“Mr. Chairman!” Gideon, now the color of a canned Harvard beet, shouted, “I did not come here to be insulted by someone who advocates mass murdering to solve a budgetary problem!”
The chair tapped his gavel wearily. “Reverend Payne, Ms. Devine. Please. We have a great deal to do.”
“I demand an apology,” Gideon said.
“I apologize,” Cassandra said. “It was insensitive of me to bring up Mr. Payne’s past in such an insensitive manner.”
“Mr. Chairman! I will not be insulted!”
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. TAP.
“Please.”
SPARKS FLY AT OPENING SESSION OF TRANSITION COMMISSION HEARING
Frank Cohane was in no good mood. His private jet couldn’t land at Tweed-New Haven Airport because the runway wasn’t long enough, so his pilot had to put down in Bridgeport, half an hour from Yale. With the upcoming roll-out of RIP-ware, he had a thousand better things to do. Make that a thousand and one.
This was, needless to say, Lisa’s idea. Idea? More of an order. Go out there and tell them if they don’t take Boyd back, you’re taking your ten million dollars back!
Frank Cohane, billionaire, wizard of technology, hotshot entrepreneur, yachtsman, friend of and adviser to the president of the United States, future secretary of the United States Treasury, did not enjoy being given commands by a former tennis pro, no matter how good the sex was.
Why had he remarried? What possessed him? If he’d only waited a little longer, his dick would no longer have been in charge.
The president of Yale greeted Frank in his office in Woodbridge Hall. He was a mild, pleasant man, an economist by training, amiable, polished, at ease in any situation. When two men at the top of their various professions meet, they don’t waste each other’s time inquiring about the other’s golf handicap.
“Frank,” the president said, “this isn’t a question of blame. In the end, it probably wasn’t fair to Boyd to expect that he would-that it would work out for him here. He’d probably be much better off-much happier-at some other college.”
Frank nodded. “He’d be happier smoking marijuana twenty-four hours a day, playing video games, and downloading porn. But that’s not why I’m here.”
The president frowned. “Don’t sell him short. He’s a good kid. I think he’s just overwhelmed here.”
“How much?”
“How much…what, Frank?”
“To reenroll him.”
“I don’t think that’s”-the president sighed-“the right approach.”
“Another ten. Done?”
The president stared, mouth open.
“Fifteen, then,” Frank said. He rose before the president could let out so much as a croak and gave him a California grin. He thrust out his hand. “It’ll be wired to you by noon. Great to see you. Keep up the terrific work. I like your office. Fabulous ceilings.” And with that he was out the door, leaving the president of Yale speechless and, really, helpless.
Frank wanted to get back to the plane and wheels up without spending another minute there. He felt as though he had just pulled off some sort of crime and was eager to flee. But he knew Lisa would demand to know if he’d seen Boyd, and there would be a scene if he hadn’t. So he made his way to Boyd’s room in Jonathan Edwards College, one of the prettier residential colleges at Yale. He found Boyd putting things into cardboard boxes.
“You can put that stuff back,” Frank said. “You’re reenrolled.”
Boyd gave him a perplexed look. “But they-”
“It’s done. You’re back in.”
Boyd gave no indication as to whether this was good news to him. But then he was not a very expressive young man.
“Boyd…,” Frank said, noticing a colorful tubular plastic object on the table, with a mouthpiece at one end and a bowlful of dark, impacted ash on the other. The center of the vessel contained a quantity of liquid that might have been-he guessed-crиme de menthe, through which several hundred cubic feet of smoke had been filtered. “What is that?”
“Science project?”
“Really. Uh-huh. What is the name of the course that you’re doing this…project for?”
“Fluid dynamics?”
“Fluid dynamics. Terrific. So this would be to measure the effects of, say, Prandtl-Glauert condensation?”
“Right,” Boyd said. “Definitely.”
“Well, it’s wonderful that you’re buckling down. Boyd…”
“Yeah?”
“Nothing,” Frank said. “Call your mother, would you? Just tell her we had a good talk. Would you do that for me?”
“Cool. No problemo.”
“Do you need money?”
“Yeah,” Boyd said, brightening. “Sure.”
Frank stripped five hundred-dollar bills off his billfold.
“Hey, thanks, Frank.”
“Good to see you, Boyd.”
Twenty-five million dollars. Twenty-five million five hundred dollars. But look at how seriously he was applying himself to…fluid dynamics. Learning all about Prandtl-Glauert condensation. What a wonderful addition he would someday make to the Cohane Aviation Division.
Chapter 24
The national situation continued to decline: plunging stock market, soaring prices, inflation running at 18 percent. This last factor, combined with six consecutive quarters of negative growth, officially signaled stagflation. The U.S. Treasury was furiously printing dollars, while the dollar itself had lost 40 percent of its value over the last six months. The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, had announced yet another hike in the prime rate, to 14 percent. Amid this calamitous economic news, the Congress adamantly-some said magnificently-refused to cut federal spending, with the result that the year’s deficit was now projected at $1.1 trillion.
The foreign situation was encouraging. U.S. and Mexican troops were now taking potshots at each other across the border, inasmuch as Mexico had declared a destino manifesto policy of free emigration. The border to the North was similarly vexed. In the wake of the U.S. embargo on Canadian lumber, paper goods, gypsum, and beer, rogue units of Canadian Mounted Police were now harassing American truckers-on the American side of the border. In the Persian Gulf, never a quiescent body of water for Uncle Sam, U.S. Navy ships were blockading the Strait of Hormuz in an effort to drive up the price of Alaskan crude oil. (A bold move, to be sure, initiated by the Alaskan congressional delegation, now wielding disproportionate influence in the Capitol.) Meanwhile, a small but powerful cabal calling themselves the “geo-cons” were clamoring for U.S. military intervention in Tahiti, Taiwan, Tashkent, Tibet, and any other country whose name began with the letter T.
Amid this tumult, President Peacham set about the business of running for reelection. By all indications, it was going to be an uphill battle. Thus far, the best his people had been able to come up with by way of a campaign slogan was, “He’s doing his best. Really.”
Randy and Cass went about the business of the Transitioning commission. Cass was engaged; Randy was bored witless, at least at the outset. To him it was just an obstacle standing in the way of his appointment to the vice presidency. He had been in Washington long enough to know, in his heart of hearts, that presidential commissions are for the most part things to be ignored, a vermiform appendix to the body politic. It was always the same.
Important personages are appointed to the commission, with instructions to-by all means-study the problem in all its complexity, get to the root of it, and report back to the very highest levels of government. Six, nine months go by, with occasional fifteen-second sound bites on the evening news of commissioners sternly telling witnesses that they were not coming clean with the commission; the witnesses replying that, really, they’re doing their best (give us a break). In due course, the commission delivers its report. There is a day or two of news coverage. The media reports the findings, that the United States is about to run out of molybdenum, or be overcome by bacteria emanating from geese; or that filthy, disgusting Arabs have no right to own American seaports, no matter how moderate they are; or that the government has no disaster plan ready in the event an asteroid the size of Rhode Island lands in the Pacific Ocean; or that the CIA failed to detect the cold war, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Tehran embassy takeover, Grenada, Iran-contra, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Bosnia, the attack on the USS Cole, 9/11, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Oh Shit, Now What?; or that really there was no excuse at all for launching those cruise missiles against Papua New Guinea.