“Because if somebody like me dies, the world doesn’t lose much,” Justice said. “But you’re a great leader, the world needs you-”

“Does it?” Augustine said. “I wonder.”

Justice could not think of anything appropriate to say; he looked down at his hands. It grew quiet in the office, and when he glanced up again, the President’s head was bowed and he was wearily massaging his temples. Justice felt compassion stir inside him. It wasn’t fair what the media was doing to Nicholas Augustine, he thought; in fact, it was almost criminal.

Four years ago Augustine had risen from relative anonymity as junior senator from California to rally a party so badly split that it was given no hope of succeeding to power. When he had captured public favor with his low-key and old-fashioned campaign and won the election by an amazing four million popular votes, the press had been for the most part quietly supportive. And they had remained that way during the first half of his term. Only then relations had weakened with Russia and China, and energy and other important domestic policies had failed to be implemented, and the jobless rate had soared, and the media had finally turned on Augustine, had begun to criticize him with increasing vehemence as a weak, ineffectual leader, as an overly simplistic man with a superficial grasp of issues. As a result, the President’s popularity-over sixty percent for nearly the first three years-had begun to dip sharply during the past six months. Now, anything he did or said was subject to controversy, misinterpretation, and attack from all sides; even members of his own party, led by maverick Kentucky senator Peter Kineen, had opened another split and were vowing to keep Augustine from seeking a second term by wresting the nomination away from him at the forthcoming convention in Saint Louis.

It was terrible to see, Justice thought, what this constant pressure was doing to the President.