David Morrell - The Covenant Of The Flame

'If you'll just listen for a moment, Mr President.'

' Listen ?" Garth shuddered to the point of apoplexy. ' Listen ? Idiot, I don't listen. You do. You're the assistant. I'm the boss. And what I say goes. Except that you don't seem to get the message!'

'The clean-air bill's a good one,' Gerrard said calmly. 'The atmosphere's polluted. It's poisoning our lungs. The latest report gives us forty years before the planet's doomed.'

'Hey, I'll be dead by then! What do I care? You want to talk about doomed? You're doomed. Come election time, you're out, pal! I need a V.P. who's smart enough to cooperate, which God help me I thought you were. But all of a sudden… and I don't understand this… you've got a mind of your own.'

'I voted according to my conscience,' Gerrard said.

'Conscience? Give me a break.'

'In my opinion, the bill ought to go further. This year, every day , in New York harbor alone, we've had an oil spill. Not to mention along every coast. Alaska. Oregon. California. New Jersey. Texas. My home state of Florida. Never mind the oil spills. Never mind the raw sewage in the rivers and harbors. Never mind the herbicides and pesticides in the drinking water or the leaks from nuclear plants. Let's just concentrate on the air. It's terrible. Government has to take control.'

'Gerrard, pay attention to realities. Our administration has to protect the industries that employ our voters, keep our economy stable, and pay taxes – admittedly not as much as they could, but hell, let's not forget those industries contribute to our dwindling balance of trade with foreign nations. The bottom line is, Gerrard…'

'Let me guess. When the crisis gets bad enough, we'll somehow deal with it.'

The president raised his jaw. 'Well, what a surprise. You finally got the idea.'

'The problem is…' Gerrard said. 'What you don't seem to grasp…'

'Hey, I grasp everything.'

'The crisis is now . If we wait any longer, we can't…'

'You've forgotten American knowhow. You've forgotten World War Two. American enterprise has shown, repeatedly , that it can solve every problem.'

'Yes, but…'

'What?'

'That was then. This is now. And we're not as enterprising as the Japanese.'

'Good Lord, I hope you haven't told that to the press.'

'And reunited Germany will be even more enterprising,' Gerrard said. 'But I don't believe that they'll save the planet anymore than we will. Greed, Mr President. Greed's always the answer. It always wins out. Until we all tremble and wheeze to death.'

'You sound like a damned radical from Berkeley in the sixties.'

'Okay,' Gerrard said, 'I admit that stringent controls on air Pollution will affect virtually every American industry. The costs to contain the pollution – sulphur dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, cancer-causing industrial emissions, carbon dioxide from automobile exhaust – I could go on, but I don't want to bore you – the expenses will be enormous.'

'Finally. Gerrard, I'm really surprised. You've grasped the point. Sulphur dioxide, which causes acid rain, comes from coal-burning power plants. So if we outlaw coal in those plants, we put hundreds of thousands of miners out of work. Chlorofluorocarbons, which deplete the ozone layer, are a by- product of the cooling systems in refrigerators and air conditioners. But there's no alternative technology. So what do we do? Put those industries out of work? Do you honestly believe that any American would agree to do without an air conditioner? Automobile emissions contribute to global warming. Right. But if we force the car companies to reduce those emissions, it'll cost them billions to improve their engines. They'll have to charge more for the cars. People won't be able to afford them, and Detroit'll go out of business. Don't get me wrong, Gerrard. I worry about the lousy air. Believe me. After all, I have to breathe the damned stuff. So does my wife. My children. My grandchildren. But you want to know what also worries me, really worries me? The faltering economy… the negative balance of trade… the growing national debt… they give me panic attacks! So I don't care about forty years from now. I have to concentrate on controlling this month! This year! And you're not with the program, Gerrard! So let me inform you of what's going to happen. If the House agrees with the Senate and the clean-air bill shows up on my desk, I'm going to veto it.'

'Veto?'

'Good for you. You're paying attention. Now do your best to stay alert. When the Senate reconsiders the bill, this time you'll urge them to vote against it. Open your ears and listen. Against . Is that clear enough?'

' Very clear.'

'Then don't screw up again!'

Gerrard seethed, although outwardly he tried to seem humble. 'Of course, Mr President. Your logic is clear. And indeed I understand your motives. After all, business is what this government considers most important.'

'You bet your ass. Business is what keeps this country going. Never forget it.'

'Believe me, Mr President. I don't intend to.'

Three minutes later, after the president finished cursing Gerrard, his parents, his wife, his movie-star good looks, and even his tennis abilities, Gerrard was finally allowed to leave the Oval Office.

Again, the Secret Service guards kept a stolid expression, not simply because of professional detachment but as well because they sensed the political weather and realized that Gerrard now had even less importance than when he'd entered the president's office.

Or so Gerrard concluded as he pulled a handkerchief from his suitcoat pocket and wiped his apparently clammy brow, walking with equally apparent uncertain steps along the White House corridor.

Presidential aides turned away, attempting to conceal their embarrassment for him but clearly showing their relief that they weren't considered expendable.

Gerrard didn't care. He had no pride. What he did have was a mission, and it struck him as ironic that the president's last insult – about his tennis abilities – related directly to Gerrard's next appointment, a tennis match at an extremely private Washington club. He took an elevator down to the White House garage and was driven in his limousine – with two cars containing Secret Service agents, one before and one behind him – to a fashionable suburb. There, he entered a low, sprawling, glass-and-glinting-metal building that had won an architectural award three years ago. Even from the front, the pock-pock-pock of volleyed tennis balls was audible. Gerrard's driver and his Secret Service guards remained outside, as he instructed. They kept a discreet watch on the parking lot and the entrance to the building, although they didn't maintain a maximum level of vigilance. After all, who'd consider Gerrard a sufficiently important target to want to harm him?

In the tennis club's luxurious locker room, he changed from his suit to a fashionable athletic top and designer shorts. His four-hundred-dollar tennis shoes were Italian, their leather hand-stitched, a gift from a diplomat on one of Gerrard's so frequent good-will missions. His custom-made racket, constructed from space-age materials and worth two thousand dollars, had been a present from his wife. He grabbed a monogrammed towel, checked a mirror to make sure his movie-star hair was perfectly in place, then strolled from the rear of the club and squinted in the smoggy sunlight, facing eight chain-link-fenced courts, seven of which were occupied. In the eighth, a lean, tanned, distinguished-looking man of forty, dressed in tennis clothes, was waiting for him.