Power Surge

by Ben Bova

  “They left the refrigerator door open,” the landlord said. “We shut it after the police left.”

  The bedroom was equally uprooted: mattress pulled off the bed, bedclothes strewn across the floor, medicine chest in the bathroom opened, every shelf emptied, the floor covered with opened bottles and a carpeting of pills.

  Jake said grimly, “They made a mess, all right.”

  “Is anything missing?” the landlord asked.

  “Who the hell knows?” Jake snapped. “It’ll take a week to straighten everything out.”

  Tami pointed a trembling finger at the folding table on the side wall. “My laptop’s gone,” she said, in a hushed voice.

  Jake reached out and gripped her arm. “Come on, we’re going to a hotel.”

  * * *

  After a fitful night’s sleep in a modest hotel near the American University campus, Tami and Jake spent the morning trying to straighten up their apartment.

  “Why did they make such a mess? What were they looking for?” Tami asked as she stretched clean sheets on their bed.

  “Your laptop,” Jake said. He was on his knees, scooping up the aspirin pills that had been thrown onto the bathroom floor.

  “But it was right there on the table, out in the open. They didn’t have to wreck the place.”

  “No, they didn’t have to. But they did. That’s their message to us. They can ruin us, destroy us, any time they choose.”

  She sank onto a corner of the bed and started to sob. “I feel so … so helpless. Like I’ve been raped.”

  Jake got to his feet and went into the bedroom to sit down beside her. As he slid a protective arm around Tami’s shoulders, he felt a smoldering rage growing inside him. The wiseguys always muscle you to make you do what they want. Ever since he’d been a kid, he’d had to deal with thugs and outright crooks who made pain and humiliation their major tools.

  He kissed Tami on the side of her face, then said softly, “I’ve got to go to the office. Will you be okay here by yourself?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll be back in time for dinner. Pick a good restaurant, you deserve a treat.”

  With a cheerless smile, Tami said, “Like a good little doggie?”

  “Like my brave little pet,” he said.

  “I don’t feel very brave, Jake.”

  “I know. Stay upstairs with the landlord and his wife. We don’t have to finish cleaning this mess.”

  “No,” she said. “I’d rather have something to do.”

  “Okay.” He stood up. “If anything bothers you, anything at all, you run upstairs and call me.”

  Nodding, she said, “I will.”

  “I’ve got to get to the office,” Jake said. “I’ve got to put an end to this.”

  * * *

  It was nearly three p.m. when Jake got to the Hart S.O.B.

  “The senator’s on the floor,” said the receptionist when he asked where Tomlinson was. “Senate’s in session.”

  “Where’s Kevin?”

  “In the conference room with Reynolds and some people from Norton and Ingels.”

  “Let me know when he gets finished.”

  Jake went to his own office, slid into his desk chair, and grabbed the telephone. “Please get me Senator Santino’s office.”

  The Little Saint was in the Senate chamber, same as Tomlinson. Jake asked the aide who answered the phone to schedule a meeting as soon as possible.

  “With Senator Tomlinson?” the aide asked.

  Jake lied, “Yes. As soon as possible. This evening, if you can.”

  A moment’s hesitation. Then, “I’ll call you back.”

  As Jake hung up, one of the administrative aides appeared at his doorway. “Mr. O’Donnell is free now.”

  “Thanks.”

  Jake made his way to O’Donnell’s office and told the staff chief what he’d learned about Santino and Jacobi.

  For once, O’Donnell looked impressed. Shocked, in fact.

  “He’s Jacobi’s father?”

  Jake nodded tightly.

  “You’ve got evidence for this?”

  “My apartment’s been burglarized. The fucking FBI tailed us when we were in Fresno.”

  “That’s not evidence,” O’Donnell said.

  “It’s good enough for me. I need to tell Frank about this. We’ve got to have a face-to-face with Santino.”

  O’Donnell shook his head. “Not so fast. Let me think about this. There are a lot of angles to this.”

  “I’m not going to wait until they kidnap Tami! I’m going to see Santino and get this settled. The sooner the better.”

  “Wait ’til Franklin comes back to the office.”

  “The Senate might be in session all night.”

  “Then Santino will be on the floor, too, won’t he?”

  Jake started to reply, then realized that O’Donnell was right. As long as the Senate stays in session, Santino would most likely be right there in the Senate chamber.

  But not Jacobi.

  Maneuvering

  Jake stewed restlessly in his office until six o’clock. O’Donnell stuck his head through the doorway and said, “Senate’s still in session. Big debate about the immigration bill.”

  Jake nodded unhappily.

  “I’m going home,” O’Donnell said. “You might as well go, too.”

  “In a few minutes,” Jake said.

  His face stern, O’Donnell said, “Don’t do anything foolish, Jake. Wait ’til you can talk to Franklin. Tomorrow morning.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “I mean it,” O’Donnell said.

  Nodding again, Jake replied, “Okay. I’ll wait for Frank. Tomorrow morning. Bright and early.”

  “That’s the ticket.”

  But once O’Donnell left, Jake looked up Jacobi’s cell phone number from his office phone’s records.

  And got a pleasant recorded male voice informing him that Mr. Jacobi was unavailable, please leave a message at the tone.

  “It’s Jake Ross,” he said into the phone. “We have to talk. As soon as possible.” Then he left his cell phone number.

  Jake got up from his desk and put on his leather car coat. The office was almost empty; most of the desks were dark. As he headed for the door, he pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket and called Tami.

  She did not answer.

  Suddenly worried, Jake raced down to the basement garage, jumped into his Mustang, and drove home. Tami wasn’t in the apartment. He saw that she had straightened up the place. But she wasn’t there.

  He ran around the house, up onto the porch, and pounded on the front door. The landlord’s wife opened it, looking startled.

  “Have you seen Tami?” Jake asked before she could open her mouth.

  “Not since this afternoon,” she replied. “She left in a hurry.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t say. A taxi pulled up, and she ran out to it.”

  “When was that?”

  The woman blinked, trying to remember. “Oh, it must have been about four thirty, maybe a little later. She took a taxi.”

  Jake stood there, puzzled, frantic, frightened. She would have called me to let me know where she was going, he said to himself. Or left a note, at least.

  “Is something wrong?” the landlord’s wife asked.

  Jake said, “I don’t know. I—”

  His cell phone buzzed. Jake yanked it from his pocket. “Tami?”

  Jacobi’s voice answered, “It’s Bert Jacobi. You said you wanted to see me.”

  “Where’s Tami?”

  “Your Jap girlfriend?”

  “Where is she?”

  “How should I know? I’m in Providence, not DC.”

  “You’re lying!”

  Jacobi chuckled. “Get your nerves under control, kid. I don’t know where your girlfriend is, and I don’t care. You called me and said you want to see me. What about?”

  Jake walked away from his
landlord’s wife, leaving her standing at the house’s front door, and went down the porch steps.

  “We’ve got to talk, face-to-face.”

  Jacobi grunted. “Yeah, I guess we do. I can fly down to DC. tomorrow morning.”

  “Okay. Call me when you get to Santino’s office. I’ll see you both there.”

  “Good.”

  Before Jacobi could hang up, Jake said, “If anything’s happened to Tami, I’ll kill you.”

  “Tough talk, kid.”

  “Anything at all. I want her safe. I want her with me. Tonight. Now. Otherwise I tell the whole story to the news media.”

  Jacobi said nothing.

  “And then I’ll kill you,” Jake repeated. “That’s a promise.”

  The phone clicked dead.

  Jake stood there in the nighttime darkness with the phone in his hand. He realized it was chilly; a cold wind was making the trees sigh.

  What to do? he asked himself as he headed down the path to his apartment’s door. What can I do?

  He went back into the apartment and sank onto his desk chair. What can I do? he repeated. Where is she? What’s happened to her?

  His phone buzzed again. He put it to his ear.

  “Jake?”

  “Tami!”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” But her voice sounded weak, unsure.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m in the Capitol building, in the Majority Leader’s office.”

  “What? How’d you get there? What’s going on?”

  “They want you to come here. Right away.”

  “They? Who’s they?”

  “Security police. They said you were hurt!”

  “I’m not hurt. I’m fine.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, but the security officers said Senator Santino wants to talk to the two of us.”

  “I’ll be down there in fifteen minutes,” Jake said.

  “Drive carefully,” said Tami.

  Jake almost giggled at that. “I will,” he promised.

  * * *

  It took more than fifteen minutes. Jake parked in the Hart building, then sprinted down the tunnel that connected to the Capitol. The Senate was still in session, but there were no tourists wandering through the building at this time of night; the tunnels were practically deserted.

  Once he got to the Capitol, Jake had to ask for directions to the Majority Leader’s office; he had never been there before. At last he found it, and he saw that a uniformed Capitol security officer was standing in the hallway, in front of the door, his arms folded across his chest. The man was well over six feet tall and carried a heavy-looking pistol in a holster at his hip.

  Jake went up to him. “I’m Jacob Ross. Senator Santino wants—”

  “Dr. Ross,” the guard said. “Go right in.” And he opened the door.

  Jake stepped into a smallish anteroom, paneled in dark wood. Two more uniformed security officers—one of them a woman—jumped up from the wooden chairs they’d been sitting in, by the door.

  “You’re Jacob Ross?”

  Jake showed them his ID card.

  “Right through there, sir.”

  Jake went through the open door into a bigger room, and there was Tami, sitting in a leather chair in front of a heavy mahogany desk, looking small and vulnerable and worried, but not at all frightened.

  She jumped up and flung herself into Jake’s arms.

  “They told me you’d been hurt!” she blurted. “An automobile accident.”

  Jake kissed her. Then, “I’m fine. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  Holding her hand, Jake turned back to the door to the anteroom, where the two security officers were still standing.

  “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

  “Senator Santino wants to see you,” said the male officer. “Both of you.”

  Jake glanced at Tami, then said, “Good. I want to see him.”

  Confrontation

  The two security officers went back into the anteroom and closed the door behind them, leaving Jake and Tami alone together. They sat side by side in the dark brown leather chairs in front of the Majority Leader’s desk. Jake glanced at his wristwatch: it was almost midnight.

  The witching hour, he thought.

  “What happens now?” Tami asked.

  “Now we wait.”

  “Can’t we go home?”

  Jake pursed his lips, thinking. “I don’t believe those cops outside would actually stop us if we insisted on leaving. But I want to have this out with Santino, the sooner the better.”

  She nodded glumly.

  Jake looked around the office. Not much to see. The massive dark desk, a couple of wooden chairs along the far wall. No windows. Framed photos on the walls of earlier Majority Leaders such as Lyndon Johnson, Howard Baker, Harry Reid: men who had used this office to meet with senators, to persuade, cajole, or intimidate men and women over issues great and small.

  Turning back to Tami, he asked, “Somebody told you I’d been injured in an automobile accident?”

  “They said you were in the infirmary here in the Capitol building. But when I got here they told me that was a mistake, and I should wait here for Senator Santino. Later on they said I should phone you and tell you to come here.”

  “So now he’s got us both here, waiting for him.”

  “I don’t like this,” Tami said. “We should leave.”

  Jake didn’t argue. Instead, he went to the TV remote on the desk and clicked on the flat-screen set on the opposite wall. As he expected, it was tuned to C-SPAN.

  And it showed the Senate floor emptying. The senators were filing out of the chamber.

  “Session’s over,” Jake said. “He ought to be here any minute.”

  Tami seemed to sit up straighter, square her shoulders, as if bracing herself to face the enemy.

  Mario Santino opened the door and entered the office. He looked tired, bent, almost frail. Jake got to his feet automatically as Santino headed to the desk.

  “Good evening,” he said softly, slipping into the high-backed swivel chair behind the desk. “I’m glad you could both come.”

  “We didn’t have much choice,” Jake said, sitting down again.

  Santino made a little smile. “Love makes people do strange things.” Pointing at Tami, he said, “You came here because you thought he”—he nodded toward Jake—“was injured. And you, Dr. Ross, came because she was here.”

  “I came because I want to talk to you about your son.”

  Santino’s pale face flushed slightly. “Yes, I suppose you do.”

  “Bert Jacobi is your son, isn’t he?” Jake said.

  “Do you have any evidence of that?”

  “We know he was born to Mrs. Caterina Jacobi and then adopted by her husband,” Tami said.

  “That’s not evidence that I was his father.”

  “It was enough to get Senator McGrath to drop his support of you,” Jake said.

  Santino’s ice-cold gray eyes flared. He took a deep breath and placed both hands flat on the desktop. “The late Senator McGrath was a fool.”

  “But he could have told the news media about your affair with your best friend’s wife,” Tami said.

  “That would have been … troublesome.”

  Tami said, “You could scotch this whole rumor with a simple DNA test.”

  Santino shook his head. “No, I can’t do that.”

  “Then the story’s true!” Jake said.

  Santino started to say something, but checked himself. His eyes shifted away from the two of them, as if he was looking at something that wasn’t really there, something from deep in the past.

  “You think you know all about it, but you don’t,” Santino said, with quiet intensity. “What do you know about pain, about love and shame and guilt hanging over you like a dark cloud? All these years. A
ll these years.”

  The Little Saint glared at them, but then his anger seemed to dissolve. He sagged in his chair and said in a near whisper, “I loved her. Do you know what it’s like to love someone so deeply that you don’t care what happens, just so long as you can be with her?”

  Tami stared at him.

  “Salvatore Jacobi was a monster, a brute,” Santino went on, his voice low but trembling with ancient emotions. “He was twice Catherine’s age. His family and Catherine’s family arranged their marriage. She loved me, not him! But I had nothing, I was just a poor man working his way through college. He was going to inherit his father’s company, his family was well off. They forced her to marry him.”

  Jake saw that Santino’s hands had clenched into fists.

  “So I dropped out of college and joined the Marines. To get away from her. I fought for my country. And when I came back home … when I saw Catherine again…” His voice broke and he lowered his head.

  “So Jacobi really is your son,” Jake said, his voice equally low.

  “He killed her,” Santino muttered. “She died within a year, and he brutalized little Bert. If I’d had the courage … the strength … but I didn’t. There was nothing I could do. Nothing.”

  “You went into politics.”

  Still staring into the past, Santino said, “Yes. That was the road to strength, to power. The old man died at last, and Bert inherited the coal company. He’s always supported me, like a good son.”

  “I can see why you want to keep this a secret,” Tami said. “It would ruin your image, wouldn’t it?”

  “It all happened nearly forty years ago.” Santino’s voice sounded almost like a guilty little boy’s whine.

  Jake said, “But it would damage you now, wouldn’t it? The Little Saint, an adulterer, with his friend’s wife.”

  Santino seemed to stir himself, pull his focus back to the here and now.

  Raising a finger to point at Jake, he said, “You. You and your kind. Holier than thou, the lot of you. You come into Washington all full of righteous zeal. You want to change everything. Things that have taken years to build, you want to tear down overnight. You’d destroy everything I’ve worked to accomplish, wouldn’t you? You’d destroy me!”

  Jake countered, “I don’t want to destroy anything. I want to build a strong and sustainable energy policy—”