Vice President Cooper Wallace sat alone in his office in the Executive Office Building after the security briefing. He flicked on the television and then changed the channel from CNN to CNBC. He wasn’t interested in the political pundits’ speculations, but in the numbers that reflected the financial mind of the country. The header rotated from the prices of gold, silver, and oil to the Dow and NASDAQ. They’d both dropped four percent on the news of the transition, then gained three back. The same in London and Berlin.
At first, he felt relief. The markets had time to absorb the news about the president’s health, to weigh it, to allocate their resources, and decided that the world wasn’t coming to an end. Maybe those economics textbooks were right after all. It really was a self-adjusting mechanism, a collective mind that takes in data and prices itself accordingly.
But then a shudder of self-doubt waved through him.
Maybe it wasn’t confidence in him that the market was showing, but a belief that the president would soon resume his place as the captain of the ship of state and that Wallace’s assignment was merely to hold the rudder steady in the meantime.
He, too, had watched the surgeons’ press conference. He, too, had felt no doubt that the surgery would be routine and successful. He, too, saw the confidence in the wire-rimmed Harvard Medical School faces of the white coats. He, too—
But then his mind twisted back down the tunnel of the past, to the president calling him into his study, warning him to think and to listen.
You want to be president in two years, but something could happen to me, and you’d be sitting in this chair tomorrow.
Now the white coats seemed like costumes and the wire rims like props and their words spoken from a script written by the president.
Tomorrow had arrived.
Chief of Staff Paul Nichols knocked on his door, then entered.
“This is the list,” Nichols said, handing Wallace a sheet bearing five names. He then pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “Russian and Chinese interpreters are standing by. The French, German, and Japanese presidents will speak to you in English. The British prime minister will go first.”
Wallace skimmed down the page. He didn’t mind the others, but was disgusted by the thought of having to call the Chinese president to reassure him that the pull on the American oars would remain steady. He could see the man’s soft, round face, beaming like the owner of a company store—
No, that wasn’t it. It was the self-satisfied smirk of a colonial master. They owned the debt and therefore had the U.S. by the pocketbook.
Americans could still feed themselves, but they had to cook on Chinese stoves and in Chinese pots and pans and pay tribute in the form of interest on a trillion dollars of treasury bonds. If Casher is right, Wallace thought, they have us not only by our hearts, minds, and consumer cravings, but by the balls.
Wallace reached for the remote to turn off the television. He hesitated as an inset box appeared showing Manton Roberts standing before a microphone. The business reporter’s voice was replaced by Roberts announcing that National Pledge Day would include prayers for the president’s recovery.
“Smart move,” Nichols said to Wallace. “He never misses a trick. He’ll quadruple the participation. Even the crippled will stand to say the pledge and even the deaf will hear the prayer.”
Wallace didn’t rise to the sarcasm. He might not believe in the event, but he believed in the power of prayer.
“Is Casher still out there?” Wallace asked, punching the mute button.
Nichols nodded, then walked back out to the reception area. Casher entered a moment later carrying his briefcase.
“Was it your decision or the president’s not to mention in the Cabinet meeting that the Chinese are putting together criminal cases against us?”
“The president’s. He didn’t want to chance a leak.”
Wallace wanted to say, You mean he doesn’t trust his own people? but he left the thought unspoken for fear of appearing to have forgotten the fundamental lesson of politics: The political animal is first of all an animal, and while some might doubt the theory of evolution, everyone accepted the truth that the first law of nature was survival. And loyalty, like betrayal, was just a weapon.
“But he did ask me to meet with the attorney general,” Casher said, “and in a fill-in-the-blank-later fashion outline the bribery evidence against the corporate officers the Chinese appear to be targeting.”
“You mean to take to a grand jury?”
“Only in case you, or the president, decide to get ahead of the Chinese and charge them with violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The U.S. Attorney can simply code all of the targets’ names, the companies’ names, and the offshore accounts that he presents in evidence. Once the grand jurors accept that crimes have been committed, it will take all of ten minutes to fill in the blanks and issue an indictment.”
Wallace didn’t like the path laid out before him. He felt like the Chinese were leading the U.S. into a trap.
“I don’t like the idea,” Wallace finally said. “The Chinese set the terms for doing business over there. If their officials weren’t corrupt, we wouldn’t be paying bribes. Isn’t that what the Mexicans tell us: Stop using drugs and we’ll stop shipping them?”
“You’re right, but it may be out of our hands.”
Casher laid his briefcase on the desk, then opened it and handed Wallace a draft indictment.
“This is it,” Casher said, “with all of the blanks filled in.”
Wallace flipped through the twenty pages. “It seems short, given how massive the scheme was.”
“The indictment doesn’t have to outline our entire theory of the case and every act in the conspiracy,” Casher said, “only enough to prove a single count for each defendant. We picked the most provable.”
“You’ve also named some French and German defendants.”
“We don’t want to take the whole blame.”
“But what’s our jurisdiction? They’re not U.S. citizens.”
“But they paid some of the bribes in U.S. dollars. Our currency, our jurisdiction. That’s good enough for the Supreme Court.”
Casher took it back and opened to the overt acts alleged against RAID, then turned it toward Wallace.
“You’ll see that we’ve tracked a single payment from a RAID account in Singapore to a Hong Kong law firm, and then to the offshore account of a coconspirator we’ve identified only as ‘Chinese Official One.’”
Wallace read down the page. “Who is it?”
“The vice mayor of Chengdu, Zhao Wo-li.”
“Why didn’t you name him?”
“It would make things too messy. He’s escaped the PLA encirclement of the city. We don’t want the story to become one about a massive manhunt—”
“Unless we later want to shift the blame onto the Chinese.”
Casher nodded. “We can also lessen the damage to us by orchestrating the announcement of the indictment and the replacement of the officers so they happen simultaneously.”
“I still don’t like it,” Wallace said. “I don’t like us taking the blame for other countries’ problems.” Wallace flipped the indictment closed. “But if it happens, let it not be during the few days of my watch.”