Politician

  We also did try to detoxify and rehabilitate them, with their consent (which was not forced), by shifting them to related drugs that were less addictive and/or damaging. It was not possible to cure a true addict, but he could be weaned to a milder, cheaper, and safer drug. Price, health, and legitimacy—these were powerful inducements.

  All this took time, but in three years we had reduced crime in Sunshine to its lowest rate in the past century, and several other states were instituting similar programs. The legal complications were ameliorating; law does tend to become pragmatic about success. It was evident that we were winning the battle against drugs and crime. Obviously the criminal element had to do something about this or it would be finished. Therein lay our mistake: we underestimated the will and ability of the hydra to strike back.

  Spirit and I should have known, for we had been combat officers in the Navy. But we had been seventeen years in civilian life, which was longer than our military tenure, and perhaps we had gotten soft. We were fighting pirates as savagely as we had in the Navy, but it didn’t seem the same. One gets jaded, and reflexes relax. Maybe this was a lesson we needed, savage as it turned out to be.

  Their strike was as swift and thorough as one of our drug-line cuts but had an element of subtlety that was a masterstroke. They did not go after the police or the program personnel; they went after me.

  It started, for me, when one of our tame addicts blew the whistle—he claimed—on the biggest secret of my administration: a massive payoff by the drug moguls. “I was a courier for the money,” he said. “I took it from the laundry in Ami and brought it to Hassee every week.”

  He was interviewed, live, anonymously, by a reporter for Post Times, a major newsfax that did not favor us. “How much money?”

  “A lot. Governors don’t come cheap. Twenty-five supergees a week.”

  “Twenty-five whats?”

  “Super-grands.”

  “Oh. So this has nothing to do with gravity, other than being an extremely grave charge.” The interviewer chuckled, but the whistle blower stared at him as if he were an idiot. “And a super-grand is—”

  The courier adjusted visibly to the ignorance of the uninitiated. “A grand is a thousand dollars. A super-grand is a grand of grands.”

  “A thousand thousands? One million dollars?”

  “You got it.”

  “A week ?”

  “Twenty-five a week,” the courier explained patiently.

  “Twenty-five million dollars a week?” The reporter seemed dazed.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “How could you even carry such an amount?”

  “Well, it’s in gees, mostly. Thousand dollar bills. That’s how it comes out of the laundry. Packs of a hundred—two hundred and fifty packs, split between two cases. It’s a load, but mostly I just ride the train with it.”

  “The laundry?”

  “The fence-bank who launders the money, so it can’t be traced easy. Got to have a good laundry or the tax boys’d be on it.”

  “I see. And where does this—this twenty-five million dollars a week—where does it come from, ultimately?”

  “The big boys down south. The drug wholesalers.”

  “The big criminal suppliers?”

  “Right. They put it in the pipeline to the laundry, and I pick it up in Ami.”

  “In two suitcases,” the interviewer said, getting it straight. “And you take it where?”

  “To Hassee.”

  “The state capital. By regular commuter train?”

  “Yeah. So I can keep the bags with me. I don’t want to check ‘em into no cargo hold.”

  “I see your point. And to whom do you deliver them?”

  “A guy called Sancho.”

  “Sancho!” I exclaimed as I watched. “That can’t be!”

  “Who is Sancho?” the interviewer asked.

  “Some spic who works for the governor’s sister. That’s all I know. Always wears gloves, has a scarred face. I think he’s an illegal. Small guy, talks in a whisper.”

  “Sancho works for Spirit Hubris?”

  “Yeah. Or maybe for the governor direct. I don’t know. He’s the one who takes the money, anyway. I don’t give it to nobody but him.”

  “Does he give you a receipt?”

  The courier burst out laughing.

  “No receipt for illicit business,” the interviewer said, nettled. “How do your employers know you really deliver it?”

  “I’m alive, ain’t I?”

  “Oh. I presume that if it doesn’t arrive complete, there’d be a complaint?”

  “There’d be a laser beam in one ear and out the other. I’d never dare cheat; those boys play for keeps.”

  “Then why are you talking to me now?”

  “I’m out of a job.”

  “They fired you? But if you didn’t cheat—”

  “My face was getting familiar. A courier’s shelf life is only a few weeks, then he’s got to be replaced. Before the narcs catch on.”

  “Then you knew it was a temporary job.”

  “Yeah. But I was supposed to get a good settlement. All that money to the governor, and they couldn’t spare a measly one s-gee for me.”

  “You expected a—a bonus for good performance? Of one super-grand? So you’re blowing the whistle?”

  “Yeah. It’s risky, but it’s a matter of principle.”

  “I see. What does this Sancho do with the money?”

  “Takes it into a warehouse. After that, I don’t know. I’d guess the gov’s saving it, you know, for retirement.”

  “Twenty-five million dollars? Some retirement!”

  “Yeah. I’d settle for that.”

  “And this is just one week’s payment? How long has this been going on?”

  “Ever since the big drug-bust program started. I’ve only been on it the past six weeks, but they’ve been coming to that warehouse maybe five, six months, and I don’t know where else before that.”

  “But at twenty-five million dollars a week, for five months, that would be a good half a billion dollars!”

  “Yeah. It’s one sweet racket.”

  I shook my head. There was nothing to this, of course. I was not on the take. But why should someone broadcast such a claim, knowing it would almost immediately be refuted? One thing was certain: Sancho had taken no money from anyone, for anything. I didn’t even need to ask Spirit about that; I knew.

  But there was a considerable stir about the exposé. The State Senate demanded information, and the courier provided it. He solemnly led a news crew to the warehouse where he said he had turned over the money.

  By this time Spirit was with me. We sat back and watched the vid-cast. Our personnel had instructions to cooperate completely with the investigation; we had nothing to hide, and were curious as to the outcome of this charade.

  It was indeed one of our warehouses, used for storing campaign literature. Much of that literature would be useful again when I ran for reelection, so we had saved it, to keep our campaign budget as low as possible. Nothing incriminating there.

  They opened the door, entered, and checked around inside. A search warrant was required for this, but I had waived it; I wanted them to search it.

  There, hidden under piled campaign posters, was an enormous pile of money. Packs of thousand-dollar bills, hundreds of them, thousands of them!

  The police took over the building, confiscating the money as evidence. In a few days the count was official: approximately half a billion dollars in used bills, there in my warehouse, just as the courier had said.

  Too late we realized the truth; it was a frame. They had planted the money there, then planted the “courier,” and suddenly I was in trouble. It was my warehouse, and the money was there.

  Meanwhile, other reporters were seeking the other end of the chain, interviewing the drug moguls of the nations to the south. Surprisingly those hidden figures confirmed the payoffs: they claimed that I had put such a squeeze
on their operations that they had had to come to terms to stay in business. True, very little of their commodity was sold in Sunshine now, so as to maintain appearances, but the state remained the major pipeline for delivery to other regions of North Jupiter. These deliveries were permitted to continue, as long as the graft was paid. “He’s got a choke hold on us,” one mogul admitted. “We’ve got to pay.”

  “But you can’t market your product in Sunshine?”

  “We make up the difference in the other states.”

  Thus, it seemed, Sunshine was simply passing its problem on to the other states. The crackdown was mostly for show.

  That was enough for the State Legislature. A bill of impeachment was introduced and debated, and somehow it sailed through with phenomenal velocity. Objections were brushed aside or voted down by bloc—and therein was another pattern. A narrow majority was held by the members of a coalition formed of the more conservative members of my own party and those of President Tocsin’s party. It was evident that Tocsin, perceiving an opportunity, had issued a private directive, and they were obeying with partisan discipline. This was his chance to, as he had put it during my trip to Saturn, see me hung by the balls. It hardly mattered what the facts were; the opposition was determined to see to my undoing. I, it seemed, had been fool enough to provide them an opening.

  Megan seemed almost resigned. “I had just begun to believe that that man would not succeed in getting you as he got me,” she said sadly. She meant Tocsin, of course. “It can be very hard for an honest person to anticipate the deviousness of one like him.”

  The Senate voted, and just like that, I was impeached, found guilty, and removed from office.

  All this hurt, of course, but my attention was distracted by more immediate concerns. A grand jury had been formed to investigate me, with an eye to arranging for criminal prosecution. I could, all too soon, find myself in prison. But what really upset me was the demolition of my reputation. Why was no one ready to believe the truth? I had been a hero; now I was a criminal in the eyes of the public. I had been shaken and disgusted by the adverse reaction to the pardon earlier; now I was shaken and disgusted and angry. I was determined to do something about it.

  I used my own connections to ferret out the agents of the plot against me. Specifically, I called QYV. That nefarious organization had caused me trouble in space, but was now more or less on my side.

  I didn’t even have to explain. My call was answered by Reba. She was older than she had been, her hair graying, but, of course, that could be camouflage. I got the impression that she had been rising through her echelons just as Khukov had been doing through his and I had through mine—until recently.

  “It’s about time you called,” she said severely. “You made the perhaps fatal error of losing your paranoia and allowing the conspirators to catch you.”

  “I’ll try to be more paranoid henceforth,” I said humbly.

  “It’s a frame, of course,” she continued. “Tocsin made a deal with the drug moguls to eliminate a mutual enemy. But you can still prevail if you get the truth before the public.”

  “The public will assume I’m just trying to cover up my guilt,” I said dispiritedly.

  She smiled. “You merely need to use the appropriate avenue.”

  “Avenue?”

  She sighed. “I’m really not supposed to give you advice, you know.”

  “But your career is hitched to mine, isn’t it?” I asked her, knowing it was true. She was good at concealing her reactions but not good enough. “You gained some of your own objective when I cracked down on the drug trade in Sunshine, and you will gain more if I get into a position to extend that crackdown. You don’t want to throw me away.”

  She grimaced. “Just remember who helped you when, Hubris.”

  “I have never had a problem with my memory.”

  “Send Sancho to Thorley.” She clicked off.

  I pondered that, and indeed the avenue became apparent. I talked to Spirit, and she nodded. “Why didn’t we think of that?”

  “We have not been devious enough,” I said. “I realize this is a sacrifice for you, however.”

  “Not as great a sacrifice as your career,” she said. “It may be time to retire Sancho, anyway; he has become a liability.”

  In due course Thorley’s response appeared. He had, it seemed, interviewed Sancho, that mysterious figure. The key portion went like this:

  “What is your identity?”

  “I am Sancho.” The figure was exactly as described by the courier: small, scarred face, gloves, and the speech in a hoarse whisper. Obviously a fugitive Hispanic.

  “The one who accepted the money for Governor Hubris?”

  “No! I never accepted any money from anyone.”

  “But the money was found in the warehouse that you—”

  “No, señor. I was not there. I was elsewhere.”

  “Elsewhere? Where?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “Will you appear before a grand jury or legislative committee and tell your story under oath?”

  “No, señor.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have no existence here.”

  “No legal papers? No citizenship?”

  “Sancho—he does not exist.”

  “Oh, a pseudonym! And if the person you really are is discovered—”

  “Much trouble, señor! I must be secret.”

  Thorley turned to speak to the audience directly. “I agreed to interview Sancho anonymously; that is, to honor his privacy of identity. I shall not violate that pledge. I shall just say that I have satisfied myself that this is indeed Sancho, and that he has convinced me that he was elsewhere at the time he was reported to be accepting the payments for Governor Hubris. I believe that this portion of the charge against Governor Hubris is false.”

  The report was a news sensation. Thorley was obviously no fan of mine, and his reputation for integrity was impeccable. A wedge had been driven into the case against me, and that case was beginning to split.

  There was a flurry of investigation into the matter, none of which succeeded in locating Sancho, who seemed to have vaporized after the interview. No evidence was produced that Sancho had been in the vicinity of the critical warehouse in the past six months but also none that he hadn’t been there. The drug moguls had chosen well, in implicating Sancho, because of his inability to exonerate himself. Still, the interview helped. Analyses were done of the recorded image and voice of Sancho, his scarred face and gloved hands, and it was established that this was indeed he. Sancho had always operated in deep privacy, but he was not a ghost. There were scattered pictures of him, and there were people who had met him in passing. Stress analysis of his voice indicated that he was not lying. Thus the challenges to Thorley’s presentation came to nothing, and it rapidly assumed the status of fact.

  This, however, did not establish my innocence. I could have used some other intermediary who resembled Sancho, though no such personage was in evidence. The drug moguls insisted that Sancho had accepted the money and could not be exonerated unless he was physically interrogated. The opposition had a vested interest in maintaining the case against me. The money had been delivered to that warehouse, after all. So Sancho seemed halfway innocent, but I still seemed guilty. It was a perplexing situation.

  We sent Sancho to Thorley again. Two weeks after the interview, Thorley followed up with a written column on the subject. I quote it here entire, because in retrospect I perceive it as the pivotal point in my career.

  LET JUSTICE BE DONE

  Thorley

  I dislike, on principle, to involve myself personally in the events I analyze professionally. Nevertheless, on occasion this becomes necessary, and this is one such.

  My relationship with Hope Hubris extends back fourteen years. I covered his first political candidacy, in the course of which I intercepted an attack directed against him and his family. I have been asked, since that event, why I bothered. I can
answer only that it is possible for honest men to differ, and I do differ philosophically with Hubris, but I do not espouse assassination as a mode of politics. I do not doubt that Hubris would have done the same for me. One reacts to a given circumstance as one must, and situations are not always of our choosing.

  During that encounter Hubris promised me that never would he interfere with the freedom of the press. One might consider this to be irrelevant to the issue, but it is as important to me as my life. I do not suggest that Hubris would have been inclined to suppress the media, merely that he was thereafter committed to uphold the free dissemination of news at all times. He has been scrupulous in this regard and has denied the press no information that pertained to its legitimate interests. The press, I might add, has not treated him kindly in return. Were Hubris not a man of honor, the press might have found itself in less comfortable circumstance in the state of Sunshine; certainly other governors have had little difficulty circumventing the Sunshine Law that keeps public affairs open to the public that both press and government supposedly serve. When, as governor, Hubris traveled to Saturn, I asked to accompany him, as a representative of the press; he acquiesced with perfect courtesy throughout, though this can hardly have been his preference. He has also seen to it that I have had direct access to information concerning his activities. I have considered such news carefully and published what I have deemed relevant, without regard to his preferences or opinions. It is standard policy for politicians to blacklist the purveyors of critical views, but never has Hubris practiced this; the flow of information has continued unabated. Hope Hubris, however wrongheaded his political and social views may be, is a man of his word. For this, if nothing else, he is to be respected.