Powersat

Washington, D.C.

The Senate dining room was quiet; only a few tables were occupied this late in the afternoon. The strong aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted in from the kitchen as Senator Quill toyed with a fruit salad, waiting for Jane Thornton to show up.

Robert Quill was a man with an embarrassment of riches. Like most of his fellow senators, he had been born to considerable wealth: His forbears had made the family’s original fortune in railroads and steel, and sent their sons to the Wharton School of Business to learn how to preserve the family’s money and add to it. They invested in aluminum and aircraft, later in titanium and electronics. Each generation sent one of their sons to the United States Senate; protecting the fortune was as important as increasing it.

Bob Quill was known as a liberal senator. He fought for civil liberties and equal rights, as long as they didn’t seriously endanger his family’s interests. To his credit, he bent corporate managers and directors (including his own siblings) toward better treatment of minorities, including Native Americans.

His biggest political problem was the thick seams of coal deposits that underlay Montana’s Great Plains region. For years Quill had earnestly tried to convince his fellow senators, and even a president or two, that this coal represented an untapped reserve of energy as large as all the oil in the Middle East. But nobody wanted Montana’s coal. The environmentalists pointed out that coal, especially the highsulfur-content coal in Montana, was an ecological nightmare. Mining it would devastate croplands and pastures; burning it would pollute the air unconscionably. The oil interests didn’t want Montana’s coal competing against them. And the automotive industry pointed out that although coal could be converted into liquid fuel for transportation purposes, the cost of doing so was so high that only a national emergency (and plenty of federal funds) could possibly justify it.

Quill was brooding on these matters when Jane Thornton finally arrived at his table.

“I’m sorry to be late, Bob,” she said softly. People tended to speak in whispers when the dining room was almost empty. “The subcommittee chairman wouldn’t let go of us until five minutes ago.”

Quill got to his feet and helped her into a chair. He was a small man, slight and light-boned, almost like a dancer. Despite his Western origins, he dressed like a Philadelphia banker in a dark gray three-piece suit. With his trim moustache and sleekly coifed silver hair, news reporters almost always described him as dapper.

A waiter immediately brought a menu but Jane waved him off. “I had lunch in my office,” she explained to Quill.

He smiled at her. Senator Thornton had been his protégé since she’d first arrived on Capitol Hill. They had fought battles against the radicals of both the right and the left, and won more times than anyone had a right to expect. The occasional rumors about their being lovers buoyed Quill’s ego, even though there was no truth to them.

“I’ve only got a few minutes, Jane,” he said apologetically. “I’ve got to talk on the floor. C-SPAN’s covering it.”

Jane understood. It was common practice to give a speech late in the day to a nearly empty Senate chamber. The voters back home would see their senator on C-SPAN, holding forth on some issue that was important to them.

“Energy?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Farm price supports.”

“Oh. Good luck.”

Quill pushed his half-finished fruit salad away. “So, what do you want to tell me?”

“I want to ask you something, Bob.”

He cocked his head slightly to one side. “Go ahead and ask.”

“I want your support for Morgan Scanwell.”

He smiled. “I thought so.”

“He can win it, Bob,” she said earnestly. “With the proper support he can win the nomination.”

Quill glanced at his wristwatch. Knowing he could trust Jane Thornton, he said, “Let’s cut to the chase. What can Scanwell do for me?”

“He’s thinking about making energy independence a major plank in his platform.”

“Western coal?”

“And the high-tech systems that will allow us to use Western coal without ruining the environment.”

Quill fell silent for all of five seconds. Then, “I’ll have to meet him. Talk to him. Size him up.”

“You can trust him, Bob.”

“I’ll still need to press the flesh.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll tell his people to contact your people.”

“Quietly,” Quill added. “I don’t want anything leaked before I’m ready to make a public statement.”

“Quiet as a mouse,” Jane said, smiling.

“Quieter,” said Senator Quill, completely serious.

Hours after sunset, Senator Thornton was still in her office, talking intently with one of Governor Scanwell’s aides in Austin. On her desktop screen, the aide looked no more than a teenager, young and earnest and full of energy. She had a big Texas cheerleader’s toothy smile and golden blonde hair. It might even be naturally blonde, Jane thought.

The door from the outer office opened and Denny O’Brien shambled in, looking as if he had rolled all the way from Bethesda, as usual. Jane suppressed a frown and reminded herself that Denny’s brain was sharp even if his outward appearance wasn’t, and it was his brain that she depended on.

“Very well, then,” she said to the smiling aide on the desktop screen. “I’ll leave it to you to contact Senator Quill’s office.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am, Senator Thornton. I’ll get on the horn right away!” gushed the aide.

“Good. Thank you.” Jane cut the connection and turned to O’Brien, who was rummaging through the refrigerator set into the wall below the bookshelves.

“Don’t you have a home to go to?” she asked goodnaturedly.

“Nope. I sleep in the streets. Keeps me closer to the real people.” O’Brien pulled a bottle of carbonated water from the refrigerator and came over toward the desk, struggling with the cap.

“You look as if you sleep in the streets,” Jane said as he slumped into one of the leather chairs facing her desk.

“Speaking of sleeping,” O’Brien said, finally getting the cap open, “are you sleeping with the governor of Texas?”

Jane had expected him to ask sooner or later. But the question still caught her unprepared. For several moments the only sound in the office was the fizz of O’Brien’s drink.

O’Brien broke the silence. “I mean, he flies alone to your ranch? Not even a state trooper or a bodyguard? And stays overnight?”

“You stayed overnight, too, Denny.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t tiptoe into your bedroom. I think maybe he did.”

“It’s none of your business, Denny.”

“The hell it isn’t! If the news media find out that you’re sleeping with Scanwell, you can kiss his candidacy good-bye.”

Jane bristled. “I don’t see why. Neither of us is attached to anyone else. We’re both adults.”

O’Brien wagged his head back and forth, making his fleshy cheeks waddle. “Senator, the public goes apeshit over politicians with hidden love affairs.”

“It didn’t hurt Clinton.”

“Except to get him impeached. Except to get all his programs and ideas torn to shreds. He didn’t accomplish diddly-squat after the Monica thing went public.”

She fell silent again, thinking, My god, he’s making me feel like a guilty little kid.

Hunching forward in the chair so far that Jane feared he would spill the bottle onto the carpeting, O’Brien said, “Look, Senator, it would damage your credibility and his if you two are screwing around.”

“We’re not screwing around!” Jane snapped.

“Excuse me. Having an affair.”

“Not that, either.”

“Well, for god’s sake, don’t give the appearance of having an affair,” O’Brien insisted. “Once the media latches onto the slightest hint, the tiniest little whiff, they’ll be all over the both of you. Any hopes you have for him and the White House will go right down the toilet.”

“We’re not having an affair,” Jane said, knowing that while it was true, it was not the whole truth.