Back door political dealings and a comedy of errors follow a geologist who must take on a conservative politician to prevent him from tampering with Mother Nature.
When James Hurst, a geologist who forged inaccurate data for the Administration’s “There’s no such thing as Global Warming” campaign, is rudely summoned by party leaders to DC for a post 2008 election debriefing, a bizarre chain of events follows. His environmental activist girlfriend, Phoebe Towns, takes off on an Arctic cruise to witness a major breakaway iceberg. And in DC his debriefing turns into a new assignment of fudging data to support the cause of Uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.
His first day in Washington he is invited to a party at the Preservation House (like C Street) and its theologically motivated political leaders who are evidently not afraid to shoulder hypocrisy. Upon meeting Senator Barton Douglas of Tennessee, he is escorted through an underground tunnel, across the street to Polaris, a brothel sanctioned by the Preservation House and run by a former clandestine operative, Mary Ann Hall. The madam maintains a flimsy business disguise as a GPS services provider. When Hurst drunkenly spews out an ill-conceived plan to stop global warming, Senator Douglas leaps on board, becoming all about that. The plan: detonate nuclear devices under a handful of volcanos such that they spew ash to cover the Earth and shield the planet from heating solar radiation - a plan that obviously ignores the greenhouse probabilities.
Senator Douglas mounts a campaign to get it done. He seeks the aid of covert mercenary clandestine forces (like Blackwater) that can also apply the people-power to make it happen. Of course, this plan must be approved, unknown to Douglas and James, by the Honcho, the puppeteer behind the administration and whose face we never clearly see in this narrative. Horrified, Hurst realizes he must take every possible measure abort the potentially catastrophic plan at the same time that he hears news that Phoebe’s cruise ship hit an iceberg and sunk, survivor status unknown.
He enlists the aide of the well-connected Mary Ann Hall. Through her channels, it is arranged that bomb-seeking mercenaries encounter a series of double crosses in a Mexican deal to get nukes for the mission. All but one of the weapons are lost. Undaunted, the covert ops folks are on the way to plant a nuclear weapon under Mount Shasta, hoping to at least avert some Global Warming influence.
As Phoebe is miraculously rescued at sea, first by a whale and later the Coast Guard. As she returns to DC, Senator Douglas must contend with a jealous prostitute and an enraged, STD contaminated wife. Shot and wounded by the prostitute, the Senator is taken out of the loop and placed in Preservation House Bible Study by his wife for a hellish eternity of redemption.
When the covert mercenaries attempt to plant the bomb under Mount Shasta, they are confronted and taken hostage by an armed militia of spiritual devotees (like Rajneesh’s followers). Enraged, the Honcho demands that James and Phoebe be taken into custody and “dealt with.”
James and Phoebe are just now getting back together after her ordeal for a night of dinner and relaxation in DC. Well, it would have been had it not been for their drugging and abduction by administration goons on the heels of a fine dinner.
Face to face with serious administration players and well-armed masked guards, James and Phoebe are saved by one of those masked guards, Mary Ann Hall; once covert, always covert. Mary Ann and her operative companion remedy the “official” problem through the use of a memory loss drug. Later when interviewed on TV, the Honcho cannot recall any situation about which he is questioned, ranging from bad intelligence in Iraq, to matters of water boarding, to confirming if such a nuclear anti-Global Warming plot ever existed.
And at denouement, James, Phoebe and Mary Ann vow to combine their efforts to create a better planet.