Atropos by William L. Deandrea Read Free Book Online Page A

friends at the club—he didn’t pay income tax anymore. He just got the Senator to tell him how much the government needed and wrote a check.
    But Ainley wasn’t about to let himself be fired. He had no intention of retiring. Serving the Van Horns had started out being a job; it had become a career, then a life.
    And the quality of that life would improve greatly in the next couple of years. Because, thank God, Hank was not the last of the Van Horns. There was still Mark. Mark would be ready to make his first run at office before too long, and Ainley awaited the day the way a child awaited Christmas morning.
    Comparing Mark with Hank was to contemplate the mysteries of genetics. All the family qualities Hank lacked—the courage, the vision, the ability to enjoy and use his power—Mark had in abundance. Mark’s physical inheritance had come from his mother—the slim build, the blond hair and blue eyes—but the inner stuff, the stuff that counted, was pure Van Horn. Mark reminded Ainley of Hank’s grandfather, who had built a lumbering and paper-pulp operation from a family business into an empire, and of Hank’s father, the first Senator Van Horn, a war hero who had been destined for the White House until he had been assassinated by a fanatical Turk during a fact-finding mission to Cyprus, or Hank’s brother, the astronaut, who has died heroically during a training mission.
    Hank was still a boy. That was the problem. He was a spoiled, stupid boy with the responsibilities of a powerful man and the sex drive of a rabbit. About the same amount of courage, too. The mysteries of genetics. How could Hank have passed along traits he himself did not possess? Ainley decided not to worry about it. He’d just be grateful for it.
    “No,” Ainley said, “I don’t suppose you do. It’s just nice for me to remember, every time you decide to get snotty, how you sat sniveling, begging me to help you.”
    “That’s your job, Ainley,” Hank said stiffly.
    Ainley sighed. “Yes, it’s my job. It’s my job to advise you, too, although lately you seem to like someone else’s advice better than mine.”
    Hank had just decided to go back to the brandy. There was a slight tremor in his hand as he brought the snifter to his mouth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hank said.
    “Really, Senator,” Ainley said. “I know my job, and part of that job is knowing you. I know you get phone calls you don’t log. I know on some nights when you want everyone to think you’re over in Georgetown screwing the cello player, you go somewhere else.”
    “You’ve had me followed.” Hank sounded hurt.
    “Occasionally. For a while. Often enough and long enough to know you’ve had some expert coaching in how to avoid being followed.”
    “You need a vacation, Ainley.”
    “All right, do what you want. You’ll step in something, eventually, and you’ll come crying to me to scrape it off your shoe, and I’ll do it because that’s my job. But you just watch it, Senator. If you do anything to hurt Mark’s chances in politics, I really won’t have any reason to look out for you anymore.”
    “I love my son, Ainley.”
    “Fine. To continue the lesson. Stringing Abweg and his people along wasn’t a mistake because it was dishonest; it was a mistake because it was a mistake. If you made no commitments, you could get Abweg and Babington bidding for your endorsement. You could name a price. Unlimited pork for the home state. Maybe you could name the next Secretary of State or Treasury.”
    “Maybe I still can.”
    Ainley shook his head. Who would have dreamed a Senator with this much seniority, from a powerful political family, would have to hear a lecture in basic politics?
    “Stephen Abweg is now convinced that when he needs you, he can call on you for your endorsement. He thinks all he’ll owe you for that is what they call in football ‘future considerations.’ If you decide to go with Babington, Abweg will be