They Eat Puppies, Don't They? by Christopher Buckley

Author:Christopher Buckley
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781780336732
Publisher: Corsair

CHAPTER 19

WHAT WONDERFUL FRIENDS WE HAVE

The dream was back now, every night.

President Fa dreaded the moment when he could no longer keep his eyes open, only to wake in terror, his bed linen twisted into knots.

He was chain-smoking. He’d lost fifteen pounds, and Fa was not a large person to begin with. He looked at food—any food—with revulsion. Madam Fa was at her wit’s end. She confided to her closest friends that the president was “not himself.” In desperation she turned to the faithful Gang, who had served her husband so loyally for over two decades now, but he would only say, “Our dear Comrade President Fa is under severe pressure.” Being the leader of Great China was an honor, to be sure, but a heavy burden. Not to worry, he told her—all will be well. But she’d known Gang long enough to know that there must be something else.

Gang himself, busy enough under normal circumstances, was truly exhausted. There was the regular business of state, and now on top of that the ongoing Lotus crisis. And on top of that he was now having to handle the most delicate secret communications with Admiral Zhang in San Diego, USA. Zhang—Agent Mankind Is Red—had established contact with Beluga. A most perilous under-taking. Gang felt that his every move was under observation by Minister Lo’s security apparatus. And so much depended on the operation.

As for Lo—his attitude toward President Fa now bordered on outright contempt. As global reaction continued to harden against China for its refusal to allow the Dalai Lama to return to Tibet, the meetings of the Standing Committee had grown alternately stormy and chill.

Comrade President Fa presided over these with an increasingly haggard mien. This did not go unnoticed by the other members, especially Minister Lo and General Han. Fa could barely stay awake.

Gang, listening in on the meetings through earphones, was dismayed—no, disgusted, truly—by those committee members who had initially favored the president’s audacious solution and who now, sensing the changed wind, carried on as though they had always been on the side of the Lo-Han cabal. Disgraceful. A deplorable spectacle. And Lo, playing his part so coolly: What an opportunity we missed, Comrades. If only we had acted when we had the chance. Contemptible man!

But Gang’s thoughts were less for President Fa’s weakening political position than for his suffering master, who stood—or tottered and slumped—at the center of the hurricane.

Gang had procured, through the most discreet channels—namely, his college-attending daughter—sleeping pills and stay-awake pills. These he had begun to administer to the president without his knowledge. As a result the president was sleeping a bit better now and he was much more awake during the day. But certain effects had begun to manifest themselves. These were in evidence during the Standing Committee meeting on the day after the incident involving the television show in America, when China’s top trade representative, Comrade Chang, went off-message and created a sensation.

It was generally known within the Standing Committee that Comrade

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