The Frankenstein Candidate (38 page)

There was not a single newspaper in the land that did not carry this riveting fusillade as its headline article the next day. There was not one talk radio program that did not run this scandal that evening and for many days afterward. There were the usual Web hits, YouTube videos, and talking in the student corridors at high schools. Colleges and universities saw groups of people ranting and raving on either side of the debate: suddenly, either you were a die-hard environmentalist who assumed Dr. Tedman had been bought by Stein and the oil barons or you were a stunned onlooker who had lost all faith in government scientists, and elected officials. After that day, there were no neutrals. America, for all practical purposes, was from then on in the midst of a nonviolent metaphorical civil war. You were either a carbon alarmist or you were committed to science, honesty, and integrity.

A metaphorical civil war can only be a transient phase—either the war ends or the metaphor melts down. It was in Chicago a few weeks later that the summer fires truly ignited. The date was June 27, a Saturday. Three carbon lobby groups were orchestrating a four-mile rally down Western Avenue, starting at the CTA Pink Line Station. Halfway down the path stood a large number of unemployed youth. They were trying to organize a hip-hop concert the following week in aid of the jobless. Chicago’s youth unemployment rate had already hit 50 percent.

The unemployed youth, mostly but not solely African American, gathered around. They blocked the progress of the rally, seemingly inadvertently, as they strolled the width of Western Avenue. Then one of them noticed the placards.

“Go Green,” said one banner.

“Govt Scientist bought by Big Oil,” said another signboard.

“Stop burning the planet.”

It was the third one that infuriated one of the youths, a hulking man called Jake. Out of a job for three years straight, Jake had just watched the Mardi Tedman nervous breakdown on national television. Jake was Caucasian and a Catholic with a wife and five children. But for his employment status, the wife and children might have stayed with him. He wanted to find work, but more than anything else, he was searching for answers to questions America was asking. The Mardi Tedman confessional was far from the final and only answer to the why of it all, but it was a start. Jake now had one enemy in his sights: the carbon racketeers.

From under his sweatshirt, Jake pulled out a revolver and fired two shots at the burning planet placard, stopping the front of the rally dead in its tracks.

“Next time, I will put a hole in your brain,” Jake said to the trembling man, who let his placard fall. Jake meant only to scare him; he was not a killer.

The rally was three thousand strong. The crowd at the back didn’t hear the shots. They marched on, creating a stampede as the front line tried to retreat. The swell increased from the back. The line fell forward. Against their will, the front line inadvertently smashed into Jake and his friends. A melee broke out. Jake and his friends were heavily outnumbered, but they shoved and pushed on regardless, chanting, “Down with the carbon monsters.” One of the Chicago youths was slapped across the face.

It was then that Big Jake lost it. He fired into the crowd. His friends pulled out their guns and began to fire as well. The screams pierced the middle of the rally, which crumbled. Surprisingly, two of the neo-greenies had come armed as well and they drew their weapons. Both were shot dead in an instant.

By the time Chicago’s youth were done, there were sixteen dead, nine more dying, and another nineteen injured, some critically. The shooters were gone before the cops and the ambulances arrived.

Frank Stein went on the Net Station immediately to deliver a national address, urging calm and civil debate against the carbonistas and strongly condemning the violence in Chicago. But the tainting in the media had already begun.

“Extreme right winger kindles hate-filled riots,” bellowed the
Chicago Herald
.

Radio Illinois 101 ran a three-hour show, only letting in people who believed that the big corporations were out to destroy “their beautiful planet.”

Sidney Ganon seized the moment to garner the green vote, announcing that he would introduce a bill to increase carbon taxes by $24 per metric ton on top of the existing $20 per ton; forty-four, he said, was a “lucky number.” John Logan promised a $300 billion allocation toward renewable energy.

Frank Stein released his eighth and ninth commandments the next day: the commandment of justice and the commandment of dignity. A preoccupied Olivia was on a mission, her study relentless; she followed his every word.

The Commandment of Dignity required the end of government control in all adult contractual relationships, from marijuana to porn, from prostitution to risky investing. It necessarily meant that euthanasia and suicide needed to be decriminalized. That sat well with Olivia.

Frank illustrated the Commandment of Justice with a historical account. During the attempted assassination of President Reagan, Frank said, at least three other lives were permanently ruined—White House press secretary James Brady, paralyzed on one side, a Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy shot in the abdomen, and a DC police officer Tom Delahanty left with permanent nerve damage. The assassin, John Hinckley Junior, was able to go on parole. Found not guilty by reason of insanity, American law had allowed him to spend a third of his life as a free man because it was determined that the person was subsequently sane and not a danger to himself or others. The insanity plea became a game to be played.

Frank Stein was happy to overturn the insanity defense for good, making retribution a necessary first outcome of a criminal act, thereby assuming that a minimal level of sanity always prevailed within the criminal. That didn’t sit well with Olivia.

As the media mayhem on Frank took the focus off her, Olivia went back to DC. On her first day back, she got a surprise visit from Claire Derouge.

“I came as soon as I heard you were back at the Hill,” Claire said. “Sorry I didn’t call before…I just had to see you.”

Back at her Senate office, Olivia let her in and closed the door.

Claire was astonished at how calm Olivia looked. There was no perceptible sign of having lost it—a matter that Claire had come to completely believe from reading about it in the media.

“You could have been president,” was all she could say.

“Yes, I know,” Olivia said.

“Olivia, I have always looked up to you…you know that.”

“I know.”

“So please…please put me out of my misery, tell me…why did you throw it away?”

“I was ready to run…but the platform had to change. When everything you think is true turns out to be not—”

“All this because you think the carbon alarm was exaggerated?”

“No, much more than that. It was the deliberate falsification that alienated me. There are people who will even kill for power. I just can’t work alongside them. Our cherished ideals of state regulation and intervention may also be wrong, Claire. Maybe the Federal Reserve really doesn’t know better than the market. Perhaps Stein is right—forced compassion does not work. We have been compassionate with other people’s production, Claire, and then some. We have thrown money at projects that could not be funded so we borrowed…and then borrowed some more…and when that was too high to pay interest on, we borrowed yet again. For twelve years straight, the economy never got kick-started. How long can we keep ignoring the evidence?”

“What will you do now?”

“I will campaign for the truth.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Olivia said.

“Sid Ganon has asked me to be his deputy.”

“That’s exciting for you.”

“Should I take it?”

“What do you really believe?”

“I wonder about that sometimes…what do we all really believe?”

“I know where I stand, Claire. At least now I do. The question is, do you?”

“It is better to work from the inside than the outside…that used to be your advice.”

“True. And if you do make strange findings, then?”

“Then we will talk again, Olivia, won’t we?”

Olivia appeared to say yes with a nod. When Claire Derouge left, Olivia was not amazed that she had been chosen. She was inexperienced but poised. She appealed to the young, and she had a fresh, untainted media profile. They needed their version of Jackie Harding, whom Logan had picked as his VP.

Olivia knew she had to get herself a new cell phone SIM card. Colin Spain had left a fourth voice mail message for her, this one angrier than the rest.

“Answer me, Olivia, answer me. I did everything for you. It was all there. You could have waited ten years and still been shuffling papers on the Hill. I brought you into the inner sanctum. And you…you had the gall to throw it all away. Who the hell do you think you are?”

Thankfully, her voice mail ran out of memory. She pressed three to delete and moved on to the next one.

“And to finish that point—” it was Colin again. She pressed three and moved on to the next one. Neither Victor nor Larry had dared contact her, but she wasn’t finished with Victor, far from it.

Message seven was the one from Phil Enright. This is the one she badly wanted to hear.

“We have spoken to the detective,” he said. “It will take time to determine what exactly transpired. I have some of my best men on it. That’s all I can tell you. It’s our case now—we will tell you when we are ready.”

Olivia smiled. She was feeling better every day since her momentous decision.