The Negative

By Joss Bernet

In a world on the brink of multiple conflicts, amidst the backdrop of a relentless pandemic, Bob Ray’s life takes an unforeseen turn. Once a writer, former journalist, and undercover intelligence agent, he had lived for his craft until an unexpected event shattered his existence. As the globe grapples with the shocking behavior and unorthodox style of US President Reginald Dropp, a secret plan unfolds involving Dropp’s old friend and Yale classmate, Peter Simons, the influential president of a major American television news network.

Simultaneously, the resignation of the incumbent Pope gives rise to Lazarus Primus, a young, agile American cardinal of Jewish origin, who astounds the world by becoming the new head of the Catholic Church. Amidst these intriguing developments, the Holy Shroud of Jesus mysteriously disappears from the Turin Cathedral, defying the initial suspicions of a simple robbery. With the world’s attention gripped by the relentless pandemic, a profound journey of faith and silence commences, while a chain of unforeseen events upends all preconceived plans, altering the destiny of the entire world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035804498

Joss Bernet

Joss Bernet is a writer, screenwriter, film director and producer, cultural diplomat, has worked in movie business for the last twenty years in several countries. He is active in cultural international relations, foreign affairs and working as executive director and expert for different companies through Europe.

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About the Author

Joss Bernet is a writer, screenwriter, film director and producer, cultural diplomat, has worked in movie business for the last twenty years in several countries. He is active in cultural international relations, foreign affairs and working as executive director and expert for different companies through Europe.

Dedication

To Frederick Forsyth for making me discover the art of the thriller.

Copyright Information ©

Joss Bernet 2024

The right of Joss Bernet to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035804481 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035804498 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2024

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Acknowledgement

To all those who have asked me the question: if you could only tell one story, just one, which would it be? My answer is this book.

I

Emperor

1.

’I do not believe in peace…’

He heard the sentence clearly and distinctly. He wanted to ask something, but he couldn’t. He was not really surprised, just smiled quietly. Reggie hadn’t changed a bit. And he always knew what he wanted. My God, Reginald…back at Yale, where they were classmates, he’d called him Reggie, he still called him Reggie, but it was hard to say it now. The former bohemian college student had become, Reginald, and it will stay that way.

But Reginald hadn’t changed a bit over the years.

‘I do not believe in peace.’ That was a fitting phrase. Peter Simons was still smiling. It was hard for him to take this grown-up con man seriously. But today, Reginald Dropp is the President of the United States of America. His father, the elder Dropp, could not live to see the day…A successful entrepreneur, founder of a real estate empire, he was the first-born son of poor German immigrants.

Reginald respected his father and often sought his advice. The elder Dropp talked to him constantly, protecting and looking after his son. If anyone, he knew that at this level, it was difficult to make the right decisions. There are too many advisers, too many well-wishers, too many profiteers, too many important people, too many nobodies. But the Boss of the day, whether business or political leader, needs the nobodies to be Somebody for once.

Reginald Dropp wanted to prove to himself. He wanted to outdo his father, who had built the family fortune, creating the now famous Dropp empire. Reginald was driven from the start to prove to the world that, despite the considerable wealth he inherited, he could outdo his father in every respect, which is why he entered politics when he became one of America’s most prominent real estate billionaires. He wanted to rule the world. That was his one-line agenda. He had very bad memories of previous US presidents, especially his predecessor, whom he saw as a real disaster for the US and the world. He was adored by the public and the press, but Reginald Dropp said he was the weakest president since the infamous Franklin Pierce.

Reginald Dropp got up from his desk and took a seat on the sofa opposite Peter. The Oval Office was unusually quiet and calm. The entire White House, except for staff and security, was empty. Reginald’s family had spent the last few days at the Florida estate. Only the President travelled up to Washington today, Christmas Eve 2019.

The weather was nice, sunny, dry, and cold. It was just after noon. No snow on the east coast yet this year. Peter was thoroughly surprised to receive a phone call the night before. The President had called him on the unlisted number of the East Hampton house. The family had already left New York on Friday, Peter had just joined them yesterday morning, and the call had come in the evening.

He left his stately home early in the morning, and at La Guardia boarded the private jet.

The President himself served the tea. He performed the ceremony slowly and with dignity. He lifted the silver teapot slightly and poured it, making up-and-down motions as he did so.

‘We first saw this in Morocco…Remember? Fez, at the Sacred Music Festival, sometime in ’77 or ’78…’

‘’77…anyway, it was a long time ago…but it was mint tea, and the person who filled it was a local Arab…’

Reginald pretended not to hear Peter’s comment. ‘How do you want it…sugar, honey, milk…?’

‘Plain, please…’

Peter stirred his natural tea for long minutes with the silver spoon. Reginald, smiling, did the same, but he had something to stir he drank the tea with honey and milk. He enjoyed Peter’s growing tension, though he covered it up very professionally.

‘You have no idea why I asked you to come here today?’

‘No. I have no idea,’ Peter replied dryly. ‘But you have made me very curious. Not to mention my family, who are a bit scared.’

‘So, you have no idea…’

‘No, but I am patient…’

There was a long silence. The President stood up, went to the window, drew the gold curtains. He stood silently at the window.

‘I promised the family I would be home later in the evening. It’s Christmas Eve, Reginald, can we get down to business?’

‘I can’t believe you have no idea.’

‘Is there a problem?’

‘Do you think there’s nothing wrong?’

‘I can only hope…for God’s sake, don’t do this!’

‘It will be long…It will be late when we finish. And for now, you’re the only one who would know about it. Top secret.’

‘Can you do it after Christmas?’ Reginald suddenly lost his patience.

‘Damn it! Stop playing dumb! Do you think I’m going to invite you in for a cup of tea on Christmas Eve?’

Peter put down his cup. He tried to stay calm. ‘I’m listening.’

Reginald Dropp sat at his desk and began to speak.

2.

Suddenly, a biting wind blew along the entire length of East 10th Street. Bob Ray had just stepped out of the building and was heading for nearby Tompkins Park. He was spending his fifth Christmas alone, but it was his choice. He could have visited his single mother outside Pittsburgh, but he no longer had the strength or courage. He was tired of his mother, and he dared admit it to himself. For a long time, he didn’t face it, he lied to himself about why he never visited home, but that’s all over now. He realised he could no longer change his mother, himself, or their very complicated relationship. Thirty-six years old this year, five years on his own, he’s had time to think things over. Although, as he used to say, he didn’t think things through, he felt them.

Over the years he had developed a very simple method of meditation, which he didn’t even know was meditation. He just listened to his breathing, and slowly everything drained out of him. He would simply sit in Tompkins Park, or anywhere in his apartment, sometimes at St John The Divine Church on the West Side and let what was to come. He took a deep breath, and after a few minutes, it came, that strange thing that smart people, philosophers, academics and especially psychiatrists can talk about at such length. But Bob didn’t like to talk about it. Not even to his best friend or his ex-lover. How could he say that he was not alone at a time like this, that he could hear the voice clearly, and in less than twenty minutes he was almost reborn.

It was Christmas Eve. It was cold, but not so cold that he couldn’t sit on his favourite bench in Tompkins Park for fifteen minutes in his long, padded coat. Afterwards, he returned to his one-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side, eating at his modest home-cooked dinner: a fillet of sea fish with mashed potatoes, mushrooms, steamed vegetables, and peach compote. He also bought half a dozen oysters. He will drink a ten-year-old Chablis with it. It was his preferred white wine from his Parisian years. He was thinking of going to St John the Divine for midnight mass but hasn’t decided yet. He goes to mass very rarely or almost never, preferring to sit alone in the church to hear everything clearly in the silence.

‘He who has ears, let him hear.’ Bob Ray has ears to hear. It kept him alive. This may sound like an exaggeration at first, but it is certainly true in a spiritual sense. Despite countless disappointments, long journeys, and failures, his faith grew stronger. He had a comfortable financial background, far from being a millionaire, he had a regular income from the copyright of his books. He was not a property or car owner, but he did not feel the need to be. He had nothing but his faith. He had no real interest in religion, nor did he need it; his strong faith made up for any formality.

Where did this faith come from, where did it all begin? Back in Pittsburgh, at his parents’ house. He doesn’t like to think back on it either because that house was anything but peaceful. Both parents had roots in Hungary. His father was a Hungarian Jew, originally named Sugár. When his grandfather arrived at Ellis Island, waiting for his turn, someone asked him his name and he burst out laughing at the name Sugár. It was then that he found out what Sugár means in English, so he quickly asked one of his fellow companions, who could speak both Hungarian and English, to translate Sugár into English.

Well, Sugár in English it’s Ray. That’s how József Sugár became Joseph Ray, aka Joe Ray. That’s the name he registered at the immigration office. His mother was also of Hungarian descent, or more precisely, she had Transylvanian roots. A member of the very significant Armenian minority in Transylvania, she was registered as Ilona Petrossian, but later anglicised to Helen Peters. Bob’s maternal grandfather was still a miner, for a very short time in Pennsylvania, later moved to one of the better suburbs of Pittsburgh, opened a general store, and the family made a living from that. The old man had a saying that he often repeated to his daughter when he came up from the mines overnight, ‘A Jew man doesn’t bring coal up from the ground and doesn’t ride a horse. He’d rather sell both. An Armenian especially so.’

Of course, in his shop you could buy everything but coal and horses. Helen inherited the store, and that’s when she met Joe Ray, who was a traveling salesman at the time. This was in 1979. Five years later, little Robert, aka Bob Ray, was born. The marriage was anything but happy. Yeah, an Armenian and a Jew, go figure.

Bob Ray sat down on a bench in Tompkins Park. There was almost nobody else in the park that evening, and negligible traffic on A Avenue. Across the street was Horus Café, one of the regulars’ places, there were only a few customers there too, he thought maybe he should go in, but stayed on the bench. He liked to sit alone. It was Christmas Eve, and he took it seriously every year. He could not know at that moment that 230 miles south in the Oval Office, there was literally a historic debate between the most controversial President of the United States and one of the most influential media leaders in the country, the content of which would change his life forever.

The sun was shining brightly on what must be one of the most expensive plots of land on the Atlantic coast. Modern luxury villa with private beach. Peter Simons bought the land in the 1980s with a mid-sized chalet on it, which he rebuilt in a few years.

The neighbours were no ordinary people: the Clintons, Steven Spielberg, and several other super-rich people of similar calibre. In less than a decade and a half, it has become the wealthiest and most affluent community in the US, surpassing Beverly Hills, Pacific Palisades and Bel Air on a per-square-foot basis. Perhaps only Silicon Valley or Palm Beach, Florida—where the President just had a magnificent palace—rival East Hampton in wealth. A veritable playground for the rich. Peter Simons returned last night from the blitz visit to Washington. Unable to sleep, he sat out on the veranda at the crack of dawn and waited for the sun to rise. He thought of Salvador Dali, whose famous egg house in Port Lligat, in the most north-eastern corner of Spain, the Catalan painter often boasted that he was the first Spaniard to see the sun rise every morning.

At that moment, Peter had the feeling that he might not only be the first person to see the Christmas sun rise in America, but he was the only one who knew the terrible secret he had heard just hours earlier from his former college classmate, the current President of the United States. He enjoyed the beautiful lights of the rising sun as he slowly sipped hot chocolate. Still, a terrible overwhelming feeling came over him. Sixty-six years old this year, he had been on the cusp of twenty years when his former mentor Steve Ross, the legendary media magnate and businessman, saw in him the media shark of the future and hired him to Time Warner, him the ambitious lawyer, then barely twenty, who had graduated with honours from Yale. In fact, it was their love of European football, soccer, that brought them together.

Steve Ross was the man who built the legendary New York Cosmos soccer team in the 1970s, with Chinaglia, Neeskens, Beckenbauer and the then top player, Brazilian Pele, among others. Simons inherited his love of football from his father, who was of Welsh descent and carried on the family tradition of loving British football. For a long time, there was only one team for him, Manchester United, and two gods—George Best and Bobby Charlton. If he had had a son, he would surely have been called Bobby, not Robert, Bob, or Roby, but just Bobby. But he had a daughter, in 1980, his only child, Liza. He had a rented lodge at Giants Stadium at the time.

In 1977, after Pelé’s unforgettable farewell game, he and Ross agreed at the banquet to quit their then top law firm in New York and become executive producer at Time Warner. His career took off, and he became an inescapable figure in New York and American business in general. In 1992, after Ross’ death, Simons, still only 39 at the time, wanted a change and two years later founded WBC, the World Broadcasting Corporation, which has since become CNN’s biggest competitor and has long been acknowledged in professional and press circles as having surpassed it.

The timing was also ingenious: in 1996 Ted Turner took over Time Warner, but by then WBC had already positioned itself in the world media market. Rumour had it in New York that Turner hated Simons and the WBC even more than the hated Murdoch, but Simons, with his excellent nose and instincts, was always one step ahead, so Turner could never really hurt him, and now CNN chase after him. Peter Simons was very critical of himself, but he was always proud of the fact that his instincts worked even better than his brain. That ‘delicate feminine instinct’ as he jokingly referred to it. The brain is an overrated organ, what matters is intuition, instinct. That was his only creed.

And that was his problem right now…had his instinct either failed him, or was he not functioning as he used to? He doesn’t know, he doesn’t feel, what to do with this burden the President has placed on him. Where to start? For now, he didn’t want to dwell on it, though he promised the President that they would have lunch together at the White House in the New Year, and he would have something to say by then. Not a word to the family, now or later, was the only thing he had already decided. We’ve got a little over a week before the New Year. All in due time.

Air Force One taxied silently down the runway. After the usual security rounds, the President boarded the plane alone. Just as the day before at the White House, he was escorted by a security team. No chief of staff, no press, no aides, no secretaries. He’d let everyone go before Christmas. He wanted to be alone for a little while, to hear no smart-asses, no human voice at all. ‘Don’t touch and don’t say hello.’ Sometimes this was the sign on the door handle of the Oval Office instead of the usual do not disturb in hotels. Once a hotel in Vienna even put up a sign saying, there is a beast behind this door. It was his favourite, by the way. Then the crew knew that the red light was on and not to breathe.

Meanwhile, the presidential plane took off. Reginald Dropp couldn’t wait to get above the clouds. Ever since he was a child, he had been fascinated by the sun shining above the clouds, despite the sleepy grey weather. And so, it was now. The same sun that Dali had seen at Port Lligat, and which had just lit up East Hampton, and the entire East Coast. As he watched the miracle with a slight smile, he thought about how he would try to lift the country up to the clouds in the months to come.

Make America great again, as he had promised in his campaign. He was anxious, he was doubtful, although that was not like him, but he felt very strongly that now was his time. He was going to make history, real history, surpassing even Roosevelt, whose presidency saw the rebirth of America after the New Deal, the collapse of the old-world order and the beginning of the Cold War. Although he admired even more Truman, who dared to drop the Los Alamos monster twice on Japan, and America has ruled the world ever since. Smell of Freedom, To be an American, is a privilege.

These were his favourite simple slogans when he talked about America. Simple but powerful words that generations of adults who grew up on silly television shows understood. One world order ended after Hiroshima and another begun with the Cold War, ended in 1989.

Now, too, a world will collapse, but at the same time a whole New World will be born, in which America will be the leading empire once and for all. These thoughts kept him awake, sometimes he felt a sexual thrill when he thought about it. I’m gonna fuck the world, and he meant it, sometimes he made no secret of it. Next November he would run for the presidency again, and if his plan succeeded, his Democratic opponent had better not run. He will rule the world, Americans will rejoice, and they will worship and celebrate the Alexander the Great of the 21st century. He was only jolted back to reality when he saw the lights of Palm Beach in the distance. He had come home.

Bob Ray is a taller than average man, 6 feet 3 inches, a hundred kilos, someone said to be handsome, although this never impressed him, nor did he bother to mention his success with women, whom he mainly swept off their feet with his acerbic humour. Dark brown hair and thick hair, brown eyes, athletic build, confident appearance, his presence could not be ignored. His good looks were matched by a strong personality, yet he was often alone, a loner who preferred to avoid people when he could.

Loneliness never alarmed him; it was his ally. He had countless disappointments in love and found that it was almost always his fault. He was twenty years old when his first great love, somewhere in the Arizona desert, looked him in the eye, for a long, long time, just looked and looked, with those beautiful, black, teary eyes. Her name was Sonia, and she wept silently. She just said, ‘That’s a good boy.’ Then she turned and walked away. To this day, he still doesn’t understand why. At that moment, Bob Ray hoped he would die.

Right there and then. He couldn’t possibly go on living. But and this he considers a truly incomprehensible miracle, he lived on. If life were fair, everyone would die of the passing of their first love. How fortunate that life isn’t pure at all. It would be boring as hell for a while, a world of teenagers, and then suddenly, in a matter of weeks, life on Earth would die out. The world would perish of love.

Here he is, sitting in his Lower East Side flat on Christmas Eve, living on. He’s been thinking about Sonia for hours. And he hadn’t thought about her in years. Well, that’s not true, he’s lying to himself again, which he hated. He thought of her every day, instinctively, as God. And he talked to her like God. But he hadn’t known anything about her for a very long time. For a while Sonia was also a journalist, an expert on the Middle East and the Arab world, because she spoke Arabic as a mother tongue. Sonia Khan is the only child of a Pakistani imam and a German doctor. She was born in Montreal, where her father originally emigrated after meeting Gudrun, a German doctor working in a UN mission in Karachi. After love at first sight that bolt from the blue happened, the imam had to leave, finding it difficult to remain authentic, and more importantly alive, with a Christian German woman by his side. The province of Quebec was chosen within Canada, the imam at the time still feeling a strong aversion to anything Anglo-Saxon. And it was here, shortly after the couple settled, that little Sonia was born.

Little Sonia. Beautiful at the age of six, and a wonder beyond earth at sixteen. Tall, thin, with some amazing black eyes, creole skin, indescribable. The world doesn’t know what it loses by people not being born from a mixture of Arab and Nordic people—say German or Scandinavian. It would be a truly beautiful world. Although, if you look at the current policies of Chancellor Merkel and some of her colleagues in other countries, there is a chance that the world is getting more and more beautiful. Physically. We don’t know the rest. Maybe the world will die not of love, but of beauty.

The New Year started on Wednesday. The President was superstitious, believing, as so many do, that as the first day of the year goes, so goes the year. Wednesday. Mercurii Dies. Mercury’s day. God of messengers, merchants, adventurous travellers, thieves. Reginald smiled as he thought about it. Ever since he was a child he had been interested in mythology, superstition, ancient myths. The Greek Hermes, the Latin equivalent of Mercury. He himself was born under the sign of Gemini, ruled by the planet Mercury. In one of the bathrooms of his huge Palm Beach villa, the staff had already prepared the bath water. He began each year with a ritual bath. Illegal Cuban—Montecristo no.2—his favourite dozy cigar, in honour of his Scottish ancestors on his mother’s side, a half-water glass of 10-year-old Laphroaig single malt whisky, and the Wall Street Journal.

These were all parts of his fragrant bath, which lasted strictly forty minutes. So, the year begins with Mercury and Hermes Day. Another branch of his family was of German descent, and in Norse mythology it Wednesday, the day of the god Odin. Odin, God of wrath, death, victory, but also of poetry, war, and hunting. He laughed out loud in the bathtub when he thought about all this. Like all the Northern Deities, Odin is complex and contradictory. Like himself, Reginald Dropp. As he relaxed more and more in the hot water, he felt a sense of power, a sense of invincibility. No one could touch him. Yes, this year is off to a good start. And it was going to be an important year, perhaps the most important year for him.

He’s putting all his eggs in one basket, and towards the end, the presidential election in November will be a mere formality if his plan succeeds. He has already seen the faces, the panic, the fear, and the doubt in his immediate environment. Cowardly, amateur freeloaders one and all, he hated most of his staff and would have preferred to fill the White House with his family and closest friends, but he had not yet succeeded. With this ridiculous impeachment process that has begun in recent weeks, the Democrats are scoring an own goal and Dropp will emerge stronger. He always knew his political opponents were stupid and inept. But he also hated his own camp, the gutless has been Republicans. As much as he was hated by the members of his government, he despised the educated politicians, the intelligentsia and especially the press. Dropp was a member of the elite, but he did not consider himself an intellectual or a PC politician, but only a businessman, but the best in the USA.

That is why he decided to involve only his oldest friend and confidant, Peter Simons, in the scheme. He owns the country’s largest conservative media empire, the WBC, derisively called WC by his enemies and Wolverine, by his supporters. This is the animal that, despite its small stature, attacks everyone, even bears, fears nothing and no one, and kills everyone it can, seemingly without purpose. Peter was the first person he talked about the plan, on Christmas Eve. The big plan of his life. Reginald Dropp, the President of the United States, the largest real estate developer in the country before the presidency, had been building for as long as he could remember, sometimes buildings, always the biggest, sometimes entire neighbourhoods, and corporate empires.

Dropp Buildings all over the country, New York, Las Vegas, Washington, Atlantic City, and many more places. He was terribly proud of these monstrosities and of the fact that the Dropp brand name had become a global brand over the decades. Synonymous with greatness, wealth and luxury. No one represents the American dream better than Reginald Dropp. And now, as President, he will build a new world. A brand new one that will once and for all end this stupid, clumsy, lazy liberal world that has been pushing the countries of the world from crisis to crisis for decades. Fuck the UN, fuck the European Union! Fuck Peacekeeping Forces, fuck Greenpeace and Amnesty International, and fuck all the fucking idiots who still think they are Truth and Life.

Well, they are not. Their time is up. The hippie era and the generation of 1968 is over. An American Renaissance is coming that will affect the whole world, more and more powerfully than the Italian one did in its time. He is considered as a madman and a dilettante president. He will make it clear to everyone this year that he is the chosen one, and then his enemies will be silenced and will beg for a place in this New World.

So far, he has always built. Now, the biggest task awaits him. The most important construction. But it will all start with a massive demolition. There will also be many casualties, though if his plan succeeds, far fewer than any of the great world conflagrations that followed. He will be the best at that too.

Destruction. At an architecture and design conference he once organised, a world-renowned French architect told him that he was teaching only building demolition for two semesters at university. Because the best architects and engineers are the ones who can demolish the best and with engineering precision.

The first step is scheduled to take place the day after tomorrow, 3 January. This will be the opening. He was looking forward to that day. He had intended it to be a turning point, but even his inner circle did not know that, not even Peter had been told about it during the Christmas Eve talk.

The forty minutes of bath time passed quickly. He didn’t even look at the WSJ. But he got out of the tub extremely satisfied. In the afternoon, he had another bath, also ritualistic, but this time in the ocean water, on the villa’s own beach. Cleansed, full of positive thoughts and strength, he returns to the White House. Tomorrow morning, at nine o’clock, he’ll have an important announcement to make to his close staff.

Peter Simons’ home base was the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington. For many years he stayed here whenever he was in the capital. A big advantage of the Hay-Adams is that it’s just steps from the White House across the street. From the top floors, you have a magnificent view of the Presidential Residence Park and the world’s most famous white palace itself. Because of the hotel’s unique location, some of the biggest lobbyists, politicians and celebrities stay here.

Spare rooms are very rare to find, and ninety percent of the hotel’s guests are returning regulars. Peter Simons was waiting for his Hay-Adams limousine at Dulles Airport, and in just over half an hour, he was waiting for his White House call in his usual suite.

The Situation Room is the most famous room in the White House after the Oval Office. It is forever etched in the public’s memory as an image that has travelled the world, where President Obama, with his staff, members of the National Security Council and a scared-faced Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State, clasped her hand to her mouth, watched the siege of Osama Bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan and the elimination of the terrorist leader in Operation Geronimo.

Numerous films and TV series, notably House of Cards, 24 and The President’s Men (West Wing), have also featured what is perhaps the most important room in the world. It is here that the fate of the world is decided, and in these 465 square meters of space, political and military decisions affecting all of humanity are made. Life never stops here. With state-of-the-art communications systems monitoring all the world’s crisis zones 24 hours a day, the President and his immediate staff have a direct view of the situation and can communicate in the safest possible way. In addition to three large conference rooms, the complex includes a presidential office and a watch centre.

The Situation Room, contrary to popular belief, is not a bunker, but a simple basement room located under the West Wing. There is also a nuclear bunker, of course, but it is located under the East Wing. The history of this place is interesting. It was created after one of the most spectacular American failures, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, during Kennedy’s presidency in 1961. It was realised that one of the reasons for the failure of the Cuban operation was that the President and the military staff did not have up-to-the-minute information about the operation and were therefore unable to effectively direct and influence the events. According to rumours, Castro repeatedly said that he was the reason the Situation Room was created, the one who, even before Vietnam, had made a mockery of US intelligence and the US military. The Situation is me, ‘La Situación soy yo!’ Castro would proudly say before lighting up his customary Cohiba cigar. Since September 11, the President of the day has been spending between 20 and 40 hours a week here, regardless of whether there is a crisis. The world has changed, nothing has been the same since September 2001. Nowadays it is mainly a war of communication, even in peacetime. The onslaught on the World Wide Web, the perfection of spyware and the ever smaller and more untraceable drones, require constant readiness on the part of the secret services, and of course the technical staff in the Situation Room. It is a desperate and ever-renewing battle, with neither side able to gain a lasting advantage over the other, and modern technology is so fast that just when one of the players feels it has gained the upper hand, the next moment it is shocked to find that it has already been left behind. And then it starts all over again, non-stop, to the point of madness, sometimes beyond. The question now is how long it can be sustained, when the thread in one’s head, or rather in one’s soul, breaks and cuts the Gordian knot.

Everyone feared that this untrustworthy, vulgar, uneducated, and insane Reginald Dropp, who fancied himself a modern Alexander the Great, would become the Antichrist of History and take the decisive step that many believed would lead to the abyss and ultimate destruction. And there you have it. Here he sits, on 3th of January, with the