"White,.Steve.-.Prometheus.Project" - читать интересную книгу автора (White Steve)

and the office of the President's private secretary, and reached the
door that was their destination. Langston glanced around, but the
mysterious old man was no longer in sight. The President led the
way through the door. Langston followed, with Secret Service men
politely but firmly shooing everyone else away. Then the door
closed behind him, and he was in the Oval Office.

The President sat down behind the massive oak desk in front of
the tall French windows of foot-thick armored glass that admitted
the pale light of late fall afternoon. He motioned to a chair across
the desk.

Langston was impressed despite himself as he crossed the carpet
with the Presidential seal in gold and red against the deep blue.
The momentary mood vanished as his eyes fell on the flags of the
five armed services in their traditional position to the right of the
desk, along the south wall. Must get rid of those, he made a mental
note to himself.

Langston sat down and gazed across the desk at the man he
would succeed in January. Silence and mutual loathing settled over
the room.

"Mr. President," Langston finally began, "I trust that in the spirit we
both articulated at the press conference just nowЧ"

"Oh, cut the crap," the President interrupted in a voice as cold as
his eyes. "I'm well aware that you have no higher opinion of me
than I have of you. So spare me your trademark smarmy hypocrisy.
We're alone nowЧreally aloneЧand we can dispense with the pap
we were feeding those hyenas in the Press Room."

"Do you seriously expect me to believe that? You're just trying to
trick me intoЧ"

"You can also spare me your paranoia. You know it's true, because
otherwise I wouldn't be talking this way. Besides, what would be
the point of trying to trap you into anything? It's too late for it to do
any good. You've won." The President shook his head slowly, as
though to clear it of a stunned disbelief that still hadn't worn off.
"There's no getting around that fact . . . and I'd even go so far as to
call it fifty percent just. You didn't deserve to win, but Ortega did
deserve to lose."

Vice President Andrew Ortega had been the President's
handpicked choice to succeed him, in line with their party's strategy
of reaching out to Hispanics. He'd won the nomination with little
opposition save that of isolationist commentator Frank Ferguson, a
Holocaust-denial crank who had subsequently bolted the party and
launched an independent candidacy with the announced aim of