today and at such short notice. You know, I hope, that I would not have asked our mutual friend,’ he nodded towards the Swede, ‘to bring us together unless I regarded it as of the gravest importance.’
Zheng Lei looked at him impassively.
Kassian glanced down at his own hands, wondering if they might start trembling again. ‘I don’t know how much, if anything, you know of what happened last night in the White House.’ No response from the man opposite. ‘But I’m going to be extremely frank. I can see no other way.’
He cleared his throat. He had thought about what he would say – on the plane, in the car – but that had not prepared him for the sensation of actually saying it.
‘In the early hours of this morning, my country came within ten seconds – less than ten seconds, in fact – of launching an all-out nuclear assault on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and,’ he heard a dryness enter his throat, ‘the People’s Republic of China.’
The Swedish ambassador gasped at that. An involuntary, and entirely genuine, sound. Her hand now covered her mouth. Kassian went on.
‘The President had given the order. The War Room at the Pentagon was in the process of encrypting and communicating that order to nuclear commanders around the world, including firing crews based on land, in our underground launch facilities, as well as those on submarines and onboard our bombers in the sky. Only an ingenious and brave intervention from one of our military officers, at the very last moment, caused the order to be aborted.’
The Chinese ambassador kept his gaze on the coffee table positioned between them. Kassian decided to read that as a reaction of sorts: perhaps this man was fearful of looking him in the eye, lest he give himself away. Kassian spoke again.
‘What prompted the attack was the statement issued by the DPRK late last night our time. It appeared to taunt the President. If I may quote.’ Kassian reached into his breast pocket, and unfolded a single piece of paper. ‘“The Workers’ Party knows it confronts in Washington a paper tiger, a coward and a small man. We will demonstrate our strength – for we know our enemy’s weakness.’”
Still Zheng said nothing. Kassian went on.
‘Ordinarily, under previous administrations perhaps, such statements might be dismissed as rhetoric.’ He thought he saw the tiniest hint of a nod from the ambassador. It encouraged him.
‘But these are not ordinary times. For one thing, the DPRK has repeatedly signalled its intention to build a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the west coast of the United States. Capable of hitting Los Angeles. Our intelligence suggests that the DPRK is either at, or close to, that stage.
‘However there is a more – how should I put this? – pressing way in which these are not ordinary times. The leader of my country is not a politician. And he is not a military man. He hears statements like these’ – he held up the sheet of paper – ‘the way a young man might hear them in a bar.’ He hadn’t planned to say this; he wondered if he had made a mistake. ‘He hears them as a provocation. He believes he is being dared to prove the North Koreans wrong.’
At that, Zheng sat up, readying himself to speak. Kassian did not know if that meant he had succeeded or failed.
‘Mr Kassian, are you a student of history?’ His English was impeccable.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Your résumé says you studied the liberal arts at Princeton. But it doesn’t tell me if you studied history.’
‘Some.’
‘I see. Well, I am a student of history. My specialism is the history of this country, in fact. Especially the last century. I took great interest in the Presidency of Richard Nixon. I wrote my master’s thesis on Mr Nixon’s relations with Asia.’
‘I see.’
‘Do you know why I bring this up now?’
‘I sense you’re about to tell me.’
‘Because Mr Nixon was very careful to have his closest aides – Dr Kissinger especially – travel the world warning everyone that their boss was a madman.’ At this he smiled. “Crazy! Unhinged!” Nixon was not offended. He encouraged it. He wanted America’s enemies to be frightened. “America has all these bombs – and Nixon is crazy enough to use them!”’
‘And you think that’s what I am doing now?’
‘History does not repeat itself, Mr Kassian. But it does sometimes rhyme.’
The American found himself looking to the Swedish ambassador, by way of an appeal. She nodded, but only to encourage him to reply. She was not about to take sides.
‘Mr Lei. I have taken quite a risk by coming here this morning. My President does not know I am here. I would be fired if he knew. I can assure you I am not doing his bidding.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘I’m here because I am scared.’ The words surprised Kassian as much as the other two, perhaps more. ‘I don’t think you understand what I’m telling you. Your neighbour was within seven or eight seconds of being wiped off the map this morning and your country within seconds of being hit by a nuclear bombardment. Every last one of North Korea’s people would have been killed, along with millions of your own countrymen. Children. Families. Perhaps even your own family.’ Kassian thought he saw a shadow pass across Zheng’s face. ‘This is not a tactic. This is not a game. This is deadly fucking serious.’
‘Mr Kassian—’
‘No. Listen to me. I’m warning you because I think – no, I know – that this could end in catastrophe. For the entire planet. He’s ready to do it. He did do it. He gave the order.’
‘So why didn’t it happen?’
‘We found a way to stop him.’
‘How?’
Mr Kassian stole a sheepish look in the Swede’s direction. Without meaning to, he heard his voice dip. ‘We told him the DPRK had apologized for the statement.’
‘I see.’
‘It was the only way.’
‘So now you need my country to use its leverage over the Democratic People’s Republic to persuade them to make good on the lie you told to stop your “crazy” President blowing up the world?’
‘That’s about the size of it, yes. And the North Koreans need to do it soon. They also need somehow to backdate it, so it appears they issued the statement at around 3.45am Eastern Standard Time.’
Kassian hesitated before making that last request. Partly because he feared it might be asking too much, but also because he had wondered if it was even necessary. These days, you could probably get away with falsifying a timestamp: in this era when everyone was ready to shout ‘fake news’ about anything, who would know or care? Not the President, who paid no attention to detail and who barely read the papers put in front of him.
But Kassian knew that wouldn’t hold. Crawford McNamara, for one, immersed himself in the minutiae and was assiduous in his reading of documents. As a master purveyor of fake news, he rarely allowed himself to be a consumer of it.
‘That won’t be easy, Mr Kassian. The North Korean people are a very proud nation. They take pride in their defiance of the American tyrant. They will not fall to their knees.’
‘No one is asking them to fall to their knees, Mr Zheng. Just a form of words that gets us through to—’
‘You seem to forget something, Mr Kassian.’
‘What’s that?’
‘That North Korea and the United States now have something in common. Both these nations are led by very unpredictable men – with very thin skins.’
Kassian nodded. He knew