Power Play (13 page)

“They must be worried about the MHD idea if they’re showing muscle already,” Amy said.

Jake made a wry grin. “Well, they’ve got me worried, that’s for sure.”

Amy reasoned, “Sinclair must have told Leeds everything about the MHD program. Now Leeds recognizes it as a threat to him.”

“A threat to me, you mean.”

As if she didn’t hear Jake, she mused, “Why doesn’t Leeds just come out and announce he’s backing MHD? He could do it before Franklin does and he could start pushing for federal funding right away. Take the issue right out from under our feet.”

“Maybe Tomlinson should make a statement about MHD right away,” Jake suggested.

“Before his official announcement that he’s running?” She shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Jake said, “He could say he’s interested as a private citizen. A concerned voter and taxpayer.”

“Jake, that’s not the way the game works.”

He saw, though, that there was something going on in her mind. Amy sat silently, idly twirling her long-stemmed martini glass in both hands. Those hazel eyes were looking past him, focused on some new idea taking form. Jake picked up his glass and took a healthy swallow of his dark beer.

Slowly, as if rehearsing the agenda for herself, Amy said, “Franklin’s due to announce his candidacy in another ten days.…”

His Christmas present to the state’s voters, Jake said to himself.

“… And Leeds can make a statement about MHD anytime he wants to,” Amy continued. “Either from his office here or from Washington.”

Jake said, “If he does it from here he can have Sinclair standing beside him.”

Amy nodded slowly. Suddenly she hunched toward Jake and said, “You’re right! Franklin’s got to make a public announcement about MHD now! Right away! Before Leeds can open his mouth about it.”

“Before he announces his candidacy?”

“Yes!” Amy said, with iron certainty. “Tomorrow. It’ll get him headlines, interviews on the news shows. Then, when he does announce he’s running, he can say that the opportunity MHD offers this state is what made him decide to run.”

“Instead of the other way around.”

“Exactly. Jake, you’re a political genius!”

He laughed out loud, thinking that a political genius ought to be rewarded in bed.

And so he was.

*   *   *

The regional Public Broadcasting System TV station was on campus. The university ran the PBS station and melded it with the courses they offered on television and journalism.

Franklin Tomlinson still looked doubtful about the whole business when he entered the bare little studio. The walls were blue-painted cinderblock, the ceiling festooned with dangling television lights. Three TV cameras stood in one corner, their cables snaking across the concrete floor.

His handsome face dead serious, Tomlinson sat in a far corner of the studio in what looked to Jake like a barber’s chair, while a makeup specialist brushed a light powder across his jaw.

Standing well behind the cameras, Jake whispered to Amy, “He doesn’t look happy about this.”

“He will when the reporters come hounding after him tomorrow morning,” she said tightly. She was wearing business attire: pearl gray slacks and a navy blue hip-length jacket. Jake was in his usual jeans and sport coat.

Tomlinson got up from the makeup chair and pulled on his suit jacket, then allowed the show’s producer—a pudgy female student from the university’s journalism department—to lead him to the set where he was to be interviewed. It looked threadbare to Jake: a single sofa, one armchair, and a coffee table. Behind them was a pair of fake bookcases. Turning to look at the monitor screen set up behind the cameras, Jake saw that the set appeared presentable: the backdrop for a serious interview.

The interviewer was an old hand: silver hair thinning, midsection going to paunch. Jake remembered watching him on one of the local commercial TV newscasts back in his childhood. Now the man had retired from commercial television and did these PBS interviews as a public service. And a tax deduction, Jake thought.

The overhead lights went on, bathing the set in glaring brightness. An amplified voice announced, “In five … four … three…”

Tomlinson’s face suddenly lit up brighter than the overhead lights as the interviewer looked into the cameras and said, “Good evening, and welcome to
Face the Issues.
Tonight we’ll be talking with B. Franklin Tomlinson, one of the state’s leading citizens and—if the rumors are correct—a potential candidate for the United States Senate.”

Turning to face Tomlinson, he said, “So let me start off by asking you straightaway, are you going to run against Senator Leeds?”

Smiling his megawatt smile, Tomlinson said, “I’m thinking of it, George. Thinking very hard about it.” Before the interviewer could ask another question, Tomlinson added, “And let me tell you why.”

Looking mildly surprised, the interviewer fell for the gambit. “Why?”

“MHD,” said Tomlinson, as if speaking a magical word.

“MHD?” asked the interviewer. “What’s MHD?”

HEADLINES AND PROPOSITIONS

The first thing Jake did when he woke up the next morning was to turn on the local news broadcast. Sure enough, there was Tomlinson—looking earnest even while he was smiling brilliantly—telling his interviewer how MHD could bring prosperity back to the state’s coal mining industry.

As he showered and shaved and brushed his teeth, Jake clicked from one local station to another. Tomlinson was on every one of them. Amy’s done her job well, Jake thought while he dressed. He’s in the spotlight for sure.

While he munched on his breakfast of bran flakes and instant coffee, Jake turned to the cable news networks. No mention of Tomlinson on the national level. Well, he said to himself, they’ll start to notice him when he announces he’s running against Leeds. He got up from the kitchen counter and went to his desk. The digital edition of the local newspaper had Tomlinson splashed across its front page, with a long sidebar about MHD. Jake was only mildly surprised to see Bob Rogers’s byline on the sidebar.

His morning class on planetary astronomy went well. The eight students were all motivated, interested. Two of them were helping Jake with his proposal for the high-resolution camera on NASA’s next Mars lander. Somehow, though, Jake didn’t find the class as exciting as the buzz about Tomlinson. Politics can be exciting, he thought, even while he was reviewing imagery from one of the little roving vehicles trundling across the frozen red desert sands of Mars. I helped to make headlines!

Once he got back to his office he phoned Glynis Colwyn to ask her to lunch.

She sounded wary. “I’m not sure I ought to be seen with you, Jake.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Professor Sinclair isn’t happy about Tomlinson’s spouting off,” she said.

“Oh. I’m persona non grata, eh?”

“Decidedly.”

“Are you sore at me?”

“Me?” She sounded genuinely surprised. “Why would I be upset with you?”

“Well, if Sinclair’s pissed off…”

“Don’t be silly. I think what you’ve done is fine. Tim’s ecstatic about it.” Her voice hesitated a moment. “Well, as ecstatic as he allows himself to be.”

Jake laughed. “Okay, then. Come on to lunch with me. We can go back to Danny’s, off campus.”

Slowly, she replied, “I usually have lunch with Tim, you know. When he’s not up in Lignite.”

“Bring him along. Bring Bob Rogers, too. I need to talk with both of them anyway.”

He could hear the relief in her voice. “All right. Danny’s, you said?”

“Yeah. You know where it is, don’t you?”

“I remember. And I have a GPS in the car. If I can get it to start.”

“Good. See you at Danny’s. Noon.”

“Make it twelve thirty.”

“Okay. Twelve thirty.”

As he hung up, Jake realized that Glynis and Tim must be getting serious. And he felt his face hardening into a frown at the thought.

*   *   *

As usual, Jake was early for the lunch date. He sat alone in a booth at the far end of the restaurant, wondering if Glynis would actually show up. Why wouldn’t she? he asked himself. She said she’d bring Tim and Bob with her. He checked his cell phone and then his wristwatch. Twelve thirty-two. Where is she?

Bob Rogers came into the restaurant and looked around. Before Jake could slide out of the booth Rogers spotted him and headed his way.

“Your guy’s made the headlines,” Rogers said as he sat beside Jake.

“And you’re on the front page,” Jake replied. “I didn’t know you wrote for the newspaper.”

Rogers shrugged modestly. “Oh, that was a background piece they asked me to write more’n a year ago. They’ve been sitting on it all this time.”

“It’s a good piece. Clear. Anybody could understand it.”

“The managing editor liked it,” said Rogers. “I think maybe because he didn’t have to pay for it.”

“They didn’t pay you?”

“Nope.”

“Cheap bastards.”

Rogers laughed. “That’s the newspaper business.”

The same ponytailed waiter asked what they wanted to drink. Rogers and Jake both asked for beer. Then Jake saw Glynis enter the restaurant, with Tim Younger right behind her. He waved to them and they came to the booth, hung their coats on pegs on the wall, and sat together across the table from him and Rogers.

Once they all ordered their meals, Jake asked Glynis, “You said Sinclair was pissed off about Tomlinson’s interview?”

She pursed her lips before answering, “He tries very hard to keep his self-control, but he was very upset this morning. Very upset. He slammed the door to his office and was on the phone all morning.”

“Talking to Leeds, most likely,” said Younger.

Rogers said, “I got four calls from local news outfits asking about MHD.”

“I sent them to you,” said Glynis. “They called the professor but I knew he wouldn’t talk to them.”

“So where do we go from here?” Younger asked.

Jake said, “Tomlinson’s going to announce that he’s running against Leeds. It would be great if you two were there when he makes the announcement.”

Younger’s eyes flicked to Rogers and then back to Jake.

Rogers squirmed a little, sitting beside Jake, then said, “That would be kind of tough. I mean, we both work for Sinclair. It would be like a slap in the face for us to show up with Tomlinson.”

“What can he do to you?” Jake asked. “You have tenure, don’t you?”

Rogers nodded slowly, then pointed across the table. “Tim’s an employee.”

Younger huffed. “Let him fire me. Then we’ll see how far he gets with his fat-ass program.”

“Let’s not get emotional about this,” Glynis cautioned.

Jake saw the anger radiating from Younger. Rogers looked embarrassed, Glynis troubled.

“Now look,” Jake said, “the worst thing we could do is snarl up the MHD work. Absolutely the worst. I don’t want to cause a split among you.”

Younger fixed his eyes on Jake. It was like being stared down by a frontier gunslinger. “There’s already a split between him and me.”

“I know you and Sinclair don’t see eye to eye,” Jake said.

Rogers tried to lighten the moment. “Eye to eye? It’s more like tooth and nail.”

“Fang and claw?” Glynis suggested.

Younger grinned minimally. “Look, the prof and I have our differences. But as long as he leaves me alone to run the big rig, we can get along.”

Rogers said weakly, “With me in the middle.”

“So you see, Jake,” Glynis said, “why Tim can’t make a public show of support for Tomlinson. Or Bob, either.”

“It’d tear the program apart,” Rogers agreed.

“The hell with the program,” Younger growled. “I’ll stand up for Tomlinson and Sinclair can go piss in his hat.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind!” Glynis said sharply.

Nodding, Jake said, “It wouldn’t do any of us any good to wreck the program. Tomlinson needs you guys to succeed.”

“Which means you will continue to work like a good boy, Tim,” said Glynis, “and keep your temper under control.”

Younger gave her a look that was halfway between a guilty grin and an angry glare.

The waiter brought their lunch orders and they started to eat without any further talk about politics. As Jake dug into his fried fish platter, he realized that he was hips-deep in a snake pit. The MHD program has got to keep getting good results, which means that none of the people working the program can show in public that they support Tomlinson. Which means that Tomlinson’s going to have to push MHD as a major plank in his campaign without any of the guys working on the program supporting him.

A real nest of snakes.

There’s got to be some way around this, he told himself. But for the life of him, Jake couldn’t see what it might be.

CARROT AND STICK

Jake was shocked to see Nacho Perez in his office when he returned from lunch. The man was stooped halfway over in front of his bookcase, peering at the journals and reports stacked on the shelves, his unbuttoned sports jacket hanging loose.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Jake demanded.

Straightening up, Perez replied, “Waitin’ for you, doc.”

“How did you get in? The door was locked.”

With a shrug of his thin shoulders, Nacho said, “I didn’t steal nuthin’.”

Angry, Jake went to his desk and plopped into his little chair. It rolled backward and banged into the bookcase behind his desk.

Perez didn’t seem to notice. “You read all them books?”

“Yes.”

“You must be pretty smart.”

“What do you want?” Jake snapped. “Why are you here?”

Still standing, Perez said, “He wants to see ya.”

“He?”

“The senator. He wants to see ya.”

“Well, I don’t want to see him.”

“Yes ya do.”

Perez said it flatly, without a hint of malice, but Jake remembered his brief talk with Monster.

“Come on,” Perez coaxed, “all he wants to do is talk with ya.”

“Senator Leeds.”

“Yeah.”

Jake sat behind his desk glaring at Perez, thinking, Senator Leeds wants to talk with me. Why? What’s he up to?

“Come on, kid. I got a car waitin’ downstairs. We can do this the hard way or the easy way. Up to you. Either way, you’re gonna talk with the man.”