. . all business as usual, in other words. Then he stopped and his eyes narrowed as he read the report from Texas. “What’s this?” he asked his chief of staff. “Doesn’t the president of the United States have better things to do than worry about some minor disturbance in a state full of conservative yahoos? Why should we give a damn what happens down there? Our party hasn’t carried Texas in the past thirty years!” “That fellow Stark is involved,” the chief of staff explained. “His name is flagged, just like you ordered, sir.” “Oh, yes,” the president said with a frown. His predecessors had all kept track of John Howard Stark, so he’d thought it would be a good idea for him to do the same. “Wasn’t there something a few months ago about a possible civil rights violation . . . ?” The chief of staff shook his head and said, “Nothing ever came of that. No matter how Justice spun it, there was just too much evidence that Stark was defending himself. The three defendants in the case are still awaiting trial.”
