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Show Acting Alone Page 376 politician a chance to practice his charming laugh. "'Dis-obligate?'" the Elder had asked in a kind of specialty voice, an imitation of that deadpan, yet dread-filled Martin Sheen tenor. After a few quiet chuckles, Senator Nimrod had replied, "Dis-obligate. With moderate prejudice." And they'd laughed together a while, good friends, two mature individuals relaxed and assured of their respectively comfortable places in the world of men. The Senator had added, "This young bum's such a questionable citizen; I suggest you simply scratch the surface of his recent past. You'll probably find he's on parole for felony fraud or something like that. I'd appreciate it, Elder, if you could either unearth or, shall we say, drum up a little something that would constitute legal grounds to nullify a contract, one way or another." So Elder Cicerone had taken some time off his Colorado Springs Temple project and had started to work getting a dossier compiled, a favor to his old friend to whom he was indebted on various moral and practical levels. And he discovered something more than the cheap literary con-artist he'd been expecting: he discovered a moderately fascinating boy, or man, whose impressive energies seemed to parallel his own - in the opposite direction. Usually the Elder simply contacted the Council of the Twelve in matters like these, and had them pass the job on to some unoccupied domestic branch of church intelligence. And so he did now, for the bulk of the project: the uninteresting genealogical- and police-file work and the merely clerical probes of the youngster's permanent academic record. But, for four reasons, he got personally involved in the more challenging aspects of this job. |
