“Hello?”
“Sam, hi, it’s me.” Arianna. Sounding nervous.
“Hi,” he said gruffly.
“Am I bothering you?”
“I was taking a nap.”
“Right now? It’s seven P.M.”
“So?”
She paused. “Well, never mind, then.”
His tone softened. “What’s up?”
“I thought you might want to come over for dinner.”
“Why?”
“I know I’ve been seeing a lot of Trent lately, so you and I haven’t spent much time together. Let me make it up to you.”
Despite the dreaded syllable, Sam plucked joy from her words: She had not forgotten him. But her voice sounded more subdued on the phone than he remembered.
“Sam? Hello?”
He cleared his throat, feeling aghast at himself. Given what she was facing, his jealousy was strikingly trivial.
“I appreciate the offer, Arianna, but I should be getting back to work.” The crustiness in his tone was gone. “We can’t waste time.”
* * *
Dopp sat in his office, staring out at the dreariness of January. Skeletal treetops poked through fog in Central Park like hands reaching up for help. Charcoal clouds hung low in the sky, obscuring buildings.
Why was the Lord leading him on a path to frustration?
The current plan was not working. A week into the New Year, progress remained nonexistent. That manipulating abortionist had passed the monthly inspection, though her clinic’s embryo count was still inexplicably high. And Trent continued to waste time with her. With lawmakers still leaning toward the wrong priorities, the department might as well be a sinking ship, Dopp thought. And they had no other leads.
He turned to his desk and once more scoured the transcripts that Trent placed there each morning. Banal conversation dulled the pages. How is your clinic? Trent would often ask. Fine. Busy. Short and pat. Never a hint that something was awry.
Yet a drastic move could still be made. All week, Dopp had wondered if it was time; he had prayed, paced, squirmed, not slept. The move would be a gamble, an irreversible toss of the dice tied straight to his livelihood. He couldn’t imagine facing his wife in the meantime, not to mention his kids. But his options were as slim as ever: to wait and hope, or to act and hope? At least the latter would give him a sense of control, while God formulated his fate.
The phone rang, filling the office with its sharp trill.
“Dopp, Windra here.” The man’s voice sounded rushed.
“Senator Windra! How nice to hear from you.” Dopp cringed as he spoke. The state’s top Republican, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Windra, called him directly only when there was trouble.
“Listen,” Windra said, “I want to give you a heads-up about the budget. The buzz I’m hearing around here is that it’s still not looking too good for you.”
Dopp swallowed. “Because of the Department of Embryo-Fetal Protection?”
“Yes. The moderates are saying that’s a bigger priority than the DEP right now. And, personally, it’s hard for me to disagree. You know I support you, Gideon, but I don’t have to tell you that pregnant women are a dime a dozen, and your bureau hasn’t seen much action for a while. And yours is the biggest one in the state.”
“But we just filed a class action lawsuit against a doctor—”
“Small change, Gideon. Frankly, it looks like you’re grasping at straws.”
“I can assure you that is not the case. We are every bit as productive as we’ve always been, if not more.”
“I hope so, because there was some pretty ugly talk last week.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t going to mention it, but I guess you should know. Some are saying that DEP isn’t even necessary anymore—that basically nobody today has the training to manipulate embryos anymore, so we should start to phase out the department altogether.”
Dopp gasped. “Are you kidding?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“But EUEs can still be killed!”
“They could, and that’s why I’m still behind you. Although, what would be the point?”
“Why do any murderers kill?” Dopp retorted. “Just because they don’t have a good reason doesn’t mean we should abolish the police force!”
“It’s not me you have to convince. Maybe there’s something you could do to bring the DEP to the forefront of the conversation again? To remind us why it’s still worthy of taxpayer dollars?”
Dopp fumed silently. If Trent had done his job by now, Windra would not be calling. But with or without Arianna, there was still a way to generate headlines. And if they could bring her down in the process, they would be set.
“Realistically, how long would you say we have until the budget talks officially start?”
“Well, the bribery investigation is set to conclude in a few weeks, and as soon as that happens, the governor will either be forced to resign or be cleared. In any case, the budget is going to be the first order of business. We’re all anxious to get it sorted out.”
A few weeks, Dopp thought. Plenty of time to reap a payoff if he could summon the courage to act.
“Windra,” he said, “I’ll get back to you. I think I have an idea.”
* * *
As soon as he hung up the phone, Dopp swiveled in his chair and faced his glass wall, staring at the dissipating morning fog. His idea would require extensive manpower, thus stretching the department’s already-thin budget. But, he reasoned, one must spend money to make money. If the department was to be a casualty of next year’s budget anyway, it made sense to use every last dollar now to fight for its existence. The plan would sound extreme to his colleagues, but Dopp was confident they would trust his management. And sure, it would generate headlines for a few days, but talk would fade unless the momentum continued somehow. Since Arianna was their only lead, the goal was clear: If they could find a shocking reason to shut down her clinic, no one in Albany could assert that the DEP was irrelevant or inactive. The media storm around
