[b]Jackson, Mississippi [/b] “Link arms!” The heavyset black man in a suit and tie shouted over the din at the black protestors. They all stood in a long line down Jackson’s Main Street, over two hundred of them blocking traffic as they marched towards the Mississippi state capitol building. Looming ahead of them were Mississippi State Patrolmen in riot gear complete with nightsticks and hard plastic shields. Isaiah Wolde, the Ethiopian, stood front and center with his arms looped through those of James Calhoun and James’ daughter Sarah. Sweat beaded on James’ brow partially due to the stifling early summer heat of Mississippi. The sweat was also due to the sight of the policeman with their clubs. His jaw was still wired shut from a beating the Natchez police had delivered to him ten days earlier. Marching headlong towards more cops with weapons wasn’t appealing to him. James looked at the crowd of white people gathered on both sides of the street to yell at the protestors. The white people on the sidewalk were on the verge of rioting with a police barricade and guards the only thing that kept them in check. It was odd for the police to protect them as they protested, but he imagined it was because they didn’t want the civilians ruining their chance at beating in as many black heads as possible. James caught a glimpse of red hair somewhere on the sidewalk and felt his insides freeze up. He could barely talk with the metal mesh keeping his mouth shut, and he was grateful for that every time Wolde looked his way. Those dark eyes behind the lenses of his glasses seemed to cut right through him and compelled him to confess his sins. He had agreed to be an informant for the Agent Hyatt and the Federal Crime Bureau, helping them track Wolde and his movements. James felt ashamed at acting as a turncoat, selling out this growing movement and his own people for personal gain… but then he looked at Sarah and knew he was doing it for the right reason. He cared about all the negroes out there not getting what was promised to them so long ago, but it wasn’t worth seeing his family suffer. He could suffer being an Uncle Tom as long as Sarah and his two sons were left unharmed… but here she was. She ignored his pleas to stay at home and came to Jackson to walk on the state capital in the name of justice. “Remember something, James,” Wolde said softly in is ear. “In your Bible, the prophet that I take my name from wrote ‘no weapon forged against you shall prevail.’ Remember that.” James felt tears welling in his eyes as he nodded at Wolde and his kind advice. This man who cared so much about justice for his people could not be the demon Hyatt had made him out to be. A shrill whistle broke through the noise and James’ head snapped forward. The state troopers were marching forward to the protestors, nightsticks held at the ready. “Do not fight back!” Wolde yelled. “We are peacefully protesting. Civil disobedience is our right as American citizens. Stay strong and keep moving.” From the back of the crowd, singing started to filter towards the front until everyone was singing, even James who hummed through his closed mouth. “It’s been a long time coming, but I know a change is gonna come,” the protestors sang en mass as they marched forward to meet the clubs of the white policemen. --- [b]State Department Building Foggy Bottom Washington D.C.[/b] “And she’s actually here in D.C.?” Lillian Mather squinted up at Liza. The young staffer nodded to her boss, who cursed and sat back in her chair. She knew from the way the Secretary of State tapped her finger on the wooden desk that she was lost in pensive thought. Liza had been working for the Secretary of State for six years and knew her personally three years prior to coming to work at State. Lillian was her Poli-Sci professor at Columbia and Liza was brought along for the ride when Lillian was appointed Undersecretary of State by President Fernandez. “What should I tell them, ma’am?” Liza finally asked after a long minute of silence from her boss. Lillian looked at the paper on her desk and reread the diplomatic communiqué before she finally spoke. “Brazil’s foreign minister just cold calls us like that, showing up in Washington and wanting to renegotiate our relations." She sighed and looked at her assistant. "Liza, what do you think?” “Really?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “That’s what I pay you the big bucks for, kiddo,” Lillian said with a wry smile. "Enlighten me." “I think they’re trying to find friends to cozy up with,” Liza said without hesitation. “The scuttlebutt is that it’s only a matter of time before Ethiopia falls. All you have to do is look at a globe and you’ll see that Brazil is a perfect beachhead into South America if Spain feels inclined to reach out across the Atlantic. It’s from hunger, ma’am. And there’s the political slant…,” she trailed off. “Don’t tease me, child. Get on with it.” “President Claro is up for reelection next month. Every single report coming out of the country indicates that the race is a complete toss-up. Claro wants a big foreign policy get just before Election Day. I think he’s using us.” “Getting closer to a stronger nation for practical and political reasons… sounds like our own Commander-in-Chief, right?” “It’s a world of haves and have-nots,” Liza said, shrugging again. “We chase China, Brazil chases us, and someone chases Brazil. There’s a political power food chain.” “Right,” Lillian said, smacking her teeth. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it. I want you to pass Mrs. Moreno’s message on to the White House, along with a two-page analysis laying out the situation as you just did for me. Ask for official instructions. Get me everything you can about Claro and his opponent, I want to know who we’d like to win this election. After that send her a reply that we have received her offer and it is being mulled over by the White House for an official response, but we can have an unofficial get together. Women diplomats are rare and I’d like to extend a dinner invitation to her just the two of us, or us and translators if need be.” Liza scribbled the Secretary of State’s instructions down on a notepad and nodded furiously while Lillian spoke. “I’m on it,” she said before scurrying out the office to get to work. ---- [b]Chicago[/b] Sitting on a bench, Jim Sledge couldn’t help but grin when he saw the crowd gathering in front of the stage in Grant Park. Just from eyeballing the crowd he could tell they were nearly three hundred strong. Most of them were Polish and Italian working class people who got the fliers advertising the rally. They were all from Representative Bill Barnwell’s congressional district and were excited to be there. Not because of Bill, the man was about as exciting as waiting for a bus, but because of the fliers Jim filtered through the district advertising the rally. He made sure to underline that the park gathering would have free beer and barbecue to everyone who showed up while it lasted. It had all the makings of a successful political gathering except one little thing: Sledge didn’t work for Barnwell. Instead, Jim was paid by Bill’s Republican primary challenger Scott Dickson. Dickson was challenging an incumbent who was mostly liked in his district. To win, Jim had to pull a few tricks out of his hat. They called it rat-fucking, and when it came to rat-fucking nobody was better than the Sledgehammer. “Welcome,” Barnwell said as he got on stage and took the mic. “Wow, uhh... big crowd today.” “Where’s the food!?” Someone in the crowd shouted. “We want beer!” “What?” Barnwell asked with a puzzled look. He glanced at someone off stage. “I don’t… I don’t know what they told you, but there’s nothing here. We don’t—“ The crowd broke out into loud boos. Sledge’s grin widened at the openly hostile display. If only he had brought torches and pitchforks they could have a good ole fashioned mob scene on their hands. Well there was always next time for that. Flashbulbs starting going off near the stage, no doubt the [i]Tribune[/i]reporter assigned to cover the event. There was still a few more weeks until the primary, but with a misstep like this Dickson would be able to easily close the gap. Jim got up from the park bench and casually walked towards his car while Barnwell tried to get a handle on the rowdy crowd. “Congressman Promises BBQ, Gets Egg on Face,” he told the workers back at Dickson campaign headquarters downtown. “I’ll bet someone twenty bucks that’ll be the headline in the Metro section of tomorrow’s paper.” “I’ll take that bet,” Juanita, one of the office secretaries said. “You got it,” Jim said with a wink. He walked to the cramped workspace that served as an office. Dickson’s fundraising wasn’t the best by a long shot. Most of the money was going to Jim to manage the campaign. Even with his hefty price tag it was far less than his usual amount. With an off-year election coming up he needed something to keep his political claws sharp and this was the challenge. He’d gotten plenty of offers from politicians across the country and even outside of it after managing President Norman’s campaign, but he had turned everyone but Dickson down. He liked being back on the ground after having to manage something as large as a presidential run. Here he could be hands-on. Plus with a schoolboy like Norman he could never pull of a rat-fuck like he had just done. That was the kind of shit Russell Reed liked. The two of them had spent many long nights on the campaign trail talking up tactics only for St. Michael – his and Reed’s private nickname for the president—to shoot them down. There was none of that here. Dickson was hungry and he would do anything to win. In short he was Jim’s kind of candidate. “Mr. Sledge,” Juanita said as she came through the door into his office. “Carla just passed me this message, I’m sorry I didn’t give it to you when you came through the door but, Vice President Reed left you a message while you were out. He needs you to phone him as soon as you can.” Jim grinned again and winked at his secretary. “Speak of the devil. Darling, be a peach and get me a line to D.C.”