The fact was, Larry thought, that a presidential visit lasts only a few minutes. But cleanup is a task that lives forever.
The afterglow of the presidential visit, the presidential handshake, and the presidential compliments had lasted all of maybe twenty minutes. After that, it was back to policing the power plant.
Larry stood on the fuel handling machine and watched Jameel as he rolled the big crane along its tracks. Floodlights gleamed in the murky river water of the fuel holding pond. The crane came to a stop.
“This is where you wanted us, Mr. Hallock.”
“Test the turret,” Larry said. “Let’s make sure everything works.”
Electric motors whined. Larry, hanging his head over the edge of the platform, saw the turret rotate beneath his feet. Nothing shorted out on the instrument panel.
“Waall.” Larry grinned. “Let’s find us a fish in this ol’ pond.”
He watched as Jameel expertly lowered the pincerlike grab on the end of its double chain. The first snatch came up empty, and Jameel made modest alterations to the turret position and tried again.
A light shifted from green to red on the plywood display.
Jameel’s laugh boomed from beneath the brim of his Chicago Cubs cap. “Got ourselves a fish here, skip.”
“Better reel her in, then.”
Electric motors whined. Brown river silt, by now disturbingly radioactive, floated upward as the chain retracted. In the midst of the rising brown mushroom Larry could see the silver glint of a fuel assembly.
An older one, fortunately, one that had cooled considerably in the decades it had been sitting in the holding pond. Larry had dropped radiation detectors into the pond to locate areas of radioactive tranquility, and this was one of them.
With the fuel assembly still held safely below the surface of the borated water, the machine skimmed back on its tracks to the fill bay on the far end of the building. There, after three tries, Jameel managed to drop the fuel assembly into one of the slots on a thick-walled steel transport flask. The flask, when full, would then be passed out of the Auxiliary Building onto a barge, and then carried down the river, with other flasks, to the holding pond of the Waterford Three nuclear plant in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana. Waterford Three was a new reactor, had only gone online in 1985, and had reserve space in its holding pond.
Which would soon be full. But there were other nuclear facilities in the country, other holding ponds. All of Poinsett Landing’s dangerous children would find a home in the end.
There was a little click as Jameel activated the solenoid that released the fuel assembly, then a whine of electric motors as he raised the grab on its chain.
“Get us another fish, sir?” he asked.
“You bet,” Larry said. “I want another dozen before the day is over.”
*
The President sat in his suite at the rear of Air Force One and watched the clouds through his window. The clouds were far below, very white, and danced an interesting pas-de-deux with their shadows on the green land below. The President was returning to Washington from having made his inspection of Poinsett Island, and he was doing what he preferred to do nowadays, which was to stare at unexceptional things in a perfectly tranquil, uninterested way.
The visit to Poinsett Island had been entirely symbolic, he understood that. He hadn’t a thing to do with rescuing the power station, and his presence made no difference at all to the level of safety at the plant. His appearance was just a way of telling people not to panic. If the President wasn’t scared of the big, bad nuclear plant, the public shouldn’t be, either. His appearance assured the people that things were in hand. It associated the President with a specific way that things were getting better, and therefore led to increased confidence in the country and in the economy, and of course higher approval ratings.
It was his first trip out of Washington since the death of the First Lady. That had symbolic value, too. The trip told the nation that he was putting his personal sorrows behind and getting on with the business of the country.
His visit to Poinsett Island had been both meaningful and meaningless. It was nothing in itself; it was a waste of time and jet fuel and didn’t contribute to the solution of the national crisis one iota, but on a symbolic level it stood for a great deal.
What the President hadn’t quite worked out yet was what it all meant to him.
He was beginning to suspect, however, that it didn’t mean much of anything.
It was all clouds, floating past his window. Earthquakes, swallowing the world.
Clouds and earthquakes, he thought, were almost the same thing. Sort of. Weren’t they?
There was a knock on his door. “Come in,” he said.
Stan Burdett’s bespectacled face peered around the door. “Urgent phone call, sir,” he said. “The Secretary of State.”
The President looked idly at the battery of communications apparatus with which his suite had come equipped. Stan entered the room, picked up a phone handset, pressed some buttons, and handed the handset to the President.
“Secure line, sir,” he said.
“Oh, good,” said the President.
“Mr. President?” The Secretary’s voice buzzed in his ear. “I’ve got a situation here.”
“Right, Darrell. What can I do for you?”
“The Chinese have just announced that in three days they will test-fire a number of their medium-range ballistic missiles over the island of Taiwan, to land in the Pacific.”
“Oh,” the President said. “Oh my.”
“This is an overt military threat, Mr. President. This is a direct challenge to our resolve and to our overseas commitments. The Chinese are testing us.”
“Best not flunk, eh?” the President said.
There was a buzz from another handset. Stan picked it up. “Stan Burdett.” he said. Then he looked at the President and told him the call was from the National Security Advisor.
The President realized that the Secretary of State had been talking nonstop while his own attention had been directed toward the other phone, and said, “Hold on, there, Darrell, I have another call.” He put the second phone to his other ear and said, “Joe, I’ve just heard. Darrell’s on the other line.”
“We cannot afford to lose Taiwan, sir,” the National Security Advisor said. “It is too completely integrated with our own economy. They produce countless small electronic components that are incorporated into American brand-names. If Taiwan is lost, a lot of American manufacturing goes with it.”
Well, the President thought, there was something new in the world. His hawkish Secretary of State and his dovish Security Advisor actually agreed with one another. This was a no-brainer. “Better not lose Taiwan, then,” the President said into both phones.
“Those bastards!” the Secretary was shouting into his other ear. “They’ve been planning this for weeks! I’ve got it figured out! Remember just before the big quake, when the Chinese sold a lot of dollars and sent Wall Street into a tumble? They were making a point! They were trying to show that they could fuck with our economy, and that we had better think twice before we tried to interfere with their attempt to intimidate Taiwan!”
While this speech was going on, the President looked at Stan and said, “Stan, could you arrange a conference call? This is giving me a headache.”
“We should mobilize the Seventh Fleet!” the Secretary said finally, when they were all on the same secure line. “Send our ships into the area of the Pacific where their missile will land, and dare them to try anything!”
The Advisor cleared his throat. “I don’t think that would be wise, Mr. President. What if the Chinese actually fire? That would be a shooting war.”
“They wouldn’t dare!” shouted the Secretary.
“If we dare them to shoot, that puts ammunition into the hands of their people who would want to shoot. And our military options are extremely limited in that eventuality. For one thing, our nearest real base is Pearl Harbor. And for another, we won’t be able to fly sufficient sorties off our carriers, not with the shortage of jet fuel that we’re experiencing.”
“Jet fuel?” the President said in surprise.
“Mr. President,” the Advisor said, “we’re been flying so many relief supplies into the disaster areas that there’s a worldwide shortage of aviation fuel. The refineries are cranking it out as fast as they can, but our reserves are very low.”
“What you are saying,” the President said, “is that we have to keep the Chinese off Taiwan, but we can’t fight a war over it because all our planes would fall out of the sky.”
There was a moment of silence. “That wasn’t quite ...” the Advisor began.
“I think you have summed things up very well, Joe,” the President said. “Now how can we accomplish what we need to do?”
It was very interesting, the President thought, doing his job without being attached to it. He had decided he would be President when he was nine years old, and he’d worked toward that goal with every conscious moment since, until he’d finally succeeded in his ambition. He used to care so very deeply about every aspect of being the President, of working out every angle of every situation. He had loved it all, the brainstorming, the defeats, and victories. He had given it his all. His ego had been involved.
But now his ego was gone. Just. .. gone. He was doing the same job, making the same decisions, but it just didn’t have much to do with him anymore. The situation would be fascinating, at least if he were capable any longer of being fascinated.
In the end, he sent two carrier battle groups into the Western Pacific, though was careful to keep them out of the area where the Chinese missile was supposed to land. Both the Secretary and the Advisor seemed reasonably content with the situation.
“By the way,” he asked the Secretary. “What are the Gamsakhurdians up to?”
“Sir?”
“You know. Last week’s crisis. Georgia and Latvia.”
“Oh. Sorry. I was going to brief you, but—”
“I know, Darrell. We’re all very busy.”
“The Russian President told our ambassador that he was shocked at what his people were up to.”
“Do we believe he didn’t know?”
“As long as it suits us to. Right now it suits us to the ground. At least some of the paramilitaries have been recalled. The rest seem without direction. We are assured that heads are rolling in the Kremlin.”
“Latvia is safe,” the President smiled.
“For the present, sir. Yes.”
“The thought of a safe and free Latvia shall warm my cockles on frosty mornings. I’ll talk to you later, Darrell.”
He handed the phone to Stan Burdett, who put it on its cradle. The President turned, looked out the window at the clouds far below.
“China is attacking Taiwan on a symbolic level,” he told Stan. “By firing missiles over it. We are defending Taiwan on a symbolic level by sending two carrier battle groups. The symbols will clash harmlessly somewhere in the Western Pacific, and no one will be hurt. It’s all very dreamlike and in its way profound, isn’t it?”
Stan looked at him, adjusted his thick spectacles. “May I join you, sir?” he said.
“By all means.”
Stan sat across from the President, put a hand on his knee. “Are you all right, sir?”
The President looked at him. “My wife is dead, my oldest friend is dead, the country just had its guts ripped out, and the Chinese are shooting missiles in the direction of our ships. Other than that, all is well with myself and with the world. How are you, Stan?”
“You’re not...” Stan licked his thin lips nervously. “You’re not depressed?”
“Depressed? No. I am strangely placid. And you?”
“Because— you know— it would be understandable if you were depressed. If you were, say, feeling tired and run-down all the time, if all you wanted to do was sleep ...”
“I don’t sleep much,” the President said. “You people won’t let me. Why do crises always seem to happen at two in the morning?”
“I just meant depressed, you know,” Stan said unhappily. “In the— you know— clinical sense.”
“I’m not depressed in any sense,” the President said. “I eat well and I sleep well, at least when I have the opportunity. I do my job. You just saw me deal with a major international crisis without pulling my hair out or going into a crying jag.” He peered at Stan. “Are you depressed, Stan?”
“No, sir. I’m concerned.”
“That’s kind of you.” The President patted the hand that Stan had left on his knee. “But you don’t need to worry.”
“Sir, I—”
“Do you know, Stan,” the President went on, “I have inquired three times as to your well-being, and you have not answered at all?”
“Sir?”
The President leaned toward Stan. “How are you, Stan? That’s what I was trying to get at. How are you?”
“Oh. I am— okay. I guess. Sir.” Stan smiled nervously. “The thing is— Mr. President— you seem, I don’t know— unengaged.”
“Ah.”
“As if you— as if you’re just going through the motions, as if your real thoughts are elsewhere.”
The President ventured a mild frown. “And why should that be a problem, Stan?”
The press secretary seemed startled. “Sir?”
“What’s wrong with a president who’s detached? Who—” The President made a stirring gesture with his hand. “Who goes through the motions. As long as they’re the right motions, what difference does it make?” He looked out the window again, at the clouds below. “If I send two carrier battle groups to Taiwan, does it really matter to the carrier groups if my heart and soul are in it? Will it matter to the Chinese? Will the Chinese be able to look into my soul and determine whether or not the carriers matter to me? Or will the Chinese decide that what matters is the carrier groups?” The President patted Stan’s hand. “I think they’ll decide that it’s the Seventh Fleet that matters. Not my level of engagement with the Seventh Fleet.”
He turned, looked back at the window. “After all, when you’re dealing with an earthquake, you don’t inquire as to the earthquake’s state of mind. You just deal with the earthquake. The Chinese will deal with the reality of the Seventh Fleet. I don’t expect a problem.”
Stan looked deeply unhappy. He took a deep breath. “Mr. President, I think that perhaps you should talk to somebody.”
The President peered at him. “I’m talking to you. I talk to people all the time. Practically every minute.”
“I mean a professional, sir. A psychologist. After all, you’ve been going through a lot. You—”
The President returned to his cloudscape. “I talk to enough people as it is, Stan. Now, what I need you to do is work out what you’re going to tell the press about the Taiwanese crisis once we return to D.C. You heard what we’re going to do, and I’m sure you know how to spin it. Unless you’d rather have Aaron Schwarz down at State give the briefing…?”
“I’ll do it, sir,” Stan said quickly. He rose from his seat. He did not seem to have been comforted in the least by this conversation.
The President’s eyes tracked the clouds. “Don’t worry, Stan,” he said. “I’m not asleep at the switch. I’m doing my job.”
“Yes, sir.” Stan made his way out, closing the door securely behind him.
The President looked down at the clouds, skating brightly above the warm green earth. Clouds that were the same things as earthquakes. Sort of.
Weren’t they?
*