“Well, he can’t have that facility.”
“No sir?”
“No, he can’t have it — and neither can you. Because it belongs to the country, dammit! What the hell are you up to? You can’t hire Moderator militia and overpower a federal lab! That is not in your job description! You are a campaign organizer who has a patronage job. You are not Davy Crockett!”
“Mr. President, I completely concur. But we had no other realis-tic option. Green Huey is a clear and present danger. He’s in league with a foreign power. He completely dominates his own state, and now he’s launching paramilitary adventures over state borders. What else could I do? My security staffer informed your national security office as soon as he could. In the meantime, I took what steps I could.”
“What is your party affiliation?” the President said.
“I’m a Federal Democrat, sir.”
The President pondered this. The President’s party was the So-cial Patriotic Movement, the “Soc-Pats.” The Soc-Pats were the lead-ing faction in the Left Tradition Bloc, which also included the Social Democrats, the Communist Party, Power to the People, Working America, and the ancient and shriveled Democratic Party. The Left Tradition Bloc had been suffering less ideological disarray than usual, lately. They had been able — barely — to seize the American Presi-dency.
“That would mean Senator Bambakias of Massachusetts?” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“What did you ever see in him?”
“I liked him. He has imagination and he’s not corrupt.”
“Well,” the President said, “I am not a mentally ill Senator. I happen to be your President. I am your newly sworn-in President, and I have naive, new-hire staffers who are easily fooled by fast-talking hustlers with family links to white-supremacist gangsters. Now, thanks to you, I am also a President who has had the misfortune to kill and wound several dozen people. Some of them were foreign spies. But most of them were our fellow citizens.” Despite his expressed regret, the President looked quite ready to kill again.
“Mr. Valparaiso, I want you to listen to me carefully. I have about four more weeks — maybe three weeks — of political capital to expend. Then the honeymoon is over, and my office will be broken on the rack. I will have to face all the lawsuits, constitutional chal-lenges, palace revolutions, outings, banking scandals, and Emergency machinations that have screwed every American President in the past twenty years. I want to survive all that. But I have no money, because the country is broke. I can’t trust the Congress. I certainly can’t trust the Emergency committees. I can’t trust my own party apparatus. I’m the nation’s Commander in Chief, but I can’t even trust the armed forces. That leaves me with one source of direct Presidential power. My spooks.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“My spooks are gung ho! They just shot up a bunch of people in the dark of night, but at least they’re not politicians, so at least they do what they’re told. And since they’re spooks, they don’t officially exist. So the things they do don’t officially happen. So if all the relevant parties keep their mouths shut, I might not have to account for this bloody debacle last night on the Louisiana border. Are you following me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you to resign your Senate post, first thing tomorrow. You cannot pull a stunt like the one you just pulled and call yourself a congressional staffer. Forget the Senate, and forget your poor friend the Senator. You are a pirate. The only way you can survive this situation is if you join my National Security staff. So, that’s what you’ll have to do. From now on, you’ll be working for your President. You will be reporting to me. Your new title will be — NSC Science Adviser.”
“I understand, sir. If I may say so, that’s a very good situational analysis.” There was no question that he would take the job. It would mean pruning himself away from the Bambakias inner circle; it would also mean abandoning months of painstaking backstage work in the Senate Science Committee. That was like losing two lobes of his brain in an instant. But of course he would drop everything to work for the President. Because it meant an instant leap to a much higher pinnacle of power — a pinnacle where options bloomed all around him like edelweiss. “Thank you for your offer, Mr. President. I’m honored. I accept with pleasure.”
“You have been a cowboy. That was bad. Very bad. However, from now on, you are my cowboy. And just to make sure there are no more of these untoward incidents, I’m sending in a paratroop regi-ment of crack U.S. Army personnel to secure the lab’s perimeter. You can expect them by seventeen hundred hours, tomorrow.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“My staff will be sending along a prepared statement for your Director to read to the cameras. That’ll establish who’s who and what’s what, from now on. Now these are your marching orders, direct from your Commander in Chief. You keep that place out of the hands of Governor Huguelet. You will keep the data away from him, you will keep the personnel away from him, you will keep that place sewn up completely, until I understand just why that little man is so desperate to have it. If you succeed, I’ll bring you into the White House. Fail, and we’ll both go down in flames. But you will go down first, and hardest, and hottest, because I will be landing on top of you. Are we clear?”
“Perfectly clear, Mr. President.”
“Welcome to the glamorous world of the executive branch.” The President vanished. The amber waves continued on, serenely.
With persistent effort, they pried Oscar’s head out of the virtuality rig. He found himself the center of the transfixed attention of two hundred people.
“Well?” Kevin demanded, brandishing a leftover microphone.
“What did he say?”
“He hired me,” Oscar announced. “I’m on the National Secu-rity staff.”
Kevin’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Oscar nodded. “The President is backing us! He’s sending troops here to protect us!”
A ragged cheer broke out. The crowd was overjoyed. There was a pronounced hysteric edge to their reaction: farce, tragedy, triumph; they were punch-drunk. It was all they could do to jostle each other and yak into their phones.
Kevin shut off the microphone and tossed it aside. “Did he say anything about me?” Kevin asked anxiously. “I mean, about my wak-ing him up last night, and all that?”
“Yes he did, Kevin. He mentioned you specifically.”
Kevin turned to the person nearest at hand, who happened to be Lana Ramachandran. Lana had been rousted from a shower and had rushed to the media center in her dressing gown and slippers. “The President noticed me!” Kevin told her loudly, rising to his full height with a look of ennobled astonishment. “He talked about me! I really count for something! I matter to the President.”
“God, you are hopeless!” Lana told him, gritting her teeth.
“How could you do this to poor Oscar?”
“Do what?”
“Look at him, stupid! He’s covered with hives!”
“Those aren’t hives,” Kevin corrected, staring at Oscar analyti-cally. “It’s more like heat rash or something.”
“What is this huge bloody lump on his head? You’re supposed to be his bodyguard, you dumb bastard! You’re killing him! He’s only flesh and blood!”
“No he’s not,” Kevin said, wounded. His phone rang. He an-swered it. “Yes?” He listened, and his face fell.
“That big stupid cop-dressing faker,” Lana growled. “Oscar, what’s wrong with you? Say something to me. Let me feel your pulse.” She seized his wrist. “My God! Your skin’s so hot!”
The front of Lana’s dressing gown fell open. Oscar examined a semicircle of puckered brown nipple. The hair stood up on his neck. He suffered a sudden, violent, crazy surge of sexual arousal. He was out of control. “I need to lie down,” he said.