Power Surge

by Ben Bova

  The senator from Ohio did not look convinced. He was an imposingly large, stocky, gray-haired man. Jake thought he might have played football for Ohio State when he was younger.

  “And all this carbon dioxide will be used to produce methanol fuel?” he asked.

  “That’s right, Senator. Methanol is a relatively clean, high-energy fuel. Oil companies can mix it with their gasoline, making it cleaner and less expensive—in the long run.”

  “And what happens to the farmers who’re growing crops that’re used to make ethanol?” the Ohioan demanded.

  He’s a stalking horse for Perlmutter, Jake realized. Santino didn’t look alarmed, though. He must have expected this.

  Unrattled, Tomlinson replied, “The agribusiness corporations can sell their crops for food, the way they did before the ethanol mandate was enacted. Global food prices will go down, poor people around the world will pay less for their food.” Before the senator could respond, Tomlinson added, “And food prices here in the US will go down as well. Even in Ohio.”

  A few people in the audience chuckled, but the senator from Ohio was clearly unhappy. “While American farmers get poorer,” he growled.

  Breaking into his most dazzling smile, Tomlinson countered, “No, Senator, they won’t get poorer, because the prices they pay for fuel for their farm vehicles and electricity for their homes will be coming down, too. The farmers will be better off, and the big agribusiness corporations will make higher profits.”

  Santino tapped his gavel. “Let’s move on, shall we?”

  “One more point, if you please,” the senator from Ohio said.

  Santino dipped his chin accommodatingly.

  Turning back to Tomlinson, his chunky face grim, the Ohioan pointed a finger as he accused, “Isn’t this grandiose plan of yours nothing more than an attempt to get federal funding for the MHD power generation scheme, back in your home state of Montana?”

  Tomlinson looked startled, but he quickly masked his surprise. Quite seriously, he replied, “I’m glad you brought that up, Senator. Yes, MHD power generation is a part of the comprehensive plan, but only a part of the whole. Using MHD will allow the coal-fired power plants in your state of Ohio, Senator, to generate electricity more efficiently, and much more cleanly.”

  “So you claim.”

  Smiling again, Tomlinson said, “I invite you to Montana, sir, to see for yourself our MHD generator and how it performs. Once you’re convinced about MHD, perhaps you can help the electric utilities in your state—and the coal companies—to take an interest in this marvelous new technology.”

  The senator from Ohio did not look pleased.

  Debriefing

  “I thought it went very well,” said Tomlinson, leaning back in his desk chair with a glass of scotch in one hand. It was the end of a long day spent at the energy committee hearing.

  Sitting in front of the desk, Jake saw that O’Donnell and Reynolds, sitting there with him, both looked pleased. The normally dour staff chief was even smiling.

  Reynolds said, “I’ve already got four requests for TV interviews for you. And several blogs want you to talk to them, including Power Talk.”

  “Lady Cecilia?” Tomlinson asked, grinning. “Again?”

  “It went just about as well as could be expected,” O’Donnell said. He, too, had a drink in hand. “Better, even.”

  “That’s because you always expect the worst, Kevin,” the senator joked.

  Jake’s hands were empty. He had a dinner date with Tami coming up, and the wine they’d share would be enough of a celebration for him.

  “Santino seemed pleased,” Tomlinson said. “Did you see him smiling at me?”

  Jake remembered Steve Brogan’s words about the Little Saint: He’s the kind of guy who can smile at you while he’s knifing you in the back.

  “All the other witnesses were favorable,” Reynolds said.

  With some of his normal cynicism, O’Donnell replied, “That’s because they were all hand-picked by Santino’s staff. No dissenters allowed.”

  Jake mentally ran through the people who had testified: coal industry, oil industry, electric utilities, automobile industry, nuclear power, solar, windmills, and a woman from the environmental lobby—Santino’s people had covered the waterfront.

  “We should have brought Bob Rogers in from back home,” Tomlinson said, almost wistfully. “He could have explained the MHD technology to the committee.”

  “No!” O’Donnell snapped. “No special privileges for MHD. That’d look too much like you’re loading the dice.”

  Tomlinson looked almost hurt, Jake thought. But he nodded at his chief of staff, then took a long swig of his scotch.

  “So where do we go from here?” Reynolds asked O’Donnell. “I can fill up the senator’s dance card with media appearances, if you like.”

  O’Donnell shook his head. “Pick the top media outlets only. National news shows. Blogs that have plenty of followers. No penny-ante stuff.”

  “I ought to attend every one of the committee’s sessions,” Tomlinson said.

  “Right. You should be seen as interested first and foremost in the committee’s business, not as a prima donna who’s put his plan before the committee but who’s too busy doing media interviews to attend to the committee’s work.”

  Jake silently agreed. Makes sense, he thought. Frank should come across as serious, hardworking, and determined to get his plan accepted by the committee.

  * * *

  That evening Jake picked up Tami at her EarthGuard LLC office in a sturdy old stone building off Farragut Square, not far from the White House.

  “How’d it go?” she asked as she ducked into his Mustang.

  Disappointed, Jake complained, “You didn’t watch the hearing?”

  Tami grinned at him. “Some people have to work for a living. We don’t have time to watch C-SPAN all day.”

  “It went pretty damned well,” Jake said as he pulled the car into the traffic streaming along K Street.

  “Santino was okay?”

  “Like Santa Claus, almost,” Jake said.

  Her expression grew serious. “That’s when you have to be on your guard, Jake. He was all smiles while he was getting me fired.”

  “Not this time,” Jake countered. “Frank’s energy plan is going to sail through the committee and be ready for a floor vote by the time the Senate reconvenes after its summer recess.”

  “If Santino gets the Majority Leader’s post,” said Tami.

  Jake realized she was right. If Perlmutter becomes Majority Leader, the energy plan is sunk.

  * * *

  They had dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, where they’d had their first date. Tami was strangely quiet all through the meal. Jake had to make the conversation, which made him feel uncomfortable, awkward. He was accustomed to letting her chatter pleasantly about her day, her plans and problems.

  As they walked back toward his car, Jake asked, “Why so quiet, Tami?”

  She looked up at him. “Have I been quiet?”

  “Pretty much. Something on your mind?”

  “Santino,” she said. “I worry that he’s leading you into a dead end.”

  “Dead end?”

  “You don’t know him, Jake,” she said, suddenly fervent. “You don’t know him the way I do. He’s despicable.”

  The intensity in her voice took Jake by surprise. “You’re still sore at him?”

  “No, not angry. I’m afraid of him. Jake, I’m frightened. Frightened for you. You don’t understand what he’s capable of.”

  They had reached the Mustang, parked at curbside on a side street.

  “He got me fired from the senator’s staff,” Jake recalled. “But he doesn’t seem upset that I’m back with Tomlinson.”

  “He got you mugged,” Tami reminded.

  Reflexively touching his nose, Jake muttered, “That was Jacobi.”

  “It was Santino. Jacobi doesn’t do anything without getting Santino’s clea
rance first.”

  “You think?” Jake asked.

  “I know,” said Tami.

  Politics

  Tomlinson’s energy plan was pushed out of the headlines by Senator McGrath’s announcement that he was retiring from the Senate because of ill health. Washington buzzed with speculation about who the next Majority Leader would be.

  “It’s going to be Santino,” Kevin O’Donnell predicted confidently. “Perlmutter’s seen as being too pushy.”

  “Since when does pushy disqualify a man for a job in this town?” Jake asked.

  The two of them were having lunch together in the Senate dining room, after a morning spent at the energy committee hearing. Across the quietly ornate room, Tomlinson was lunching at Santino’s table, together with two other members of the committee.

  With that slightly annoyed look on his face whenever he dispensed wisdom to a junior staffer, O’Donnell explained, “You don’t understand, Jake. In the Senate you’re supposed to make your way through the chairs.”

  “Through the chairs?”

  Nodding, “You work your way up, a step at a time. Perlmutter’s trying to jump over Santino and grab the Majority Leader’s job. But it’s not his turn. He’s making a lot of the older, more experienced senators upset with him.”

  “What about the younger senators?”

  “They’re watching what happens. If Perlmutter can break the usual routine, the Senate won’t be the same place anymore.”

  Jake remembered some old joker’s description of the United States Senate: “That grand old retirement home for the feebleminded and the criminally insane.” It was good for a laugh, he thought, but not entirely accurate.

  Inwardly, he wondered. The Senate’s farm bloc was large and powerful, and there were whispers all around the Capitol about how Perlmutter was calling in every favor he had ever handed out since arriving in the Senate, more than a decade earlier. If there was resentment that he was pushing himself too fast, Jake hadn’t seen it.

  But O’Donnell’s been around a lot longer than I have, he told himself. A lot longer than Frank has, too.

  Tomlinson spent most of his days dutifully attending the energy committee hearings, which were digging into the details of the energy plan. Santino faithfully chaired every meeting. Jake wondered when the Little Saint found time to campaign for the Majority Leader’s position.

  “He needs McGrath’s blessing,” O’Donnell pointed out, during one of Tomlinson’s bull sessions at the end of the working day.

  The senator’s office was practically empty. Tomlinson was leaning back in his comfortable desk chair, his customary scotch in one hand, as his chief of staff reviewed the day’s events. Jake sat beside O’Donnell, listening, learning.

  “It’s going to be a close vote,” O’Donnell was saying. “Damned close. If Santino can get McGrath’s nod, though, that’ll clinch the deal.”

  Frowning slightly, Tomlinson said, “Santino’s the Majority Whip, he’s logically the next in line for the Majority Leader’s post, isn’t he?”

  “He was, until Perlmutter started pushing for it.”

  Jake remembered O’Donnell’s earlier wisdom about “coming up through the chairs.” Apparently he didn’t think that was so important now. He asked, “Why hasn’t McGrath come out for Santino?”

  “He’s playing politics,” O’Donnell said, his voice dripping contempt. “Waiting to see which of them offers the most for the job.”

  “Offers the most what?” Jake asked.

  “Favors. Party allegiance. Promises to back the policies McGrath has backed.”

  “And jockeying for the party’s ticket next year,” said Tomlinson. “Perlmutter wouldn’t mind being the pick for vice president.”

  O’Donnell almost smiled. “That’d be a good way to get him out of the Senate.”

  “If he wins,” Tomlinson pointed out.

  “Is there some bad blood between Santino and McGrath?” Jake asked.

  “Not that I know of,” said O’Donnell. “Or anybody else I’ve talked to.”

  Tomlinson said, “Maybe I should ask Santino himself about it.”

  “No!” O’Donnell actually winced. “That’s an awfully sensitive subject, Franklin. You should steer clear of it.”

  Smiling, the senator said, “Oh, Mario and I have become pretty friendly over the past few weeks. I think he might confide in me.” He paused for a heartbeat, then added, “Especially if I can bring a couple of extra votes onto his bandwagon.”

  “Extra votes?”

  Tomlinson said, “Gutierrez and Ellison.”

  “New Mexico and North Dakota?” O’Donnell asked, incredulous.

  Nodding slowly, the senator said, “Gutierrez would love to have New Mexico go solar in a big way. We could put up major solar facilities out in the desert, use some big tracts of the old White Sands Missile Range. Plenty of acreage there to put up solar panels.”

  “You’ve talked to him about this?”

  His smile widening, Tomlinson replied, “I met him a couple of weeks ago at that charity dinner you talked me into attending, Kevin.”

  O’Donnell looked surprised and pleased. But then he asked, “And Ellison?”

  “Wind farms. Plenty of space in North Dakota, and the wind blows pretty damned hard across the prairie.”

  Jake wanted to laugh. “So you’re selling parts of the energy plan in exchange for votes for Santino.”

  “That’s politics, Jake.”

  “Does Santino know about this?” O’Donnell asked.

  “Not yet. I wanted to run it past you before I nailed down their votes. Once I’ve done that, I can tell it to Santino.”

  Nodding so vigorously that his combover slid across his forehead, O’Donnell said, “Sounds good to me. Do it.”

  Turning to Jake, Tomlinson said, “See, Jake? I’m learning to be a politician.”

  Jake grinned back at the senator. But he was thinking, By the time this is over he’ll have sold every part of the plan. To help Santino become Majority Leader. I hope the Little Saint appreciates it.

  The Little Saint

  A late-afternoon thunderstorm was drenching Washington, so Jake and Senator Tomlinson walked along the tunnels that connected the various Senate and House buildings with the Capitol.

  “You could get lost in here,” Jake said as they strode briskly along the well-lit underground walkway. It was impeccably clean, not a scrap of paper littering its painted concrete floor. The walls looked as if they had been scrubbed down only a few hours ago. My tax dollars at work, Jake thought.

  As they made their way through the crowd of people avoiding the downpour up on the streets, the senator said, “I’ve heard that New York City—Manhattan, at least—has whole shopping arcades underground. You can go for miles without ever going up on the street.”

  Jake nodded, then suddenly jumped aside as a teenager on roller blades zoomed past them.

  “They shouldn’t allow that down here!” he complained.

  “Messenger,” said Tomlinson. “Just doing his job.”

  Jake huffed. “Maybe the Postal Service should try that.”

  “Try getting their union to accept the idea,” Tomlinson said, chuckling.

  They reached the Russell Building and rode a crowded elevator up to Santino’s floor, then hurried through the marble hallway to the senator’s suite of offices. The place looked somber. Jake knew that Tomlinson’s staff was busily preparing for the summer recess that would start with the weekend. But Santino’s people looked hushed, downcast, gathered in little knots of two or three, whispering.

  As an aide led them to Senator Santino’s private office, Jake asked, “What’s going on? Why all the long faces?”

  The aide—pudgy, round-faced—looked at Jake with disdain. “Haven’t you heard? Senator McGrath was rushed to the hospital this afternoon. They don’t expect him to last the night.”

  Oh my god, Jake thought. No wonder the place looks like a funeral parlor. McGrath is dying,
and he hasn’t anointed Santino to be his successor.

  Santino’s inner office was just as funereal. The Little Saint sat behind his desk, hunched over slightly, his hands clasped prayerfully on the desktop. Four of his top aides were sitting in front of the desk, equally downcast.

  Without rising from his chair, Santino asked Tomlinson, “You’ve heard?”

  Nodding as he approached the desk, Tomlinson said, “McGrath is terminal.”

  “Without giving me his blessing,” Santino whispered, barely loud enough to be audible.

  One of the aides got up and offered Tomlinson his chair. Jake found an empty place on the sofa, along the side wall.

  “He promised me,” Santino said, almost whining. “Less than a year ago, he promised me that he’d back me once he stepped down.”

  Tomlinson said, “Maybe he’ll make a deathbed declaration.”

  Santino waved both his hands angrily. “No, he’ll go to his grave in silence. He’s turned his back on me.”

  One of the aides said, “At least he hasn’t come out for Perlmutter.”

  The expression on Santino’s face could have etched solid granite.

  Keeping his face serious, Tomlinson said, “Well, I have some good news for you, Mario: Gutierrez and Ellison will vote for you.”

  Santino blinked slowly, once, twice. “Both of them?”

  “Solar and wind power,” said Tomlinson.

  One of Santino’s aides broke into a smile. “That could give you a majority!”

  “If we can hold Bellamy and his bunch in line,” Santino said. But his bleak expression had eased somewhat, Jake saw.

  “We’ll hold them,” the aide said grimly. “They owe us—er, you, that is.”

  Jake leaned back on the sofa as Santino’s aides counted votes. It looked as if it would be a close squeeze, but they assured themselves that they had enough votes to win the party caucus in September.

  By the time the meeting broke up, even Santino was smiling. Guardedly.

  * * *