The Threat

He didn’t know how well the translators were keeping up. He couldn’t tell from the expressions in the front rows. His fellow panelists looked interested, though. So he took a breath and plunged on.

“Yet the concern about security is real. It seems to me the way forward may be to address the delegate’s concerns in this area. Maybe we need to discuss a joint guarantee of his country’s security. Perhaps by the U.S., Russia, and possibly China as well.”

After a moment of silence the Kazakh said something, which Dan got a moment later through the headphones: “A guarantee? From exactly what?”

Dan referred to his briefing materials, having found a sentence he liked. “Against threats of use of nuclear weapons, threats of conventional force, threats of resort to force, and economic pressure.”

He was not quite done with this sentence when he caught undisguised horror on the faces of both the British and the Chinese delegates. The Brit was whispering, “Not on your Nelly.” The Russian had gone white. The Kazakh was still sitting impassively, listening to the translation.

Dan sucked in his breath, realizing he’d done something wrong, but not knowing what.

Both the Chinese and the Kazakh were beginning to speak when his Oxbridge neighbor put in, having wrestled the mike out of Dan’s hands, “Of course, this is offered on a speculative basis, for discussion by the appropriate authorities. I believe that is all the United States’ participant is placing on the table. And Her Majesty’s government would no doubt be glad to assist in such discussions, in the interests of fostering mutual understanding. Should the responsible principals desire our participation.”

Dan wasn’t stupid, so when their eyes switched back to him he said meekly, “Uh, that’s right. On a … speculative basis. For discussion by the appropriate authorities.”

“The record should show that,” the Brit delegate prompted. Dan said into the mike, “The record should show that: on a speculative basis only, no commitments by the United States or any other government.”

* * *

He was sweating by the time the discussion broke. Seeing the punji pit he’d almost stepped into. As they stood to polite applause he muttered to his new friend, “Thanks for saving my can there.”

“We must all help one another,” the Briton said quietly, and limped off the platform. Dan, watching, realized he had an artificial leg.

* * *

It took twenty minutes after the panel ended for Dr. White to catch up with him. In fact she was lying in wait for him outside the men’s room. Her mouth looked as if it had been drawn with white chalk. “Tell me you didn’t make a public commitment to a security guarantee for Kazakhstan,” she hissed.

“Uh, it might have started out that way. But the situation got retrieved.”

He told her about the British diplomat’s skillful pullback of his gaffe. White fitted a hand over her eyes. “But the transcript. What’ll the transcript say?”

“I got to the woman who’s producing it. From the Carnegie Endowment. It won’t be in there.”

She wavered, caught between further anger and, he saw, the knowledge that she’d asked him to sit in; chewing further on him, or passing the ding up the line, would be admitting her mistake. At last she said he had to watch everything he said. Even a hint that the U.S. was considering a security commitment in central Asia would trigger every immune system left in Russia, and send the Chinese to the battlements as well.

But maybe he’d succeeded in retrieving his misstep, because he hadn’t heard anything since, no calls from a livid Sebold or outraged cablegrams from the president’s personal son of a bitch, Holt. And the parallel negotiations must have gone all right, because Air Force One landed again that afternoon, back from central Asia with De Bari and the presidents and other plenipotentiaries from the region. Blair was invited to the signing ceremony for the protocol or whatever it was, Dan hadn’t gotten a clear picture exactly what, back in the Catherine Palace. But he thought he might as well make himself invisible for a while.

* * *

He woke suddenly in the icy dark, clawing for the bedside light. Gusts rattled the windows, shrieking. This time he’d heard them screaming, behind the wind. The ones he’d left behind, while he went on. But the dark presence was with him. He couldn’t see it. Only feel its paralyzing closeness, as if it were lying next to him.

When he reached out, her side of the bed was empty.

The bedside phone beeped again. He realized it was what had woken him. As he lifted it even the memory of the dream faded, leaving only a lingering terror. Black outside the window. The sea crashing far below. “Yeah?”

“Lenson?” An unfamiliar voice. Male.

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

“You might want to check on your wife.”