“Mr. O’Brien,” he said, “maybe the National Association ought to do something specific to show that it’s backing MHD.”

“Do something?”

“Something that clearly shows you’re in favor of MHD.”

“Something?” O’Brien repeated, his voice like fingernails on a chalkboard. “Like what?”

Jake said, “Like building a transmission line that connects the big rig to the state’s power grid.”

Rogers’s eyes lit up. “Wow! Instead of just dumping the power we generate we could put it into the grid—like the Russians did in Moscow.”

O’Brien’s eye narrowed. “You want us to pay for connecting your doohickey to the grid.”

“We could add fifty megawatts to the local power availability,” Tomlinson said, warming to the idea.

Amy jumped in, “That would be enough to light up the whole county of Lignite!”

“And then some!” Rogers said.

Jake explained more calmly, “It would be concrete evidence of your support for MHD. A gesture of goodwill. It would help the electricity consumers of the state. And it wouldn’t cost much: just a few miles of a high-capacity transmission line.”

O’Brien muttered, “A gesture of goodwill, eh?”

“That’s right,” said Jake.

O’Brien glanced at his aides. Their bobble-heads nodded in unison once again.

Primary Election Night

PRIMARY ELECTION NIGHT

April brought cold rain and winds that gusted down out of the mountains. The accumulated snow of winter melted away at last while Tomlinson raced across the highways in a final whirlwind tour of the state.

Tim Younger growled and groused when Jake told him that the National Association was going to hook the big rig to the state’s power grid. But Glynis helped to calm him down and, once the rig had completed its hundred-hour run, Younger grudgingly allowed a construction team to connect the transmission line.

“You’ll be adding fifty megawatts to the state’s generating capacity,” Glynis told him.

“When the rig’s running,” Younger pointed out. “Which it isn’t while they’re hooking up their line.”

“Don’t be a grouch,” Glynis commanded. Younger grinned sheepishly at her.

Amy worried about the weather. “If it’s raining on election day the turnout will be small. That could help Dant.”

But election day dawned bright and sunny, unusually warm and springlike. Money talks, Jake reminded himself. Tomlinson’s even buying the weather.

Election night the campaign staff and key volunteers gathered at the double-sized suite that Tomlinson’s aides had taken at the Sheridan Hotel. Downstairs people were beginning to fill up the ballroom, but up in the suite Tomlinson stood unmoving in front of the wall-screen TV, watching the returns with single-minded intensity. He wore a charcoal gray pinstripe suit, no vest, with one of his own red-white-and-blue campaign buttons pinned to his jacket’s lapel.