Power Surge

by Ben Bova

  It all looked so hopeless.

  Glancing at the digital clock readout in the corner of his computer screen, Jake saw that in twenty minutes he was supposed to be having lunch with a pair of slick lawyers who represented an environmental lobbying firm. Well, he thought, maybe they can update me on how much money we can recoup from cutting down on air pollution.

  But he shook his head. Damned tricky to factor in money nobody will have to spend because the incidence of lung cancer will have gone down, thanks to our cleaner energy production.

  * * *

  He returned from lunch feeling even more frustrated than before. One of the environmental lobbyists was a very attractive young blonde in a tight sweater whose wide blue eyes shone with fervor.

  “We can’t let them tear up the landscape and pollute the groundwater,” she insisted earnestly. “We’ve got to stop this fracking business before it destroys everything.”

  Jake tried to explain that it was already too late to stop the fracking operations that were allowing natural gas to overtake coal as the nation’s most important fuel. While she protested with tears in her eyes, he wondered if he dared to invite her to dinner.

  As they left the posh restaurant, she handed Jake her card. “Call me,” she said breathily. “Any time, day or night.”

  Jake saw that her partner, an older, grayer veteran in a dark three-piece suit, was smirking knowingly. Jake put her card in his pocket and all ideas of calling her out of his mind.

  Once back in his office, Jake saw that he had an appointment with still another lobbyist, this one from the coal industry.

  When will it end? he moaned to himself.

  Paul Adrian didn’t look like a lawyer, Jake thought as the man sat down in front of his desk. True, Adrian was wearing a suit, but it was light blue, and it looked in need of a pressing: not much like the typical DC uniform. His tie was a splashy conglomeration of colors. The man was lean and flinty-looking, gray of hair and pallor, noticeably older than most of the sleek well-fed lobbyists Jake had become accustomed to.

  Remembering Steve Brogan’s advice, Jake started their conversation with, “What can I do for you, Mr. Adrian?”

  “You can come with me down to Kentucky.” Adrian’s voice was somewhere between a creak and a groan.

  “Kentucky?”

  His face was bony, almost gaunt. “You’re working on an energy program that involves coal, aren’t you?”

  “Among many other things,” said Jake.

  “Then you ought to see the people that your plan will affect. You owe them that much.”

  I owe them? Jake thought. Looking across his desk at Adrian’s utterly serious face, Jake asked himself, What’s this guy after? But then he thought, Maybe it would be good to get out of town for a day or two. Maybe I ought to take him up on his offer.

  * * *

  That Friday morning, Jake was picked up at his apartment by a sleek black Mercedes sedan and driven to Reagan National Airport, where an even sleeker twin-jet private plane was waiting for him. Adrian was standing at the stairs leading into the plane, in the same blue suit, although this time his tie was a pattern of red and gold.

  As they flew to Lexington, Kentucky, Adrian explained, “Where we’re going, coal mining isn’t the major industry—it’s the only industry. I want you to see what happens to the people there when mining companies shut down.”

  At the airport in Lexington, Adrian led Jake to a modest Chevrolet minivan and headed out onto the freeway.

  “We’re going to Coalville. Local mine is going to close down, and the whole town’s going to be out of work.”

  Jake said, “You know, the energy plan I’m working on includes MHD power generation.”

  “I’ve heard of that.”

  “MHD will allow power plants to burn coal without as much pollution as conventional power plants. They’re more efficient, too, so you can get more kilowatts of output per ton of coal input.”

  Without taking his eyes off the road, Adrian said, “That’s all in the sweet by-and-by, friend. We’ve got problems right here and now. Serious problems.”

  Adrian lapsed into silence, and Jake leaned back in his seat and watched the scenery roll by. It felt good to be out of the office, away from Washington, out in the lovely green rolling hills.

  The greenery faded in less than an hour. As Adrian turned onto a secondary road, the trees thinned then disappeared altogether. The land turned gray and scrubby. Little towns flashed past, looking dilapidated, seedy, desperate.

  “Lots of electric utilities are switching from coal to natural gas,” Adrian muttered as he drove along.

  Jake said, “Gas is cheaper now, with fracking, and it’s cleaner than coal. We’ve cut our greenhouse emissions more than twenty percent by shifting to natural gas.”

  “That’s not all we’ve cut,” Adrian said.

  They passed a sagging roadside sign that proclaimed COALVILLE. POPULATION 11,379.

  “Old sign,” Adrian said. “Population’s down below nine thousand now.”

  The town reminded Jake of Lignite, back in Montana, slowly dying because the market for its coal had disappeared. Men in faded coveralls were standing in front of the general store, another group clustered at the barber shop. The town’s one hotel was boarded up. Cars and pickups parked along the main street were years old, battered, faded.

  “The local coal company is going to shut down the mine altogether,” Adrian said as he parked in front of a two-story wood-frame building. Its storefront window proclaimed COALVILLE MINING ASSOC. in black-bordered faded red letters.

  Pulling his tie off and stuffing it into his jacket pocket, Adrian said, “I’m supposed to assess the impact the closing will have on the local economy.”

  Jake blinked. “There’s a local economy?”

  “Not much of one,” Adrian admitted, as he opened the car door.

  Once Jake got out, Adrian told him, “I’ve got to meet with the association’s board. You circulate around town, take a look at how energy decisions affect real people.”

  So that’s why he brought me down here, Jake realized. To see how decisions in Washington play out in Coaltown and other communities across the country.

  * * *

  People eyed Jake with a mixture of curiosity and mistrust as he ambled up the few blocks of the main street, to the edge of town, and then back down the other side again. Feeling overdressed in his sports coat and slacks, Jake said hello to the men sitting on the wooden benches in front of the general store, the local garage, the shuttered hotel. At last he stopped in front of the corner saloon.

  “Where ya from?” asked a lanky young man, wearing baggy denims and a checkered shirt. He was standing in front of the saloon with a trio of other men, mostly his own age, although one of them was gray-haired and portly.

  “Washington,” said Jake. Guardedly.

  “I been there,” said the young man. “High school graduation trip. Must be eight years ago, now.”

  “More like ten, Lenny,” said the man beside him.

  They fell into conversation. Jake asked what they did for a living. Two of the young men were miners, the third a clerk in the mining company’s office. The older man owned the garage down the street.

  “I hear they’re going to close the mine,” Jake said.

  Mutterings and dark frowns.

  “You here to stop ’em?” asked the garage owner.

  Shaking his head, Jake said, “I’m afraid not.”

  “So what’s Washington gonna do ’bout us?”

  Before he thought about it, Jake said, “We’re working on a plan to make coal more marketable.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If the plan gets approved, there’ll be new markets for coal opening up.”

  “That’d be good,” one of the younger men said. But there was no enthusiasm in his voice. No hope.

  “It might take some time before things work out,” Jake warned. “It’s not going to happen overnight.”


  “That’s okay, mister. We got all the time in the world,” said the young man.

  “Long as the food stamps hold out,” the garage owner added.

  * * *

  As Adrian drove back to the airport, Jake asked, “How’d your meeting go?”

  Adrian grunted. “We were just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”

  “So they’re going to close the mine?”

  “Yep.”

  “What’re those people going to do?”

  “Same as they’ve been doing. Live in poverty.”

  “But can’t something be done to help them?”

  With a sardonic little laugh, Adrian said, “John F. Kennedy came down here to Appalachia when he was running for president, more than half a century ago. This is a popular spot for politicians when they’re running for office.”

  “But nothing gets changed.”

  “Like the old song says, ‘Another day older and deeper in debt.’”

  As they headed for the highway, and the airport, and Washington, Adrian said softly, “You know, I was born here. Not in Coalville, but not that far away from it, either. I was lucky. I got away. But these people…” He shook his head.

  And Jake suddenly understood why Adrian looked different from the other lobbyists he’d met. Take the man out of that suit and dress him in coveralls, Jake said to himself, and Paul Adrian would look just like the men hanging around the barber shop and general store. He’s one of them.

  Trying to sound hopeful, Jake said, “Well, we’re going to change things. MHD power generation will revitalize the coal industry.”

  “Lots of luck, friend,” said Adrian. “All the luck in the world. You’re going to need it.”

  Dinner Invitation

  For the next several days, Jake tried to figure out not merely how to make his plan revenue neutral but also how to make it work for the benefit of the people he’d seen in Coalville—and Lignite, back in Montana—and all the conflicting interests that were involved in the nation’s energy systems.

  There’s got to be a way, he told himself. There’s got to be. But he couldn’t find it.

  One bright morning, one of the staff secretaries burst into his office and announced breathlessly, “You’ve been invited to the White House!”

  “Me?”

  “The senator, of course,” she said, making herself comfortable on one of the visitor’s chairs. “But he told me to make sure you got yourself a tuxedo and a date. It’s dinner and a dance! Formal!”

  Jake owned a tuxedo that he’d used exactly five times in five years. Maybe I’ll get a new tie for it, he thought. Then he realized that he didn’t know anyone in DC he could ask to go out with him. He realized that he hadn’t had sex since Amy told him she was going to marry Tomlinson. God, that was more than a year ago!

  The secretary, Penny Hanscomb, was young and bright and smiling. She looked very pretty in a buttercup yellow blouse. Complements her chestnut brown hair, he thought. But dating a coworker could be tricky, Jake told himself. Office romances can turn into quagmires.

  Penny’s smile was enticing, though. And as she crossed her long legs she asked, “Do you have a tux? You can rent one at a discount through the office, you know.”

  “No, I … uh, I have my own tuxedo,” Jake stammered.

  “Oh. That’s nice.” She got to her feet.

  “When is this shindig?” Jake asked.

  “Sunday night. Cocktails at six, dinner at seven.”

  “In the White House.”

  “Yes! Exciting, isn’t it?”

  He sat behind his desk and watched her prance out of his office, wondering if asking her to go to the White House with him constituted a breach of office ethics.

  * * *

  Frank Tomlinson ended Jake’s quandary later that afternoon. He stepped into Jake’s office, leading a young woman by the wrist.

  “Jake, I want you to meet my cousin, Constance Zeeman.”

  “Connie,” she said, pulling her wrist free of Tomlinson’s grasp and extending her hand to Jake.

  Good looks must run in his family, Jake thought as he rose to his feet and reached for her hand. Her grip was firm, warm.

  “You must be a tennis player,” he heard himself say to her.

  “A little,” she said. “Mostly golf.”

  Connie Zeeman was almost Jake’s height, a little fleshy but quite attractive, with a generous figure and sensuous, pouty lips painted a warm pink. Smiling sky blue eyes and short-cropped sandy hair.

  Grinning, Tomlinson said, “Connie’s from the Dutch side of our family. This is her first time in Washington.”

  “Welcome to the nation’s capital,” Jake said. He thought it sounded pretty lame, but Connie’s smile widened and she replied, “Thank you, kind sir.”

  “Jake, I thought you might take Connie to the White House dinner Sunday night. If you’re not already committed.”

  “No, that’s a great idea,” Jake said, genuinely pleased. Then he asked Connie, “If it’s all right with you, that is.”

  “It’s fine with me,” said Connie.

  “It’s a date, then,” Tomlinson said. “I’ll have a car pick you up at five forty-five, Jake.”

  “Great,” Jake said, feeling a little bewildered. But happy.

  * * *

  “How’s it going?” Brogan asked.

  Brogan kept their meetings short, and never at the same place twice. This evening they were sitting at the bar of a restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue, not far from Jake’s apartment.

  Jake took a sip of the white wine he’d been nursing before answering, “Not so good. Trying to make the plan revenue neutral isn’t easy.”

  “You have to massage the numbers.”

  “You mean jigger them.”

  Brogan shrugged. “Make them come out the way you want. Somebody argues with ’em, you hang tough.”

  Jake took a bigger swallow of wine.

  “I hear you’re going to the White House Sunday night.”

  “You have big ears.”

  “You know Santino’s going to be at the dinner,” Brogan said. It sounded to Jake like a warning.

  “I’m not surprised,” Jake replied. “The dinner’s honoring three scientists who’ve made major contributions to energy technology.”

  “Major contributions,” Brogan groused. “Fracking, strip-mining, and a new way to store radioactive wastes. Some contributions.”

  Jake had been disappointed that Bob Rogers wasn’t among the honorees, for his work on MHD power generation. Maybe next year, he thought.

  Glancing around the bar and restaurant as though afraid he was being followed, Brogan said, “When you see the Little Saint, be polite and friendly. But no shop talk.”

  “Not even if he wants to talk shop?”

  “He won’t. This is a social occasion. Rub elbows with the high and mighty. Glad-handing.”

  “No shop talk,” Jake confirmed.

  “Too many people around to talk about anything serious. Just be friendly and sociable.”

  “And say hello to the president.”

  “That, too,” said Brogan, scanning the place as though it was crawling with spies.

  Jake nodded glumly. Brogan was taking all the excitement out of the occasion. Well, maybe not all of it, Jake thought, picturing Connie Zeeman’s smiling face.

  Brogan added, “Oh, if anybody mentions the civil war in Venezuela, you stay strictly noncommittal. There’s no way to win an argument about that, no matter which side you pick.”

  “Noncommittal,” Jake echoed.

  “That’s the ticket,” said Brogan. “Speak no evil.”

  Jake pictured the famous image of the three monkeys, and saw himself as the one with his hands covering his mouth.

  The White House

  Promptly at five forty-five Jake left his apartment, climbed up the four steps to ground level, and hurried around to the front of the house. It was drizzling rain, so he stepped onto the roofed porch, hoping hi
s landlord wouldn’t mind.

  A white stretch limousine came cruising slowly down the street and stopped without even trying to pull over to the curb.

  Mafia staff car, Jake said to himself, remembering the street slang of his earlier days in the old neighborhood.

  A liveried chauffeur came around to open the rear door for him as Jake scurried through the spattering rain and ducked into the limo.

  Tomlinson was already inside, with Amy and Connie Zeeman on either side of him, all of them holding cut-glass tumblers of whiskey. Connie was wearing a pale green gown with a plunging neckline, showing plenty of cleavage. Amy’s gown was off-white, more conservative, but she glittered with sapphires.

  Tomlinson grinned lazily and said, “Climb aboard, Jake.”

  The rear bench of the limo was filled by the three of them, so Jake crawled to the seat that ran along the side of the vehicle and sat down. He saw that the other side was a well-stocked bar.

  “Help yourself,” said Tomlinson grandly.

  Jake poured himself a glass of club soda, careful not to spill it as the limo accelerated down the street, toward the White House.

  He glanced at Amy, then quickly looked away. Remembering their times in bed together, Jake told himself sternly, That’s all over and done with now. She’s Frank’s wife. She’s not interested in you anymore. She never really was interested in you.

  * * *

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.”

  Jake had counted exactly fifty guests, all jammed into the sumptuous Red Room for cocktails before dinner. Senator Santino was there, flanked by two middle-aged men who radiated wealth. One of them looked vaguely familiar to Jake, but he couldn’t quite place the face. Tomlinson had the same glow of affluence to him, although he was at least fifteen or twenty years younger than the bozos with Santino, Jake thought.

  Everyone turned to the door as the president and her husband entered the room, smiling graciously.

  Standing between Jake and Amy, Connie whispered to Tomlinson’s wife, “She looks a lot older than she does on TV.”

  “And dumpier,” Amy whispered back.

  Jake thought the president looked resplendent in a floor-length gown of pale orange. There were lines in her face that her makeup didn’t cover, but what the hell, he thought, every president ages in the job. It’s the toll that all the responsibility takes on you.