George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 167

< Episode 166 >

Normally, the Oval Office in the White House never had its windows open due to concerns about potential assassinations, but today, President Bush had them wide open, fully embracing the rich autumn breeze mingled with the scent of fallen leaves.

“What on earth are you doing?”

Coincidentally, Bush wasn’t the only one enjoying the autumn breeze. The Chief of Staff, always at his side in the office, was also forced to endure the wind. For Bush, the autumn breeze evoked nostalgia and melancholy, but for the Chief of Staff, it was just a chilly draft. As one gets older, a cool breeze can easily turn into a sharp, bone-chilling wind depending on the day’s physical condition.

“I’m reflecting.”

“On what, sir?”

“On my past rough behavior, the anxious public watching it, and Congress.”

The Chief of Staff managed to swallow the words ‘Stop the nonsense and sign the documents’ that had risen to his throat. It was a great victory in the fierce battle between reason and instinct, proving that reason can overcome instinct even when all five senses are paralyzed—a monumental achievement in the Chief of Staff’s entire life.

“…I see.”

The Chief of Staff barely managed to control his soaring blood pressure and nodded in agreement.

“So, I’m taking some time for meditation.”

“You said the exact same thing five months ago. Though there was no meditation then.”

“I used to believe that a sound mind resided in a sound body, and I’ve always cultivated physical strength, but I was wrong. To make the country better, we need true mental strength.”

Bush then fell silent and didn’t say anything for five minutes. The Chief of Staff, who was watching him, seemed to finally tire of it and quietly protested by stacking documents on Bush’s desk instead of speaking. When the stack of documents became as tall as Bush, he finally seemed pressured, opened one eye, and spoke.

“Alright, I get it, stop stacking them. It’s going to collapse.”

“So, how long are you planning to do this?”

“Buddha also attained wisdom through meditation. You’re interfering with my process of gaining wisdom.”

‘Wisdom comes from meditation.’ If wisdom could be gained that way, even a child would…

“Are you perhaps trying to turn America into a theocracy?”

“Just so you know, Buddha was a human, not a god. Well, it varies depending on the perspective on Buddha in the East. In Buddhism, anyone can become a Buddha if they attain enlightenment.”

“Ah, that’s quite different from Christianity. By the way, I thought you were a very devout Christian.”

“People say that when you’re young, you explore everything, and when you get older, you refine one thing from what you’ve learned and see it through to the end. But who decides age? Isn’t it me? So, I’ve decided to explore a bit more.”

If someone else said it, it would just be a positive and cliché saying that ‘age is just a number,’ but this man was terrifyingly worse in that he could really modify America’s way of counting age if he set his mind to it, and even determine the age of retirement.

Of course, that wouldn’t really happen, but the weight of his words was different. The weight.

Did they say that all things eventually return to their origin? Meditation is a journey to find truth in silence, and prayer is the personification of the one God. In other words, it is the act of hoping and yearning for answers. When the boundaries of East and West collapsed and all the ideas within Kim Bush truly became one, a subtle and comfortable catharsis rising from the back of his head rushed to his peripheral nerves.

“Mr. President?”

It was truly a hundred schools of thought contending [a period of intellectual and cultural flourishing in ancient China], opening the horizon of a new world, and solid evidence proving how futile the truth he had so desperately sought was.

“Terrorists, presumed to be remnants, have committed a bombing at the Sudanese-American embassy.”

“Those sons of bitches?”

Truth was futilely destroyed in the face of Bush’s great anger towards the terrorists.

At the same time, at the Sudanese-American embassy, the string of letters that the clerks had been writing day and night for almost a year turned into billowing smoke and ascended to the sky, never to return. The letters that ascended to the sky turned into water according to the laws of nature, increased in weight, became a requiem, and fell back to the world.

“Rain. It’s raining!”

The fire, which seemed as if it would spread uncontrollably, was easily suppressed by the small grace of nature.

“Why didn’t the firefighters come?”

In fact, the damage from the terror was initially very minor. Only the entrance of the embassy was slightly damaged, and the door was on fire. The reason why the embassy burned down to this extent was entirely because the firefighters didn’t come.

“The road is blocked. Even now, in the middle of the road…”

“So, what do we do now?”

“Shit. How would I know? What a damn mess.”

Kruger had been trying to show gentlemanly behavior, but at this moment, he cursed freely in front of his junior. The reason why he was reacting so strongly was none other than the fact that all his efforts had been completely in vain.

In simple terms, all the paper documents without backups were lost!

Due to security concerns, most of them were written on paper. Even if there was a god-like hacker in the world, they couldn’t hack paper inside a triple-security vault made of titanium alloy. The problem was that the security was so bad and the budget wasn’t enough, so they chose simple theft prevention instead of a fireproof vault, and they never dreamed it would come back like this.

“Shit. In the world!”

“Fortunately, there are no casualties.”

At first, they used water to put out the fire, but for some reason, the fire didn’t subside even when water was poured on it, but only spread, so everyone calmly evacuated through the back door.

The reason why the fire spread instead is only speculation, but it seemed that some kind of chemical substance was used. Fortunately, the culprit was easily caught. The culprit was excited about the burning embassy and was beaten unconscious by ‘unrelated American civilians.’

“No casualties?”

The junior, whose personality could not be expressed by the word tomboy, approached with a dark expression. A gloomy light of despair could be seen on her face.

“One of the embassy’s family members died!”

However, as mentioned above, all the embassy staff evacuated the building in an orderly manner. So, who died?

“Nero died!”

“Nero? Died?”

What a terrible sound was this? Nero was only 12 years old this year. How could God take someone who only knew the world for 12 years? Was fate so cruel?

“Nero died!”

Nero was the ‘cheetah’ that followed Kruger around. The rich man, who was Nero’s original owner, was troubled by the fact that Nero kept ignoring the owner and caretaker and acted friendly to Kruger, who was a complete outsider, so he donated Nero to the Sudanese-American embassy along with the items he used to raise Nero, asking them to take good care of him.

It was a pet that had been living with them for half a year like a mascot without any particularly unusual problems, except for the accident of running at Kruger once a day and licking his whole body. Even though he had been living with people since he was born, he couldn’t lose his wildness, so he sometimes smacked his lips when he saw people, but he was a pet.

If you go up north right now, wouldn’t you raise bears as pets in Finland or Russia? Watching them drink vodka with honey as a snack with peanuts candied with sugar, you can’t tell whether it’s an animal or a person, but anyway, that Nero died!

“Still, he went comfortably.”

He seemed to be sleeping on his bed when the incident happened. He probably died of suffocation from the smoke, but because he was sleeping, he didn’t even know he was dying and left.

“What the hell! It’s just a cheetah! You’re scaring people!”

It wasn’t like Kruger and Nero were particularly close. Should I call it one-sided love? It would be a lie to say that he didn’t have any affection for him at all, but the loss of the document was a bigger shock than that.

“No! I even gave up my vacation to write that!”

“Senior, are you the type who is tied to a chair at work, using your monthly leave and working all night while drinking coffee?”

“Are you crazy?”

I reacted reflexively, but when I thought about it, everything was right except that my legs weren’t tied. In fact, my legs weren’t physically tied, but they were mentally tied. I even used my monthly leave, but I only worked in the office because something happened in the middle, and I drank coffee and stayed up all night, so there was nothing wrong with what she said.

“No. Am I crazy?”

She was carrying Nero with the help of people around her. She dug up the backyard of the embassy and temporarily planted a cross on it instead of a tombstone. Considering that he was from Africa, I thought I should put something else on it instead of a cross, but Kruger’s head was too complicated to think about that.

“Hing. What should I do with our poor Nero.”

The junior’s actions and words were never like a woman, but she was an Asian woman. I’ve never been particularly curious about where she’s from, but it’s certain that she was born in the United States. Anyway, the important thing was the burned documents. Sudan was the newly established information-gathering hub for the entire North African region in the United States, so all the documents classified as top secret among the information related to North Africa were in that safe.

‘This is fucked up. The North African Democracy Support Plan is gone.’

It was a kind of promotion opportunity. Seeing that the Federal Assembly was trying to tighten its budget again, it didn’t seem like all the support plans would be passed, but still, it could bring democracy to this barbaric land.

Oh, what should I hide? Kruger’s way of thinking was narrow and twisted. The closest thing to it was a neoconservative. Everyone is forced to be ‘politically correct’ these days, but if you get terrorized once a day, you can’t help but have prejudices. In a way, should I say that Sudan brought disaster on itself?

“Still, it’s fortunate that some of it remains in my head.”

It was fortunate if it was fortunate, and unfortunate if it was unfortunate. That meant I had to voluntarily work overtime before I forgot.

“And again, I’m a person with severe allergic diseases to the entire cat family.”

“Senior. I got a call.”

“What call? I’m busy.”

What the junior handed over was a satellite phone for emergency lines prepared to respond to unexpected situations like this.

‘Is it the mainland?’

“Sudanese-American Embassy Branch Central Intelligence Agency Office…”

「Are you the person in charge?」

Anyone who belongs to the CIA knows this voice. In fact, even if it’s not the CIA, any American citizen knows it well, but there was no more special voice to the CIA than this.

A living legend, Texas Buffalo, the most devilish boss in history.

“P, President!”