Riding the Snake (1998) by Stephen Cannell

would be a lucrative market and had been trying for several months to purchase, through Poly Industries, some Russian suitcase bombs. It was rumored that one hundred of these highly portable nuclear weapons had gone missing from the Russian war lockers, and Willy was very close to arranging the purchase of ten of them. Poly Industries was already responsible for supplying the very Russian automatic weapons that Willy's Triad sold to Black teenagers in the streets of America for top dollar.
    The elevator doors opened onto the top-floor restaurant, where Chen Boda was waiting. The diminutive head of the Chinese Communist Military Commission seemed ageless. It had been four years since Willy had lain on the rolling gurney in the Friendship Hospital and watched through the glass as the slight politician ordered the surgeon to plunge the scalpel into the young radical's chest, beginning the lifesaving kidney harvest that "protected" Willy from the storm.
    The two men shook hands. Willy had been summoned here, and he knew, just like the last time he had been invited to Beijing, that something important was about to happen.
    Several military attendants set up folding screens around a corner window table. The Chinese screens were thin, delicate silken artworks, decorated with dragons breathing gold-threaded fire. It would be easy to hear through them, but Willy knew that nobody else would be allowed into the restaurant this morning. Willy was given the view position that looked out onto the city of Beijing, which sparkled under a bright February sun. The preparations for New Year's were well under way. Flags and decorative banners flapped from spires below them. The American Embassy compound could be seen a few blocks away to the east.
    They said very little as the first course of steaming mushrooms was served. The dish had been prepared in ginger sauce in the traditional Cantonese way.
    The deal they had made in the Year of the Dog was perfect. Chen Boda had given Willy the gift of new kidneys and in return got the gift of Willy's smuggling routes. It was a very Chinese solution. One gift extracted poison from Willy's bloodstream. The other had inserted it into the American enemy. Better still, Willy had established even stronger Guan-Xi with American politicians. China had again received Most Favored Nation trade status, despite the protest of the U . S . Congress over Human Rights violations. Both men knew it was the money that Willy had poured into U . S . political campaigns which had helped to accomplish this. Investigations into campaign funding violations were still taking place in the American Congress, and China had been accused of trying to subvert the U . S . political process, but nobody had mentioned Wo Lap Ling. In fact, quite the opposite had happened. He was now on many U . S . corporate boards and had achieved great recognition as the Vice President of the American Red Cross in Asia. Now it was time to discuss a new arrangement.
    The diminutive politician began a careful conversation that played on two levels because of the hovering waiters. "I hear the lichees in Guangdong are the sweetest in the world," Chen Boda began, referring to the sweet fruit that abounds in the province that contains Hong Kong. This fruit symbolized Hong Kong, which was now in China's hands.
    "That is true," Willy said in Mandarin. "The summer crop was especially rich," referring to the hand-over of Hong Kong to mainland China that had happened last July.
    "I understand that your own garden is flourishing, that many Americans now buy your fruit," Chen Boda said, referring to the Triad leader's Guan-Xi in America.
    "Yes. When one has the right gardeners, things grow."
    Chen Boda added, "But I have heard that to protect the garden, you had to pull out several weeds quickly and without mercy. I hope you got them all and that none will grow back."
    "Yes. When weeding, it is very important to destroy the roots."
    Both men smiled at this casual