Kim Robinson - Sixty Days and Counting

As they trailed Kenzo and Bob down the narrow path next to Route 66, he said, “So did you ever hear anything back from your friend?”

“Yes. A little. I was going to tell you.”

“What?”

“He said, the problem with taking the top-down approach is the operation might be legal, and also legally secret, such that even the president might have trouble finding out about it.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. He said that most presidents want it that way, so they aren’t breaking the law by knowing, if the operation chooses to do something illegal for the higher good. So, Chase might have to order a powerful group right under his command to seek something like this out.”

“Jesus. Are there any such powerful groups?”

“Oh sure. He would have his choice of three or four. But this presumes that you could get him that interested in the matter. The thing you have to remember is, a president has a lot on his plate. He has a staff to filter it all and prioritize what gets to him, so there are levels to get through. So, these people we’re interested in know that, and they trust he would never go after something this little.”

“Something as little as stolen presidential elections?”

“Well, maybe, but how much would he want to know about that, when he just won?”

They paced on while Frank tried to digest this.

“So did your friend have any other ideas?”

“Yes. He said, it might be possible to get these people embroiled in some kind of trouble with an agency that is less black than they are. Some kind of turf battle or the like.”

“Ahhh…”

Quickly Frank began to see possibilities. While at NSF, Diane had been fighting other agencies all over the place, usually David-and-Goliath type actions, as most of NSF’s natural rivals in the federal bureaucracy were far bigger than it. And size mattered in the Feds, as elsewhere, because it meant money. This little gang of security thugs Frank had tangled with were surely treading on some other more legitimate agency’s turf. Possibly they had even started in some agency and gone rambo without the knowledge of their superiors.

“That’s a good idea. Did they have any specific suggestions?”

“He did, and he was going to work up some more. It turns out he has reasons to dislike these guys beyond the destruction-of-democracy stuff.”

“Oh good.”

“Yes. It is best never to rely on people standing on principle.”

“So true,” Frank said grimly.

This set off Edgardo’s raucous laugh and his little running prance of cynical delight. “Ah yes, you are learning! You are beginning to see! My friend said he will give me a menu of options soon.”

“I hope it’s real soon. Because my friend’s out there enacting her Plan C, and I’m worried. I mean, she’s a data analyst, when you get right down to it. She isn’t any kind of field spook. What if her Plan C is as bad as her Plan B was?”

“That would be bad. But my friend has been looking into that too. I asked him to, and he did, and he said he can’t see any sign of her. She seems to be really off the net this time.”

“That’s good. But her ex might know more than your friend. And she said she’d be around here somewhere.”

“Yes. Well, I’ll go see my friend as soon as I can. I have to follow our protocol though, unless it’s an emergency. We only usually talk once a week.”

“I understand,” Frank said, then wondered if he did.

WITH CHASE NOW IN OFFICEthe new administration’s activity level was manic but focused. Among many more noted relocations, Diane and all the rest of the science advisor’s team moved into their new offices in the Old Executive Building, just to the west of the White House and within the White House security barrier.

So Frank gave up his office at NSF, which had served as the living room and office in his parcellated house. As he moved out he felt a bit stunned, even dismayed. He had to admit that the set of habits that had been that modular house was now completely demolished. He followed Diane to their new building, wondering if he had made the right decision to go with her. Of course his real home now was the Khembali embassy’s garden shed. He was not really homeless. Maybe it was a bad thing not to have rented a place somewhere. If he had kept looking he could have found something.

Then Diane convened a week’s worth of meetings with all the agencies and departments she wanted to deal with frequently, and during that week he saw that being inside the White House compound was a good thing, and that he needed to be there for Diane. She needed the help; there were literally scores of agencies that had to be gathered into the effort they had in mind, and many of them had upper managements appointed during the years of executive opposition to climate mitigation. Even after the long winter, not all of them were convinced they needed to change. “They’re being actively passive-aggressive,” Diane said with a wry grin. “War of the agencies, big-time.”

“Such trivial crap they’re freaking about,” Frank complained. He was amazed it didn’t bother her more. “EPA trying to keep USGS from interpreting pesticide levels they’re finding, because interpretation is EPA’s job? Energy and Navy fighting over who gets to do new nuclear? It’s always turf battles.”

She waved them all away with a hand, seemingly unannoyed. “Turf battles matter in Washington, I’m sorry to say. We’re going to have to get things done using these people. Chase has to make a lot of appointments fast for us to have any chance of doing that. And we’ll have to be scrupulous in keeping to the boundaries. It’s no time to be changing the bureaucracy too much; we’ve got bigger fish to fry. I plan to try to keep all these folks happy about their power base holding fast, but just get them on board to help the cause.”

It made sense when she put it that way, and after that he understood better her manner with the old-guard technocracy they were so often dealing with. She was always conciliatory and unassuming, asking questions, then laying out her ideas as more questions rather than commands, and always confining herself to whatever that particular agency was specifically involved in.

“Not that that’s what I always do,” Diane said, when Frank once made this observation to her. She looked ashamed.

“What do you mean?” Frank asked quickly.

“Well, I had a bad meeting with the deputy secretary of Energy, Holderlin. He’s a holdover, and he was trying to disparage the alternatives program. So I got him fired.”

“You did?”

“I guess so. I sent a note over to the president describing the problem I was having, and the next thing I knew he was out.”

“Do people know that’s how it happened?”

“I think so.”

“Well—good!”

She laughed ruefully. “I’ve had that thought myself. But it’s a strange feeling.”

“Get used to it. We probably need a whole bunch of people fired. You’re the one who always calls it the war of the agencies.”

“Yes, but I never had the power to get people in other agencies fired before.”

To change the subject to something that would make her more comfortable, Frank said, “I’m having some luck getting the military interested. They’re the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in this zoo. If they were to come down definitively on the side of our efforts, as being a critical aspect of national defense, then these other agencies would either get on board or become irrelevant.”

“Yes, maybe,” Diane said. “But what they are you talking about? The Joint Chiefs?”

“Well, to an extent. Although I’ve been starting with people I know, like General Wracke. Also meeting some of the chief scientists. They’re not much in the decision-making loop, but they might be easier to convince about the science. I show them the Marshall Report they did internally, rating climate change as more of a defense threat than terrorism. It seems to help.”