, after all. “Sunday,” she said. “I’ll be thirty. I wasn’t planning to make a big fuss.”
“I’d like to take you away, as a birthday present.”
She felt a warm flush of affection. Oh, God, I like this guy, she thought. There was a snag, though. “I love the idea,” she said. “But where could we go? It’s not like there’s a resort where we could check into a hotel and be anonymous. Anywhere in this country other than here in the capital we’d stick out like a couple of visiting giraffes.”
“I know a good hotel in Marrakech.”
“Morocco? Are you serious?”
“Why not?”
“There are no direct flights from here. You have to go via Paris or Casablanca or both. It takes a day to get there. You can’t do it for a weekend.”
“Suppose I could solve that problem?”
“How else could we travel? Jet-propelled camel?”
“My mother has a plane.”
She burst out laughing. “Tab! How will I ever get used to you? Your mother has a plane! My mother has never even flown first-class.”
He smiled ruefully. “You’ll find this hard to believe, I know, but I find the thought of your family intimidating.”
“You’re right, that’s hard to believe.”
“My dad is a salesman—a brilliant salesman, it’s true—but he’s no intellectual. Your father is a university professor who writes history books. My mom has a talent for creating watches and handbags that rich women will pay ridiculous prices for. Your mother runs a high school, responsible for the education of hundreds of young people, maybe thousands. I know your parents don’t make any money, but in a way that’s even more impressive. They’re probably going to see me as a spoiled rich kid.”
She noted two things in that little speech. One was his humility, which she thought was pretty unusual in men of his social group. The other, more important, was the assumption that he was going to meet her parents. He had a vision of his future, and she was in it.
She did not remark on either but said: “Could we really do it?”
“I’ll have to ask if the plane is free.”
“This is so romantic. I wish we could make love right now.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see why not.”
“In the fountain?”
“Perhaps, but I don’t want to draw the spotlight way from the bride and groom. It would seem discourteous.”
“Oh, all right, you old stick-in-the-mud. Let’s go back to your place.”
“I’ll go first. I’ll slip out without saying good-bye. You could pay your respects to Drew and Annette and follow me a few minutes later.”
“Okay.”
“And that gives me a chance to make sure my apartment is reasonably clean and tidy. Unload the dishwasher, throw my socks in the laundry hamper, put out the garbage.”
“All that, just for me?”
“Or I could take off my clothes and lie on the bed until you arrive.”
“I like Plan B.”
“Oh, boy,” he said. “You got it.”
* * *
Next morning Tamara woke up at her apartment in the embassy compound knowing that something had changed. Her relationship with Tab had moved up a gear. He was no longer just a boyfriend. He was more than a lover. They had become a couple, an item. They were going away together. And she had not pushed him into this. It was all his idea.
She lay in bed for a few minutes just enjoying the sensation.
When she got up she found a message on her phone:
Please get 14 bananas for your grandmother. Thank you—Haroun.
She flashed back to the half-abandoned village on the shore of the shrinking lake and the intense, dark-skinned Arab with the New Jersey accent who had said: The message will mention a number—eight kilometers, or fifteen dollars—and the number will be the time he wants to meet you, by the twenty-four-hour clock. . . . The place of the first meeting will be Le Grand Marché.
Tamara was excited, but she told herself not to expect too much. Abdul had not known a lot about Haroun. The man might have access to secrets, but he might not. It was possible he was a shyster who would hit her up for money. She should not get her hopes up.
She showered and dressed and ate a bowl of bran flakes. She put on the scarf Abdul had given her for identification, blue with a distinctive pattern of orange circles. Then she went out into the mild air of the desert morning. It was her favorite time of day in Chad, before the air became dusty and the heat oppressive.
She found Dexter at his desk drinking coffee. Today he was wearing a blue-and-white-striped seersucker suit. In this country of vivid Arab robes and chic French fashion, he was dressed in an American sartorial cliché. On the wall was a photograph of him with a college baseball team, proudly holding up a trophy.
“I have a meeting with an informant this afternoon,” she said. “Le Grand Marché at two p.m.”
“Who is it?”
“A disillusioned terrorist, according to Abdul. He’s calling himself Haroun and he lives across the river in Kousséri.”
“Reliable?”
“Nobody knows.” It was important to manage Dexter’s expectations. He found it hard to forgive unfulfilled promises. “We’ll see what he has to say.”
“It doesn’t sound auspicious.”
“Perhaps.”
“The Grand Marché is huge. How will you know each other?”
She touched the scarf at her neck. “This is his.”
Dexter shrugged. “Give it a try.”
Tamara turned to leave.
Dexter said: “I’ve been thinking about Karim.”
She turned back. What now?
Dexter said: “He promised to get you a draft of the General’s big speech.”
“He promised nothing,” Tamara said firmly. “He said he’d see what he could do.”
“Whatever—”
“I don’t want to pester him about it. If we let him know that it’s important to us he may start to think he’d better keep it to himself.”
Dexter said impatiently: “If he doesn’t give us information, he’s no use.”
“I could give him a gentle hint next time I see him.”
Dexter frowned. “He’s a big fish.”
Tamara wondered where Dexter was going with this. She said: “Yes, he’s a big fish. That’s why I’m so glad I’ve won his trust.”
“You’ve been in the Agency now for what, five years?”
“Yes.”
“And this is your first overseas posting.”
Tamara began to see what he was getting at. She felt angry. “What are you trying to say, Dexter?” she said, not as respectful as she ought to be. “Spit it out.”
“You’re new and naïve.” Her tone had given him an excuse to be harsh. “You aren’t experienced enough to run a source as important as Karim, one who has such high-level access.”
You asshole, Tamara thought. She said: “I was experienced enough to reel him in.”
“Not the same thing, of course.”
I should know better than to fence with him, she thought. You never win an argument with your boss. “So who will take over from me as Karim’s contact?”
“I thought I might do it myself.”
So that’s it. You’ll get the credit for my work. Like a professor who publishes a paper based on a discovery by his doctoral student. Classic.
