Power Surge

by Ben Bova

  Nodding toward a gray-haired man in a checkered sports jacket standing at the crowded bar, Brogan said, “Neither was he, when he first got here, twelve years ago. Came in as a new member of the House of Representatives. Lost his reelection two years later, got himself a job with a lobbying firm. Now he’s one of those talking heads on a TV news show. An expert,” Brogan scoffed.

  “That’s him, not me.”

  “Not yet.” Pointing, Brogan said, “Look at the fat guy with the loud tie. He came to this town to work at the Environmental Protection Agency. He was going to save the environment from the polluters. Now he works for the oil industry, at three times his EPA salary.”

  “You mean he works against the EPA?”

  “Sure as hell does. It’s a disease, pal. Potomac fever. This town is like a Roach Motel: they come in, but they never leave.”

  Before Jake could say anything Brogan continued, “Look at them, kid. Every one of these people came to Washington to do good. Every one of them is still here, in one job or another, sucking off the government tit in one way or another. A lot of ’em get into the news media: expert commentators. They all come down with Potomac fever, sooner or later. They never leave DC. Never.”

  “You, too?”

  The waitress reappeared, with another tall glass of beer for Brogan and a stemmed wineglass for Jake.

  Once she left, Jake repeated, “What about you?”

  Brogan made a sad little smile. “I was born in this town. I’m a career bureaucrat, one of the guys that makes the system work, no matter what the politicians do.”

  Jake reached for his wineglass.

  “I’ve got a wife with early-onset Alzheimer’s and a kid who hasn’t held a job for more than six months at a time since he was a teenager. I watch these guys—and plenty of the women, too—come in here and clean up big bucks. It’s easy. All you have to do is suck up to the money people.”

  “Sell your soul, you mean.”

  “I don’t believe in souls. Or maybe I don’t believe most of these jerks ever had souls to begin with.”

  “That’s pretty damned bitter.”

  “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  “But we’ve got to do something about energy!” Jake insisted. “We can’t just go on burning fossil fuels and ruining the climate.”

  “Tell that to the Little Saint.”

  “And there’s biomedical research: stem cell therapy, artificial organs and limbs, new vaccines…”

  Brogan smiled tiredly. “And the pharmaceutical industry. And the pro-lifers.”

  “And the space program. There are private companies that want to build tourist hotels in orbit. And other facilities.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “You make it sound impossible to get anything done.”

  Brogan said nothing for several heartbeats, peering at Jake as if studying him, measuring him.

  At last he replied, “You can get some things done, but you’ve got to be damned careful how you go about it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t work your way around the Little Saint. He’s in the pocket of the fossil fuel guys. But maybe, with a little smarts, you might be able to get your MHD program through.”

  “That’s what Frank Tomlinson campaigned on. That’s what won him the election.”

  “I know. You might get that through. The coal lobby might support it. Make them look good, progressive.”

  “But not solar energy? Not electric cars?”

  Brogan’s cynical smile returned. “Solar energy cuts into the existing power companies’ turf. No go. Electric cars?” His expression turned thoughtful. “Maybe, if you played your cards right. You have to be very careful, of course, but you just might be able to pull something off there.”

  “Really?” Jake started to feel enthused.

  With a shrug, Brogan said, “Where do you think the electricity for those cars comes from? You’d be pitting the coal guys against the gasoline guys, but it just might work.”

  Jake looked at the older man’s dead, sagging face. “Would you help me?” he asked.

  “Me? No way. I can’t afford to get mixed up with a do-gooder.”

  “But it’s the right thing to do!” Jake insisted.

  “So was biofuels, once upon a time. Now it’s just another big boondoggle.”

  “Come on,” Jake pleaded, surprised at his feeling of need. “We can change things. I know we can. Show me the ropes. Help me.”

  Brogan took a long swill of his beer. Then, “I can’t do it officially. I can’t be seen helping a young squirt who wants to take on the fossil fuel industry.”

  “But unofficially?”

  Brogan hesitated again. But at last he said, “Yeah, why the hell not? Might even be fun—as long as I don’t get caught.”

  “What do we do?” Jake asked. “How do we start?”

  “You start by getting an appointment with Senator Santino. He’s the chairman of the energy committee. Nothing happens without him supporting it.”

  “Okay, just as soon as I finish the outline of my program plan and Senator Tomlinson okays it.”

  Brogan nodded. “Okay. I’d like to see your plan, too.”

  “Sure!”

  It wasn’t until he returned to the basement apartment he was renting, out in the American University neighborhood, that Jake realized he had found a new mentor.

  He’s not Lev, Jake reminded himself. But he could help me, just the way Lev did.

  Maybe.

  Senator Mario Santino

  The Little Saint sat behind his broad, gleamingly polished desk and smiled at his two visitors.

  “And what can I do for you?” he asked, in a pleasant soft voice.

  Senator Santino was nearing seventy-five, Jake knew from studying the man’s biography. He’d been in the US Senate for more than a quarter of a century, elected and reelected by the people of Rhode Island—and by the political machine that ran the tiny state.

  Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Santino was a tiny man, lean and spare, with thinning gray hair and a little half smile on his thin lips. He wore a light gray suit with a carefully knotted cobalt blue tie. His skin was wrinkled and lined, his cheeks hollow, his nose little more than a wart in the center of his face. But his eyes were a cold, icy gray, despite his smile.

  Senator B. Franklin Tomlinson, newly returned from his honeymoon cruise, seemed slightly ill at ease in front of the Little Saint. Politely deferential, of course, but Jake felt that Tomlinson was somewhat in awe of the older man. Something like the way Frank acts around his father, Jake thought.

  Tomlinson was bright and young and handsome as ever. He had returned from his honeymoon cruise tanned and smiling. When Jake showed him his outline of a master plan for a national energy program, the senator had barely glanced at it. He merely asked, “Is MHD central to your program?”

  “Yes, it is,” Jake had replied.

  “Good. Now we’ve got to show it to Santino.”

  “I’ve already arranged a meeting with him,” said Jake.

  Tomlinson beamed. “Great. Wonderful. Good work, Jake.”

  Despite himself, Jake felt thrilled.

  * * *

  Capitol Hill is honeycombed by a network of tunnels that connect the various Senate and House Office Buildings with each other and the Capitol itself. But the morning of their scheduled meeting with the Little Saint, Tomlinson decided to walk out in the open along the block and a half from their offices to the Russell S.O.B., where Santino was ensconced.

  It was a pleasant spring morning, bright with sunshine and a clear blue sky. Even though C Street was off the usual tourist area, there were plenty of pedestrians on the sidewalk, and the street was crowded with cars and taxis and the occasional limousine.

  “It’s a great day to be alive,” Tomlinson said, smiling at the young women passing by.

  “Going to get hot this afternoon,” said Jake. “They’re predicting a high near
ninety.”

  “This early in the spring?”

  “Global warming.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. It’s happening, Frank, no matter how much some people deny it.”

  Tomlinson’s smile faded only a little. “Well, don’t mention it in front of Santino. He doesn’t believe in it.”

  “He wants to keep the world safe for the fossil fuel industry, I know.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Jake. Santino won’t be there forever. I just might have his job some day.”

  Jake blinked with surprise.

  “It’d be a good step on the way to the White House,” Tomlinson said. And Jake saw that his boss was completely serious.

  Now the two of them sat before Senator Santino’s desk, with the old man smiling benignly at them.

  “And what can I do for you?” Senator Santino asked. No offer of coffee or any refreshments. Strictly business.

  Tomlinson glanced at Jake, then replied, “My science advisor, here, is working on a blueprint for a national energy policy,” he began.

  “So I’ve heard,” Santino said, his benign smile stretching slightly.

  Tomlinson went on, “I’ve felt for a long time that the nation needs a comprehensive plan, a program that balances our energy needs for the future and our natural resources, plus our scientific and technological capabilities.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” said Santino. Turning to focus his ice gray eyes on Jake, he added, “I presume your plan features magnetohydrodynamic power generation.”

  Impressed by Santino’s knowledge and his correct pronunciation of the jawbreaker, Jake replied, “MHD is part of the plan, yessir.”

  “A very wise move,” said Santino. “MHD will allow us to make use of high-sulfur coal from our western states, won’t it.” It was not a question.

  Jake replied, “Of course, MHD is only one part of a comprehensive energy program.”

  “But a key part, I should think.”

  Tomlinson answered, “Yes, it is.”

  Almost sheepishly, Jake said, “What we’ve done so far is merely an outline. But I think we’ve covered most of the important aspects of the energy picture.”

  “That’s fine,” said Senator Santino.

  Jake went on, “I mean, there are other aspects to consider as well: solar, wind energy, hydroelectric power—”

  “Renewable energy sources,” said Santino. “Of course. Certainly.”

  Tomlinson said, “It’s good to see that you’re so knowledgeable about all this.”

  Santino put on an almost humble expression. “I wouldn’t be much of an energy committee chairman if I didn’t know at least a little about these things.”

  They chatted amiably for a few minutes more. Santino asked Tomlinson how he was adjusting to living in DC. Tomlinson admitted that the city was a little bewildering to him. “But I’m getting used to it,” he concluded.

  “That’s good,” said Santino, rising from his desk chair. “That’s very good.”

  Jake realized that the man was only a few inches taller than five feet. Tomlinson towered over him.

  To Jake, the Little Saint said, “Please send a copy of your outline over to me as soon as you can. I want to study it in detail before I schedule a committee hearing about it.”

  “Certainly,” said Jake. “Right away. This afternoon!”

  “Good. Good.” Santino came around the desk and, with one hand on the elbow of each of his visitors, he skillfully ushered them to the door.

  Once outside on the sunny, warm street again, Tomlinson said smilingly, “Well, that went very smoothly, I think.”

  Jake nodded, but he heard in his head Brogan’s advice to count your fingers after shaking hands with the Little Saint.

  49th Street NW

  Jake’s one-bedroom apartment was in the basement of a modest Federal-style brick house on a quiet, tree-shaded residential street. His landlord was a biologist at the National Institutes of Health, tall and lean, with thick dark hair and a grave expression on his face, taciturn to the point of muteness, almost. His wife was a professor of sociology at Howard University. Jake seldom saw them and rarely heard any noise from overhead.

  His landlord seemed very proud of the garden he had created out of the house’s backyard. Neat rows of vegetables and flowers lined the yard, beneath a pair of graceful old oak trees standing at the end of his property. A wall of bottlebrush pines ran along the property line separating the house from the one next door.

  “Feel free to come out here and relax any time you like,” his landlord told him. It was the longest sentence Jake had ever heard him speak. But whenever Jake did come out to sit in the shade of the trees, he noticed his landlord, or his wife, or both of them, watching him from their kitchen window. Soon enough, he stopped going out there.

  Now, as he sat in the living room of his apartment¸ Jake heard a car pull up outside. Standing on tiptoes to look through the window, he saw an old-model gray Volvo backing into the parking space he had left at the curb. Steve Brogan climbed out, looked around as if he was afraid he’d be spotted by enemy agents, then came around to the side door that opened onto the apartment.

  Jake opened the door before he could knock on it and let him in.

  Brogan took in the room with a glance. “Nice location,” he said. “Not far from Bethesda.”

  “It’s convenient,” Jake agreed, gesturing Brogan to the futon that served as a sofa.

  Brogan looked as tired and scruffy as usual, his gray suit jacket hanging unbuttoned, his balding pate disheveled, windswept.

  “So what do you think of the Little Saint?” he asked as he sank wearily onto the futon.

  “He’s much more knowledgeable than I expected,” Jake admitted as he sat in the squeaky little plastic chair next to Brogan.

  “He does his homework,” Brogan said. “Or at least, he gets somebody on his staff to do it.”

  “He knows about MHD.”

  Brogan made a sound halfway between a sigh and a grunt. “He knows your boss is hot for MHD, and he wants to keep Tomlinson in his pocket.”

  With a shake of his head, Jake said, “Frank isn’t going into anybody’s pocket.”

  “Want to bet? We already got a memo from Santino about MHD. He wants our office’s official assessment of the technology.”

  “Really? That’s great!”

  Brogan held up a warning finger. “Don’t start the victory party just yet. An official assessment means a detailed study of the technology. That could take a year or more.”

  “But I can give you the complete record of our work. All tied up in a bow.”

  “Doesn’t work that way, pal. Our assessment has to be independent of your work. We can’t just rubber-stamp your reports.”

  Disappointed, Jake said, “So you have to reinvent the wheel?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on what Santino wants to see in our assessment. My department chief is talking to the Little Saint’s people about that.”

  Jake felt puzzled. “Wait a minute. You find out what he wants your conclusions to be, and then you make the assessment?”

  “Now you’re seeing the light.”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “No, it’s politics. Santino doesn’t care beans about your super-duper technology. But he does care about how it could affect him—and the people he owes.”

  “The coal industry.”

  “Right. And remember, the Little Saint has to keep his oil industry backers happy, too.”

  Jake sank back in the uncomfortable little chair. “This gets complicated, doesn’t it?”

  “And then some,” said Brogan. “It would help if your MHD machines could burn petroleum products as well as coal.”

  “Sure they can. Diesel, natural gas … the fuel doesn’t matter, as long as it can produce a hot-enough exhaust gas.”

  Brogan broke into a happy grin. “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”

  “It’s in t
he material I sent you.” Then Jake realized, “You haven’t read what I sent you, have you?”

  “I read enough,” Brogan said.

  “So? What do you think?”

  “Your plan is pretty comprehensive, I’ll give you that.”

  “But?” Jake prompted.

  “Have you bothered to do a cost analysis?”

  Nodding, Jake replied, “Sure. It’s in Appendix D. Or maybe it’s E.”

  Before Jake could get up to go to his computer, Brogan said, “Your plan’s going to be damned expensive, pal. Funding MHD, tax breaks for renewables, upgrading the power grid…”

  “Not all of that comes out of tax money,” Jake objected. “The private sector has to contribute—”

  “In your dreams, pal.”

  “But the eventual payoff—”

  With a weary shake of his head, Brogan explained, “Politics isn’t about eventual payoffs, Jake. It’s about here and now. The future goes only as far as the next election.”

  Jake sat there, looking into Brogan’s sad eyes, trying to think of something to say.

  “The way your plan stands,” the older man said, “Santino and his people can reject it because it costs so damned much. No discussion of its merits. They’ll kill it on fiscal grounds.”

  Jake muttered a heartfelt, “Shit.”

  “You’ve got to make your plan revenue neutral, pal. Rig the cost and benefit figures so they come out even.”

  “But they don’t. We have to invest in new technology to make the nation secure, energy-wise.”

  Patiently, Brogan said, “Show the benefits in dollars and cents. Make the plan revenue neutral. Otherwise it doesn’t have a chance.”

  Coalville, Kentucky

  Hunched tensely at his desk, Jake eyed the rows of figures on his computer screen. Dollars, millions of dollars, hundreds of millions. No matter how he juggled the numbers, the bottom line of his draft of the energy plan still came out deeply in the red.

  “Revenue neutral,” he muttered to himself. He wondered how he could make the plan revenue neutral when so much had to be spent on new technology, on building new high-capacity electrical transmission lines, on giving tax breaks for businesses that met new standards for energy efficiency.