"Paul Levinson - Loose Ends 02 - Little Differences" - читать интересную книгу автора (Levinson Paul)

Wallace in just a few years, after having allegedly stalked Nixon...

Jeff walked faster, then slower, back and forth, edging closer to the Lincoln Memorial. Nixon was still
many hours awayтАФif the historical re-enactments were right, he wouldn't show until 4 AMтАФbut Jeff
wanted to be in position. He cursed his inability, as he had so many times, to consult any records of his
historyтАФhis history, the future from the perspective of here, the one he used to have at his fingertips
when he lived and worked in the second half of the 21st century. He had to assume that Nixon could
appear any time now. It was already dark. He'd watch for the black limousine pulling up to the steps of
the Memorial.

Jeff thought again about his life, his former life, as an historian in a world that didn't exist yetтАФa world he
had come back to change. He'd had no idea when he'd stepped into the Thorne in 2084 that he'd ever
wind up at this time and this place. Just as he had no idea he'd be sucked back into 1963...

To be knocked unconscious at the airport in Dallas when he was minutes away from perhaps saving
JFK. WhoтАФwhatтАФthe hell had done that to him? Didn't matter, Laura saidтАФwhoever, whatever, just
rotten luckтАФit was an act of the universeтАФa universe with a stubborn streak, determined in some
profound way to keep its timeline unmolested by time travellers.

But who could tell the difference between what was, and what was supposed to be?
Jeff looked around him. The Memorial steps were almost empty. Good. Fewer witnesses...

Whatever happened, he had to do better here than he had with Kennedy.

He thought back to the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960, also immortalized in any screen that could
show anything audio-visual. Kennedy looking so cool, Nixon sweating, shifty-eyed like Mephistopheles.
Neither man could have had an inkling then of the transcendent roles history had consigned for themтАФor
the role, in Nixon's case, that Jeff had planned for him and history now.

Jeff kept walking, around and around. Eventually he pulled out a sandwich he had acquired some time in
the afternoon, a long time ago, and wolfed it down. His eyes scanned the people, the trees. For the first
time since he'd been here, the trees were in the clear majority. He saw a woman walking alone. She
looked like Rena. Why did so many women look like Rena to him? He had loved her and left her in
2084. And she had come looking for him in the past. And had died in 1964.

The sky was much darker now. He looked at his watchтАФit was 3:25 in the morning. Nixon would be
here very soon. He felt his gun. It turned his stomach.

A car pulled up. A man got out. Then another.

God, it looked like Richard Nixon...

Jeff squintedтАФwhy hadn't he thought to bring binoculars?

Who was the other man? Manolo, Nixon's valet. Had to be. No Secret Service anywhere.

The two men were slowly walking up the steps.

Jeff touched his gun. He could run over to them right now. He could fire. And do what? Shoot Nixon in
the back?