‘This is one of those issues we were talking about, Mr President,’ he said. ‘One of the reasons you need to go to Texas and the very reason you cannot. There is a small dark corner of my heart wherein I believe Governor Blackstone is doing this not simply to starve us of funds and destabilise this administration, but also to draw you into a political confrontation you can’t hope to win. He would love to see you down there, on your knees, begging for a handout. Or even better, on your feet, demanding he hold to the letter of the agreement. It would make him look so much stronger when he says no.’

Kipper lifted his head, but only enough to peer through the gate he’d made of his fingers. His eyes looked bloodshot and watery. The storm howled outside, raking at the brickwork of Dearborn House with claws of ice and snow. The makeshift jamb still held the window firmly in its frame. But Jed was certain he could feel freezing tendrils of sub-zero air creeping in through the less than perfect seal. He felt a sudden need to throw a few more logs into the small fireplace.

The President pulled them back on topic. ‘Admiral, you’re new to all this. Perhaps you have some fresh perspective you could share.’ He said it in an uncertain voice, as though picking his way through the sentence with great care. The National Security Advisor frowned as if he’d been presented with a lump of questionable street meat wrapped in a soggy hotdog bun.

‘The man should pay his bills,’ Ritchie replied flatly.

The bald statement fell into silence, punctuated a few seconds later by Kipper’s bark of laughter.

‘Yes, yes, he really should! But short of driving a tank into his office and demanding the money at gunpoint, I don’t see it happening.’

‘You could always haul him off to the courts, I suppose,’ suggested Ritchie, causing Paul McAuley to lean forward with avid interest.

‘Oh, believe me, we’ve thought about it,’ said Kip. ‘Even tried once or twice on some minor fed–state issues. But Jed here won’t let me go the full court press, so to speak.’

The Chief of Staff found every eye in the room turned on him. ‘We’ll have the same problem that Andrew Jackson’s Supreme Court faced,’ he explained. ‘Yes, the courts would find in our favour. Legally our case is sound. Enforcing the decision, on the other hand, is another matter.’

Culver rose from his warm chair and wandered over to the window. The world outside had turned completely white. It was difficult to pick out any details from the garden through the blizzard. A native of Louisiana, he wondered if Seattle had suffered from this sort of weather before the Wave, or more accurately before the pollution storms that had raged when the continent had burned.