"David Weber - Honor 03 - Short Victorious War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

sense to keep an eye on
the devil they knew rather than rooting it up for a devil they knew nothing
about.
Yet Walter Frankel's assassination was frightening. Dolist violence was almost
legitimized, part of
the power structure which kept the mob satisfied while the Legislaturalists
got on with the business of
running the government. Occasional riots and attacks on expendable portions of
the Republic's
bureaucratic structure had become a sanctioned part of what passed for the
political process, but there
wasтАФor had beenтАФa tacit understanding between the Dolist leaders and the
establishment that excluded
cabinet- level officials and prominent Legislaturalists from the list of
acceptable targets.
"I think," the President said finally, his slow words chosen with care, "that
we have to assume, for the
moment at least, that the CRU did sanction the attack."
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"I'm afraid I have to agree," Palmer-Levy conceded unhappily. "And, frankly,
I'm almost equally
worried over reports that Rob Pierre is sucking up to the CRU leadership."
"Pierre?" Surprise sharpened the President's voice, and the security chief
nodded eve n less happily.
Robert Stanton Pierre was Haven's most powerful Dolist manager. He not only
controlled almost eight
percent of the total Dolist vote but served as the current speaker of the
Peoples Quorum, the "democratic
caucus" which told the Dolist Mana gers how to vote.
That much power in any non- Legislaturalist's hands was enough to make anyone
nervous, since the
hereditary governing families relied on the People's Quorum to provide the
rubber-stamp "elections"
which legitimized their reign. But Pierre was scary. He'd been born a Dolist
himself and clawed his way
from a childhood on the BLS to his present power with every dirty trick
ambition could conceive of.
Some of them hadn't even occurred to the Legislaturalists themselves, and if
he followed their instructions
because he knew which side his bread was buttered on, he was still a lean and
hungry man.
"Are you certain about Pierre?" Harris demanded after a moment, and Palmer-
Levy shrugged.
"We know he's been in contact with the CRP," she said, and Harris nodded. The
Citizens' Rights
Party was the political wing of the CRU, operating openly within the People's
Quorum and decrying the
"understandable but regrettable extremism to which some citizens have been
forced." It was a threadbare