The Weed Agency (4 page)

In just three years, the Agency of Invasive Species had established
two
regional offices in Hargis’s district, even though the amount of agriculture in the region was measured less in acres than in backyards. Only Siamese twins had a relationship more symbiotic than that of Adam Humphrey and Vernon Hargis.

“Mr. Chairm—ah, Congressman, I find myself too eager to promote you!” Humphrey greeted the congressman after a forty-minute wait in his office lobby.

“Ah, Humph, I don’t need that trouble,” said Hargis, slapping his back. The congressman was the only man who called the director “Humph,” a nickname that he detested, but Humphrey greeted the appellation and the bruise-inducing back-slap with a perfect façade of warm admiration.

Wilkins was introduced to the congressman for the sixth time, with Hargis showing no flicker of recognition. The pictures of the young congressman on the wall featured a slick, skinny, hungry-eyed man on a mission. The past twenty years had added thirty pounds and several chins, and the hair had shifted from black to silver.

“After discussion with the White House, I believe the
administration has found some value in our efforts to combat the scourge of Halogeton, and may see a national security interest in assigning more funds to that effort,” Humphrey said, with a carefully calibrated expression of enthusiasm.

“These guys?” Hargis’s eyebrows popped up. “You must have given them some song and dance, Humph.”

“Oh, you flatter me, Congressman,” said Humphrey, mugging humility. “I merely laid out the dire implications of delay on this matter, and how this particular threat to American agriculture required all deliberate speed.”

Wilkins couldn’t help himself. “You could say, now they’re
Russian
to find more money for it!” Humphrey shot Wilkins a silencing glare.

“Anyway, Mr. Ch—er, Congressman, I was hoping you could push through a boost in our funding.” Humphrey turned over a much shorter memo than the mountain of documents he used to strafe Bader. “You’ll find my recommended figures here, and on this sheet, you’ll see a more specific proposal. I was thinking that the community of Gail Bluff would make a fine location for a new AIS Halogeton Management Research Center.”

Wilkins had a hand in this part of the proposal; his job was to find the largest town in Hargis’s district that had not yet had any federal facility in it. The task was surprisingly difficult.

“Humphrey, you just make my day every time you come up here,” Hargis said with an approving nod. “I was just thinking about what I could do for all the poor folk in Gail Bluff looking for work—practically half the town’s on public assistance.”

I understand it’s a largely moonshine-based economy
, Wilkins thought to himself. He opened his mouth to speak, but another look from Humphrey said simply:
Shut it
.

“I think there’s a darn good chance I can make this happen,” Hargis nodded, scribbling a note on the margin of the memo. “It’ll take some horse trading, but building coalitions
is what I do. I’ll tie this to some city spending—food stamps or something—and I’ll get the rurals and the urbans together, and everybody wins!”

The men rose, and vigorous handshakes ensued.

“Congressman, may you live to be a hundred, and serve the rest of your days!”

“Humph, you know the only way I’ll ever leave this office is in a pine box,” Hargis laughed.

The additional funding for the Agency of Invasive Species sailed through smoothly, and Nicholas Bader’s attention turned to other departments and agencies. However, it didn’t take long for his spending-cut crusade to get stymied, and he began to think of the morning meeting with Humphrey as a critical misstep in his mission for budgetary discipline.

One month after the meeting, President Reagan was shot. Thankfully, he survived. But those who knew the president said he was a different man afterward, less energetic but clearer in his priorities, more focused on the Soviet threat and less focused on cutting the federal government where possible.

About a year into Reagan’s first term, OMB Director David Stockman went rogue, telling
The Atlantic
magazine that the president’s budget proposal included “snap judgments” and unnervingly confessing, “None of us really understands what’s going on with all these numbers.” He discussed using “magic asterisks” to make budgets appear more balanced by assuming additional unspecified cuts in the future. He complained that the president backed down on some of the biggest and boldest cuts and barely understood the decisions he was making. He painted a picture of an administration, bit by bit, making its peace with special interest politics and abandoning the dream
of a dramatically scaled-back government unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit of Americans. Most administrations had at least one disgruntled staffer who aired all the dirty laundry, but Stockman did the unthinkable: He did it all on the record.

While Stockman remained at OMB, he quickly became regarded with suspicion and ridicule among the rest of the Reaganites. Bader was mortified to find that the reckless mouth of the man he once considered a rival had somehow tainted the good name of all the administration’s budgetary ax men, and the budget hawks found themselves torn by internal divisions. Bit by bit, cutting costs slid down the list of priorities. Bader found that for a lot of his fellow Reaganites, deficit spending represented an acceptable short-term tool to finance increased defense spending and much-needed tax cuts.

Two years later, after repeatedly pestering the Central Intelligence Agency for a briefing on the subject, Bader eventually learned that the Halogeton problem in the Western states was, in all likelihood, a natural occurrence and not deliberate Soviet sabotage. But by then, the increased infusion of cash from the 1981 budget proposal was now part of the baseline for the agency’s annual funding level. Humiliated, Bader did what he could to erase any record of him touting the AIS effort against the Soviets.

Month by month, Bader found himself increasingly on the outside of the administration’s inner circle. He wasn’t invited to the same meetings, phone calls went unreturned, memos missed him, he learned of administration decisions in the
Washington Post
. He expected to find himself the target of leaks in the
Post
and other publications, but sadly realized he was below the threshold of political relevance; he, his decisions, and his work simply weren’t important enough to leak about anymore.

In 1984, Bader left the White House and joined the Washington office of a private investment firm.

MARCH 1985

U.S. National Debt: $1.7 trillion

Budget, USDA Agency of Invasive Species: $45.4 million

Now earning good money in the private sector, Bader took his wife for an anniversary dinner at the restaurant atop the Kennedy Center.

On the car radio on the way there, a Norwegian trio urged listeners to embrace the potential confrontation, as the singer would be gone in a day or two. They parked and strode to the massive performance hall, enjoying the first warm night of spring. Bader knew he was supposed to be celebratory, but looking down the Mall at the Capitol Dome, just beyond the Washington Monument, reminded him of his task unfinished. He was making gobs of money now, but he still had that seething fury every spring as tax season approached.

His mood turned significantly worse when he entered the dining room and saw Humphrey, Mr. Halogeton Menace himself, finishing his meal. After the host brought Bader and his wife to their table, he excused himself and immediately began hunting Humphrey.

A moment later, he found him, standing upon the terrace, looking out at the Mall.

“Hey, Humphrey! Run into any Soviet spies in those cornfields lately?” Bader sneered.

“Come again?” Humphrey instantly recognized Bader, but
feigned not remembering him for a few seconds. “Ah, yes, Mr. Bader! Formerly of the White House! How are things?”

Bader scowled. “I should have known everything you would say was absolute horsesh—”

“Mr. Bader, as I recall, everything I told you represented the very best information we had at the time. Don’t tell me that the intervening years have made you … less vigilant about the Soviet threat.”

Bader stepped forward, and for a moment, the patrons who noticed their tense exchange thought Bader would knock Humphrey’s teeth down his throat. But instead he merely jabbed a finger into Humphrey’s sternum with striking force.

“You humiliated me, Humphrey. I trusted you, you manipulated me, and I looked like a fool because of you! You tricked me into approving taxpayer money getting shoveled down that rat hole of yours! Nobody plays me for a fool.”

Humphrey couldn’t help himself. “You can’t say no one does something immediately after you declare that I have done that precise act.”

The veins in Bader’s neck bulged. “I will make you pay.”

“Oh, Nicholas …” Humphrey slowly backed away. “There’s no need to take a budgetary disagreement so personally.”

“I’m serious, Humphrey. I don’t care if it takes years: Someday I’m going to cut the budget for your agency to a great … big … zero.”

He stormed off. Humphrey chuckled, concluding that Nick Bader was more likely to sprout wings than to make good on his threat.

Agency of Invasive Species Administrative Director Adam Humphrey told his assistant Jack Wilkins about his run-in with Bader, and Wilkins laughed. He couldn’t believe how much he had once feared Bader. He chuckled about how little he knew when he came to work for Humphrey; all he really remembered was that he was desperate to get away from what he thought would be his dream job, working in the White House.

OCTOBER 1979

U.S. National Debt: $826 billion