Sixty Days and Counting

by Kim Stanley Robinson

  But if government of the people, by the people, and for the people were offering all citizens employment at a real living wage, then private business would have to match that or they wouldn’t be able to get any labor. Supply and demand, baby—and so the bids for labor would get competitive, as they say. That all by itself would raise the income and living standards for about 70 percent of our population faster than any other single move I could think of. The biggest blessing would be for the lowest 30 percent or so—what’s that, a hundred million people? Or could we just say, working America? Or just America?

  Of course it’s a global labor market, and so we would need other countries to enact similar programs, but we could work on that. We could take the lead and exert America’s usual heavyweight influence. We could put the arm on countries not in compliance, by keeping out investment capital and so on. Globalization has gotten far enough along that the tools are there to leverage the whole system in various ways. You could leverage it toward justice just as easily as toward extraction and exploitation. In fact it would be easier, because people would like it and support it. I think it’s worth a try. I’m going to go to my advisors and then Congress to discuss it and see what we can do.

  Previous post:

  People have been asking me what it’s like to get shot. It’s pretty much as you’d expect. It’s bad. It’s not so much the pain, which is too big to feel, you go into shock immediately, at least I did—I’ve hurt more than that stubbing my toe. It’s the fear. I knew I’d been shot and figured I was dying. I thought when I lost consciousness that would be it. I knew it was in my neck. So that was scary. I figured it was over. And then I felt myself losing consciousness. I thought, Bye, Diane, I wish I had met you sooner! Bye, world, I wish I were staying longer! I think that must be what it’s going to be like when it really does happen. When you’re alive you want to live.

  So, but they saved me. I got lucky. At first it seemed miraculous, but then the doctors told me it happens more often than you might think. Bullets are going so fast, they zip through and they’re out and gone. And this was a little one. I know, they’re saying I paid the guy to use a little one. Please give me a break. They tell me George Orwell got shot in the neck and lived. I always liked Animal Farm. The end of it, when you couldn’t tell the pigs from the men—that was powerful stuff. I always thought about what that ending said, not about the pigs and how they had changed, but about the men from the other farms. That would be us. People you couldn’t tell from pigs. Orwell still has a lot to say to us.

  F RANK SPENT SUNDAY AFTERNOON WITH NICK and the FOG people, manning a blind north of Fort de Russey. It overlooked a deer trail, and sightings of deer predators as well as other big mammals were common: bear, wolf, coyote, lynx, aurochs, fox, tapir, armadillo, and then the one that had brought them there, reported a few days back, but as a questionable: jaguar?

  Yes, there were still some sightings of the big cat. They were there at de Russey, in fact, to see if they too could spot it.

  It didn’t happen that evening. There was much talk of how the jaguar might have survived the winters, whether it had inhabited one of the caves in the sandstone walls of the ravine, and eaten the deer in their winter laybys, or whether it had found a hole in an abandoned building and then gone dumpster diving like the rest of the city’s ferals. All kinds of excited speculation was bandied about (Frank stayed quiet when they discussed the feral life), but no sighting.

  Nick was getting a ride home with his friend Max, and so Frank walked south, down the ravine toward the zoo. And there it was, crouching on the overlook, staring down at the now-empty salt lick. Frank froze as smoothly as he could.

  It was black, but its short fur had a sheen of brown. Its body was long and sleek, its head squarish, and big in proportion to the body. Gulp. Frank slipped his hand in his pocket, grasped the hand axe and pulled it out, his fingers automatically turning it until it nestled in its best throwing position. Only then did he begin to back up, one slow step at a time. He was downwind. One of the cat’s ears twitched back and presented in his direction; he froze again. What he needed was some other animal to wander by and provide a distraction. Certainly the jaguar must have become extremely skittish in the time since the flood had freed it. Frank had assumed it had died and become just a story. But here it lay in the dusk of the evening. Frank’s blood had already rushed through him in a hot flood: big predator in the dusk, total adrenal awareness. You could see well in the dark if you had to. After his tiptoed retreat gained him a few more yards, Frank turned and ran like a deer, west toward the ridge trail.

  He came out on Broad Branch and jogged out to Connecticut. Everything was pulsing a little bit. He made the call to Nancy and gave her the news of the sighting.

  After that he walked up and down Connecticut for a while, exulting in the memory of the sighting, reliving it, fixing it. Eventually he found he was hungry. A Spanish restaurant on T Street had proven excellent in the past, and so Frank went to it and sat at one of its porch tables, next to the rail, looking at the passersby on the sidewalk. He was reading his laptop when suddenly Caroline’s ex sat down across from him. Edward Cooper, there in the flesh, big and glowering.

  Frank, startled, recovered himself. He glared at the man. “What?” he said sharply.

  The man stared back at him. “You know what,” he said. His voice was a rich baritone, like a radio DJ. “I want to talk to Caroline.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Frank said.

  The blond man made a sour face. Aggrieved; tired of being patient. “Don’t,” he said. “I know who you are, and you know who I am.”

  Frank saved, shut down, closed the lid of his laptop. This was strange; possibly dangerous; although the encounter with the jaguar put that in a different perspective, because it didn’t feel as dangerous as that. “Then why would I tell you anything about anybody at all?”

  He could feel his pulse jumping in his neck and wrists. Probably he was red-faced. He put his laptop in his daypack on the floor by his chair, sat back. Without planning to, he reached in his jacket pocket and grasped the hand axe, turned it over in his hand until he had it in its proper heft. He met the man’s gaze.

  Cooper continued to stare him in the eye. He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back in his chair. “Maybe you don’t understand. If you don’t tell me how to get in touch with her, then I’ll have to find her using ways she won’t want me to use.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “But she will.”

  Frank studied him. It was rare to see someone display aggravation for an extended period of time. The world did not live up to this man’s standards, that was clear in the set of his mouth, of his whole face. He was sure he was right. Right to be aggrieved. It was a little bit of a shock to see that Caroline had married a man who could not be fully intelligent.

  “What do you want?” Frank said.

  Cooper gestured that aside. “What makes you think you can barge into a situation like this and know what’s going on?” he asked. “Why do you even think you know what’s going on here?”

  “You’re making it clear,” Frank said.

  The man waved that away too. “I know she’s fed you a line about us. That’s what she does. Do you really think you’re the first one she’s done this kind of thing with?”

  “What kind of thing?”

  “Wrapped you around her little finger! Used you to get what she wants! Only this time she’s gotten in over her head. She’s broken the National Security Act, her loyalty oath, her contract, federal election law—it’s quite a list. She could get thirty years with that list. If she doesn’t turn herself in, if she’s caught, it’s likely to happen.”

  Frank said, “I can see why she would stay away from you.”

  “Look. Tampering with a federal election is a serious crime.”

  “Yes it is.”

  The man smiled, as if Frank had given something away. “You could be charged as an accesso
ry, you know. That’s a felony too. We have her computers, and they’re full of the evidence we need to convict. She’s the only one who had the program that turned the vote in Oregon.”

  Frank shrugged. Talk talk talk.

  “What, you don’t care? You don’t care that you’re involved in a felony?”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “Because I don’t have any reason to lie to you. Unlike her. What I don’t understand is why you’d keep covering for her. She’s lied to you all along. She’s using you.”

  Frank stared at him. He was squeezing the hand axe hard, and now he started tapping it lightly against his thigh.

  Finally he said, “Just by the way you’re babbling I can tell you’re full of shit.”

  The man’s cheeks reddened. Frank pressed on: “If I knew a woman like that, I wouldn’t cheat on her, or spy on her, or try to get her arrested for things that I did.”

  “She’s got you hoodwinked, I see.”

  This was pointless; and yet Frank wasn’t sure how to get away. Possibly the man was armed. But there they were in a public restaurant, out on the sidewalk. Surely he could not be contemplating anything too drastic.

  “Why are you bothering me?” Frank said. “What’s she to you? Do you know her? Do you know anything about her? Do you love her?”

  Cooper was taken aback; his face reddened further. Thin-skinned people, Frank thought, were so often thin-skinned. “Come off it,” he muttered.

  “No, I mean it,” Frank insisted. “Do you love her? Do you? Because I love her.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” the man said, affronted. “That’s the way she always does it. She could charm the eyes off a snake. You’re just her latest mark. But the fact remains, she’s in big trouble.”

  “You’re in big trouble,” Frank said, and stood. He was still squeezing the hand axe in his jacket pocket. Whatever happened, he was at least ready.

  Cooper shifted in his chair. “What the fuck,” he complained, feeling the threat. “Sit down, we’re not done here.”

  Frank leaned over and picked up his daypack. “You’re done,” he said.

  Frank’s waiter approached. “Hi,” he said to Cooper, “can I get you anything?”

  “No.” Caroline’s ex stood abruptly, lurching a little toward Frank as he did. “Actually, you can get me away from this guy,” and he gestured contemptuously at Frank and walked out of the restaurant.

  Frank sat back down. “A glass of the house red, please.”

  But that was only bravado. He was distracted, even from time to time afraid. His appetite was gone. Before the waiter returned for his order he downed the glass, put a ten under it and left the restaurant. After checking out the street in both directions, he headed back into the park.

  He was not chipped, as far as he could tell by the wand Edgardo had given him. He did not see anyone tailing him. He had not let any of the White House security people see which direction he went after he left the compound and crossed the street. He had not used his FOG phone. He had not eaten with the fregans for a while.

  Still, Cooper had known where he was.

  So the next day he called Edgardo, and they made a run date for lunch. From the 17th Street security gate they ran south, past the Ellipse and out onto the Mall. Once there they headed toward the Lincoln Memorial.

  Edgardo took a wand from his fanny pack and ran it over Frank, and then Frank ran it over him. “All clear. What’s up.”

  Frank told him what had happened.

  Edgardo ran for a time silently. “So you don’t know how he located you.”

  “No.”

  Edgardo puffed as he ran for a while, as if singing under his breath, “Too-too-too-too-too, too-too-too-too-too. That’s bad.”

  “Also, even though I’ve seen her twice, I still don’t have a way to get hold of her. She’s only used the dead drop that once.” For which, thank you forever.

  Edgardo nodded. “Like I said. She’s got to be somewhere else.”

  They ran on for a long time. Past the Vietnam Memorial, past Lincoln; turn left at the Korean War memorial, east toward the Washington Monument.

  Finally Edgardo said, “I think this might mean we can’t wait any longer. Also, if he is trying to force you to act, then if you do something that looks rash, there will be a reason for why you would do it…. So that may make it a good time. I want to get you together with my friend Umberto again. He knows more about your friend, and I want him to tell you. She’s out of town, as I suggested to you.”

  “Okay, sure. I’d like to talk to him.”

  Edgardo pulled a cell phone out of his fanny pack and squeezed one button to make a call. A quick exchange in Spanish, followed by “Okay, see you there.” He put the cell phone away and said, “Let’s cross and go back. He’ll meet us down by the Kennedy Center.”

  “Okay.”

  So when they passed the Vietnam Memorial this time, they continued west until they reached the Potomac, then headed north on the riverside walk. As they approached one of the little bartizans obtruding from the river wall, they came on Umberto in a black suit, putting a big ID tag away in his inner pocket. Frank wondered if he was just coming down from the State Department at 23rd and C.

  In any case, he walked with Frank and Edgardo upstream, until they could stop at a section of railing they had to themselves, within the shadow and rumble of the Roosevelt Bridge. Umberto wanded them, and Edgardo wanded Umberto, and then they spoke in Spanish for a while, and then Umberto turned to Frank.

  “Your friend Caroline has been away from here, working on the problem of the election tampering from a distance. We have reason to worry for her safety, and recently we’ve also been concerned that the people we’re trying to deal with might have had something to do with the attempt on the president’s life. So in the process, we have contacted another unit that can help to deal with problems like this.”

  “Which one?” Frank asked. That list of intelligence agencies, going on and on…

  “They’re an executive task force. A part of the Secret Service that is working together with the Government Accountability Office.”

  “The GAO?”

  “It’s a unit of theirs that stays out of sight and works on the black programs.”

  “You’re getting your help from the GAO?”

  “Yes, but we are stovepiped to the president. The Secret Service reports to him, and he is overseeing all this work now.”

  “Well good.” Frank shook his head, trying to take it all in. “So what’s happening with Caroline?”

  “Lots. As you may or may not know, before she disappeared, she was in charge of a Homeland Security surveillance program that combined with the unit we are worrying about, the so-called Advanced Research Development Prime. Then she came to us, or we found each other, when she got the election disks to you, and through you and Edgardo, to us.”

  “So you’ve been working with her since then, is that it?”

  “Yes. But we haven’t had much more contact with her than you have, from what Edgardo tells me. She’s been very concerned to be sure she is working with people she can trust, and understandably so, given what’s happened. So we’ve had to do things her way, to show her she can trust us. She’s been doing some work on her own that she’s gotten to us, some data mining and even some physical surveillance of some of the problem people, so we can make the case against them stick. And now we feel we are ready to do a root canal on these guys, or I hope we can. In any case this confrontation with you may force our hand.”

  “Good,” Frank said.

  Umberto glanced at Edgardo, then said, “The problem is, they’ve gone inactive since the assassination attempt. I think that wasn’t their idea, but it scared them. Now they are very quiet. But still a threat, obviously. So, we know who they are, but they’ve been clever about distancing themselves from their activities, and they aren’t doing anything now that we can stick them with. So, we think your friend is dealing with this same pr
oblem, from her side. She doesn’t have anything to use, and she wants to stay away from her husband.”

  Umberto stopped then, and looked at Frank as if it were Frank’s turn to say something.

  Frank said, “He came right up to me in a restaurant and asked me where she was.”

  “So Edgardo said.”

  “And, well, she’s not leaving anything at our dead drop.”

  “Yes. But—I can get a message to her.”

  Frank nodded briefly. This he knew. It was irritating that she was contacting them but not him—that he needed the black wing of the GAO to contact his girlfriend for him. And she was part of that world. “And say what to her?” he asked.

  “We were thinking that, since this group wants to find her, that might be the means to pull them out of their quiet mode.”

  “Make her the bait in a trap, you mean?”

  “Yes. Both of you, actually. We would plan something with the two of you, because you are under their surveillance, while they seem to have lost her. So, we would arrange something in which it looked like you were contacting each other, and trying to be secret, but accidentally revealing to her husband where you are going to meet. Then if they responded to that, and tried to kidnap her, or both of you—”

  “Or kill us?”

  “Well, we would hope it would not start with that, because they would not want to risk such a thing, or really to draw any attention to her until they have her. We think they want to frame her for the tampering, so they don’t have that out there and hanging over them. In any case, we would have people in place such that they would be apprehended the moment they showed up. The exposure would be minimal.”