Power Failure Read online

  One of the women grouped behind him, wearing a loud green HACKMAN! sash, broke into quiet sobs.

  “Therefore I am withdrawing my candidacy for the party’s nomination. I will continue to work for the causes that we all believe in—more and better jobs for our people, a stronger immigration policy, better protection for our nation’s borders.”

  A spatter of half-hearted clapping.

  “And I urge all of you who have supported me to give your hearts and your votes to the next president of the United States—Senator Bradley Sebastian!”

  “Shit!” snapped O’Donnell and Lovett simultaneously.

  Tomlinson said nothing. But the expression on his face was the same Jake had seen at the funeral of the senator’s father.

  * * *

  The gathering in Senator Tomlinson’s suite broke up quickly after that. O’Donnell and Lovett huddled in a corner, heads together, talking like a pair of football coaches who had just seen the other side score a touchdown.

  Jake went through the departing crowd to Tami, who looked sad, disappointed.

  “I’m sorry, Jake,” she said quietly.

  He grasped her arm and said, “Let’s go to our room.”

  “Don’t you want—”

  “I’m in no mood to listen to Pat and Kevin doing a postmortem.” And he led her to the door.

  Tomlinson stood in the middle of the emptying room, his expression serious, but not defeated. Jake heard him saying to one of the guests, “This isn’t the end of the road. Far from it.”

  But he didn’t sound very confident.

  * * *

  Once in their own suite, Jake wormed out of his jacket and tossed it on the bed. Tami pulled off the high-heeled shoes she’d been wearing.

  “That’s a relief,” she said.

  “The shoes, or Hackman’s decision?”

  Standing in her bare feet, Tami barely reached Jake’s shoulder. “Oh, Jake, I’m not happy about his decision. I know you had your heart set on getting Frank into the White House.”

  “It doesn’t look very likely now,” he admitted.

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  Afraid of the answer, Jake still asked, “So where does this leave us?”

  Tami sat on the edge of the bed. “I guess this simplifies the situation. I’ll go to Fresno after the Republican convention. Or maybe before. You can stay with Frank until he concedes the nomination to Sebastian.”

  Dropping down onto the bed beside her, Jake said, “And then I’ll come out to Fresno, huh?”

  She nodded.

  With a wry grin, Jake said, “I’ll be out of a job.”

  Placing her hands in his, Tami said, “Not for long. You can go back to astronomy, if you like. Or give lectures about politics.” She brightened. “I’ll bet I could get you a slot as the station’s expert on politics! You could become a TV personality!”

  “Tami Umetzu’s husband,” Jake said bleakly.

  She stared at him.

  Feeling miserable, Jake said, “Tami, honey, I don’t want to go to Fresno. I want to stay in Washington. I want to stay with Frank.”

  And he remembered from the time he first arrived in DC, an old Beltway insider warning him of Potomac Fever. “Once they get here, they never leave. They only leave this town feet first.”

  Tami’s cheerful expression crumbling, she asked, “And you don’t want to stay with me?”

  “Of course I want to stay with you! In DC.”

  “But I can’t! Don’t you understand, Jake, this job in Fresno is my big chance. I can’t turn it down.”

  “I understand,” he said. “I just don’t like it. Not one little bit.”

  “What are we going to do?” Tami asked.

  Jake realized he had no answer.

  Super Tuesday

  Unexpectedly, Tomlinson gained more from Hackman’s quitting the race than Sebastian did. He came within two percentage points of tying Sebastian in the South Carolina primary and actually won the Nevada caucus by a hair-thin margin.

  Lovett was jubilant after the Nevada win. At the analysis session the day after, in Tomlinson’s campaign headquarters, he tapped a sheaf of printouts and concluded, “Frank’s message is getting through to the voters. He’s offering them a new vision, a new hope.”

  O’Donnell, though, said dourly, “Nevada. Six electoral votes.”

  “It’s a trend,” Lovett insisted. But then he added, “Maybe.”

  “We’ll see in a week,” O’Donnell said.

  Super Tuesday. Twelve state primaries or caucuses on the same early March date, including Massachusetts, Texas, Georgia, and Virginia.

  Jake had never been so busy in his life. He jetted from one rally or speech to another. He coached Senator Tomlinson on the finer points of the space plan, the budgets for research organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, and the ever-present controversies over stem-cell studies, abortion, and women’s health. Meanwhile Tami coached Jake himself when he did TV interviews about the space plan.

  How much will it cost?

  Billions, but the money is being raised from the private investment market. Not a penny of taxpayers’ dollars is going into the space plan.

  But isn’t the federal government backing those investments?

  They’re long-term, low-interest loans. Any American can invest in our future in space. You can own part of our expansion into the space frontier!

  Isn’t space flight dangerous?

  Actually, it’s safer than commercial air travel. And far safer than driving a car.

  How are these private firms going to make profits in space?

  By building solar power satellites that can deliver gigawatts of electrical power to the ground cleanly, without pollution. Their power source is the Sun, ninety-three million miles away! One such space power satellite could replace all the fossil-fueled and nuclear power plants in a whole state the size of Florida.

  Anything else?

  There sure is. Factories in orbit and on the Moon’s surface will be able to produce new metal alloys that are lighter yet stronger than anything made on Earth. New chemical products, including new medicines, are possible. We’ll get the raw materials from the Moon’s surface and, sooner or later, from mining asteroids.

  What about tourist facilities in space?

  Would you like to have a zero-gravity honeymoon in orbit? If you like waterbeds, you’re going to love zero-gee. And how about planting your bootprints on the Moon, where no one has ever stepped before? On the Moon you can fly on your own muscle power, like a bird. Or visit Apollo 11’s Tranquility Base. Or …

  By the time Super Tuesday finally arrived, Jake was physically and emotionally exhausted. As he lay sprawled across the bed in their Connecticut Avenue condo, he asked Tami:

  “How does Frank do it? He’s been on the go nonstop since before Christmas. What’s holding him up?”

  Tami flopped onto the bed beside him, just as frazzled as Jake was.

  “Frank has a powerful force driving him,” she said. “The image of himself in the Oval Office.”

  Jake nodded. “Yeah. And his father pushing him. That’s a powerful driver, all right.”

  “All-consuming,” said Tami.

  Jake couldn’t help wondering about Tami’s all-consuming drive to become a news media star. Was it going to consume their marriage?

  When all the votes were counted, Super Tuesday turned out to be nearly a tie. Tomlinson won in Texas and Massachusetts—a feat that dumbfounded most of the news media’s analysts—and came to within a hair of taking Georgia and Virginia. Sebastian won all the other states, but none by a margin of more than a few percentage points.

  “It’s all going to come down to New York, New Jersey, and, finally, California,” said Pat Lovett.

  He, Jake, O’Donnell, and Earl Reynolds were having lunch with the senator in Tomlinson’s home, the afternoon after Super Tuesday, seated at one end of the long table in the formal dining room, dominated by the imperious p
ortrait of Senator Tomlinson’s late father.

  With a mischievous grin, the senator said, “Once this campaign is over, win or lose, I’m taking Amy on our sailboat out across the Caribbean. And we won’t bring a telephone with us!”

  Lovett grinned back at him. “By that time, Frank, you’ll have a team of Secret Service people guarding you. You’ll be the president-elect.”

  Tomlinson muttered, “No plan is perfect.” And he turned his attention back to the hamburger he’d been munching on.

  Jake noted, “The pundits claim that the space plan’s attracting the younger voters.”

  “And some older ones, too,” Lovett added. “People who’re worried about the economy, about their jobs.”

  “Do you think we can take New York?” Tomlinson asked eagerly. Before anyone could reply he added, “And New Jersey?”

  “Stranger things have happened,” said Lovett.

  O’Donnell cautioned, “Those are going to be two tough hurdles. Lots of union votes there. Lots of entrenched power.”

  “What about California?” Jake asked.

  “From what I’ve seen,” Lovett replied, “we’ve got a good chance at California. Lots of aerospace industry votes.”

  With a pleased grin, Tomlinson said, “We’ve really got a chance to beat Sebastian.”

  Lovett nodded. “And whoever the Democrats finally decide to nominate.”

  Jake hoped they were right. But he heard himself ask them, “Do you think this fight between you and Sebastian is hurting the party?”

  O’Donnell glared at him.

  “I’ve heard some analysts saying that we’re splitting the party, which could be good for the Democrats,” Jake explained. It sounded lame, even to his own ears.

  “That’s bullshit,” O’Donnell growled.

  Lovett shook his head. “There’s a certain amount of truth to it, Kev. If the battle between Frank and Sebastian gets especially bitter, if the loser’s people stay home in November instead of voting for the winner—that could hand the election to the Democrats.”

  “So what are we supposed to do,” O’Donnell wondered, “play nice-nice with Sebastian? We’re in this to win, dammit!”

  Tomlinson dabbed at his lips with his napkin, then carefully put it back onto the table. “Vince Lombardi said, ‘Winning isn’t the most important thing. It’s the only thing!’”

  Jake had heard a different version of that line, but neither he nor the others around the table contradicted the senator.

  * * *

  The month of March turned into a slugging match. After Super Tuesday, Sebastian and Tomlinson traded primary victories almost evenly. Almost.

  Sebastian took Kansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana but Tomlinson pulled an upset victory in Michigan, by just two percentage points. Sebastian won in Florida and Illinois but Tomlinson managed to squeak through to a narrow victory in the pivotal Ohio primary.

  As April approached, with voters due at the polls in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Wisconsin, and elsewhere, the hectic pace of the contest grew even hotter.

  “We can do it!” Lovett kept encouraging everyone he talked to. “We can overtake Sebastian and win the nomination!”

  “Yeah,” O’Donnell warned. “And maybe split the party so badly that the Democrats take the White House in November.”

  Jake’s world became a blur of meetings, interviews, preparing position statements for Senator Tomlinson, talking, handshaking, wheedling, urging. He hardly saw Tami during those frenzied weeks, barely had time to wonder what would happen to them when the campaign was finally over.

  Isaiah Knowles

  The buzz of his desktop intercom snapped Jake awake.

  He was in his office in the Hart building. The digital clock readout on his computer screen blinked 3:28 p.m.

  He sat up straight in his desk chair. I must’ve fallen asleep, Jake told himself as he reached for the intercom switch.

  “Yes?”

  His administrative assistant’s voice said, “Mr. Knowles is calling, Dr. Ross.”

  “Ike?” Jake hadn’t heard from Isaiah Knowles in months. Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, he said, “Put him on, Nancy.”

  Isaiah Knowles’s cocoa-colored face somehow always looked pugnacious, even when he was smiling. The former astronaut seemed to be ready to challenge anyone, anywhere, anytime. On the big wall screen of Jake’s office, Knowles’s image was slightly larger than life, more than a little intimidating.

  “Hello, Jake,” he said, with a tight smile.

  Jake nodded. “How are you, Ike?”

  “Been working with Nick Piazza the past couple months,” Knowles said. “You got some spare time to talk things over?”

  Spare time was what Jake had least of, but he realized that if Knowles was working with Piazza it had to be about the launch accident of the Astra Super.

  So he said, “How about getting together for a drink, around six o’clock?”

  “Can you come over to my office?” Knowles replied. “I want Rollie Jackson to join us.”

  Jake wondered what Jackson had to do with anything, but he answered, “Okay. Six o’clock. Your office.”

  “See you then,” said Knowles.

  * * *

  Jake took a taxi to the Space Futures Foundation offices on K Street. Easier than trying to find a parking spot.

  Knowles was waiting for him in the suite’s reception area. The offices were almost entirely empty; most of the staff had already left for home, or their favorite watering hole.

  “You’re working for Nick Piazza now?” Jake asked as he shook hands with Knowles. It always surprised him that the ex-astronaut was a couple of inches shorter than he. The man gave the impression of being bigger, burlier, than he actually was.

  “Moonlightin’,” Knowles said grimly. “Got to make ends meet, you know.”

  “Your foundation isn’t doing well?”

  With a somber expression that somehow looked almost menacing, Knowles said, “Your fancy-dancy space plan’s soaked up most of our support. Our backers are all on your bandwagon now.”

  The law of unanticipated results, Jake thought. But he said only, “I didn’t realize it would work out that way.”

  Knowles shrugged. “You’re helping my foundation to accomplish its goals. Your space plan is going to get us back to the Moon. That’s the important thing.”

  Jake nodded. “I’m glad you see it that way, Ike.”

  A timid tap on the corridor door made them turn in time to see Roland T. Jackson standing in the open doorway. The retired engineer was wearing a dark suit with a patriotic red, white, and blue star-spangled tie.

  “Rollie!” said Knowles, rushing to him. “Come on in.”

  Jackson was almost Knowles’s height, but he gave the appearance of being much smaller, frailer, almost childlike compared to the sturdy former astronaut.

  “Hello, Ike,” said Jackson, quickly adding, “Jake. What’s this all about? Why did you ask me here?”

  “Not for drinks,” Jake guessed.

  “Not drinks,” Knowles acknowledged as he led the two of them back into the depths of the foundation’s suite.

  Knowles’s private office was spare, utilitarian. A desk, a couple of unmatched upholstered chairs, a small round table by the only window, with four cheap contoured plastic chairs around it. The window looked out onto another high-rise office building.

  “The Astra Super accident,” Jake guessed as they sat themselves down around the circular table. The plastic chairs squeaked under their weight.

  “Maybe it wasn’t an accident,” Knowles said, his face bleak, almost angry.

  Jackson arched a brow. “What makes you say that?”

  An hour later, the little table was covered with graphs, computer readouts, and hand-scribbled notes. The wall screen showed an enlarged schematic of the rocket’s first-stage propulsion system. And Jake understood why Knowles had invited Jackson to the discussion. The older man was a sounding board, a backup exper
t, checking out Knowles’s ideas about the cause of the accident, offering insights of his own to Knowles’s opinions.

  Jake had phoned Tami half an hour earlier to tell her he’d be late for dinner. She wasn’t home yet herself, so he left a message.

  Jackson was saying, “But the NTSB, the FAA, the NASA team, all the investigators have gone over all this material, Ike. They haven’t found anything incriminating.”

  Knowles had tossed his jacket onto his desk and pulled off his necktie. He countered, “They haven’t found anything because they’ve been looking in the wrong direction.”

  Jake grunted, “Huh?”

  Tapping his tablet computer, Knowles looked up at the wall screen. The schematic drawing focused on some piping. Jake saw the legend “LOX main feed” neatly printed atop the drawing.

  “Liquid oxygen is tricky stuff,” Knowles said.

  Jackson grinned. “Any stuff that’s cooled down to minus a couple of hundred degrees is tricky.”

  “Right,” Knowles agreed. “Now what happens if you weaken the piping that’s got the LOX running through it?”

  “Weaken it how?” Jake asked.

  “Scratch it with a knife point. Or maybe the blade of a screwdriver. Just score it a little. An inch or so. Just enough to make the pipe burst when the LOX comes roaring through at full pressure.”

  “Make the pipe burst?”

  Bobbing his head up and down, Knowles said, “Yeah. The piping’s made of plastic, you know.”

  Jackson objected, “High-strength reinforced plastic that’s capable of handling cryogenic temperatures.”

  “Not if it’s been weakened,” Knowles argued. “Look. At T minus three seconds the LOX line starts feeding liquid oxygen into the main engines. The main engines fire at T-zero. The liquid oxygen line gives way. LOX sprays all over the hot rocket nozzles. Boom!”

  Jackson stared at the schematic on the wall screen for a few silent moments. Then, “That could cause the explosion, all right.”

  With a harsh smile, Knowles said, “Damned right.”

  “You wouldn’t even have to scratch the line, just smear a little solvent on the pipe and let it eat the plastic away.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Knowles said.