Ranger's Apprentice; The Final Pieces

AU - Halt & Trump pt. 3

Third and last part of the AU as inspired by drowned-in-books on tumblr, and fully based on the three chapters that John Flanagan wrote in The Burning Bridge.

Enjoy from a non-political standard and please let me know what you thought!

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Donald Trump kept Alyss waiting for over an hour before deigning to receive her.

Halt and Alyss waited in the anteroom to Trump's office. Halt stood to one side, leaning impassively on the wall. Trump was an oaf, he thought. As a NATO diplomat on official business Alyss should have been greeted without delay. Obviously aware of her youth, the President of the US was attempting to assert his own importance by treating her as an everyday messenger.

He watched the girl approvingly as she sat, straight-backed and erect, in one of the hard chairs in the anteroom. She appeared calm and unflustered in spite of the insult she was being offered.

For his part, Halt had his distinctive Special Agent's badge pinned on his blouse, under his jacket. His gun, however, he retained in full sight. He never went anywhere without it, as he was expected to.

Alyss glanced up at him and he nodded, almost imperceptibly, to her. Don't let him make you angry. She returned the nod, acknowledging the message. Her hands, which were clenched into fists on her knees, slowly relaxed as she took several deep breaths.

This girl is very good, Halt thought.

Trump's secretary had obviously been well briefed by his master. After peremptorily waving Alyss to a chair and leaving Halt to stand, he had busied himself with paperwork and resolutely ignored them – rising several times to take items into the inner office. Finally, at the sound of a small bell tinkling from beyond the door, he looked up and gestured toward the office.

"You can go in now," he said disinterestedly. Alyss frowned slightly. Protocol dictated that a NATO diplomat should be properly announced, but the man obviously had no intention of doing so. She rose gracefully and moved toward to door, Halt following. That got the secretary's attention.

"You can wait here, guard," he said rudely. Without the jacket with the flags and stickers, there was little to distinguish Halt from a normal guard. He was dressed in simple black jeans, leather boots and a white blouse. In all honesty, he looked like even less than a normal guard.

"He's with me," Alyss said. The unmistakable tone of authority in her voice stopped the man cold. He hesitated, then rose from behind the desk and moved toward Halt.

"Very well. But you'd better leave that gun with me," he said, without quite the certainty that he had displayed earlier. He held on his hand for the gun, then met Halt's eyes. He saw something very dangerous there and he actually flinched.

"He is my guard, and if you would have read the credentials I gave you when we met you would have known that he is ordered by the government of Australia to carry that gun at all time, lest something happen," Alyss said, in the glory of her authority.

"All right, all right. Keep it if you must," the secretary muttered. He backed away, more than a little flustered, retreating behind the secure buck of his desk. Halt opened the door for Alyss, then followed her as she entered the Oval Office.

Donald Trump was seated at a large oaken table that served as a desk. He was studying a letter and didn't look up from it as Alyss approached. Halt was willing to bet that the letter was about something totally unimportant. The man was playing silly mind games, he thought.

But Alyss was up to the challenge. She stepped forward and produced a plastic map from her bag, slapping it briskly down on the table before Trump. He startled in surprise, looking up. Halt hid a smile.