almost laughed. “Well, it’ll take a bit more work, but I’ve got a rough plan and costing.”
“OK,” he asked hopefully. “How much?”
“Well,” drawled Bunton, stretching the tension. “I’ll need to recruit a dozen or so new operatives, give them a mil each to crack the locks, plus another ten mil for expenses, another ten mil for unforseen glitches and ten for me. That’s about fifty in round figures and your problem’s solved.”
“That much!” he exclaimed. “I hadn’t expected quite…”
“Listen, you’ve got billions hanging on this. If you want to try something yourself,” Bunton looked up, saw that God was smiling and laughed, “be my guest!”
“No,” Delosa almost shouted. “Fifty’s OK. Say I transfer it to your account in Berne today and you can draw on it as you see fit. How’s that?”
“Listen,” Bunton laughed. “Write it off as consulting fees. That’s what it is, isn’t it?”
“How long before we see results, do you think?” Delosa asked, suspecting he may have been a bit hasty.
“Look,” Bunton said confidently. “Leave it to me. I’ve figured the deal and it’ll be quick as I can make it. OK?”
“But can you put a time frame around it?” Delosa asked anxiously. “We’ve got them coming off the line now.”
“You’ll see results within a few weeks, maybe two months tops.”
“No sooner?”
“What do you want, a miracle? Listen,” he laughed confidently. “This’ll scare ’em so bad they’ll break down your door to shovel in the cash. You won’t even have time to count it! OK? Get your delivery jocks ready.”
“Thanks, Cresswell,” he said. “If this comes off, I won’t forget it.”
“I’ll see you don’t!” He laughed again, and cut the connection.
“He’d better believe it,” he murmured to God as he reached for his private line. There were illegals to round up and organise. “Haven’t had this much fun in years!”
He chuckled to himself as he punched in the number of the first of many calls he would make that day and rocked back to see that God still smiled, as his first call was answered.
3. CABINET
They stood as President Mason Tanner entered. He sat and opened the meeting.
“Gentlemen,” and with a brief nod to Secretary of State, Delice Barton and the minutes secretary, “and ladies, you’ve now had time to study your briefs. We need to nail our response to the two big UN initiatives well before they go to a vote, so I asked Harry Fromm to join us. Welcome Harry. How are Felicity and Sam?”
There were murmurs of welcome as he answered, “They’re fine, sir, thank you.”
The only hand offered was that of Defense Chief, General Magnus Devaurno. “Great to have you aboard, Ambassador.”
“OK,” began Tanner, drawing their attention. “Delice has been delving behind the rhetoric to uncover what other nations are really doing. But first I ask Ambassador Fromm to give us a short assessment of the current climate change proposal before the UN. He warned me it’s a shocker. Harry?”
“Good morning,” Harry began. “In a nutshell, the proposal is worldwide zero emissions equivalent within five years. It has wide support, but as you would expect, there are dissenters and I have already indicated we would need to study it further.”
“China won’t accept that!” Tony Arino, Secretary for Homeland Security was sure, but Harry had been there.
“No,” he corrected him. “Not this time and that’s the big one. China is leading the charge and of course that makes them look good and we could be seen as the bad guys.”
“Are you saying the UN is now looking to China for leadership?” asked Tanner. “What can we do about that?”
“Bring it on!” snarled Arino. “It’s about time we faced off with those commies, Mr President. That’s where the damned pollution is coming from; the fucking Chinese. Fix them and we fix the problem!”
Tanner ignored Arino. “Harry?”
“Mr President,” Harry continued evenly, “Tony is right that China and India are the biggest polluters, so they will make or break this initiative. But China is converting to renewables faster than any other country.”
He looked to Delice for confirmation.
“They are starting from a low base and expanding rapidly,” she said. “So they are able to keep their old generators going while they build new ones with cleaner technologies. That way their emissions reduce as a percentage. Their per capita emissions are currently twenty-five percent of ours and that number will go down. I think they can pull it off if anyone can.” She smiled wryly at Tanner. “They don’t have an electorate to please.”
“But how come they are leading this agenda?” Tanner insisted.
“Chinese initiatives,” Harry offered, “present new challenges to this administration. We’ve made no secret of our discomfort with China’s emergence and they can use this issue to isolate us if we stay out.”
“I don’t think they can isolate us, Mr President,” offered Delice. “I would put Europe and even Russia in our camp.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Europe is still talking solidarity with us as a nod to NATO.” Harry continued, “But our lack of commitment to emissions targets in the past embarrassed Europe, particularly Spain and Germany…and Russia is still smarting over Syria. And I am not sure of Japan…”
“You can’t compare those piss-assed countries with the US!” complained Arino. “A crippled child could walk across any of them in half a day! We have to move freight and there’s no substitute for diesel…shale oil is damned expensive, but what else is there?”
“And not sustainable!” interjected Vice President, Wayne Myers.
The way Myers turned on Arino revealed an old animosity and Arino reacted in kind. “We need new crude oil and Antarctica’s where we should be looking!”
“We’ll be living on Antarctica if we don’t embrace renewables!” Myers retorted and looked to Harry for support. “Is there a move on to dump the treaty?”
“No, no mining in Antarctica…yet.”
“What’s so special about fucking Antarctica?” Arino turned his vitriol on Harry. “What do you think those Slopes are doing down there, Fromm? Playing snowman? Get real Ambassador, they’re looking for oil and so should we!”
Harry flushed but held his composure. “Arino, you know as well as I do, the Chinese are bound by the same treaties we are. As far as I know they are researching historic atmospheres.”
“Crap!
