In the room with Comey and Trump: Two alpha males face off

Fired FBI Director James Comey's gripping written account of his private encounters with Donald Trump since January reads like a movie script, giving Americans a rare fly-on-the-wall view as the president and the FBI director parry like two alpha males warily circling each other.

A look at their face-offs — in Trump Tower, the Oval Office and Green Room — told from Comey's side of the conversations, as bit players pop in and out, the grandfather clock ticks off the minutes in the Oval Office, and Comey wishes never to be alone with the president again:

Comey stays behind in a conference room to speak privately with Trump after intelligence officials brief the president-elect in his New York headquarters about explosive findings that the Russians tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

Comey skips over Trump's exact response, but says that "based on President-elect Trump's reaction," he assures Trump that his personal conduct isn't under investigation.

Alone at last, Trump gets right to the point: "I want to talk about Mike Flynn," the president's fired national security adviser.

Trump says he fired Flynn for misleading the vice president about his contact with the Russians but nonetheless calls Flynn a "good guy" and urges Comey to "let this go."

To Comey, the president's request was "very concerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency."

At some point, chief of staff Reince Priebus sticks his head in the door by the grandfather clock, a group of people waiting behind him, and Trump waves him off.