My First Life Chapter 1

1

Today’s the day I go to the new shrink.

I didn’t sleep well last night thinking about it. Of course, the traffic doesn’t help, either. Morning and evening and into the night, cars race down the street. The hump in the road a block south of my building fails to slow them. Even the regulars hit their heads and curse from the bounce and the jolt when they’ve had too much to drink and forget. Hubcaps litter the side of the road.

Less common, but still regular enough, are the sudden crashes and inevitable sirens and drunken drivers wrapping themselves around utility poles or slamming into parked cars.

We who live in the houses along the street assume the high speed driving is due to the long straight stretch and the fact that running along the river as it does the street is the best north-south route in this section of town. Also, there really isn’t any reason to slow down or stop, unless you live here.

This river, as with too many rivers where people are or have been, shows both the remnants of its lost beauty and the record of its abuse. A quarter mile down river, the abandoned fuel company landing spoils the view with rotting timbers and pilings protruding along the shore. Vacant and decrepit buildings border the fuel company property on either side. Beer cans, broken brooms with broken handles, bits of diapers, amorphous mixes of rotting paper and cloth, used and discarded condoms, plastic garbage bags tossed there weeks or months ago and torn open by ravening dogs or cats—these and more—litter the sidewalk and the lots. Among the waste and decay, the scarlet lances of purple loosestrife are in bloom, growing up between the boards and tires and trash.

The river does at least provide a cooling breeze in the summer. And when the summer is in full bloom, the junk trees, which will grow anywhere, and the wild grasses and the brush, and the scrubby, unnamed flowers—these things help you forget, if only for a moment, the abandoned cars and the shattered windows and the broken down buildings with “fuck you”scrawled on the walls.

A quarter mile or so up the street from the fuel landing, the buildings that line the street on the water side are either renovated from the last real estate boom when everyone thought this part of town was ripe for rampant price appreciation or else they are the corpses of buildings whose turn came too late to be recalled to life. When the boom fizzled, the frenzy of speculation and development died as quickly as it took the local banks to begin saying “no.”Projects were stillborn or only partly finished. A few latecomers made it to completion, only to sit ingloriously ignored and foreclosed upon when they couldn’t be sold and rents were unable to carry the debt.

Across the street, where I live one row of houses away from the river, the buildings are less traumatized. Because they were less promising to the real estate developers, lacking river frontage, they suffer less from the wild swings in economic fortune. They’re mostly old, wood frame, multifamily houses built into the rising slope of the ground. The first levels are more or less finished basements with walkout fronts. Almost all are built over dirt, no real basements. Most are now tied in to the city sewer system, but three houses down, I know for sure, they’re still on septic. In a good rain, the septic systems, old and inadequate, back up and you can smell them a half a block away. Some of the buildings, aspiring to greatness in earlier, more promising times, were built with turrets and cupolas and other such pretensions, but for the most part, the houses are plain. They all have lopsided wooden staircases leading up to the first level. All need painting.

The couple that owns 237 River Road, just south of where I live, are out cleaning up the litter that spontaneously appears overnight in the lot across the street from their building. The women upstairs in my building persist in dumping their garbage there. They can’t seem to remember when the pickup is or perhaps the problem is agreeing on whose turn it is to take it out and so take this obvious expedient requiring no commitment to a schedule. The anxious couple in 237 repeatedly reports them to the city, but the authorities always come too late to catch them at it, if they come at all.

As the couple—I never did get their names—clean the mess neatly into big plastic bags they talk to each other about “the kind of people that would just dump their garbage like that”and they shake their heads in disgust. They never belonged here, as if anyone does.

They believed the real estate agent who sold them their building. It seemed like a good investment at the time—“getting in on the ground floor.”Their plan was to hold it for two or three years and sell the building for a nice profit. Except it didn’t work that way. No one is buying and their two tenants have stopped paying the rent. Slowly the couple is sinking into financial ruin. Slowly their desperation grows as they grimly work to purge the nearby vacant lots along the street of trash, trying to maintain their illusion of a preserved prosperity for any potential buyer.

Up by 244 River Road, across the street, the Italian stallion is working on the wreck he bought for two hundred dollars. It’s a totaled, two year old Buick. He thinks he’s‘Super Mechanic’and will fix it up and make a killing. But it’s still a wreck and an eyesore and I think he’s all talk. He leaves lots of tools around with the hood up and the trunk up. He has managed to get the doors open, but he’s been at it a long time now and I don’t think he’ll ever get it fixed. Besides, he loves his motorcycle too much. He can’t seem to work at anything for more than maybe twenty minutes before it’s...varrooom, varrooom. Off he goes on his motorcycle. Actually, I don’t know how he earns his money. He’s living with his parents and doesn’t seem to work, that is, have a regular job, you know, with set hours.

It is a neighborhood, at least, a community of sorts along the river. Rivercrest section of Benton. I’ve been living here now for about a year. One street back, up the hill, it’s another world. Up there, it’s a suburban world of well-kept, blue collar, Italian homes. Anyone else would have left, what with the decay and the drugs and the whores along the river. But Italians are interesting people. “Eh, it’s my neighborhood—I aint leavin’.”I can hear them now.

I live in 239 River Road, ground floor. My place isn’t much, but I call it home. Three rooms—kitchen, living room, and bedroom. It sounds bigger than it is. Three small rooms, but they’re mine and it serves for now. Plus I get the use of the backyard. Well, we all do, but we kind of know how to share it so we don’t get in each other’s way. Not that it’s an unfriendly building. Because it isn’t. I know the other tenants. We speak to each other.

On the middle level there’s John. Quiet. Secretive, really. Evidently into drugs. I see the crack vials in his garbage from time to time. I always think he should be more discreet, but I guess the garbage men don’t really care what people do with their lives. John seems anachronistically polite for a young man. That’s not common these days. A good looking boy, too. He has dark, brooding eyes and thick black hair parted in the center. His face is smooth and he keeps it close shaven giving him a vulnerable boyish look in a strong and dangerous man’s body. I imagine he has no trouble with the ladies, though I don’t remember him ever in the company of a woman, at least not in the neighborhood. He’s friendly enough, but his toys are worrisome for a person his age, his youth, you know. He drives a new Mazda with gold metallic trim and wire wheels, sunroof, tinted windows, big engine. It’s got to be drug money. Despite his manners, he seems to wear an invisible sign that we all can see. “Don’t fuck with me or my things.”People give his car a wide berth when it’s parked in the street. I don’t ask too many questions when we meet. “Hiya, John. How’s it goin’.”You know, safe stuff. There are rumors of serious violence by his hands. The best part about John is that he keeps very late hours. So I never hear him.

I know the floors are thin. The previous tenant in John's apartment was a young women in the throes of getting divorced. It was her bachelor apartment and she was making up for lost time. The music was loud and the parties were loud and the running back and forth and the humping was loud. It was not a relaxing time for me. I hate having to deal with noise problems—of having to ask people to keep it down. I discovered earplugs because of her. Surprisingly they cut out the noise almost completely. But they didn’t cut out the anger that gnawed at me that she could be so inconsiderate, no matter that I found a way to counter her irritating lifestyle. She was only here a short time after I moved in, though. John was a big improvement even if in a scary sort of way.

On the top floor it’s Sheila and Karen. They are a big improvement, as well. Before them, there was that blackish Puerto Rican woman and her daughter. And the cats. Noisy, smelly creatures. The cats, that is. Well, actually, all of them. She didn’t take any better care of the cats than she did of her child. Cat piss is the worst. There’s no way to get rid of the smell. Water seems only to aggravate it. I don’t think she had a litter box in the apartment. Couldn’t afford it, I suppose. So of course, she had to have two cats. And on welfare, food stamps, and child support when she could get it. The whole disaster scenario.

She sounded so sweet when you talked to her. Very earnest, childlike voice. Very dedicated to her child. Grief stricken with the collapse of her marriage. It was all very sad and moving. Except that she lied. All the time, about anything and everything, for no apparent benefit to herself. And she didn’t do anything, I mean around the house or work for that matter. Her mother would come over and together they would sit in the apartment and watch television and talk all day long. It was cable TV. There probably should be a government allowance, like food stamps, for cable TV, the opiate of the masses.

Her husband would come by once in a while, to see the baby, I guess. Then they would fight. And he would yell at her to do something. Clean up the place, clean the baby, do something. And she would cry and tell him, really scream at him, that she loved him and if only he would love her back she would feel good enough about herself to do these things he was asking her to do. Evidently she had been to a shrink and had learned just enough to construct a blame-script that didn’t involve herself. He had heard this all before and was not interested anymore in the debate. Eventually, he would slap her, sometimes often. Then there would be a period of silence or at least low level sound that I could not make out when I assumed they were engaged in “make up” sex. Then he would leave. She always had a few extra dollars after these encounters. I decided it was all part of the child support payment ritual they had worked out. Just before she left for god knows where and Sheila and Karen took her apartment, she was pregnant again.

Actually, Karen took the apartment first with her husband about three months ago. I forget his name. He was very rarely around. But when they separated I was surprised. They had just arrived from Colorado or some such western straight-arrow place. Being from out of town with no local rental history it would normally be hard to get an apartment, but her husband’s father was some kind of a big shot in Ravenport and he guaranteed their rent. She seemed very western. “Sir’s”and “thank you’s”and “your welcome’s”scattered in her conversation like raisins in a biscuit. Her hair was long and light brown with an appealing slight curliness. She used very little makeup and even when she dressed comfortably on warm days her clothes were carefully modest, though I noticed that she had long and shapely legs that showed to advantage when she wore shorts. She seemed like the kind of wife a man could be happy with. But I guess you never know unless you walk in their moccasins for a while, as they say.

I never got a feel for her husband. He just wasn’t around much. Working hard, I guess. So, when they separated after only about two months I was surprised. I didn’t see it coming the way you know when a couple is in trouble. Sheila came after he left. Karen wasn’t able to make the rent payments with her salary alone and needed a roommate. She advertised for a roommate and Sheila answered the ad.

Sheila was an unlikely choice, if you’d have asked me then. She’s very different from Karen. Very confident in herself as a woman and confident that she can handle any man. She’s just a little bit of a thing—maybe five feet two. But she’s all there and doesn’t mind letting you know it, either. Tight clothes are Sheila’s specialty. The tighter the better. She turns every head when she appears. Yet she wears her clothes as if she’s unconscious of the effect she is having on people, which of course she isn’t. But she acts as though she is—as if there’s nothing unusual about her clothes, clothes that were little more than painted to her body—that she didn’t give it a second thought and never imagined that anyone else did either. Yeah, right.

Maybe it wasn’t such an unlikely choice after all. It’s exactly the way Karen would like to feel about herself. I don’t think she’s up to it. I think Sheila and her friends scare Karen sometimes.

Next door, 241 River Road, it’s a two family house. A two bedroom and a one bedroom. The two bedroom, that’s the Black Muslim family. He treats his wife like shit. I don’t know if that’s a Muslim thing, a black thing or just him. He’s very big and would ordinarily, I guess, be quite intimidating, except for his mild and reasonable way of speaking—not apologetic or deferential, just, I don’t know, quiet and sincere. He seems sincere when he talks to you and it defuses your concern.

He seems intelligent enough, but when she irritates him, which due to her youth she seems unable to avoid, he just beats the living crap out of her. Actually, I find it disgusting—her lack of self-respect by tolerating such treatment and his undisciplined violence. But maybe institutionalized abuse of women, if that’s what it is, is better than the guy who’s just mean and enjoys beating up his wife. Then again, what’s the difference for the woman? Her teeth in the front have been knocked out. She told me in the street that she had an epileptic seizure and accidentally broke them against the wall. She’s had the seizures since she was a child, she said. Stranger things have happened, but I don’t believe it. Too many times she’s come running out into the night, clutching her robe, screaming in terror to call the police. And each time when they come, after waking the whole neighborhood with her cries for help, she refuses to press charges, disgusting the police, her neighbors, and I think even her husband who usually sits grimly in the back seat of the police car waiting for the charade to be over.

Above them are the lesbians. Rhoda’s the dyke and Jane is the other one, whatever that’s called. I don’t know what to make of them. Rhoda has a daughter—not living with her. She comes to visit from time to time. Nice looking kid. Quite a sexy little thing. About seventeen years old. Seems completely normal. The women on the other hand fight like cats. Screaming and yelling at each other all the time. Thank god they’re not in my building. One night, I swear, in a wild shouting match, Rhoda fell out of the window and broke her arm. She landed on the trash barrels stored below her window. Lucky she wasn’t killed. Actually, Jane is Rhoda's second live-in lover. I wonder how long Jane will last. I think she's bisexual and I think the fights are about her boyfriends. It’s very weird. Rhoda is not my type physically at all. She’s short and a tad on the plump side and really very masculine looking. Jane, on the other hand, is quite a stunner. Thin, good figure, straight jet-black hair, dark, penetrating eyes, full lips, the kind you want to suck on. I wonder what she sees in Rhoda. Well, different strokes, I guess.

I take a river glimpse between buildings before going into my apartment and I wonder why it offers me so little tranquility. That’s the appeal after all—isn’t it?—for waterfront property, or water glimpse, anyway. The tranquility of the water scene, the shimmering light, the reflected sky, the primordial connection with our ascent from the ocean. It should be tranquil for me here. That’s all I’ve sought since leaving Sharon and all the complications about the children. Tranquility. And yet I can’t remember any serious period of tranquility, ever. If I had to describe what it would feel like or look like, I couldn’t. I expect that I would know it when I achieved it. So far it has eluded me. And yet, compared to so many others, I guess things could be a lot worse.

I spend a lot of time in my apartment. I feel safe here. In control. I take the phone off the hook as soon as I enter. No one can get to me if I don’t want them to. The ‘draw bridge’is up and I can count on some undisturbed solitude. I won’t leave it off the hook all night. Just long enough to wind down, to feel safe. This lousy little apartment may not be much, but it’s mine. I control who and what can get to me here. No explanations, no apologies, no arguments.

I remember when I left the house I first moved into a kind of transition studio apartment. What did I have? A mattress, a beach chair with plastic netting, a card table with two folding chairs, and my hifi set. My friend, Andy, who helped me move said, “Are you nuts? You’re not taking the stereo? She never listens to music. It’ll take her two years before she realizes it’s gone. Take it.”He was right.

When people called me then, they’d ask where I was, there was such an echo. Helloooo, hellooo, helloo, hello. I mean there was nothing to absorb the sound. It was like I was calling from inside a cave. Not now. I’ve gotten a few things along the way, along with my freedom—a sofa, a couple of arm chairs, heavy room darkening curtains, and a Persian carpet. Pictures and photographs I hung on the walls really helped personalize the apartment, made it mine.

I do regret how much television I watch. I seem to need the sound in the background, except when I’m reading. I’m studying about wildflowers. It's been a long-term interest of mine. I tell myself I’m doing it so I can share the knowledge with the children when I take them on nature walks, botanizing and all that. But I think I’m really doing it for me. It seems sort of fundamental to be in touch with nature, to see oneself as an element of a larger picture that is not completely manmade. Maybe it’s just that anything associated with people has such a strong potential to become spiteful. Nature is just nature. There’s nothing personal in it. And if you get to know the names and the characteristics of wildflowers, where to look for them and how to spot them, they become like friends you can meet almost anywhere. Dirty, empty lots, even like the lot across the street with the loosestrife and the five-lobed cinquefoils and the giant dandelion-like goat’s beard. I like knowing the names and the flowers.

I watch a lot of television, especially when I’m eating and it makes the eating take too long, which I regret, because it’s time I could have spent better reading, exercising, writing, whatever. I find I’m writing a lot of letters these days. I don’t know why I like to write letters. Or maybe I do. Nobody writes letters anymore. It makes me feel special. I know they are going to get the letter and think that it’s special to get a letter and special of me to write one. Everyone just calls now. But a call is no good. There’s nothing to savor afterwards except the imperfect memory that fades quickly into just a generalized phone call. “Oh yeah, I got a call from Whomever the other day.”One call is like any other. They just merge into a vat of mental waste material. To me phone calls are the vanilla of communication. They have no individual character for the most part and no lasting value. But a letter! It’s a gift basket of flavor. You can reread it and discover new meaning or simply relive the feelings it gave when you first read it. It is a continuing joy. I’ve been told I write lovely letters.

I guess people are set in their ways. No one takes the trouble to write. I hardly get any letters myself. And the holiday cards are such a disgusting substitute. I hate them. They’re worse than phone calls. They’re a lying excuse for communication. They’re a fraud. I usually just tear them up when I get them without even opening them. I take notice of the return address and send a long letter to whomever sent it to show them what a real communication should look like.

My apartment gets a little warm this time of year and dinner preparations only make it hotter. There’s not a lot of cross ventilation at the moment. Right now it’s the time of day when the wind direction changes and so there’s naturally a period of stillness. I sweat easily and it’s been a humid day today. Nothing like what it will be in August, but bad enough.

I like Chinese food. I like especially the cutting and chopping and organizing into little piles and the sauces in little Dixie cups. But you need to get the oil and the wok good and hot and it only adds to the heat in the room. But at least you don’t have to cook long. Only a few minutes and you’re done, so the heat aspect isn’t really so terrible. Actually, that’s one of the advantages of Chinese cooking, how quickly everything cooks.

I sit on the couch with my food on a tray table and turn on the TV to watch the news while I eat. I think about the appointment I have for later. It’s a new shrink. Highly recommended. Well, we’ll see. My mind is distracted and I can’t really focus on the broadcast. Nevertheless, my eating is timed perfectly this night. One hour for CNN—one hour for dinner.

Dinner is done and it’s still light out, but the sun is decidedly lower in the sky and the air is beginning to cool somewhat. The nights still do that in June. By August there will be no difference. Hot as hell during the day. Hot as hell in the evening. I go out in the back yard with Roger Tory Peterson’s A Field Guide to Wildflowersand my notebook and some wilted remains of a flower I collected on my walk from the bus stop. I couldn’t remember what it was called and as long as I saw there were other flowers around just like it I wasn’t concerned about picking it. I quickly thumb through the guide to locate the section with that type of flower head. I locate the flower and write it down in my notebook. I’ve been keeping a record now for about six months of the flowers I’ve recognized or identified. Over a hundred different kinds so far.

I close the notebook and put it down beside the couch and close my eyes. The landlord had the lawn mowed yesterday and I can still smell the intoxicating odor of freshly cut grass. If memory had an odor, it would smell like cut grass. I practice my sensory awareness exercises—listening to the sounds of the still warm zephyr through the beech and maple trees along the rear border of the back yard. And, of course, the smell of the grass, and the feel of the breeze and sound of the birds and the far off dog barking at some passerby and the airplane just becoming audible though still very far off. I take a deep breath and relax leaving all the images free to drift and merge and disappear one by one until I slip into a short nap.

When I awake, I go inside to get my copy of Cyrano de Bergerac and my English/French dictionary. I’m trying to read it in French. Lots of English penciled into the text for the words I don’t know. But I’m pleased that the annotations are getting less and less as I’m slowly working my way through the play. I make myself comfortable once again on the couch and pick up where I left off with Cyrano, dictionary on my lap. However, I’m still tired from the poor sleep I had last night and nod off again after only a few moments. When I awake, it’s time to get going to the shrink.

Dusk is beginning to blur the day as the darkness of evening waits in the wings. I decide to take the bus to the shrink instead of driving. Just a whim. No reason. I walk to the bus stop about a quarter mile up the street, by the Market Avenue bridge. The bridge seems to me to be a wannabe version of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence with its shops and walkway. I saw it once when I was on vacation in Europe. It was the only bridge the Germans left standing after their retreat from Italy in World War II. They also failed to burn Paris as Hitler ordered. Interesting people, the Germans—capable of such atrocities and yet culturally sensitive. Well, the Market Avenue Bridge is not quite the Ponte Vecchio. In fact the stores and such are not really on the bridge itself. They’re on the approach to it from the east. But still I see a similarity for some reason. At least, it makes me think of the Ponte Vecchio, so that must mean something.

The bikers come and go from the restaurant at the foot of the bridge. Developers have been trying to shut that place down for months as a blight on the neighborhood. By itself, it seems harmless enough, but it does attract the drug trade. And those guys are a definite danger. It’s not unusual to hear the sound of gunfire at night. You can get a little jumpy waiting alone for a bus. But I figure I’m clearly not a customer or a cop so unless I just get unlucky and happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I’m okay. So far so good. It is worrisome, though.

The bus comes and a woman who was waiting inside a nearby store now rushes out to meet the bus. I often think I’m waiting alone only to find in the last seconds before the bus arrives that there are one or two, sometimes more, women waiting in hiding. They don’t trust me or the street. It’s probably a good policy for them. They can never be too careful these days.

Riding in a bus is like riding in an elevator. No one looks at anybody, people talk in whispers, life seems suspended. Except for kids. For them it’s a trip all by itself. It doesn’t matter whether there’s a destination or not. But with adults, it’s just an elevator ride with sort of understood rules. Everyone fills up the seats one by one first, so that every double seat first is a single. And then when there’s no other choice, the singles start to get filled in and you can imagine people thinking “What do you want, sitting here next to me? Why didn’t you take that other seat? Why me? And you better not talk to me because I don’t know you and I don’t want to have to be socializing with you when I don’t know you, so if you have to sit here just do it and don’t make a fuss or start talking to me.”

Everyone secretly wishes, I know, that the bus driver would lower the interior lights at night. The buses are too bright. You have to cup your hand to your eyes to look out the window after dark. Mostly all you see is your own image looking out at nothing. 

One thing about buses though. I do enjoy watching people and people are always coming and going on a bus if you have any distance at all to cover. You learn to watch people furtively. And in the summer women’s clothes are often suggestive and revealing, which is fun. For the most part, until we get closer to town the women tend to be poor Puerto Rican and overweight and beaten down, their spirit buried in flesh. The teenagers are still slim and are practicing at being provocative with their boyfriends or would-be boyfriends. They’re more interesting to watch. Their lithe young bodies and smiling faces and easy good nature is endearing, really. They’re treated well at this stage in their lives. It doesn’t seem to last. By the time they’re twenty they dress like tramps and when they’re thirty their lives have shriveled, reduced to cooking, cleaning and having babies.

I watch a young couple in the back of the bus talking enthusiastically with each other. They’re about seventeen, I guess. When he steals a quick kiss, he also cops a quick feel through her light blouse. She looks around and giggles and pushes him away, uncrossing her bare legs for better leverage. But soon they press closely together again and begin to whisper excitedly. I turn to the front of the bus.

I think again about this shrink. I haven’t been to one recently. Of course, when I was married to Sharon there was a steady stream of them. Shrinks and marriage counselors. We tried everything except a witch doctor. I don’t know how these people get away with it. You go to them on a regular basis, pay them good money for long periods of time and they never tell you what’s wrong with you or what you can do about it. They just talk with you and ask you questions and listen. It is so unstructured and so unfair. There should almost be a law against it. They should be made to give a diagnosis and a treatment plan after the third visit like you would expect from a regular doctor. And that’s another thing. You don’t have to even be a doctor. Most counselors only have master’s degrees. I mean, anyone, practically, can start messing with your mind. And they have creative ways of calling themselves things other than psychotherapists so they can avoid licensing requirements. They become holistic communications consultants or some meaningless equivalent. Because we don’t know what to do or where to turn, we go to them. We try them all. How many times have I thought that a good sympathetic bartender would do just as well as these expensive charlatans and at least you’re left with a nice buzz afterwards.

But we’re a culture impressed with legitimacy. And all these shrinks and counselors and therapists and what-have-you lay claim to some title and we’re all impressed and we continue to seek them out and try them like some new highly recommended skin cream, hair conditioner, or vitamin supplement.

I pull the string and a little, dull, metallic “ping”goes off by the driver’s seat. I get up and walk to the rear exit door. The bus slows gradually. Even so, there is a slight lurch as it comes to a complete halt and I grab the pole by the door for support. I give one last glance to the couple in the rear. She looks up and smiles at me as I descend into the street. Sweet!

On Deception Watch Cha[ter 3

                                                                 3
President Emerson Drummond stood by one of the windows behind his desk in the Oval Office, looking out absentmindedly, troubled by the approaching meeting with General Slaider. Morgan Slaider was a good man. He knew that. He felt comfortable with Slaider. They had even been boyhood acquaintances. He knew quite well, however, that high office changes people and relationships. There is a greater sense of constituency. He felt that keenly, shortly after he took his first oath as an elected official, as he managed his first meetings in a position of power. You know who depends on you and you work to support them. You try to keep a global view, but it isn’t easy, he thought.

Now, as president, of course, he had different con­stituencies to address and navigate. And with a chairman of the joint chiefs, it always seemed so much more difficult. Slaider’s own constituency was so well-defined by military priorities that General Slaider had the benefit, if he chose, to make military issues alone his global view. But more than the parochialism of the military view, the president was troubled by military passion. They believed fervently in their duty to defend America, even from itself, if need be. He was not the first president to confront the military view of patriotism, nor was he the first to be frustrated by its relentless sway in high government counsels.

As a former Navy man himself, Drummond knew the intensity with which he had been trained to destroy the enemy and to obey. How had General Slaider put it when he advised against using military forces to police the party convention? “Mr. President,” he said, “we’re trained to kill the enemy as they come over the hill. We’re not trained to read them their rights. We are not a subtle instrument.” And of course, Slaider was right.

The military mind will always err on the side of excess. He’d heard their arguments a hundred times by now. “Better safe than sorry. If we’re wrong, we spent some money maybe that didn’t need to be spent. But if we’re right, and we didn’t spend the money, we may be dead, or defeated.” A lot of congressmen and senators subscribe to that argument and vote accordingly. And so do a lot of citizens. And it was not an unconvincing argument. There is a beguiling logic to it that is difficult to resist and that does limit your options, even if you are the president of the United States.

But damn it, he thought, Slaider was pushing too hard on his death ray project. Yes, the laser work was valuable. Yes, there would be civilian industrial benefits. It was just the wrong way to go politically. It was one thing to use satellite laser weapons to kill other satellites. It was quite another thing, politically, to have the capability of destroying ground targets from space. He thought this project had been killed years ago, but the military, it seems, just can’t and won’t let it go.

The Europeans, and even India and Brazil were complaining that the technology was not for legitimate self-defense but for political intimidation. With all the unrest right now he didn’t need this complication and the military didn’t really need a new killing machine. There seemed still to be more than enough available to them. Besides, the main problem militarily was how to deal with continuing regional conflicts spilling over into global terrorism. Slaider still hadn’t given him an answer to this problem. The country just couldn’t maintain a policy of knocking off governments. Especially when the cost of that policy can’t entirely be hidden from the public. The taxpayers just won’t tolerate it anymore. “To hell with the remaining dictators of the world” seems to be the voter mood these days, with the cost of gasoline at $8.80 a gallon.

Drummond turned his head toward the sound of Frank Morrison’s voice coming from the intercom. “Mr. President, General Slaider is on his way over. Do you want me to sit in on this one? He’ll be here in about fifteen minutes.”

“I don’t think so, Frank, but keep close in case I change my mind.”

Frank Morrison was following a long tradition for chiefs-of-staff. He was much more than the presidential office manager. He was a personal friend and advisor. He complemented Drummond in those areas that were, perhaps, presidential blind spots. In those areas where Drummond felt he was weak, Morrison was strong. Frank was a good detail man. He was a good juggler. He was organized. He scheduled and understood the priorities of every moment of Drummond’s day. And he was unsentimental. He saw every decision in terms of cost, either dollars, or votes, or time, or people, or poll percentage points.

Drummond sat at his desk to review again the agenda for the meeting with Slaider that Frank had prepared. Death ray. Naturally, that’s what the media calls it. The budget proposal calls it enhanced laser targeting efficiency through multifrequency pumping. And the military has Congress convinced our survival depends on keeping this project alive. They like the idea of a death ray. They think it will be cheaper than bullets. He could not help laughing to himself at man’s endless eagerness to pursue folly. He too probably, he thought. That’s why he had Frank Morrison—to help him minimize his follies.

Several moments later, General Morgan Slaider was announced. As he entered the Oval Office, Drummond rose to greet him and ushered him to the more informal sitting area.

Slaider was of average height, though dressed in military uniform, he seemed surprisingly short. The years had been kind to Slaider and though he needed bifocals now, his face retained a kind of boyish shape, his skin was smooth, and he had reddish-brown hair that was trimmed neatly and short. His concession to his years was a growing portliness that added to his personal charm and disarmingly drew attention away from his intent and penetrating eyes.

“Well, Morgan, how are our nation’s armed forces doing today?” It was a little ritual they always played with each other to help break the ice in often-difficult discussions.

“Better than can be expected, Mr. President.”

“And Marion—she’s well?”

“I’m afraid not yet, Emerson. She’s not coming out of the operation very well. She’s in a lot of pain and very weak. She just seems more fragile than she ever was. I’m worried about her.”

“Morgan, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

“No, we’ve got Bill Randall handling the medical team. I believe she’s getting the best care we can provide for her. We both have every faith in Bill. It’s just going to take time at her age. Thank you for your concern, Mr. President. I sincerely mean that, Emerson.”

 “Well, you be sure and let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“I will, sir. Thank you.”

“So, Frank says here you want to talk death rays again. Is this going to be our usual monthly chat about this subject or have you begun to come around to my way of thinking?”

“No, Mr. President. That is, no it’s not going to be our usual debate and no I have not come around to your way of thinking. It unexpectedly relates to another matter. And to tell you the truth, I’m glad Frank isn’t in this meeting. I need to talk to you about a matter that only one other person in the world is aware of. I don’t quite know how to handle it or even who should handle it.”

“Does this relate to our agenda in any way?” Drummond interrupted.

“Well, we needed something for the record . . . why we’re meeting. But it’s not about the optical pumping system. It is about laser technology, though. May I continue?”

Drummond leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for the moment it took him to consider the implications of what Slaider was beginning. Off-the-record discussions with the president by highly placed officials were never good news, always required important decisions, and did not allow for the consultations that Drummond valued. He hated surprises. Then again, he realized, all politicians did.

His face impassive, he opened his eyes and said simply, “Go ahead.”

“Five days ago, I received a telephone call from a Samuel Berman. He’s involved with a company in Jersey City called AJC Fusion. They’re doing research on microfusion. Very successful research, they claim. So successful that he believes it can blow the country’s and probably the world’s economies sky-high.”

“Why did he call you, General? Does their work have weapons implications?”

“Well, not directly. Our boys at Sandia and Livermore have been struggling for years with microfusion, but it’s small-scale stuff, and they don’t really seem to know why they’re doing it. But specific to your question, this Berman is a finance specialist. He’s not concerned with weapons. He called me because he wants to see you. He was afraid that if he called anyone other than a high-ranking military officer the discipline of secrecy could not be assured, he would have to explain too much, and a leak would probably occur. Secrecy is rather the issue for him. He told me several times that since the national security was at stake the military would best know how to keep a secret.”

“What is he claiming? That this AJC Fusion has figured out how to control fusion for power generation?” Drummond asked, smiling.

“That’s it exactly, Mr. President. I did some very discreet checking around. The company exists. It is certified to do atomic research. They have about fifty classified patents on laser optics, microfusion, synthetic methane generation, genetically engineered bacteria. I believe this man believes what he is claiming for his company. Of course, at the moment this is only my opinion. At the moment, your options are not compromised in any way. I’ve avoided getting anyone else involved in this.”

Emerson Drummond did not react immediately to what he had heard. It seemed so unlikely, coming out of the blue like this. And the implications of what General Slaider was telling him were so vast that he decided his best reaction should be skepticism.

“Okay. What does Mr. Berman want to see me about? Did he indicate to you whether he will be representing his company or himself if he meets with me?

“He was very clear on this. He is representing his company. He is no loose cannon on a fishing expedition. At least, that’s my opinion.”

Drummond got up, and with his hands in his pockets and his head down, he began to pace the office, thinking.

“What have you got on Berman?” Drummond asked.

“I did a quick check and he appears to be high-credentialed, rather well-known in financial circles. Affiliated with Columbia University. Chief financial officer of Nova Industries. That seems to be the parent company of AJC Fusion. Graduate of Harvard Business School. Doctorate in international finance. He published about twenty technical articles and about a half-dozen books. The man leaves a pretty high-level paper trail.”

“If what he says is true, does Mr. Berman have any explanation as to why this AJC Fusion has not made any announcements of their remarkable breakthrough?”

“I asked him that very question. He said he will only discuss that with you.”

“I see.” He continued his pacing. Finally, he turned to General Slaider and asked, “Is there anything else about this? Anything else you want to say?”

“No, sir. That’s it.”

“What do you recommend, General?”

“Well, for starters, Mr. President, I recommend getting this thing the hell out of my hands as fast as you can. I do recommend though, if you decide to see him, that you see him quickly. It sounds like something is about to blow pretty soon. He said there was no time to go through rings of advisors first before seeing you. He suggested tomorrow. He gave me this phone number to reach him. He advised against calling for him at Nova.” General Slaider handed the president the note with the telephone number.

“Right. Thank you, Morgan. I appreciate the way you’ve handled this. Please continue to speak with no one about this matter. I will take it from here. Give my love to Marion and, again, let me know if there’s anything I can do for her.”

“Thank you, Emerson. I think we just have to wait and see what happens. But thank you, again.”

After the general left, Drummond sat at his desk for several minutes, entering notes in his daily journal. He then called Frank Morrison to his office. He would want Frank’s advice on this.

Compared with Drummond’s almost six-foot stature, portly physique from perhaps too many political dinners, and severely receded hairline, Frank Morrison was a slim man of medium height with a thin, angular face and straight, thick hair. His round, horn-rimmed glasses and mustache suggested the clerk rather than the scholar. He almost never wore a jacket and his shirts seemed to drape over his body, much as a cotton cloth drapes over furniture in a house whose residents are on vacation—covering without revealing or enhancing the shape underneath. As for his eyes, they were focused with intent. There was very little that they missed.

“Sit down, Frank. I need to talk one over with you. Morgan just dropped a hot potato in my lap and I need to do some brainstorming with you.” Quickly he informed Morrison of his conversation with General Slaider.

Morrison let out a soft whistle when the president had completed his briefing. After thinking for several minutes he began. “Interesting problem, Mr. President. There are three possibilities. Either Berman is a quack, which he doesn’t appear to be; or he is telling the truth about what AJC Fusion has accomplished, which is arguable; or he is mistaken about what AJC Fusion has accomplished, which I believe is the most likely.”

“On what basis, Frank?” the president asked.

“On the basis that high-tech companies are always announcing things before they happen because they’re positive that it willhappen. And then they don’t happen, or the timetable is nowhere as optimistic as they first thought, or it doesn’t turn out exactly as they anticipated. It’s not that unusual, Mr. President.”

Morrison made some notes in his pad and then continued.

“For the moment, though, a discussion of possibilities is not as important as the decision of whether to meet Berman or not. I think you should let me call him and have him meet with me first. If he passes muster, then I can bring him to see you. We’ll leave thirty minutes on your schedule. If he doesn’t pan out, I wanted Doc Randall to come in and check your blood pressure anyway. I don’t like your color lately. We’ll slip him in the same time slot if it’s available.”

“Stay with me, Frank. We need to talk some more about this. What are the criteria you are going to use to decide to pass him on to me? That he’s not crazy? That’s not good enough. Don’t underestimate this problem, Frank. I’ve got a feeling about this one.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. President. I didn’t mean to sound dismissive. And I’m also seriously concerned about the way you’ve been looking lately. Of course, you’re right about knowing the basis for my evaluation of Berman. May I suggest that first, I need to hear him and decide whether he has anything verifiable and of interest. I’ll make a judgment if you allow me. If his story seems real, and verifiable—I think that’s the key—and significant, I would then want to determine whether he’s buying or selling. If he’s selling, is it something we want? If he’s buying, what is it he wants us to sell him, and can we sell it, are we authorized? I won’t let him past me unless I get satisfactory answers to these questions. If it still seems interesting, I’ll pass him on to you.”

Drummond thought for a moment, considering Frank Morrison’s proposal, trying to visualize the events as they might occur tomorrow. He was satisfied, so far. “Good, Frank. Now let’s say you pass him on to me. Then what? I don’t want to sit there like a goose for the plucking with him calling the shots. I want to know about your meeting before you pass him on to me.”

“Of course, Mr. President. If the meeting uncovers a significant issue, I can meet with you for the first fifteen minutes of the scheduled thirty. If it is important, we can extend either his or your portion or both. If it all turns out for nothing, I’ll have Dr. Randall in the wings to check your pressure. Deal?”

“All right. All right,” Drummond said, laughing at his old friend’s persistence. Yet he was unable to resist pursuing the recitation of possibilities.

“Frank, suppose for the moment that what AJC Fusion claims is in fact true—that they have a process for controlled nuclear fusion. Why wouldn’t they announce it?” the president asked.

Morrison thought for a moment. “Homeostasis, Mr. President. I believe, if what General Slaider believes they are claiming is true, they’re afraid of homeostasis.”

“Come on, Frank, I’m not in the mood to play games. What are you talking about?”

“Homeostasis—the self-regulating process that any system worth its salt uses to maintain a state of equilibrium, especially when confronted by life-threatening changes. For the Middle East, for the oil companies, this could easily turn into a life-and-death situation. If what Nova is claiming is true, they need to get some muscle behind them before they come out and make themselves targets.”

“Could this Berman be a setup to get us into bed with them somehow?” Drummond asked. “Maybe they’re afraid of the whole pie. As you suggest, it might be too rich for their blood. Half a pie with the government is better than the whole pie if the whole pie can get you killed. Is that your thesis, Frank?”

Morrison nodded affirmatively.

The president continued. “Hmmm. Let’s start over. I meet with him and I’m convinced that their claims are true. Then what? I believe I am an advocate of homeostasis myself, Frank. Practical fusion power is a change that, even under government control, would be difficult to manage without creating economic chaos. And in this case, we’re dealing here with a private company.”

“Mr. President, we don’t really know what we’re dealing with here. It could be nothing. It could be something totally technical, of no practical significance. You know how many times the National Institute of Health has announced a major breakthrough in the cure for cancer. We’re still waiting. We simply need more information on this, Mr. President.”

Drummond got up to pace again as he thought. After a few moments, he continued speaking.

“Okay. We have to get this thing under control and we can’t wait until tomorrow. I don’t want to go into this meeting waiting for news. I want to have it before I sit down. I want Jim Benson to get his Department of Energy boys and girls on this. I want to get a look inside this AJC Fusion. They’re doing nuclear work, right? Let’s go inspect something there. I want the FBI in on this early. Get Amanda Brock on board. We’ll set up a close surveillance of Berman no matter what happens tomorrow. I want the vice president to bring NSA on board with this. And finally, I want Roger Talbot to get a Central Intelligence read on possible international overtures by these folks. I want to find out if they have any foreign investors and who they are. I want only those four directors. They are to meet me here in twenty minutes for instructions. Tell them only that it is something potentially important, that they are to be on time, and that they are to talk to no one. If asked where they are going, they are to say they are coming over to chat about the budget. You are not to tell them about the other directors involved in the meeting. They will find that out when they get here. After you set this meeting up, call Berman and set up your meeting for tomorrow. Then come back here to my office when you’re finished with Berman. Also, I want you to get me their annual report and bios of all the company’s officers.”

Rising quickly, Morrison gave himself time only to say “Yes, Mr. President,” and he was out the office door, already organizing his calls, his priorities, his actions.

Alone in his office, Emerson Drummond began studying the daily situation reports. But his attention failed to stay focused on the terse global summaries.

So this is how the new world begins, he thought. Quickly, he pushed the thought aside. Not enough information. Frank was right. We’ll soon take care of that. But what if it is real? What if we have really solved the riddle of controlled nuclear fusion? Power from the sea. Unlimited power to serve mankind. It had to happen someday. Why not now?

The consequences were staggering. He did not know where to begin. In whatever direction his analytical brain began to explore, he saw inadequacy, hardship, struggle, confrontation. Then he overlaid a world essentially free of the cost of energy, with the world’s huge energy bill gone and the capital available instead for the betterment of all mankind.

What would the effect be on the political theorists? What new goals and methods of government could be envisioned? Surely these would be affected. How would the inevitable changes be managed? Would the transition be a time of wonder or a time of fear and lost opportunity, or even a time of self-destruction? God help us, he thought, we have proven more than once that man is capable of corrupting a pure, saving message. Would religion be affected?

He knew he was rushing things, but the old dream of fusion power, the same power that brings life and light to the earth, the power of the sun, available for man’s peaceful use—finally—it was just too seductive not to think about, to hope for.

Of course, a new world of power generation would arise from the ashes of the old world based on fossil fuels. New power plants would be built; possibly old ones would be converted. New fuel suppliers would rise up. Extraction or production of suitable isotopes of hydrogen from water would create whole new industries. New support industries and new technologies would be developed. Nothing is totally free. But the bottom line would still be that the cost of power would plummet and the fuel supply would become essentially limitless.

Fossil fuels, those precious, irreplaceable chemicals created only once in the history of Earth, would no longer be squandered, scandalously burned, never to be available again. They would instead become the virtually inexhaustible raw supply for a new and more creative era of synthetic petroleum-based materials and chemicals.

And a new economic order as well would arise out of the changed economics of fuel, of power production, and the burden of energy budgeting and expenditures. The redistribution of resources and world economic priorities would have undreamed-of consequences for human advancement.

The change brought to the world by the industrial revolution, with its benefits and exploitations, would be nothing compared to what would result from controlled fusion power. It would take at least a generation to secure the first beachheads into this new world. Drummond realized that if Berman’s claims were true, he would only see the first fateful steps into this new world.

Homeostasis. Odd word. It’s amazing, he thought, how the Greeks had words enough, the right words, to supply us with names for any concept we could dream up. How would those great minds of ancient Greece welcome this new gift of a new kind of fire? Is Berman our new Prometheus? And can Pandora be far behind?

More to the point, how would Emerson Drummond welcome this new fire? He is not allowed to feel frightened or out of his depth. That is a luxury not available to presidents. He knew that. But he also knew that that was exactly how he felt now. There was no guiding precedent for coping with imminent, explosive, virtually instantaneous world revolution.

War, famine, disease, flood. These were all easy. You follow the rules. But there were no rules for this. At that moment, he sincerely wished General Slaider had never come to his office with this news and that AJC Fusion never existed.

Well, there was a rule, he remembered, comforting himself: the rule that you just start chipping away. His instincts were good. He had begun his chipping with his instructions to Frank Morrison. Later he may have to break some big stones, but for now, he was happy with chips and he was moving cautiously, prudently. He was satisfied.

On Deception Watch Chapter 2

                                                      2
James Marshall was disappointed as he pulled into the visitors’ parking area of AJC Fusion. He had hoped for something more impressive. The office building was located in an undistinguished, backwater New Jersey industrial park. Poorly tended turf surrounded the vinyl-clad building. Brush and weeds spread thickly beyond the tired-looking lawn surrounding the building with its unfulfilled promise. Several dumpsters and a border of tall chain-link fencing clarified any possible misconception of the type of tenant using this building¾an unimpressive, industrial operation like scores of others in the park.

A modest false stone facade at the entrance provided an unimaginative decorative touch to the otherwise drab appearance of this surprisingly small one-story AJC Fusion building. Marshall counted only twenty parking spaces in the lot adjacent to the building. He was told that about eighty employees worked here. He couldn’t understand where they all were or where their cars could be. In fact, he couldn’t understand why Dick Scully would even want him to interview this man, Cranshaw. Marshall assumed Arthur Cranshaw was no more than the crackpot chairman of a half-baked company with delusions of grandeur, and he said exactly that to his editor. Scully must have been running short of ideas for the Sunday science supplement.

Marshall parked his car, grabbed his briefcase from the backseat, and walked quickly through the brisk New Jersey air to the entrance of the building. An assignment is an assignment, he thought, and you do what you’re told. You never know what might become interesting in this business.

A pleasant-enough male receptionist greeted him with a warm and welcoming smile, though Marshall couldn’t imagine he had many opportunities to use it. 

“Good morning. My name is James Marshall. With the Washington Courier?” he said, introducing himself. “I’m here to see Mr. Cranshaw.”

“Good morning, sir. May I ask if Dr. Cranshaw is expecting you?” Friendly, but firm, in control, Marshall thought. No emphasis on the “doctor.” Just matter of fact.

“Yes, he is.”

“Thank you, sir. Would you mind signing in and having a seat for a moment?” After confirming Marshall’s visit, the receptionist informed him that an escort would be coming to get him in a few moments.

Marshall studied the reception area. It was perfectly nondescript. Canvas wallpaper, gray carpeting, watercolor still-lifes, coffee table with sporting, business, and news magazines, a couple of potted plants, and the company name on the wall in large brass letters. Nothing that indicated what AJC Fusion actually did for a living.

This was very surprising for a so-called high-tech company. In James Marshall’s experience small companies like to tout their successes with photos, plaques, magazine articles, even their pipe dreams framed on the walls. But nothing showed here.

Meanwhile the receptionist had busied himself preparing an identifying security label for Marshall. As he was handing it to him, the door to the interior of the building opened, and a trim, attractive black woman entered the reception area.

Smiling, she offered her hand to Marshall as she introduced herself. “How good that you were able to come on such short notice, Mr. Marshall. My name is Sylvia Carlyle, Dr. Cranshaw’s executive administrator. Dr. Cranshaw is delighted to be able to meet you. He’s read many of your articles. I know he has an interesting interview planned for you.”

Her handshake was firm and businesslike. She was about twenty-five years old and dressed in black slacks and white blouse with a tight, high collar that emphasized her long and slender neck. Her hair was pulled lightly back, with the few errant strands adding a touch of abandon, complementing her smooth face and broad, sensual mouth. She wore no jewelry except for a cameo pin on her blouse.

She had a way of looking directly at his eyes that made Marshall wonder what she was really thinking while her face was smiling.

Turning to the receptionist she asked, “Are we all set?” Receiving a nod of confirmation, she turned again to Marshall, helping him attach his security badge. “Shall we go? I hope your trip from Washington was uneventful.”

Passing through the door, they entered a long carpeted hallway that seemed to go the length of the building. The hallway was lit with muted, low-intensity lighting.

Once they were well into the hallway, Marshall stopped for a moment. “Ms Carlyle—it is Ms, isn’t it?—I’d like to ask you something before we see your boss.”

“Yes, it’s ‘Ms’ and fire away.”

“Amoment ago you said you were glad I could come on such short notice. Who is interviewing whom here? Did we call you or did you call us?” Marshall asked, trying to read her face.

“An interesting question. I would like to suggest that you save it until you’ve met Dr. Cranshaw. I’m not trying to be evasive, Mr. Marshall, but it really would be best.”

They continued down the hall. “If you say so. Let me try again from another direction. My reputation as a reporter is at stake now, you know. I’m supposed to get answers to questions,” Marshall said, smiling. “How about you? How did you come to work for AJC Fusion?”

“Oh, that was very simple. I was a graduate student at Columbia University. Dr. Cranshaw was one of my professors. You know black women doing graduate work in physics are not so common, so I stood out from the crowd, I guess you’d say. Dr. Cranshaw offered me a part-time position with AJC Fusion, and it blossomed, happily. That was three years ago.”

“You said that your boss has read my articles. Like what, for instance, or was that just polite talk?”

She smiled at Marshall. “Like your master’s thesis, your three technical publications in the Physics Review Letters, your two publications in the Physical Review, authored jointly with your advisor, Professor Tilden, and all your feature articles with the Courierfor the last nine months. He even read your book on physics games for children. You have quite a wide readership, Mr. Marshall.”

Marshall was stunned. He couldn’t think of another question to ask for the moment. He couldn’t decide if he was more impressed by her for knowing all this or Cranshaw for allegedly reading it all. But why would she say he read it if he didn’t? Just be professional, he told himself. Stop prejudging. These people are serious.

They walked on silently. Arriving at Cranshaw’s office, Sylvia Carlyle knocked on the door, awaited the response to enter, and ushered Marshall in. She quickly made the introductions and left the office.

It was an elegant office, richly paneled in dark mahogany. The carpet was deep and thick. The desk was massive, but uncluttered. Ceiling-to-floor bookshelves lined one wall. The visitor furniture was ornate and overstuffed. The wing chair Marshall was ushered to by Sylvia Carlyle when he had entered was accompanied by an ebony end table.

The office did not give the appearance of a working office. It had more of the feel of a retreat. There was no phone, no computer terminal, and no file cabinet. These deficiencies were luxuries only a chairman could allow himself¾or be allowed.

Yet nothing in the room or in his preliminary conversation with Ms. Carlyle had prepared him for the physical reality of Arthur Cranshaw. He was the closest thing Marshall had ever seen to a human sphere. Cranshaw sat at his desk, leaning back in his chair, hands folded together and resting on his belly or rather just above the equator of his girth. He was dressed in a perfectly cut, dark blue, pinstripe suit, white shirt, and tie. French cuffs with Chinese gold panda-coin cufflinks showed from the jacket sleeves. His hands were small and bloated. His fingers also were corpulent but pink and immaculately manicured. He had no neck. His face was round and smooth and surprisingly youngish-looking and seemed to be attached directly to the trunk of his body.

Cranshaw presented a strange combination of personal excess and fastidious attention to superficial appearances. Marshall was not happy with his own initial revulsion at Cranshaw’s appearance. After a few moments of pleasantries, he wished to get the interview over with, and so bantering became more focused.

“So, Dr. Cranshaw, then it was you who called Dick Scully. You must have told him something very interesting for him to pay to send me here. This is a little far from my usual beat,” Marshall said as he opened his briefcase and retrieved his steno pad.

“Oh, Dick knows a good story when he hears it. I think you will too. Shall we begin?” He leaned a notch further back in his chair, looking directly at Marshall.

“Fine. To begin with, what exactly are you making here?”

Cranshaw thought for a moment. “History, Mr. Marshall. History.” He closed his eyes, and his head rolled back slightly, giving the impression he was slipping into a meditative state. This was an obsessed man, Marshall thought. Obsessed people made Marshall nervous. He waited.

Cranshaw continued slowly, “Mr. Marshall, do you know what will be the most important quest for mankind in this century? It will not be the search for alien life or the grand unification theory of quantum mechanics and relativity nor will it be the endless search for the cure for cancer. No, Mr. Marshall, it will be for energy. Such a small word—energy. It is totally inadequate to its importance.

“Without dependable energy civilization as we know it would cease. As with our own deaths, Mr. Marshall, we cannot fully contemplate the consequences of a worldwide energy deficit. Yet that is what we are rapidly approaching. We consume energy in huge amounts in our modern world. And each emerging nation adds significantly to the energy drain.

“It cannot go on indefinitely, Mr. Marshall, since fossil fuels are our primary source of energy and they are rapidly being depleted. Nuclear fission reactors provide only partial relief and uranium is a far from unlimited and inexpensive fuel.

“Energy depletion is only a matter of time. And we can calculate that time now and it is nearer than we admit publicly, Mr. Marshall.” He stopped, closed his eyes again, and this time began to speak while apparently in communion with a higher presence than James Marshall.

“It is a problem of historic proportions. And we are making history here. Now.” He leaned forward in his chair, hands now on the desktop, looking at Marshall.

“You asked me what we make here. We make solutions. We have solved the problem of unlimited energy, Mr. Marshall.”

Marshall was not impressed with the histrionic presentation or with the claim.

“Excuse me, Dr. Cranshaw, but this claim has been made before. But perpetual motion machines have gone out of style this century.”

“No, not a perpetual motion machine. That is for the application of energy. I am talking about the creation of unlimited energy, the answer to this century’s dream of power from water, of controlled nuclear fusion. That is what we make here, Mr. Marshall, to answer your question directly. We make fusion happen and we get neutrons and with neutrons we make methane from the air and from the methane we strip off the hydrogen atoms to use as fuel in a fuel cell, and the fuel cell makes electricity, and the electricity is energy. 

“Think of it, Mr. Marshall, we use the abundant neutrons produced by the fusion reaction and the carbon dioxide free to us in the air and we make methane. Yes but synthetic methane. We actually will be reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air as we make methane. But even synthetic methane is still methane—a kind of ‘nonfossil’ fossil fuel. But only if you burn it. We don’t burn the methane. We use it as a source of hydrogen atoms. We use genetically engineered cyanobacteria and our proprietary cocktail of enzymes to strip the hydrogen, which we collect from the methane, leaving a carbon- and nitrogen-rich slurry that can be used as a fertilizer. A fertilizer. Do you see? Reduced carbon dioxide, low-cost, low-energy hydrogen production, high-efficiency fuel-cell-generated electricity, and a fertilizer by-product, not poisonous chemical waste. Is it not amazing! We don’t contribute to greenhouse gases and we get more energy more safely with an energy economy based on hydrogen. And as you know, the only product from a hydrogen fuel cell is water. We know how to do it and we have done it.”

Marshall remained silent, inhibited by Cranshaw’s vehemence. He was not sure if he was physically safe or whether Cranshaw was mad but harmless.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Cranshaw said, reading his skepticism on Marshall’s face.

Grateful for the opening, Marshall asked, “Well, as a reporter, I’m sure you can appreciate that there is a big difference between claiming and doing. But let me ask you one question before we get too far. Why you? If you don’t mind my saying so, a lot smarter people with a lot of government money have been working on fusion all over the world and haven’t even come close. It’s a little hard to accept what you are claiming.”

“We shall see. I anticipated this question, of course. Do you know why these other researchers have not succeeded while I have? They have the wrong goal. Their goal is to pursue truth to uncover the mysteries of nature. Mine is more mundane. It is to make money. My goal was to find a process that will work. Not the best or most elegant process, but one that will suffice. And if I succeed I do not lose my reason for being, I begin selling my product. It is not the end for me and my life-work, as it would be for the national labs working this same problem. It is the beginning.

“And you are wrong about a very important point, Mr. Marshall. There are no smarter people working on this project than those working here for me. You find this hard to believe so I will explain. The vast institutional fusion effort supported by major governmental funding—and I mean hundreds of millions of dollars—is directed toward magnetic confinement. We are using laser implosion. Magnetic confinement means nothing to us. We do not compete for these brains. Our problems were optics, laser physics, stable implosion models, nuclear chemistry. Completely different fields, Mr. Marshall, from those of the establishment. We don’t compete for the same people.”

“But both our government and the Russians are funding laser fusion research,” Marshall said. 

“Yes, but they are fallback positions not taken seriously, used to fund graduate students or out-of-fashion eccentrics at the Lawrence Livermore Labs, with no serious project planning. Frankly, these projects cannot compete with what I pay for the best talent in the world. Nor are they as well planned. I have three Nobel Prize laureates working here, Mr. Marshall. All on two-year sabbaticals from their universities or laboratories. They could not turn down my offers. The science and the money were too compelling. And of course, their universities granted them their sabbaticals as they would grant them anything they asked. Such is the power of academic stardom.

“Also, as you may know, this is not my only company. AJC Fusion is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nova Industries. I own that company as well. Do you know what Nova Industries specializes in? We make the finest aspherical lenses in the world. These are essential in the laser optical path techniques that we have developed. Let me repeat, since you ask, ‘Why me?’ Because we make the best aspherical lenses in the world. Other laboratories, even with their inferior efforts, struggle with multiple lasers. We break our single laser pulse into carefully controlled multiple segments that meet simultaneously, that recombine all at the same time on the implosion target. Do you see? We only use one laser. We have no synchronization handicap. We don’t have to get multiple lasers to act as one. We use only onelaser. We can do this and no one else, no one elsecan!”

“Let me get this straight. What exactly do you claim to have done and can you show me anything to verify your claims?” Marshall asked.

“Now you are beginning to see. And ask the right questions. What we have done is achieve ignition of a deuterium-tritium target pellet. Our target team completed development of the pellet seven months ago. Using a high energy laser burst, split by our optical path design, using our lenses to impinge the laser energy on the target capsule equally from all sides, we have succeeded in fusing the target. Nuclear fusion ignition, Mr. Marshall, not in a magnet, but in a little glass bead. We have verified this by examining the neutron radiation emitted from the target. The product of nuclear fusion is telltale neutrons, you see. The neutrons are our proof. This is well-known physics, as I am sure you are aware. And we can achieve this fusion ignition routinely, as it were. Repeatability, Mr. Marshall, is what brings credibility. This alone is an historic achievement. We are now rising up the economic curve, approaching breakeven. You know what I mean by breakeven, of course?”

“When you get as much energy out as you put in?” Marshall ventured.

“Close, but not quite. We are a business and think in business terms. For us, breakeven is when the cost to us of the energy used equals the price we can charge for the energy produced. The greater the compression of our targets, the more neutrons we produce, and the more energy we can make. Simply put, we are looking for the biggest bang for the buck. We are laser-limited at the moment, but that problem is being addressed as we speak.

“You ask what exactly have we done. Mr. Marshall, laser fusion is only one aspect of our revolution. You realize that all large power stations, even nuclear stations, are just glorified water boilers that make steam that drive turbines that drive electric generators. We use nineteenth-century technology to make electricity using steam, Mr. Marshall. Nuclear energy to boil water to make steam. Steam, Mr. Marshall. It is barbaric!

“The efficiency of conversion of a steam-driven turbine system is anywhere from 5 to 50 percent. Fuel cells operate at virtually 100 percent efficiency because they generate no heat. But fuel cells need a source of cheap fuel. Remember, we are after the biggest bang for the buck, Mr. Marshall. We do not use our neutrons to generate heat to make steam. We use them to alter the nuclear structure of atoms. We do nuclear chemistry with them, Mr. Marshall. We make economical synthetic methane from our neutrons, using hydrogen from water and carbon from air. And from this methane, we get hydrogen with which we make electricity, using fuel cells. Creating methane from neutrons and carbon dioxide, Mr. Marshall. It has never been done before. Never even thought of.

“We are founding not just a company here, Mr. Marshall. We are founding a revolution, a new era. Life will never be the same. Energy, boundless, endless energy. Compared to what we have done, the industrial revolution will look like child’s play. This is the destiny of humanity. Unlimited energy that does not destroy the planet.

“We will stop the wasteful and ignorant burning of fossil chemicals and substitute a new era based on a commercially practical hydrogen economy. That is what we have done, what we have actually done.”

Cranshaw sank back in his chair, slowly folding his hands across his belly, smiling, and watching Marshall struggle to absorb all he had just been told.

Finally, Marshall put down his pad and looked intently at Cranshaw, trying to read behind his intense, round face. “But why have there been no announcements? If what you are saying is true, the whole world would be at your feet.”

“But Mr. Marshall, that is why you are here.”

“I don’t understand. You don’t make an announcement like this through a feature writer for the Sunday edition of the Washington Courier, even a good one—a great one—like me. This is front-page New York Times stuff, if it’s true.”

At that moment, there was a knock on the door. Following Cranshaw’s “Come in,” Sylvia Carlyle entered. Cranshaw’s secretary followed just behind her with a tray of coffee, tea, and cups and saucers for three. “Time for a break, gentlemen,” she said indicating to the secretary to place the tray on the coffee table by the couch. Cranshaw left his desk and sat on the couch. Marshall turned his chair to face Cranshaw. Sylvia Carlyle sat in a chair near Cranshaw.

Marshall looked quizzically at Cranshaw when he realized that she was not leaving.

“Ms. Carlyle is my executive administrator. As such, she knows everything, Mr. Marshall. Ms. Carlyle is involved with everything of consequence here. You are a matter of consequence for us.”

Marshall tipped his head in acknowledgment of Cranshaw’s compliment and then turned to Sylvia Carlyle.

“Well, your boss has been telling me quite a story. But I’m still not sure why I’m here. Why me?” he asked, looking at her over his coffee cup.

“That’s simple, James. You don’t mind if I call you James? Good. Please call me Sylvia. It will be your job to see to it that we aren’t murdered. All of us.”

Her bland presentation of his assignment, a smile still lingering on her face, raised the hairs on the back of Marshall’s neck. He suddenly realized that he wasn’t doing an interview. He was being recruited—recruited into something that Dick Scully knew about and approved.

“That’s not my line of work, Ms. Carlyle—Sylvia. I’m just a reporter. I don’t do security. I’m not beefy enough,” he added smiling.

Sylvia Carlyle smiled back and said, “We’ll see.”

Cranshaw added, “Perhaps you will think we are being melodramatic, Mr. Marshall. I assure you, we are not. But you will judge that for yourself before the day is out.

“Notwithstanding, if you agree, you will be an essential element of our announcements. We have experienced an internal problem that necessitates our ‘breaking the story,’ as you journalists say, sooner than we planned. We want it presented with credibility. A journalist of your technical stature will protect us from the strategy of ridicule by those who will certainly become our enemies. Once a subject of ridicule we would easily be destroyed behind the scenes, out of the public view, with no one questioning our disappearance.”

Holding a pastry in midflight to his mouth, Cranshaw continued, “We are being a bit unfair to you, hitting you with everything at once. But you see, time has become of the essence and we must get our act in gear, as it were. Sylvia, perhaps this is a good time to show Mr. Marshall our facilities. He is probably tired of listening to me by now.”

“Certainly, Dr. Cranshaw.” Then turning to Marshall, she said, “Shall we begin now?”

Marshall welcomed the chance to think about what he had been told so far. It just didn’t ring true. Technical achievements like these just didn’t happen in the dark without some word leaking out.

Leaving Cranshaw’s office, Sylvia led Marshall down the hall to the elevator bank. Entering the car, Marshall noted that it indicated two levels, the one they were on and another marked “D.” It still did not compute.

“I’m told there are about eighty people working here, but I don’t see how. They can’t all fit in these two floors,” he said, as the elevator made its slow descent.

“Of course, you are correct. And you’re wrong. There are about seventy-eight people all together working here, but there are not two floors. There are five, including an underground garage. Intentionally this is not easy to determine from the outside. For security reasons, for each floor—except the first, which is the lowest security level, and the last, which is the highest—there are two elevators. Each elevator goes only one floor, either up and down one or down and up one. There is a security check at each level. It is impossible to go directly from the fifth level to the surface level in one elevator. We are, after all, dealing with atomic research for profit. Our own precautions against industrial espionage impose far greater precautions than what the federal government requires for safety purposes.”

As the doors opened, they entered a waiting area with a communications microphone and speaker connecting to the guard beyond the plate glass window. The window contained a sliding tray similar to those at drive-up bank deposit windows.

As the drawer slid out Sylvia said, “You put your hand on the plate and it does a fingerprint check. I’m sorry, but we take the fingerprints of all visitors, although they don’t usually know it. When you signed in, it was taken from the page on the sign-in sheet. Special paper. If you hadn’t touched the paper, the guard would have spoken to you.

“Also, there is a complete visual check through the window by the guard. They have a freeze-frame monitor that connects them with the waiting room to detect a potential switch after you leave the reception area.”

Carlyle stepped closer to the window. There was a small black pattern, a circle with a cross, like a telescopic sight, etched in the glass. She looked closely at it for several seconds.

 “For employees there’s also a retinal pattern check for positive identification. You would not be allowed below the ground level without a positively identified employee with the appropriate security clearance.”

Their identifications validated and completed, the guard opened the door and they entered another long corridor.

“On this level, we do mathematical modeling studies and telemetry development. On the ‘C’ level we do fuel cell and target pellet development. On the ‘B’ level we do nuclear chemistry development. On the bottom or ‘A’ level we do laser optics development and we have the complete operational system. We’ll visit that area last.”

“Look, Sylvia, I can understand all the industrial espionage measures, but you were over dramatizing the murder stuff a bit, weren’t you?”

“James, you have to think about the vested interests that this work threatens with obsolescence. Do you realize that the big five petroleum companies in the United States have annual sales far larger than the gross national product of most countries in the world? They’re not going to be happy with our announcement of a viable laser fusion process supporting a hydrogen-energy economy. Nor will the thousands of companies supporting the oil companies. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Companies will not be too happy either. Neither will the coal suppliers, the fission-reactor people, the magnetic-confinement people with by now their hundreds of millions of dollars of wasted effort. We’re talking about business interests worth billions—actually, hundreds of billions of dollars. People have been killed for a lot less than that. Our own government will not be too happy either.”

Marshall interrupted her. “Why the government? Aren’t they trying to find the same answers?”

“Yes, of course. And that’s just the point. If a government-sponsored program finds the solution, the solution belongs in the public domain. We’re a completely privately funded company. Even the government-mandated security for nuclear experimentation is paid for by us. We have patented everything. Our company intends to profit from everything through license fees. Billions of dollars of tax money have been spent in anticipation of an ultimate public windfall. This won’t be the case now. I think the phrase is ‘heads will roll.’”

“I see. Still, murder seems a little obvious. No one could believe that they would get away with that sort of thing. Have there been any threats made against any of you?”

“Not exactly. One of our engineers was found dead near Atlantic City recently. A terrible tragedy and possibly a warning of things to come. Also, Our director of operations, Philip Layland, is missing. But actually, we believe he may have gone over to the enemy camp, so to speak. The oil companies. Philip has been a problem for several months now. Assume for the moment that what you have heard about the achievements of AJC Fusion is true. You can imagine the importance of our patents and the potential future value of our company. Well, Philip understood this as much as any person living. He petitioned Dr. Cranshaw quite vigorously for an equity interest in the company. Dr. Cranshaw had to become quite firm with him in denying Philip’s ultimatum. There’s no other word, I suppose, considering Philip’s vehemence over the issue. Threats were made during that conversation. Perhaps he was carried away in the heat of the discussion. But now he is missing.”

“How critical to the operation is he?” Marshall asked.

“To our operations, quite critical. We are struggling to work around his absence at the moment. In addition, he was instrumental in analyzing our profitability projections, our marketing strategies, and overtures to potential foreign markets. An invaluable marketing network has been built up that he is intimately familiar with.”

“If he’s so important, why wouldn’t your Dr. Cranshaw give him a piece of the action? That’s not so uncommon, is it, in new-venture, high-tech companies?”Marshall asked.

“This is true, James. Important staff members are often compensated partially with stock. But the reason is to allow the company to pay these key employees less, since they arestart-up and usually are not well-financed. Also, the stock options ensure their sense of having a stake in the successful completion of their work. In the case of AJC Fusion, Dr. Cranshaw is a successful entrepreneur with considerable financial resources through his other companies. He pays very well. And he is very firm about not diluting his controlling interest in the company. Dr. Cranshaw’s recruiting strategy has been very simple. Find the best, and as I said, he pays his executives very well. As for the technical staff, they are motivated by a calling other than money.

“Philip is . . . was very important to this company. But as Dr. Cranshaw has said on the few occasions dealing with this issue, AJC Fusion is not a whaling ship, and he doesn’t pay with shares in the cargo in the hold.”

“One more question, Sylvia. I get that you are using fusion in a unique way, not for heat but for neutrons. I get the whole chain of accomplishments including the fuel cells and why. But I don’t get the DC¾the direct current¾that you will get. Thomas Edison lost that battle a long time ago when he fought it out with George Westinghouse who, of course, favored AC¾alternating current—and for good reason. Overland transmission of electricity is more efficient as AC than as DC. How do you plan to get around that problem?”

Sylvia Carlyle smiled. “Good question. Naturally we anticipated this problem. The entire electrical infrastructure is designed for alternating current and the electrical energy generated at the main production plants will be converted from DC to AC with only a minimal loss in efficiency due to that exchange. Locally, homes and businesses can simply continue to use alternating current. You know of course that all higher uses of electricity, that is, uses for more than simply creating heat, use direct current. Every single electronic device from audio systems to computers to . . . well, you name it¾they all use direct current internally. They all have an internal circuit to turn the AC to DC so logical circuits can be used that cannot be used with alternating current. At the device level, it’s always direct current being used. Eventually, at the neighborhood level, it may be direct current that enters the home. It’s not a problem.”

Stopping at an office door, before entering, she explained, “This is Dr. Allen Lewis’s office. Dr. Lewis will explain how we study the surface instabilities of the imploding spherical target. As you know, he won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on modeling hypersonic shock waves in the solar atmosphere.”

Allen Lewis was about fifty years old, slightly on the heavy side, and completely bald. He wore silver wire-frame glasses that he took off and put on frequently when in thought, slowly opening and closing them unconsciously.

After the initial introductions, Marshall asked, “Dr. Lewis, I appreciate your taking time to talk with me. May I ask you a practical question first before we discuss your work? How can a man of your public visibility be working here and no one seems to know anything about it?”

 “Well,” he began in a soft Southern accent, “you’d be surprised about the paucity of public visibility between awards. You know, in science, particularly in leading-edge work, priority is the key. Coming in second just doesn’t count for much. You learn to keep your mouth shut about your work, except, of course, if you need help. In the science business you keep a low profile on your progress until you’re ready to report your success. I can do what I’m doing because of the low profile of this company. The big laboratories, the university or government labs who know what we’re about here have never been much interested in talking about us. They just don’t want to be creating a mantle of legitimacy for us that their recognition would imply. So they share data with us because we’re good and we give them just enough to keep them interested and to keep an historic trail, you know, in case a priority war breaks out among us boys over who did what first. But they don’t really want to talk publicly about us. Pure science isn’t as pure as we like to think, Mr. Marshall.”

When Lewis finished, Sylvia added, “As for the company’s potential markets, they don’t talk a lot about us because to them we’re a high flier. They like what they hear, but they don’t really believe it. Some don’t even understand it. It’s something in their speculative portfolio of future options. They just don’t have any good reason to discuss this project in detail. Their expectations are low and their interest is purely long-term.”

Smiling, she added, “So we have been able to advance in relative obscurity. This has been our wish. Dr. Cranshaw is, after all, the crackpot chairman of a half-baked company, right James?”

Marshall squirmed visibly in his seat as he realized that Cranshaw was a lot tighter with Dick Scully than he thought. He would keep his private opinions more to himself from now on.

“Don’t be embarrassed, James. That is exactly the image Dr. Cranshaw worked very hard to project, except to those people we choose to show the truth. Why don’t we go into the lab and see what Dr. Lewis has been accomplishing.”