Read Linnear 03 - White Ninja for Free Online

Agency. Lately, the verbal fight had turned dirty. Allegations of cover-ups, misuse of the public's money, fraud and boondoggling were becoming the norm; the two were rending each other limb from limb, and privately, Branding had begun to wonder whether either of them would survive.
    Within the past two weeks, he had come to the conclusion that in this instance Mary had been correct. Accordingly, he had cut back on the public speechifying, concentrating his efforts on another front. He and his media cronies had got together in private in an effort to amass a case against Douglas Howe's misuse of the public trust.
    Howe and Mary: they were the only two people Cotton Branding had thought about for months.
    Until Shisei.
    He had met her - could it be only last night? he asked himself incredulously - at one of those innumerable social gatherings that for many formed the structure of summer on the East End. Inevitably, Branding found these f?tes to be boring. But in his line of work they were strictly de rigueur, and it was at these times that he missed Mary's presence most keenly. It was only now, in her absence, that he recognized how palatable she made these masques.
    'Masque' was Branding's private, ironic name for these summer parties. They were affectation personified; evenings where appearance was all, and content virtually nil. If one looked smashing, if one was seen talking to the right people when the photographers came, that was all that mattered, save if one boorishly abrogated social custom, say by bringing an undesirable such as a commercial literary figure or a Jew.
    These Draconian requirements left a bitter taste in Branding's mouth, and often when he would get fed up or one too many drinks would loosen his iron-bound super-ego, he would confess to Mary that he would dearly love to hold one of his famous press conferences in order to expose what he called 'this medieval infrastructure'.
    Always, Mary would laugh in that way she had, defusing his righteous anger, making him laugh along with her. But, during his infrequent black moods, when he was off brooding on his own, when he had to resist following
    his father's besotted fate, he longed to have that righteous anger back, and was secretly and ashamedly angry at her for having robbed him of it.
    The masque at which he met Shisei - or, more precisely, when he became aware of her - was a morbid affair attended by people compelled to talk at length about their memories of Truman Capote in commemoration of his death. Listening to their anecdotes, meant to be funny but which, in fact, were merely sad, Branding felt relieved that he had never met the author.
    Still, for Branding, the time had not been ill-spent. He had invited two of his best media friends: Tim Brooking, New York's best investigative reporter; and one of the on-air personalities of the TV networks' most popular investigative news show, and the three of them had talked on and off about the state of electronic journalism.
    These were evil times for television news divisions, brought on by the demise of the television networks, sold to non-media conglomerates eager to increase profit margins whatever the cost. The networks had only themselves to blame, the on-air personality lamented. With cable and VCR use eroding their Nielsen numbers, they had turned more and more to independent producers to supply programmes. More and more the local stations controlled what went on the air. Quiz and infotainment shows such as Entertainment Tonight were far more lucrative than network news shows during the hour before prime time. Further, satellite feeds picked up by local news and the increasing prominence of Ted Turner's CNN all-news cable network were making the three network news shows redundant. As of now, they all knew, not one network maintained an investigative news team for its nightly broadcasts, and foreign bureaux, once the pride of American TV, were being closed as fast as was practical.
    As they spoke