PAPER TIGER

Loring Giroux was the direct opposite of Marshal Feng Teh-chih. There was nothing spectacular about him. He had not won the Presidency of the United States by ruthlessly exterminating all his rivals. He had not even campaigned for it dramatically at a time of crisis. He had inherited it. He had been a compromise Vice President, chosen for his Southern votes and as a solid, stable counterweight to the flamboyance of Cardey Corcoran.

Then, two months after taking office, to the sorrow of the ladies and the relief of many high-placed people in his own administration, Cardey had crashed his private plane into a mountainside, taking half his Cabinet and several Secret Service men along with him, and Loring Giroux had moved quietly, with his wife and one unmarried daughter, his shaggy sheepdog and his yellow cat, into the loneliest house in the world.

That was when Marshal Feng Teh-chih had started in on him.

Loring Giroux’s background was as quiet and solid as his person. He had been a naval officer, a junior deck officer aboard high-tech tankers. He had a decoration or two, awarded after forgotten actions in which nothing much had happened to his ship. He had served in the Louisiana State Legislature. He had been appointed to a board or two in Washington, to something in the Organization of American States, then to a South American ambassadorship. In between, he had practiced law at home. Finally, he had been elected Governor, and then—to everyone’s surprise—Vice President.

His ancestry went back before the Louisiana Purchase on the one hand, and to the Revolution on the other. His grandfather had finished up the Civil War as a young captain under Jubal Early; afterwards he had wandered angrily into the West and Mexico, finally returning to a late marriage and a reconciliation with his country. His father had gone to West Point, and had retired, a colonel. He himself was neither short nor tall, fat nor thin. His main distinguishing feature was a slightly Teddy Rooseveltish moustache, which the political cartoonists—Chinese and American alike—at once latched onto.

They also (and the Chinese especially, because they had been ordered to) went for the big striped yellow tomcat. American cartoonists, even the opposition, were almost kind about it; they loved to show Giroux asking the cat’s advice on how to catch the mice of international politics, or how he could turn himself into Cardey Corcoran. But the Chinese used it to plug their ancient paper tiger theme. Loring Giroux, they screamed, had brought Beauregard to the White House to prove that the American paper tiger wasn’t made of paper after all. The Chinese madness had made lots of headway since the days of Mao Tse-tung and his Red Guards, and Marshal Feng, a Red Guard graduate, had turned it to his private purposes.

Feng concentrated on President Giroux. The Russians now were seldom named, and then only as Giroux’s criminal, treacherous, and unspeakable collaborators. Giroux was a weakling. Giroux was the degenerate symbol of a decadent bourgeois society. The missiles, the fusion weapons, which he as President controlled—these were the paper tiger. The young and vigorous Maoist Workers’ State, wielding its unconquerable weapon—the thought of Mao and of Feng Teh-chih (though Mao was fading rather rapidly)—would triumph certainly, because survival was the natural prize awarded to the fittest.

“The fittest would survive!” cried Marshal Feng. It was a curious Marxist Darwinism, naive, grossly oversimplified, trumpeted out with each new insult, each new provocation. It accompanied the overrunning of Nepal. It became even more personal and more strident when Feng launched his invasion of North India, penetrating deep into Assam.

It was ridiculous. The press of the Free World thought so, and laughed about it several days a week. The State Department thought it was absurd; so did the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Every Security Council meeting included a few moments of innocent merriment focussed on it.

Until, that is, the Council met on the 16th of September. It was a crash session, with the Joint Chiefs in attendance. Marshal Feng had gone on the air that morning, and President Giroux opened the meeting five-and-a-half hours later. He looked around at the faces, the uniforms, the business suits.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I know that you all either have watched Feng’s latest performance or else heard about it. Still, we’re going to replay it, so there’ll be no misunderstanding.”

“Mr. President,” exclaimed the Secretary of Defense, “Feng’s just a crazy thug. Aren’t you taking his nonsense a little seriously?”

“A little, Jake. It isn’t every day a man gets this kind of invitation. Let’s watch our boy again.”

He gestured them to silence; picked up translation headphones but didn’t put them on immediately. Feng appeared without warning on the screen, a tall, long-faced North Chinese with basalt eyes. He was lean and hard, an obvious athlete. Giroux turned Feng’s speech on suddenly, full blast, like turning on a fire siren.

“Who does he remind you of?” asked the President, unsmiling—knowing that no reply was necessary, that despite the difference of race, language, doctrine, the image of Hitler came instantly to every mind. The speech was Feng’s usual one, a screaming rodomontade using all the old clichés, but this time, after barely fifteen minutes, coming to a very different climax.

“You are a filthy Capitalist coward, Loring Giroux. You are afraid of me and of the irresistible thought of Mao Tse-tung. You are afraid because the working masses and their leaders do not fear your paper tiger. We spit on you, Giroux! You are not fit to survive. I will destroy your vile imperialism. I will humiliate you. I, Feng Teh-chih—I myself will rub you face in filth. Coward! You are afraid to fight. I challenge you to fight, to fight me, with your hands, with guns, with knives, anywhere, at any time, with any weapons you desire! Do you understand? Do you dare to fight me, Feng Teh-chih, before the world? No, you do not. You know that you could not survive, corrupt weakling! I will show you how I will destroy you, paper tiger—”

On the screen, an aide stepped into view, carrying a striped orange cat—a cat as much like Beauregard as possible. Feng’s left hand grasped it, lifted it. Then, with a swift and brutal judo chop, he broke its back. He hurled the poor small body against a wall, showed all his teeth, and screamed, “That is how I will kill you, weak Giroux!”

The screen went blank. The show was over. There was silence. Such a display was difficult for men used to the normal courses of diplomacy to understand. Even the Joint Chiefs, men of war, still could not quite believe what they had seen. Had it not been a replay, their reaction would have been immediate. As it was, they hesitated, looked at the President questioningly, began to simmer as the pressure rose.

Before it could erupt, he touched them with his voice. It was not harsh. It was not cold. But it was quiet as cold steel. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t comment. That’s not the purpose of this get-together.”

State looked at CIA, CIA at Defense; the Joint Chiefs exchanged anxious glances.

“You are here for one reason and one reason only_” Loring Giroux rose. “—to hear my decision regarding Marshal Feng’s proposal. I have accepted it.”

There are things which never should be dropped: rare porcelains, pots of molten lead, live hand grenades. People react too naturally. Instantly noise erupted. But it’s illegal for a Presi… Constitu… Without any consultation!… B-but we’re a civilized peo…

Loring Giroux looked at Quinton, Army, who was sounding off as loudly as the rest. “General Quinton!”

Quinton stood, large and dark and graying. He put his palms flat down on the shining table, letting his jaw and football shoulders jut out over it. The others quieted.

“Mr. President,” boomed Quinton. “You’ve flipped. You, sir, are out of your ever-loving mind.”

“Why?” rapped Giroux.

“Because, goddammit, you’re 61 years old. You’re in no shape to fight him hand to hand. Even when we were kids, you couldn’t learn to shoot for sour apples. Feng’s in top condition. There’s not a weapon he’s not expert in. You’re outclassed.”

“Is that all, Quinton?”

“Mr. President—Laurie—” Quinton pleaded now. “Look, you just can’t do it. Anyhow, military law prohibits duelling, you know that. We—we’ll have to stop you!”

There was noise again.

“Be quiet!” There was a lash of discipline in Giroux’s voice. “You cannot stop me. My message of acceptance went an hour ago. It is already being broadcast to the world. General Quinton, I am as expert in the weapon I have chosen as Marshal Feng can be. My physical condition is more than adequate to its employment. As for legality, we’ll fight in Uruguay, where duelling’s legal. Besides—” He stopped; regarded them. “What the hell do you propose to do about it? Use violence? Mount a quick palace revolution? Don’t be damned fools. I am not only President of the United States, gentlemen. I am Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces. I have already issued orders to those immediately concerned.”

State pushed his chair back. Blood draining from his face, he stood erect. “I cannot be a party to this—this savagery, th-this absurdity. Man, can’t you think what you’ll be doing to this country’s image everywhere? To your own? I—I resign.”

“Earneshaw,” Giroux said, “what will Feng do to our image if I ignore him? If I refuse to fight? Don’t you see—it may be I won’t win, but I can’t lose. Even if he kills me, Feng can’t win. And if any of you does try to stop me—if you so much as try—what will that do to our country’s image when the news gets out? What will it do for Feng?’

He sat down slowly and deliberately. The others hesitated, weighing the chances, each trying to guess what all the rest would do. Almost imperceptibly, the Joint Chiefs seemed to move in a little closer to each other, to the President.

Quinton seated himself immediately. Finally, muttering, the Secretary of State lowered himself into his chair. Their breathing was the only sound.

“For a long time,” said the President, “something has been needed to clear the air. To clear it of Feng, preferably. I’ll grant you my acceptance is a break with all tradition, with diplomatic usage, but—believe me—I know what I am doing.”

“That’s asking us to take a lot on faith,” Quinton put in. “I’ll grant you, sir, you’ve called your shots right in the past, but—”

“Feng and I will fight at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. With weapons of my own choosing, under conditions set by me. Exactly equal weapons and conditions, naturally. No practice will be necessary for either of us. And each of us will bring three seconds, including an interpreter.”

“Who will they be, sir?” Navy asked.

Giroux smiled. “First, if he cares to come, Lieutenant-General Quinton, who has watched me shoot. Major Harrison Ouyang, of Air-Space, who will interpret for our side. And Sergeant Easting, Sergeant-Major of the Army, who holds the Congressional from Vietnam and who was good enough to carry my message to the Chinese Embassy,” Giroux saw annoyance on the face of Navy. “I myself will represent our service, Admiral,” he explained. “Who Feng’s seconds will turn out to be, I, of course, do not know. That is all, gentlemen. Turn on your televisions tomorrow. Our encounter will probably get worldwide coverage, live.”

“Or dead,” the Secretary of State said through his teeth.

“Or dead,” the President agreed. He rose, making a gesture of dismissal. They filed out, bearing a strange silence, and politely he walked them to the door.

Quinton, last to leave, held back a little. “How’d I do?” he whispered.

“Beautifully, Tom, beautifully.” The President touched his shoulder. “Just like you’d never heard a word about it.”

“You’re still nuts,” Quinton growled.

The world press reacted—unpredictably, chaotically, often hysterically. Frequently, policy was drowned under the enthusiasm of newsmen—enthusiasm for unsuspected courage, for the brave cutting of a Gordian knot, for lost chivalry, for Giroux himself. Only very rarely was there enthusiasm for Feng, and that, as Le Monde later pointed out, was usually of an “or else” variety. There were solemn and prestigious protests in the United Nations—protests which went round and round and ended nowhere. The temperate Scandinavians, the Dutch, the Indians, the more leftish Britons disapproved—but their disapproval was usually of the principle, and seldom of the man. The French, not too surprisingly, changed sides at once, recalled the duels of men like Clemenceau, attributed Giroux’s most admirable sense of personal and national honor to his Gallic ancestry.

The press at home was even more confusing and confused. The San Francisco Chronicle-Examiner perhaps outdid the rest. It ran three major editorials: one damned President Giroux as a racist Southerner bent on national suicide; another compared him quite favorably with Generals Andrew Jackson and MacArthur; the third said flatly that no institution as evil as the duel could possibly solve problems which were sociologically insoluble.

Secretary of State Earneshaw resigned, as publicly as possible, and demanded instant emergency action by the Congress. Neither the Congress nor the press paid much attention to him. Before the subject could even be brought up in either House, Giroux was on his way—and every politician knew that, in spite of any odds, he might come back the winner. It was no time for self-commitment, nor for drastic action.

Before he went to bed that night, the President said his good-byes to his lady. He told her that he loved her, and they remembered something 30 years gone by, something small, and really unimportant, and very precious only to themselves. She knew already what he planned to do.

He kissed her, and she asked, “How—how are you going to fight him, Loring?”

He looked away from her. “Like Cousin Kerby fought the steamboat man.”

“I was afraid of that,” she whispered, remembering all the details of that duel a century and a quarter in the past, when Kerby Loring and the steamboat man had met each other on the Mississippi. “I was afraid of that.”

Then, to make things easier, the President said, very softly, “Good-bye, Jen,” and kissed her through her tears, and went away.

Next day, when his plane set down at Montevideo Airport, he seemed fresh and rested, though some observers thought they saw signs of strain around his mouth. He met a hero’s welcome. The President of Uruguay was an old fishing and poker playing friend, from OAS days; before either of them had been a President, they had exchanged visits in each other’s houses, in each other’s countries. Besides, Fernando Estrada Orde had himself fought a duel or two, with sabres, once against another Uruguayan colonel, again with a combative professor-journalist. Now, under his properly sober brows, his eyes were flashing, for the personal drama which his friend was facing, for the unprecedented history which would soon be made. They walked together to the waiting limousines, under the guns of four protecting armored cars.

“Feng is here,” Estrada said, when they were under way. “He arrived less than an hour ago. I have given him an unusually heavy escort.” He smiled, showing his strong teeth. “I almost hope he violates our hospitality. I do not like the man.”

“All the arrangements have been made?” Giroux asked, in Spanish.

“Sí. My military aide went out this morning, with the North Korean minister and some sort of delegate from Beijing, and they bought the ammunition and the guns. My aide did not choose the shops; they did. They bough four guns, as you requested—in four separate places. They are being very careful.”

“Naturalmente. And the rest?”

“As you specified. Feng has been shown your requirements. He has agreed to meet you in an empty office in our Ministry of Agriculture, where there is room for TV cameras. From there, you and he will go into the other room, where all is as you wanted it, but that room he does not know about.”

“Otherwise he is satisfied?”

“De seguro. He says that he can kill you anywhere.”

There was a silence, before Estrada asked, “How do you propose to fight this man, my friend? Now we have bought the tools, how will you use them?”

He listened to the explanation. Then he spoke very softly: “I should not say this thing to you, amigo. I should never say it to the head of a great and friendly state. But do you realize that you are mad?”

“How would you fight him?”

“I have watched him. I would never fight him unless I absolutely had to.”

“I have to,” said the President of the United States.

They entered the small room simultaneously, by adjoining doors, each group escorted by four Uruguayan officers. The room was new and bare, its slate-gray walls forbidding. Between the doors a table stood, guarded by two more Uruguayans and a grim Chinese. On it there were four double-barreled shotguns, a box of shells.

Feng was in his marshal’s uniform. In the flesh, he seemed even taller, harder, straighter than on the screen. His cold eyes had taken in the room; obviously he did not like what he had seen. He was speaking to one of his three seconds who, like Quinton and Ouyang and Sergeant Easting, were armed with submachine guns. They were burly men, obviously military but with more than a hint of secret police about them. Loring Giroux was the only man there out of uniform; he wore slacks and a good tweed jacket.

“Sir, he’s been asking whether he’s on TV,” Major Ouyang said, sotto voce. “They’ve told him that he is, and he’s annoyed because there’s just one camera. It looks like he’s going to make a speech.”

Almost immediately, lights went on dazzlingly, and the familiar tirade started.

“Want me to translate it, sir? It’s the same malarkey, only he’s accusing you of trickery, with compliments. He says he’s going to kill you anyhow.”

“Don’t bother,” Loring Giroux answered. “I’ve heard it all before.” He watched Feng’s mobile face, and listened to the ranting voice, and wondered whether he had underestimated him, or overestimated him, or—Abruptly, his mind flashed him a picture of Ouyang, of his expression when he had looked at Feng. Ouyang’s own parents, he recalled, had been in China when the Reds took over.

“Major—” He smiled at him. “—let’s try and keep it cool, shall we?”

As suddenly as it had started, the speech was over, and Feng was barking questions.

“Sir, he wants to know what the picture is.”

“Tell him,” the President replied, speaking very clearly, “that we are going to fight with two of those four shotguns. Tell him that they were chosen by his own people, not by ours, and that there was no time for prearrangement or collusion. Tell him to pick two guns, then to select one of them for himself. I will take one of the two remaining.”

They waited while the Marshal and his seconds made a choice. Then Giroux made his. He picked a double-trigger brush gun, with 25-inch barrels, by Francotte, opened it, checked safety, locks, and firing-pins.

“Now, Mr. President, this Feng demands to know where you will fight.”

“Say that I will tell him after we enter the next room. We will go first.”

They then went through the door, which an Uruguayan brigadier opened for them; and, carefully and suspiciously, Feng and his seconds followed them. It was a room slightly larger than the other, windowless, equally slate gray. It was glaringly illuminated for the TV cameras which, raised on platforms high above the floor, stared down through armor plate. Dead center, there was a standard poker table, with two chairs. There was an armor screen, placed so the seconds, three on either side, would hold the table in their field of fire—but not each other.

“What does this mean?” Feng demanded.

“Tell him,” Giroux said, “It means that we will fight here, in this room. Tell him that in my part of the United States, many years ago, we had a type of duel which men fought only when nothing else could settle a dispute—when neither would be satisfied with less. We will sit together at that poker table, he and I. Face to face, we will aim our loaded shotguns at each other, our fingers on the triggers. Then we will wait while the countdown clock—” he pointed at the wall—“ticks off one minute. The last ten seconds will be counted out loud. When it comes round to zero, we will fire—together. If either of us fires prematurely, the other’s seconds will be free to kill him. It is all very simple.”

Feng listened to his interpreter’s translation, and as he listened his brows drew down like gathering thunderclouds. His voice erupted in a burst of rage.

Loring Giroux waited for no translation. “Ask him,” he said. “Is he afraid?”

Ouyang snapped out a few contemptuous words of Mandarin. There was no answer. Momentarily, a look of calculation flickered across the anger on Feng’s face. Then, spitting on the floor viciously, he strode towards the table.

Briefly, after that, politeness and formality took over. Two Uruguayan field officers stood behind each chair. They bowed to the two duellists. They seated them. They ushered the two groups of seconds into position, the Americans with their Smith & Wesson 9mm caseless submachine guns on one side of the impenetrable screen, the Chinese with their approximately equal pieces on the other. Then the Uruguayans left the room, closing the door behind them.

The brigadier stepped forward. “Gentlemen,” he asked, “are you ready?”

Loring Giroux, looking into the twin muzzles of Feng’s gun, said, “I am ready.”

Feng nodded silently.

The brigadier stepped back out of the seconds’ field of fire. “Begin!” he ordered.

The countdown clock began to tick. Like every fatal, final clock, it ticked with an immense and deadly slowness.

Sixty.

And fifty-nine.

And fifty-eight…

While the world held its breath, Loring Giroux raised his eyes to the unfamiliar and unfathomable eyes confronting him. He had done this at many another poker table, not always at completely friendly games. But it had not been like this. He felt the mounting tension in the room, the silent-screaming tautness of friends and enemies…

And fifty-seven.

And fifty-six.

And—

Strangely, his own tenseness did not mount. He knew he was afraid, but it was as though he rode his fear with tightly gathered reins. Looking into those eyes, into their blacknesses, he thought, Did I read him right? Have I succeeded in reading him at all? What sort of hand does he think he’s holding? What does he make of me? Now that he knows what this is all about, how is he really taking it? He must’ve thought he had it figured out just now when he decided to shut up and fight… The chances were, he thought, that Feng had then remembered his own much younger, better trained reactions. Well…

The clock ticked on, but Loring Giroux made no attempt to keep account of it. Forty seconds were left to go, perhaps. Forty, or thirty-eight, or thirty-nine. It made no difference, that time to certain death. Here! He brought himself up short. Now that’s no way to think. He saw the cable-tightness of Feng’s jaw, and wondered whether Feng too felt fear. This is how the world stands today, he thought. Like this Chinese and me. That is why he and I must kill each other—

Suddenly his fear welled up within him, and the certain outcome, whose certainty he had not fully dared to face, confronted him, and through his mind flowed all those thoughts which come to men who know that they must die. Thoughts of those loved, those lost, those who would never touch his hand again. He tried to tell himself that even though he died his country could not lose. Nor could the world. Feng could not win.

Oh, God! Were there now only twenty seconds between him and death? Twenty? Or twenty-five? Perhaps fifteen?

He dropped his eyes. He saw the fingers of Marshal Feng’s left hand, around the fore end of the pointed gun. Five precious seconds passed before he comprehended their significance. Their knuckles were beginning to run white, and on the index finger’s tip stood one small drop of sweat. And there was one thing more.

Then his own fear fell away, and he raised his eyes again, and looked once more into the eyes of Feng Teh-chih, and smiled.

“Ten!” called the Uruguayan brigadier.

Slowly, with the ticking clock, he counted down, while the Marshal and the President measured the death that lay between them. The brigadier’s own voice rising high against his will, he counted down to Six, to Five, to Four…

And, with four seconds left, Feng very deliberately put his shotgun on the table, and stood up.

It was an excellent performance. His face, carefully composed, showed only anger and contempt. Even his voice, at first, was thoroughly controlled. “This is an idiocy!” he said. “Did you think that I, Feng Teh-chih, would really sit and play your stupid game?” Then suddenly he yelled, “It can prove nothing, nothing, nothing! I shall not let the Chinese people be cheated by this trick of the imperialists! Never! I—I shall yet defeat you, weak Giroux!”

Loring Giroux, of course, did not learn what he had said until he heard it translated later—but he divined its meaning. “Well, Marshal Feng,” he answered, “are you leaving us? These shotguns are as nothing compared to H-bombs. Surely you aren’t going to give up so good a chance to prove that I’m a paper tiger?”

Feng did not wait for a translation. He sent his chair crashing to the floor. He bellowed to his seconds. Without another word, he marched out through the door, and they followed him.

Loring Giroux knew that death left with them. Gradually his fingers on the shotgun relaxed . Mechanically, he opened the gun, took out the shells. He pushed his own chair back—

Then there was tumult all around him. Estrada Orde had pulled him to his feet and was embracing him. Major Ouyang was doing his best to shake his hand. Quinton, swearing mightily, was pounding him on the back. Newsmen were swarming in, and the TV crews were practically hysterical. Champagne, as if by magic, had appeared out of nowhere.

It was not until some hours afterwards, when finally they were relaxing in the plane, that General Quinton said, “My God, that was tight there for a while. Laurie, I would’ve sworn that guy would never chicken out.”

“He didn’t,” the President replied.

“Sir?”

“He didn’t. He’s no coward. He’s just completely practical; he’d never give his life unless he’d win by doing it—undying fame, perhaps. At least a victory. He had me buffaloed for just a minute though—until I saw his hands. He wasn’t keyed up half enough—not for a man who’d put on all those raving acts. His hands were tight, but they weren’t tight enough, and they were steady as a rock. It was then I knew he wouldn’t go the route, that he was waiting for me to back down. He’s not a poker player.”

“What about that threat that he’d defeat you later?”

“That was for the home folks. Now he’s going to try and play another hand. He figures he’ll get it all explained away, or if not, he’ll simply polish off the opposition. That was the reason for hinting that he’d planned it. This time, I think he’s wrong. I think he’s done for. His people don’t like losers.”

* * * *

A fortnight later, Loring Giroux dismissed a special evening meeting of his Cabinet, and went upstairs to where his wife was waiting. He scratched the sheepdog by the desk. He rubbed Beauregard’s smug whiskers. “That cat’s getting fatter than a pig,” he said. “What you been feeding him?”

She smiled at him. “Shrimp, liver, and filet mignon.”

“He has it coming. He’s no paper tiger.” He returned her smile. “You’ve heard the news?”

“Feng?”

“Yes, he’s down the drain. But, Jen, that isn’t all. The Chinese have just sent a message to the world. They want no cross-the-table shotgun duels; they said exactly that. They want to settle all outstanding differences. It’s just been broadcast.”

She came to him, and took his hands, and kissed him on the lips. “Oh, God!” she whispered. “Like Cousin Kerby fought the steamboat man—Oh, thank God!”

Then Loring Giroux put his arm around her, and led her to the doors that gave out on the balcony, and threw them open.

They stood there together, breathing the clear new air.