The Rise and Falling Out of Saint Leslie of Security Read Online Free PDF Page A

night."
    "The congregation of pilgrims will only last a couple of hours. Just pull somebody off and put me on."
    He sighed and finished his coffee. A drop had dribbled into his beard. He wiped at it and scrutinized Leslie, his face hardening. “I never could understand why so many people around here are always making allowances for you. Why is this so important?"
    "Does it matter? It's my last request."
    He continued to stare, and she became certain he would tell her to forget it. Even as she felt the sweat on her back and forehead she wondered herself why this was so important. She wanted to see the pilgrims, that's all. She wanted to be with them, wanted to hear what Father Washington would have to say this time.
    "Let me call Tom to authorize it, okay?"
    Her vision blurred. She didn't believe Russell would agree to any such request. Meyer rounded his desk and turned on his screen. Then he told Tom what Leslie wanted. There was a moment's pause, then she heard his voice: “Leslie?"
    "Yes, Tom."
    "You'll be finished with the pilgrims by two-thirty the latest. Stick around; I'll meet you there. That's an order."
    "Yes, sir."
    Meyer switched off the communication line and shook his head. “Welcome back to the work force, Saint Leslie of Security."
    As the sweat cooled against her back, Leslie thought perhaps Tom did understand at least a little, and was grateful.
* * * *
    The early September sun was a ball of bright dust. Rather than luminosity, it offered a pervading, smothering warmth. Summer was old and, with the thin smog above and the crowded White House grounds below, dirty. The red, white and blue, twenty storied ziggurat of the White House was the only thing seeming untarnished by the dull air. The pilgrims congregated on the lawn, and Leslie was one of the thirty other guards patrolling their borders inside the high fence, barbed at the top, around them. That didn't count the agents, on the other side of the fences, numbly keeping the crowds at a distance. There were demonstrators there, following a long and occasionally honored tradition of American expression.
    Leslie held no sympathy for them. In number they tripled the quiet, long-faced, thousand-or-so women inside the cordons. They screamed incomprehensible chants, shook signs and fists. Leslie wasn't sure, but it seemed she saw far more men than women among them, which didn't really surprise her. Men had been making decisions for women for a long time. What did surprise her, however, was the resentment rising from her stomach as she watched the demonstrators jumping and raging and singing in the hope they would catch the attention of the vision crews already scattered across the lawn, and on both sides of the fences. Would any of these earnest heroes hide her while her womb ripened, and offer to take on the child as their own? She wondered if there were any Atheists among them.
    Really, the demonstrators were as impotent in their effect as the ritualized demonstrations routinely staged by Washington in honor of the Holy Spirit of Revolution. Her resentment of them was not in proportion to that reality.
    Somehow, the nearest vision crew, thirty feet up on its scaffolding, hadn't noticed Leslie yet, for no mechanical eyes had approached her through the crowd. At least she hadn't noticed any. She was relieved, even though she knew it couldn't last much longer. Many nearby women were paying too much attention to her. Widened eyes, murmurs, affectionate grins, excited gestures, awed glances. “Saint Leslie!” someone cried. “Hey, Saint Leslie! It's Saint Leslie!"
    No, the crews would see her soon enough. She turned away from the women and scrutinized the sniper towers along the fence, but could see none of the agents and guards who occupied them. A woman near her cried for Father Washington. Leslie looked. It was a young girl; perhaps she was thirteen. She had sagged to her knees on the grass, tears made her cheeks slick. Still, Leslie was unsure whether it was