Power Surge Page 19

  Tomlinson looked up as Jake entered the room, feeling as irritated as a drenched hen. O’Donnell nodded dourly by way of a greeting.

  “Here’s Jake now,” the senator said.

  Lady Cecilia made a smile that looked forced. “We were just about to start without you.”

  “I had trouble finding a parking space,” Jake said, standing at the doorway.

  Cecilia looked surprised. “You could have gone up the alley at the end of the block and parked behind the house.”

  Jake made an apologetic grin, thinking, Now you tell me.

  “All right,” Cecilia said, suddenly all business, “let’s get to work.”

  The bearded technician lumbered to his feet, carrying the smallest video camera Jake had ever seen between his thumb and forefinger. Without any preliminaries, Cecilia beamed a wide smile from her froggish face and said, “Hello everybody. I’m talking with Senator Frank Tomlinson, who has a plan to make America the world’s leader in energy.”

  Tomlinson put on his “aw, shucks” smile.

  Turning to the senator, she began with, “With Hurricane Belinda knocking out the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, how high will gasoline prices rise?”

  Obviously taken aback by the question, Tomlinson replied, “Could be a big spike in prices at the pump, Cecilia. Maybe a thirty to fifty percent rise over the next week or two.”

  “And how would your energy plan help to avoid this kind of price jump in the future?”

  Tomlinson visibly relaxed. Smiling, he said, “Well, we’re not going to stop hurricanes. But once the energy plan is working, the cost of gasoline and other fuels will come down noticeably.”

  “Won’t that hurt the oil industry?”

  “No, it won’t, because their costs are going to go down, as well. Most people don’t realize it, but the United States is the biggest oil producer in the world nowadays, what with shale oil and fracking and other new techniques. But with the new technology that my plan supports, the oil companies’ costs will go down. They’ll be producing more oil at lower prices, and making more profits from it than they do now. The same applies to the coal industry as well.”

  “Doesn’t that sound like pie in the sky?”

  “So did electricity, once upon a time. So did airplanes.” Breaking into a grin, Tomlinson added, “Why, when railroads were first being built, somebody in Congress declared that if you tried to go faster than twenty-five miles an hour you wouldn’t be able to breathe!”

  She laughed politely, then asked, “Why do we need an energy plan?”

  Looking directly into the camera, Tomlinson put on his serious face and said, “We live in an interconnected world. Agribusiness corporations encourage farmers to plant corn and soybeans to produce ethanol fuel. That cuts into food production and raises food prices around the world—and here at home, too. Fossil fuels produce most of the electricity and all of the transportation fuels we use, but they also produce deadly greenhouse gases that warm the world’s climate.”

  Lady Cecilia said, “Yes, but how will your plan improve the situation?”

  Easing into a smile again, Tomlinson replied, “We have new technologies that will allow us to burn fossil fuels without damaging the environment. In fact, we can take the carbon dioxide that fossil fuels emit and turn it into clean, highly efficient methanol fuel. We have sunlight, which pours a thousand times more energy onto the ground than we use today. We have electric cars. Wind power.”

  “Nuclear energy?”

  “That too, if it can be made safe enough. It’s time that we coordinated all these technologies and used them to make energy cleaner, more abundant, and cheaper for the American people—and for people all around the world. The United States could become an exporter of new energy technologies. We can help the world’s poorest people, cut our imports of foreign oil, and make the world cleaner and greener.”

  “With your plan.”

  Nodding, Tomlinson said, “It’s time to look at the whole picture, energy-wise. Time to use the brains and the skills that we have to make a coordinated energy policy.”

  “Could that really be done?”

  “The Senate energy committee is studying the plan.” Looking into the camera again, Tomlinson said earnestly, “I want to make one point perfectly clear. This is not an either/or proposition. It’s not either we continue to burn fossil fuels or we switch to solar and wind power. It’s not either we grow corn for ethanol or we eliminate the ethanol mandate altogether. There’s room for all the energy technologies we have, and then some! It’s time that we put all our capabilities together into a sensible, rational plan that will lower energy costs while raising profits for the industries that produce energy for us.”

  Lady Cecilia seemed taken aback a bit by Tomlinson’s fervor. But she quickly recovered enough to ask, “So where does your plan stand at this moment in time?”

  “As I said, Cecilia, the Senate energy committee is studying the plan. The next step will be to bring it out onto the floor of the Senate for debate, and then a vote.”

  “And the House of Representatives?”

  “They’ll want to debate it and vote on it, too, of course. Then it goes to the president for her signature.”

  “Suppose the Senate passes your plan, but the House rejects it? Or the president vetoes it?”

  Tomlinson’s face turned grave. “Then we’ll continue to flounder around as we have been for far too long. Energy prices will continue to rise. The United States will continue to send seven trillion dollars a year—and more—overseas to buy foreign oil. We’ll get more power shortages, blackouts. And food prices will continue to go up, as more and more farmland is turned over to ethanol production.”

  “Not a pleasant prospect,” said Lady Cecilia.

  “No, it’s not.” Tomlinson shook his head once, then said to her, “Look, a minute ago I said this isn’t an either/or situation. Well, in the final analysis, it really is. Either the United States comes up with a rational, comprehensive policy for energy, or we continue to flounder around and get poorer every year.”

  Cecilia jumped to her feet and shouted to the cameraman, “That’s it!” Extending both her hands to Tomlinson, she said, “Well done! That ought to start people buzzing!”

  Jake saw that Tomlinson looked surprised, then pleased as he allowed Lady Cecilia to pump both his hands eagerly.

  Unemployed

  The rain was down to a spattering drizzle as the dark-suited servant opened Lady Cecilia’s front door for Jake, O’Donnell, and the senator. Wordlessly, he took Jake’s still-dripping umbrella from the stand just inside the door and handed it to him as if it were a rotting fish.

  Stepping outside, Jake saw a patch of blue sky among the scudding gray clouds. Might be a good omen, he thought.

  Tomlinson was grinning happily while O’Donnell used his cell phone to call for their chauffeur.

  “I thought it went well,” the senator said.

  “It did,” said Jake.

  “Kind of quick, though. Hardly a couple of minutes.”

  With a shrug, Jake said, “It’s for the blog. Short attention spans.”

  Tomlinson nodded, but he still looked concerned.

  Jamming his phone into his jacket pocket, O’Donnell groused, “We’ll see what the Little Saint thinks of it.”

  The black sedan pulled up.

  “Can we drop you someplace?” Tomlinson asked Jake.

  “I’m parked a couple of blocks down the street,” Jake said, pointing.

  “Hop in, then.”

  The three of them crammed into the sedan’s backseat.

  As the car took off, Tomlinson said, “Jake, I want to thank you. You made this happen.”

  Jake thought, Should I ask for my job back? Is this the right time?

  O’Donnell pricked that balloon. “Don’t start the victory celebration just yet. Wait ’til we get Santino’s reaction.”

  Tomlinson nodded soberly. “We ought to get a reaction from him before th
e day’s out. Cecilia said the interview will be posted on her blog before lunchtime.”

  And Jake thought, Better keep my mouth shut. For now.

  * * *

  As he passed the WETA newsroom on the way to his office, Jake saw that several of the TV monitors were showing satellite images of a hurricane. He stopped and stared through the newsroom window, wondering what was going on. Belinda was supposed to be breaking up over Arkansas and western Tennessee, he knew. Yet this looked like a full-blown hurricane, its eye easily discernible amidst its swirling white clouds.

  Then he saw a caption at the bottom of the screens. Hurricane Carlos. Jake sighed. Another one. And it’s not even the Fourth of July yet.

  * * *

  Just after lunch Jake got a phone call from O’Donnell.

  “Santino called Franklin,” said the chief of staff.

  Eagerly, Jake asked, “And?”

  “And the Little Saint intends to start hearings on the energy plan next week.”

  “Hearings?”

  “He’ll be calling in energy experts from all over the map,” O’Donnell said, sounding excited in spite of himself. “The hearings will generate a lot of publicity.”

  “That’s good!” Jake exulted. “Great!”

  “He wants Franklin to speak to the full committee first. Give ’em an overview of the plan. There’ll be coverage by C-SPAN and all the major news outlets.”

  “Terrific!”

  “Franklin’s meeting with Santino tomorrow morning, to plan what he’s going to say.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  His voice lowering a notch, O’Donnell went on, “Jake, I owe you one. I was wrong about this and you were right.”

  “The important thing is that the plan is going to see the light of day.”

  “And Franklin’s going to get into the public eye. With Santino backing him.”

  Jake nodded, then realized that O’Donnell couldn’t see him. He asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “You’ve already done it. Getting Franklin on Power Talk was a coup, Jake. I didn’t think it would work, but it certainly did. Thanks. I mean that. Thanks a lot, Jake.”

  Jake was grinning widely as he hung up. But then he realized that O’Donnell didn’t say a word about taking Jake back onto Tomlinson’s staff.

  * * *

  Late that afternoon, almost at quitting time, Jake got another phone call. From Margarita Viera, his boss. “Come to my office before you go home,” she said. Then hung up.

  Still feeling elated about the reaction to Tomlinson’s Power Talk interview, Jake rapped on Viera’s door a half-hour later.

  “You want to see me?” he asked, from the doorway.

  She looked up from her cluttered desk. “Yes. Come on in and sit down.”

  Jake did as he was told.

  Viera scribbled on a legal-sized tablet, then put her pen down and gave him a hard stare.

  “I saw your ex-boss on Power Talk this afternoon. The interview’s gone viral—inside the Beltway.”

  Jake nodded, thinking that hardly anybody outside the Beltway had even heard of Power Talk. But here in DC the blog was as primal an addiction as morning coffee.

  “So when are you leaving us?” Viera asked.

  “Leaving?” Jake blinked with surprise.

  Making a sour face, Viera said, “Don’t be coy, Jake. I hired you because Alexander Tomlinson said you needed a job. He’s been a big contributor to PBS over the years, and he said you were a topflight science guy. Not that we needed one, but we made room for you.”

  “I appreciate that,” said Jake.

  “I asked around and found why Senator Tomlinson had to let you go. But from what I’ve seen today, he’ll be happy to have you back working for him.”

  With a sardonic grin, Jake replied, “He hasn’t told me that.”

  Viera’s brows rose. “Really? Well, maybe it’s too soon.”

  “Maybe.”

  “At any rate,” Viera said, “we’ve got several really good prospects among our summer interns, and I want to hire one of them, full-time.”

  Jake saw it coming. Oh no, he said to himself.

  Viera continued, “But all our slots are full. We don’t have room for a new hire—unless I let somebody go.”

  “And I’m somebody.”

  Waving one hand in the air, Viera said, “You’re not a news person, Jake. I mean, you’ve done okay for a novice, but your heart really isn’t in our business, is it?”

  “I guess not,” he admitted.

  “This kid I want to hire is really good. But you don’t have to go right away, Jake. The end of the week will be time enough. Okay?”

  No, it’s not okay, Jake thought. But he nodded and got up from his chair. I’m going to join the ranks of the unemployed, he realized.

  Fourth of July

  “Doesn’t Congress take its summer recess around now?” Tami asked.

  “They’re taking off the rest of the week. Summer recess doesn’t start until the end of the month,” Jake said morosely.

  They were sitting in the living room of Jake’s basement apartment. The TV was showing a baseball game: Washington Nationals against the Philadelphia Phillies. Jake paid no attention to it. He had muted the audio.

  “Don’t you want to go to the picnic?” Tami asked. “It’ll be fun.”

  “If it doesn’t rain.”

  Tami looked at him. “Boy, you really are down.”

  He puffed out a sigh. “As of tomorrow I’m going to be unemployed. Maybe unemployable. I’ve got the mark of Santino on my forehead.”

  Tami looked alarmed. “You’re not going back to Montana, are you?”

  “I might have to,” he said. Then, “But even if I do, I don’t have a job waiting for me there.”

  “Don’t you have tenure at the university?”

  “An assistant professor doesn’t get tenure.”

  “Well, that stinks.”

  Despite himself, Jake laughed. Weakly. “I’m glad I’ve got one fan, at least.”

  Shaking him by the shoulder, Tami said, “Come on, let’s go to the picnic. It’ll be fun. You’ll enjoy meeting my coworkers.”

  Jake pictured himself sitting on the grass with a bunch of strangers while ants nibbled at his lunch and mosquitoes stung him. With any luck I’ll pick up Lyme disease, he thought. He reached for the TV remote and clicked on the weather channel.

  “Let’s see if it’s going to rain.”

  “Party pooper.”

  Still muted, the TV screen showed a tropical city drenched in a torrential downpour, wind blowing roofs off houses, rain so thick he could hardly see the other side of the street. Then it cut to a palm-fringed beach where mammoth waves surged across the sand and the trees were bending over almost double. A rickety wooden pier was near to collapsing, and several beachfront homes were already flooded.

  “Hurricane Carlos,” Tami breathed, staring at the devastation.

  Jake shook his head. “They say that God must love the poor, because he made so many of them. But every time there’s a disaster the poor get hit the hardest.”

  The view cut to a map that showed the hurricane squarely over the Bahamas. It was so big that its western side covered the Florida coast all the way up to Lake Okeechobee. And the cone that showed where it might be heading over the next two days had Washington, DC, directly in its middle.

  “We’re going to be in for it,” Jake murmured.

  “Maybe it’ll turn away,” said Tami.

  He got to his feet. “Come on, let’s make hay while the sun’s shining.”

  She jumped to her feet, smiling broadly.

  “And get a tankful of gas for the car,” Jake added.

  * * *

  “You’re not the only one who watched the news,” Tami said as she sat beside Jake in his Mustang. The gas station was crowded with lines of cars waiting to fill up.

  “Belinda knocked out the oil rigs on the Gulf Coast,” Jake said, as muc
h to himself as to her, “and now everybody wants to fill his tank before Carlos hits.”

  Bright sunshine smiled down from a clear blue sky. Hardly a cloud in sight. Yet Jake had the ominous feeling that a monster was lurking nearby, shambling toward them.

  “Five dollars and thirty cents!” Tami gasped, pointing to the prices listed on the gas station’s sign. “That’s highway robbery!”

  Ordinarily Jake would have chuckled at her inadvertent pun. Instead, he simply nodded. “Supply and demand, Tami. Supply’s down because the Gulf oil rigs are out. Demand is up because people want to get out of town before Carlos hits.”

  “Maybe we should go out of town, too,” Tami suggested.

  Inching another car length closer to the pump, Jake countered, “And go where?”

  “Pennsylvania. West Virginia. Anyplace north and west of here.”

  He shook his head. “We don’t know where the storm’s going to strike, or when. We could be running right into it instead of escaping from it.”

  Frowning unhappily, Tami said, “I have an aunt living in Harrisburg. Haven’t seen her in more than five years, though.”

  Jake thought briefly of Steve Brogan, in Ohio. How would he react if we suddenly showed up on his doorstep, refugees looking for shelter?

  The car behind him bleated it horn as the car in front of him drove away from the gas pump. Jake suppressed an urge to yell at the jerk. Instead he pulled up at the pump and popped the cover on his gas tank.

  He got out of the Mustang and slid his credit card into the slot on the pump. Nothing happened. Puzzled, he slid it again. Again nothing. The guy behind him honked again and yelled out his window, “Come on, asshole.”

  Before Jake could react, a harried-looking man in grimy slacks and baggy shirt came hurrying to the pump, slim and dark-skinned, his thinning hair disheveled.

  “So sorry, sir, this pump is now empty.”

  “Empty?”

  “All the petrol is gone. My apologies, sir.”

  Jake looked at the five other pumps. Each of them had at least half a dozen cars lined up.

  The station attendant made apologetic motions with his hands. “I am afraid, sir, that by the time you get into line at one of the other pumps and actually reach the pump, it will be empty also. My regrets.”