[IC] Precipice of War - The Big Leagues of NRP (Only generous tippers need apply)

[Byrd Man]

Carthage Must Be Destroyed

1939
Salt Lake City

Even though Hank hadn't slept for twenty-seven hours, he was wide awake as the driver of his jeep rolled into the city. The sights they slowly passed left him awestruck. Many buildings were either half-destroyed or smouldering from fire, and even more just heaps of rubble. The road they were on was little more than mud after so many trucks tires and tank treads ripped it to shreds. Two NEWI Jackrabbits flew overhead, gunfire bursts erupting from them.

And then there were the bodies.

Piles and piles of dead men lined the streets they passed. Bodies dressed in the olive drab of the US Army uniforms mingled with the men in the powder blue of the LDSA. The Mormon uniforms were streaked with mud and blood, just like the faces of the dead men who were inside them. Hank applied the word men loosely to many of the Mormon dead. Boys were more like it. Peach fuzz and pimples as far as the eye could see. If any of them were older than eighteen he would have been surprised.

His job with the army often put him miles and miles away from the front lines. He still dealt with the horrors of war, but from a distance. Usually by the time FAAD arrived, the bodies were gone and the rebuilding process was underway. Hank had been in Denver the last few weeks, helping recover anything of value from the wreckage of the city. FAAD set up shop south of Salt Lake City, on the outskirts of occupied Provo. Hank and the other curators and historians were preparing their reports on Utah's cultural significance when Colonel Anderson told him his presence was required at the front.

Now here he was. A deuce and a half rolled past them on its way back to base. Hank saw many weary young men on the back of the truck, almost all of them with the thousand yard stare. He suddenly felt very foolish in his pristine clothes that were never soiled and his helmet with the oak leaf that had never been dented or scratched by enemy shrapnel.

A pair of MPs stopped the jeep at a sawhorse barricade. After Hank and his driver confirmed who they were, they were let through and led to a olive drab tent.

A tall, dark haired man with wire-framed glasses met them at the front flap of the tent. Hank caught a glimpse of the name PARKER sewed on to his fatigues. His helmet identified him as a Lt. Colonel. Like Hank's, it was in perfect condition.

"Colonel," Hank said with a salute. "Major Dr. Henry Carter, Fine Arts and Archives Division."

Parker lazily returned the salute It was always that way with upper rank solider, Hank noticed. They wanted the salutes to them to be perfect, but could afford to be sloppy returning it. Respect to them was a one-way street.

"Follow me, Major."

Parker led Hank into the tent. More command staff worked at desks with pencil and paper and typewriters. A map of Salt Lake City took up most of one wall, a red circle showing the army's encirclement of the LDSA. An even larger map of the city was spread out on a table that took up most of the tent's center. Markers denoted the US and LDSA positions respectfully. A heavyset man with gray hair and two stars on his shoulder and JASPER on his fatigues turned away from the map and looked at Hank and Parker.

"General," said Parker. "Major Carter."

"Always wanted to meet a FAAD boy," he said as Hank saluted.

"Tell me what you need from me, General," Hank said as the general returned his salute with an actual decent one.

"Context," said Jasper.

He pointed a finger at the map.

"What's left of the Mormons has been encircled in the radius on the map. There are some platoons serving as guards, but the church elders, army high command, the last few Mormons and their families are all inside the Tabernacle. Maybe nine thousand people total, majority of them are civilians. This is where you come in, Dr. Carter. Now, we've been told that you have extensive expertise on the building. We need to know main routes of entrance and exit."

"Hank, sir," he said. "You can call me Hank. I wrote a two hundred page historical and architectural analysis of the Tabernacle in grad school. Unless there's been some modifications over the past four years, I know of every way in and out."

"What about hidden escape routes?" asked Parker.

Hank stepped forward and looked down at the map on the table. An artillery shell exploded nearby, shaking the table left and right. Hank was the only man in the tent who flinched. He could feel his face flushing in embarrassment as he tapped a spot not far from the Tabernacle.

"One was installed on the northwest side of the building in 1931 after the leadership began to enact radical policy. They were afraid of unrest and violence from both Mormons and non-believers. It comes out at a high school about a mile away."

He traced the path from the Tabernacle to the school. The building sat on the outskirts of LDSA territory, far enough into US occupied territory to avoid sentries. Jasper nodded at Parker, and Parker quickly walked off.

"Anything else?" the general asked."Any other ways to get in and out that only they might know about?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Hank shrugged. "Since the war started, who knows."

"We're ready, general," said Parker. "Two platoons are setting up in front of that school. They have orders to open up on anyone who comes out. Ready for the assault,sir."

"Head on assault?" Hank asked. "That might be risky."

He realized he made a mistake the second the words left his mouth. Jasper stared blankly at him while Parker's face seemed to visibly bristle. The general's expression shifted to a smile that was very cruel.

"Thank you for your insight, Major," said Jasper. "But I am through risking men today. I'm ready for the whole goddamn war to be over with. Denver was a hell of a punch, now we've got to knock the sons of bitches out."

Jasper walked towards the tent flap. Parker and Hank trailed in his wake.

"They can fire when ready," Jasper said to Parker, who passed it on to another aide.

They came out of the tent and onto an overlook ridge. Below was the city and the Tabernacle. Hank could see the ring of troops and tanks that encircled it. A loud cacophony started up suddenly. Artillery guns from miles away were all opening fire at the same time. A shell exploded against the roof of the building, sending fire across the top of the Tabernacle.

"No!" shouted Hank. "What are you doing?! You said that there were civilians in there."

Both men stared coldly at Hank.

"We're ending the war," said Jasper. "The Mormons helped start this thing. By god, we're finishing it. If that means some women and children die, then so be it."

"We lost thousands of men taking this city," said Parker. "Thousands of husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers They're gone and they're not coming back. Whole families were shattered because of the Mormons. They were killed because this cancerous religion was allowed to prosper. No more. It dies today. The Tabernacle, the LDS, the city itself."

Hank started to speak. The sound of another explosion cut him short. All three men turned to see the Tabernacle ablaze. Even from this far away, they could hear the screams. A door opened and a woman ran out, smoke curling from her clothes. A machine gun burst opened up from somewhere and she fell to the ground, her clothes igniting and her dying body catching fire.

Explosive shells bombarded the building, one after the other. The Tabernacle turned into an inferno, the heat felt from even their observation point. Hank felt tears burning his cheeks. End the war, he thought. A war led by opposing dictators and radical committees. A war waged on the dead of Denver, a war waged on the ashes of the Church of Latter Day Saints. A war of atrocities and political oppression on all sides. The US would win, no doubt about that. Even though it didn't deserve to.

He suddenly remembered Scipio from his ancient history class in college. At the sight of Carthage's destruction, the great general had wept. For he knew that this fate would one day befall Rome, as it would eventually befall any city or any people. As it would one day befall America.

Without a word, Hank walked away from Jasper and Parker. He suddenly needed a drink very, very badly.

[Letter Bee]

-Deleted again-

[TheEvanCat]

Odessa, Ukraine

“Sorry to hear about it, officer. Yeah, they work for my company, I can take them back with us.”

In the back of a Ukrainian police van were four Armenian sailors with various black eyes and scratches, all looking down at their handcuffs as an Odessa policeman smoked a cigarette outside. Every once in a while, the Ukrainians would arrest a few people fighting at the bars, as sailors do, and keep them until after their ship sailed. The next crew would have to pick them up, take them back, and turn them over to the company management where they would almost inevitably be fired for missing their return leg of a shipment. It turned into a running joke with Armenian ship captains on the Black Sea, like getting tipped at a restaurant but only with drunk and disorderly prisoners to be tossed in the brig. So far, Captain Sarkisian’s return haul would include several hundred tons of steel and four future former employees of the Black Sea Maritime company. He directed his executive officer, Nazarbekian, to take them to the company security guards loitering around on the dock for this exchange.

The Captain thanked the police officer in his decently-pronounced Russian before asking for a cigarette. The Ukrainian policeman sighed and reluctantly offered one out of his pack, which Sarkisian lit with his company-branded lighter before thanking the policeman again. He ran a hand through his greying, thinning hair and cursed the summer heat. Nazarbekian delivered the prisoners to his security team and tipped his hat at them: they took the men inside to be seated in the brig. With an Iranian swagger, the executive officer came back to his captain and withdrew his own cigarettes, smirking while the policeman got in his van and drove off. “You asshole,” Sarkisian muttered. “I don’t like bumming off of strangers.”

“So bumming off of your subordinates is better with you?” quipped Nazarbekian, blowing a puff of smoke through his nostrils. “What a fine reflection of a selfless Merchant Marine leader of character.”

“Do you want to stop being a sarcastic fuck?” replied Sarkisian with a sigh. “It’s bad enough I’m getting tipped four today.”

Nazarbekian scoffed and took a few more drags on the cigarette. “What are the plans for tonight, boss?”

Sarkisian looked back at his ship: the longshoremen were now swarming around the dock with forklifts, cranes, and other pieces of logistical equipment. The Odessa harbormaster worked almost as hard as the Trabzon one, working an intricate timetable of both ingoing and outgoing shipments. Armenia’s gold would be taken off the Breadwinner, driven to a nearby railway, and shipped off to wherever the industrial base of Ukraine needed it. In exchange, as the contract went, a certain tonnage of steel produced in cities like Mariupol or Kryvi Rih was loaded onto sprawling railways and trucks and ships and sent right over the Black Sea. Once it left Trabzon, cities like Hrazdan would receive the steel. Naturally, some of the products were sent straight back to Europe. The captain recalled once transporting a steel shipment and, a week later, receiving machine tools that happened to come from the same factory at the end of their contract chain. Capitalism worked as it worked, and he had a feeling that this was better for the country: Armenia prized self-dependence above all else, but was in a tricky place in terms of natural resources.

Nazarbekian smoked the unfiltered cigarette down to the tips of his fingers, before tossing it away into an open gutter. “You lost or something?” he asked after not getting his reply.

The captain shook himself back to reality: “Yeah, sorry, I was thinking about the timetable.”

“You need to let yourself loose a bit,” Nazarbekian recommended. He wasn’t much younger than Captain Sarkisian, but his strong, muscular build and youthful features stood out in stark contrast to his superior’s receding hairline and facial stress lines. “Going to have some fun or something?”

“Well, I do have opera tickets. You know I’m not into the same scene that you and the junior officers are,” admitted Sarkisian. “I have a wife and a house now, I’m not as young as some of the Lieutenants. Can’t be going around spending all my money on Ukrainian prostitutes and drinks.”

Nazarbekian chuckled and put his hands into his pockets. “If you’re worried about them doing that, I’ll have to keep an eye on them.”

“Mhm, ‘keep an eye on them’, Mister Nazarbekian,” quipped the captain. “You mean take your face out from between a dancer’s breasts every five minutes?”

“Every ten, sir, I think they’re more trustworthy than that,” replied the executive officer just as sharply. He looked back at the port as a taxi zipped past them. Inside were a few of his sailors, already swigging from bottles at noon. “If we keep the lost to recovered prisoner exchange rate even, we can put these guys in the brig to work and have no problems. But we can deal with that tomorrow. If you need me, you know where my hotel is.”

“Absolutely. Go and have a good time, but not too good,” Sarkisian said with a pat on his back. “I’ll see you around.”

Captain Sarkisian set off as Nazarbekian sent his regards. His destination for the evening was a late lunch before an opera, which gave him some time to set out and explore the city he visited often. The port of Odessa quickly gave way to the Square de Richelieu, surrounded by ornate European buildings. Stark industry quickly became European-styled architecture with its tight alleys and painted facades with columns and stone balcony railings. The formal entrance to the city was the Primorsky Stairs, which led down to the city proper from the port and the square. Sarkisian passed through throngs of Odessa’s people enjoying their summer afternoon at cafes and shops as he walked towards the main streets. A statue of Duc de Richelieu, clad in a classical toga like the Greeks of old, towered over the steps. The Primorsky stairs were designed in such a way that, at the top, Sarkisian could only see the landings. He walked his way down the stairs lined with flourishing green trees and arrived at the bottom to look back and only see the stairs. A thin smile reached his lips: the stories about the stairs’ optical illusion were true.

In many ways, Odessa reminded him of Yerevan. The Primorsky stairs were reminiscent of the Yerevan cascade, with its flanking gardens and trees and its beautiful park. The memorials of Armenian heroes and flags hanging from lightposts were almost exactly the same as the ones in Odessa. Being a sailor enabled Sarkisian to see the world beyond Armenia, something that most of his countrymen lacked an idea of. With enemies surrounding them, it became easy to adopt a fortress mentality: seeing the beauty and peace of a European city on a summer’s day and taking in the culture of another people lessened the edge. While Persia was definitely accessible to the Armenians, owing to their strong ties, not many people he knew had been there. The captain was hoping to use some of his vacation time and saved money to visit the empire in the near future. Perhaps someday he could go further into the European world, or even see the United States. Politics, for now, stood firmly in the way on the ageing sea captain’s dreams.

Odessa’s opera house wasn’t too far from the steps. Down the road, the massive Italian baroque structure towered over low-rise apartments that hugged the streets. Odessa, as it seemed, was doing quite well for itself. A few cafes dotted the wide avenue, and Captain Sarkisian instinctually navigated to his favorite one. Ukrainian food to him seemed more or less the same as Russian or even most Armenian foods, but one in particular seemed to be well-done every time he went. The chefs knew his ship and its crew at this point, always welcoming them when they were scheduled to arrive in town. With a table to himself on the shaded patio, he ate reddish-soupy borsch with local fish while the sun began its slow descent to the horizon. He paid in loose Ukrainian hryvnia that he kept from his previous travels before wishing the staff a warm farewell and offering a promise to come in for breakfast in the morning. Adjusting his pants and belt and straightening out his hat, Captain Sarkisian pushed out through the glass door and into the streets again: he had a relaxing evening set out for him.

Yerevan, Armenia

As was the political tradition in Armenia, the handoff of power took place in Republican Square by the government buildings. As throngs of citizens gathered, the ceremony began with an invocation from the Catholicos of All Armenians. As the country, the government, the office, and the people were blessed, Hasmik Assanian stood quietly behind the tall man in ornate red, black, and gold robes with his head bowed. With words of thanks and appreciation, the new president stepped forward and began the process of inauguration. A copy of the Armenian Constitution was brought forth by the dark-skinned Premier Justice of Armenia, a solemn man of almost seventy years with a neatly-trimmed grey beard. He placed it down on the podium, inviting Assanian to place his hand upon it. The photographers in the crowd snapped pictures of the new president in front of flag-colored banners and the Parliament and Cabinet stoically standing behind him. A gust of wind rippled through the square before the Premier Justice adjusted a microphone closer to their faces. He turned to Assanian, serious as always: “Please place your hand on the podium and repeat after me.”

In segments, a phrase at a time, the oath of office was delivered in front of the crowd and broadcasted to Armenians across the country and in various diaspora communities: “, Hasmik Assanian, swear to faithfully and fully exercise the powers of the President of the Republic of Armenia. I am devoted to the defense and progression of the state and the Armenian people, and will diligently work to ensure their sovereignty, independence, security, and integrity. I am committed to the rights and freedoms of every Armenian and the Constitution of the Republic. In the name of God, I wholly and without reservation accept this elected position.”

A round of applause and cheers erupted from the crowd as Assanian’s supporters waved flags, banners, and shouted slogans. Journalists jostled for photos while police patrolled for demonstrators or the rowdier spectators. On the podium, the new president took a handshake from the old one. They looked each other in the eye and nodded, no one offering up any emotion after such a bitter race that often devolved into personal attacks. The old administration went back to their seats while the newly elected governors took their places behind Assanian. The transition of power, like every cycle was complete. The world, it seemed, was sparse with these moments. Monarchies, empires, and dictators flying the flag of their various ideologies were more common than not. The Fedayi and the Council fought long and bitterly for their Armenian republic: Vadratian and Assanian had an understanding that, if nothing else, this democracy was the only thing they had.

A speech closed out the inauguration. It was a speech like many that had been given during the campaign, promising freedom and prosperity and continued security. Assanian, at the podium under the sun with the flag behind him, felt almost tired as he seemed to say the same things over and over. Armenia, the Fatherland, shining brighter than before: a secure future for their people. Applause shook the square when he finished, people cheering in the crowd and chanting popular slogans. A new hope for the troubling times, and end to the turbulence of the past decade. As the ceremony drew to a close and Assanian waved one last time before walking off the stage, he wondered how long this euphoria would last. It seemed that he was stepping into a complicated, muddled situation. Security, politics, money, power, and the fate of a people were all intertwined in obtuse and difficult ways. Work already awaited him at the office.

Hrazdan, Armenia

The exams were over and the summer had started for the students of Hrazdan’s universities. For many of them, that meant going to work in the industries to apply their skills and gain experience before they graduated in the coming years. Others would travel around to conduct research or do projects, but nobody was left to their own devices. A student’s life in Armenia was funded by the government, so they were sure to be put to work to return that investment. The Hrazdan University of Industry in particular had a special contract with an ordnance factory in the west of the city. Far from the city center and the gentrification there, the Tsaghkadzor Heavy Industry Plant sat nestled in some hills on its complex. Jon Korkarian, in a taxi with his briefcase, drove through the grey cityscape and looked through the windows as they approached a concrete wall and a blue metal gate. A flag hung from the barbed-wire topping on the wall, alongside murals featuring tanks rolling off the assembly line. A police officer read a newspaper in a guard shack just outside, his partner dozing off in the police car parked nearby.

Jon paid the taxi driver and struggled to get out, his tall and lanky frame hitting the doorframe as he opened the door. He waved at the taxi as it pulled away and sped back towards the city, then turned to face the policeman who had been throwing his jacket on in the guard shack: the heat was sweltering in the small metal building. Jon exchanged pleasantries with the man before handing in his ID and factory papers that had been mailed to him the week before: he introduced himself as a new assistant there and that he would be working for the summer. The cop absentmindedly flipped through the stack of papers and forms that Jon had brought through, not particularly caring about a brand new university intern that had to get through. A bead of sweat ran down his wrinkled face and dripped onto Jon’s ID. The student subtly grimaced and muttered “Gross” under his breath, but the policeman didn’t seem to notice. Without any other questions, the cop handed the ID back to Jon and walked to the metal door blocking the road. He banged on it three times, and another bored policeman unlocked the latch and opened it. With a screech, the door came open for the new intern.

“Good morning, sir,” Jon said to the third police officer. “I’m one of the new employees here, do you know where I can go?”

The cop, cigarette dangling from his mouth, shrugged and stuck his hands into his pants pockets. “I just make sure nobody runs off with the fuckin’ scrap metal, kid. Maybe go over there and ask someone else.”

Jon rolled his eyes, thanked the officer for his help, and moved on. The road to the factory was at least two hundred meters from here, with a massive parking lot of tanks in between him and the gigantic industrial plant. Built with Persian loans almost five years ago, this plant was one of the newer government contracts for heavy military equipment. Jon’s father had been an officer in the armored corps before his retirement and had set him up with this job through his business connections. The work certainly showed: rows of vintage-looking tanks were parked in the hot sun in neat rows outside the massive assembly line ahead of him. Jon walked the road in awe, gazing at the large, brutish machines. Their metal hulls, painted an olive green, were riveted and plated with armor. Guns with massive bores poked out of turrets on the sides on top. Curiously, these models seemed older: they almost looked like machines from the Great War instead of new designs. Some of them bore unusual modifications, like dozer blades or mine flails.

After a few more minutes of wandering towards the factory, Jon found himself at the door of the assembly line. The building stretched for some distance to the rear and was many times taller than the tanks inside. Groups of technicians with welding torches, air hammers for riveting, and any other tools necessary for the job crowded around the machines. The hall echoed with the sounds of men and, surprisingly, women fixing and modifying the tanks. A crane on its rails near the ceiling of the factory brought a massive turret towards one of them, lowering it on chains as a crew helped guide it into place. Jon, awestruck at the operation, didn’t notice when a man in a dress shirt and slacks came up behind him. “Is this our new hire?” he nearly shouted, startling the young student. Jon spun around to see an older, middle-aged man in a blue shirt with a tie tucked in between its buttons. He extended his hand out, Jon took it and put his hand on his chest as he introduced himself.

“My apologies for shouting,” said the man, “but it gets noisy here. My hearing isn’t too great on its own either. But I’m happy to see you made it. My name is Andrei Bagruntsian, I’m the modernization program manager here. All of this you see is what we do.”

Mr. Bagruntsian swept his hand out to the rows of tanks parked outside. Then, looking back, his brow furrowed. With a quick hand motion, he waved Jon back to the side of the assembly line. A group of overall-clad workers pushing a cart full of metal plates came through, nodding their greetings at the boss. “We should go to the office,” he stated quickly, before leading Jon back to a metal staircase. They went up to a catwalk that ran parallel to the assembly line before ducking off into a side wing of the factory where the offices were. The offices were a labyrinth of grey concrete, and Mr. Bagruntsian walked Jon through some more staircases and winding turns before they reached a wood-paneled door. His name appeared on the window: the boss used a key from his pocket to unlock it and lead him in. It was a modest, spacious office with a desk on one side and a pair of couches next to a coffee table on the other. A flag hung from the wall above his bookshelf, along with several photographs of what appeared to be tank crews with their machines.

“Sorry it’s a little hot in here,” Mr. Bagruntsian apologized again as he turned on the ceiling fan. “I would open the windows but it lets the carbon and metal particulates in here and makes me quite ill. Plus it smells all day and my wife doesn’t like when I come home all coated in it.”

Jon sat down on the red fabric couch and set his papers down beside him. Mr. Bagruntsian went to a coffeemaker set aside next to his desk and began to prepare two cups as he spoke. “So, Mr. Korkarian, you’re here to work with my department?”

“Yes, sir,” Jon replied quickly, his hands folded politely in his lap. “Since I study industrial management and all, I’m here with your operations department.”

“I’m aware… You’re here to help with deliveries to the military. It’s a fun job, I assure you. Lots of travel,” he said with a chuckle. “Hope you like the desert. And trains.”

Jon nervously laughed as well, accepting a steaming cup of coffee. Mr. Bagruntsian reached into his shirt pocket and offered up a cigarette. The younger student accepted, even if he didn’t smoke all that often, and accepted the lighter as well. Mr. Bagruntsian, seeing this, grinned and reached down below the table. He withdrew a bottle of brandy from a drawer and placed it on the table before popping the top. “I hope you’re not afraid of a little day drinking, either,” the director joked. He poured a hefty portion into both coffees.

The boss sat back in his couch, slumping into the fabric with an exhale. “So do you know what we do here?” he asked. Jon replied back with a vague and general answer about military equipment production, to which Mr. Bagruntsian nodded. “Well it’s not just that, our factory specializes in refitting old equipment.”

“Are those the tanks I saw outside?” Jon asked, looking out the window to the rows of old armored vehicles on the pavement.

“Exactly. See, when the Great War ended we acquired a good deal of Ottoman military equipment. A lot of it is still good. We have been using these tanks for almost forty years now, but they’re starting to get old. New weapons development have outpaced what these are: the first, most primitive armored vehicles. However, the government has maintained a directive that essentially boils down to ‘we don’t throw anything away.’”

The director took a sip from his coffee and wiped his mustached face with a handkerchief. He continued: “So these tanks have been operating with reserve units and people like the Border Service who still function, but aren’t on the priority list for new equipment. But what’s cheaper than buying new tanks for them is refitting old ones. See, steel is steel. Engines are engines. Guns are guns. Something made in the Great War will still kill you, and it’s the summer of 1960. That’s why you see guerrillas running around Georgia with old Tsarist Mosins. So what we can do is apply our knowledge and change up these platforms as we need to. We can simply bolt new armor on and replace the engines with something more powerful. New armament can be added, it’s as easy as swapping out a turret. We can even use these workhorses for utility tasks. Do you know what an assault looks like nowadays?”

Jon shook his head. “Not really.”

“Well a lot of these old tanks, they’re sturdy. Especially with new engines, we can outfit them with mobile bridges. Drop them down on trenches and you can drive other vehicles across without getting them stuck. It’s how you storm a line. You can also fit them with mine flails, use those dangling metal chains to trip up landmines and clear a path. Dozer blades are cheap and cut through obstacles. There’s a lot that you can do, and the government tasked us to use our imaginations sometimes. We come up with good ideas, we sell them. The engineers in particular have been very pleased with these. Not having to clear minefields by hand has been a life saver.”

“So I deliver these?” Jon asked, recoiling at the taste after a sip of his spiked coffee. “And… market the other ones?”

“Exactly, yes. So we’re glad to have you with the project. Sounds like a good time, yes?”

“Absolutely, sir. I’m excited to get out and work.”

“Well first, we’re going to tour you around and get you settled with the operations department. You’ll learn up on operations at the factory before we send you out. Pretty easy job, and the pay isn’t awful,” Mr. Bagruntsian joked again. He stood up again, offering his hand. Jon shook it, thanked him for the coffee, and collected up his briefcase.

“Thank you for the job, sir,” he said with a hand over his heart again.

Mr. Bagruntsian laughed. “I’ll be around, so don’t worry if you can’t figure something out. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting to prepare for. I need to find my jacket, even if it is the damned summer."

Jon nodded and thanked him again, then left the room. He closed the door on his way out, reflecting on his new work for the next few months. He was excited to travel, and the factory was already looking like an interesting place to work. Mr. Bagruntsian seemed like a good enough boss, even if he appeared hurried all the time. That, however, was probably normal for Armenian ordnance factories. The student ran a hand through his hair and shrugged: it was a good job with some good experience involved. He waited outside the office to dwell on it. Within a few minutes, someone came to grab him and get him settled in the operations office. For the first time in his adult life, he was finally working on something real.

[DELETED32084]

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July, 1960 - Spanish Morocco
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Mariano Rajoy held his breath as he crawled slowly up the sand dune. His fellow hunters and the three guides who had come with them were spread out on either side of him, their faces likewise focused on the ridgeline above them. He contemplated, not for the first time, how well the gudies blended into the desert with their faded brown camouflage and how utterly unprepared he and the other tourists were in their brand new gear. Still, he had paid good money for this hunt and he was damned if he was going to not try and look the part. They had a photographer along anyway and the black and white photos would make the crisp edges of his new equipment look sharp indeed.

The lead guide hissed and they all froze. They could hear sounds drifting down from above them. They were close. They could smell their prey as well. It was faint but you couldn't miss it. The guide had pulled the rifle from his shoulder and Mariano hurried to do the same. It was the latest Spanish hunting rifle, monstrously expensive, and incredibly deadly in trained hands. He was certainly anything but trained, though he had been shooting since he was a young boy on his fathers estate in Catalan.

The sound of frantic barking suddenly broke the still morning air and the men in the shadows of the dune did not move save for their eyes. There was a burst of unintelligible sound, then the sound of their prey moving quickly away toward the south. Mariano was about to blow out his cheeks in frustration when then guide suddenly began to crawl forward again.

Mariano's heart began to pound now, so loud he was sure others would hear it. Sweat stung his brow and sand was sliding down the inside of his sleeves. He could feel the heat of the desert beginning to rise now as the sun climbed into the sky. They were still in the shadow of the dune but not for long and once they were exposed, that would be it for the day. They had left camp in the small hours of the morning and made their way across the sands on foot toward a spot one of the guides had seen prey sign.

The lead guide raised a hand and once again no one moved. They had a simple set of hand signals worked out that had taken the rich guests the better part of a day to remember. The guides, all former soldiers, had been patient and took their time as they instructed their charges. Mariano had been very impressed by them.

Sand shifted beneath the guide as he inched closer to the crest of the dune, his head barely peering over the top. The guides had chosen their spot well, the small dune they approached from was shadowed by an even larger one behind them so that his head would not be silhouetted against the sky. He waved them forward, motioning that they should wait just below the crest of the dune.

Mariano found himself taking big breathes of desert air as he waited, eyes fixed on the guides hand where it waited, flat against his leg. He checked, for the hundredth time, that his rifle was clear of the sand and ready to fire. He would look such a fool if the barrel dug into the dune when the time came.

Then the guides hand suddenly shot into the air. Mariano, and the rest of the guests, seemed unsure what to do for a moment and the guide rolled his eyes fired a shot into the air. It seemed to startle the men out of immobility and they surged to the top of the dune with shouts of glee.

Their prey had already began to scatter at the initial gunshot, most fleeing away into the desert as a few brave males charged the attackers. The guides put them well enough with deadly skill and Mariano felt the blood surge in his veins as he tracked a female. She was running along the edge of a dune and he felt the rifle slam into his shoulder as he fired. The bullet tore her knee off and she went down with a scream.

More shots sounded and more screams mingled with the shouts of the hunters. Mariano shot a male, the bullet slamming into his chest, flipping him backward into the sand. More shots. More screams and yells. They could not run fast enough to escape the bullets and all were cut down before they had gone far. One had fallen into the fire and screamed as the smell of burnt flesh cut through the air. A gunshot from the guards brought silence.

Mariano's heart was still pounding as he and his fellow hunters congratulated each other on their kills. Nine in total, all that had been crouched around the little fire. Two killed by their guides, but the rest could certainly be counted as trophies. One of the guides had fired a flare now that the shooting was done and a small convoy of vehicles had appeared from the dead ground in the distance.

They traversed the desert quickly and, following the signals of their guide, found the firm ground that would bring them up to the site. The vehicles parked carefully away from the scene while a photographer, brought along just for this purpose, set up his tripod and camera. The hunters, six in total, stood in the middle of the carnage in what they assumed were poses of epic proportion while the guides stood to one side.

Initial photograph taken, the hunters tucked into a cold lunch brought from the vehicles while the guides dragged the dead into the centre of the camp and stacked them like cordwood. One wasn't quite dead and a guide finished her off with a rifle butt to the forehead.

The stacking complete and the fire kicked over, the hunters took up their weapons once again and moved to pose with their prizes. Mariano was elated. When he had learned for the Berber Hunt, as it was known in Morocco, he had jumped at the opportunity. He had hunted all over the world and shot some of the most dangerous animals known to man but nothing had given him the rush he felt now. And this wasn't even the pinnacle of the hunt.

This small family group they had found was considered a "starter" hunt. If a guest felt they wanted more they could pay even greater sums to venture further into the desert where they would hunt proper tribal warriors. Some guests and guides had been killed a year ago on one such hunt and that had only increased their popularity.

"Serious faces please Gentlemen." The photographer called from his position. Mariano dropped his smile and assumed the same look he did when dealing with one of the filthy local peasants. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and pulled the brim of his hat a bit lower. The photographs would be rushed back to Tangier and be framed for the hunters before they returned to Spain.

"And victorious smiles!" He smiled and the camera flashed again. He would have to bring his son next time he came down. Or, better yet, take the, what did they call it, "The Most Dangerous Game". He was aware his own life might be lost in that version. A captured Berber Tribesman would be released into the desert with a knife, some rope, and a spear, and then given a six hour head start before a single hunter, two guides, and a pair of dogs, would go after him. The prey always died. The hunters to sometimes. The guides very rarely.

Pictures taken, they piled into the vehicles and sped away toward Tangier. The bodies of the dead would be left to rot in the desert.

[Vilageidiotx]

-------------------------------
July 4th: Addis Ababa
-------------------------------

Gebi Iyasu was spilling over with guests, the overflow pouring into the courtyard where Sahle sat on a velvet throne that'd been moved out into the grass for this occasion. His lions sat attentively at his side as well wishers approached one by one.

"Your Imperial Majesty, I bring a gift for your birthday, wishing you many many many more!" Fantaye Joas, the fat Mesfin of Hararghe, bowed after he spoke. His jowls gathering beneath his mouth like a hound's. He was an Amharic, and a professed Christian, but he dressed in the soft long robes of a Muslim sheikh. With two claps of his meaty hands, he summoned four men with a litter carrying some strange piece of technology; a bulky wooden box with a small pane of glass just north of its center, looking like a foggy mirror. "Americans call this the television" the fat Mesfin said in a mystic tone, "It delivers images from far away and shows them right in this window."

"Images?" Sahle was intrigued. So far his birthday had been dull. "From anywhere We might like? Could you summon an image from, say..." he thought of naughty things and struggled to say something correct, "Jerusalem?" The Emperor commended himself mentally for such a good choice. Mesfin Fantaye looked panicked, though Sahle hardly noticed until he began to talk. "The images must be sent by radio waves to this box. I am afraid we don't have the technology to do that yet. But one day." the fat man perked up, "One day we will build the towers that send images to this television!"

"Ah." Sahle was disappointed. He knew he showed it on his face, so he tried to save the situation. "We look forward to that day. What amazing things the modern world can make for us."

The Mesfin seemed content and stepped aside. The next comer was the pomegranate face of Jefferson Davis Bacon, America's Ambassador.

"Well slather me in butter and call me corn pone!" Bacon greeted the Emperor so ecstatically that Sahle felt the sudden fight or flight alarm of a person under attack. His lions lifted their heads lazily and watched the newcomer with dull interest. "You didn't tell me your majesty had the same birthday as the U S of A! Oh." he bowed real slowly, his forehead turning purple in the effort. When he came up he was out of breath, giving Sahle time to think of a response.

"We are happy to share our day with America. Your people celebrate with, ah, fireworks? We have decided to celebrate this day with fireworks too."

"That puts the home fire in this ol' southerners heart." Bacon said. "I also gotta thank you for the birthday present you gave America."

"Oh?" Sahle was taken aback. What present? he wanted to say, but held his tongue.

"The Carnahans are back from the jungle and safe in civilization. They are here right now thanks to your majesty's good government."

Sahle sat up sharply in his seat. A smile crept over his face. "I will be happy to see them!" he said. Bradford Carnahan marched out in a new suit, a sailor's hat on his head. Livy followed behind him. The second Sahle saw her face, she became the solar center of all his attention. The Sidamo sun had brought out her freckles, making her cuter than before. She wore a sunflower yellow dress of the American style with a matching hat. They both bowed.

"It is good to see you well." Sahle said.

"We had a splendid time, majesty, we really did." Bradford said confidently, "But tomorrow I will take my leave. The homeland beckons." he put a toothy giggle after the last sentence, as if he had said something witty. Sahle became worried. He didn't want Livy to go. "So soon?" he blurted out, looking sincerely concerned. The Emperor's expression seemed to touch something in the two American men, Davis looking warmly satisfied, Bradford looking surprised. Livy stood behind them unchanging.

"I have business in the states. The Carnahan name trades dearly, I'm afraid. Livy will stay behind, before she finishes her world tour." Bradford said.

"Of course." Sahle sunk back in his seat, feeling relieved. "We are sad to see you go, but your sister is welcome as long as she likes. We think she'll find Ethiopia a good land to explore on her tour."

Squeals and cheers of delight came from the direction of the kitchen and where it opened up into the courtyard. Everybody's attention was drawn toward the commotion, hidden in the shadows by the last glow of twilight. When he saw it, he just about burst out laughing, though his mood was clouded when he noticed that Davis and the Carnahans had faded back into the party. His servants wheeled out a great big cake, sculpted meticulously from edible material to look like him. There was something off-putting and slimy about the face, but the likeness was striking, and it delighted everybody as it passed by. Putting himself back into the moment, drinking up the positive mood, he hopped from his throne and faced his cake-self. "It should be the Imperial body double, shouldn't it?" he asked to the gathered dignitaries.

"Yes!" they shouted.

He faced the almond-scented statue. "I name you Liquamaquas!" he said. Laughter rippled through the night. Somewhere from inside, another clamor rose up, but Sahle didn't have time for it. "We should bring everybody out to see." he announced, and went around the cake toward the door. His guards snapped to his side. The moment he stepped onto the colonnade, however, a commotion erupted out from the building. They seemed to come out all at once: Desta, a guard, and a man in the fine robes of nobility.

"Your uncle has made war against me!" the last man accused the Emperor. The courtyard seemed to exhale as people made space for what was going on.

"What?" was all Sahle managed to get out.

"This is the Issayas Seme, the Mesfin of Begmeder..." Desta threw in before the angry Mesfin continued his tirade.

"Armies belonging to your uncle came over the border and attacked a band of citizens in my jurisdiction!" he shouted, "They had help from the air force. Your air force, your majesty! This is an outrage against my privileges!"

"What do you want me to do?" Sahle responded.

"Fire them! Banish them! Whatever you can do. This is an attack..."

"They were bandits." Desta interrupted, "Were they not?"

Issayas turned his raging broadside in new direction. "They were not judged as such."

"The evidence is clear as day. Everbody knew there were bandits in Begmeder, bandits that you haven't made much effort to bring to justice..."

Sahle snuck away, his guards following him. He went to an opening between wings, where a gap in the palace allowed him to go to the outer colonnade without going indoors. From there he could see the eucalyptus grove at the side of Gebi Iyasu, and where the hill sloped away toward the sparkling city. He was pleasantly surprised to see Livy Carnahan leaning against the railing, and he approached her confidently, the ugly incident in the courtyard put out of his mind.

"Where's the world tour taking you next?" he asked.

She looked up at him, blue eyes shining. "Oh, I'm still thinking about that. I suppose I might see other parts of Africa while I'm here. Maybe Rhodesia."

"There is more in Ethiopia to see, if you're interested."

"Oh?"

Sahle had to think for a moment. "Lake Tana. It's the source of the Nile River."

"That is interesting." she looked back out, toward the city. "Maybe I will see that before I go. Though I don't know if Mr. Bacon would approve."

"You are a free woman, aren't you? Americans always talk about being free. Can he stop you?"

"Maybe..."

"You are free in this land so long as we are friends. Maybe we can go together."

She turned and looked at him a long while. "Friends. Of course. Though you are busy here, aren't you? Governing an Empire cannot be easy."

"I get by with a little help from my friends."

"You do have a lovely home." she said, looking back out at the city. "Someday I hope to have a view as gorgeous as this." The puffing sound of rockets being shot into the sky was followed by the explosion of colorful fireworks over the city. They stood together in silence, soaking up the glow, while Sahle's mind went to work.

[Byrd Man]

Los Angeles

July 4th
The Baxter Hotel
11:10 PM

Mood Music

A wonderful mixture of red, white, and blue sparkles flashed across the night sky. More fireworks shot up into the air and exploded in dazzling patterns of stars and other shapes. One explosion took the shape of a sparkly Liberty Bell. Senator Eric Fernandez watched the show from the balcony of his hotel room.

The Convention Complex, where the Democratic National Convention wrapped its opening ceremonies a few hours earlier, sat right across the street from the stately hotel. The Complex's loud speakers were blasting Petey Peterson's recording of "America the Beautiful", something that would no doubt piss off a few of the Southerners watching the show.

The convention floor was where votes would be cast and counted, but the Baxter is where they would be decided. All the bosses and party players had suites on the hotel's fourteenth floor where they could hold court. The best Eric could muster was his room here on the eighth floor. The men on the top floor would eventually gather in one of the suites to discuss the platform and the nominee, more so the platform since the president was the assumed incumbent. That was if Norman got his way. The smoke filled backroom was a cliche, but it was a cliche that still applied to the party. And it was a cliche Eric needed if he was actually going to have a shot.

A strong enough showing early in the voting would deadlock the convention. It would toss the decision to the backroom. And once there, they would realize a weak showing by Norman would mean disaster in the general election. Nominating Eric would be the only way the party could save face, their only chance to keep the White House through 1964.

He was a longshot and he knew it. Eric wasn't under any false beliefs that he was anything but a dark horse. But there was hope. He'd seen it in the eyes of the people he'd been courting. They said they were strong with the president, but their eyes told a different story. They were following the party line. But, one hint of weakness was all it took sometimes. Another firework exploded, a bright red MN shape, in honor of the president.

Eric didn't need to beat the president. He just had to show the party that Norman could be wounded. Once blood was in the water, they would do the rest.

---

Big Jim Dwyer watched Liam Kane snort a line of cocaine off a mirrored tabletop. The boy came up and squeezed his nose, snorting down mucus and the left over residue in his nostrils. His bloodshot eyes caught sight of the colorful display outside.

"Look at the fireworks, Jim."

He stood up and crossed quickly to the window. The large glass pane took up almost the entire far wall of Jim's top floor suite. One firework exploded into the shape of a revolutionary war solider. Liam leaned against the window, staring at the display with wide eyes.

"Wow!"

While Jim thought of Liam as a boy, he was actually thirty-six years old and a three-term congressman from Massachusetts. Young, handsome, and well spoken. Liam represented the future of the party, a the young scion of an old dynasty. The Kane family were New England royalty. Liam's father William had been a two-term governor of Mass and served in the US Senate, older brother Robert was the state attorney general and bucking for governor in this fall's election. They could trace their family roots back to the days of the pilgrims, as American as apple pie and baseball.

And they were all fucking rotten to the core. Liam loved coke and hookers, while Bill's liked barely legal Chinese girls. Boston's Chinatown would be filled with red haired chinamen if not for the timely intervention of Jim and back alley abortionists. Brother Bob's likes were more... unconventional. While married with four kids, Bob still liked to cruise the parks and bathrooms of Weymouth in search of discreet male companionship. Their dynasty only lived because of Jim's interventions and help. He'd lost count of the scandals he'd squashed, almost all of them able to end their political careers.

To Jim, they were the antithesis of himself. They had been born into their lives of privilege and influence, handed everything. His empire was one he'd built with his own hands. He'd started forty years ago as a member of a highway road crew. From sunrise to sunset they worked, work so brutal it almost killed the little man. But he survived, he went to school and earned a degree in engineering. He stayed with the highway department and began his rise through civil service. He hadn't done hard labor in over thirty years, but the callouses and scars were still there. They were always with him. A reminder of how far he'd come.

The sad truth was Jim needed them as much as they needed him. Plenty of the Boston Brahmins looked down their WASP noses at him. To them he was just an Irishman, a second generation immigrant who was only made to serve them and could never rise above his station. That was fine. He knew he'd never become mayor or governor. He'd have to settle to be the man behind the throne.

"Elliot's out here now," Liam said, turning away from the window. His eyes were pinned from the cocaine. "He works for one of the studios now."

Elliot Shaw. He had been to Liam's personal fixer the same way Jim was for Bill. An ambitious cop who had a talent for cleaning up messes, Jim had been grooming Shaw to rise in the BPD and one day maybe enter politics himself. Then Shaw flushed it all down the drain and skipped town. The kid used what little political suction he had left to go west and get a job in Hollywood.

"You know how I feel about him," said Jim.

"C'mon." Liam began to thrust into the air with his hips. His hands groped and squeezed a pair of imaginary breasts. "I wanna fuck a movie star, Jim. I wanna see if Elliot can get Janet York to blow me. I wanna stick my dick right between those big tits of hers and just go to town! See how that prim and proper British accent of her sounds when she's got my cock in her mouth!"

Jim turned away as Liam kept going on with his ramblings. He always got like this when he was coked up. He'd probably have to get the boy a hooker to calm him down. Sledge could take care of that. The girl wouldn't be Janet York, but she'd be close enough for sure. This was LA, after all. City of broken dreams and broken dreamers. Even the prostitutes were movie star gorgeous.

Jim turned to see Liam with his hands down his pants, fondling himself. He suppressed a sigh at the sight. Over the next three days, Jim would work around the clock and expend untold amounts of political capital to secure this jackass's future. City of dreams, indeed.

---

"To the party."

LA Mayor Walter Babbitt raised his tumbler full of scotch in the air. Almost all the others in the room followed his lead. Only Russell ignored the toast, sipping his drink while he sat in a chair removed from the festivities. He watched the fireworks pop outside. The room was mostly filled with California pols kissing Babbit's ass over his successful speech to open the convention. He was maneuvering for the governorship in '62. Russell supposed he couldn't blame him. Babbit would be one of over a dozen to run for the seat.

After nearly twenty years in office, the Old Man wouldn't be seeking another term as governor in the '62 election. For an entire generation, Rick Marshall had been the only governor they'd ever known, the state's first non-military governor after the fiery collapse of the CWP in the war's twilight days.

"You'll never guess who wants me to get them a whore."

Just like that, Jim Sledge was at Russell's elbow. Sledge was quiet like that. You never knew he was with you until he wanted you to. It was one of the reasons Russell liked to use him for work. When it came to intimidating, it always paid to use surprise.

"Knowing the crowd that's in this hotel, I probably won't be able to ever guess," said Russell.

"Big Jim."

"So, what you mean is you're getting a whore for Liam Kane?"

Sledge nodded. It wasn't that Big Jim was above cheating on his wife. The man was like Russell in a lot of ways when it came to sex. It was nice, but it served him no way to further his goals. The Kane boy on the other hand? There were stories about him all over DC.

"Janet York type," said Sledge. "Very specific."

"I met her once," Russell said after sipping his drink. "The young congressman has good taste. Do you have someone who might fit that type? Someone we can rely on?"

Sledge nodded.

"She's a heartbreaker, boss. She'll be able to get a hounddog like Kane wrapped around her little finger. Get him involved in some pillow talk."

"Then, how about we arrange a rendezvous with her and our friend?" Russell asked with a smile.

"Love is in the air, sir," Sledge said as he shuffled off to do his job.

Russell turned back to the window. There were rumors floating around about Dwyer and Kane. Big Jim was angling to get the boy to replace Russell on the ticket. A change of VP might shake things up, a fresh face to attract voters in the general election. To Russell, that would be putting lipstick on a pig. Even though he was biased, the Norman administration's problems would not be fixed by replacing a man with no constitutional powers or duties except breaking tie Senate votes. The problem with the Norman administration was Michal Norman.

Eric Fernandez, Big Jim, Babbit, the Chicago Boys, even President Norman. Enemies on all sides. Each one with their own agenda and their own scheme. One false move, and what he had spent four years building would come tumbling down. Russell smiled and turned towards the party, raising his glass in the air.

"To the party, to the delegates, to America, and to the president of the United States."

Everyone raised their glasses in celebration and cheered. Russell drank the rest of his scotch down in two big gulps and let the glass fall to the carpeted floor. He quietly sat up and left the party. He had work to do.

[Dinh AaronMk]

South China Sea

Golf of Tonkin

They had drifted and wandered at sea, allowing the currents and rhythms of the sea to pass them away from the Paracel islands and back closer into land. Several days after leaving the Paracel Islands, Hainan appeared briefly on the horizon as a dark smudge far over the horizon. Realizing where they were, the boat was motored back out to sea and left to drift again.

Around this time, Chinese patrol aircraft had spotted them, and demanded to know who they were over the radio. Both the Bureau agents had rushed the rest of the men out while they gently negotiated for freedom from harassment. It had taken a lot of maneuver from their part to convince them they were Chinese, they had a mission, and were out here with a purpose without exposing their own mission. They hadn't entirely convinced the pilots, but they had left all the same. After that incident, they were not harassed and the two fell into the belief that they had gotten the message.

They floated out of Chinese waters then into the contested maritime territory of Vietnam. Short of being found out by patrols of Chinese territorial waters, any freighter passing into Vietnam would in this part of the sea stick close to Vietnam. But as they drew closer to Vietnam the crew worried that being so close would constrain their abilities vs being in the open ocean. At this point, any ship coming in would most likely end up in specific ports, and this close there was steadily decreasing room to maneuver or escape should any group becomes suspicious. There was idle discussion as someone asked if they could disguise the ship somehow to appear like a fishing trawler.

“The ship is too big.” a sailor had pointed out, he spoke confidently with a strong self-satisfaction of his opinions. “I've seen and been on plenty of fishing boats close to these waters, and they don't get as big as ours; though ours is small. It would be conspicuous. And this far out? There'd be questions.”

“We wouldn't need accuracy to pass off suspicion, just convincing enough they don't think anything too quickly.” Huang Du said.

“Still, I wouldn't count on it.”

“Couldn't we throw something together to look like we're dragging a net behind us?” another sailor asked.

“We're still rather large.” the other sailor remarked.

The exchange went on for some time, and nothing was settling. After a time of being adrift some more they opted to again head out closer to the open sea. There was a brief inventory of the stocks aboard, and they concluded they would have to leave soon. They wondered if the mission would be all for nought.

All the same they fired up the engine and puttered out back into the heart of the South China Sea and search for the shipping lanes again.

The doubt though was persistent. Huang Du found himself bored, and while Arban was settling into the nauseating rocking of the boat, he was becoming quickly impatient with the whole ordeal. The crew was taking to complaining.

There was salvation to be had though.

“Jade Lily, Jade Lily.” their radio began to squeak one day. It had been left on the channel they last negotiated with the airplane with last time. “The Jade Lily, this is AS-050. Copy in.” the voice said.

A helmsman looking over, perplexed. Could this really be for them? They were half-way out to the Parcels, this was dangerous air for aerial surveillance to fly. Huang Du stepped in and took over control of the radio. “We copy.” he said.

“What are your coordinates?” asked the airplane.

Huang Du was struck. None of them had done much to track their coordinates, not closely. A strict chart was not kept. Hurriedly he put his hand over the speaker and began demanding for a reading , some kind.

“Give us a moment, please. Over.” Huang Du said.

“We spotted a ship.” the airplane called in, “We are ready to give you the approximate location of where we found it. But we need your position.” the pilot demanded. “Over.”

An impatient few minutes, and a slip of paper was in Huang Du's hands. Several quick takes had been made at retrieving rough coordinates. He read them to the pilots, who after a pause gave them theirs, and offered directions. The ship was headed back into the Golf of Tonkin. Huang Du ordered their boat to be turned around, and they severed communications with the air surveillance.

The spirit of apathy lifted from the men and a sense of excitement rippled on the air as word had reached them they had a break, finally. They set a course north-west back to the Golf of Tonkin to catch a ship that had come to them late. From the description given, it had yet to really pass the extreme point of China's outermost maritime territory, making its way to a tight turn around it, as close as it could comfortably get if not closer. In all possibility, if there were any exercises in the area the navy might see it. But they would not care to investigate it further.

Past that, there could be only be one possible port it was on its way too, given the description of its trajectory: Hai Phong. Failing reaching it before it was too close to Vietnamese shores, Huang Du and Arban both concluded they might catch it coming out and get a identification on it.

“You think we're going to catch it?” Arban said openly, to no one in particular in the tent of a bridge.

The sailor at the helm turned to him and shrugged, “We might be able to move as fast, or faster. But we're not carrying and fuel. Unless we want to drift back home I doubt it.”

“We'll catch it on its way out of port. How long do these boats take to unload?” he asked.

The sailor shrugged, and he looked out. It was later afternoon already. “It'll be an overnight unload.”

“So what does that mean?” Arban asked.

“Depends on how the Vietnamese work. Might not do anything, or they might unload it. Could be leaving after midnight or after sun up.”

“We're going to take a shot at it. At worse we'll catch it leaving.” Huang Du interjected. He looked over at Arban for approval, “Thoughts?”

“I'm done with the ocean, I want to go back to land. Whatever it takes, double watches so we don't miss it it need be.”

Huang Du nodded, and the helmsman sighed. The plan for the day and the night was set.

[DELETED32084]

--------------------------------------------
July, 1960 - Strait of Gibraltar
--------------------------------------------

Captain Martín Fernández de Navarrete stood ramrod straight with his feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind his back, dressed in his spotless black formal uniform festooned with gold braid. His peak cap sat at an ideally rakish angle, his pistol and sword held in place by a painstakingly polished white belt and cross belt.

Below his feet he could feel the rumble of the ships engines as the 50,000 ton Héroe-Class Battleship, RSN Don Quixote, steamed into the Strait of Gibraltar. To the left, low and barren, lay Spanish Morocco. To the right lay Spain, green and lush. But, along that coast lay the greatest insult to Spanish pride, the British Fortress of Gibraltar.

Navarrete longed to turn his ships 15 inch turrets against the rock but he had been expressly forbidden. He knew, as did his crew, that the British would be watching them as well, their own massive 10 inch guns more than enough to reach completely across the strait. The Don Quixote might have the bigger guns but you couldn't sink The Rock. It didn't help that the British emplacements were nearly 1,300 feet above seal level and their gunners would have an unobstructed view of the Spanish Armada passing through.

Instead, Navarrete would do what he had always, he would pretend the rock was not there, and the British would pretend that he wasn't pretending. It was a farce. Eventually Gibraltar would return to the Spanish. It was only a matter of time. Modern advances in warfare had made the once strategic location a death trap for its garrison. Navarrete privately hoped that it would not surrender peacefully so he could unleash his guns on the hated British.

The Armada, the Don Quixote and five escort ships, stayed true through the middle of the channel. Navarrete might not be able to fire on the British but he would be damned if he hugged the Moroccan coast like some child afraid of a bogey man. Merchant vessels scattered out of their way, the Spanish flag flying proudly from the stern of the big ship as they finally began their turn North to steam into Rota, the massive Naval base that had been built just thirty years ago when the Old King was alive.

Navarette had to be honest with himself, he missed the old man. He might have been a tough screw to get money out of but when he did something, he threw his weight behind it. This son of his, a playboy without an ounce of idea how to rule. And the nobility, fat fools.

He was the son of an olive merchant who had paid a considerable sum to send his only son to the Naval Academy back when the King had believed that anyone could command, noble blood be damned. Navarette had done his father proud and moved swiftly up the ranks under he saw the Senior Captain of the Spanish Armada, next in line for an Admiral's position. Next in line until the Royal Council, nobles all, had decreed that only a nobleman could hold Flag officer rank. Bastards, all of them.

Nor was Navarette alone in his musings as he began to pace the steel deck of the outer bridge. A good number of military officers were the sons of middle class families who had flourished under the King. Now the complete lack of regard for their achievements by the Royal Council was stirring unrest and, in some cases anger. That anger was kept close to chests and only whispered about in dark corners but Navarette had not become a Post-Captain by being a fool. Change was coming. He only hoped it would not be to bloody.

Various factions were at work within Spain and already he, along with many officers, had been discreetly approached by someone enquiring as to which way their political thinkings might be. Navarette had never truly been one for politics but he was worried about Spain. The country had grown wealthy and powerful over the past forty years. While other countries had fallen on hard times and waged world wars, or civil wars, Spain had kept her nose clean, more or less.

Spain had quietly been involved in supporting the winning factions of both the German and American Civil Wars. "Quietly". Spanish Naval power had assisted the victorious forces of the Kaiser and Spanish "Volunteers", now known as the Condor Legion, had served with American forces against the southern states. Had they been a war winning help? Maybe? He doubted it. But he did know that Spain had learned much from their interactions about the new age of modern warfare.

To this day, not more than a few hundred Spaniards had died in trench warfare, and for that he was thankful. Spain has been spared the horror of an entire generation wiped out and the economic disaster that followed. Selling to both sides in the Great War, and then to the various warring factions around the globe, had brought the Spanish great wealth, and valuable feedback on their weapons systems.

The Don Quixote and her sister ships, three in total, were the pinnacle of Spanish Naval engineering. Fast, powerful, heavily armed and armoured, they could stand toe to toe with any other ship of their class. This voyage, however, was to see a new type of warship. The Spanish had long been working an aircraft carrier of their own, eyeing the few the Americans had managed to build. None of them were very impressive but it was a start and if Spain were to regain her former glory, well, she would need to be able to deploy air power.

He had heard that the latest vessel, yet unnamed, was nothing more than an old cruiser with its super structure torn down and replaced with a long flat deck from which only the lightest aircraft, in this case bi-plane torpedo bombers, could launch, but only it sailing directly into a ten knot head wind. It would be a tricky task and Navarette had been assigned to protect the vessel while it was undergoing sea trials.

The thought of a plane launching from a ship was fascinating to him. His own vessel carried four seaplanes that could be lowered over the side before take off but to have planes that could simply take off and land at will! It was a fascinating idea.

He halted his pacing, aware it was making his Deck Officer nervous, and glanced back to see Gibraltar slowly sinking in the distance. Some day soon, he promised himself, they would retake The Rock.

"Deck Officer,"He snapped. "Flank speed. Get us to Rota in record time."

"Aye aye sir!"

Orders bellowed out but he was no longer listening. Beneath him he could feel the engines begin to increase in power and the ocean spray became more pronounced as the Don Quixote started to slice through the waves. It was a good day to be Spanish.

[Byrd Man]

Mood Music

March, 1937

Sacramento
11:31 PM

The only sources of light in the hotel room were the ember tip of Vic Hecht's cigarette and the soft glow of the wireless' display dial. Vic sat in a chair across the room from the radio, a cigarette in his left hand and the Colt automatic in his lap. Smooth jazz played on the wireless. Almost Blue. It made him think of Laura back in San Francisco. She couldn't make the trip for obvious reason. Jessica complicated things and they both knew that. With gangs and communists, the calculation involved was an easy one. Everyone knew the risk involved and signed up. But Jessica hadn't asked to be born to two radical parents, parents who might soon be in jail or dead if Vic's mission went sideways. Every decision they made had to be weighed with her future in mind. That was ultimately why Vic had agreed to undertake this task.

"We interrupt this program to announce a news bulletin."

Vic sat upright in his seat as the jazz disappeared, replaced by the excited voice of an announcer.

"Mere minutes ago, Governor Donaldson vetoed the California joint assembly's declaration of secession. Despite the governor's statements that he would veto it, the deceleration passed by a narrow margin in the joint assembly yesterday. California will not join the coalition of states and micro-republics that have been sprouting up across the west coast and the upper midwest states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. After the vote, State Senator Samuel Bromowitz, leader of the California Worker's Party and leader of the assembly's secessionist wing, simply said that he expects the governor and the rest of the pro-US faction will have a change of heart. More updates as they develop."

The announcer was gone, replaced by Jazz again. Vic picked the pistol up and tossed it on the hotel bed. He stood and put the cigarette in his mouth as he crouched under the bed. His hands searched on the floor, finding nothing, before reaching up to search the bottom of the bed's wooden box spring. There was something cold and metallic there strapped to the bed. After a few seconds it came loose. Vic pulled a bolt-action hunting rifle out and cradled it. Attached atop the rifle was a telescopic lense. He worked the action three times to make sure it was loaded.

With the gun in his hands, Vic walked to the window of the hotel room and looked out. From the third floor he had a clear view of the park below. People were gathered in celebration. A pro-US rally celebrating the breaking news from the state house. The rally was planned regardless of the outcome. They would either celebrate or riot. They were jovial down below, waving US flags while a brass band played Yankee Doodle Dandy non-stop.

A cheer rippled through the crowd from the back towards the front. The mass of people parted for the black car slowly making its way towards the statue of John C. Fremont at the park's center. Vic knew who Fremont was and what he meant to California. The Pathfinder, the self-appointed military governor of California during the Mexican-American War, the man who made sure California would be in America's hands no matter how many dead Mexicans it took. The perfect avatar of bourgeois imperialistic greed.

The car finally stopped beside the statue. Two men in suits got out to keep the crowd back. A pair of pudgy hands came into view on the car's roof before Governor Donaldson pulled himself up on top of it. His chubby cheeks were flushed with both the effort of climbing up, and the victory at the state house. He waved to the crowd and began to motion them to quiet down. He apparently had words he wanted to share.

Vic slowly opened the window of the hotel room before he got on one knee with the rifle in his hands. He looked through the scope and adjusted it until he saw Donaldson's chest square in the middle of the crosshairs. The governor was less than four hundred yards away. During the practice shoots, he'd been able to hit a target from just outside five hundred and fifty yards.

This was it. Vic and Laura had talked about it with Bromowitz in the weeks leading up to this moment. This was when their side stopped talking and started doing. He had been advocating action since his first meeting over four years ago. The only way to beat the capitalists and the reactionaries was to play their game the way they played it. Vic hadn't suspended democracy, the government had. If MacArthur jailed political opponents and silenced critics, then the CWP could do the same. That was the only way to win. If it meant a better future for his daughter, then Vic would kill as many people as it took.

"This is for you, Jess," he softly said.

Vic let out a breath and squeezed the rifle's trigger.

---

Los Angeles

Brentwood
7:42 AM

"Almost blue."

Jessica opened her eyes at the sound of singing. Morning light filtered in from the parted bedroom curtains, giving everything in the room a soft glow. She was wrapped in the crimson sheets of Penelope's bed. Penelope herself stood on the other side of the room naked, her back turned as she looked through a dresser. She sang in a warm, husky voice that was only a few octaves below her speaking voice.

"Almost blue. Almost doing things we used to do. There's a girl here and she's almost you. Almost all the things that your eyes once promised. I see in hers too. Now your eyes are red from crying"

Penelope turned and stopped singing as soon as she saw Jessica was watching her.

"Good morning," she said sheepishly.

"Don't stop on my account."

Jessica sat upright in bed as Penelope padded across the carpet towards her. The two women embraced and traded short kisses. Last night had been a long one for several reasons. Jessica let almost all of it out. Her parents, growing up in Canada, and her eventual return back to the US as a teenager. Jessica felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest. There was still the bigger secret that loomed, but for now some of the burden of secrets was gone.

"Do you believe in god or fate?" Penelope asked softly.

"I believe in history," Jessica replied with a smile.

Penelope laughed and pulled Jessica close into a warm embrace. "I appreciate the dedication, comrade. But I mean more than the usual party line on these things. Do you think there is such a thing as destiny?"

"I don't know, Penny. Maybe things happen for a reason, but who knows. Why do you ask?"

"Because I... lost someone recently." Penny's eyes seemed to gloss over, lost in thought as a sad smile appeared on her lips. Her eyes focused back and she seemed to brighten at the sight of Jessica. "Someone I greatly cared about. But now you showed up in my life, and it has to be fate, Jess. It has to be!"

They traded kisses. Kisses that became more deeper and passionate. Kisses that turned into caresses and tender touches and much more. Just before she came, Penelope started to shout out a name, a name that died in her throat as a choked gasps. Jessica waited until Penelope drifted off to sleep before she slipped from her embrace and climbed out of bed. She softly padded across the carpet towards the dresser Penelope had stood at earlier.

Jessica gave a start at the sight in the top dresser drawer. It was filled with pictures, glossy headshots of a beautiful woman she recognized. Where she was from, Jessica couldn't place of the top of her head. She flipped through the photos, headshots became profile pictures and candid photos of the woman wearing fine evening wear and accompanied by handsome men. Suddenly it clicked.

Claire Beauchamp. The dead actress from the papers. Jessica had never seen her movies, but her face was all over the papers in the last few weeks. You had to be living in a cave not to know what she looked like. She looked closely at her face and realized that she had a passing resemblance to her. She wasn't close enough to be Jessica's twin, but someone could make the assumption that they were sisters.

"Jess."

The sleepy mumble from Penelope caused Jessica to nearly jump. She turned around and saw the older woman still in bed, her eyes close but her arms searching out for her missing lover. Jessica slowly closed the dresser shut and tip-toed back to bed. Penelope let out a sigh of contentment as she slid back into her arms.

"I had to pee," Jessica said as she kissed her on the cheek.

"We need to talk," Penelope said, her eyes fluttering open to drive the sleep away. "I have a proposition for you."

---

11:45 AM

Jeff sat upright in his car. The door to the mansion swung open and a woman came out. His car sat parked halfway down the block. He'd been parked here since three in the morning, ducked low in the backseat to avoid anybody seeing him. In a neighborhood like this, he stuck out. An LAPD cruiser came by at four and he'd flashed his badge and came up with a bullshit story that got the patrolmen here to give him space on the stakeout. Almost nine hours later and the surveillance was finally bearing fruit.

The woman who came out of the mansion was young, mid-twenties. She had curly auburn hair that cascaded down her back to just below her shoulders. She wore large sunglasses to cope with the glare of the late morning sun, but even with the glasses Jeff could see her beauty. The sundress and heels she wore didn't scream wealth, but if Weiss was radical she wouldn't like to flaunt her wealth... the giant mansion not withstanding. He'd asked Shaw for a picture or description of the woman but he had to shrug, his boss always dealt with her and he had no pictures of her around.

She climbed into a mint green DeSoto Firefly two-seater and started it up. She pulled the ragtop down before backing out the driveway and heading south, driving away from his parked car. Jeff started his car and counted off seconds. One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand. At thirty, he hit the gas and sped off in search of the DeSoto.

A flash of motion caught his eye as he headed south in pursuit. A black Ford pulled onto the street from a side road and followed behind him. He ignored it and kept the car moving towards Weiss. The color meant he could afford to hang back on his tail. He caught up with DeSoto just as it got on the Ellis Expressway. Jeff followed and joined the mass of people heading south to downtown LA.

[Mao Mao]

Puerto Barrios
4th June 1960

Rubén Carvallo had been all over Central America for the past month, trying to convince the people that President Blackwell was going to do good. Blackwell’s speech near the Mexican border only helped to make the Mexican government upset, furthering their rivalry. As for Carvallo’s speech in Amatitlán, it went well enough that people weren’t publicly calling for Blackwell’s resignation in the town. Regardless, Blackwell did good enough in front of the press. Then, he decided to sponsor the Anti-Socialist Acts. With the rise of socialism across the world, it looked favorable for right-wingers and capitalists while left-wingers cried about ‘human right violations.’ And when it was passed, his popularity started to finally rise. It wasn’t a lot, but it was a start.

Carvallo was in his hotel room in Puerto Barrios, getting ready for his speech to the workers at one of the many plantations owned by the Fruit and Trade of Central America (Fruta y Comercio de Centroamérica). It traded in tropical fruits (primarily bananas and coffee beans) and sold them across the world. At the beginning of 1960, the corporation announced modernization of their entire business from the plantations to their products and marketing. It was a way to still be relative to the rise of other fruit companies all over the world. President Blackwell vowed that the government would help speed modernization to produce jobs in the fruit industry.

Soon after gathering his notes, he left for the plantation with body guards for protection against possible threats. A lot of people had arrived to witness their vice president give the usual speech about jobs. Like he did back in Amatitlán. Carvallo smiled and waved at the workers as he walked towards the stage.

---

---

Guatemala City
4th June 1960

Inside one of many warehouses in the industrial district, two men were finishing up with loading the drugs into an eighteen-wheeler truck. Lucián Morillo, the truck driver, was tasked with delivering one million dollars’ worth of cocaine by the Collazo-López cartel. The job was easy enough for a regular to understand: get the drugs across the border to Mexico and deliver it to the Mexican drug cartel that brought the drugs. Of course, the drugs were different depending on the job; however, cocaine was often the most brought drug.

When the drugs were finally loaded in the truck, Morillo closed the body seals and approached one of many cartel’s enforcer. “Is everything in order?” he asked the enforcer, who was writing down something on his notebook.

He nodded, “You are clear to leave anytime. Just remember about the border.”

“I know what to do.” Morillo rolled his eyes as he entered the driver seat of the truck and started it up. Once it was started up, the enforcer opened the garage door up to let the truck leave the warehouse. He then waved at Morillo as the driver drove pass him. Afterwards, he went to the nearest telephone booth and called his boss.

“The truck has left for its destination, sir.” the enforcer answered. However, there was silence on the other line as some sort of party could be heard in the background. The boss responded, “Sorry about that. You are clear to come back. Be careful of the police.” The enforcer hung up the phone and walked towards his car. It wasn’t the latest model, but it has been there for him since the shootout of '56.
He entered the car and drove away from the empty parking lot, heading back to his second home.

[DELETED32084]

July 1960 Barcelona, Kingdom of Spain

---

Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, commonly know as Sagrada Família, sat like a great brooding monolith in the heart of Barcelona. Begun in 1882, it was now only three quarters of the way completed and workers still swarmed over the building from dawn to dusk. Once it had been funded by private donation but now, in a revived Spanish Kingdom, the Royal treasury was "donating" a portion of the taxes it collected toward the buildings construction.

For Grand Inquisitor Juan José Omella of his majesties most Holy Inquisition that "donation" rankled. There had been a time in the Churches history where it collected its own taxes and was powerful enough to rival the power of the royal family but the late King, Alfonso XIII, had refused to return that power when he reinstituted the monarchy. Instead Churches had to rely on private donations and basic tax exemptions, based on the American model of organized religion. His Majesty had found a use for a resurrected Inquisition however.

Though many still referred to the Inquisition as the Hounds of God, their attachment to the Catholic Church as an institution was symbolic at best. No longer did they seek to hunt out radicals, heretics, or witches. Now they served as a Royal secret police that answered only to the King and Royal Council. Even then, their powers had been limited. They held no authority to arrest anyone in the Military or the National Police Service, only to observe and report to the Royal Council. Omella himself sat on that Royal Council, the largely secretive group that ran the country while the young King broke every conceivable commandment. One law for the poor, another for the King.

Omella had slowly been rebuilding the power of the Inquisition over the past fifteen years, and the money that flowed to the Sagrada Família was proof of that. While it was certainly a religious building, it also served as the Headquarters of the Inquisition. In exchange for his support on other matters, members of the Royal Council had voted more powers to Omella. It was a slow process but he was a patient man.

Now, as he frowned up at the huge building, something else was bothering him. He, and the other members of the Royal Council, had worked tirelessly to solidify their positions and grab as much power for themselves as they could, the sheep required shepherds afterall. But it seemed the sheep might be awakening to the power of their shepherd. The influence of Communists in the working classes was gaining strength every day and he could see it even in the workers on his beautiful building. Every day the men came to work and more of them wore a red bandana or scarf about their waist.

On the other side were the Royalists, the wealthy who drove by him everyday and sneered up his building and his ambition. They were not safe from his reach but one had to tread carefully. Many had children who had become close to the King and it was unwise to anger such a petulant child. The Royalists controlled the government, there was no doubt about that, and with it most of the money in the Kingdom.

The third faction was the one that worried him most. The Nationalists. They were quieter in their movements and had so far managed to thwart his attempts to infiltrate their meetings. They were found among the military and police throughout the country. All he knew was the name of their leaders, one Captain Martín Fernández de Navarrete, and Colonel Francsico De Le Cal Delgado. Both were highly decorated military veterans and part of a younger officer core that was not of noble birth. Both harboured a certain... hatred, to ward the Royal Council for how it had decreed that all flag officers must have noble blood.

The High Inquisitor was not a betting man, but he was certain that when, not if, but when strife came to Spain, one of those two men would be found at its heart. The only real question left to him now was who he would support when the time came to chose sides. He had no doubt the usefulness of the Inquisition would not be lost any side. Well, maybe the Communists, their bleeding heart ideals were coming south from France and nothing good ever came from France. He very much doubted they would have any interest in keeping the Inquisition around.

[Byrd Man]

Los Angeles

LA Convention Complex
10:11 AM

"It is my honor to announce the Democratic Party platform for the presidential election of the year nineteen and sixty."

Alabama Senator Red Faustus stood at the podium with his weathered, shaking hands tightly gripping the wooden sides of the lectern. His large glasses sat perched at the end of his nose, dangerously close to falling on the pages he read. Faustus was a relic, born in 1870 when his state was under federal military occupation. The ninety year old man had been elected to the senate in 1920 and had resided there every since. Even when his state rebelled, Faustus stayed behind in Washington. He spent the war under lax house arrest, deemed too old and weak to serve in the stockade MacArthur kept the rest of Congress in. He would have rather been an imprisoned US senator than not be a senator at all.

Eric Fernandez watched Faustus' speech from his box above the floor. It wasn't his box exactly, but a box reserved for democratic senators. Many mingled with each other over drinks. Rod Marston smelled like booze even this early in the morning. The convention floor stretched out below them. Each state had its own section packed with delegates. The bigger the state's population, the more delegates it had.

"The platform is too conservative," Alex Roy said with a frown. He stood beside Eric, reading a copy of the platform Faustus was slowly reading to the crowd below. "The biggest thing liberal thing I can find is the infrastructure investments in Cuba. The rest of it? Well, new legislation to beef up the Helms-Gasksins Act, calling for investigations and prosecutions of any religious organization with a radical agenda, further expansions of the Pinkertons purview, ending the Atlanta experiment--"

"It's a sop to the southerners," Eric shrugged. "They've been trying to re-segregate Atlanta ever since Wheeler forced integration."

Roy held up the pages and shook them at Eric. "But the rest of it is filled with things you're actively against. You win the nomination, you're going to run on this?"

"I know what you're saying." It was Eric's turn to frown. "We have some friends and allies that were part of the platform committee. But it's a big committee. And a big convention, lot of voters who aren't friends."

"Remember," Roy said softly. "The point is not to runaway with it. It's to move, not fast, but slow and steady. We've got the initial votes to block him getting elected on the first ballot. After that, the real work begins."

---

The Baxter Hotel
12:34 PM

"Thank y'all for coming."

Russell Reed shook hands with delegates as they filed out of the hotel ballroom. Most of them were part of the delegations of southern and midwestern states. Down to the last man they were all pro-Norman voters. His being here didn't really matter, but it was a nice concession to see him. Especially since the president would not be making an appearance at the convention at all, his acceptance speech delivered over the loudspeakers when he was nominated. The speech would be promoted as him delivering it live from the Oval Office, but in truth he would be recording it today and the reels would be flown across country tonight, delivered tomorrow and ready just before the voting started.

Once the all the delegates left, Russell headed for the lobby with his security detail following in his wake. While all the delegates headed back to the convention, Russell made his way to the elevators. A negro man in a sharp crimson suit stood outside an elevator. Russell nodded to him as the man called a car down to the lobby.

"Mr. Vice President."

Jim Sledge seemed to appear at Russell's elbow once again. Russell gave the little man a wry smile as the elevator doors opened. Russell, Sledge, his secret service agents, and the elevator operator all stepped in. Russell requested the top floor.

"How did it go with our Massachusetts friend?" asked Russell.

"He had a very good time last night. His friend, our friend in reality, is very observant. I'm already compiling her notes into his file."

Sledge's dossiers were legendary throughout the political world. Each one contained the life story on a particular politician. When and where he was born, his political leanings, even his school transcripts or military service record. The folder had the names of the pol's wife, children, and friends.

And then there was the dirt. If he made a mistake, Jim would find out about it. Addictions, mistresses, bastard children, criminal records, and any sexual kinks all went into the file with hard evidence to back it up. Even if the man hadn't committed any transgressions, then his father or someone else close to him had. There were no saints in American politics. Those files were somewhere Jim and only Jim knew, at his disposal whenever he -- or Russell -- needed emergency leverage. Every file Jim had, he provided Russell with a copy. All except one.

Russell knew Sledge had a file on him. It wouldn't make sense to not have one. If he did, then did he know about Russell's secret? That dangled over their twenty year relationship like guillotine blade, always waiting to fall. Jim had yet to use it, so Russell had no idea if he actually knew or if he was just biding his time.

He led the small party to his suite. The two secret service agents stopped outside the door while Russell and Sledge went inside. The suite had been made into a command post of sorts. Six phones sat on a table, five of them connected to the hotel switchboard. The fifth was a direct line to the White House so Norman could be kept up to date on the progress of the convention. Pinned on the wall above the phones was a blank map of the continental US. Each state's delegated count had been penciled in by Sledge, blue for Norman and red for Fernandez. So far the blue far outweighed the red.

Frenchie Gallo sat in a plush chair, puffing on a large cigar while waiting for them. He wore a navy blue suit with an orange shirt, no tie and the top two buttons undone to show off a thick patch of chest hair. Large sunglasses obscured his face. His eyebrows rose from behind the glasses and he stood at the site of Russell.

"Mr. Vice President." He shot out his chubby hand. Russell shook hands quickly and wiped the sweat off his hand as discreetly as possible.

"How are we set on votes?" Russell asked Frenchie before turning to the map. "Are your boys going to pull through."

"Oh, yeah." Gallo puffed out smoke and looked the map over. "Adding the Cuban stuff to the platform sealed it up for us. Every big city and state political machine we got in our pocket is voting Norman. Arizona, California, Chicago -- and Illinois by extension -- Missouri, and New York are all locks."

Russell and Sledge traded looks. Both men were doing political math inside their heads, adding each states' delegate counts and comparing. They seemed to arrive at the same conclusion together.

"First ballot," Russell said with a nod.

"It'll be close," Sledge added. "He'll just barely get that two-thirds majority. Maybe by twenty or thirty votes."

Gallo furrowed his brow and blew smoke as he spoke. "Fucking Fernandez has that many people on his side?"

"It's not just him," said Russell. "A few states like to vote for favorite sons, at least for the first round. Fernandez is a favorite son for Wisconsin, but he's also getting states around it like Minnesota, Iowa, maybe Michigan."

"Governor Hallsey will probably get Pennsylvania's votes on the first ballot," said Sledge.

Russell sighed. "New England is up in the goddamn air. Who knows who that little midget is going to get his people to vote for."

"It'll be close," Sledge said again before looking up at the map. "But it's all written down here, the road map to victory."

"Can we get these fucking favorite son states to back someone who's actually gonna win?" Frenchie grunted.

"Of course," said Russell. "But for a price."

"Favorite sons are nothing but a stalling tactic, Mr. Gallo," Sledge with a smile that had just a hint of a condescension in it. "Do you think Pennsylvania actually wants that moron governor of theirs in the White House?"

"It'd get him out of Pennsylvania, at least," Russell said with a short laugh. "But no. Favorite sons get taken off the board usually after the first ballot, once a deal has been cut. I like our chances to win on the first go around. I want to get the president the nomination without horse trading for it. We need to start the second term fresh, not beholden to anyone."

"Except me and my friends," Frenchie added.

"Owing gangsters favors we can live with," said Sledge. "It's owing politicians favors that can get you in trouble."

---

2:23 PM

In his hotel suite, Big Jim Dwyer was doing his own math, scribbling on a scratch piece of paper with a nubby pencil and staring hard through his reading glasses, and was coming to a very different conclusion. There was enough, not by man, but just enough to deny Norman a supermajority on the first ballot. Favorite sons, Fernandez's rising political support, and a few wild cards could all deny the president the first ballot. Two things were key. The first was Big Jim himself throwing New England's support behind Fernandez. Fernandez's deal hinged upon him getting the nomination. If Jim wanted to be able to pick the VP, he had to first get the man who made the offer nominated.

The second thing was a big state. He needed one to throw its support behind Fernandez. Texas was out, so were New York, California, Ohio, and Illinois. All of them were safely in the Norman camp through either political boss work, or from the scheming of Russell Reed. It was considered political suicide to ever break a promise to the vice-president. He had a long memory and a petty mind. That was why Jim had never said for sure either way how he would get his delegations to vote as insurance. Reed couldn't see it as a betrayal if Jim never said he would support the president.

"It's gonna be close," he said under his breath. "Very close."

He turned away from the paper at the sound of a knock on the door. After saying it was open, the door opened.

"Big Jim," Chicago mayor Charlie Ricketts said with a broad smile. He was dressed to the nines in a charcoal grey double breasted suit and matching bowler. The suit and hat looked very expensive, no doubt paid for by taxpayer money. "Mind if I come in?"

"Charlie," Jim looked over his reading glasses at the man. "That's fine."

Ricketts glided in. Jim saw that he wore spats over his shoes, immaculate white ones with fine gold buttons. That struck Jim as odd. Only old men like Senator Faustus still wore them, relics of the age before cars. Maybe that was the point of the outfit? Ricketts trying to channel his 19th century political boss forebears.

"We need to talk," Rickeets said, removing his hat. "I have a proposition for you. It involves the Illinois delegation and their votes."

"Have a seat," Big Jim said with a smile. "And let me get you something to drink."

[Vilageidiotx]

-------------------------------------------------
June into July: Las Vegas, Nevada
-------------------------------------------------

It didn't take them long to reach Nevada. Dawn broke when they arrived at Hoover Dam, red morning light washing over the martian landscape around the Colorado river. They stopped at a small spot overlooking the dam and got out of the car, walking like the undead, stretching their cramped limbs, brushing the dust off their old clothes. Both of them looked scruffy, as they hadn't found time to change or wash up since Sun City. It was chilly. The desert nights vanquished the last day's heat, leaving the sun with catching up to do. Taytu pulled her arms tight against her breast to keep warm. There, overlooking the dam, was a simple monument of red rock.

"The Battle of Hoover Dam, September 3rd - September 15th, 1938."
"Site of the only victory won by Nevada State forces against the United States Army."

It was simple and to the point. Taytu knew nothing more about the event than what the monument said. She suddenly thought of her little brother, and the memory of home warmed her from the inside. Yaqob would know more about what had happened here. He'd probably read a book about this battle. Maybe several.

"Nevada." He said. She nodded. They got back in the car and started on their way.

Noh kept the top down, betting on the cold air to keep him awake. Neither spoke as they crossed the dam. Part of it was they were too scarred from what had happened in Sun City, but mostly they were just tired. One of the rocky ridges overlooking the road was crowned by the roughly hewn statue of a man with a cowboy hat and a rifle. Taytu stared at it as they went by.

The first town they reached was Boulder City, where they were disappointed to find no hotels or motels or anywhere to stay for the night. Boulder City gave the impression of a work village, only houses and basic amenities available. They filled up the tank at a small self-serve gas station and went on past. The red rock gave way to open desert as they went through an even smaller worker's village called Magnesium, and they were disappointed again. Just past Magnesium, the static on their radio came alive. "We must be coming to a bigger town." Noh said as the lyrics became audible.

To the town of Agua Fria
rode a stranger one fine day

Hardly spoke to folks around him,
didn't have too much to say,

No one dared to ask his business,
no one dared to make a slip

The stranger there among them had a big iron on his hip,

Big iron on his hip.

They saw the radio tower before they saw the town. Las Vegas was only somewhat bigger than Boulder City, its tallest structures the radio tower, after that the bell tower of a catholic church. They passed several hotels, but a newly found paranoia kept them going past, hoping to find something less conspicuous. The biggest was a casino made to look like a barn, the words "The Bloody Knoll" glowing in red illuminated letters. They finally stopped at The Sands: a series of rentable bungalows on the edge of town.

Taytu couldn't feel her fingers, and her legs seemed like jelly as she stepped out of the car again. Noh was quiet but determined. They both went into the first bungalow, a sign saying "Management" above the door. A bell ringed when they entered.

"Good morning!" an old man with a broom-like mustache looked up from behind his desk. "You need a room this early?"

"We didn't have the chance to stop." Noh said stonily, "One room."

"A bungalow will run you fifteen dollars a night." Noh produced the money and the man handed him a key. "Third one down to your right." The walk to and into the cabin was a blur. They collapsed almost as soon as they arrived, and slept dreamless until midnight.

When Taytu awoke, it was dark. She felt drowsy, her eyelids heavy and strange. She struggled to sit up and fumbled for the lamp-switch. The room filled with bitter light so suddenly that it hurt her eyes. She squeaked when she saw Noh sitting on the edge of his bed, his body drooped as if he carried a bag of grain on his back.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"After midnight." he said, "You sleep well?"

She nodded.

"Good." he looked at her, and she saw resolve in his eyes. "We need to leave. I do not trust these people. They let wild dogs run loose."

"I was thankful for those men in the suits, back at the casino. We owe them something."

"But what were they?"

"The owners" she said meekly, knowing what he was getting at.

"Gangsters. Criminals! They saved us because 'nigger' corpses are bad for business!"

She was looking down at the floor now. She hadn't realized it before now, perhaps she had just been too tired, but somehow the experience at the Lucky Gent had been worse for him then it had been for her. "I understand where you are coming from, but we are strangers here. We have to accept enough about this place to survive."

A knock came at the door. Taytu and Noh looked at each other with wide eyes. Noh grabbed his gun from the drawer and leaned against the door. "Who is it?" he asked.

"Just wantin' to know if you'd like something to eat?" a familiar old voice replied from the other side, "I don't have much, but there ain't many meals out there at this hour, and I wouldn't mind the company."

There was a silence. Noh looked uncertainly back at Taytu. She nodded toward the door. He opened it a crack, revealing the friendly face of the elderly manager. "That sounds good, if we aren't too much trouble." she told him. All the tension in the air let out right then. Noh opened the door fully and they followed the old man into the starry night.

He led them back to his bungalow, and they sat on stools pulled up against the counter. A radio blared from time to time. The room was very small, but as she looked at the mess on the caretaker's side, it dawned on her that he lived there.

"All I have is grapefruit, and some bacon I cooked up on a hot plate, but a meager meal is better than none. I got coffee too."

"We'll take what you can spare." she said. He served their meals on paper plates, the coffee in old stained mugs, and the three of them started to eat. The radio was playing some sort of cop drama. She looked at it as she tried to figure out what was going on, struggling to make out enough words to form cohesive ideas. The old man caught her gaze and explained. "There was stabbing down at The Bloody Knoll. Some fella and his friend got crazy on dope and the bigger guy slashed the other one wide open."

"That's the news?" she asked.

"Police radio." he said. She looked at him with a question in mind, but he guessed it. "No, I'm not a cop, but I like to know what goes on in this town."

"So that's really happening? Right now?" Noh said, giving Taytu a knowing glance.

"Fraid it is. World's goin' to hell on a fast train."

"Do you know where I might buy a gun?" Noh asked the old man. The question startled Taytu with its frankness.

"Why, what do you need another one for?" the old man said. Taytu and Noh both were startled by that. Taytu felt she'd adopted the qualities of a tennis ball, slapped from one side of the conversation to another.

"How did you know I am armed?"

"I've been around a while, I've picked up a thing or two. Now tell my, why another gun?"

Noh sulked a moment before he spoke. "We ran into trouble in Sun City. I couldn't draw in time..."

"That's you, not the piece." the old man interrupted.

Noh bristled, but responded in the same tone he had been using. "I'd feel safer."

"What kind of trouble did you two get into anyhow?"

There was an awkward pause. Noh looked down at his half-eaten fruit. It was Taytu that spoke up. "Racial trouble."

"Oooooh." the old man understood all at once, "I'm sorry you had to go through that. Well, you might find someone willing to sell, but Pete down at the gun store don't like to sell to out-of-towners. Too many gangsters come through here, we being smack between Reno, Sun City, and Los Angeles. But if you want to practice drawin' behind the cabins, well, I won't mind. Just put a distance between that pea-shooter and the horses."

"Thanks for the offer, but I don't think we'll be here that long." Taytu said, "We're going to get a flight to Los Angeles as soon as possible."

"And leave that car behind?"

"The embassy will take care of that. We just want to get back home."

"Embassy?" the old man's interest was peaked.

"We're Ethiopian." Taytu told half the truth.

"Oh. Well, I'm even more sorry about the trouble you had. Hate that my countrymen have to go make a bad impression."

"Your hospitality makes up for it." Taytu said, "By the way, I don't think I got your name."

"Norbert Noonan." he said, "Call me Bert."

--

"The next flight to LA takes off in two weeks." the ticket agent said, standing in a glass booth inside the nearly abandoned terminal of Oddie Airport just south of town. Noh despaired, in the Goya sense of the word, his face contorting for a split-moment in agony. The woman behind the glass looked frightened for him.

"One week?" Taytu spoke, "Are we in the middle of nowhere?"

"Yes you are, ma'am." the agent croaked, "This is Las Vegas. Only people come here are people looking for work. Do you want to purchase tickets on the next flight?"

"We'll think about it."

"Don't matter much to me." The agent seemed to have recovered from Noh's unhappiness. "It isn't going to fill up. You can come in the day of the flight and I betcha we'll have tickets."

They stepped away, toward the wooden benches on the other side of the room, sitting beneath a bulletin board advertising job listings, second hand appliances, and the like. "We'll have to drive." Taytu said. "I thought we might need to."

"I have seen the map." Noh replied, "The desert between here and Los Angeles is long and barren. I did not know the desert highways were dangerous, but now I do, and I cannot take the sister of his Imperial majesty through such a place. What bandits may we find out there?"

She bit her lip. She wanted to tell him it was fine, that they should go on. She wanted to be the strong one. But the incident in Sun City stuck in the back of her mind. She'd never been threatened before, not like that, and it instilled a feeling of uncertainty. Vulnerability. In a place like this, they really were weak.

"Is Las Vegas less dangerous? This place is a desert village."

"We have a place to hide." he said stubbornly. "And we know there are authorities here. Plus, did you see Bert's gun?"

"Gun?" she asked.

Noh nodded. "He has a Martini–Henry rifle. I know it, my grandfather had one from his time in the war, and he passed it on to my father. That is a good weapon. Mr Bert makes us safer."

Taytu smiled. "You don't hate all these people anymore?"

"I don't hate anybody." Noh looked forward, frustrated. "I do not know what to think."

They drove on to the bank, where Noh used a payphone to check in with the embassy and have money wired to them. Taytu stayed inside and watched the few trucks and cars ply the sleepy western town. It seemed peaceful, idealistic. Even a small village like this lacked the grime that could be found everywhere in her home country. America seemed perpetually fresh. But now, after Sun City, that image was tarnished by a foreboding. America was not the a perfect fruit she'd always thought of it as. It was the deceptively waxed apple, its outside shiny, its inside as rotten as any broken society in the world. Americans hadn't perfected life, they'd perfected advertisement, and they used that skill to gloss over their societal ills. They'd learned better than any other people in the world to lie to themselves. For an outsider, this was as dangerous as the camouflaged predator.

They returned to the bungalow before noon. Taytu found Bert and told him they'd be staying with him a little longer. The old man's face was sympathetic, but his eyes lit up. She knew that he really did want their company, and for a moment, she felt bad to be working so hard to leave.

"I'll give you a weekly rate then. Last night will be included."

"You don't have to go through the trouble." she said, smiling.

"No trouble at all. You are good people, I don't mind having you around. It gets quiet around her."

"I'm sorry for keeping you up last night." she said, "We don't want to be a bother."

"No bother at all." he waved the apology away, "I don't sleep much at night. Mind keeps me up. It was good to have somebody to talk to for a change. If you two want to come over tonight, I'd be glad to have you."

"We will do that." she smiled. "Maybe not so late..."

"Of course, of course. You'll want your sleep. Hey! It's past noon! It's probably late for you now."

Taytu laughed. "I don't feel tired, but that will probably change when I see a bed. I'll see you later." She left the old man and caught up with Noh in the bungalow.

She hadn't really looked at their room before, having only rushed in and out of it until now. She realized this when she walked in for the third time since they'd rented it and noticed there was a painting of a wagon wheel hanging on the wall. This prompted her to look around, seeing the old desk, the hardwood floor, and the mirror that looked like something from another century. It felt decorated like an old woman's house. It was cozy, a small cave to hide from the world.

Noh left the bathroom. Taytu's mood had improved, she'd even grown calm, until she saw him. He was a broken man. It hurt her, scared her even, reminding her in a gut-punch way the things they had to worry about. But did they? Why did they see bikers around every corner now? How much did they really have to fear, and how much of it was their emotions, overworked since that one incident? She thought of the native woman in the desert, and the warning about the Ranger bar. Hadn't that been a close call? Her heart roiled. She wanted to put it all back out of her mind.

"I need you." she said. It felt like somebody else was talking. She grabbed him, pulling him to her like a safety blanket, the feel of his muscles writhing beneath his skin making her feel small and protected, each point of skin-on-skin contact a promise that everything would be fine, a promise she was insatiably hungry for. She began undressing him, and he slowly started to do the same for her. They fell into bed, their love making dream-like in her mind. When they were finished the darkness inside the cabin swallowed them up. The last thing Taytu was aware of was the chirping of a bird outside.

Suddenly, she was in an empty casino, its walls made of wood, all the empty chairs pointed toward the stage in the middle. She was aware that she was naked, though she did not see herself. She felt small and vulnerable, a hare cornered by a jackal, nothing to do, helpless. A stage light went on, so that nothing else but the stage and a standing microphone could be seen. A man walked into the light. He was a highway ranger by his appearance, a patchy beard on his face, his leather jacket almost rags. A feeling of dread welled up inside her as the man began to sing slow and sad.

"Some prayers never reach the sky"
"Some wounds never heal"
"They still say someday the South will rise"
"Man, I want to see that deal"

A second man joined him in ratty grey fatigues. He was old, his hair greasy and thin. Taytu was the only one in the room, but they didn't look at her, instead acting as if they were performing for a packed audience. The old man sang alone in a voice that was soft and strained while the second man stood by.

"I don't want to grow old gracefully"
"I don't want to go 'til it's too late"
"I'll be some old man in the road somewhere"
"Kneeling down in the dust by the side of the Interstate"

Then suddenly a dozen voices came together, men and women, highway rangers, aging soldiers, impoverished dirt farmers.

I am a renegade
I've been a rebel all my days
I am a renegade
I've been a rebel all my days

We were hopelessly outnumbered
It was a lost cause all along
But when we heard the bugles call
We swore we'd stand or fall together right or wrong

At the last line, all their eyes turned to her, and the music stopped. The sheer horror of that moment woke her up in a cold sweat, and it took her a panicked moment to get her bearings in their dark bungalow. As her eyes adjusted to the room, she saw Noh sitting at the desk, naked, cleaning his gun in silence. When he looked up at her she saw the wet glint in his eyes.

--

Over the course of the week, their circadian rhythm hammered their days back together, and they bided their time at the Bungalows, eating meals with Mr Bert, Noh practicing by shooting old sarsaparilla bottles behind the last bungalow in the back. Each shot echoed long and heavy across the lonesome desert. Taytu went out from time to time and watched, until the repetition bored her and her eyes started to wander over the desolate Mojave until she found herself watching Bert's horses. One day Bert himself came out and asked to see Noh's gun. Taytu stood there in the summer heat and watched as a reluctant Noh obliged the old man.

"Walther." Bert said, staring interested at the weapon in his palm. "Are these common in Africa?"

"We get them from Ostafrika. They are very common." Hearing the two men talking now, Taytu became conscious of Noh's accent.

Bert nodded, his bald head gleaming in the sun. "Nine millimeter. I can get you something for this when I go into town" Shortly afterward he went away in a beat up truck, and Noh returned to sniping c ans. Bert returned with ammunition, which he gifted to Noh, buying his trust. When they ate together that night, Noh was more animated than usual.

"Where did you learn so much about shooting?"

The old man chewed on a piece of bacon fat and look down at his shoes. "Used to shoot jack-rabbits where I grew up outside of Tonopah. That's up north a ways." he paused for a moment and smiled weakly, "It's good shootin'. That's where I learned the most of it."

"Oh. With that rifle, I thought you'd been in the army."

Bert laughed. "They wouldn't accept me in the army. No, that gun is from a different time. I keep it clean, but it never gets used. Doesn't need to be."

"Giving the jack rabbits a rest?" Taytu said.

"My jack rabbit days are over. So are you kids going tomorrow?"

"Our flight should be here."

Bert leaned back. "It'll take some time getting used to the quiet again."

When they went back to the bungalow later that night, Taytu felt a strange sadness in leaving this place. It'd been a refuge for the last two weeks, and it was starting to feel like a home. It was a kind she'd never had before. This world was closed in, simple, comfortable, lacking any of the complex rules she'd grown up with in the world of royalty. That warm, wishful feeling, nostalgia for something she'd never had, all went away when she heard the strange putter of small engines on the road. Her blood froze in her veins when she looked around and saw three lights, all spaced apart. Motorcycles. She watched them go by, disturbing the supreme desert darkness. She fled inside only when they had passed.

--

"Delayed!" Noh shouted at the frightened woman in the glass booth, "It is the only one for weeks! How can it be delayed? What can we do!"

"Calm down, mister, or I will have to call the police." the woman on the other side threatened, "It is not my fault. It's going to be another week. The airline made the decision."

"We cannot stay here that long!"

"Drive to LA. It's only a five hour trip. Won't take you that long at all." The agent said. Noh left the booth in frustration and returned to Taytu. That thought about how stupid it was for them to wait for a plane had crossed her mind a few times before, but she'd accepted caution. She might've eschewed that acceptance just now if it wasn't for the motorcycles the night before. They made it easier for her mind to build bandit camps in the Mojave, belching out bands of redneck pirates on the hunt for anybody who wasn't white. "What are we going to do?" Noh asked her, but she just sat there frozen as a statue, unsure of anything. An idea came to her. "We should return to Bert." she said, "He'll know what to do."

The drive through the town was silent. They kept the top down, the breeze reprieving them from the desert heat. Taytu watched as banks, dime-stores, and cafes passed by as pretty as a picture. Her heart felt burdened, ready to drop out of her chest. What could they do? Perhaps they could call the consulate! It seemed foolish they hadn't before. An airplane could be sent for them. Taytu was going to tell Noh to pull over at the next gas station so he could make the call when she saw the three men mounted on their motorcycles. They were grimy, unshaved, and leather-clad. She sat perfectly still, hoping they wouldn't see her. They gave no indication that they had. It wasn't until further down the road, when she saw them trailing far behind them, that she knew for certain they were in trouble.

"Go faster." she said. Noh didn't look back. He'd saw them too.

They reached The Sands and peeled onto the dusty ground. Bert came out and watched bewildered as Noh drove their car behind his bungalow. They waited, hearts in throats, as the sound of small engines came up the road. It needed to pass them, Taytu thought. She began to pray, though she didn't realize that was what she was doing. The world seemed to fall apart when the engines slowed down, and they heard them pull into The Sands. One of the rangers yelled something, but they didn't take the time to hear it. Noh hit the gas. They charged through the rough desert, spinning around Bert's bungalow and back onto the highway. Taytu looked behind. The chase was on. They barrelled through Las Vegas, rangers on their heels, and turned south toward California and freedom.

"You drive" Noh asked. She grabbed the wheel as he maneuvered into her place. Her eyes went wide when he drew his gun. He fired at their pursuers, who weren't ready for it. She saw the rangers try to widen their formation. They couldn't fire back, or didn't try to at first. Taytu felt joy explode in her heart, more than she'd felt before. They were going to win! They were going to win!

A ranger shot at them. The bullet hit a back tire, blowing it out, sending them careening sideways. Noh was thrown from the car. It came to a screeching stop on the shoulder of the road, and the sound of approaching motorcycles spelled their doom. Taytu tried to accept death, but didn't know how to.

An arm reached up and opened her door. She squealed until she saw Noh, his arm bloodied, his face covered in dust. He grabbed her and took her running into a nearby shack. The rangers pulled up and took places hiding behind the rental.

"Give up, Niggers! This ain't your country!"

Noh peaked out the window. There was nothing in the building beside a piece of tumbleweed. They were already caught. "Let us go home and we'll leave your country to you" he offered.

"Too late for that." another man called out. "You done wrong by livin' here, now you gotta take your punishment."

A shot rang out. It peeled straight through the dry wood. They weren't safe. This was a death trap. Noh fired back, the painful sound ringing in her ears. Taytu couldn't look. She curled herself up in a ball and lay prone on the floor, her eyes closed, her mind suffering from the knowledge that this was her last moment on earth. She wept into the dust.

"Boom boom!" one of the rangers taunted. The gunfire went back and forth slowly. She felt like a gazelle being toyed with by a lion. If it had to end, couldn't it just... end? None of this torture?

Wood splinters flew by, old planks cracking every time the Rangers took a shot. It kept going and going, until it suddenly... stopped. Then she heard that same voice. "Boom... BOOM" the last word came as a grunt, as if it had been said with great effort. Something landed softly near the door. Then the sky fell down. A great big explosion lifted up the ground, sending splinters everywhere. Noh was knocked on his back. She was showered in dust and wood. She peaked up, and to her horror, the entire front of the building had disappeared. They were outside again, shielded only by a fading cloud of debris.

Noh stood up, his gun in his bleeding hand. "Show your faces, cowards!" he said, his voice almost a squeal. The gunfire started up again. She saw Noh grab his shooting arm in pain, his gun falling to a floor. Then a bullet struck her. She didn't completely understand it at first. It felt like she'd been punched in the side. She looked down and saw that she was bleeding, then unreality seemed to take her. Noh was on the ground, but the gunfight was still going on somewhere, heavy and hard.

--

Taytu woke up on a table. It wasn't in a hospital, but rather seemed to be in a bar. Music played from a nearby radio.

It was over in a moment
and the crowd all gathered 'round

There before them lay the body
of the outlaw on the ground

Oh, he might have went on livin'
but he made one fatal slip

When he tried to match the ranger
with the big iron on his hip,

Big iron on his hip

She was in pain. She felt it all over, but it stabbed worse at her side. "What happened?" she begged, "Where's Noh?"

To her surprise, the face came into view wasn't some hairy ranger, but rather the kindly expression of Mr Bert. "Noh is fine. He was only scratched." Bert Noonan wore a cowboy hat and had a rifle strapped to his back. Another man she didn't know stood next to him, but he didn't speak. "We went through your stuff, to see who we should contact. I... I didn't know. Your highness." Bert said.

"Am I going to live?" she asked.

"Yes. It just bit you in the skin. Your highness, if you please..."

"Don't talk like that" she struggled.

"This is Tom Bedford. He's the bartender here in Goodsprings, but I used to know him in a different time. He knows a thing or two about how to mend a bullet wound." The bartender said nothing. He only looked at her strangely, like a curiosity in a museum that'd just appeared from thin air onto his table.

"The Feds have arranged an escort. You'll be safe now."

"Thanks" she sighed. "But the pain... do you have something?"

"Here" Tom said, handing her a bottle of whiskey.

[Dinh AaronMk]

The advancement of political power and involvement must therefore take on a reform mind to see the desired course played out. This has been a course that has fallen backwards in much of the world today. Where as responses to war and the near perpetual state of war or discord around the world states have drawn into themselves the legitemacy of their own power through the absorbtion of many or all communal assets through which they may excercise their political power. Or in the cases of civil war and ethnic turmoil the elimination of dissent and opposition. This dawns new areas where the case of power is to be studied so that they may be reformed, or identified so well that their use is more to popular benefit than to state or private benefit.

The clearest institution of examination in this regard is that critical institution that has harried and condemned civilization, the private ownership of property. As it applies to the economic condition of the community, and thus its political power as expressed through the economy, the private ownership of property is a denial of the community that broad interest of sustainment and material means by which the entire whole can be positively affected. The history of private economics has concluded to an inevitable point that there are those by no fortune by bad luck that no matter how intensely they might labor they will never advance beyond their station, as they never recieve the full value of the labor which they produce. Where as, the party to recieve the fullest value for labor sustained are those who owned that labor.

In the feudal tradition this was the realm of the feudal noble, who taking tithes of produce from the peasantry enriched his coffers on the backs of slaves, however their full legal position in society be deemed. These tithes drawn from the laboring parties were classified as rent, meant to sustain their existence on the land which they do not own. Though the reality is that that which is supplied to the noble or the magistrate as tithes does not often go to the sustainment of the labourer, as the world over the labouring proletariat as produced enough that he may sustain himself well on the efforts of his or her own work. The conditions by which he or she works is plainly an expression of power over the working serf or peasant, as either by claimed divine claim or through legalistic code the man who collects the tithe is recognized by the system of his own design to be the sole owner of that vast land by conquest, gift, or inheretence and all who live on it are in effect property of the noble, through a forced bondage of having to work off an unpayable debt of labor for the mere act of existence. The profit thus made off of the use of labor of the peasants is thus used not for the sustainment of the peasantry but for the enforcement of the noble's or magistrate's office through the maintaining and raising of an army or mercenaries.

Raised across the national scale the model of imperial power is laid bare as a succession of tithe payments in a hierarchy of governance with the Emperor at the top. These tithes – as taxes – go to the outfitting and sustainment of the Emperor and his house. And to the raising and sustaining of an army. Often it may manifest down as works of infrasturcure, but rarely does this directly benefit the working prolestariat save only as a feature they must continue to pay for as an extension of the tithe and taxation system, and so more of their labor is reduced to see the fruits of other projects for the benefit of other nobles, or of merchants.

Very much so: the deeds and guise of the capitalist is much the same as that of the noble, who buys and sells the labor of the peasant and the worker for his benefit. Though while the noble takes from the peasant as what he deems is share as a model of rent, the capitalist takes all and gives back a small sum as wages, handed out and earned not as compensation of total value produced but as time compensated. The worker then may perform and produce more or less labor value, and he will always recieve a flat wage as recompensation. And to the capitalist bourgeoisie this is considered fare, for the worker is liberated from serfdom from birth and enters then into a free contract. A contract though that is devoid of any particular freedom, as it is often that the conditions of the contract do not change much between manufacturery and manufacturery. The labourer then becomes locked in a system set against him.

Feudalism is not set far from capitalism, and it excercises very much the same force. Though from the influences of the European evolution of ideology into liberalism, to be a capitalist is to be much freer than a feudal noble. As to be a capitalist is to sustain a position through the merits of ones of labor and capacity to work. A capitalist may fall, but a feudal noble must never. For the two exist in two opposing fields of political philosophy. One ruled by merit, the other ruled by divine right. A count or duke may be a poor steward, and his lands may decay; but he will always be one. But the liberal bourgeoisie assert that a capitalist may not stand if he is a poor steward, and he falls with his lands. It is considered fare then, because as far as the dynamics of the class is sustained it is a shifting sea. The old might be swept out of the back door and the new ushered through.

But this does not address the totally unchanged dynamics expressed through the private ownership of property and the relationship between the owner and the rentor. Noble or Capitalist, the owner will always hold as is own that which he does not work, that which he does not share. While taxation becomes wages, the labor of all is never the labor of the one. And maintaining the relationship is no less changed. Whether through the coercion of promising raises for the most productive or the levee'ing of privledges on the most productive, or the use of force as through the police or the army; the worker will always be suppressed. As such, the fullest limit by which a society's and the state's power will never be broadly distributed and we can not say we have a fully involved society.

These divisions that arise between the people as classes too damages the society as a whole. That at any point the tolerance of this style of ownership – whether directly as slave, or indirectly by another means – is tolerated in the modern world is objectable. To be forward thinking and future minded for the body of the whole, as a collective shared among all individuals one would have to admit that this relationship is archiac, reactionary, and a crude weight to punish the majority for crimes they did not commit, only because they existed in one social rank over another.

To maintain this too, even in the modern era these modern feudal barons, these false dukes and counts: the capitalist claims his power is rightly obtained. That he worked for it, that he labored hard to obtain it. But if it was so: there are millions of others more rightly deserving than you. Once born to wealth, the son of the wealthy buisinessmen will enjoy far more the advantages of that wealth than the impoverished. He will go ahead to foreign lands to study the best of fields and return to the home country, assuming all the property and power and wealth that his father enjoyed. It is work yes: but only such that maintains a facade of importance. For in the end the inheretince of these properties is none different from the nobility. It should be suggested, that in the case of economic property accumilated by a single individual, that on his death that property pass out of the single ownership of that individual.

And how does this look? How might it be done? Perhaps if working all one's life one would accumilate property to the economic service of his own self, and he brings in cash renters to assist producing for him. And that when he dies that institution he creates is not passed to his son but to the workers, or the munincipality, or it is dissolved and liquidated. Or that more favorably: anything that grows beyond the man and is accomodate for more like minded individuals becomes an effort partaken by the whole as a common aim irregardless of who began what, where individual labor is rewarded to the fullest extent possible to maintain it. Where every individual at work there is a manager of his own abilities, and co-manager of the entire enterprise. That the power of a society as manifested economically is shared by all within it.

On Power and Politics

Hou Tsai Tang

December 9th, 1954

China

Tianjin

Stepping out the car, Nguyen Sinh Cung was greeted by a guard. Bowing low he greeted him to the home of Hou Sai Tang. Pleasantries were exchanged between he and the old man as he was guided around. They did not walk through the house, and instead walked around the outside. Coming onto the side of the house, he was lead to the garden. There under the veranda, in the shade, Hou sat at a stone picnic table, pillows on the bench seat for relief from the rough granite the entire piece was made of. Hou looked up as Sinh Cung was announced, and he turned from his seat, rising and bowing; welcoming him to his house.

“Is my visit interrupting anything?” Nguyen asked, pointing to the papers laying across the stone of the table's surface. Hou looked down and shook his head, “Just light reading.” he admitted, taking his seat as his guest followed.

“I am happy to see that.” the Vietnamese man said, “But it looks important.”

Hou looked nonplussed, and shrugged. “Perhaps it is.” he admitted, “Depends on how you consider your open letters and articles.”

“Oh, so you read those?” Nguyen asked, leaning in. The two were as contrasting as they were alike. Both appeared with a narrow frame. Though near to him, Nguyen Sinh Cung appeared the frailer figure to Hou. Sai Tang himself sat and stood slightly taller in comparison to his southern contemporary, and with paler skin.

“I had to ask for translation.” said Hou, “I am afraid Vietnamese is one of those languages I never mastered. You are a determined individual, comrade Nguyen; that much I give you credit for.”

“My home is my life.” Nguyen said, “That much is true.” and it was no secret between the two of them at the table why the two were there sharing the same space. It was an issue which was of mutual interest, at least as Nguyen believed of Hou. While Hou collected the articles and Hou's notes he asked, “May I smoke?”

“Feel free, we're outside. My wife doesn't like it outside though.” said Hou. Nguyen briskly lit up, and Hou broached the topic of the meeting unimpeded, “I am told your a hesitant man.” said Hou, “I am of the opinion that the Bureau could have approached others, but instead went directly to you. But as I have been told; you do not wish to go through. Can I ask to understand why?” Hou asked.

Nguyen drew deep on his cigarette and exhaled a long stream of smoke before entertaining a response. His expression grew quickly melancholy. “Simply, history.” he said, “Our countries have been at long odds and competed with each other. Your people even occupied my homeland for a time.”

“That is ancient history. We are in new times. There is no grounds that China would seek to enslave Vietnam again. As it matters now to the new world the slates are whipped clean. Together our two countries can liberate ourselves from our colonial pasts, and the foreign bourgeoisie of all of Asia, Europe, the world perhaps.”

“And will China send its armies against the world?” Nguyen asked, “Where has it been for the passed ten years? Fifteen? Twenty years?” Nguyen almost growled, embittered.

“Here nor there.” Hou dismissed, “I will be the first to admit to you that China's policies in regards to your homeland and towards others have been less than practical. I understand your frustration, for it has frustrated myself too. But it's a matter I have to be realistic about; I can't and won't call for total war on the war anytime soon. But I can now say we are in a position to start helping.”

“And when China is done with us, what is the future of Vietnam then? I do not want to turn my country other for other's ambitions.”

“That is up to you.”

Nguyen nodded, and turned his head out towards the sea. It glimmered and shone clear to the horizon passed the posts and the poles upholding the canopy veranda. It blew it a soft sweet smell of salt that mingled with the flowers. “How far beyond your own country have you been, Sai Tang?” he asked.

“I've never left it.” Hou admitted, “Though I've been all over it.”

Nguyen nodded, “I am willing to admit that the people of China wish for nothing different from Vietnam, as of France; America. We are all one of the same type. A large extended family.” Hou smiled at the brief reference to his own writings, “Though I am critical of the Europeans by experience. I have seen their people to be immoral and lost to harmony, it's hypocritical of them to hold themselves up as the true beacon of civilization. While France held Vietnam and claimed to be civilizing it it did not destroy my home country's dignity. It did diminish its heritage, the strength of its ancient heritage. And I see it's done little to diminish your country's.

“But...” Nyugen continued, trailing off into a thoughtful silence, “I must admit I have afraid of recruiting Chinese help in the matter. For I fear that they have done much to damage Vietnamese pride in the past. And you might convince me on the matter: but what about the rest of Vietnam? If my people see Chinese troops in their streets, and marching passed their fields; at their docks and on their shores what sort of conflict are you leading your people into?”

“I'm under the impression it is not sending our armies, but preparing your own. Yes: your people deserve to have your country liberated. Yes: we are willing to see it through. But we not necessarily need to be the primary actor. There is much we can do, but there is things China needs before making an advance. Permission on your part to take on this roll, as an individual high in your community.”

“And you want me to say yes?” he asked.

“I want you to take the offer out and to see if it becomes a yes. At this point I am acting above what the Bureau wants. The Bureau wants you as a chief commander for a primarily Vietnamese army to invade Vietnam and wrestle control of the north from an as-of-yet unknown foreign power. If we were operating strictly along the guidelines the Bureau wants, it would be just that and I would be giving you all the honors I possibly can to convince you.

“But I am not. I am making an open offer, based on what is deemed necessary by those it effects. If I am to arm them, I will. If I am to be a negotiator: I will. If there is to be negotiation between China and them to see things through if conditions change, so it will. To the best of my abilities I will find the balance to make this possible.”

“Can I think?” Nguyen asked.

“You can.”

South China Sea

Golf of Tonkin

Adrift in still moonlit waters, the small Chinese ship containing the agents sat waiting and at watch over the horizons for their target. The deck was alive with silent observers as the two agents lay with their heads against the cut stumps of the masts. They drifted in and out of sleep, occasionally looking up into the sky to check the moons and the stars. Occasionally a sailor would step out onto the deck and try to make measurements of their position based on the sun and stars and sometimes the engine would start up to correct where they were if they had moved. But in general all was quiet and still. No one reported any lights in the distance, no dark shape moving across a sea glowing soft moon-light blue, sparkling with the reflection of the bright band of the Milky Way across the night sky.

By early in the morning when no light had yet to breach the horizon, but the moon was sinking low a sailor came out on deck with a teapot and poured for the watchmen hot cups of tea to compensate for the time and the relatively cool night. Terse hush words were exchanged with each, offering condolences for the bad watch, or simply just laughing at the piss poor luck of them. Then the sailor would return.

By the first breach of sunlight still nothing had changed, and with their backs turned on the eastern sun a long shadow of the ship stretched out onto the sea and they could see their reflections stretching far out across a languid and still ocean and the early morning ripples. A light breeze blew across the deck, bringing the taste and smell of the sea which by now they had grown numb too. An early breakfast was served, a tasteless noodle bowl with broccoli; but no one took their eyes off the distance as they waited in the shipping lane.

Huang Du checked his watch. Five in the morning. If the ship hadn't left now it soon would be. He wondered about the sailing speed of a large freighter, and tried to calculate how long they might see it if left that moment. He didn't know all the variables. And settled on a vague guess of the next five or twelve hours. It was very helpful. He prepared himself to settle back into another day of monotony.

As the sun continued to raise, there was no ship yet to be seen. Distantly on the horizon one of the spotters made a comment about catching sight of an airplane on patrol over the ocean. But it may have also been a bird. It didn't matter much. By about this time the rest of the crew was on duck attending to the normal duties of their post, if simply to keep busy. The deck was cleaned from bow to stern. From below the sound of maintenance on the engine could be heard while the motor was silent and mute. It was over soon.

But still, there was no ship on the horizon.

“I have something!” a sailor called out excitedly, and suddenly after nearly twelve hours of waiting. There was a sudden jolt of energy on the deck as boots raced across to see. Huang Du and Arban shot up, and muscling through the crowds made their way to the side and squinted out over the horizon.

“Binoculars, looking glass, something!” Huang Du called out. A pair of binoculars were dutifully brought to him.

Pressing them against his eyes Huang Du looked out over the ocean waves to the faint suggestion of a ship. Sure enough, it was a ship. But the details were still far too distant to make out, anything small too blurry, to splotchy. With a raised voice he gave the call to sail for it, and the engine was fired up and the boat puttered and rumbled towards the ship on the distant horizon.

Moving along the deck Huang Du kept following it to the point that he was the compass arrow for its direction. Periodically holding the binoculars to his eyes to get a better view, or to find it. The skipped over waves, and the boat rocked back and forth. A sudden recurrence of nausea came back to Arban who retired as quick as he could to the rear of the boat and cradled himself to puke into the wake of the rickety vessel.

As the two practically set a course towards each other, the distance between the two rapidly diminished. It came to a point that Huang Du was sure by now the other boat could see them. He directed the Helmsman to keep a distance, and get around the sides of the ship as if to pass. They might perhaps find evidence of who owned the ship.

Passing alongside, Huang Du looked out over the ship and saw flying its flags. There above the bridge was the flag of the Philippines, and on its hull its name. Huang Du shouted to Arban, they found something.

(At this point, if @Letter Bee is in any position to respond if he so wishes then he may, and depending on what happens may be viewed as an option of a possible collab)

[NecroKnight]

1960, Spain - Malaga

OOC

Collab between me and @The Wyrm

The sun rose slowly over the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, shooting brilliant rays of sunlight over the Malaga Mountains, and their namesake city that nestled tight between ttheir stoney face the azure blue waters of the sea. Perhaps the least apprecaited of all of Spains citieis, Malage boatsed all the charms of Barcelona or Madrid without the huge crowds of toursists. Narrow cobblestone streets, wide shopping districts, any number of cathedrals and churches, and amongst it all, looming over them, the magnificent Castillo de Gibralfaro. Built in ancient times to combat the Moors, it now housed the Royal residence and played host to guests from around the world.

On this morning it played host to a unique visitor, a Nobleman of Afrika. That man in question was Duke of West Afrika itself. Namely the man fancied himself something of a fencer. Despite his age not being what it used to be, bordering on sixty - Duke Hurst still maintained a regimented enough diet and exercise schedule to be compented enough. Dueling had once been part of a nobleman' position after all.

While he lacked the speed and endurance of a younger fencer - the man made it up for his long reach and good eyes. Not to mention posture and positioning - he was always known to make-up what he couldn't fight physically with his mind. The man had been training especially hard this year at that. Namely - the Olympics were coming and he planned on going there. Especially with the chance of representing Germany - as this year, the Kaiser had officially re-incorporated the Duchy into the German Empire.

The Duke had chosen Spain for two reasons. One, it was as warm as his homeland. Two, few people in the world could fence as well as the Spanish to whom it was still a national pastime. His letter to the Spanish King, a man no older than his own son, had been warmly receievd and he had been honoure when the King offered him not only one of the finest swordsmen in the Spanish Army, Colonel Francisco Del La Cal Delgado, but also the exclusive use of Castillo de Gibralfaro for his training.

While the Duke was certain he wouldn't be winning against any battles, with his age - he at least hope it was decent enough to get a medal position in the upcoming Olymipics in America. As soon enough he crossed blades Del La Cal Delgado, before pulling away. For an old man, he had some swing behind his hand and could strike very quickly - if given the option.

"Fair enough for now. How do you think?" asked Jaeger, as he soon pulled off the head-gear. While he wouldn't be winning in the light category - he hoped that he made enough progress in Épée.

Delgado pulled off his own head gear. He looked frustratingly health and not even the sligest bit fatigued, though the Duke could not blame him, the man was twenty years his junior and a full time military officer.

"No badly your Grace." He spoke fluent German. "You have excellent form and are strong in the wrist but you must be faster." Delagdo had made no qualms about his assignment. He spoke to the Duke as he would any soldier under his command. "When we return after breakfast, we will train with weighted steels I think." He gestured to a sword rack near the wall where heavier weapons sat.

"Bring it on. I haven't been able to stab at anything decent for over ten years now," replied the Duke, in good humor - as the two men, soon headed to get some breakfast. The only people he could practice in Afrika - was with other noblemen. Nobody whom practiced fencing on a daily basis. While he did have some private tutors from Britain and the United States - they weren't long-term.

Plus for once, he was glad on taking on something - that didn't involve him, thinking about the future of a nation. As much as Hurst once thought he could make the Empire better with his grand ideas - he on some nights cursed for ever wanting such a wish. Juggling the Duchy was like trying to sleep in a room filled with gunpowder and soaked in oil.

---

Many miles away, in the province of Grenada - another member of the German nobility was slowly being shown the local hospitality of Andalusia.

Namely his name was Graf Wilhelm Hurst or simply Count Hurst. Unlike his father, he was less politically active and wasn't as much known in the public eye, as compared to the other members of the Duchy. If one looked at him - they wouldn't know to understand, that the man whom appeared more like a young rector was in fact the future heir of the large Duchy of West-Afrika.

The only thing, that would give away his identity at all - was the red ruby ring that he wore. Contasting his brown leather and gold embroided uniform. While his father was enjoying his hobby - Wilhelm had been given leave to 'enjoy' his visit to Spain. Namely to mingle with the old blood of other families. This had included a "request" to attend the Alhambra, the summer Palace of the King.

His Royal Majesty, King Juan Carlos I, the youngest King in Europe in twenty years, and certainly the least engaged in ruling. The various poltical forces that had battered at him since he was crowned at the age of ten had been to much. He had retreated into a world of luxury and excess which his advisors had been happy to encourage as long as he signed the papers put in front of him.

Even at this hour he was awake. He had drank heavily the evening before but gotten up at dawn as he always did for a run. He thrown up everything in his system and then some, his bodygaurd stoically looking the other way he did so. Then he had challenged them to a race along the walls of the Alhambra. They had beat him, as they always did, but it forced him to push himself.

Now, his hair sopping wet from an impomrptu dive into one of the many fountains, he walked back into the Royal residence. Several of his guests were already awake and he waved to them as he stepped into his own suite to shower quickly and change into a whte collared shirt, tennis shorts, and white shoes. He combed his black hair carefully, waving away an attendant, and then stepped out onto the veranda to join his guests.

One of those (un)lucky guests were Wihelm and his own entourage. When he had been asked to attend the Palace of the Spanish King - he had expected...something different. With how Catholic and iron-hard in their convinction throughout history, Wilhelm had expected the King to be somebody more...traditional as one might say. Or that might have been his own bias - or the hand of his father, whom had raised him as such.

Nevertheless, he kept his etiquette and posture as formal and polite as possible - it was hard not to do so. He had never mingled among European nobility in such a way before - so he fell back on what he knew. Albeit, that made him stick out even more - as some of the more open ones jokingly called him the Sour Kraut. As he was the only one of German heritage among the guests there - and he hadn't cracked a smile since he had gotten there, at least one that they hadn't seen.

The King pulled up a chair and lowered himself into it, studying his German guest over the rim of his coffee mug. The man was a stoic one indeed and either had something shoved up his ass, or he hadn't been allowed to cut loose a day in his life. He had seen it before in other German visitors. Not that he gave a shit. If the man wanted to be a stuck up prick his whole life, that didn't bother the King at all. It just seemed a shame to waste all those good looks and money on being a stick in the mud.

"Well Wilhelm, did you at least have a good nights sleep?" Juan asked casually as he put the cup down on the table.

"It was well enough, Your Majesty," replied Wilhelm - drinking his own coffee. Black as whatever German proverb, he'd likely utter. While he didn't seem overly hostile to anybody, the notion was that many didn't openly approach him either.

Despite his German heritage, he was 'born' in Afrika. To white parents, of noble blood indeed - but still in Afrikan soil. That made interaction with the current guests a bit...tricky at best. It was the sad nature - Wilhelm seemed to lack any desire in interacting or perhaps any skill in such matters. While the others didn't want to 'appear lesser' - since courtship was always a hit-and-miss political game itself.

"Good, good." The King glanced at this other guests. Both young men like themselves, the sons of Nobles from families in Andalusia. They were little better than common lords but, in the scheme of things, they still ranked higher on the social scale than an Afrikan Colonial. Still, couldn't hurt to be friendly. Juan had always wanted to see more of Africa.

"Wilhlem," He started after a moment. "I have a young lady coming to visit us today I would like you to meet. You have no objection I am sure." He did not wait for a reply.

"In fact, that is her car down there." He gestured toward a sleek red car that had just appeared at the crest of the hill as it finished the long climb from the valley below. "She is most excited to meet an Afrikan German."

"If you wish so, then I'd be glad to meet her," said Wilhelm, although his body language told a different tale. Nevertheless he followed the King to the window to see - catching the statement about 'meeting an Afrikan German'.

He wasn't sure if it was merely a jest, or did the woman actually take some gratification of meeting somebody so foreign yet so familar from away. Nevertheless, he went with the King of Spain to meet this young noblewoman. It was only proper and it wasn't like he had any choice of directly leaving. Not until his father decided to return to the Duchy. Until then, he was stuck mingling here like the rest of them.

The car slid almost soundlessly into the driveaway. It was the latest Spanish luxury car, polihed chrome and steel gleaming along the spotless red paint. It drew to a half in the stone drive a footman stepped forward to open the rear door.

The woman who exited was perhaps chest height on the King, who was perhaps an inch shorter than Wilhelm. Long black hair fell to her waist, held back from her face by a red hair band. She wore a dress of pure black that showed the soft curve of her neck, the tightness of the cloth pressed against her breasts and their considerable cleavage. It continued down, clinging tightly to her body, narrow at the waist and widening again at the waist and clinging to her firmly enough both men could be forgiven for thinking she wore no undergarments.

Such an outfit would be utterly unthinkable in Germany but here, in Spain where the summers were hot and the women even more so, no one would dare correct her. She glanced up and saw the two looking down. She offered a white dazzling smile and then, as if to perfect her look, bent at the waist and plucked a flower to stick behind one ear. Juan could almost imagine the hard on the two footmen standing behind her might have now.

"Wilhelm." He muttered. "I give you the Marquessa of Morella."

"Graf Wilhelm Hurst von Deutsche Westafrika. My Lady, a pleasure to meet you," he replied, almost formally that it sounded like he was trying to overdo it. Well, it seemed the King had managed to make his German guest blink to something.

Since he only ever got overly formal, was when he wanted to impress something or someone - and the times he had done that, could be counted on one hand. Wihelm already was drawn to her black dress and dark hair. If anything - he was wondering, if she dressed completely black on purpose to get to him - or if she looked like this all the time.

It was one of those few moments, that he cursed his father for granting him a more higher title. As painful as it was, at the current moment she was socially higher than he was - but once he was old enough and his father retired. Then he could be a step above her - for now, he tried his best to look the part of the rich and proper German.

"Maria." She said with a laugh. "So formal! Are all Germans such intense gentlemen?" She teased Wilhelm as they followed the King back up the winding stone steps neigher man remembered coming down.

"Only the best ones," he replied, cracking a joke - likely the first one, since his arrival here. It seemed that even the Count was all steel and coal. The man did have some sense of desire behind him - and it seemed to have glued onto Maria almost like a fly to honey. As he followed the King close-by back to the Palace.

The three returned to the table and sat, Maria not hesitating to take a cup of coffee from a servant who stepped forward the moment she arrived. She offered small nods to the other two Nobles who sat at the table.

"Charles, Paco, how lovely to see you again." They both smiled and toasted her with their own coffee. It was clear that she was part of the Kings circle of friends though she turned back to Wilhlem, her lips forming a perfect "o" as she blew on the steaming liquid. "How long will you be visiting with us Wilhelm?"

"As long as my father the Duke, decides on staying in Spain. Although, how long I plan on staying is up for debate on that. What about you?" he asked, interested in knowing how long such a beauty planned on staying here herself.

It wasn't everyday, he got knocked off his feet - by such a surprise.

She brushed a strand of dark hair from her face, tucking it carefully behind one ear. "I live not far from here." She gestured out toward the Andalusian plain as it strecthed west. "My father is the Duke of Sevilla." The put her into one of the top five most powerful families in the Kingdom.

"I usually stay for the weekend. Or as long as his Majesty will have me." She offered the King a coy smile and he winked at her. It was clear the two had known each other for some time.

Wilhelm also gave the King of Spain a look - the look that said 'did you plan this'. Since when in doubt, it always worked to simply go the direct route - and have some pretty ladies join the party. No man could resist that - unless they swung the opposite direction.

"Well then. I hope to see more of you, for the duration of your stay, Lady Maria..." said Wilhelm, keeping his emotions in check only by the skin of his teeth. He was literally biting the inside of his cheek - to prevent himself from blushing at that comment.

She threw back her head to laugh again. Her white skin was flawless, a white stone flashing in a black choker about her neck. The sound was intoxicating. "Maria will do just fine Wilhelm."

The King meanwhile returned his look with a raised eyebrow and a small smile. "As I told you Wilhelm, we are casual here, insulated from our inferiors. Please, try to enjoy yourself."

"Hmm. If your planning on bringing in such friends...then how could I say no," said Wilhelm, cracking a small smile of his own. Although with his features, it looked like he was planning something devious.

Although, the King would had likely known the Count for about a week here already - knew that it was likely the most smile, they could get out of him at this moment. Which was progress itself - not unless, somebody planned on falling off naked from the roof of the Palace. That would surely make anybody crack their head in laughter.

The King, clearly amused by Wilhelm's flirtation, stood at that moment. "Forgive me. I will be back in a moment. I feel the need for a drive, and the Countess Orillia has asked me to swing by and pick her up while I am out and about."

He gave Maria's hand a kiss, threw Wilhelm a wave, and then vanished down the stairs. A moment later the roar of a powerful engine sounded and the King was gone.

---

"May I then ask - what does the young Lady wish to do? Now that the King has left us to our own devices?" asked Wilhelm, trying to brush off this likely attempt at hitting on her - with simply asking what she liked to do.

They all couldn't be eager to talk about their wineyards, while eating strawberries in the pool.

"Wish to do?" She mulled the words over for a moment, leaning her head back to toss her long mane of hair about, pushing her chest out. "Hmmm... Well normally at this time of day I like to go for a walk in the Kings Garden. It's lovely, though not terribly private." She gestured to a pair of guardsmen who stood just out of earshot. "My chaperones."

"I haven't been there myself. I would love to be shown around that place," he replied to her - with as much eagerness as she had. Perhaps a bit less. Then he pointed at his own entourage - or namely Guardsmen, that looked like they had been stolen directly from a War Academy. Or some Imperial Army parade was missing a couple of their lead conductors.

"Well why don't we make our way down then?" She said, standing and waiting for him to do the same. She instantly tucked her arm through his when he was clear of his chair in the intiment Spanish fashion, guiding him toward a second set of stairs that led toward the long gardens below.

Wilhelm soon enough followed after Maria - having to increase his pace. to not trip over his shoes, at her rather eager and cheerful attitude. "Yes, of course," he replied - soon enough, walking next to her as they headed for the Garden.

The Royal Gardens were actually the original Moorish Gardens, built under the Islamic Caliphate several hundred years before. The Moors had belived that one must build a house around a garden, not a garden around a house, and the result had been stunning. Countless beauitful trees were flowering and flowing water could be heard anywhere. It had the unique experience of making one feel as though they were alone even with four bodyguards trailing behind.

"Tell me about your home." Maria said, tilting her head up to smile at Wilhelm, her lips partially parted as she did so.

"It is not that exciting, compared to your home," he replied, as they walked along the Gardens. As he explained or tried to explain in detail how the Duchy looked like - without it sounding too...primitive.

"There are the rural areas. Then there are the cities - a bit similar to American ones, not much taste in them beyond concrete and steel," he explained.

"I am from the coastal regions. The most unique part of the Duchy. Cultural and amazing, like the Palace here. Only in the style of Neo-Baroque. My father wanted to place look extravagant enough to match Berlin or Paris..." he explained - or namely, the German wanted to look at his greatness and not the wide empty plains of Afrika.

"You should come and see the the Palace there. It is a rather fine piece of work..."

"Come to Africa. Father would hardly allow it." She said with a soft sigh. "He is a bit more stuck on the social convention side of things, if you understand what I mean." There was no doubt he delicately touching upon their difference in social rank.

At that very moment they were interrupted by the drone of engines that slowly built into a massive roar as four military aircaft swept over head. They were single seat, single engine fighter aircraft and were flying low enough that the two could read the identifying numbers on their bellies.

Maria clapped her hands with excitement as they passed by, heading East into the mountains, before turning back to Wilhelm, a joy shining in her eyes that hadn't been there before.

"I would so love to be a pilot! Can you imagine?!"

"So simply because I don't have a fancy title to my name - he thinks I might be unworthy?" replied Wihelm, acting it up a bit. To namely appease her mood. "I will have you know I am rather open-minded. But there must be a point, where rank gives way to reality."

"Since as you know, despite my title it is worth more in its weight - then perhaps say in Russian," he added. Although, before he could continue - several planes flew over his head. He had to admit with Maria, they did look rather fancy and awe-inspiring.

He would need to talk with father afterwards about establishing their own air-force. "Hmm. Maybe. I was just thinking of asking my father to buy some planes for our country. Perhaps you could help mediate such a deal?"

"Me? Hardly Wilhelm." She giggled and patted his hand. "I don't know the first thing about planes or negotiations. I am afraid I have much to learn yet. Father has suggested I attend University next year. I only just turned eighteen you know."

"Just? You look far older than that. More mature even than most women I have seen," he replied, adjusting his tone to appear a bit more respectful - as he soon found out how old she was. Clearly the Spanish had bred some rather fine women - if they looked this mature at a young age.

"Well thank you. You do say the nicest things Wilhelm." She looked as if she might have had more to say but a serveant appeared as if from nowhere and bowed shortly to the two of them.

"Your pardon, my lady, my lord. The King has returned and requests your precense immediatly.

Maria sighed, smiled at Wilhelm and then turned back toward the Palace. "We shall have to finish our chat another time it seems."

"If you say so. I hope to meet you again," replied Wilhelm, watching Maria leave and then realizing how he had acted - for the first time in his life, he felt...confused and he was calm with that idea.

[DELETED32084]

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July 1960 - Tangier, Spanish Morocco
--------------------------------------------

One piece of Africa looked just like another some times. The endless rolling dunes in the distant, the ancient mud brick city in the foreground, and, surrounded by it all, the palatial hotels built by colonial empires. Rhodesia had a few leftovers from the colonial days but nothing quite like the graceful arches and stunning white marble of Spanish influence in Tangier. In fact, this was the closest she had ever come to leaving the African continent and part of her feared just how far her ambition might take her.

"Miss Reicker." The voice that address her was soft, deceivingly so for the alleged power of the man she had come to meet. She turned from the window, the vista of the city replaced with the spartan interior of the room. Her host was a soldier, that much she knew, but what kind she could not say for certain. He wore a desert camouflage uniform with no markings of rank or any other insignia on it. "I am flattered you came at my request on such short notice."

"Well, hard to ignore a note slipped under my pillow while I slept. That takes some skill." She replied with a thin smile. In truth she had been enraged at the action, and maybe a little worried. If someone could train an agent like that however, she wanted to learn everything they could teach. "But I have to ask, who are you? And who do you work for?"

The details had been very vague once she'd made contact with the unknown agent in the Addis Abba's Grand Market. She had arrived on time as the note directed and in the press of thousands a bent old man had approached begging for alms. She had dropped some coins into his bowl and he had slipped her an envelope. Inside had been a one way ticket to Tangier and a phone number.

There was something terribly sinister afoot but Sara was confident in her ability to defend herself and heck, she had always wanted to see something more than Rhodesia and Ethiopia. She had heard nothing from Rhodesian Security Forces since the death of the Heaps and, frankly, she felt somewhat slighted and ignored. One hardly did their job for fame and praise but it didn't hurt to get the odd "atta girl".

Either way, here she was, in Tangier, meeting with a Spaniard who spoke the same flawless english as she, bore no insignia, worked in an office that would have done a disciple of Jesus credit, and had, to this point, no name.

"My name is Antonio. I represent a faction within the Spanish Government that has a vested interest in the future of our country and I would like to hire you to work for us." He stared her in the eye with a level respect she had seldom seen in a Whiteman before. "Your race, your creed, your religion, they do not matter in the struggle that is to come. I intend to wield you like a weapon. You will be ordered to follow people, to seduce people, and, to kill people."

"Just another day at the office..." She muttered and saw the face in front of her crack slightly at the corner in the hint of a smile.

"Yes, another day at the office." He had begun to pace slowly along the far wall of the room, backlit by a huge pair of bay windows that showed off the city behind him. "Any number of days in truth that will leave a trail of bodies across the Kingdom and, perhaps, beyond."

"And whose bodies will those be?"

"Does it matter?" His eyes snapped back to her again.

"No, I suppose not." She nodded slowly. "What of my Rhodesian employers?"

The man snorted and waved a hand. "They are a regional power to be sure but their power does not extend into this part of Africa."

"Okay. What are the terms of employment?" It felt strange to be negotiating terms of anything. It felt a bit like being her own boss and she found she liked it.

"You work for us until such time as you, or we, find the contract to... Untenable." He had stopped pacing behind his desk now and reached into a top drawer and drew out a small wooden box which he placed on the desk top. He placed one hand on the lid, fingers flexed out over the top like a spider.

"We will offer you a 100,000 peseta signing bonus, now. You will receive an additional 100,000 per six months worked, and 10,000 per confirmed kill." His hand pulled back the lid and she found herself staring at neat rows of gold coins. He smiled. "In gold of course."

Sara had never before in her life seen so much gold and she felt the intense lure of it that had driven the Spanish to build their great empire. She nodded slowly, eyes still fixed on the golden coins.

"I find the compensation to be acceptable." She looked up now. "What else?"

"Simple," He didn't smile at all now and she suddenly realized that his eyes had a dead look to them she had not noticed before. "If you betray us, we kill you."

[EveryMemeAKing]

---

Some Nice Music (because who doesn't like Tool)

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Dakia Ninawa, Assyria

July, 1960

---

OOC

I think it's July, if not, just tell me

Dakia Ninawa, capital of the Assyrian nation, heartland of the Assyrian people. A city built upon the ashes of civil war, revolution, and chaos, but a city looking up for the future. Over a decade removed from the Assyrian Civil war, the city is nearly completely rebuilt, with the giant Grand Presidential palace looming over the city.

The palace would be filled to the brim of Assyrian art. On the ceiling were murals of Zakariah, Grand President of Assyria, and Ashurbanipal, the greatest Emperor in the history of the ancient Assyrian nation. On the walls were portraits of Zakariah, his officials below him, and his close family members that share the palace with him.

The hallways of the Palace would be filled with the booming voice of Zakariah and one of his officials, Azarah, Premier of the People. Along with those two, Zakariah would have his son and supposed heir, Akiya, witnessing their discussion in an attempt to understand the life of the official government office of the Assyrian leader.

Zakariah was an older fellow, 53, to be exact, who would have a beard to make most of the populace jealous. Standing to his right, Akiya, would be younger and shorter than his father. At the age of 18, he was reaching the point were he would begin to study for his eventual fate as leader. Azarah would tower over both of the members of the Wardeen family, a veteran of the army, he would have a scar on his arm, a wound of an injury he got during the Kurdish revolution.

The bustle of Dakia Ninawa would The expression on his face was one of unease. He always hated flying, but couldn't refuse the night's party. His nephew would be disappointed if he didn't come. So, instead, he sat down on a couch, away from the windows, started biting his nails, and tried his hardest to focus on anything but where he was.

"Azarah, listen, my friend, I understand your worry over the socialists restarting their meetings, but we put them down over a decade ago, they face no threat to us" stated Zakariah. His tone was firm, but understanding of his worry. Over a decade ago the Assyrians would face the deadliest war in their modern history started by a communist revolt. While the government would defeat the communist rebels, the fear of another revolt and the chaos it would bring still shook Azarah.

"I understand, sir, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't strike them now before they have a chance to grow in numbers again" Azarah replied, "You hear the echoing amongst the youth just as loud as I do, they look towards nations like Greece, like Thailand, and even France, they see them as bastions of socialism and wish the same for Assyria. We can't allow the dark days of the earlier decades to plague us in the future like they did in the past"

"We cannot turn our guns on our own again without provocation. We cannot force an enemy who hasn't struck us yet down, not without knowing their intentions. Attacking the youth, merely for going to these meetings, simply put, would do nothing for us but be a terribly thought out national suicide attempt"

"Za....I mean sir, I'm not saying slaughter the youth in the streets for having socialist ideals, I'm saying that we need to curb any socialist activity before it gets out of hand. There are outside powers, influences, that would like nothing more than for us to fall to the red terror just as the Greeks did. We cannot allow this to happen, we cannot allow even another chance for a war. I beg you to at least consider banning all communist party activities, for the future of our people."

Zakariah would look at Azarah with an expression of confusion. Akiya, not paying attention, would be starring at the wall with little interest to the conversation of policy currently going on.

"I'll consider it, Azarah, I will, but no guarantees. We already face scrutiny from some of the international community over the little electoral freedom we allow for the populace, banning an entire parties activities, no matter how radical they lie on the spectrum of the left, would no doubt bring more western eyes to our nation."

"Considering it is all I asked for sir, so I thank you."

"Is that all, Azarah?"

"Yes sir, it is." states a nodding Azarah.

"Great, in that case, you may leave. Please shut the door on the way out."

Azarah walks out of the palace, shutting the door just loud enough behind him so it snaps Akiya out of his trance.

[Byrd Man]

Los Angeles

Silver Lake
12:35 PM

Jessica Hyatt pulled into the driveway of her apartment and turned off the car. She looked up in the rearview mirror and cursed. The car that followed her all the way across town now sat halfway down the block of her street. It had to be Parker or one of his Pinkerton lackeys, reminding her once again who was in charge. She sighed and closed her eyes. She was exhausted from all the games and the lies, wearing one face with with Penny and a different one with Parker, neither one of them her real self. Escape seemed so far, but yet so close. She could leave right now, drive out of the city and not stop until she got to Canada. It would be the easiest thing in the world. She could---

"Ma'am."

The sound of the man's voice made her jump back. She snapped her eyes open and was surprised at the sight. A tall negro in a suit stood above the car, looking down at her with a curious expression. She saw a badge in his hand but didn't look at it closely.

"Leave me the fuck alone," Jessica yelled. "Tell Parker I'll give him the names, but it'll take time, okay!"

The negro man took a step back, his brow furrowing in confusion. It was then that Jessica noticed his badge was larger than the one the Pinkertons had. This one with the words LOS ANGELES POLICE written underneath the city seal.

"Detective Thomas," he said. "LAPD. When you said Parker, you mean the Pinkerton agent?"

"How do you know him?"

"How do you know him?" the man asked with raised eyebrow.

Jessica could kick herself. But, Thomas had showed up suddenly and she snapped without thinking. The best course was to keep her mouth shut.

"I don't think I should say."

"Ms. Weiss--" he started to say before Jessica cut him off.

"I'm not her. Actually, I don't even know her."

Jessica reached into her purse and passed over her driver's license to Thomas as proof. He looked it over before looking back at her.

"No?" A soft smile crept on to the detective's face as he passed the license back. "Well, Miss Hyatt, whose house was that you came out of? Some random stranger you don't know? By my count, you were there most of the night. Still want to lie to me?"

"Look," she said flatly. "I know my rights. Charge me or leave me alone. Those are the rights of the people. I know that may be hard for a -- what's the word -- Uncle Tom like you to understand."

The smile on Thomas' face disappeared and he started to clench his jaw in anger.

"Am I being charged with something?" Now it was Jessica's turn to smile.

"How about being part of a criminal conspiracy?" He asked just above a whisper. "A conspiracy to commit murder."

"What?"

"Your friend, Weiss. At the very least she is complicit in the murder of two people, one of them a pretty little white girl who has been all over the news. Know what I'm talking about?"

Jess thought back to the dresser in Penny's bedroom. The photos of Claire Beauchamp. There was no way she could be capable of something like that. It was murder. But then again... what Penny proposed to Jessica. It was as dangerous and illegal as it was crazy. But worth killing over?

"They're not murderers. They're..." she started to say. Suddenly, she looked around. "Look, we need to go somewhere else. It's not safe to talk here. They could be listening."

Thomas looked apprehensive. He looked around before looking back down at Jess. His skeptical look evaporated as he saw the look on her face.

"C'mon," he said with a nod. "We can talk in my car. I'll drive us someplace safe."

---

Pinnacle Studios
3:04 PM

Four horses galloped across the sand of the studio back lot, Raymond Hollister riding the lead horse while three stunt men followed behind him. All four were dressed in black hats, coats, and pants. The standard attire for western bad guys. Hollister looked halfway decent riding, at least from where Elliot was watching. Maybe through the camera he looked every bit the imposing bandit leader he was supposed to be. That was the magic of movies, after all.

Elliot stood well behind the camera and crew as Hollister filmed his scene. That day the back lot was made up to resemble a western expanse, the perfect place for the final showdown between the evil Rudy Cleef and the enigmatic gunslinger Joe. All-American Van Hopper played the part. From what Elliot saw of the dailies, the picture was shaping up to be quite good. Both Hopper and Hollister were playing against type in the picture. Hollister traded in being the lead in another romantic comedy, while Hopper turned away from his boy-next-door image to play the taciturn gunfighter who becomes a reluctant hero. Not bad for a Roy Abercrombie picture.

"Cut!"

Abercrombie sat just behind the camera, wearing his trademark sunglasses and sucking on his pipe. The story went that he lost part of his eyesight during the war. Nobody else knew anything else because they were always too afraid to ask. Elliot pulled out a fresh cigarette and walked across the sand towards him.

"We'll pick back up on the gunfight," said Abercrombie. "Close-ups."

"Roy," Elliot said once he was close enough.

He saw the scowl on the director's face. For a man who directed middle of the road cowboy pictures, Abercrombie thought a lot of himself. He was an artist and had little patience for studio people like Elliot, a fact he never tried to hide.

"What do you want, money man?"

"I need five minutes with Raymond."

Abercrombie puffed on his pipe for a few seconds before finally turning away from Elliot.

"Hollister! The corporate stooge wants a word with you. Be brief, please. We are already behind schedule."

Elliot rolled his eyes and walked away while Raymond climbed off the horse and walked bow-legged towards him. He remained silent as they walked away from the rest of the crew.

"How's it going, Ray?" Elliot asked once they were far enough away. "Enjoying the picture?"

"Sure am," he replied. "Elliot... what's this about?"

Without a word, Elliot passed him a folded up piece of paper. He saw the look on Raymond's face as he saw the contact sheet with names listed on it. Elliot took a drag off his cigarette and expelled smoke from his nose.

"Want to explain that to me, Ray?"

"I-I-I-I-"

"Why are two of the names listed on that list dead? Murdered by person or persons unknown. Want to explain that."

Hollister started to regain his composure. He was a world class actor after all. "Look... this is not what it looks like."

"Tell me what it looks like," said Elliot. "Because to me, it looks like a list of people, two of those people had radical and subversive literature in their house. And the rest of them have ties to a politically charged movie the studio tried to squash."

Hollister let out a sigh. "That movie... that goddamned movie."

Elliot leaned forward. "Tell me about it, Ray. The movie, the group, the murders. What the hell is going on?"

"Gimme a cigarette." He took the smoke from Elliot with shaky hands. He had to help him put fire to the tip. He seemed to calm down as he blew smoke from his mouth. "It... got out of hand, Elliot. Things weren't supposed to be this complicated."

"Hollister!"

They both turned at the sound of Abercrombie. He stood twenty feet away, his hands on his hips and an agitated look on his face.

"Any reason why you're delaying my picture."

Raymond turned back to Elliot, his eyebrows raised.

"Go," said Elliot. "We'll talk after the scene. I gotta talk to Abercrombie, too."

Hollister nodded and flicked the cigarette away. He trudged back across the sand to the waiting camera and crew. Elliot drew closer and watched them set up while . In the shot, Hollister would pull his gun and fire off two quick blanks while a stuntman with his back to the camera did the same. Hollister would act like he'd been hit and fall, the climax of the film as the outlaw Cleef's death would come at the hands of the hero Joe.

"Ready," Abercrombine shouted from his chair. "And... action!"

Hollister squinted before pulling his gun as fast as he could. As fast as he was, the stuntman was faster. They both opened fire at the same time, the stuntman firing twice while Hollister only shot once before he jerked his body back and flopped to the ground.

"Cut! That was too over the top, Hollister. Let's do it again."

Elliot felt dread rising up in his chest at the sight of Hollister on the ground. He began to see fake blood pooling on the sand below his body and knew something was wrong. It was against the censorship code to show any kind of blood on film.

"Ray," Abercrombie said, standing up. "Ray... get up."

Cursing, Elliot ran across the sand towards Hollister. He turned him over, revealing two neat bulletholes in his chest that were rapidly bleeding out. The crew behind him screamed, the stuntman dropping the gun that was supposed to be loaded with blanks. Raymond looked up at Elliot, blooding dribbling out the corner of his mouth. He started to say something before he coughed blood, his eyes glazing over as he died.

[DELETED32084]

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July 1960 - Andalusia Province, Kingdom of Spain
-----------------------------------------------------------

The sun beat down on the Spanish countryside, the temperatures rising steadily into the high 40's as workers scuttled for home, or in most cases, the pub. Here, protected by heavy stones painted with white plaster, many of them would spend the hottest hours of the afternoon playing cards while nursing a beer pulled from the recently installed refrigerator. There was only one in pub in down simply called Pacos. It was owned by Paco, son of Paco, son of Paco and so on. Even the current Paco still tended bar with some help from his son, Paco. All in all it was terribly confusing to outsiders but the locals didn't mind.

There was a lively debate raging about the one room space, the thirty or so men crowded into its space offering their various opinions on the state of politics in the country. Truth be told, none of them, not even the two uniformed police officers in the corner, really knew what they were talking about but they all understood the short stick when they were getting it.

"The fucking Royal Council." Snarled one farmer. He was broad in the shoulders, his hands heavily calloused from labouring in the fields and olive groves. "They talk of levying a new "road tax" to pay for the roads in to our village. I still wonder where the "improvements tax" has been going since there is nothing of the sort around here!"

Several other farmers pounded their tables and chanted "Here here!" in approval. Others shrugged and looked down at their drinks. This was the way it usually went during the hot hours of the day. They would all come together and someone would rant about the situation in the country, the new taxes, the King and his playboy ways, the corruption of the Royal Council. It rarely altered at all.

"It doesn't have to be that way." A voice said quietly from the bar and everyone turned to find Paco Junior staring out over the counter top at them. He was a handsome lad, not more than a week over eighteen, and already he had been into Antequera to see the greater world beyond. The big farmer raised an eyebrow. The boy might be young but this was his fathers business and manners had to be maintained.

"What do you mean, Paco?" His father prompted from further down the far. The young man licked his lips and looked about the room at all the faces turned toward him. Even the two policemen appeared to be listening.

"I met a man in Antequera. He said that we, the people, should have the ability to chose the taxes we pay, the places we can go. It isn't fair that we cannot leave our region as the government says. It isn't right that they can just demand more money of us while they horde their own Pesetas!"

There was a genuine grumble of approval now. No man liked paying taxes and they certainly enjoyed it even less when they were paying it to a group of wealthy landowners who already took a quarter of their yearly income for the "rental" of the land they lived on.

"This land should be our own." Said another farmer as he nodded toward Paco. "Why can I not own my own land?"

"It will never change." Retorted the Baker, he was always a pessimist.

"But it is changing." This time one of the police officers had spoken and everyone fell silent as he took a long pull at his beer. "This is not the first village we have heard this in. Everywhere we go there are rumblings of this change. The demand for the right to own land. To go back to how things were under the old King. And," He paused, then grinned. "We agree too. Our families are farmers as well. We have children, uncles, nephews, all of them deserve the right to be their own master. This is 1960 by god! Not the dark ages."

This passionate outburst from the embodiment of justice and order brought a furious round of cheers from the gathered farmers. The policeman held up his hand to quiet them down and then looked them over, one by one, meeting their eyes as he did so.

"Pick one among you who will represent your village and I will provide you to a travel pass to Malaga where there is to be a meeting of those who feel like you. After all, we are all comrades in a greater struggle."

[Byrd Man]

Los Angeles

LA Convention Complex
3:31 PM

"It gives me great pleasure to represent both Pennsylvania and its esteemed governor with this speech. These are times of careful consideration, times of reflection. Times that make us pause and take stock of where our nation has been, and where it shall go. Times like these require a man of vision."

From his box above the convention, Lennie Parrish scoffed so loudly that his jowls shook. The ever present cigar clamped in his teeth filled the box with heavy smoke. Russell sat next to him, watching him as much as he watched the speech Pittsburgh mayor Abe Fortson gave. With his ruddy face and gold teeth, Parrish was the latest in a New York City political dynasty. A dynasty not of blood, but of pragmatism. Parrish could trace his lineage back to men like Silent Charlie Murphy and Boss Tweed. Tammany Hall still held a firm grasp on New York state's Democratic party machinery despite over one hundred years of constant political warfare with Republicans abroad, and reformers within.

The biggest testament of their power came in 1932, when they beat all odds and managed to get an Irish Catholic both the nomination and elected president. In '32 Russell had been too busy running for Congress to keep an eye on the election, but even back then he knew enough about politics the credit to Al Smith's victory to the massive economic hardships and not Tammany Hall's machination.

"Something's brewing, Russell," Parrish's voice came out as a rasp thanks to a life of cigar smoke. "I can feel it in the air. Hallsey is the third straight favorite son candidate whose been nominated. And we still gotta get to Fernandez and the president."

"We knew Hallsey was coming," Russell said with a slight sigh. "The California delegation nominating Rick Marshall is a ceremonial gesture, one you had to account for here in LA. He's seventy-four years old. If he's too old to be governor, there is no way he can be the president."

"That takes California out of the president's camp," said Parrish. "At least for the first ballot, which is what Fernandez wants."
"I'm more worried about Ohio," Russell confessed. "Jerry Ryan is a good senator, but it worries me that the president can't even get his own party in that state to follow him. It doesn't bode well for November."

"Especially if Baker gets the Republican nomination," Parrish added, not that he needed to add it.

"California, the midwest, Ohio." Russell looked hard at Parrish. "Where does New York stand in all of this?"

Parrish made a face, one that showed he didn't appreciate Russell's questions. He had to keep a straight face as Parrish chomped down on his cigar and spoke through his bared teeth like a cartoon character.

"We stand with the president."

"Remember what we said at the dinner last week, Lennie. Friendship is rewarded and hostility is punished. Do you want to take over as the Postmaster General? Play ball with us."

It was quiet, but Russell heard something softly coming from Parrish's mouth.

"What was that?"

"I said, if the president was worth a flying fuck this wouldn't be an issue!"

Russell regarded Parrish with a cold look.

"Don't blame me," he roared. "Tell me you can't feel it all around us, Russell? There are a lot of options to vote for out there and Michael Norman ain't one of them. Why the fuck should I throw my support behind a man who is going to get his ass kicked come November?"

Now it was Russell's turn to shout. "Because of the party!"

"Fuck the party," Parrish spat. "I'm not backing a loser. What can you do for me?"

Russell stood, buttoning his suit coat.

"The president is not prepared to buy votes."

"And that's why he'll lose," Parrish said as Russell started to walk out. "If not this week, then in four months. That's not how politics works, Russ. You know that, better than most!"

"I said the president won't buy votes," Russell said softly. "I never said anything about myself."

On the floor, Fortson's speech reached its climax. "That is why I nominate Pennsylvania's Governor Hallsey as the Democratic Party's nominee for president!"

Parrish smiled, showing off a row of gold teeth. Below them, the convention floor broke out in tepid applause at the end of the mayor's speech.

---

6 PM

"Please welcome, Massachusetts Congressman Liam Kane."

Big Jim Dwyer made the stations of the cross, the first time in over thirty years that he had done it. He sat in his suite in the hotel across from the convention, listening to it on the radio. He didn't want to be in person to see Liam's speech, especially after watching him snort three lines of cocaine just before leaving for the convention. At least this way, he could turn off the radio the second the boy started into nonsensical ramblings. He wouldn't have to watch both his and Liam's political futures go up in smoke.

"Thank you, thank you. I am honored to to give this speech. What do we think of when we hear the word president? Do we think of George Washington's stern portrait? Or do we think of newsreel footage of President Wheeler surveying the ruins of Salt Lake City? Or do we think of fiery Andrew Jackson battling with congress over nullification? Jackson was the first who expressed the idea that the office of president is quite different from the congress. While senators represent their states, and congressmen represent their districts, it is only the president who represents the people as a whole. While Congress has many contrasting voices, overlapping and creating a din, the president has but one that rings clearly and alone. It is a voice that speaks for the people, a voice that channels our hopes and wishes, a voice that embodies America's spirit. Or so we would like.

The truth of the matter is that voice has become quite muffled and muddied in the years since the war. The voice has become choked by the special interests that value money over merits, by the political machinery that values patronage over progress, and corruption within our own party that value power over passage of legislation. For so long now, that voice has spoken for the politicians and not the people. That changes tonight.

There is a man who speaks for all of America, the rich and poor, the white and negro, the southerners and northerners. He will remind the government that it serves at the pleasure of the people and not the other way around. And when he speaks, Congress shall listen. I hereby nominate Senator Eric Fernandez from the great state of Wisconsin as the Democratic Party's nominee for president. I implore the delegates to use their voice, so that the people can have theirs once more. Thank you!"

Big Jim breathed a sigh of relief as the speech ended and applause came out of the radio. Liam got through it all without any trouble. And not only that, it was an okay speech. Not presidential quality... but vice-presidential? Very much so. Jim pulled himself out of his chair and started towards the door. There was only one more speech to give, and after that voting would begin.

---

7:13 PM

"Yes, sir, I can hear you."

Russell had the phone close to his ear so he could hear the president. Down below, an ex-governor of Colorado was giving the speech that would nominate Norman. Russell couldn't remember his name, but the president held him in high esteem for some reason. Russell wasn't entirely sure why.

"Where do we stand, Russell?"

"First ballot," Russell quickly replied. "It'll be close."

"What about California?"

"Jim Sledge is down on the floor right now doing some arm twisting and I've been working on other states. Even if California goes favorite son for the first ballot, we're still gonna get to that two-thirds majority."

"Russ... I'm trusting you here."

"I understand, sir."

"No, I don't think you do..."

There was an awkward silence between the two men, a silence that felt as long as the intercontinental physical distance between them.

"What do you mean?"

"If you want to be vice president for the next four years, you'll get me elected on the first ballot."

"Are you threatening me, sir?" Russell said through his teeth.

"You ran your mouth to all of Washington about how you got me elected in '56," the president snapped. "If you're such a miracle worker, then get to work. If not, well... I think Congressman Kane gave a hell of a speech a few hours ago, don't you?"

The line went dead. Russell tried to speak, even pressing the receiver down again. Finally, the operator came on the line and informed him the call had been ended by the president. He placed the headset back in the cradle and calmly stared at it before he let out a yell and slung the phone halfway across the box. It snapped in the middle of the air as the phone cord drew taunt and fell to the ground with a solid thump.

"The nerve... the fucking gall of that son of a bitch."

Russell took a deep breath and looked down at the floor. Applause was receding as the ex-governor walked off stage. Clay Foulke, Speaker of the House and Russell's protegee, banged the gavel beside the podium.

"The time for nominations has passed," Foulke announced. "Voting will now begin, starting with each state's delegation in alphabetical order."

Russell sighed and sagged into a chair facing outwards. That was it. The time for preparations, horse-trading, and threats were all done. He'd done everything he could. Now, it was time to see if luck was truly on his side.

"How does Alabama vote?"