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for the moment, he marched
down to the loading bay and out into the pouring rain. By the time he got to
his car, he realized he had ground his teeth so hard that he had bit his lip.
     
    ***
     
    The night
before had been sleepless, just like the three nights prior. Working on this
damn proposal was finally taking its toll now that crunch time had arrived. It
was Friday and the meeting with the new President was in an hour. As Senator
Scott Dane sat in the back of his black Lincoln Town Car, it was difficult to
keep his eyes open as he studied the finer points of the document one last
time.
    "Scott?"
The man seated next to him elbowed him gently. "Wake up, sir. We're not done with this yet."
    Scott took
off his glasses, digging his knuckles into tired hazel eyes. "Damn,"
he hissed. "I don't think I've had more than 10 hours of sleep in the past
four days."
    His
administrative aide grinned. ''No time to sleep now," he said, handing the
senator another stapled stack of papers . "You can sleep for a
whole night when this is over with. But the Chairman of the Ways and Means
committee had better know his stuff." He jabbed a finger at a highlighted
paragraph on page two. "Take a look at that; Talbot's an environmental
freak. You're asking for more funding to support the logging efforts in the
Cibola National Forest. Don't forget that. "
    "I
know, I know, Talbot's the former governor of New Mexico," Scott rubbed
his eyes again and put his glasses back on, reading the information in front of
him; he was in his late forties and exceptionally handsome. His brown hair was
perfectly groomed with flecks of gray, and his face was tan with deep grooves
carving through each cheek . He didn't look his age and took
great pride in his top physical condition. He had a twelve year old son who
looked just like him, a brilliant boy who was the center of his life. After his
wife, Carol, died ten years ago, it had only been Scott and Rob.
    "What
do you think?" Kurt asked when Scott had finished reading the paragraph.
    The
senator sighed, handing the paper back to his aide. "I think," he
said, "that Talbot's going to rake me up one side and down another. He
isn’t going to like this proposal in the least, but he's got to understand the
potential revenues and job creation of this particular bill, especially for New
Mexico and Colorado."
    "Even
at the expense of his beloved environment?"
    "What's
more important; feeding your family or starving with a view of the
forest?"
    "Talbot's
going to say that without an environment, there won't be any families."
    "Talbot
needs to get a grip on reality. And the reality is, jobs are needed in that
particular area. The Native Americans in the state of Arizona alone have a
nearly 46.5% unemployment rate. So in order to preserve unused forest land,
he'll let his former constituents starve." Kurt shrugged lamely and Scott
shook his head with disgust. "Christ, Talbot knows better than that."
    The White
House came into view shortly thereafter. The rain had eased somewhat from a
hellish torrent for most of the morning, but the streets were still running
with water and the south lawn of the White House was unnaturally green against
the contrast of the clouds. The town car pulled around to the north side of the
White House to the west wing entrance, and Dane lithely climbed from the car.
The senator moved very quickly, yet with a good deal of grace, and Kurt
followed him, and a couple of White House aides, into the warm, stale building.
    The aides,
a man and a prim-looking woman, led the senator into a lobby that linked with a
corridor. They took a couple of turns and ended up in another main corridor
that led past the Roosevelt Room and on into the President's office. Dane
almost ran the aides down with his naturally fast pace and it was an effort for
the pair to keep ahead of him.
    "You're
the first to arrive, Senator," the woman said. "President Talbot is
in his office and has asked for a short meeting with you before