Page 37 - GoldenOne

GoldenOne
Chapter 6 Back at the Party
Back at Owl’s Nest, Steve Bannon stood in the doorway of the spacious, grand living room. With a glass of Scotch whiskey, no ice, Bannon surveyed the beautiful people, playacting their parts in costume finery. The theme this year was Greek gods and goddesses from Aphrodite to Apollo to Athena to Zeus and of course Dionysus. They were all there. And bewitching his fine, affluent guests was the shy but charismatic Rob Mercer with wife and daughters, who all worked the room smoothly, deftly speaking to everyone in a most familiar way, as hosts and hostesses should. And this room bespoke the character and image of its master and mistress. It was rich, warm, and appealing, displaying Italian marble, fireplace tiles, and an ornate plasterwork ceiling. It was filled with Mercer’s collection of sculptures, paintings, and some amazing sixteenth-century tapestries woven in Brussels, plus nineteenth-century Persian rugs. The welcoming colors of the room showed soft blues and gray that calmed and soothed the spirit.
Seeing Rob Mercer smiling, laughing, and apparently enjoying himself, did not ease the anxiety that Steve Bannon felt. He was still puzzling over “control, contain, or eliminate.”
He knew exactly what they meant, and for all his masculine bravado, he did not want to think of the actions and outcomes that each word represented: “Control, Contain, or Eliminate.”
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