Free Don Pendleton - Civil War II by Don Pendleton

frustrating as talking to Tom Fairchild and Charlie Waring. No, sir, doubly as frustrating. I feel ashamed, sir, deeply ashamed."
    Winston was halfway out of Ms chair when the President cackled and said, "Sit down, Commissioner. You've not been dismissed, nor will you be on such a note as that."
    "My apologies, sir," Winston muttered. "You have no idea how difficult it is to command any attention in this city. Paul Revere would have never made it in the twentieth century."
    The President smiled. "We have our Paul Reveres, Commissioner." He turned to Fairchild. "Well, Tom?"
    Fairchild smiled and spread his hands. "I thanked Mike for his alert assistance, sir. I gave him every assurance that the matter would be dealt with." He smiled. "That's when he pulled the gun on me. I thought it best to let you be the judge of the ... uh ... urgency of his intelligence."
    The President chuckled. "I suppose I would feel the same way, with a gun at my head. I understand, Tom, that it was your own gun he pulled on you."
    Fairchild flushed. "I didn't expect a Washington bureaucrat to come on like a television melodrama, Mr. President."
    The President was still chuckling when he turned back to the urban commissioner. "Don't you like your job, Mr. Winston?" he asked. "I mean, aren't you satisfied with it, ministering to the needs of the black community? Do you find yourself continually pulled back into the intrigue of police work?"
    Winston was getting a deeper taste of rage. President or no, he'd had a cup full. "What sort of game are you two playing with me?" he asked quietly. His hands were beginning to shake. He clamped them firmly onto his knees and leaned forward tensely in his chair. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to?"
    "Here here, sir!" the President cried, in a tone used to scold undisciplined children.
    Winston ignored the call to order. "I came here to present facts— facts, not vague ideas—which appear highly
    critical to the national security. I believe I made an impressive case. And your only reaction is to try to make me feel like an idiot. I am not an idiot, Mr. President."
    The old boy had come to a boil, and the eyes were blazing with outrage. "If the President says you're an idiot, sir, then you are an idiot," he intoned haughtily. "And believe me, sir, you are an idiot!"
    Well, Winston thought, so this is what it's like. This is what it's like for an Abe Williams or a John Harvey, trying to act like a man in the presence of pompous foolishness. His eyes blurred. He wondered if he were going mad. He wanted to get up and hit that old man, knock his goddamn leering old head off. Yes, he must be going mad. His fingers dug into his knees. He took a deep breath, let half of it out, and aaid, "Mr. President, our nation is in peril. You must understand that."
    "This nation is forever in peril!" Arlington thundered. "When the President places his head upon the pillow at the end of day, the nation is in peril. When the President rises from his bed at end of night, the nation is in peril! Your President has lived for half a century with the daily knowledge of his nation in peril. From within and from without. Does an administrative junior stroll into the White House, fresh from a once-in-a-lifetime self-important game of intrigue, and presume to tell his President that the national is in peril? You, sir, are a total idiot!"
    The old man had used a lot of wind for that emotional speech, but Winston was too far gone to tread water now. He dived into the uncertain depths with a flaring, "You, sir, are a pompous ass!"
    Yeah, he'd gone insane. Arlington's face was white death. The lips were moving without sound. Winston had broken through; he had joined that exclusive inner circle of political suicides. But the Presidential gaze was, at least, of a different quality now. He wasn't toying with Winston any longer.
    "I apologize for my outburst, Commissioner," the President said, sucking hard for air.
    "And I for mine, sir,"