Still, he can’t deny it’s bad news. McPherson sits back, drains the brandy snifter. A terrible singer is moaning ballads over bad piano work, in the center of the revolving restaurant. Their table’s window is now facing out over the lit sprawl of Washington, D.C. The dark Mall is a strip across the lights, the Washington Monument white with its blinking red light on top, the Capitol like an architect’s model, same for the Lincoln Monument there in the trees … all far, far below them. Washington has kept its maximum height law for buildings, and everything over there is under ten stories, and far below them. And of course height means the same thing it always has; the isobars for altitude and prosperity, that is to say altitude and power, are an almost perfect match in every city on earth. Height = power. So that here in Crystal City they look down on the capital of the nation like gods looking down on the mortals. And it isn’t just a coincidence, McPherson thinks; it’s a symbol, it says something very real about the power relationship of the two areas, the massive Pentagon and its lofty crowd of luxury-hotel sycophants densepacked around it—looking across the river and down, on the lowly government of the people.…

“The Air Force has a lot of power in this town,” Goldman says, as if reading his mind. “But there’s a lot of power in other places as well. So much power here! And it’s scattered pretty well. Could be better, but there are some checks and balances still. All kinds of checks and balances. We’ll get our chance to manipulate them.”

To be sociable McPherson agrees. And they talk in an amiable way for another hour. He enjoys it, really. Still, on his way back to his hotel room, his mood is black. A retired Air Force colonel for a judge! For Christ’s sake!

A well-dressed woman gets into the elevator with him. Perfume, bright lipstick, glossy hair, backless yellow dress. And alone, at this hour. McPherson’s eyes widen as it occurs to him that she is probably one of the Crystal City prostitutes, off to fulfill a contract of her own. Stiffly McPherson returns her smile as she gets off. Just another military town.

Chapter 38

38

Now Jim looks forward to seeing Hana Steentoft, but he certainly can’t count on it happening; she doesn’t seem quite as interested in getting together. Some nights she’s gone before Jim dismisses his class. Other nights she has work to do; “Sorry,” she says diffidently, looking at the ground. “Got to be done.” Then again there are the nights when she nods and looks up briefly to smile, and they’re off to the pathetic Coffee Hut, to talk and talk and talk.