Op-Center

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Hood felt as though he'd been cut off at the knees, but he didn't dislike the President. He couldn't.

Michael Lawrence wasn't the brightest man who ever held the office, but he had the touch, he had charisma, and that worked on TV and at rallies. The public liked his style. He certainly wasn't the best manager to hold the office. He didn't like getting his hands dirty with the nitty-gritty of running the government: he wasn't a detail man like Jimmy Carter. Trusted aides like Burkow and Lawrence's Press Secretary Adrian Crow had been allowed to create their own little fiefdoms, power bases that won over or alienated other government agencies by rewarding cooperation and success with access to the President and increased responsibilities, punishing failure with backwater assignments and busywork. Even when he was making his rookie failures in foreign policy, this President didn't suffer the kind of bad press that dogged his predecessors: by wining and dining the Press Corps, increasing perks and amenities for reporters, and carefully doling out leaks and exclusives, Crow had put all but a few crusty columnists in her hip pocket. And no one read the Op-Ed pages anyway, she maintained. Sound bites and advertising controlled the voters, not George Will and Carl Rowan.

Lawrence could be ruthless, blind, and stubborn. But if nothing else, he had a vision for the country that was bold and intelligent and was just starting to work. For a year prior to announcing his candidacy, Florida Governor Lawrence had met with industrial leaders and asked if, in exchange for considerable tax breaks and deferments, they would buy into the privatization of NASA with the government managing all launches and facilities, the companies assuming most costs for personnel and R&D. In effect, Lawrence was proposing to boost the space agency's budget nearly threefold without going through Congress. Moreover, government expenses on space would be cut by two billion dollars, money that Lawrence earmarked for crime fighting and education. He also suggested that one third of the new blue-collar work force for NASA be culled from welfare, making for an annual savings of half a billion dollars.

U.S. industry agreed to the plan, and Lawrence's campaign advertisements reminded Americans of the lost glory of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo days, of blue-collar and white-collar workers laboring side by side for a common goal, of high employment and low inflation. He tied them all together, and hammered voters with views of existing spinoffs— personal computers and calculators, communications satellites and cellular phones, Teflon and portable video cameras and video games— and with visions of anticipated spinoffs— medicines to cure cancer and AIDS, space-based generators to convert solar energy into electricity to reduce costs and reliance on foreign oil, and even weather control. During the campaign, every time his opponent argued that the money would be better spent on Earth, Lawrence countered that Earth had become a sinkhole, swallowing up jobs and tax dollars, and that his plan would put an end to that… and also end foreign inroads in technological advances that were stealing American jobs.

Lawrence won handily, and as soon as he was elected he met with those same business leaders and the new heads of NASA to get some tangible results, fast, while they worked on getting the space station into orbit before the end of his first term. Leasing the abandoned Russian space station Nevsky, they put medical researchers and engineers in space, and within eighteen months Adrian Crow's press machine was touting the developments: most startling of all were images of a young medic, paralyzed below the waist in Desert Storm, playing zero-gravity basketball with an astronaut. The President had cured the lame, and it was an image people would never forget.

You could be frustrated with the man for his faults and for his frequent heavy-handedness, but you had to admire his vision. And even though his foreign policy faltered badly in the early going, he was smart enough to put together Op-Center to help run things. Burkow had argued that less bureaucracy and not more was what they needed to make things work abroad, but the President had disagreed with him on that— creating the ongoing tension between Hood and the National Security Council.

But that was okay: Paul could live with that. Compared to some of the special interest groups and political correctness monitors he'd had to deal with in Los Angeles, Burkow was a day at the beach.

Hood pulled up to the hospital, parked in the Emergency area, and hurried to the elevator. He had the room number, 834, from phoning earlier and went right up. The door of the private room was open; Sharon was slumped in the chair, eyes shut, and started when he entered. He kissed her on the forehead.

"Dad!"

Hood walked over to the bed. Alexander's voice was muffled by the clear tent, but his eyes and smile were luminous. He was wheezing slowly, his strong little chest righting hard to skim air off the top of each breath. Hood knelt on one knee.

Hood asked, "Koopa Lord knock you for a loop, Super Mario?"

"It's the Koopa King, Dad."

"Sorry. You know me and video games. I'm surprised you haven't got your Game Boy in there."

The boy shrugged a shoulder. "They wouldn't let me have it. I can't even have a comic book in here. Mom had to read me Supreme and hold up the pictures."

"We'll have to talk about some of the comics he's been reading," Sharon said, walking over. "Ripping off arms and punching out teeth—"

"Mom, it's good for my imagination."

"Don't get agitated," Hood said. "We'll talk about it when you're better."

"Dad, I love my comics—"

"You'll have them," Hood said. He touched the tent with the back of his hand, rubbing his son's cheek through it. Just now, medical advances seemed very important. He leaned closer and winked. "You worry about getting on your feet, and we'll see about convincing your mom later."

Alexander nodded weakly, and his father rose.

"Thanks for coming," Sharon said. "Crisis over?"

"No." He wasn't sure if that was a dig, but gave her the benefit of the doubt. "Look, I'm sorry about before, but we're really swimming through it. What are you doing about Harleigh?"

"She's going to my sister's."

Hood nodded, then kissed Sharon. "I'll call you later."

"Paul—"

He looked back.

"I really don't think those comics are good for him. They're very violent."

"So were the comics when I was a kid, and look how well adjusted I am. Severed heads, zombies, and Uncle Creepy notwithstanding."

Sharon arched her brows and sighed heavily as Hood kissed her again. Giving Alexander a thumbs-up, he hurried to the elevator, not daring to look at his watch until he was safely inside.