Not one man has spoken since I entered the conference room. I suspect that’s because of the Chinese man sitting in a plush chair against the wall to my right. Though no one has introduced him, he looks like the fiftyish man who made the speech at the groundbreaking ceremony three days ago. I believe the Watchman story referred to him as Jian Wu, a corporate officer of the Azure Dragon paper company.
“Mr. McEwan,” Buckman finally begins in his gravelly growl. “This morning’s newspaper articles have placed several members of this club in legal jeopardy. Azure Dragon has also informed us—privately—of their intent to pull out of Tenisaw County and relocate to Alabama. Mr. Wu is only here this morning as a courtesy to me. Needless to say, you have our full attention.”
“Before I address the new developments,” I reply, “I want to remind you that as of yesterday at twelve p.m. we had a deal that would have prevented those articles from running. You not only took that deal off the table, you chose to blackmail me instead. You also shut down my father’s newspaper, which resulted in him having a massive heart attack. Last night, I was waterboarded in the city jail, and Beau Holland was present throughout. That’s why we’re all sitting here.”
Blake Donnelly, the most likable member of the club—and also the second richest—gives me a wry smile and says, “Marshall, I heard you had a little trouble over at the sheriff’s department. I want to apologize. Those guys get a little out of hand over there. They need to be kept on a tight leash. You know what power does to people.”
“That I do.” I look pointedly at Beau Holland. “I need to use my phone to play a recording. I’ll switch it off as soon as I’m finished.”
“Proceed,” says Buckman.
From my pocket I remove a small Bluetooth speaker I borrowed from one of the choir kids this morning, then check to be sure it’s paired with my iPhone. “I’ll be as brief as possible, gentlemen. First, this is not a negotiation. To prove that, this recording represents a tiny fraction of the material Sally Matheson gathered to implicate this club in a broad spectrum of felonies.”
The general feeling in the room seems to be a mix of repressed fury and extreme discomfort. I press play, and a hiss of static fills the conference room. Then Claude Buckman’s unmistakable voice says, “Gentlemen, before tonight’s toast, let me say this.”
Every face around the conference table goes pale.
“If, when you’re away from the club, you start to ponder the ethical dimension of our undertaking, remember one thing. This is one of those times when sectionalism must trump nationalism. I don’t say that lightly, but our ancestors lived through a similar period, one that led to the founding of this group. Every man here knows that in our time, the Yankees and Jews and California flakes won’t put any more major factories in Mississippi until we give up the last of our traditions.”
“Fuck ’em!” barks a voice that sounds like Donnelly’s.
“And the Priuses they ride in on!” jokes someone else.
“After all,” Buckman continues, “we long ago reached the point where national boundaries mean little. And if we must deal with a foreign country, I’d prefer the Chinese to a lot of others. My uncle flew the Hump in Burma, and he loved the Chinese. Hell, General Chennault himself married a Chinese woman.”
Claire Lee Chennault, the commander of the Flying Tigers, was raised just down the river near Ferriday, Louisiana.
“The Chinese know their history,” Max says on the tape. “Mr. Wu told me General Chennault had been a great friend to the Chinese people. That surprised me, given Chennault’s anticommunist work, but the guys who run China these days are about as communist as Henry Ford.”
“I’ll take Chinks over Japs any day of the week,” Blake Donnelly pipes up. “Nissan may have brought a lot of jobs to this state, but I’d never break bread with those bastards. I lost an uncle at Guadalcanal.”
“All due respect,” says the New Jersey accent of Tommy Russo, “I’d take a billion dollars from Hitler if he was offering. I could give a shit. Money’s like pussy. You take it where you can get it.”
Twenty seconds into my playback, Jian Wu blanched. Now he looks like he might slide from his chair onto the floor.
“My point,” Buckman growls from the speaker, “is that helping China in the Senate isn’t a one-time payoff deal. The mill is just the beginning. Once we’re in bed together, they can’t say no. It’s going to pay off again and again for us. And if we can get Avery re-elected for a full six-year term, then the sky’s the limit.”
“The sky, my ass,” says Wyatt Cash. “We’re talking space. Satellites, rocket engines. The upside of this deal is infinite.”
I press stop on my iPhone app.
All nine men in my audience look like they might need paramedics.
“That recording is self-explanatory,” I observe. “But I’ll say this. If I use my D.C. contacts to break that story, the U.S. and China will effectively be on a war footing within hours, and Azure Dragon Paper will be the first casualty.”
Jian Wu swallows audibly.
“That said,” I continue, “as much as I’d like to win a second Pulitzer Prize and become the most famous journalist on planet Earth, I don’t much like the idea of killing the goose that can guarantee my hometown’s survival for the next thirty years.”
The collective sigh of relief that follows this statement alters the humidity in the conference room. While they watch me with trepidation, I take out some notes made on a torn piece of newsprint I got from Aaron Terrell this morning.
“To keep me from breaking this story, you will do the following. There is no order of priority to these demands. If any single one is not met, you will find yourselves the subjects of an FBI investigation by day’s end, and the story will start running on MSNBC and CNN by five p.m. Finally”—and here I look at Russo—“if you were to shoot me in the head while I sit in this chair, the story will still break around the world. Is that understood?”
Buckman nods with impatience. “Please state your demands.”
“First, Azure Dragon will not be moving to Alabama. No matter what happens from this point forward, they must complete the planned paper mill and put it into operation within two years. However, the company must re-site the mill no less than fifteen hundred meters south of the present site, well clear of the Indian settlement discovered by Buck Ferris.”
“Impossible,” hisses Jian Wu.
“Most important,” I go on, “all tax breaks granted to Azure Dragon to entice the mill to Bienville will be revoked. The company will pay the full ride to both the city and state throughout its years of operation.”
Jian Wu stands white-faced—with anger or fear, I can’t tell which.
“You wish to say something, sir?” I ask.
“None of this can be done! It’s far too late.”
“Is it? Think about you and your fellow corporate officers being charged for subversion, forfeiting all Azure Dragon property and holdings in the United States, and having the U.S. president demand that President Xi break up your company to prove that it’s not a part of your country’s intelligence services.”
The Azure Dragon man’s lips are quivering, but he takes his seat again.
“Please continue,” says Claude Buckman, looking grateful to me for accomplishing what he could not with the Chinese.
“Second, within sixty days, Avery Sumner will resign his seat in the U.S. Senate for family or health reasons, whichever his preference.”
Four chairs down to my left, Senator Sumner looks stricken, but he doesn’t protest. Unlike Jian Wu, he’s content to let Buckman fight his battles for him.