Power Surge

by Ben Bova

  “He should be.”

  “You’re telling me?”

  They reached the end of the table, a few steps from the door.

  “You know,” Jake said, “the trouble with NASA is that you guys come across as elitists.”

  “Huh?”

  “The average guy sees NASA as a bunch of scientists and astronauts. What you do in space doesn’t have any impact on Main Street.”

  Knowles stared at Jake, his expression halfway between resentment and disbelief.

  “I mean,” Jake went on, “if NASA could deliver electrical power from space the way you claim you can do, that’s something that the average taxpayer could get excited about.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure,” Jake said, convincing himself. “NASA could make an impact on Main Street with cheap, clean electricity from space.”

  “It won’t be cheap,” Knowles objected.

  “Okay. But it would be safe, and clean. You could place the receiving stations in the southwestern desert, to begin with. Get support from Arizona, Nevada, Utah—”

  Knowles broke into a grin. “Get the Mormons behind us.”

  “Why not? And California, too. You could get a pretty powerful coalition of senators from those states.”

  “You’re starting to sound like a politician.”

  Jake shrugged. “If you want to get anywhere in this town, you’ve got to start thinking like a politician instead of an astronaut.”

  Rubbing his dark chin thoughtfully, Knowles said, “Let me try this out on a few of the people in my office.”

  Raising a cautioning finger, Jake said, “Don’t try to sell this as a space program. Sell it is an energy program. Bring space technology to the average taxpayer. Make NASA relevant to the general public, instead of just the space cadets and academic scientists.”

  “Make space technology useful,” Knowles said.

  “Bring space technology down to Earth,” Jake enthused.

  “Might work,” Knowles agreed. “It just might work.” Then he sobered. “If I can sell the idea to the administrator and his flunkies.”

  “I could ask Senator Tomlinson to get onto that bandwagon.”

  “But didn’t the senator, uh … fire you?”

  Jake forced a grin. “Sort of. But we’re still friends.”

  “Oh. I see … I guess. Thanks, Jake,” said Knowles, sticking his hand out. “Thanks a lot.”

  Jake walked the former astronaut to the station’s front door, then headed back to his own cubbyhole, thinking, At least I made him smile. Maybe the idea won’t go anywhere, but at least I put a smile on his face.

  Then he remembered that he was going out to Reagan National to meet Tami. That put a smile on Jake’s face. A big one.

  Reagan National Airport

  Jake was always surprised at how small Reagan National really was. Dulles International dwarfed it, as did the BWI out in Maryland. But Reagan National was tucked along the riverfront, a scant few minutes’ drive from downtown Washington. It was convenient, especially for DC’s politicians and federal employees, and therefore always busy.

  When he’d worked for Senator Tomlinson, Jake could park at the special lot reserved for government VIPs. Nowadays he parked much farther away, with the ordinary citizens.

  As he made his way through the parking lot and across the road that fronted the terminal building, Jake thought again about Tomlinson’s problem with the farm lobby and Senator Perlmutter. Ethanol. He shook his head—as if that would help to generate a useful idea.

  But he found himself whistling cheerily as he entered the airport terminal. Tami’s flight was fifteen minutes late, so he had plenty of time to get to the area where arriving passengers came in. He mentally kicked himself for forgetting to pick up a bouquet of flowers. Tami would’ve liked that, he thought.

  And there she was, tiny and slim and altogether lovely, striding up the passageway, pulling a rollaway suitcase with one hand, a tote bag slung over her other shoulder. She was wearing dark slacks and a pink sweater over her blouse.

  Tami’s eyes widened with surprise when she saw Jake among the others waiting to greet arrivals. She hurried up to him and flung both arms around his neck. Jake kissed her as if they’d been apart for months.

  “I didn’t expect you here,” she said, once they had disengaged.

  “Thought I’d save you the taxi fare,” he answered, grinning boyishly.

  As they started toward the door, with Jake towing the rollaway, Tami rummaged in her tote bag and pulled out her cell phone.

  “Better call my roommate,” she said as she thumbed the flash dial key, “and tell her I won’t be home tonight.”

  Jake’s grin widened.

  * * *

  Over dinner at the sushi bar nearest Jake’s apartment, he explained the problem with Senator Perlmutter.

  “Ethanol?” Tami asked as she deftly picked up a chunk of rainbow roll.

  “Farms grow corn and other crops to sell to the oil companies. They make ethanol out of it and mix it with the gasoline they produce.”

  Tami’s expression turned thoughtful. “I remember doing a story a couple years back about how ethanol was a factor in the Arab Spring uprisings.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  As she dipped her piece of sushi in the tiny bowl of soy sauce, Tami explained, “When farms started selling part of their crops to make ethanol, the price of food went up.”

  “Not that much,” Jake said.

  “Not here in the States, maybe, but the price increase was significant overseas. In countries like Libya and Egypt food prices almost doubled in a few months.”

  Using his chopsticks, Jake picked up a piece of his unagi roll and managed to get it into his mouth without dropping it.

  “People in those countries depended on government subsidies for food,” Tami went on. “So when the prices jumped so high, they started demonstrating in the streets.”

  “Which led to rioting,” Jake said, his mouth still full of sushi.

  “The governments called out the army to put down the rioters, but the protests just got bigger and bigger.”

  “Governments were toppled.”

  “Arab Spring,” said Tami.

  “Not much came of it,” Jake said. “They still have oppressive governments. They just changed hats, that’s all.”

  “Turbans,” Tami joked.

  “So ethanol production toppled governments in the Middle East.”

  “It helped.”

  Reaching for his cup of sake, Jake mused, “So if methanol replaces ethanol, farmers go back to selling their crops for food.”

  “And food prices go down,” Tami concluded. “That’s good for everybody—except the farmers.”

  “Which is why Senator Perlmutter and the farm lobby are pissed with Frank.”

  “What can you do about it?” she asked.

  Almost wistfully, Jake replied, “I wish I knew.”

  * * *

  As they walked through the soft shadows of early evening back toward his apartment, Jake muttered, “Think like a politician.”

  “What?” asked Tami.

  “It’s what I told a NASA guy today: he’s got to stop thinking like an ex-astronaut and start thinking like a politician.”

  She looked up at him, puzzled.

  “Why is Santino so worked up about Perlmutter? They’re both in the same party. They both have strong power bases in the Senate.”

  “But your energy plan cuts into Perlmutter’s turf,” Tami said.

  “Okay, but what can Perlmutter do about it?”

  “Get the farm bloc to vote against the plan when it comes up on the floor of the Senate.”

  “But it’s not going to come up,” Jake pointed out. “Santino’s burying it.”

  “Oh. Yes, I forgot.”

  Thinking out loud, Jake mused, “Presidential election coming up next year. Santino’s been approached about running for vice president.”

  “Who’s
going to be the party’s candidate for president?”

  “I don’t know,” Jake admitted. “But I think I’d better find out.”

  Library of Congress

  The next morning Jake phoned Kevin O’Donnell from his office at WETA. Senator Tomlinson’s chief of staff was stiffly polite, but Jake detected a note of wariness in the tone of his voice.

  “I need to pick your brain about a couple of things,” Jake told him. “When’s a good time for me to drop in on you?”

  “Come over to the office?” O’Donnell sounded almost alarmed. “I have a pretty full schedule, Jake. I don’t know when I could fit you in.”

  Jake grimaced inwardly. I’m still the pariah as far as he’s concerned. I bet he doesn’t even know that Frank asked for my help.

  Aloud, he said, “It doesn’t have to be at the office. I could meet you for drinks, lunch—you name it.”

  “What’s this all about, Jake?”

  “I need to understand how the Senate works. Not the rules written on paper: how it really works.”

  “Does this have anything to do with Perlmutter and Santino?”

  “Yes, it does.” Jake hesitated a split second, then added, “Ask Frank if it’s okay. I’m sure he won’t object.”

  A longer silence. Then, “All right, let me talk with the senator. I’ll call you back.”

  Jake hung up, thinking that the chances were excellent that he wouldn’t hear back from O’Donnell.

  He was happily surprised, though, when the staff chief called him late that afternoon. “Tomorrow, in the Library of Congress. Two o’clock.”

  “Library of Congress. Two o’clock,” Jake echoed.

  “Meet me in the lobby.”

  * * *

  Jake took a taxi from the WETA building to the Library of Congress, noting as he rode that there were thunderheads building up in the summer sky, dark and threatening. I should have brought an umbrella, he thought. Then he remembered that his umbrella was resting behind the driver’s seat of his Mustang, safe and dry.

  The library building was another of Washington’s marble palaces, vaguely reminiscent of an ancient Greek temple with its columns and stairs fronting the main entrance. In the muggy afternoon heat, Jake was perspiring by the time he reached the top of the stairs and pushed through the door into the welcome cool of the air-conditioned interior.

  It was a few minutes before two, and O’Donnell was nowhere in sight among the people passing through the spacious lobby. Jake stood to one side, waiting unhappily. As he looked up from his wristwatch for the third time, he saw O’Donnell coming up the steps, lean and flinty, his suit jacket unbuttoned and flapping in the scant breeze.

  He came through the glass door and, hardly nodding to Jake as he strode past, muttered, “Upstairs,” and kept on walking, as if he didn’t want anyone to see the two of them together.

  Thinking that Potomac fever ran a distant second to DC paranoia, Jake followed the rake-thin chief of staff to a bank of elevators and rode with him—and a half-dozen other people—to the second floor.

  The elevator doors opened onto the spacious, high-ceilinged reading room with its rows and rows of tables. Fewer than a third of the chairs were filled, Jake saw: men in their usual DC dark suits, women of all ages and sizes, several poorly clad men who might have been homeless. All of them poring over open books; many of them with hefty piles of books at their elbows. The younger folks sat in front of computer screens.

  O’Donnell led him to a side room, not much larger than a booth. But it had a door, and he closed it firmly.

  “Private room for VIPs to study books or documents,” he explained as he clicked the door lock. Gesturing to the tiny table and its two wooden chairs, O’Donnell asked, “Now what’s this all about, Jake?”

  Jake sat and studied the older man’s pinched face for a moment. He’s not happy to be with me, Jake understood. Frank must have told him to meet me, but he’s being as discreet about this as he can.

  “I need to understand why Senator Perlmutter is so angry about the energy plan,” Jake said.

  O’Donnell snorted derisively. “Are you really that naïve?”

  “I guess I am.”

  Running a hand across his silly combover, O’Donnell said, “Your plan calls for a major move in methanol production. That means methanol could replace ethanol, which means that farmers who now sell ethanol crops to the oil industry will lose that market. It’s not rocket science, kid.”

  “But they can still sell their crops for food,” Jake said.

  “The oil companies pay more.”

  “Anyway, the plan isn’t going anywhere, so there’s no danger of the farmers losing their ethanol market, is there?” Jake retorted. “Perlmutter must know that.”

  O’Donnell said, “That’s not the point. Perlmutter’s main support is from the farm lobby. Any hint of a threat to the farm lobby’s interests, he’s got to come down on it. Hard.”

  “So it’s a turf war?”

  “Sort of,” O’Donnell said, reluctantly.

  “There’s more involved than that, isn’t there?” Jake probed.

  “There’s always more involved.”

  “Politics.”

  With a nod, O’Donnell agreed, “Politics.”

  “Okay,” Jake said, leaning in closer to the older man, “Could you explain the politics of this situation to me?”

  “Why?”

  “Because Frank’s asked me to help him get off Santino’s shit list, that’s why.”

  O’Donnell fell silent for several heartbeats, his hard dark eyes boring into Jake, his hands fidgeting nervously on the lapels of his jacket.

  Finally, “I told the senator to keep you out of this. If Santino finds out that Franklin’s asking you for help, the Little Saint’ll fry the senator’s balls over a slow fire.”

  “The senator,” Jake replied, stressing the word, “has asked for my help. And I’m asking you for some background information. I assume Frank’s okayed your talking to me.”

  “Against my advice. I told him to lay low, get the MHD part of the program passed so he can bring it home to his constituents, and let it go at that.”

  Jake nodded. “I understand. I even agree with you, partially. But I’m in the dark here! I need to know what’s going on behind the scenes.”

  O’Donnell shook his head, muttering, “Amateurs.”

  Jake said nothing, waiting, while O’Donnell drummed his fingertips on the tabletop.

  At last O’Donnell said, almost in a whisper, “Senator McGrath is dying of cancer.”

  “McGrath? The Senate Majority Leader?”

  “It’s not public knowledge yet. McGrath wants to keep it quiet for the time being.”

  “How long—”

  “Six months, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. He’s going to retire from the Senate at the end of the current session.”

  “Then he’ll be gone by next year’s elections.”

  “That’s right.” O’Donnell looked almost wistful. “He’s been the party’s top man in the Senate for the past twelve years: Majority Leader when we were on top, Minority Leader when we weren’t. Never heard a word against him, from either side of the aisle. Everybody liked him. Mr. Straight Arrow. Never said an unkind word to anybody. They don’t make that kind anymore.”

  “And Santino’s the Majority Whip,” Jake said, then added, “I’m not totally ignorant, Kevin.”

  With an exaggerated sigh of patience, O’Donnell said, “Santino expected to become the Senate’s next Majority Leader. He expected McGrath’s support to line up the votes for him.”

  “And McGrath’s gone back on Santino? He’s not going to support him?”

  His thin lips pressed into a tight bloodless line, O’Donnell said, “He’s spread the word through the party caucus that he wants the election for the next Majority Leader to be open and fair.”

  “Does the whole Senate know he’s dying?”

  With a single shake of his head O’D
onnell replied, “Only the top committee chairmen. McGrath has sworn them all to secrecy.”

  “Then how did you find out?”

  O’Donnell made a thin smile and uttered a single word, “Experience.”

  “So Perlmutter must know.”

  “Perlmutter knows. And he wants to be the next Majority Leader.”

  “And that’s why he’s attacking Santino.”

  “That’s why he’s attacking Santino,” O’Donnell echoed. “There’s going to be a bloody battle in the party caucus, Santino against Perlmutter. With McGrath sitting it out on the sidelines.”

  “The farm lobby against the energy lobby,” Jake said.

  “Not the lobbies, Jake. The Senate blocs. The lobbyists aren’t involved in this fight. This is strictly party business.”

  Jake corrected himself, “The farm bloc against the energy bloc.”

  “There’s more involved than that,” O’Donnell said, “but basically, yeah, that’s it. Perlmutter against Santino. There’s going to be blood on the floor before this fight is over.”

  “And the energy plan—”

  “Is in the middle of it. Perlmutter’s taking the position that Santino’s invading his turf. Your energy plan will hurt farmers. Perlmutter’s defending the poor little farmers against the big, bad fossil fuel industries.”

  “Bullshit,” Jake snapped. “He’s defending the agribusiness corporations that own the farms.”

  O’Donnell really smiled. “At least you understand that much.”

  “You know that the energy plan will actually help farmers by bringing down the costs of electricity and fuel—even the cost of fertilizer and feedstock will go down once we improve the efficiency of producing energy and cut down on our imports of foreign oil. Lord, we spend seven trillion dollars a year to import oil! Think of how much we’ll save—”

  O’Donnell cut Jake off with an upraised hand. “Spare me the rhetoric. I know it by heart. I don’t believe it, not all of it, but I know the song and dance.”

  It’s not a song and dance, Jake objected silently. It can all come true. If we could only get the plan implemented.

  “So now you know the background,” O’Donnell said. “Now you know that your little plan has become a combat zone in the battle for the Majority Leader’s position.”