Читать книгу Cull - Stafford Ray - Страница 6

"Harry! You know Tanner can’t go with it.” She was probably right, but he had accepted the job. “Maybe…but if the polls…”

“Whose polls?” Felicity’s eyes pleaded for him to listen. “Murdock? Harry, the emissions part is hard enough, but…have you been following Fox? Every other idiot is demanding we ‘keep America strong’, as if signing up somehow betrays our values. They need to get past the ‘soft voice big stick’ delusion. It hasn’t worked in decades, if it ever did. Your president knows it, but hasn’t the guts to go against the Loony Right that put him there. It’s the office, not the person; it devours them. It eats at their integrity until they forget why they ran in the first place!”

“No, I don’t think so. Tanner seems to be OK with it…but I’ll know more after today’s meeting.”

Felicity took his hand. “Harry Fromm, as soon as he put Magnus Devaurno in Defense, the tail started wagging the dog…and why do they want you there? I smell live sacrifice and it scares the pants off me!”

“That’s a good start,” he growled. “How much time have we got?”

“Shh!” she warned. “Sam’s home!”

He kissed her ear, then whispered, “I was really thinking of coffee!”

She smiled up at him. “Just watch your ass with Tanner. I just don’t trust him. OK?” she pleaded and turned back to her screen. “I’ve just written this for my radio spot tomorrow. It’s a piece on how your darling president skewed the climate change conversation into a Right versus Left issue and how that is making bad guys out of anyone who supports renewables. He painted himself into a corner with that, and now with Devaurno in Cabinet, I fear another disastrous military adventure.” She took his hand. “I’m sorry Harry, but you can’t look at the last fifty years of American politics without being dismayed how we shoot from the hip. Harry, this country produces the most sophisticated people on the planet and we still give cowboys the keys to the arsenal.”

She pressed ‘print’ and turned back to Harry. “You might like to read my notes on the way.” The printer ceased whirring. She reached for the sheets, clipped them with a staple, then held the second page open.

“Listen to this. ‘If climate change is a dire threat and we fix it, we’re OK. If climate change is no threat and we fix it, we’re still OK. But if climate change is the threat Science says it is and we do nothing, we’re fucked’.”

“You didn’t write that!”

She laughed into his astonished eyes, revealed the actual words, then drew his face to hers and kissed him lightly. She loved this man so much and was suddenly afraid for him. “Just take care, Fromm!” She forced a smile to go with the quip. “There are more assholes in Cabinet than on Central Park johns.”

“Ambassador Fromm!” She was young and pretty, holding a fuzzy microphone under his nose. He had never before been waylaid on his own doorstep.

“Excuse me!” He stepped aside but the camera blocked his way.

“Just a moment of your time, Ambassador Fromm, please.” She was not much older than Sam. He recognised in her a young Felicity trying to get an interview and relented. Her name tag read: ‘Joslyn Sandor’ and revealed that she worked for Washington’s youth station, Teen Vision TV.

“OK Joslyn, but be quick. I have a meeting.”

“I’ll be quick,” she smiled, showing her perfect just-out-of-braces teeth. “Ambassador Fromm, has Felicity gotten you into trouble with President Tanner?” He smiled at the first name terms and clumsy attempt at controversy.

“Now why would she do that?” he sighed, amused. “What has Felicity said now?”

“Ambassador Fromm, your wife’s column supports inspections of US nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Commission and President Tanner doesn’t.”

“Mrs Fromm writes whatever she likes. It doesn’t get me into trouble with President Tanner,” he frowned in mock anger, “but it does get her into trouble with me!”

“Does that mean you wear the trousers in your house, Mr Fromm?”

“Sometimes she wears the trousers, and sometimes she wears my pyjamas tops,” he laughed. “I assure you, Felicity Fromm is her own person and you’d do well to emulate her.”

“Oh no!” she assured him. “I wouldn’t say anything bad about Felicity. She’s cool!”

He smiled. “I think she’s cool too, so what do you think we should do about international inspections?”

“Oh, I think we must open up. We can’t demand of others what we won’t accept for ourselves. Don’t you agree?”

“Seems reasonable to me,” he smiled. “But maybe you should ask North Korea and Iran the same question.”

“And will you support the UN resolution on climate change, Ambassador Fromm?”

“International inspections are a yes-no proposition,” he said. “But zero emissions would create havoc in the short term. Have you considered that?”

“Yes, I have,” she said with a self-satisfied smile. “I ride a bike, I’m vegetarian and I think we should sign up. What do you do for climate change, Ambassador Fromm?”

“Very commendable,” he smiled. “But you can’t carry a truck load of freight on your bike, can you?”

“Well, no,” she answered, reddening. “But we need to start somewhere and I’d like to believe you are thinking of your children’s future. You are, aren’t you?”

He laughed. “I think we should all stop driving cars and catching planes.” He laughed again. “We should all turn off the lights and grow our own vegetables. Is that what you want to hear? And I could ride my bike to New York and paddle my canoe to China, and that’s only this week. How’s that for starters?”

She was now angry at his flippancy. “I am serious, Mr Fromm. People my age are really frightened by this.”

He recognised her sincerity and relented. “Yes, I agree, we should sign up and the sooner the better, but that means huge adjustments and it will take more than five years.”

“So you agree that coal and oil industries are destroying the planet?”

He needed to hurry but wanted to please this earnest young person and smiled warmly. “Absolutely. Now I must go.”

Stepping aside, this time he kept walking. The camera followed him. As he passed her he whispered, “Keep up the good work.”

“Thank you Ambassador Fromm,” she called and turned to the camera to wind up her story.

He could no longer hear her words and soon forgot the interview. He would be reminded.