The Zenith Angle - Bruce Sterling [109]
Van despaired. “Oh, honey, please don’t make me do the banquet dinner.”
“They got Ted his own high chair. It’s all been arranged. They’re seating me with the other CIA wives. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.” Dottie smiled. “It’s important, honey. They really want you to go.”
Van did not want to go to the stupid banquet even the least little bit, but without a Dottie to run away and neck with, there was no point in fleeing. At least the food was good—the food was great, in fact—and he was not required to rise and speak in public.
Van wasted many valuable moments of his life listening to tedious master-of-ceremony business. Boring crap about lost objects, departing buses, golfing opportunities . . . Then Jeb rose to speak.
It cost Van a pang to see poor Jeb walk to the podium. Jeb was actually walking rather than waddling. The poor guy had lost a whole lot of weight while running the CCIAB. Rumsfeld, who had lived to be seventy-something and was in top physical condition, had been ruthless with Jeb. Rumsfeld had sent Jeb a bullying torrent of inter-office notes, “Rumsfeld Snowflakes,” demanding Bethesda checkups and heart-safe exercises.
Jeb put on his bifocals to pick through his three-by-five notecards. Van had never seen Jeb so meek and dull and conciliatory. Jeb didn’t even start his speech with his customary risqué joke.
“The President’s board has accomplished, magnificently, the principal goals set for our strategy . . . Speeches, articles, and private meetings have changed the paradigm of the IT buying community. We will never return to the old, careless ways . . . The CCIAB projects already in progress will be making a smooth transfer to the Assistant Undersecretary for Infrastructure Protection in the DHS . . . Quiet but effective work is being done today by the OMB to make our federal government the smartest and the largest buyer of safely configured software and hardware . . .”
What in the name of Pete was all that about? This was the big show-stopper Jeb had promised? Where were the tough guys? Where were the antiterror warriors who were going to kick everybody’s ass? Trained, efficient, cold-eyed operatives who would crush cyberterror without mercy? To hear Jeb talk, the whole effort had been about procurement issues.
“. . . the safe computing benchmarks developed by the U.S. National Security Agency and the Center for Internet Security . . . The National Institute for Standards and Technology’s Certification and Accreditation Program . . . the Undersecretary of the Information Analysis Infrastructure Protection Directorate who will oversee collection and storage of the critical infrastructure data in a database . . .”
Van’s eyelids were fluttering. He looked around the conference room, past the bouquets and sweating ice pitchers. Jeb’s audience was drinking Jeb in. This was normal speech to them. Jeb was normalizing the computer world. People who had been howling, paranoid prophets in the cyberwilderness two years ago were getting turned into fully vested bureaucrats. They were real bureaucrats, with real titles and real offices. A little slice of the funding pie there. An undersecretaryship here. Funding. Turf. Accountable responsibilities. Oh, my God.
Now Jeb was gallantly name-checking all the usual suspects within the CCIAB. “I can’t say enough about the tireless efforts of Herbert Howland, our director of public relations . . . Stand up, Herbert, where are you, take a bow . . .” A pattering of applause.
Van’s fingers dug tightly into the linen tablecloth. Oh, Jesus. So this was why they had insisted on his being here at the banquet. The ritual applause. Stage fright bit deeply into him. His cheek jumped. Restoring nerves were tingling in there, as they grew their way back through the bone cement in his head.
“And the CCIAB’s heroic Deputy Director for Technical Services, Derek Vandeveer!”
Van forced himself to his feet. To his shock and awe, there was thunderous applause for him. The loudest applause of the night, by