The Hamlet Warning Read Online Free

read the entire manuscript a dozen times. Yet he turned back to the beginning. 
    That was the one overriding factor in his success: a passion for painstaking analysis. President Kennedy’s major talent had been calculated charm, a knack for constructing a political machine around his own carefully created image. Lyndon Johnson’s forte had been persuasion, the ability to bring key people around to his viewpoint despite all logic. President Robertson knew he possessed neither of those techniques. He had no charm, good looks, or friendly ways. A stand-up comedian had claimed on national television that, during the presidential election campaign, one poster depicted a topographical map of the Dakota Badlands instead of the face of the candidate and that no one had noticed. Robertson wasn’t sensitive about his heavily lined face, but he wasn’t especially amused by the joke. He knew he was generally considered the most laconic President since Cal Coolidge. He had developed a certain public style. By mentally shifting gears he could perform for audiences when necessary. But such efforts went against his nature. However, no one was better at analyzing his fellow men. All through his political career Robertson had spent long nights determining the exact nature of his friends and opponents. He usually knew others better than they knew themselves. He often stayed up all night, thinking. He worked while most of Washington slept. After midnight, there were fewer interruptions, and he could get more done. He also found that when he phoned people at 4:00 A.M., they tended to be more candid. At dawn, when the city stirred, the President went to bed. He limited himself to a few hours of sleep, a practice that probably accounted for his wrinkled face. He had been called “Old Pickle Puss” on the floor of the Senate, where even early in his career he had been chided a few times for his tardy arrivals. A reporter once irritated Robertson into an explanation. “It’s been my observation that nothing interesting or worthwhile ever happens before noon,” he had told the reporter. The remark had returned to plague him during campaigns, but even his worst enemies conceded that on occasion he possessed a dry wit.
    He now turned his full analytic powers on this new problem and on this strange man, Clay Loomis.
    The report was woefully incomplete, despite its length. Robertson read through the manuscript once more, then tossed it aside as worthless to his purposes. He would learn more, no doubt, when he talked to the men from Langley. He still had thirty minutes before the appointment.
    He carefully relit his cigar and opened the packet of photographs. He pulled out the one that had intrigued him most.
    Shot four days earlier in Santo Domingo, the color photograph showed Loomis standing at the side of a jeep. The depth of field indicated that a telescopic lens of considerable power had been used. Loomis’s face was in sharp focus. A young Dominican standing beside Loomis was laughing, but Loomis was unsmiling.
    Robertson reached for a magnifying glass and examined the face.
    There was a solidarity to the features that Robertson liked. Loomis obviously was a big man, six-three or four, and well proportioned. The jawline was firm, with no extra flesh along the jowls — a mark of drive and determination. The muscles around the mouth were strong, with deep lines circling outward and downward from the nose. A sign of forcefulness, self-expression, Robertson believed. The scars over the left eye and along the left cheek were mentioned in the military records contained in the report. The nose had been broken enough to lend it individuality, and Robertson envied Loomis that thick thatch of dark hair. But what held Robertson’s attention were the eyes. They were electric blue, a surprising contrast to the dark features and tropical tan. The eyes fascinated Robertson. He sensed that they revealed depths sufficient to challenge his