The Mandarin Club (33 page)

“It’s not that simple, Senator. I can’t compartmentalize things like you. I get sick of the endless compromises of basic principle that politics requires you to—”

“Will you
stop
being so hard on me?” said Smithson, almost shouting now. “And on yourself, for that matter.”

“Senator, it’s just that—”

They were interrupted again by buzzers, loud as a fire drill. They waited through a series of five rings—a vote on the Senate floor.

Just as Smithson began to speak again, there was a firm knocking at the hideaway door.

“Jesus Christ,” Smithson grumbled before barking: “Yes?!”

“Mr. Chairman, I tried to call you, but—”

It was Senator Landle bursting in. He stalled mid-sentence when he saw Smithson was not alone.

“Oh, sorry. Mr. Chairman, I, uh, just wanted—I felt obliged to inform you that I have an Ethics Committee letter. It was signed just now. For subpoenas on the leak inquiry. It authorizes lie detectors.”

Smithson’s brows narrowed as he took the papers Landle handed him.

“We’ll put it to a vote in the full Senate, if necessary. But Mr. Chairman, I, uh. . . we’d prefer to have your support.”

“You work quick,” Smithson snapped.

“Well, we have to protect the integrity of the institution,” Landle replied. “Even if this is uncomfortable.”

Smithson looked at the committee letter casually, perusing the signatures. “We’ve been pals a long time, Tom. I really kinda like you, you should know.”

“Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I feel the same way about you.”

“It’s not just good politics. You always used to disagree agreeably. I never felt better than when we were on the same side.” Smithson turned his head now, rising in his seat as he jabbed at the papers in his fist. “But
this
, this is the lowest piece of—”

“
This is different, Mr. Chairman!”

“It
isn’t
different! It’s the same bullshit your caucus has been putting out for thirty years—ever since we brought Nixon down. The partisan cheap shots just get nastier and nastier—on both sides, I’ll grant you. I mean, we block poor old Judge Bork, then you guys spend the last eight years of the twentieth century—a hundred million bucks—going through the fucking president’s garbage because you couldn’t knock him off in a fair election. No, Tom, this isn’t different. It’s the exact same bullshit you’ve—”

“I’m not going to stand here and listen to a stream of your barnyard obscenities, Jake. I’m really very sorry you make it come to that.”

“You’re the one who marches into my office with some asinine subpoena. But you know what really pisses me off, Tom? It’s that you don’t see how they’re using you.”

“Nobody uses me!”

“Of course, they are. China lies to Washington. The White House and State Department lie to Congress. And who do you go after? The Senate staff! You want us to have an orgy of self-flagellation up here over some newspaper story? Well, sorry, friend. I’m not going to be a party to it.”

“I totally reject your characterization of—”

“Tom! You’re too smart not to see it!”

“It’s about defending the integrity of the process, Jake. If you have something to hide, it’s your own darn fault.”

The two men glared at each other, calculating next moves until Landle’s discomfort became so great, he snatched back the committee letter and turned to leave.

“That won’t be necessary, Senator,” Booth heard himself remark, as if he was watching from afar.

“What?”

They had almost forgotten about Booth. The staff man had remained seated, observing as the scene played itself out like a familiar Greek tragedy. He already knew the inevitable denouement.

“The subpoenas.” The two legislators stared at him, uncomprehending, even as he continued, “They won’t be necessary.”

“What?”

Calmly, Booth stepped off the cliff. “It was me,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Senator Smithson didn’t leak the missile story to the newspaper,” Booth explained, turning to Landle now. “
I
did.”

“You?! Jake!” Landle’s eyes darted back and forth between Booth and Smithson, who were regarding each other intently. “Did you know about this?”

“
I
leaked it,” Booth said matter-of-factly as he stood and began to walk toward the door. “I leaked the photos because I thought it was the right thing to do. Because we shouldn’t let them lie to us. Because we shouldn’t let the Chinese and the White House get away with it.”

His confession silenced the senators. They waited, confused as to what they should say, as Booth concluded: “I just came over to tell all this to Chairman Smithson. And to submit my resignation.”

Booth regarded them both for a moment longer as he stood at the threshold. They were cringing as they watched him depart.

Booth turned the brass knob and opened the hideaway door. He gently pushed it shut until it clicked behind him, then headed down the tiled Capitol hallway one last time. He walked out through the heavy revolving door under the Senate steps, stepping into a warm spring rain. The first thick drops splotched his gray suit. Soon, they began to penetrate.

He was surprised to notice that, as the moisture soaked through to his skin, he felt cleansed.

M
ickey Dooley discovered the comfort of prayer late in life. The free fall of faith yielded a wondrous consolation. As he let go, trusting in the Lord to cushion him, he conjured visions of deliverance. He could see himself surviving the gauntlet ahead, breaking loose, back home in America with his children.

Faith was the perfect antidote to overcome years of swaggering bravado, the false empowerment of the playboy’s hustle. Things would work out, he grew confident, because an omniscient God intended them to. Huckster Mickey could no longer will them to.

The prospect of failure was too grim to imagine, and he preferred the idea of some glorious death—martyrdom in the streets of Beijing—to the repugnant alternatives he tried to bar from his mind. As he flew into China on this final trip, he was full of hope. He could pull this off. He could rescue both his children and Lee from a bleak future and redeem himself in the doing.

It seemed too easy at first. The U.S. Air Force plane ferrying the official delegation into the Communist capital took a smooth glide path, cumulus clouds parting over the Pacific shore. Quite soon, the road-ringed capital loomed ahead, arid mountains barely discernible on the far northwest horizon. After all the recent tensions between Washington and Beijing, Mickey found the placid scene unnerving.
Could this be a tease?

It was just a twenty minute descent from the coastline to the capital as the Smithson delegation savored the steak and Merlot served en route by the pursers on the plane they called “Air Force Three.” Up front, many of the senators on board were dozing, an odd bipartisan mixture of legislators whom Smithson had roped in for cover or comfort. The corporate hitchhikers rode in the rear.

After the comforts of Tokyo and Seoul, China promised to be tense. The furor over the Chinese missile build-up had almost led Smithson to bail on the Beijing leg. As they had left Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland, the Chinese leadership and the White House were still deep into the media spin cycle, suspicious of each other’s every move and looking to exact revenge. It was an odd game of diplomatic chicken; neither side wanted to take the blame for axing the summit. So with the pretense of business as usual, the Congressional delegation anxiously proceeded with the China portion of their itinerary.

The Smithson entourage had an agenda as internally contradictory as it was familiar. The chairman was eager to lecture the Chinese about human rights and nuclear nonproliferation, to debate the responsibilities of a twenty-first century superpower. At the same time, he would encourage them, thank you very much, to buy American—commercial aircraft, computer software, bridges, and dams. As always, there was no consensus among his senior colleagues on how to deal with China. Some wanted to talk grain and citrus sales. Others were more interested in arguing about the missiles deployed against Taiwan, proselytizing about religious freedom, or encouraging uncensored Internet access.

Rachel had joked with Mickey that the delegation’s mixed message was the perfect metaphor for two centuries of Washington’s contradictory impulses towards all things Asian. They would preach democracy while lusting for commercial opportunity. They would come to do good and stay to seek profit—Mickey had called it right years before.

As they prepared to land, Rachel sat next to Mickey in the plane’s rear. She worried about the ground logistics like a den mother. Mickey was fretting yet again, she noticed, as he had all week, working over his nails as he gazed into space, anxious as a cat looking to sprint across traffic.
Suddenly a white
-
knuckle flier? Couldn’t be
.

Rachel was struggling to stay focused on her pending business with Telstar and others on board. With Booth missing in action—rumors had him accepting a position with Smithson’s nascent presidential campaign or even taking another teaching sabbatical—the care and feeding of her clients, and their legislative champions on the plane, fell largely upon her. The opportunities facing her and her clients in China were sufficiently important that she was along to make sure everything went smoothly—and to lobby Smithson and his colleagues for help on the margins.

She was in a disembodied state as she ruminated. She sat with Mickey, babysitting Smithson, wondering about Booth. But it was Alexander whose presence she sensed all around her—Alexander’s words, his smell, his touch.

Barry was so far away, already the forgotten man. Jamie seemed terribly distant, too. On the phone, he was quiet and obedient, the little boy’s small voice sounding tentative. Still, she saw his drawings in the clouds, and she heard his voice playing air traffic controller in the chatter on her headphones. She envisioned him tinkering with his spaceship models, arcing them through the sky with his small hands, orbiting in the imaginary world of an only child.

“This has got to be my last road trip for a while,” she confided to Mickey as the wheels touched down.