Ultimatum (25 page)

After a day with Ogilvie, Benton was warming to his guest. He was starting to appreciate the other man’s moderate approach and understated sense of humor. He also realized that Ogilvie’s previous relationship with Gartner didn’t necessarily signify much. Getting on with U.S. presidents of whatever stripe was probably pretty high on the list in any British prime minister’s job description.

The couples had lunch together in Laurel, the main gathering cabin at Camp David. Later, Joe Benton asked Connor Gale, the young aide who accompanied him pretty much everywhere and whose job was to see to it that he arrived where he was meant to be, to find out if Ogilvie wanted to take a walk with him. Gale spoke to Ogilvie’s chief political aide, Jonathan Coomb. He also spoke to Ben Hoffman, who turned up five minutes later at the president’s cabin.

“It’s just a
walk,
Ben,” said the president. He knew nothing made a political advisor more nervous than the sight of two leaders heading off by themselves. “I’m not going to revoke the Declaration of Independence.”

He picked Ogilvie up at Sequoia, the newly refurbished main visitors’ cabin. The president could see, from the look on Jonathan Coomb’s face as they left, that Coomb was just as unhappy as Ben Hoffman at seeing his man go out alone.

Joe Benton chuckled as they set off. “They don’t trust us, Hugh.”

“Can you blame them?” said Ogilvie. “We might actually decide something.”

They walked, crunching over brittle filaments of ice. Off the path, there was a dusting of snow. Ogilvie was rugged up in an overcoat and scarf. Benton wore a skiing jacket. The cold pinched at his face.

“Not too cold for you?” he said.

“Bracing,” replied Ogilvie, and he clapped his gloved hands demonstratively.

The path crossed another. Benton stopped, looking from side to side.

“It’s rather a nice walk down there,” said Ogilvie.

Benton laughed. “How many times you been here, Hugh?”

“Five, I believe,” replied Ogilvie.

“That’s five more than me,” said Benton.

“I thought as much.”

“So? Down there?”

“Why not?” said Ogilvie. “It’s very nice, as I recall.”

They walked. The crunch of their footsteps filled the air.

“So what do you think of the state of the world, Hugh?” said Benton eventually. “Just between you and me?”

“Oh, it’s chugging along, I suppose.”

“Chugging along. I like that. How long have you been in office now?”

“Seven years.”

Benton shook his head admiringly. “Two elections and a third coming up, right?”

“Luck rather than good management, I’m afraid.”

“At least we never have to go past two elections over here.”

“Yes, there’s a point,” mused Ogilvie.

“They give you a hard time when you started?” said Benton.

“My own party, do you mean?”

Benton laughed. “I’m taking a hell of a beating from the media. You wouldn’t believe this stuff about Heather. Like there’s nothing else for them to worry about. The woman’s got a job. Get over it!”

“It does sound like it’s been awful for her.”

“But they’ll use that, right? Anything they can. They’ll use that to divert attention from the issues.”

Ogilvie nodded.

Joe Benton shook his head in frustration, and kicked at a fallen pine cone that lay at the side of the path. It skidded away across the snow.

“I watched your address to the joint session,” said Ogilvie.

Benton looked at him in surprise.

“Your legislative program is extremely impressive.”

“Is that British for downright crazy?”

Ogilvie smiled. “I think it’s fantastic. It’s not my place, but I wanted to tell you that.”

Benton laughed. “Go ahead. You can tell me stuff like that any time.”

“It’s bold. It’s visionary “

“And it’s got every special interest group in the country out to wring my neck. You’d think I’d shoved a red-hot poker up their ass.”

“Well, in my experience, for what it’s worth, it’s only when they act as if they’re skewered with a red-hot poker that you know you’re doing the right thing. When you feel their claws sunk into your flesh, as one of my predecessors said, that’s when you know you’re on the right track.”

“I can feel them, Hugh.”

“Well, there you go. But I’m serious, Joe. What you’re doing truly is a new foundation. If you pull it off, in my humble opinion, you’ll do something extraordinary for this country.”

Benton stopped. “Thank you, Hugh. I value your opinion. You know, I really believe, the Relocation, we have to see it as an opportunity. Otherwise, it’ll be a burden that will crush us.”

“That’s what I try to make people understand. The scale of our relocation is much smaller than yours, of course, even proportionately. But even so, it’s desperately hard to make people see how we can use it as a chance to build. That’s the British for you, I suppose. Never see the silver lining if there’s a chance of seeing the cloud.”

“No, Hugh, it’s hard. It really is.”

Ogilvie nodded. “Anyway, it’s not my place to draw comparisons, but there isn’t one. With your predecessor, I mean.”

Benton smiled. Then he started walking again.

Ogilvie asked about the Iraq-Syria initiative, and Benton talked about progress in the talks, which wasn’t substantial.

“Well, it certainly sent a message to anyone who was watching,” said Ogilvie.

Benton looked at him. “What message?”

The prime minister’s lips twitched in a slight smile. “That you will deal with things. I presume that was the intent.”

Suddenly Benton felt as if he had got a glimpse of the acuity behind Hugh Ogilvie’s agreeable exterior. “I think that’s a good message.”

“I think probably it is. Provided, of course, you can keep your domestic support onside while you do these things. I’d imagine you need every bit of support you can find to get your program through Congress.”

“That’s the truth.”

“And of course the question we’re all asking outside the U.S. is, what’s the next thing you’re going to deal with?”

“Maybe there isn’t a next thing.”

“Mr. President,” said Ogilvie with a hint of mischief, “there’s always a next thing.”

Benton didn’t say anything to that. After they had walked a little longer, he stopped. “You want to head back? It’s damn cold.” He looked around. “I hope you can remember how we got here, because I sure as hell can’t.”

They turned and walked in silence for a while.

“What do you think about Kyoto 4?” asked Benton eventually.

There was a change in Ogilvie, almost imperceptible, but something about him became a little more cautious, more guarded, as if he sensed they had got to the thing the walk was really about.

“I don’t have particularly high hopes of it,” he replied.

“No?”

“With respect, Joe . . . the United States hasn’t been a great adherent of the Kyoto process.”

“You think that’s the problem?”

“I think it has been. A big part of the problem.”

“I appreciate your frankness, Hugh. But I don’t think anyone has been a particularly assiduous adherent of the process. I don’t think even Great Britain’s record is perfectly clean.”

“True. But you see, Joe, when the United States is the delinquent, everyone else feels they have a license to offend.”

Benton nodded. “That’s well put.”

“Hardly original, I’m afraid. I said exactly the same thing to President Gartner. And to President Shawcross, if it comes to that.”

“That’s even better put,” said Benton.

Ogilvie smiled.

“It’s ridiculous, though. Hugh, the Chinese have been bigger emitters than us for twenty-five years. Their emissions are more than double ours today. Even if we wanted to solve all the world’s emissions problems ourselves—even if we just shut the United States down and stopped our emissions cold, right now, this minute—it still wouldn’t be enough without China. And yet it’s us everyone points at.”

“An historical irony. Um, Joe. I think we might want to go up there.”

Benton, stopped, looking around at the crossroad where he had just turned right. “You sure?”

“Trust me. Cook, Shackleton, Ross. Nation of great explorers, the English.”

“All right, if you’re sure.”

They turned.

“What were you saying, Joe?”

“I was going to ask you about the EuroCore.”

“What about the EuroCore?”

“What do you think they really think about Kyoto 4?”

Ogilvie considered the question. Benton waited to hear what he would say. As Britain had continued to stand outside the European currency zone, while remaining a member of the European Union, it had become increasingly detached from the Franco-Italian-German-Polish dominated EuroCore. Its main claim to a place on the international stage was now as a bridge between the EuroCore and the United States, a middleman able to understand and interpret each party to the other. Although it was Washington that tended to place a value on this role. More often than not, the Europeans saw London as an unnecessary nuisance.

“The EuroCore,” said Ogilvie eventually, “doesn’t see itself as a major player in this area. Not in the sense of having to lead the way.”

“I know, and I don’t understand that. Nine percent of the world’s emissions come out of the EuroCore. Surely that puts them in a critical role whether they like it or not.”

“The EuroCore’s a funny thing. It’s got quite a schizoid personality. Sometimes it speaks utterly with one voice. Other times, it conveniently fragments into its constituent parts. And when that happens, given the voting arrangements, there’s no way for those who want to speak as a bloc to be able to do so. This is one of those issues. The EuroCore—or certain countries within the EuroCore—think they can slip in under the radar. All they have to do is stand back and let the United States fight it out with China and India. They know that’s where the process is going to fail again. So they don’t need to be the bad guys. In fact, they can be the good guys. You’re going to see them proposing quite extraordinary reductions and of course they don’t have the slightest intention that any of this will happen.”

“No change there, then.”

“Well, I’m afraid not, Joe. I’m sorry, but I’m going to be frank. I take on board what you said about the level of Chinese emissions. But as long as the United States continues to provide this convenient umbrella of non-compliance you just have to expect everyone else to come in and shelter underneath it.”

“Including the United Kingdom?”

Hugh Ogilvie didn’t reply to that.

They crunched over the ice. They were almost back at Sequoia.

“You want to take this discussion inside?” said Benton.