The Last President: A Novel of an Alternative America Read Online Free Page A

quite willing to believe that the President of the United States thinks there are Communist agents secretly supporting the party that’s trying to oust him—implacable enemy of communism that he is. The man doesn’t seem to trust anyone.”
    “Don’t you think it could have been just a political move?”
    Adams shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “But that’s the most stupid of the possibilities. Any professional intelligence officer would have assessed the gain against the possible damage and dropped the idea. If you get caught, you could blow the whole campaign, and if you don’t get caught, what can you learn? Where the next pep rally is going to be held? No, if I had to vote, I’d go with the President’s paranoia.”
    “But you think I did right in going along with it?”
    “I’m not going to give you right or wrong,” Adams said, “but you did what you had to do. You had no acceptable choice.”
    Kit nodded. “But it’s nice to hear someone else say it.”
    Adams looked up at the gathering clouds for a moment, “I’ll tell you something else.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Be prepared for a sudden job offer from the White House.”
    “What kind?”
    “I don’t know, but it will either be in the Executive Office Building or in Antarctica. And listen—either way, keep in touch.”
    PRESIDENT REELECTED
    LANDSLIDE 61% MAJORITY
    carries every state but massachusetts:
    fails to carry district of columbia
    — Washington Post, November 8, 1972
    [1] . Special Investigations Unit.

CHAPTER TWO
    Charlie Ober ran his staff meetings like a Prussian officer. When he was at UCLA he’d taken a course in European History in the Nineteenth Century, and The Prussian General Staff had been required reading. The description of the orderly, Spartan existence of the Prussian officer had touched Ober somewhere deep in his soul. He joined ROTC, but found them too namby-pamby and disorganized, so he dropped out six months later. The advertising agency he’d worked for after graduation had frowned on Prussian tactics in the office, but these government types almost seemed to expect it. They lined up docilely in the rows of seats in front of his desk, waited quietly for him to come in, stood as he entered, and otherwise behaved as subordinates should. It was very gratifying to see how effective his methods of office management were.
    They watched without expression as he marched across to his desk, his broad but trim frame held in military fashion, his dark, thinning hair slicked back against his skull. It never occurred to Charlie Ober that his childish tantrums when thwarted, along with his absolute power over his subordinates’ jobs, might have something to do with their attitude.
    “The President wants to start this term with a clean slate,” Ober told the mass of faces of the assembled executive staff staring up at him like pink raisins in a pudding. And a token black raisin. “So he wants us all to hand in our resignations.”
    There was a murmur of surprised protest from the raisins.
    “Now, if we’ve done good jobs, and I’m sure all of us have, then this will just be pro forma . The President will spend a week or two going over all the resignations, and refusing to accept those of persons he’s happy with. He’d appreciate a short paper with your resignation telling him why you should have your job back. You know—what you’ve done while in the office, why the office itself shouldn’t be abolished.”
    A young staffer stood up. Ober didn’t remember his name. “You mean we work our asses off getting the President reelected, and for the next two weeks we won’t know whether we get to keep our jobs? That doesn’t seem fair. Why doesn’t he just ask for the resignations of those he’s not satisfied with? Why make the whole staff go through this?”
    Ober leaned forward, his palms down on the desk, and memorized the young man’s face. “It’s not just the executive staff,” he told them. “Everyone in