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slain president s commitment! Legalize drugs now!
No& a martyred President Winston would be an even more formidable enemy than
a live and healthy one. They had to find a way that would look like an
accident or his own fault.
La compania peered into Winston s past with a microscope and found many
instances of youthful wildness, but nothing that would discredit or disgrace
him. It had looked hopeless until& until Carlos s mystery source came through
with a bit of history that Winston had thought he d destroyed. Some U.S.
agency had unearthed it in a background check during his first run for office
and filed it away.
Carlos had passed it on, attaching little importance to it. But it had proved
to be very important.
And so the two of them had sat here in this very safe room and devised a
wonderful and terrible plan&
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 It s about drug decriminalization, isn t it? Gold said.
Carlos bolted from his reverie.  What do you mean?
 The kidnapping. You ve had it poised to go for weeks. And then as soon as
the President speaks last night, boom! you re on the phone to MacLaglen.
There s got to be a connection.
Was I that obvious? Carlos wondered as he hoisted his bulk out of the chair
and waddled around the office. Or was Gold simply too bright? That was why
Carlos had brought him in.
He knew Alien would not be shocked by a plan against his President, but the
fewer who knew, the better. An old paisa saying went: Three can keep a
secret if two are dead.
He stopped before a framed autographed photo of Richard Nixon. It was
inscribed to someone else, but that didn t matter. The man was what mattered.
 I am not worried about a pipsqueak like Thomas Winston. He has no courage.
He pointed to Nixon s photo.  How does he have the gall to sit in the same
office as this man? Here was a president!
 Nixon? Gold said, his voice jumping an octave.  He was a jerk.
Carlos turned as quickly as his girth would allow and pointed his finger in
Gold s face.
 When you speak of this man, you will show respect. He is the president who
first declared war on drugs in 1972. You would not be standing here if he had
not. You would not be wearing that fancy suit or driving that German sports
car you prize so much. You owe this man everything him and all the presidents
who continued the war after him. They were men. Carlos turned back to his
photo of Nixon and stared at that smiling face.
 Why can t Thomas Winston be like the others and follow in their footsteps?
But no. He is a cowardly hijo de puta who will ruin everything!
 He hasn t got a chance, Gold said.  The only thing he ll ruin is his
political career.
If only you knew what I know, Carlos thought.
He returned to his desk and dropped into his chair. The automatic massager
was still on. He adjusted his back against it for full effect but it gave him
only minimal relief. He d have to call that Chinese girl Tree Flower, or
whatever her name was. She was the only one who could soothe his pain. When
she walked up and down his spine with her little feet and massaged him with
her toes, he found the closest thing to heaven& next to his wife.
The thought of Maria saddened him. He had met her on a visit home. A girl
then, barely out of her teens, pure paisa like him, no native blood, able to
trace her family all the way back to Spain. For the first time in his life
Carlos had known love. He wooed her, married her, and brought her to the
United States. For ten years he knew bliss.
And then Maria began to change. She became moody, unhappy. She moved to
another bedroom. And then three weeks ago, she rented a townhouse in
Georgetown and moved out. Carlos had never thought he could be so devastated
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by a woman&
But he hadn t lost her. This was a temporary thing. She d come back. He could
bring her back, of course, but what good was that? He didn t want to be her
jailer. But he was her watchdog, keeping her under round-the-clock
surveillance.
 What is the latest from P Street? he asked Gold.
Gold shrugged.  She shops. Goes to museums. Shops some more. Goes to the
library. Shops. She s enrolled in a course at G.U. She 
 What course?
 Something in the Women s Studies program. I have the exact name in the
report. Want me to ?
 Never mind. He sighed.  No other man?
Alien shook his head.  Or woman. It s like she s become some sort of female
monk& with an Amex card.
Carlos knotted his fists in frustration. La perra! He did not understand her.
Yes, he did. He knew what the problem was: the United States. She was being
corrupted. Becoming& American. He had to get her away from the talk shows and
soap operas and magazines that put crazy ideas into her head. He had to get
her back home to Colombia whether she liked it or not. When he was finished
with this business here, when he was a billionaire, he would build an estate
bigger than Jorge Ochoa s Hacienda Weracruz, where he would raise magnificent
caballos de paso, just as Maria s father had done. And there, back in her
homeland, she would regain her senses. She would become his Maria again.
But all that was dependent on bringing down President Winston. Everything
depended on getting rid of that cabron.
Carlos picked up the TV remote. The sixty-inch rear projection screen buzzed
to life. He saw two vaguely familiar politicians, one white, one black,
standing behind a podium at what looked like a press conference.
 Talk about politics making strange bedfellows, Gold said.  Good Lord, it s
Jessup and Wagner side by side. Stay here.
The banners at the bottom of the screen identified the black man as REP.
FLOYD JESSUP (D-NY) and the white man as REP. QUINCY WAGNER (R-SC). Each was
outdoing the other in flogging the President. Congressman Jessup was shouting
about  genocide on a level that will make Adolph Hitler look like a piker!
while Wagner was warning about  the unraveling of the very moral fiber of
America! Gold was laughing.  First time I ve ever seen those two agree on
anything! This is awesome!
 Alien, Carlos said.  I wish you to find the addresses of these fellows
re-election campaign funds and write out a check to each for two thousand
dollars with a note to keep up the good work and escalate the war on drugs.
Gold nodded, grinning.  I love it! I ll draw them from the restaurant s
account. Not that we need to contribute a dime I mean, they can t fail but I
love the irony.
 And I love insurance. Carlos cruised the channels, not sure of what he was
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looking for. Something, anything, to help him get a feel for the mood of the
country. La compania s projections had predicted this initial angry reaction,
but said it would be followed by a general cooling of emotions as the spin
doctors in the media and the administration began to work their spell on the
public and congress.
He stopped at a channel that showed a man standing on a stage before a sign
with the worddrugs in a red circle with a red line drawn through it. An 800
number flashed at the bottom of the screen. He recognized the Reverend Bobby
Whitcomb. Everybody knew the reverend. In the past few years he had become
increasingly influential in Christian Fundamentalism. At the rear of the
stage, behind the no-drugs sign, sat three tiers of phone banks and busy
operators.
 Looks like a telethon, Gold said.
The Reverend Whitcomb stood teetering on the edge of his stage, his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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