Booktree.ng_Forgotten-Witness

CHAPTER 2
Eugene Weller was a pain in the butt because he wouldn’t take
no for an answer. That proclivity also made him invaluable to
Ambrose Patriota.
They had met when Eugene interned in Patriota’s office
during the senator’s second term. That term was a mere
shadow in the senator’s memory, but it was as bright as the
Big Bang in Eugene’s. The moment Eugene walked into
Ambrose Patriota’s chambers, the second he touched the
politician’s hand, Eugene Weller became a true believer, an
apostle, a follower of a man he considered no less than a
political god.
Fresh out of a college that had no claim to fame and was
planted in a town in a fly-over state that was equally without
color or celebrity, Eugene had graduated nearly friendless.
That was fine with him. The people he hung with were of no
real interest to him in the same way Eugene did not inspire
them. Having served their purpose to one another, they
scattered like seeds. Most of them would root, grow
anemically, and die the predestined death of the mundane
middle class. Eugene would be the exception, not because of
any specific ambition but because he had a keen selfawareness,
a crystalline understanding of his role in life. He
would never be a king or a kingmaker, but he would be a hell
of a king’s minister. That was not to say Eugene Weller was a
sycophant; he simply longed to be an apostle to a worthy
prophet. He had talents to offer a person of worth but his
ungainly appearance and his inability to grasp the subtleties of
social interaction kept many people from recognizing his
intelligence, his potential for unwavering devotion, and his
keen strategic sensibilities. Eugene was convinced, in the way
that some people can be, that a great and true destiny awaited
him and that he would recognize it when he saw it. Six months
before he graduated, Eugene spied a notice on the placement
office bulletin board announcing internships in Washington