Something was missing
In my earlier post, I managed to include the cut text for the "Five things" iseult_variante requested, but not the five things themselves. So here, instead:
...Five times Lester loved his job.
I had to leave the "secretly" part out, because it is no secret that Lester loves his job. When he gets up in the morning, he looks at his rack of bespoke suits, and thinks, "I love my job." He kisses his wife as she wrestles their youngest out the door for the school run and thinks, "I love my job." When he walks into his office and looks out the window at the view, his first thought is always, "I love my job," and when some junior civil servant has made a complete mess of something, and James Lester is called in to sort it out, he thinks, "I love my job, especially when it involves explaining to underlings that they are very nearly too stupid to draw breath." When he can see them trying not to cry, he really loves his job.
He loves being privy to confidential information, and cannot understand why others don't enjoy a well-executed cover-up. He loves having access to military units which can be deployed as necessary. He loves the knowledge that someday, he will encounter a problem that really can be solved by bombing something.
The only things that James Lester doesn't love about his job involve dinosaurs, time-travel and Nick Cutter.
Sorry about that!
...Five times Lester loved his job.
I had to leave the "secretly" part out, because it is no secret that Lester loves his job. When he gets up in the morning, he looks at his rack of bespoke suits, and thinks, "I love my job." He kisses his wife as she wrestles their youngest out the door for the school run and thinks, "I love my job." When he walks into his office and looks out the window at the view, his first thought is always, "I love my job," and when some junior civil servant has made a complete mess of something, and James Lester is called in to sort it out, he thinks, "I love my job, especially when it involves explaining to underlings that they are very nearly too stupid to draw breath." When he can see them trying not to cry, he really loves his job.
He loves being privy to confidential information, and cannot understand why others don't enjoy a well-executed cover-up. He loves having access to military units which can be deployed as necessary. He loves the knowledge that someday, he will encounter a problem that really can be solved by bombing something.
The only things that James Lester doesn't love about his job involve dinosaurs, time-travel and Nick Cutter.
Sorry about that!