Never

“Dexter’s full of shit. They’re jihadis. You need protection.”

Colonel Susan Marcus speaks this simple quote. She is another of the strong female characters in the novel. She is a friend of Tamara’s, although of a more professional than personal nature. The narrative reveals her personality through the straightforward and almost staccato speaking style, especially when contrasted with Shirley’s poetic allusion. She accurately appraises Tamara’s boss, identifies the men holding the bridge, and assesses backup needed to ensure Tamara’s safety.

“Like all security agencies, the Guoanbu firmly believe there was no smoke without fire. Malicious people could use that to make trouble for their enemies. It was like the charge of witchcraft in the olden days: once the accusation had been leveled, it was easy to find something that looked like evidence. No one was really innocent.”

This quote sets up the dichotomy between the old guard in China who still operated by accusation and confirmation bias to find someone guilty. The quote uses analogy, comparing the method used by the staunch older communists to medieval European witch trials. It reveals a general corrupted tendency of political operations common across history.

“Kiah did not know much about city life but she suspected not all restaurants had entertainment of this type, and she began to feel uneasy.”

In the village, Kiah is a smart and resourceful young woman, despite her status as young widow and mother. In the city the narrative quickly reveals her vulnerability, but despite not being accustomed to cities, she demonstrates a high level of “street smarts” and is able to escape back to her village away from the restaurant, which is just a front for a brothel.

“What kind of man am I? He was like the fox in the henhouse, killing every bird, more than he could eat, more than he could ever carry back to his hole, biting and slashing for the sheer joy of it.”

The narrator provides a glimpse into Abdul’s character through this interior monologue. Abdul has just beaten up men who wanted to rob him and almost crossed over from self-defense into gratuitous violence. The simile compares him to an animal that kills for pleasure, not necessity.

“But Chadian employers don’t like to hire a divorcée. They think she must be a scarlet woman who will cause trouble. I was at my wits’ end. But my husband was American and he gave me one thing he couldn’t take back: my American citizenship.”

This quote implies an idea inherent in the novel, that contemporary American values are inherently decent. A literary allusion to Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) in which the woman carries all the shame of an affair deepens the importance of American culture as a reference point. It also shows how similar Chad of the present is to the novel, which took place in the 1600s. This American-centric argument views history as a linear progression, where post-colonial countries like Chad are “less developed” from the yard-sticks of progress, like the United States.

“Sometimes international politics was just like a Sicilian vendetta, Tamara thought. People took revenge for what had been done to them, as if they did not know that their rivals were sure to take revenge for the revenge. As the tit-for-tat went on, escalation was inevitable: more rage, more vengeance, more violence.”

This cultural reference refers to a blood feud practiced in early modern southern Italy that could last generations and extend to the murder of family members. The simile compares this vendetta to behaviors seen in international politics. The quote also serves as foreshadowing to what is to come in the novel.

“A fool was a fool, but a fool in the White House was the most dangerous person in the world.”

President Green is here thinking about her right-wing opponent James Moore, who spends most of his time inciting his followers against her administration and toward aggressive foreign policy. Her thoughts have the feeling of a proverb. But they also may be an indirect criticism of American foreign policy that has resulted in the recent history of “endless war.”

“She tried to dismiss all such thoughts. She was the president: she could not fall in love. It would be a hurricane, a train crash, a nuclear bomb. Thank God it could never happen.”

President Green is thinking about her growing feelings for Gus Blake, her confidant and head of the NSA. The novel uses metaphors to describe the impact that would be felt in her life and compares that impact to a catastrophic disaster. The last she mentions, a nuclear bomb, is also foreshadowing of the last part of the novel.

“Men like this had killed Nura. The armies of the civilized world were trying to wipe these men out. And he was a crucial part of that effort. If he survived, he would enable the armies of the US and its allies to inflict a terrible defeat on the forces of evil.”

Abdul lives his life in terms of black and white or good and evil, which is how some in politics or intelligence agencies understand the world. His understanding of the US and the West as civilized suggests that he believes the rest of the world is barbaric or uncivilized, perhaps a justification for his chosen profession as CIA operative.

“The West had exploited China mercilessly for hundreds of years so Western protests against exploitation struck the Chinese as hilarious.”

This quote is from the point of view of Chang Kai, the Chinese moderate and Chinese spy agency official. Because he is the moderate, the reader is meant to identify with his position compared to those of the communist hardliners against which he is often contrasted. Thus the reader cannot immediately dismiss the exposed hypocrisy of the West.

“The government of North Korea is brutal and incompetent, but that’s not the problem. It’s that they lie. Everything they say is propaganda, nothing they say is true. A man can be loyal to bad leaders, but not to dishonest ones. I have betrayed the leaders of my country because they lied to me.”

These words are spoken by Kai’s North Korean operative Ham, who is part of the military rebels. The words, however, do not ring true for his character, who has spent his recent life building up a comfortable life for himself and his daughter in southern China. They do provide a rationale for his behavior that presents him as an honorable man.

“‘If you guys are determined to start World War Three over this I can’t stop you.’ Neil had voiced an anxiety that Kai shared. It lay at the back of Kai’s mind like a sleeping dragon, full of latent menace.”

Kai and his American contact in the CIA have been meeting to discuss their concern over growing tensions between their countries. Neil, in typical outright American fashion, explicitly states what they had both been thinking, that their countries were heading for war and would drag in the rest of the world along with them. Kai’s thought was unexpressed but equally dangerous, as the dragon simile suggests.

“His face changed: the mask of the bon vivant vanished, and suddenly Kai saw a worried man. ‘We can’t let them kill Chinese people with impunity,’ he said. ‘That move isn’t on the board.’”

This is spoken by the Chinese Foreign Minister and Kai’s superior, Wu Bai. On the surface, Wu appears to be someone interested in enjoying a luxurious lifestyle, but under this mask he reveals that he can be just as immovable as the hardliners in the government. Many politicians wear similar masks that hide their true feelings or intentions. Referring to international politics as a game is a common metaphor, for example, the 19th-century “Great Game” in which Britain and Russia used Afghanistan as a buffer in their struggle for power.

“International politics is a power struggle, not a popularity contest. You don’t win with pictures of kids, no matter how cute.”

General Huang of the Chinese military speaks these words. He uses two metaphors to explain what international politics is and is not. The quote also reveals how differently the military considers international politics as compared with politicians.

“Huang bristled. ‘Are we scared of a rabble of Korean mutineers now?’ ‘No,’ said Jianjun. ‘We’re scared of nuclear bombs. Anyone in his right mind is scared of nuclear bombs.’”

Huang, a hardline military man, is dismissive of the coup taking place in North Korea. He uses words like “rabble” and “mutineers” to describe them. Jianjun, Kai’s father, is another hardliner but also is more realistic about the potential dangers of a destabilized North Korea in which the rebels or an increasing desperate regime might use nuclear weapons.

“She would probably never have to make the decision Pippa had asked about—heaven forbid—but every day confronted her with heavy questions. Her choices brought people wealth or poverty, fairness or injustice, life or death. She did her best but she was never 100 percent sure she was right.”

Pauline’s teenage daughter, Pippa, had just asked if she were willing to “risk wiping out the entire human race” (597). The American president is among the most powerful people in the world, and although the binaries simplify the results of her decisions, she does have the power to affect peoples’ lives in profound ways. The last sentence shows her humility. The entire quote is somewhat ironic since the Prologue of the novel sets the reader up to expect that the nuclear war decision will confront the president by the end of the story.

“Every television newscast for the rest of the day featured two quotes:There’s no point having nuclear weapons if you never use them. and: It may be the stupidest thing anyone has said in the history of the human race.”

This quote follows a conversation between President Green and her daughter. Moore says the first quote, which is an example of a cavalier attitude toward the use of nuclear weapons shared by some US politicians today. The second is Green’s response, which reflects the opposing viewpoint. This quote might suggest the distance between political ideologies and the way in which the news only serves as an echo chamber.

“He felt great be wearing American-style clothes again. It was not even a very good suit, but no one here would know that, and anyway it reminded him that he belonged to the most powerful country in the world.”

Abdul, a Christian Lebanese American, has been undercover as an “Arab” while pursuing terrorists across the African continent, from Chad to Libya. Now in Tripoli he is able to shed his disguise and dress in Western or American-style clothing again. He thinks no one will know it is not a good suit because he is scornful of non-Western societies. Not only is the US powerful in his mind, but as he has said in an earlier quote, it is “civilized.”

“In Columbus, Georgia, a Korean American couple were shot and killed in their convenience story by a young white man. No money was stolen, though he took a carton of Marlboro Light cigarettes.”

This is similar to what happened throughout the US after 9/11, when innocent people were killed for their perceived racial or religious identity. The narrator makes it clear that it was not a simple robbery but a racially profiled act of domestic terrorism enacted by a “young white man.” Marlboro cigarettes symbolize stereotypical values of the American man. It is an ironic jab that he stole lights rather than classic reds.

“Pauline felt the touch of fate like an old hand. ‘God forbid we ever have to do it.’”

President Green, often referred to as Pauline in the novel to make her more relatable to the reader, has just asked Gus to remind her of the protocol for declaring nuclear war. Fate is something that exists outside of her, as something beyond her control. While not capitalized, the text personifies it through the use of a simile, able to “touch” her “like an old hand.” She then uses the phrase “God forbid” (similar to her use of “heaven forbid” in an earlier quote [598]), suggesting that she feels the situation is beyond her control.

“It was Kai who broke the silence, ‘And so, comrades,’ he said, ‘we find ourselves at war against Japan.’”

Kai has been trying to prevent this from happening, always seeking solutions that would satisfy the old guard’s desire for retaliation without straying into escalation. But streaming the graphic and gruesome details of the bombing of the Japanese troops on the island has crossed that red line. He acknowledges that China has been the aggressor by saying the war is “against” rather than “with” Japan.

“Kai recalled a conversation in which his father had said, Communism is a sacred mission. It comes above everything else, including our family ties and our own personal safety. Now he understood what the old man had meant.”

Officials are in the process of arresting Kai whom they accuse of being a traitor to his country. His father, a powerful member of the old guard, stepped out of the room just before the arrest occurred. Kai’s epiphany that his father was involved in the arrest comes to him as he understands something his father had previously said, that communism was more important than anything else, including family or personal safety.

“But no amount of reasoning could make her feel all right about it in her heart. Every time she washed her hands, she thought of Lady Macbeth trying to get the blood off.”

Pauline has just ordered the bombing of North Korean military bases by nuclear missiles. She realizes she has just killed thousands, whether immediately on impact, by burning them alive, or later by radiation poisoning. The literary allusion is to Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1623) in which Lady Macbeth is haunted in her sleep by her guilt over the King’s murder, unable to clean her hands of his blood. Pauline, too, believes herself unable to clean her hands of the blood of the people killed by her order.