He had also walked from San Francisco to Los Angeles, climbed the Seven Summits (voting on the clean air bill from the top of Mt. Everest), swum from Catalina to the southern California mainland, and across Chesapeake Bay, and hiked the Appalachian trail from end to end. (Very boring, was his judgment. Next time the PCT.)
All these activities were extraneous to his work in the Senate, and time-consuming, and for his first two terms he was considered within the Beltway to be a celebrity freak, a party trick of a politician and a lightweight in the real world of power (i.e. money) no matter how far he could walk or swim. But even in that period his legislation had been interesting in concept (his contribution) and solidly written (his staffs contribution), and cleverly pursued and promoted by all, with much more of it being enacted into law than was usual in the Senate. This was not noted by the press, always on the look-out for bad news and ephemera, but by his third term it began to become evident to insiders that he had been playing the insider game all along, and only pretending to be an outsider, so that his committee appointments were strong,and his alliances within the Democratic party apparatus finally strong, and across the aisle with moderate Republicans and McCain and other Vietnam vets, even stronger. He also had done a good job making his enemies, taking on flamboyantly bad senators like Winston and Reynolds and Hoof-in-mouth, whose subsequent falls from grace on corruption charges or simply failed policies had then retroactively confirmed his early judgments that these people were not just political dunderheads but also dangerous to the republic.
So ultimately, when the time came, everything he had done for twenty years and more turned out to have been as it were designed to prepare him not only for his successful run for the Presidency, but for his subsequent occupancy as well, a crucial point and something that many previous candidates obviously forgot. The world travel, the global network of allies and friends, the OWE program, the legislation he had introduced and gotten passed, his committee work it all fit a pattern, as if he had had the plan from the start.
Which he totally denied; and his staff believed him. They thought in their gossip among themselves that they had seen him come to his decision to run just a year before the campaign (at about the same time, Charlie thought but never said aloud, that he had met for twenty minutes with the Khembali leaders). Whether he had harbored thoughts all along, no one really knew. No one could read his mind, and he had no close associates. Widowed; kids grown; friends kept private and out of town: to Washington he seemed as lonely and impenetrable as Reagan, or FDR, or Lincoln all friendly and charming people, but distant in some basic way.
In any case he was in, and ready and willing to use the office as strong presidents do not only as the executive branch of government, whipping on the other two to get things done, but also as a bully pulpit from which to address the citizens of the country and the rest of the world. His highpositive/high negative pattern continued and intensified, with the debate over him in the States more polarized than ever, at least in the media. But in the world at large, his positives were higher than any American presidents since Kennedy. And interest was very high. All waited and watched through the few weeks left until his inauguration; there was a sudden feeling of stillness in the world, as if the pendulum swinging them all together helplessly this way and that had reached a height, and paused in space, just before falling the other way. People began to think that something might really happen.
It seemed to Frank that with such a president as Phil Chase coming into office, in theory it ought to be very interesting to be the presidential science advisor, or an advisor to the advisor. But there were aspects of the new job that were disturbing as well. It was going to mean increasing the distance between himself and the doing of science proper, and was therefore going to move him away from what he was good at. But that was what it meant to be moving into administration. Was there anyone who did policy well?
His intrusion on the Khembalis was another problem. Rudras failing health was a problem. His own injury, and the uncertain mentation that had resulted (if it had), was a very central problem perhaps the problem. Leaving NSF, meaning Anna and the rest of his acquaintances and routines there (except for Edgardo and Kenzo, who were also joining Dianes team) was a problem.
Problems required solutions, and solutions required decisions. And he couldnt decide. So the days were proving difficult.
Because above and beyond all the rest of his problems, there was the absolutely immediate one: he had to had to had to warn Caroline that her cover was insufficient to keep even a newcomer on the scene like Edgardos friend from locating her. He had to warn her of this! But he did not know where she was. She might be on that island in Maine, but unless he went and looked he couldnt know. But if he went, he could not do anything that might expose her (and him too) to her husband. His van was chipped with a GPS transponder Caroline was the one who had told him about it so its identity and location could be under surveillance, and tracked wherever it went. He could easily imagine a program that would flag any time his van left the metropolitan area. This was a serious disadvantage, because his van was his shelter of last resort, his only mobile bedroom, and all in all, the most versatile room in the disassembled and modular home that he had cast through the fabric of the city.
Can I de-chip my van? he asked Edgardo next day on their run, after wanding them both again. For certain? And, you know, as if by accident or malfunction?
I should think so, Edgardo replied. It might be something you would need some help with. Let me look into it.
Okay, but I want to go soon.
Up to Maine?
Yes.
Okay, Ill do my best. The person I want to talk to is not exactly on call. I have to meet them in a context like this one.
But that night, as Frank was settling down in the garden shed with Rudra, who was already asleep, Qang came out to tell him there was a man there to see him. This caused Franks pulse to elevate to a disturbing degree
But it was Edgardo, and a short man, who said hello and after that spoke only to Edgardo, in Spanish. Umberto here is another porteño, Edgardo said. He helps me with matters such as this.
Umberto rolled his eyes dramatically. He took Franks keys and went at the van as if he owned it, banging around, pulling up carpet from the floor, running various diagnostics through a laptop, complaining to Edgardo all the while. Eventually he opened the hood and after rooting around for a while, unbolted a small box from the crowded left engine wall. When he was done he gave the box to Frank and walked off into the dark, still berating Edgardo over his shoulder.
Thanks! Frank called after him. Then to Edgardo: Did I see how he did that, so I can put it back in? He peered at the engine wall, then the bolts in his hand there with the box, then the holes the bolts had come out of. It looked like a wrench kit would do it. Okay, but where do I put it now?
You must leave it right here where it would be, so that it seems your van is parked here. Then replace it when you return.
Thanks! Frank called after him. Then to Edgardo: Did I see how he did that, so I can put it back in? He peered at the engine wall, then the bolts in his hand there with the box, then the holes the bolts had come out of. It looked like a wrench kit would do it. Okay, but where do I put it now?
You must leave it right here where it would be, so that it seems your van is parked here. Then replace it when you return.
Out here on the street?
Isnt there a driveway to this house?
Yeah, I can leave it there I guess. Buried in this gravel here.
There you go.
And other than that, Im clean?
Thats what Umberto said. Speaking only of the van, of course.
Yeah. Ive got the wand for my stuff. But is that enough? The van wont look weird to toll gates for not having the box, or anything like that?
No. Not every vehicle has these things yet. So far, the total information society is not yet fully online. When it is, you wont be able to do stuff like this. Youll never be able to get off the grid, and if you did it would look so strange it would be worse than being on the grid. Everything will have to be rethought.
Jesus. Frank grimaced. Well, by then I wont be involved in this kind of stuff. Listen, I think Im going to take off now and get a few hours of driving in. Itll take me all of tomorrow to get there as it is.
Thats true. Good luck my friend. Remember no cell phone calls, no ATMs, no credit cards. Do you have enough cash with you?
I hope so, feeling the thickness of his wallet.
You shouldnt stay away too long anyway.
No. I guess Im okay, then. Thanks for the help.
Good luck. Dont call.
Grumpily Frank got in his van and drove north on 95. Transponders embedded in every vehicles windshields except would that really happen? Was this total information project not perhaps crazy enough to fail, ultimately? Or could it be stopped? Could they go to Phil Chase and lay out the whole story, and get him to root out Carolines ex and his whole operation, whatever it was? Root it out from the top down? Were the spy agencies so imbricated into the fabric of the government (and the military) that they were beyond presidential control, or even presidential knowledge? Or inquiry?
If it werent for his going-off-grid status, he would have called up Edgardo to ask his opinion on this. As it was he could only continue to think, and worry, and drive.
Somewhere in New Jersey it occurred to him that as he was on the road north, he must therefore have decided to go. He had decided something! And without even trying. Maybe decisions now had to occur without one really noticing them happening, or wondering how. It was so hard to say. In this particular case, he really had had no choice; he had to warn her. So it had been more of a life override than a decision. Maybe one went through life doing the things one had to do, hooped by necessity, with decisions reserved for options and therefore not really a major factor in ones life. A bad thought or a good one? He couldnt tell.
A bad thought, he decided in the end. A bad thought in a long night of bad thoughts, as it turned out. Long past midnight he kept following the taillights ahead of him, and the traffic slowly thinned and became mostly trucks of various kinds. Over the Susquehanna, over the Hudson, otherwise tunneling on endlessly through the forest.
Finally he felt in danger of falling asleep at the wheel, got off and found a side road and a little parking lot, empty and dark and anonymous, where he felt comfortable parking under a tree and locking the doors and crawling into the back of the van to catch a few hours sleep.
Dawns light woke him and he drove on, north through New England, fueled by the worst 711 coffee he had ever tasted coffee so bad it was good, in terms of waking him up. The idea that it might be poisoned gave him an extra jolt. Surely someone had poured in their battery acid as a prank. There was too much time to think. If Caroline was the boss, and her ex worked for her, then
95 kept on coming, an endless slot through endless forest, a grass sward and two concrete strips rolling on for mile after mile. Finally he came to Bangor, Maine, and turned right, driving over hills and across small rivers, then through the standard array of franchises in Ellsworth, including an immense Wal-Mart. During the night he had driven north into full winter; a thin blanket of dirty snow covered everything. He passed a completely shut-down tourist zone, the motels, lobster shacks, antique stores, and miniature golf courses all looking miserable under their load of ice and snow, all except the Christmas knick-knack barn, which had a full parking lot and was bustling with festive shoppers.
Soon after that he crossed the bridge that spanned the tidal race to Mount Desert Island. By then the round gray tops of the islands little range of peaks had appeared several times over the water of Frenchmans Bay. They were lower than Frank had expected them to be, but still, they were bare rock mountain tops, shaved into graceful curves by the immense force of the Ice Ages ice cap. Frank had googled the island on a cyber cafés rented computer, and had read quite a bit; and the information had surprised him in more ways than one. It turned out that this little island was in many ways the place where the American wilderness movement had begun, in the form of the landscape painter Frederick Church, who had come here in the 1840s to paint. In getting around the island, Church had invented what he called rusticating, by which he meant wandering on mountainsides just for the fun of it. He also took offense at the clear-cut logging on the island, and worked to get the legislation of Maine to forbid it, in some of the nations first environmental legislature. All this was happening at the same time Emerson and Thoreau were writing. Something had been in the air.
Eventually all that led to the national park system, and Mount Desert Island had been the third one, the first east of the Mississippi, and the only one anywhere created by citizens donating their own land. Acadia National Park now took up about two-thirds of the island, in a patchwork pattern; when Frank drove over the bridge he was on private land, but most of the seaward part of the island belonged to the park.
He slowed down, deep in forest still, following instructions printed out from a map website. The Maine coast here faced almost south. The island was roughly square, and split nearly in half, east and west, by a fjord called Somes Sound. Carolines friends house was on the western half of the island.
Nervously Frank drove through Somesville, at the head of the sound. This turned out to be no more than a scattering of white houses, on snowy lawns on either side of the road. He looked for something like a village commercial center but did not find one.
Now he was getting quite nervous. Just the idea of seeing her. He didnt know how to approach her. In his uncertainty he drove past the right turn that headed to her friends place, and continued on to a town called Southwest Harbor. He wanted to eat something, also to think things over.
In the only cafe still open he ordered a sandwich and espresso. He didnt want to catch her unawares; that could be a bad shock. On the other hand there didnt seem any other way to do it. Sitting in the cafe drinking espresso (heavenly after the battery acid), he ate his sandwich and tried to think. They were the same thoughts he had been thinking the whole drive. He would have to surprise her; hopefully he could immediately explain why he was there the possible danger she was in so that she did not jump to the conclusion that he was somehow stalking her. They could talk; he could see what she wanted to do, perhaps even help her move somewhere else, if thats what she wanted. Although in that case