Part 2 (2/2)
He acknowledged the salutes of the driver and armed mechanic with a cheery wave and followed them to the elevator at the end of the long corridor. Paintings and photographs of ancient battles hung along both sides of the hall, and there was carpet on the floor, but otherwise it was like a cave. Blasted Pentagon, he thought for the hundredth time. Silliest building ever constructed. n.o.body can find anything, and it can't be guarded at any price. Why couldn't someone have bombed it?
They took a surface car to the White House. A flight would have been another detail to worry about, and besides, this way he got to see the cherry trees and flower beds around the Jefferson. The Potomac was a sludgy brown mess. You could swim in it if you had a strong stomach, but the Army Engineers had ”improved” it a few administrations back. They'd given it concrete banks. Now they were ripping them out, and it brought down mudslides.
They drove through rows of government buildings, some abandoned. Urban renewal had given Was.h.i.+ngton all the office s.p.a.ce the Government would ever need, and more, so that there were these empty buildings as relics of the time when D.C. was the most crime-ridden city in the world. Sometime in Grant's youth, though, they'd hustled everyone out of Was.h.i.+ngton who didn't work there, with bulldozers quickly following to demolish the tenements. For political reasons the offices had gone in as quickly as the other buildings were torn down.
They pa.s.sed the Population Control Bureau and drove around the Ellipse and past Old State to the gate. The guard carefully checked his ident.i.ty and made him put his palm on the little scanning plate. Then they entered the tunnel to the White House bas.e.m.e.nt.
The President stood when Grant entered the Oval Office, and the others shot to their feet as if they had ejection charges under them. Grant shook hands around but looked closely at Lips...o...b.. The President was feeling the strain, no question about it. Well, they all were.
The secretary of defense wasn't there, but then he never was. The secretary was a political hack who controlled a bloc of Aeros.p.a.ce Guild votes and an even larger bloc of aeros.p.a.ce industry stocks. As long as government contracts kept his companies busy employing his men, he didn't give a d.a.m.n about policy. He could sit in on formal Cabinet sessions where nothing was ever said, and no one would know the difference.
John Grant was Defense as much as he was CIA.
Few of the men in the Oval Office were well known to the public. Except for the President any one of them could have walked the streets of any city except Was.h.i.+ngton without fear of recognition. But the power they controlled, as a.s.sistants and deputies, was immense, and they all knew it. There was no need to pretend here.
The servitor brought drinks and Grant accepted Scotch. Some of the others didn't trust a man who wouldn't drink with them. His ulcer would give him h.e.l.l, and his doctor more, but doctors and ulcers didn't understand the realities of power. Neither, thought Grant, do I or any of us, but we've got it.
”Mr. Karins, would you begin?” the President asked. Heads swiveled to the west wall where Karins stood at the briefing screen. To his right a polar projection of Earth glowed with lights showing the status of the forces that the President ordered, but Grant controlled.
Karins stood confidently, his paunch spilling out over his belt. The fat was an obscenity in so young a man. Herman Karins was the second youngest man in the room, a.s.sistant director of the office of management and budget, and said to be one of the most brilliant economists Yale had ever produced. He was also the best political techni- cian in the country, but he hadn't learned that at Yale.
He activated the screen to show a set of figures. ”I have the latest poll results,”
Karins said too loudly. ”This is the real stuff, not the slop we give the press. It stinks.”
Grant nodded. It certainly did. The Unity Party was hovering around thirty-eight percent, just about evenly divided between the Republican and Democratic wings.
Harmon's Patriot Party had just over twenty-five. Millington's violently left wing Liberation Party had its usual ten, but the real shocker was Bertram's Freedom Party.
Bertram's popularity stood at an unbelievable twenty percent of the population.
”These are figures for those who have an opinion and might vote,” Karins said. ”Of course there's the usual gang that doesn't give a d.a.m.n, but we know how they split off.
They go to whomever got to 'em last anyway. You see the bad news.”
”You're sure of this?” the a.s.sistant postmaster general asked. He was the leader of the Republican wing of Unity, and it hadn't been six months since he had told them they could forget Bertram.
”Yes, sir,” Karins said. ”And it's growing. Those riots at the labor convention probably gave 'em another five points we don't show. Give Bertram six months and he'll be ahead of us. How you like them apples, boys and girls?”
”There is no need to be flippant, Mr. Karins,” the President said.
”Sorry, Mr. President.” Karins wasn't sorry at all and he grinned at the a.s.sistant postmaster general with triumph. Then he flipped the switches to show new charts.
”Soft and hard,” Karins said. ”You'll notice Bertram's vote is pretty soft, but solidifying. Harmon's is so hard you couldn't get 'em away from him without you use nukes. And ours is a little like b.u.t.ter. Mr. President, I can't even guarantee we'll be the largest party after the election, much less that we can hold a majority.”
”Incredible,” the chairman of the joint chiefs muttered.
”Worse than incredible.” The commerce rep shook her head in disbelief. ”A disaster.
Who will win?”
Karins shrugged. ”Toss-up, but if I had to say, I'd pick Bertram. He's getting more of our vote than Harmon.” .
”You've been quiet, John,” the President said. ”What are your thoughts here?”
”Well, sir, it's fairly obvious what the result will be no matter who wins as long as it isn't us.” Grant lifted his Scotch and sipped with relish. He decided to have another and to h.e.l.l with the ulcer. ”If Harmon wins, he pulls out of the CoDominium, and we have war. If Bertram takes over, he relaxes security, Harmon drives him out with his storm troopers, and we have war anyway.”
Karins nodded. ”I don't figure Bertram could hold power more'n a year, probably not that long. Man's too honest.”
The President sighed loudly. ”I can recall a time when men said that about me, Mr.
Karins.”
”It's still true, Mr. President.” Karins spoke hurriedly. ”But you're realistic enough to let us do what we have to do. Bertram wouldn't.”
”So what do we do about it?” the President asked gently.
”Rig the election,” Karins answered quickly. ”I give out the popularity figures here.”
He produced a chart indicating a majority popularity for Unity. ”Then we keep pumping out more faked stuff while Mr. Grant's people work on the vote-counting computers.
h.e.l.l, it's been done before.”
”Won't work this time.” They turned to look at the youngest man in the room. Larry Moriarty, a.s.sistant to the President, and sometimes called the ”resident heretic,” blushed at the attention. ”The people know better. Bertram's people are already taking jobs in the computer centers, aren't they, Mr. Grant? They'll see it in a minute.”
Grant nodded. He'd sent the report over the day before; interest ing that Moriarty had already digested it.
”You make this a straight rigged election, and you'll have to use CoDominium Marines to keep order,” Moriarty continued.
”The day I need CoDominium Marines to put down riots in the United States is the day I resign,” the President said coldly. ”I may be a realist, but there are limits to what I will do. You'll need a new chief, gentlemen.”
”That's easy to say, Mr. President,” Grant said. He wanted his pipe, but the doctors had forbidden it. To h.e.l.l with them, he thought, and took a cigarette from a pack on the table. ”It's easy to say, but you can't do it.”
The President frowned. ”Why not?”
Grant shook his head. ”The Unity Party supports the CoDominium, and the CoDominium keeps the peace. An ugly peace, but by G.o.d, peace. I wish we hadn't got support for the CoDominium treaties tied so thoroughly to the Unity Party, but it is and that's that. And you know d.a.m.n well that even in the Party it's only a thin majority that supports the CoDominium. Right, Harry?”
The a.s.sistant postmaster general nodded. ”But don't forget, there's support for the CD in Bertram's group.”
”Sure, but they hate our guts,” Moriarty said. ”They say we're corrupt. And they're right.”
”So flipping what if they're right?” Karins snapped. ”We're in, they're out. Anybody who's in for long is corrupt. If he isn't, he's not in.”
”I fail to see the point of this discussion,” the President interrupted. ”I for one do not enjoy being reminded of all the things I have done to keep this office. The question is, what are we going to do? I feel it only fair to warn you that nothing could make me happier than to have Mr. Bertram sit in this chair. I've been President for a long time, and I'm tired. I don't want the job anymore.”
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