The Frankenstein Candidate (37 page)

“Thank you, Dr. Rohl.”

June 20 to September 22 was the official summer and a time for happy days. But the dark gloom of a great depression had cast its pall so wide, it had even covered the beaches. Moreover, that summer, the National Hurricane Center had issued warnings that several category four tornadoes were likely to hit the southeastern coast through July and August.

Congress was still debating the rescue package for Sixth National Bank and International Financial Group when the nation’s ninth largest financial institution, the East Coast Atlantic Banking Corporation, applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. East Coast Atlantic had been created from government-encouraged mergers among insurers, 401(k) managers, and regional banks to avert a mini-banking crisis in 2013.

Olivia’s research into the truth had not ceased. She knew that, despite its name, East Coast had major investments in the municipal bonds issued by West Coast states teetering on bankruptcy, including California, Oregon, and Arizona.

The bankruptcy hearing for East Coast Atlantic was a hopeless cause. The U.S. government had no option but to step in and assure retail depositors that it would stand behind every dollar of deposits not exceeding $250,000 for any one person, as the FDIC’s solvency was in question. The rest, they said, “you could afford to lose” since they didn’t look after the rich. The rich had previously gamed the FDIC rules by spreading their deposits across many banks.

Meanwhile, Democratic Party delegates met again, this time without the fans and the fanfare, in an undisclosed location where Sidney Ganon was elected unopposed as the party’s presidential nominee. Ganon immediately made an impassioned plea for respect for law and order, community service, job sharing, and “protecting American jobs,” invoking John F. Kennedy’s famous phrase, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Very few people attended his campaign’s opening salvo in Central Park, New York.

The government’s chief scientific officer was on extended sick leave, but none of his friends, colleagues, or even relatives knew where he was. All they got was an occasional text message from Mardi saying he was relaxing at a friend’s holiday house in the Bahamas. Only the psychiatrist Dr. Bruce Rohl, Olivia, and Frank knew of his whereabouts. The nurses only heard him being called “
Steevee
” by Frank. Knowing he preferred this name, Bruce and Olivia were only too happy to cooperate, and the nurses too called him Steve.

Mardi wasn’t a highly recognizable celebrity. Frank Stein had become well known, but even his celebrity status was easily overshadowed by Olivia Allen. Down in Ocean City, where she spent a week, she had to disguise herself in a blonde wig, sunglasses, and a sunhat when she was out and about. Her bodyguards were gone—the party didn’t want to pay for them any more. She no longer cared. In fact, she wanted to left alone for awhile. Only Gary knew where his wife was. There were a string of media stations wanting desperately to interview her, longing hysterically to know whether she would run as an independent. Flannery had even dispatched detectives all around the country to locate her, but to no avail.

Olivia was denounced by her party after Sidney Ganon was officially anointed as the party’s preferred candidate. Only Victor was unsurprisingly quiet. After two successive bloopers in his chosen candidates, Larry Fox decided to retire from politics. In just two months, Larry Fox had taken enough curve balls to last a lifetime, and at seventy, he’d had enough.

Olivia ostensibly came to Ocean City to see Mardi. But it was to meet Frank Stein that Olivia was in Ocean City for; she had heard from Bruce how much Frank had helped Mardi recover. Bruce’s opinion was that Mardi could have relapsed but for Frank. That scared her. She knew Mardi was much too smart to not succeed at suicide if he tried it again.

Seeking to meet Frank for the first time one beautiful sunny day in Ocean City, Olivia kept fifteen paces ahead of Frank as she made her way to a café. With her wig, sunglasses, and sunhat, she looked like the quintessential European tourist. Frank followed her in a Hawaiian shirt, sunhat, and sunglasses of his own. Away from the glare of celebrity spotters and radio station hacks, the future of America was being discussed and decided upon over a couple of lattes.

“I am Olivia,” she said simply.

“Frank,” he said, extending his hand.

“I always thought that an extremist like you would be the most despicable person I would ever meet…if I ever met you. Now I have met you,” she said.

“And?”

“I don’t know. We have just met.”

He smiled.

“Anyway, thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For saving Dr. Tedman.”

“You saved him first.”

“I’m surprised…you would do that much for an acquaintance…a school friend with whom you lost touch, I understand.”

“Not just any friend, Senator Allen—”

“Olivia…you may call me Olivia.”

“Mardi is especially brilliant, as you know. I used to say there’s clever, there’s really clever, and then there is Mardi. Mardi could play fifteen games of blindfold chess simultaneously. So Mardi represents the ultimate switch. If they can switch the best of the men of reason—”

“But they didn’t switch you over, did they?”

“I considered it too. Just for one brief moment in my twenties,” he said, tongue-in-cheek. “To save himself, Mardi needs to switch back…publicly I think.”

“Quite a dangerous proposition, Mr. Stein…but then who will save Mardi from them?”

“Look, I am not a psychiatrist, but surely he doesn’t have a choice? Who else can save him from himself now?”

“Why did he…why do they all do it?”

“His choice was related to social approval. Other choices are about power…power other others, social control, an extreme distrust of industrial achievement, the foolish belief that industry goes on like rainfall and sunshine, regardless of human disrespect and obstacles. But when someone leads, others find the courage to follow. That was a wonderful thing you did, Olivia…very courageous.”

“Thank you. Do you plan on being present if Mardi makes it public?”

“Yes.”

“I want to be there too,” she said.

A week later, Kayla Mizzi scored the highest ratings of any television show since the previous year’s Super Bowl. The fact that the event came on an Internet channel was an ominous moment for broadcast television.

Olivia Allen’s first public appearance on a national network after her outburst was an event in itself. The fact that she was appearing with the radical independent got tongues wagging: Was she going to join him? Did she already know that when she blew apart her party’s nomination process in a public spectacle? But the questions were not about to be answered.

Kayla opened by introducing everyone. Then she announced that it was Dr. Tedman’s show, and Olivia Allen and Frank Stein were merely there to give him support. It was a stunning turn, almost diabolical.

Mardi started cautiously, going over his school days and then talking in cryptic half sentences. Kayla’s efforts to draw him out were getting nowhere. That’s when Frank said quietly, “In the memory of Susan, tell them.”

Neither Olivia nor Kayla even knew who Susan was. But Mardi was a different man after that. First, he announced that he was resigning his post.

Then Mardi began to name government bureaucrats who withheld funding from scientists who had scorned the idea that global warming was caused by industrialization. He named senior scientists at reputable organizations who bullied junior scientists into agreement.

On any other radio or television news channel, the broadcast may have been interrupted by news editors scared of the government’s wrath. But this was the year 2020 and it was an Internet simulcast. Not even the president of the United States could stop this transmission.

People thought Mardi would stop talking in about fifteen minutes. They wanted to hear from Olivia Allen; why did she do it, why would a person, a woman on the threshold of the presidency, throw away the nomination of a major party? The nation wanted to know—even the Republicans, the nonvoters, and the neutrals wanted to know. But the longer Mardi kept going, the less people needed to hear from Olivia.

Mardi demonstrated that the U.S. government was committed to spreading the carbon lie but did not really begin to act upon it vigorously until 2014. Then everything changed. The environmental cult virtually took over governments: state, federal, and local. New carbon laws were introduced in the U.S.: carbon taxes, carbon trading, and carbon permits sold at ever-increasing prices solely by the federal government. Carbon became the new four-letter word in the English language. Beginning in 2015, various U.S. corporations had been subject to unannounced carbon raids whereby federal officials swooped on company offices without notice, stationed themselves, and audited their carbon data files. Of course, some carbon inspectors ended up corrupt and rich.

But it was when Mardi described his personal loneliness: going back to the time he joined school, then his high school days, the awkward years of youth, his autism, and his recent suicide attempt, that the nation cried with him. Many felt sorry for Mardi—yet it was really hard to forgive him. Some even twittered that attempted suicide was a felony and Mardi had just admitted to it. It was even harder for Mardi to forgive himself.

After Mardi, Olivia and Frank spoke briefly. Olivia issued a terse statement elucidating her reasons for throwing her nomination into the world’s greatest “please reconsider” moment. She had not stood down from the invitation to be a presidential candidate—she had offered to run only on an honest mission to discover the truths that were tearing America down and to apply the lessons of the investigation. But it was the party that had declined.

Frank congratulated Mardi on his courageous career-ending confession, denounced those who had renounced their integrity, and ended up by publicly hugging him. “Mardi, my friend,” he said to the teary Mardi.

When it was all done, the gravity of the situation began to dawn on the people who had been watching. The most trusted official in government had just done a
mea culpa
confessional with Internet television as his priest. He had also incriminated hundreds of bureaucrats, scientists, elected officials, bankers, lawyers, economists, and even the president himself. It would have been easy to dismiss it as the rants of a depressed lunatic, which is precisely what happened the next day in much of the mainstream media.