“Get busy, folks.” Chaapter 2 Friday, December 17th, 1:45 p.m.
Washington, D.c.
Thomas Hughes strode into the senatorial offices as if he owned them, the building they were in, and the city around them. He waved at the receptionist.
“Bertha. Is he alone?” “Yes, sir, Mr. Hughes.” Hughes nodded. He’d known Bertha for more than a dozen years. She’d been with Bob since his first term, but she still called him “Mr. Hughes,” and he had not encouraged otherwise.
He walked to the inner office door, rapped once, and pushed it open in the same motion.
Jason Robert White, fifty-six, the senior United States senator from the great state of Ohio, sat at his desk. He was playing a computer game.
He looked up and started to frown at the interruption before he realized who had dared barge in.
“Hey, Tom.” White did a finger wave over the sensor on his hand pad and the small-scale holoproj images froze. It looked like two guys in hand-to-hand combat, one of whom was green and scaly. Jesus.
“Bob. How’d the lunch with Hicks go?” Hughes moved to the pale gray leather couch, sat, and looked at the man for whom he worked.
White appeared ten years younger than his actual age, with a deep chemical tan under his perfectly styled, artfully graying hair. He wore a dark-blue tailored Saigon suit, a pastel-pink silk shirt, and a striped regimental tie for a regiment that had never existed. Hughes couldn’t see his feet, but the shoes were doubtless Italian or Australian, and handmade. Altogether, the outfit the senator wore offhandedly was worth what Hughes made in salary each month, easy. He was the image of a successful senator, handsome, fit, and comfortable in his custom clothes, no doubt about it. He could play a Viennese waltz on the piano, speak passable French and German, keep up with a so-so tennis pro, and break a hundred on a bad day at the country club golf course. A man who could walk the corridors of international power with ease.
Hughes, on the other hand, knew he looked every day of his fifty-two years. He was twenty pounds too heavy, wore a decent, but not expensive, Harris Tweed sport coat and gray wool slacks from Nordstrom, both off the rack, and his shoes were Nike dress casuals. Total cost of his outfit was maybe a twentieth that of White’s. be White leaned back in his chair and waggled his left hand in backslash a so-so gesture.
“Well, Tom, you know Hicks. He never gives ” a nickel but what he wants a dime.
If we want to get his support, the honorable senator from Florida wants to see the be Naval Air Station remain a fixture in Pensacola from now until the end of time.” Hughes nodded. He had expected no less.
“Fine. Give him be what he wants. What do we care? He’s a critical vote. We get him, we’ll get Boudreaux and Mullins. We get them, we’re out of committee and it’s a lock on the floor.” White smiled at his chief of staff.
“Probably won’t hurt us bar with Admiral Pierce either.” “Exactly.” Hughes glanced at his watch, a gold Rolex that White had given him on the eve of their election to the Senate.
Hughes had been the campaign manager, and such a watch was way beyond anything he’d ever been able to afford. For White, whose family owned half of Ohio and part of Indiana, a Rolex was a trinket, a drop from a bucket brimming with money.
It was the most expensive piece of jewelry that Hughes ever wore, and though he could afford better now, he couldn’t afford it legally.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on the links with Raleigh at two-fifteen?” he reminded White.
“The old man canceled. Too cold for him.
Personally, I think he just doesn’t want me to kick his ass again. Last time out, I beat him by nine strokes. We’re doing drinks at the Benson instead, two-thirty.” “Good. Remember, let him bring up the Stoddard thing. Play it cool, let him court you. He doesn’t need to know you want it more than he does.” “I will be an iceberg,” White said. He waved at the computer projection frozen over his workstation.
“You ever play DinoWarz?” “I can’t say as I have, no.” “Very stimulating mano-a-mano combat scenario.
There’s a full VR version that puts you right in the middle of the action. Some junior high school kid built it and put it on the net. Fun. You should try it sometime.” Hughes smiled and tried not to show the contempt he felt White was rich, the son, grandson, and great-grandson of wealthy men. It wasn’t just a silver spoon he’d been born with, but a platinum one encrusted with diamonds. If he’d wanted to.
White could have blown a million dollars a year for his entire life and never depleted his share of the family fortune; He wasn’t a total fool, but he was a dilettante, a dabbler; the office was for him an adult version of DinoWarz, and Hughes believed it meant about as much. White thought being a United States senator was… fun.
“One other thing,” Hughes said.
“That bombing in Louisiana.” “Oh, yeah. Terrible thing.” “Worse than terrible. The kid who did it got the formula for the explosive off the net. A supposedly top-secret military formula.” “No shit?” White leaned forward, and his face came close to the translucent holoproj of the two combatants. He waggled his fingers and the image vanished.
“I think this plays right into your hearings on Net Force.
They are supposed to stop such things.” “That’s true.” “You might want to mention it when the budget hits the table. I’ll have Sally work up the report on the bombing. That young woman guard who was killed was in college, a newlywed, about to graduate.” “A shame,” White said.
“Tell Sally to highlight that part.” “Of course.” The intercom chimed. Bertha.
“Sir, your limo is here for your two-thirty.” Hughes stood.
“I’ll be in my office,” he said.
“And I’ll meet you for the staff meeting at four.” “Thanks, Tom.” After the senator was gone, Hughes went down the hall to his own office.
He nodded at Cheryl, his secretary.
“Anything pressing?” “Louis Ellis called from Dayton. He’s going to be in D.c. next Thursday and he wants the senator’s ear for a few minutes.” “Have Bertha pencil him in for half an hour in the morning” Ellis, one of White’s father’s drinking buddies, had contributed half a million to White’s last reelection campaign, more or less legally via various PAC’S.
He’d also given them that much cash under the table, a nice chunk of which had found its way into Hughes’s own safety deposit box, where it joined a thick sheaf of crisp hundreds already there.
Hughes had been very careful about living beyond his means. His public face was exactly what was expected for a senator’s chief of staff making a paltry ninety grand a year. But under various guises, Hughes had a fat line of electron credit. Still, it never hurt to have some hard currency in case of emergencies.
If his plans went as expected, he’d be able to use the bills in his box to light his Cuban cigars, if he felt like it.
“Anything else?” ” “Your massage therapist called. She will be at your house at seven.” Hughes nodded. Brit would give him a good massage, that was true enough. But that was only half of the service she provided.
He went into his office and closed the door behind him.
Hughes’s office was a spartan affair whose only artwork was a Picasso on the wall behind his desk.
He didn’t particularly care for Picasso, but a picture worth that much on an office wall certainly impressed people who did care about the old Spanish dauber. Depending on his mood, he would give different stories when asked about the painting.
Sometimes he told them he’d bought it at a garage sale for fifty bucks just to watch their jaws drop.
Other times, he said a woman had given it to him in gratitude for his lovemaking abilitie Once in a great while, he told the truth–that the painting was a gift from his boss–but that was never as much fun.
He sat behind the desk in a wooden teacher’s chair. In fac the chair had once belonged to his high school civics teacher Charles Joseph, who had told Hughes he would never amount to anything.
He kept the chair to remind him that where he was going in the not-too-distant future was going to be beyond old Joseph’s–or anybody else’s–wildest dreams.
Senator White and his family would look like paupers compared to Hughes.
Everything was going as planned.
He grinned. That was the trick, wasn’t it? But he was well on the way.
He was, Hughes reminded himself, the smarte, man he knew. He could pull it off.