Dave laughed. ‘So what did you say then?’ He took another sip of the pinot gris.
‘Nothing. I’m not in a position to start negotiating with him. What I’d already said isn’t our government’s position. I didn’t want to compound it. I need a little deniability. A couple of remarks during a conversation – anyone can misinterpret that. A whole discussion about the pros and cons, a negotiation over the strategy, what we will support, what we won’t support – that’s a different story.’
‘Honey, you know, this is how wars start. One little misunderstanding …’
‘Dave, I don’t think we’re going to war with Great Britain. At least I haven’t heard of any planning for that contingency.’
Dave was serious again. ‘So what happens now?’
‘Well, I guess by now Sir Antony will have sent a report to London about this surprising change of direction by the US government and I would say in about …’ Marion paused and glanced at her watch, ‘six hours from now somewhere in Whitehall there’s going to be quite a lot of interest in this. A couple of hours after that, I suspect our ambassador in London is going to get a call. A couple of hours after that, I suspect Bob Livingstone is.’
‘And a couple of hours after that …’
Marion raised her glass. ‘I’m waiting for it.’
‘And you will say …?’
‘That’s a very good question, Mr Bartok. I’m not sure. What if I were to say that I didn’t say it – Seale misinterpreted or something like that – but actually, he has a very good point? A resolution wouldn’t be helpful, and the Brits must know it themselves or they wouldn’t have construed my perfectly innocent remarks in such a ridiculously slanted fashion. Obviously there’s some kind of Freudian diplomatic slip going on and they know themselves they shouldn’t be pushing the resolution.’ Marion paused. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think …’ Dave paused, nodding, then he shook his head. ‘No. That’s not going to work.’
‘No, I don’t think so either.’
‘Because we do want a resolution, don’t we?’
‘That’s the problem. We do want a resolution.’ Marion frowned. She put down her glass.
Dave watched her.
Her frown deepened. ‘Dave, I just don’t get what we’re doing. This is going to be another kick in the teeth for China – which achieves absolutely nothing in South Africa apart from strengthening Mthwesa, who we want to weaken – and I just don’t understand what the president thinks he’s going to get out of doing that. We kicked them over Uganda. Now we’re going to kick them over this. And we need them. We keep asking them for stuff and we keep kicking them.’
‘What are we asking them for?’
‘A statement over Fidelian and … there’s other stuff.’ Marion hadn’t told Dave that Dewy and Montez were thought to be in the Sudan. ‘There’s a number of things. We keep going to them and asking them for stuff, and then we keep hammering them.’
‘I’m not sure that getting rid of the LRA and calling for democracy in South Africa is hammering the Chinese,’ said Dave. ‘That’s a partial way of seeing it, don’t you think?’
Marion looked at him. ‘You’re right. It is. But right now, when we need their help – and believe me, we
need
their help – we have to see it like they do. Does it really matter if we don’t put a resolution down on the ANC before Christmas?’ Marion sighed. ‘We need to give them space. We need them to do a couple of things for us and instead of going back and asking over and over again, at the same time as we’re kicking them in the teeth, as they would see it, we need to step back and let them do it in their own way.’
‘Is there time for that?’
‘What’s the alternative? We don’t get anything if we don’t give them the time. TS – Knowles wanted to talk to Zhang and Zhang said he wasn’t available.’
Dave stared at her.
‘I don’t know what that means. No one knows what it means. But to me, it doesn’t mean, yes, let’s keep going harder. The White House perspective seems to be, if they won’t do what we want, they’re being obstructive. And if they’re being obstructive, then we need to keep hammering at them. But I think the more we keep hammering them, the more obstructive they’re going to be.’ Marion threw up her hands. ‘It’s crazy. It’s like two kids in a schoolyard. We need to change our way of doing things with them. The world’s changed. We’re not going to get what we want by confronting them. There are too many things we need from them. We need to start collaborating. Really. Not just with words.’
‘Yeah, but honey, they’re not a pleasant regime.’
‘You’re right. They’re dictatorial, they oppress human rights, they don’t have free speech.’
‘Or rule of law.’
‘Or rule of law.’
‘Or habeas corpus.’
‘Dave, we should have thought of that twenty years ago before we bound up our economy so tight with them. They’re not just another country any more. They’re part of us. We’re part of them. We’re like two …’ Marion paused, searching for a way to express it. ‘We’re like a pair of conjoined twins, we share the same blood vessels. The same blood. And we’re not going to get anywhere by hitting our conjoined twin on the head, because they’re just going to hit us back, and neither of us can ever get away from each other. We’ve got to stop hitting.’
Dave smiled.
‘What?’
‘It’s the image.’
‘Yeah. It’s like some kind of Greek tragedy. Two people tied eternally together but doomed to be always trying to get ahead of each other.’
‘I like the conjoined twins hitting each other on the head better.’
Marion shook her head, smiling in despair.
‘What if they don’t want to stop hitting?’ said Dave.
‘Someone has to stop. Someone has to stop first.’
‘What if I don’t like my conjoined twin? What if I don’t like the way he does things? Maybe if I keep hitting him a little longer he’ll stop doing those things and then I can stop hitting him.’
‘And maybe he’ll keep doing them even more just to show he can. We need to ask ourselves, how are we going to help him change? Hitting him on the head day after day is unlikely to do it.’
‘What if he won’t change?’
‘Something has to. Someone has to be first.’
Dave was silent.
Marion was reminded of what Joel Ehrenreich had said to her the last time he had been in this apartment. ‘Is Tom Knowles the man to do it?’ she asked rhetorically.
‘Is Zhang?’ said Dave.
‘That’s a fair question.’ Marion was silent for a moment. ‘You know, I’m starting to think what Joel said in his book is right.’
‘He’s got the diagnosis. I’m not sure he’s got the solution. It’s easy to say our global problems are shared problems. Easy to say we should share the problem-solving. I didn’t see him describing the mechanism.’
‘That’s his point. If the mechanism isn’t there, we have to create it. If you’ve got shared problems, you have to share the problem-solving. There’s no alternative.’ Marion picked up her glass and took a sip of the remaining wine. ‘We have a president who’s in the middle of a crisis that would test anyone – I’m not saying it’s easy – but in terms of mobilizing the support of our greatest global rival, he just isn’t doing it. Again, you know, I’m not saying it’s easy, but if we don’t change the way we go about it, we’re in trouble.’
‘So you think they did something with Fidelian?’
‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.’ Marion let out a long, weary sigh. ‘My experience from working in two administrations and seeing how things work at this end is, who the hell knows? They may not know themselves. Sometimes things just happen. They think we won’t let the bank fail, they think we will but it won’t matter, they think their investment fund will make some money, they think they can show how strong they are … who knows? All of the above and none of the above. Somehow they end up doing it.’
‘Or they did it specifically to influence our elections.’
‘That’s possible as well.’
‘And the implications of that are huge.’
‘True. That’s why we lost half our net worth today, remember? But they didn’t
necessarily
do it to influence our elections. And the only voice in this administration who’s trying to put a little moderation into the debate is Bob Livingstone. And Bob …’ Marion didn’t need to say the words. Dave knew that she liked the secretary of state but that she had seen him progressively marginalized over the last two years by Gary Rose and John Oakley until he had lost any influence he might have started with. ‘And Doug Havering,’ she added, ‘has turned into a kind of White House mouthpiece in the department because he figures Livingstone will go in the second term and he’s jockeying for his own position. Everyone’s jockeying for the second term but the way we’re going I wouldn’t be too sure we’re going to get past the first.’
Dave was silent, watching her.
‘And I don’t count for anything, Dave.’
‘Honey, that’s not true.’
‘It is. My position had cabinet status under Obama. Not under Tom Knowles. You know, I don’t care about cabinet status. I knew from the start I wasn’t going to have it. The point is the way this president governs and where the advice comes from that he values. I can’t get anything to him without it going past Rose. Believe me, I’ve tried. Bob should be able to, but I don’t know if even he can any more. And that’s frightening, Dave. Right now that’s a frightening situation.’
Dave watched her. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. Whispering to Antony Seale like some schoolgirl isn’t going to do it.’ Marion shook her head. ‘I just … This White House, every day now I wonder what the hell they’re going to say next.’
43
‘THANK YOU FOR
coming today.’
The president was making the statement in the East Room, flanked by Defense Secretary Oakley and Treasury Secretary Opitz.
‘I would like to make a few remarks concerning some of the key issues that are facing us. The last weeks have not been easy ones for the American economy and I think the time has come to set this clearly in perspective and show that in fact our economy remains sound and the American people can be confident as we enter the holiday season that there is no return on the horizon to the kind of experiences we went through ten years ago. I also have some news to give you on our two brave airmen who were shot down in Uganda a month ago. I would like to start with that.’
The reporters gazed at him expectantly, pens poised. They had been told that he would not be taking questions.
‘As you know, we have been working constantly to locate our servicemen, Captains Pete Dewy and Phil Montez, utilizing all the intelligence capabilities at our disposal, and I would like to thank the many men and women in our military and intelligence services who have spent long hours in this quest. Their efforts have not been wasted. We now have what we consider to be incontrovertible evidence showing that Captains Dewy and Montez have been moved across the Ugandan border into Sudan and are now either in the control of the Sudanese army or at the very least that the Sudanese army is aware and permissive of their presence there.’ He paused. ‘This is a state of affairs that is not acceptable to the United States of America nor should it be acceptable to the government of any member state of the United Nations. I call on the Sudanese government to immediately release Captains Dewy and Montez, shot down and abducted while carrying out an operation sanctioned by the United Nations, who have been illegally conducted into Sudan and are being held either by an internationally proscribed terrorist group or by the Sudanese army itself. The Sudanese government should be aware that a failure to comply with this requirement at the earliest possible opportunity will be met with the severest response from the United States. Let me be clear on this – I take nothing off the table.
‘ To the Dewy and Montez families, I will say what I have said from the start: we will get your boys back. We will leave no stone unturned, no effort undone, until they are with us again. We will get them back.
‘I would also like to take this opportunity to speak to the friends of Sudan within the international community. A true friend is one that tells its friend when it is in the wrong. So to the friends of Sudan: the United States expects you to use your good offices with Sudan to help achieve the immediate release of Captains Dewy and Montez, just as the United States would use its good offices with any of its allies, in the unlikely event that they would be so foolish as to engage in such an illegal act, to ensure that such an episode would be brought to a rapid conclusion. Any member of the international community that can use its relations with Sudan to help achieve this objective and chooses not to do so, will be seen by the United States for what it is – part of the problem and not part of the solution. Now let me say explicitly in this context, that the United States expects the government of the People’s Republic of China, as a friend of Sudan, to play its role. I remind the Chinese government that Captains Dewy and Montez were shot down and abducted while in the execution of an operation sanctioned by the United Nations, and as such it is the obligation of every member of the United Nations to do what it can in order to ensure the return of these two brave men. I expect that the government of the People’s Republic of China will comply with that obligation.’
He paused.
‘Now, I turn to the economic situation. It’s clear that we face a perfect storm of uncertainty that is creating widespread anxiety across the financial markets and the economy more broadly. I would like to step back and remind ourselves what has actually happened here. We have seen the bankruptcy of one bank resulting from a series of poor commercial decisions that were taken many years ago. This bankruptcy has created understandable caution on the part of other banks, for two reasons. First, they themselves have been exposed to losses from the failure of Fidelian. The Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have all worked closely with affected banks to understand the scale of these losses and at this point we do not believe that any other bank is in danger of failure as a result of Fidelian’s bankruptcy. Where additional liquidity has been required, Chairman Strickland of the Federal Reserve has been quick to provide this. The second reason: banks are understandably concerned about the possibility of additional banks being found to be in difficulty. This saps confidence and reduces the willingness of banks to lend to each other, with the effect of further freezing the system. The measures already taken have provided critical assistance and we believe that, as a result of this firm action, confidence is returning. Chairman Strickland and Secretary Opitz continue to monitor the situation on a daily basis and are ready to step in with further measures as needed. So let me be clear. There is no banking crisis in this country. There will be no banking crisis. Our banks are sound. Our regulatory authorities are closely monitoring the industry. The executive arm is ready to act.