Whitewash by Alex Kava Page A

the navy suit with a white shirt made him look taller. And on a photo op where they would be on their feet the entire time, Jason knew he didn’t have to say anything more. Without another word Senator Allen was peeling off his blue oxford and replacing it with the freshly pressed white shirt Jason had waiting for him on a hanger in the hotel closet.
    The drive from Tallahassee was not one of Florida’s most scenic. The senator had shot Jason one of those subtle, furrowed-brow looks of disapproval that Jason knew so well.
    It did look like the middle of nowhere. On the edge of the Apalachicola National Forest there were more pine trees than Jason ever expected to see in Florida. The limousine spent little time on the interstate, almost immediately taking a narrow two-lane blacktop with dirt shoulders that the car veered onto when meeting several large tanker trucks too wide for their own lane. The trucks barreled down the highway, obviously used to the locals giving them the space they needed.
    Twice the limousine driver, who introduced himself as Marek Zelenski, ended what appeared to be a game of chicken by skidding off the concrete and into the dirt. The second time the car slammed to a full stop was followed by a diatribe from Marek, a slew of profanities in what Jason could only guess was Polish. He glanced in the rearview mirror with a quick apology in broken English and pulled the car back onto the road.
    “Looks like they’re in dire need of a new road bill down here.” Jason tried to make light of the situation, but the senator shook his head.
    “Other than those tankers we’ve seen very little traffic,” the senator pointed out. “No sense wasting the taxpayers’ time and money.”
    Jason started nodding in agreement instead of simply saying he was sort of joking when he’d stated the obvious. But then he caught a glint in the senator’s blue eyes.
    “Also, no traffic means no voters,” the senator added with a smile. “Which means a waste of my time and money.”
    That was when Jason wondered if he would regret this whole fiasco. It had been his idea, after all. A surefire way for the senator to promote his position at the upcoming energy summit and at the same time tap into all the positive press EchoEnergy was getting. And why shouldn’t he? The senator had helped EchoEnergy from the very beginning, lobbying to get the federal grants to build the facility and later garnering the tax incentives that allowed the plant to hire and operate. In the last several years EchoEnergy earned an incredible reputation with environmental groups and was now the darling of the news media, like some shining beacon in the energy war. Why shouldn’t the senator capitalize on some of that? After all he had done he deserved some accolades and recognition as being a pioneer in this new breakthrough technology.
    But for some reason Senator Allen wasn’t crazy about Jason’s idea, once even suggesting that he didn’t want to risk upstaging the media focus for the energy summit. Jason’s whole point was not to upstage the summit as much as it was to highlight the senator’s role. Once the summit began so would the competition for media attention. Usually the senator took advantage of opportunities like this. Jason didn’t get it.
    They passed through the industrial park’s electronic gate, stopping only briefly at the security hut where Jason was surprised to see the uniformed guard, alert and at attention, reminding Jason more of a marine barracks than a commercial processing plant. And the limousine didn’t get an easy pass. Credentials were checked, the young man taking his time to examine details and match photos to faces.
    It wasn’t until they drove to the end of the road—a much wider, smoother path than the state highway they had left—that the plant could be seen through the thick forest that lined three sides of what Jason knew to be a hundred-acre property. It looked like a strange small town. On one