His heart skipped a beat. Damned if Carter’s name wasn’t on each cover sheet, along with the name of the course, the professor, and the date. No matter what the course was, Carter had found a way to work weather into it.
This won’t play well on talk radio.
Revelations of college fuckups hadn’t been kind to Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, or anyone else in the public eye. But theirs had been more typical transgressions—smoking dope and committing plagiarism. Contributing to conspiracy theories that challenged the U.S. government’s morality or policies was in a different category. Howard, Al, Rush, and G. Gordon would have a field day with it no matter which angle they chose to discuss. Then the teletaters—Davis Lee’s private term for TV commentators—would get hold of it. When that happened, the shit would not only hit the fan, it would stick.
Not gonna happen.
Davis Lee looked at Elle, who was glowing. “How did you get your hands on these?”
“I contacted the authors of the books and told them what I was doing. They were happy to help and sent me what they had. Then I requested Mr. Thompson’s undergraduate transcripts from the University of Iowa.” She shrugged. “I tracked down the professors. Some of them are still around and had hung on to this stuff. Some said they knew he was destined for greatness, but others admitted that they just hung on to everything. But now that he’s such a household name, I think they were delighted to be recognized as part of his history. They were sort of honored to be asked. You might want to think about mentioning them in the acknowledgments.”
Feeling a little winded, Davis Lee nodded absently and stared at his computer screen to buy time to collect his thoughts. He knew Carter well enough to know that he wasn’t a guy to drop a subject if it meant something to him, yet ten years at the man’s right hand had never provided Davis Lee with an inkling of this—what was it? “Hobby” seemed a bit tame. Knowing Carter as well as he did, “obsession” might be the right word.
When Davis Lee had met Carter, Coriolis Engineering had been twenty years old and nothing special, just a big construction firm that cleaned up after natural disasters and made a healthy profit doing so. He’d been the one to persuade Carter to use his weather forecasting skills to get into the financial markets, primarily futures markets, and that’s why Carter had brought him on board. Making money off both ends of weather events had never occurred to Carter before Davis Lee brought it up, but it had occurred to Davis Lee right away. Hell, if you could figure out which storms were going to kill a few thousand acres of soybeans or take out a drilling platform or pipeline before the other guys did, you could make serious money. And if you had a company that could go in and clean up the mess afterward, which Carter already had, you could win twice. Pointing that out was all it took. They’d been cleaning up, literally and figuratively, ever since.
But if you knew how to make things happen the way you wanted them to—
“Davis Lee?”
He blinked and brought his attention back to Elle, who was slowly crawling back into her shell. “I’m sorry, darlin’. I’m just a little blown away by all that you’ve accomplished. What did you ask me?”
“I said you might want to thank them in the book’s acknowledgments.”
He had no idea who she was talking about, but he smiled anyway. “That’s a great idea. You keep all the information together so we get it right. And why don’t you keep on working this angle? Find whatever you can. It’s great stuff, Elle, great stuff. Try to get originals when you can, so we can keep them in the archives.”
She stood up, slowly, understanding that she’d been dismissed but not quite ready to go.
“Something else on your mind?”
“Well, I know this probably has nothing to do with the biography, but I’m curious. What do you suppose made someone so interested in this sort of, I don’t know, topic or research area or whatever, who studied it all the way through the Ph.D. level, take a job with the Weather Service studying jet stream fluctuations? I mean, doesn’t that seem out of character? It seems so, I don’t know, dull.”
Damned if that’s not the question of the day. “Real life, I assume. He had a wife and two babies by that time, Elle. And in the 1960s, I’d say there was more money in being a public servant than in being a weather historian or conspiracy theorist.” He tilted his head toward the door, forcing a grin. “You better get gone before I think up more things for you to do.”
Thirty minutes later, Davis Lee shifted his posture minutely. His feet were still damp from walking through the muddy grass, his ass was numb from sitting on the couch for too damned long, and part of his brain was still absorbing the strange news that Elle had given him. But the rest of his mind was fully attuned to the conversation taking place a few feet away from him.
If the two most powerful men in the room had been dogs, they’d be snarling and lunging at each other’s necks about now, and a big bucket of cold water dumped from a height of four feet would end it. The mean old curs in question were his boss, Carter Thompson, and Winslow Benson III, the President of the United States, and they were smiling instead of snapping, but the undercurrent was just as vicious. Throwing a bucket of water on them would only land Davis Lee face down on the carpet with a couple of kneecaps in his back and a gun or two at his head.
The trim, taut, silver-tipped President Benson was looking at Carter with that sincere, wide-eyed, feel-your-pain look that he did so well. It was the look that worked on soccer moms when he was explaining why cuts in education were necessary and retirees when he was carving up what was left of Medicare. It had won him the election two and a half years ago.
Damn, but the man had it down to an art.
Davis Lee swallowed his smile of admiration before it made a public appearance. He knew that the fourth man in the room, the president’s son, Win IV, was watching him while pretending very convincingly not to be doing so. Win Lite, as Davis Lee liked to call him, was as much a snake in the grass as his father, but he was more obvious about it and, because of that, would never go as far.
President Benson was leaning forward, nodding at the right moments, offering a concerned frown as needed. Not that he was fooling anyone. Davis Lee knew that the president wasn’t listening because the topic interested him; he was looking for ammunition to use against Carter when Carter ran for political office. It was an open secret that Carter was contemplating a candidacy. Neither the president nor anyone on his junkyard-dog team of advisors was sure which office that would be, but Davis Lee could guarantee they were all hoping it wouldn’t be oval.
“You’ve heard the arguments before, Mr. President.” Carter Thompson, down-home man of the people and, perversely, a multi-billionaire, gave the president a casual shrug and spoke in a voice that was calm almost to the point of being eerie. “It’s not just a theoretical problem and it’s not just a political flash point. There are facts that must be taken into account. There have been hundreds of serious safety incidents since the advent of nuclear power.” He smiled his trademark, avuncular smile. “You’ve got some aging and vulnerable plants out there. They’re in areas that are critical to markets and population centers and they’re ripe for trouble, whether accidental, natural, or deliberate. We don’t need another Three Mile Island, we don’t need another September 11th, and we don’t need another New Orleans. It’s time to shut the plants down and replace them with other, diversified means of energy generation. Safer, renewable means. What I want from you now is a promise that you’ll have your people actually look at the data. It’s that simple.”
“Simple,” the president repeated with a predictably grave nod. “You know, Carter, there are some people who might think you want the federal government to bail out small farmers again—this time by paying them to dig up their corn and soybeans and replant the fields with windmills and solar panels.” His smile was anything but benign. “Is that what you’re asking for? Another federal subsidy? Most voters think farmers already get too much free money.”
&
nbsp; Next to the president, who was every inch the high-gloss East Coast elitist, Carter looked like a pudgy farmer straight out of a B movie, complete with a comfortable slouch and an unruly thatch of grizzled gray hair. All that was missing was a stalk of something clenched between his teeth.
He rocked back on his heels. “Not a subsidy, Mr. President. Congressional support in the form of research and start-up money for small businesses whose owners are willing to turn their backs on generations of family farming and proud tradition to help wean this nation from its dangerous dependence on foreign oil and provide a safer alternative than nuclear energy,” Carter replied in that voice better suited to the confessional than the negotiating table.
The president stared at Carter for a full minute. “That’s touching, Carter. Almost profound. Make sure you use it when you’re campaigning.” His disdain for Carter and the conversation had finally leaked into his speech.
Davis Lee wanted to applaud. Everyone knew the president had been in bed with the nuclear power industry since his first election to the New York State Legislature. Why Carter still bothered him with the subject was a mystery to most people—other than Davis Lee. He stood up, shoved his hands into the pockets of his pressed Dockers, and leaned a shoulder against a window that framed lush, rain-soaked cornfields. The movement caught Win Lite’s attention and Davis Lee grinned at him. Win smiled back. They both knew that in a few years they’d be facing each other without the old men in the room.
Davis Lee had done some research of his own; he knew that the first documented meeting between Winslow Walters Benson III, a promising young U.S. senator from New York, and Carter Thompson, a self-righteous prig with a Ph.D. in meteorology from the University of Chicago, was during heated budget hearings for the fledgling National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to which Carter had moved briefly after a long and uneventful stint at the Weather Service.
Even prior to Elle’s arrival, Davis Lee hadn’t been able to discover anything indicating that the men had met before the hearings, but the tone and content of their sparring during the hearings was all wrong, and indicated to Davis Lee that it was not their first face-off. Nobody talked to a senator the way Carter did, on the record no less, unless he’d done it before.
By the time he’d risen to a level high enough to warrant appearing before the subcommittee, Carter had spent ten years producing a slow but steady stream of white papers on topics of little social or scientific importance and, as far as Davis Lee had been able to discern, marginal utility. To date, Davis Lee had found nothing that gave the slightest hint as to why Carter had been worthy of notice by Benson. Or why he’d been worthy of Benson’s derision. Nevertheless, the transcript of that first set of hearings was full of sharp exchanges that gave credence to rumors of an early and intense dislike between the two men.
In the ten years Davis Lee had spent at Carter’s side, all discussions with Senator and, later, President Benson had always been like this one: controlled and contrived, but imbued with mordant undercurrents Davis Lee wasn’t supposed to notice and a dark history he wasn’t supposed to understand.
Today’s revelations about Carter’s early interests might be important, or might not. His interest in that bat-shit crazy stuff had apparently faded with the beginning of his serious employment and, as far as Davis Lee knew, had never been revisited. If Carter had been that into it, dropping the subject would have been uncharacteristic, but knowing how the man worked, Davis Lee figured it was likely that Carter had simply never had time for it again.
He shifted his concentration from Carter’s ordinary face, which had aged and gone jowly in the last two years, to the well-maintained, patrician glossiness of the president’s. On the surface, they were as different as two men could be. Winslow Benson was elegant and overbred, like some high-priced bird dog, as opposed to Carter’s backwoods coon-hound sensibilities. But underneath those manufactured appearances, they both possessed minds, morals, and ambitions that made Machiavelli look like a limp-wristed, dickless amateur.
“But getting back to the point, which is money, I’m glad you understand the terminology, Carter.” The president smiled. “It really won’t matter how you describe it, because the word ‘subsidy’ is the one our people on the Hill will be using to describe this plan if you push it, and it’s what we’ll be saying to the press. Believe me, ‘amber waves of windmills’ just doesn’t cut it as a sound bite.”
The president shrugged casually, as if the conversation were about nothing more important than the chance of rain tomorrow. His loose denim work shirt, handmade but designed to look rugged and off the rack, moved with him. “You’ll come off as a crackpot. Frankly, Carter, I can’t believe you’re wasting my time with this. After the last blackout on the East Coast, the whole subject of energy cutbacks fell off the table and nobody’s brought it up since—except you. Nobody wants to talk about shutting down anything. They just want to be sure that they can get to work in an air-conditioned train or SUV with a fully charged Nano in one hand and a fresh cappuccino in the other. Even the hurricanes in the Gulf didn’t make people want to change things. It just made them hug their plasma TVs a little harder before they went to bed at night.” He shook his head, wearing a cold smile. “Americans are energy gluttons, Carter, and we’re not about to apologize for it. I personally can’t wait for the day some storm flattens one of your God-damned windmill farms, and when it happens, believe me, the whole world will be watching to see how fast you come back online.” He paused. “But if you still just don’t get it, Carter, I’ll have someone from my staff spell it out for you.”
Not a thing about either man changed, not their expressions or their postures or the rhythm of their breathing, but the tension in the room surged.
There was one place you didn’t hit Carter, and that was in his ego.
Unless, apparently, you were the President of the United States.
Davis Lee felt sweat trace a cold path along his hairline. He spared a glance at Win, who seemed to be biting back a smirk.
More proof that he’s an idiot.
“Mr. President,” Carter began slowly as he rocked back on his heels again. “I have talked to your staff and that of the last administration. On several occasions. And believe you me, those conversations have always resulted in some action.” He smiled. “Not the right kind of action, unfortunately. You see, when they’re not actively stonewalling us, your staff members inevitably direct the Nuclear Energy Commission or some conservative think tank to launch a long-term study on the effects of something minor on something irrelevant. The results of those expensive studies, after a few years of data analysis, are always unclear, and the public war of words that follows always overshadows the pointlessness of the study.” Mimicking the president’s shrug, Carter shoved his hands into the pockets of his worn and rumpled khakis to jingle the change he’d deliberately put there.
His pulse rate back to normal, Davis Lee found himself fighting a smile as he watched a muscle flick in the president’s cheek. The man hated fidgeters. Hated them.
“The subject needs to be taken to the next level, Mr. President,” Carter continued slowly, “and that would be you. It’s that critical. You need to give this some serious attention. I think it will be an important issue in the upcoming election cycle.” He inhaled, sucking his lips against his teeth, then let the breath out as a sigh. “In fact, I can pretty much guarantee it.”
The president’s eyes lit up with manufactured delight. “That sounds like a threat, Carter.”
“Come on, Winslow. You know me better than that. I don’t make threats. Nor do I make empty promises.” Carter paused, but his smile didn’t change. “As a scientist, a businessman, and a concerned citizen, I promised the environmental and anti-nuclear lobbies that I would bring this matter to your personal attention. I’ve done so because I’m a man of my word. Now, as a voter, a party member, and a major contributor to the party coffers, I expect to be listened to and taken seriously. I don’t
think that’s unreasonable. In fact, I think it’s the least you can do.”
The president’s smile widened, taking on all the sincerity and subtlety of a high-end hustler in a low-end pool hall. “I just don’t understand your logic, Carter. What makes you think it will make a difference? Shutting down a nuclear power plant hardly improves the playing field. It’s a long administrative process and then the plant has to be decommissioned. That can take years. Then the fuel rods have to be transported, maybe even through your precious grain belt, and then stored somewhere. Your little band of organic, Birkenstock-wearing fruits and nuts wouldn’t like that, now would they? And think about the farmers. I mean the serious farmers, Carter, the agribusiness conglomerates. They like cheap, reliable power. Lots of it.”
“Your loyalty to the nuclear industry is touching, Mr. President, but it’s wearing thin. Grassroots organizations are—”
“Grassroots organizations are a waste of my time, Carter,” the president snapped. “You may be the big man out in front, but the people behind you aren’t even on the radar screen. They only think they are. Airheaded fuckers. They’re like a swarm of gnats, Carter. Annoying as hell but too small to be significant. Your crunchy-granola friends may not realize the days of starting social change over a dinner of organic homemade tofu are gone, but as you just pointed out, you’re a businessman. You know better. You know the number of people chaining themselves to fences or marching on the Mall or whining on limp-dick liberal blogs will never come close to equaling the number of dollars the energy industry spends to reassure the rest of the country that they’ll always have lights that don’t flicker.” He stopped then, and laughed. “Hell, Carter, I’m waiting for you to ask me about the state of my conscience, or how well I sleep at night, and then I’ll know for sure how far you’ve slipped.” The president reached down to unbutton a cuff and began to roll up his sleeve. “If you’re going to continue to be a player, Carter, cut the bleeding-heart crap and get on board. If not, get the hell out of the way.” President Benson turned away, dismissing Carter and the conversation.
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