America Rising (16 page)

He gave the senator a shove. Hammer stumbled out the door, landed on a patch of loose rock, pitched hard on his back. He lay there, too stunned and scared to move, as the man tossed a plastic case about the size of a cigarette pack.

“This is a compass,” he said dispassionately. “The nearest ranger station is due north. If you’re lucky, you might make it there in a few days.” Then he pulled the door shut and the helicopter’s powerful turbine engine whined louder.

John Hammer grabbed for the case in desperate, frenzied hope. He scrabbled at the latch, pried the case open. Inside, a slender needle in a red plastic circle pointed towards salvation. Wedged into the upraised cover was a plain white business card. He tore it loose and turned it over. He read the single word printed in big black letters.

Then he started screaming, screams that went unheard as the helicopter’s rotors churned and scattered dirt and brush and pebbles and the craft lifted up and soon was a mere speck in the distance.

T
he mood of the men and women assembled around the long mahogany table in the Roosevelt Room was one of grim anticipation. It was the second to the last day of what was billed as the “President’s Economic Summit”—aka, “Nancy’s dog and pony show”—and they knew that this meeting in the buff-painted room across from the Oval Office was the real reason for their attendance.

They didn’t like it but they all played their parts in this uniquely Washingtonian bit of kabuki, responding to the president’s appeal for a gathering of the country’s “wise men” to discuss how to lessen the effects of what even her own economic advisors were calling the Great Depression 2.0.

The indicators were bad and getting worse. Official unemployment had topped twenty percent. Unofficially, it was closer to thirty. And while corporate profits steadily rose, so did the pace of layoffs, which continued with the implacable drip, drip, drip of Chinese water torture. Foreclosures were rampant. Tent cities composed of once middle-class homeowners had sprung up on the outskirts of every major metropolitan area. How many more were huddled together in rural areas and even national parks was impossible to estimate. Not that anyone cared to.

More worrisome still was the sense that the threads that bound the American public to the system which had served the men and women in the Roosevelt Room so tightly had unraveled. The summit was marred by daily demonstrations in front of the White House that had shut down Pennsylvania Avenue and resulted in thousands of arrests. Each day the demonstrations grew in size and intensity; the anger of people at their government glowed white-hot.

Armed resistance to foreclosures had become commonplace. As police refused to enforce eviction notices, gun battles between homeowners and private bands of enforcers were no longer a rarity. The campaign of SayNo.org to starve corporate America of revenue for the month of July, once derided as the fantastical posturings of a group of left-wing nuts, was now being taken seriously. The group’s plan to bring a new Bonus Army to the heart of the nation’s capital was downright scary. Something had to be done.

The president was running late and impatient murmurings swirled around the Roosevelt Room. It was hot and crowded and uncomfortable; twenty people crammed at a table meant for sixteen, another twenty-two seated in chairs arranged against the wall. This was not how they expected to be treated, stuffed into an overheated room and forced to wait on the whims of someone who, president or not, was just another politician. After all, they were the people who made Nancy Elias, had made her predecessor and would make whoever came after her.

They were a remarkably insular and homogenous group. The executives of the country’s major banks and financial institutions were seated in descending order of importance from Frank Bernabe at the president’s side. The CEOs of the four largest energy companies came next, then the heads of the biggest technology firms. Seated down from Ray Carmody at the president’s other side were the executives of defense contractors, insurance and pharmaceutical companies and media conglomerates, followed by representatives of powerful trade associations and K Street lobbying firms.

Finally, the door swung open and Nancy Elias walked in, trailed by Ray Carmody bearing an armload of baby blue folders stamped with the presidential seal. The denizens of the Roosevelt Room rose grudgingly from their chairs.

“Good morning, everyone,” Nancy Elias said. Her tone of voice made clear that it was not a very good morning.

“Good morning, Madam President,” came the equally dispirited response.

The president took her seat and motioned for her listeners to do likewise as Ray Carmody circled the room passing out folders. When he was done and seated she held the assembled tycoons in a steady gaze as if to remind them who sat at the head of the table.

“I must apologize for being late,” she said. “But I have just received some unfortunate news. Senator John Hammer, who I’m sure you know has been missing for more than a week now, has been found dead in a national park in California. I don’t have full details yet but the circumstances of his death are highly unusual. I’ve directed the FBI to send a team of agents to handle the investigation and I expect an update in forty-eight hours. I’m sure I speak for all of you when I say our hearts go out to the Senator’s wife and family.”

After an appropriate silence marked by much lowering of eyes and sad shakings of heads, she continued.

“I also want to thank all of you for coming here, especially on such short notice. I don’t have to tell you that our nation is facing a terrible economic crisis, and I appreciate your ideas and input as to how we can get our economy moving again.

“Some of those ideas will be reflected in legislation I intend to propose and support with the full power of this office. My staff is already working with members of the House and Senate on bills that will dramatically reduce the size and scope—and cost—of Social Security and Medicare. New legislation that will mandate annual reductions in the deficit—not goals but specific, concrete amounts—will be introduced shortly, as will bills to eliminate the estate tax and reduce corporate taxes and taxes on those whose wealth powers our economic engine. And I know your staffs are working with legislators and my administration to minimize the impact of new regulations on your businesses.

“I also know that many of you have opposed those regulations, as is your right. Which brings me to the second crisis facing our nation. That is a crisis of confidence, such that in more than twenty-five years of public service I have never seen. Very simply, ladies and gentlemen, most of the American people don’t trust us to act in their best interest. It’s not about left or right, Democrat or Republican. It’s about a profound distrust—hatred, even—of our corporate and political leaders. So I ask you in this time of crisis to look beyond your own immediate interests and look to those of the country as a whole, to join with me to show the American people we care about their welfare, that we’re working to—”

One of the executives, a forty-ish man with slicked-back black hair and a prize fighter’s pugnacious jaw, could contain himself no longer.

“All these regulations are killing us, Madam President,” he said loudly. There was a collective gasp as all eyes riveted on the speaker. “Roger Pruitt, USA Bank Corp. How can my company continue to make a profit, continue to grow the economy, with all these little punk staffers from this agency, that agency, looking over our shoulders? With this new tax, that new tax. More health care obligations, more reporting obligations, more ridiculous restrictions on how we conduct our business? When does it end?”

“Are you finished, Mr. Pruitt?”

The president’s glare was colder than the drifts of snow scraped up on the shoulders of the capitol’s wind-swept streets. Raymond Carmody hid a smile behind his hand. Nancy Elias may be in the employ of these corporate nobles but she had the office and political smarts to make them regret any overt disrespect.

“Tell me, sir,” she said. “How much money did USA Bank Corp. make the past few years peddling subprime loans to janitors and dishwashers? How many of those loans are still on your books at values that will never be reached in this century because this administration stood strong against those who would have nationalized your bank, broken it into little pieces and sold it off, and probably sent you to jail for fraud as well?

“How many billions of dollars—taxpayer dollars—did USA Bank Corp. take from TARP and Temporary Liquidity Guarantee and other government bailout programs? How many more billions of taxpayer dollars did you borrow from the Fed at zero-percent interest and then call ‘profit’ or loan back to the government at three percent?

“How many billions of dollars has USA Bank Corp. made from selling derivatives in a totally unregulated market, from betting against your own customers and charging them fees with no legal basis and no regulatory oversight? And, by the way, sir, what was your salary? Thirty, thirty-five million dollars? With a fifty-million-dollar bonus?”

Roger Pruitt wilted like an ice cube in a blast furnace. Frank Bernabe replaced Nancy Elias’s glare with his own. He’d long thought the head of USA Bank Corp. was a man of limited intelligence, little sophistication and even less subtlety. He also knew Roger Pruitt was largely the creature of Bill Bigby, whose constant undermining of Bernabe’s leadership was motivated as much by jealousy as a rigidly reactionary, hard-line ideology.

Goddam idiot, Bernabe swore under his breath. If Nancy Elias wasn’t on our side she wouldn’t be sitting here. And like her or not, disrespecting the President of the United States in her own house is an act of monumental arrogance and stupidity. He was pleased with the vehemence of Nancy Elias’s response; Roger Pruitt needed to be put in his place. And she wasn’t finished with him yet.

“Is there anything I’ve said that isn’t correct, sir?” she asked. “Are there any other complaints you’d care to voice?”

Roger Pruitt knew better than to speak. He kept his eyes down, studying the fine wood grain of the table.

“Good. Then with all the financial and political support that you and everyone in this room have received from the federal government throughout this crisis—support, by the way, not one of you has ever refused—don’t you dare have the effrontery to tell me this administration is your enemy. Hear this now, all of you:
I am the best friend you’ve got.
If any of you had bothered to pay attention to the mood of the country you’d know that my administration, the men and women on Capitol Hill, those ‘little punk staffers’ you so callously deride, are all that stand between you and the peasants with pitchforks and ropes. Now. . .”

Tongue-lashing over, she gave her audience a minute to settle down. “That brings me to the third crisis,” she said calmly. “It is detailed in the folders in front of you, which Ray compiled and brought to my attention. This third crisis is one of which you may not even be aware. Or you may only be aware of part of it. But it is the most profound crisis of all, one that has never before been faced in all of American history.”

She had them now. Forty-two pairs of eyes fixed on her. Forty-two brains whirred, wondering what was so momentous that they’d been called to this room to discover it, why they hadn’t discovered it themselves. The president let them stew in their wonderment, then gave them their answer.

“It is a direct challenge to the authority and the legitimacy of this office, to our very system of government and to every person in this room. It is a challenge being conducted, according to our best estimates, by a paramilitary-style group of a hundred or more people. These are not your usual left-wing radicals and disaffected college students, these are highly trained operatives skilled in all aspects of intelligence gathering, tactical operations, computer technology and guerilla warfare.

“As you will see in your folders, for the past six months this group of terrorist revolutionaries—and make no mistake about it, that’s what they are—have waged a campaign of violence and intimidation against those they perceive to be their enemies.”

Nancy Elias swept her gaze across the room, making eye contact with every person in it.

“We
are their enemies.”

She let the words sink in and turned to Raymond Carmody.

“Go ahead, Ray,” she said.

The president’s chief of staff unfolded his reading glasses and opened his folder.

“All the known actions of this group are detailed here. It is strictly Eyes Only; I can’t emphasize that enough. If word of this should get out the reaction of the public could be devastating. Given the state of the country today, it is entirely possible many Americans would consider these terrorists to be national heroes. It could spawn copycat attacks, make it difficult or impossible to track down the perpetrators, incite the kind of unrest we simply cannot afford.

“I won’t enumerate every action in this report but I do want to touch on the most significant ones. You perhaps recall the recent untimely passing of Jefferson Dalworth. The official cause of death was listed as a heart attack and, in fact, that is correct. But it was a heart attack likely brought on by his receipt of video showing him in a, ah. . . sexually comprising position with an. . . ah, underage boy. We believe this video was shot and delivered to him by this group of terrorists.