Dale Brown - Act of War

“We’ll deploy investigators and protective forces to all of your facilities in the U.S. and as many overseas as they’ll allow, Harold,” the President said, “but we’ll concentrate on Richmond. If he’s there, we’ll get him.”

“Thanks, Sam. I appreciate that.”

“You and TransGlobal are important to America, Harold—it’s in the government’s best interest to protect you the best we can.”

Kingman nodded, letting the obvious buttering-up routine slide off his back unnoticed. “So, how’s Chamberlain working out for you?” he asked after a few more puffs.

“He’s a great asset to me, Harold.”

“He seems to have matured a bit working for you in the White House, Sam,” Kingman observed. “When he worked for me he was an insufferable scheming weasel who liked to prove to everyone how important he was, although he was competent enough. You mentioned to me several months ago about that task force you were going to place him in charge of—I take it it’s not working out?”

“It was a great concept, but Robert seems to have picked some…unusual characters to be part of it,” the President responded. “I left it up to him, thinking he had thought about it extensively and picked the absolute cream of the special-operations crop to spearhead it, but it turns out he just picked a bunch of untested paper shufflers and lab-bound mavericks that couldn’t work well together.”

“Chamberlain can be an egotistic putz sometimes,” Kingman said, “but I always found him to be a pretty good judge of character—picking the wrong guys for the job doesn’t sound like him. Maybe he just got sloppy when he went into government service. I imagine being in Washington and having to deal with the brainless bureaucrats around here will do that to a man.” The President closed his eyes and chuckled, letting that comment slide off his back. “That’s why I stay away from this place as much as possible.”

“A couple of the task force members broke ranks and went down to Brazil to track down that environmentalist group, GAMMA,” the President went on, ignoring Kingman’s remarks, “and they stumbled across Zakharov and Khalimov. Got themselves shot up pretty good.”

“But they did track down this GAMMA and caught up with Zakharov? Sounds like they might have something on the ball after all.”

“Half the Cabinet wants their heads on a platter.”

“As I said, Sam, my complete and utter lack of faith in most of the government and its leadership has been more than justified lately,” Kingman said, filling the air over his head with pungent smoke. “Myself, I’d put my money on those guys that went down to Brazil, and fire everyone else.” The President nodded but said nothing, prompting Kingman to move on so he could get the hell out of there. “Anyway, Sam, I wanted to talk to you about this energy summit that’s coming up in Washington. You know I’m a big supporter of your alternative energy proposals, especially your nuclear power initiatives, which you’re putting before Congress this fall, but I’m not so sure that it’ll be safe enough here in Washington for this confab.”

“It’ll be secure, Harold, I guarantee it,” the President said. “It’s important this be held in Washington—I want this to be a U.S. government–sponsored initiative, not a corporate one or something sponsored by another country or OPEC.”

“So why do I need to be involved?”

“There’s no more powerful alliance we can think of than TransGlobal Energy and the U.S. government,” the President said. “I want to show the world we two are standing together: the world’s most powerful nation and the world’s most powerful energy company, working together to give our nation and the world the energy it needs. You are TransGlobal Energy, Harold. You have to be there.”

“I don’t go for these political dog-and-pony shows, Sam.”

“The world needs to know who the players are, Harold. If you just send some junior vice president of corporate communications or something, they’ll lose interest.”

“What about the environmental and antimultinational corporate lobbies? Aren’t you afraid of pissing them off? They represent a pretty substantial bloc of voters.”

“Yes they do, which makes it even more imperative that we stand together on this,” the President emphasized. “The American people react emotionally to the environment and to abuses of big corporations—but what they want are cheap and plentiful gasoline, heating oil, and electricity. We’ll convince them that with our domestic energy initiative we’ll give them what they need and be conscious of the other stuff too. We’ll talk about preserving and safeguarding the environment, but what we’ll do is start building nuclear power plants and natural gas-fired power plants and storage terminals again.”

“You’re the talker here, Sam—you always have been. Let me be the doer.”

“Do this summit for me, Harold, and you’ll have your pick of the best contracts before they go out for bid,” the President said. “I can also get you a heads-up on any congressional or regulatory agency probes coming out of the chutes.”

“I’ve already got all the spies I need on Capitol Hill, Sam.”

“Harold, do this for me, please,” the President said. “You and me together on stage—it’ll confuse the hell out of all your detractors. They’ll think you’re going to run for public office.”

“Hell, Sam, I’d shoot myself in the head first, and they know it,” Kingman said. He took another deep drag on his cigar, then shot a last cloud of smoke at the President of the United States. “Tell me more about this task force that Chamberlain was heading. Who’s in charge?”

“An Army Special Forces sergeant major by the name of Jefferson.”

“Chamberlain put a noncom in charge of a task force? That’s odd. Who else?”

“That army major who rescued those people in Kingman City.”

“The guy inside the robot? That was pretty darn cool, Sam,” Kingman gushed. “The robot too?”

“Of course. That’s what got Robert interested.”

“He always did like the high-tech toys.”

“There’s an FBI special agent too by the name of DeLaine co-commanding the unit. Runs an intelligence office out of FBI headquarters.”

“Military and FBI in the same unit? Chamberlain’s showing extraordinary imagination,” Kingman admitted. “It’s a weird combination—I’m not surprised it didn’t work out—but Chamberlain at least showed he still has an original thought in his head.” Kingman fell silent for a moment. Then: “And you’re shutting down this task force, even though they almost got Zakharov?”

“It was pretty obvious that Robert lost tactical control of them,” the President said. “They got a little too…rambunctious, I’d say. Loose cannons. We thought for a second they stole a bunch of equipment and hightailed it to Brazil.”

Kingman nodded thoughtfully again. “I’ll do your circus in Washington, Sam, on one condition—you lend me this task force.”

“ ‘Lend’ it to you?”

“Call it a plant and port security assessment visit,” Kingman said. “Let me have them for…oh, a year. They’ll be ordinary citizens, no federal powers; I’ll pay their salaries and provide a secure location for them to train. Who knows—I might even snare Zakharov for you.”

It was the President’s turn to lean forward in his seat this time, and he did so, just as Kingman expected him to do. “It’ll cost you more than a couple days in Washington, Harold,” the President said.

Kingman nodded—he enjoyed playing these quid pro quo games. “Collins happened to mention to me that she’s forming your reelection committee soon. I think TransGlobal would like to see to it that your committee is properly set up and running…shall we say, three million?”