The Mandarin Club (25 page)

“Rachel! Why didn’t you say something?”

“I just figured it was something I had to do on my own. I’ve got too many things I still want to do, and I know I’ve been living a lie.”

“I know things were screwed up. But you should have told some—”

“Don’t you understand? All these years, I’ve felt not right, like everything was a test and I never quite made the grade. Well, I finally figured it out. It wasn’t about me, about my own self-expectations. It was all about Barry. Barry never liked himself enough to be happy. It was all about Barry. It always was.”

“So. . . what now?”

“So, now I’m free,” she said. “And now I’m going to eat this goddamn apple.”

A
lexander felt like a voyeur. Alone at midnight, he logged onto the Internet. It was a telling conceit, this habit of his, checking the placement of his big story, viewing the
Times
homepage to weigh his competition for the attention of the reading public.
Page one,
he congratulated himself as the paper’s website materialized.
Above the fold
. Before he could sleep, he scrolled once more through the story, imagining the reactions it would spark across the city and around the globe. It was a triumph:

WASHINGTON—Military officials in Taiwan are developing capabilities associated with nuclear weapons production, according to intelligence sources. These initiatives include the import of so-called “dual-use” technology, appropriate for use in a weapons program, and the alleged diversion of modest, but significant, amounts of spent nuclear fuel, a source of weapons-grade plutonium, the
Times
has learned.

Nice pithy lead. Gets the key facts right on the table.

State Department officials in Washington refused to confirm the reports of possible spent nuclear fuel diversion. But these officials concede that the implications of such a clandestine nuclear weapons development program on Taiwan would be profound for U.S. policymakers.

Truth is, they’re scared witless over at State. The “Taiwan
-
is
-
flirting-with
-
nukes
-
again” lead will force the U.S. to reassess positions throughout the region
.

“This is an inevitable result of two decades of a pro-Beijing tilt by successive U.S. presidents: denying Taiwan the right to purchase advanced weapons,” states James Liu of the pro-independence Taiwanese Association for Public Affairs. “China’s build-up of ballistic missiles deployed against Taiwan requires a robust response.” Liu argues that the People’s Republic of China’s 15 percent annual increase in defense spending for each of the last three years justifies an aggressive Taiwanese response.

Dense paragraph. . . maybe I should have buried it. But it’s a strong quote and readers need context.

In recent weeks, Taiwan has imported substantial quantities of krytrons, high-speed electrical switches that can be used as trigger timers in nuclear warheads. Krytrons have very limited non-military uses in electrical circuitry and special effects filming. U.S. Customs sources confirm recent shipments from California via third countries to Taipei. UN inspection agency sources confirm troubling discrepancies during recent inspections of Taiwan’s nuclear power facilities.

Kwan’s stuff from the IAEA was key to the piece. Wonder if he turns up again to float a follow
-
up story?

The issues of Taiwan’s defense requirements and Taipei’s renewed interest in nuclear weapons are expected to severely complicate troubled U.S.-China ties, just weeks before a summit meeting slated for July 31 in Seattle, Washington. Last night, a Chinese government press official reached for comment warned of “the most grave consequences should the ruling clique on Taiwan toy with nuclear weapons.”

Love that closing. Should make for a fun morning—the phones definitely will be ringing
.

Alexander slept as well as he had in days, a deep and satisfying slumber.

“You’re all over the news,” said Branko on the phone early the next morning. To Alexander’s surprise, Branko, seemingly in good humor, had made the direct call to his home.

“I just wish you’d called me back on this,” Alexander said. “I’m kinda out on a limb.”

“Wish I had, too. I have been tied up on something pressing. I would have told you your limb has no strength.”

“Say what?”

“Alexander, it’s crap.”

“What do you mean?” Alexander demanded as a wave of dread swept over him. “Which part?”

“Which part? Try all of it. It reeks.”

“What are you trying to—”

“You’ve been set up, Alexander. It’s obvious to me.”

“Set up? Where? I got three sources on the krytrons. Booth has it, too. The UN stuff on spent fuel I got from documents. I got the—”

“Alexander! It’s Branko here. Your sources may appear to speak the truth. They may
believe
it is the truth. However, things are not what they seem.”

“Where am I off?”

“This is an open line. I’m just warning you, one professional to another. You’re getting jerked around.”

“Are you saying it’s disinformation?”

“I can’t help you with that. Just go back and work the problem.” And then Branko was gone.

Alexander sat for a long time, his bare feet propped against a tidy desk. He felt as if he was going to puke.

He remembered once, when he was a kid, butchering a Spanish dialogue in front of the whole class of fifth graders. Two cute girls up front were laughing when he looked down and saw his fly was wide open. That is how he felt now, humiliated before his peers.

He hurled his ballpoint pen against the wall and cursed. He sat still for several more minutes, his mind rolling back through the conversations of recent days. Frantically, he began to reconstruct the story, going back again to rethink the pieces.

There had been Booth’s intelligence from the IAEA guy and his debrief. The confirming call with Kwan’s colleague in Vienna. The Customs stuff he had cold—two different guys had seen the item in the National Intelligence Digest brief that was all over official Washington. Even the State Department guy who’d tried hard to squash the story the previous evening had known about krytrons moving to Taipei via Canada.

What did I miss
?
Whose game have I stumbled into? Who’s messing with my head?
He could only wonder as the day stretched ahead, long and miserable. He was forced to go to his managing editor for an agonizing conversation, Alexander warning that the entire foundation of their lead story was likely to collapse.

What a story it was. The diplomatic press corps was in a frenzy, with the morning briefers at both State and the Pentagon taking heated questions about Taiwan’s nuclear program. The IAEA staff in Vienna went dark, with the international bureaucracy offering a terse “no comment.” Kwan had vanished.

The White House knocked down the Bonner story hard, the press secretary assailing its author by name with adjectives like “irresponsible” and “sloppy.” The diplomatic damage was done, however, with collateral damage to U.S. international interests. By late evening, Washington time, official Beijing was up and about, issuing ominous statements.

“The reckless splittist forces in Taipei are playing with fire,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman warned. “Unless their American sponsors rein them in, there will be grave consequences for these actions, which are deeply offensive to all Chinese.”

No hastily produced American reassurance would calm them. China’s Ambassador to Washington was promptly recalled for consultations. He delivered a parting blast from Dulles Airport, insisting that Washington would bear “full responsibility” if Taiwan provoked military hostilities across the Taiwan Strait.

The White House responded by dispatching special emissaries to Beijing and Taipei in a desperate effort to curb tensions. In Taiwan, the stock market numbers were appalling, a twelve percent drop before all trading was suspended. The London insurance brokers doubled spot quotes for shipping that called at Taiwan’s ports. The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ plummeted. Smart money fled to cash and gold.

Booth provided little help. The Senate aide had been under suspicion before for leaks. He was exceptionally cautious now. He couldn’t find Kwan himself, and began dodging Alexander’s follow-up calls until Amy finally took pity on him and put Booth on the line at home one evening. Booth apologized for being evasive. Senator Landle was apparently after Booth over the staffer’s allegations that the State Department was dissembling—“lying” was the word Booth used—about an alleged Chinese missile build-up. Booth could offer nothing to advance the story.

A grim week of humiliation unfolded. Alexander felt like a kid chasing falling snowflakes. Just when he thought he caught something in his hands, it had evaporated. As his story was replayed, dissected, and rebuked, friends seemed to be calling to him from afar, rolling by like rubber-neckers at an accident scene.

“Do you know what it’s like to get really pounded?” Alexander lamented one evening on the phone with Rachel. “To be pitching in an enemy ballpark—you reach the seventh inning and you’re totally out of gas. But there’s nobody in the bullpen behind you. The game is yours to finish—and you’re just getting hammered?”

“You’ll rally.”

“My dad knew what it felt like. I saw it a few times—after he realized he’d never make the big leagues. Jesus, he’d take a beating.”

“But he’d finish the game?”

“Had to.”

“So finish it.”

Alexander stumbled as he absorbed the rain of blows. In the newsroom, he felt like a pariah. His first effort at a clean-up story was so full of caveats that he killed the piece himself. The fact was, he didn’t know what the truth was any more. Reality grew more elusive with each passing hour.

His editors were all over his case as the long Memorial Day weekend approached. He worked the phones futilely, trying to find anyone who could set him straight. By Saturday afternoon, there was nobody left in town to call. The coffee was cold. His tuna sandwich was going stale. So, when Rachel phoned with an invitation to Sunday lunch, he accepted her offer to ride out to her aunt’s place in the country.

She came for him at ten the next morning. Grinning and barefoot in her BMW, she was a most welcome distraction. He felt clumsy at first, like a teenager on a first date. She offered only tough love in response to his professional disaster. “You’ll get it right. But don’t go and ruin a blue sky Sunday because of it,” she insisted. “
That
would be a sin.”

As they talked, her optimism was like a tide of good cheer, pulling him forward. He shut off his Blackberry, casting a stealthy glance at her toe-nails, painted Stanford Cardinal red. Instead of Taiwan’s nuclear capabilities, he found himself wondering about whether she made love with her eyes open. The farther beyond the Beltway they drove, the more he began to mellow.

She rambled on about the old days, telling stories on Mickey Dooley and the boys. She was funny, but reflective, too, seemingly eager to question long ago incidents.

“Did you ever figure out where our stupid little Truth or Dare game came from?” she asked abruptly as they passed Chantilly on Route 50.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what was
that
all about?”

“It was your idea the other night,” Alexander noted.

“You’re right. That’s why I was thinking about it, because I was self-conscious at Mr. K’s. I wanted to strangle Barry that night, the way he shows up after weeks away and acts as if everything is hunky-dory.”

“Didn’t it start as Mickey’s game?” He still felt sluggish; Rachel was moving a bit too quickly for him.

“That’s the way I remembered it, too. Mickey’s game. To provoke debate, to supposedly bring us closer by sharing something personal. But then I flashed back to the first time, that card game, when the boys started talking strip poker. It was
Barry
’s idea. That was Barry’s game.”

“Barry?”

“Yeah, a game of self-revelation for people who never really shared their secrets. It was a goddamn tease. Just like Barry. It wasn’t about real intimacy.”