The Ambassador (24 page)

‘But it’s not theirs now, is it?’ Strether felt he ought to know. He could feel sweat running down from his armpits. At his side Marius was also smoking, cool in a navy suede tabard and silk shirt, almost oriental in style. No smoke detectors bothered them here. Not for the first time Strether envied his friend the chameleon reflex that enabled him to fit in with any company.

Colonel Thompson spread his rugged hand, palm downwards, and wiggled his fingers. ‘
Comme ci, comme ça
,’ he answered. ‘The Chinese consolidated their hold on Tibet ages ago and disposed of the last bits of Tibetan culture. Only remnants survive in Scotland and Canada. They saw off a Russian invasion in 2015, independent Russia’s last gasp. After that the People’s Army dug in, but in effect they conceded areas west of longitude eighty degrees. By that I mean it doesn’t cause an international row if we carry out patrols, and there’s little activity. But it can be tense – incidents flare up occasionally.’

‘I suppose the fact that it’s so inhospitable may have something to do with it,’ Strether suggested.

The Colonel shrugged. ‘That, plus the lack of any strategic or economic value. Geological surveys indicate oil deposits, but they’re of no great value now. The uranium mines are worked out. And, despite the latest modern weaponry, the mountain ranges are an effective barrier. The air here is too thin for sustained air strikes and human activity is fairly restricted, too.’

Strether had found it disorienting to be in a high-temperature desert with snowy mountains within sight and yet feel breathless. It was not a pleasant mixture.

The Prince had been listening carefully. ‘It can be useful, Colonel, to have a stretch of land between the great empires, no? In effect a sanitised zone?’

‘Yes, that’s right. But not demilitarised. And we still have to fit in with the regional autonomous government. Frontier life has its advantages, though. Some Union laws simply don’t apply.’ He grinned and flicked ash into an antique brass spitoon.

‘So what do the locals do round here?’ Strether asked. ‘Farmers, or what? Nomads? Is there a modern economy, of sorts?’

‘Certainly. Us, for a start – the bases bring in millions of euros, and our Russian hosts are only too desperate to help us spend them. This is R&R territory. D’you fancy a visit to one or two of the nightclubs?’

Strether swallowed and shook his head. ‘No, thanks. It’d be misconstrued back home.’ He was happy to let his host infer that that meant the USA.

The Colonel smiled and prodded the glowing multicoloured map. He scrolled it down a thousand kilometres. ‘Here,’ he pointed again, ‘where the climate allows it, is the Golden 
Triangle, source of most of our recreational drugs. Natural cocaine, heroin and marijuana, crudely grown and manufactured but still big business. Some goes west, a lot east. Do you indulge, Ambassador?’

For once Strether refrained from asking his companion to call him Bill. This dialogue, he felt, had an edge. Too much familiarity might not be desirable. ‘No, I don’t,’ he said. ‘And if I did, I’d prefer the genetically modified variety. Much safer.’ A thought occurred to him. ‘Are the growing areas affected to any extent by lingering radiation from the mid-twenties explosions? I heard there were some accidents near here.’

The Colonel scrolled back. Afghanistan and its neighbours slid away to be replaced by Outer Mongolia. ‘The nearest were at Semipalatinsk and Novokuznetsk. And Irkutsk further east. Doesn’t affect the drugs merchants – or if it does, they aren’t saying. But pockets can be nasty. I don’t send young married troops out
there
.’ He tapped the screen to the right.

‘But they weren’t accidents, Ambassador. Not in this region.’ The young adjutant spoke for the first time. Strether tried to place him. The name badge, Vesirov, indicated Azerbaijan, one of the later Caucasian nations to have joined the Union.

‘Oh?’ Strether was puzzled, but instantly alert.

Captain Vesirov checked with the Colonel. A silent nod gave permission. ‘In the west, and in Siberia, the explosions may well have been accidental,’ the adjutant went on, his voice solemn. ‘Given the ramshackle state of the nuclear reactors, it’s hardly surprising they went hypercritical. At this distance in time we see those incidents as having occurred all at once, but in fact that wasn’t so. They took place over about five years or more, until shut-down could be achieved. So the records say. But in this region half a dozen units went up in the space of
three weeks
.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It’s local legend, and – for accuracy’s sake, you understand, it was a while ago – our unit head checked. The dates when electricity generation ceased at each location are listed.’

‘I think I’m missing something.’ Strether was conscious of Marius’s cool eyes on him. ‘What went on? Did one trigger off some kind of chain reaction in the others?’

‘No-o. Then it’d have happened in a few hours.’ The adjutant paused, as if doubting the wisdom of enlightening their American visitor. Then he continued, slowly. ‘Sabotage, we reckon.’

Marius and the Colonel exchanged looks. Strether struggled. ‘But why? And who?’

‘It suited somebody to paralyse the Russians at that juncture. You could argue that they never really recovered.’ The Azerbaijani spoke impassively.

‘One of the poorest regions in the Union now, that I do know.’ The Ambassador found himself wishing he had absorbed better the reams of Union history downloaded on to his powerbook. ‘The disasters had a big effect on Russian ambitions. Stopped ’em in their tracks. Who gained from that? There’d been fears that they were preparing to challenge the European Union, but those turned out groundless. And China must have been nervous of Russia’s posturing. So was it the Chinese?’

‘You’re not a career diplomat, are you, Ambassador?’ the Colonel remarked. Strether flushed and did not respond. ‘Reflect for a moment on what you said. Who had most to gain, seventy-odd years ago, from the weakening of the economic and physical strength of the Russian Federation?’ 

‘Well…’ Strether cudgelled his brain. He looked up at the two soldiers and the Prince. It came to him, but was hard to believe. ‘You did, I suppose. The Europeans. But surely the Chinese …’

‘The Chinese don’t care.’ Marius was too obviously familiar with the arguments.

‘And they don’t need to,’ the Colonel added crisply. ‘Look. Two billion Chinese. They control nearly ten million square kilometres of territory, and though it’s only half the area of the Russian Fed, most of China’s land is useable. Much of Russia is permafrost or desert and fit only for prison camps. Take another chunk out through contamination, plus two generations weakened by genetic defects – the figures are still secret, even today. It mattered a lot, further west.’

The penny dropped. Strether half rose from his seat.

‘You mean – the Union ordered the sabotage? The European Union destabilised Russia by blowing up its nuclear power stations?’ He felt his mouth drop open. The cynical, rehearsed, discourse at the Forum Club in Brussels, so obviously staged for his benefit, returned in a rush. No wonder the ‘accidents’ had been so significant. ‘But how could that be? Weren’t you supposed to be allies, of a sort?’

‘We were. Like after the Second World War. Allies, and rivals. And potentially, murderous enemies.’

‘But – but it was bloody stupid. The contamination fouled up most of Europe at the time, and since.’

‘All war is stupid,’ the Colonel responded swiftly. ‘There’s always some fall-out. Collateral damage, it’s called. Civilians who get in the way. The European President of the time could be accused of over-enthusiasm. He was Latvian, hated Russia. His loyalty to the Union, however, was beyond question. That’s why Europe is the supreme free state today. Far more powerful than the USA, if you don’t mind me reminding you, Ambassador.’

Marius intervened: ‘And because of the way it was done, there was no war. Just a barrel-load of – well, regrets, you might say, plus offers to help.’

Strether did not feel able to reply.

‘Anyway, that’s why we are
here
.’ The Colonel tapped the screen; the picture jumped and buzzed like angry bees, then settled back to Technicolor tranquillity. ‘The enemy is China, and always was. The Russians gave in eventually and joined us. By then – 2060, wasn’t it? – they were reduced to a rump. Never again a threat to anyone. One minor advantage was that we were able to take over their prison camps. Turned out to be an unexpected bonus. You’ll see one of those tomorrow, I believe.’

The Ambassador rose. His head ached. Frontier life might suit toughened individuals like the Colonel but the lack of creature comforts was not to his own taste. His crotch itched with heat and sand. His mouth was parched and his skin felt like singed paper left too long in the sun. He was probably badly dehydrated. So the Colonel’s next words were like ambrosia.

‘Enough lessons for today, Ambassador. You look done in. This is a punishing station for those new to it. The bar is open – can I offer you gentlemen a drink?’

It was after twenty-two hours. In the quiet of her laboratory, Lisa worked on patiently. In Strether’s absence, the extra time available to catch up was a godsend. It took her mind off him a little, and what felt suspiciously like her lover’s betrayal. 

And the aristocratic Prince Marius was no better, though he could be excused as a European, brought up to accept genetic science’s possibilities. His reputation as a man who appreciated beautiful women fitted also. The Toy Shop was famous for them. The Prince was almost certainly a member, and probably the instigator of the escapade. Like Strether he would probably defend the place as harmless and deride her view of it as sinister.

After Strether’s expressed distaste for the programme, to find that he had so readily forgotten his principles as to patronise the Toy Shop had been a shock. Perhaps the American’s sensitivities had begun to be blunted; that would be a tragedy, even if that came from her own insistence on the virtues of gene manipulation. Yet he didn’t seem to see it like that. Rather, he had defended the production of ‘toys’ with some asperity. He appeared, indeed, to regard them as ordinary mortals – perhaps not
ordinary
, quite. But she had been brutally insulted at the suggestion that she, a top-range NT, might be in the same mould. Plus everyone else she helped to create.

Yet maybe Strether had a point. She pushed back her chair. If he were right – in part – the whole genetic programme could be judged as one. Her scruples would be worthless.

She bent her head once more. Her life’s work.
Omnes unique sunt
. The eradication of disease. The enhancement of mankind’s finest qualities. It
was
useful. It was essential. Bill Strether and Winston could be as critical as they liked – even four thousand genetic defects would have made the programme necessary, let alone more.

But if it went wrong – in however minor a fashion? She pushed buttons and gritted her teeth. Damn. That month two more files had vanished into thin air. Where were those results? Why did they each turn on chromosome 21? Did someone want them suppressed?

You are getting paranoid
, she told herself crossly. It’s the influence of that bumbling overweight foreigner. He was not good for her. He had disturbed her serenity. He had addled her head.

He had questioned her very existence.

The trip to the frontier had become an ordeal. Strether was accustomed to dry heat and a searing dust-laden wind in Colorado. Here the lack of oxygen was debilitating, while crude atmospheric conditioning inside official buildings added dampness and, he suspected, irritating spores to the air. Or perhaps despite bland denials there was a sub-atomic level of radiation present, to which he was sensitive.

The briefing had left him deeply unhappy. Brought up with the optimistic and ethical values of the United States in the twenty-first century, he was not prepared for the Europeans’ worldly cynicism whenever affairs of state surfaced. In such matters he knew himself to be an innocent abroad. The loss of that innocence upset him profoundly.

The tale he had been told was not news to its other hearers. It should not have been news to him; that was probably his own fault. Yet, as he brooded, he was increasingly sure that the act of sabotage committed by Europeans on their Russian neighbours was not widely known. It was not, of course, the type of act any government would want publicised. Especially not once the Russians had accepted the inevitable and joined the Union; and, emasculated, had been welcomed, probably with that same snooty grace towards a tamed barbarian that Sir Robin, Prince Marius, the Graf and other NTs showed towards himself.

His own President, in all probability, was aware of the skulduggery the Colonel had 
described. James Kennedy, a keen student of international relations, would have been amused by – possibly, even admired – the decisive method by which the European Union had destroyed its most dangerous foe. But Strether was not amused. The fact that it had occurred in his father’s lifetime and not his did not help him rationalise it.

The European Union had been modelled on his own country’s success. Its constitution had come increasingly to resemble America’s, right down to the federal arrangements and elected president. Yet it had proved itself, if this story were true, far more ruthless than the USA had ever been. What had its founding fathers created? What kind of monster had it turned out to be?

Strether caught sight of his gloomy face in the mirror – no holograms out here. History, he remembered, is written by the winners. The Union had emerged the victor, and with credit. That alone would be held to justify what had been done.

A trip to a prison camp was hardly calculated to improve his spirits. But since this was the sole chance he might have, it would have been both churlish and a dereliction of duty to have declined.

Besides, the mystery of the boat people, which he had kept in the back of his mind since his appointment, remained unresolved. Some clues might be found here. Dispatches from Washington had mentioned them once more. Further boats had arrived, but again the occupants could offer only the vaguest recollections of their identity and provenance, and had died one by one. One batch had been tattooed with numbers and letters on the thumb, which immediately summoned up the historical comparisons of Nazis and gulags. Whatever inhumanity the Union could commit on its own citizens, Strether reasoned glumly, it was not beyond question that it could be done out here, in this forgotten land.