[b]Mexico City, Distrito Federal[/b]
[i]June 1955[/i]

	Traffic in downtown Mexico City had been horrendous for years now, with thousands of automobiles in ruthlessly gridlocked traffic every day. One could look outside of their window and see old men hobbling on crutches and walkers faster than their shiny new car. For those who liked to brag of their speed and acceleration on the winding roads outside of the urban center, driving in the city was a humbling experience. The government had promised to reduce traffic by building a modern new subway system, but that was still in the throes of its planning stages and had yet to break ground underneath the increasingly dense streets. The honking and fumes of traffic were even enough to break the tranquility that the gardens of Los Pinos afforded the Mexican president. Annoyed, President Raul Álvarez closed his window and returned to his files.

	[i]Always working,[/i] he thought to himself as he leafed through page after page of briefing and analysis. It was a Sunday, after all. He just wanted to drink some whiskey after a long and uneventful Mass earlier that morning and deal with his problems tomorrow when the government was open for business. It was always the same. Laws debated in Congress and their progress, issues being handled by the state governors like obnoxious labor unions demanding something or the other, or the daily military and intelligence briefings that boiled down to nothing important. Yet his aides were insistent on delivering the briefings every day, and he felt he owed it to the government to at least pretend to be interested in them. It was his job, after all.

	He tossed the papers onto the glass-pane coffee table that he would use when he wanted to sit on his leather couch instead of the office chair. Álvarez sighed, kicking his bare feet up to the wooden edge of the table. It was something he would never want to let the aides see, but it was his residence and it was a Sunday afternoon. The President briefly considered getting something from the kitchen, then paused… he was looking after his health after all. But the thought came back to him, so he left to find himself some food. Álvarez found himself past the wooden door of the sitting room and looking down the hallway, the thought now occurring to him that his goal now was to sneak past his wife who may be around.

	Carefully, the President crept barefoot on the wooden floor of the hallway, past dramatic oil paintings of historical Mexican battles. Busy landscapes depicting General Obregón defeating Pancho Villa at the Battle of Celaya, General Santa Anna defeating the Texans at the Alamo, and the heroic but unsuccessful defense of Veracruz in 1838 were lined on the pine-wood walls of the residence. President Álvarez took care not to brush too closely up against the wall as he tip-toed to the door. He paused when he got to the saloon-style double doors leading into the kitchen, listening for movement inside. After a few seconds, he was satisfied. It seemed that his wife was nowhere to be found, probably out shopping with her friends like she said she had planned that day.

	Álvarez successfully absconded from the kitchen with a bowl of assorted nuts and a glass of French red wine. He returned to the living room a little bit faster and carelessly than before, almost spilling the glass in his rush to open the door. He privately thanked God that he had wooden floors, or else he would be scrubbing a mess out of an expensive carpet that he no doubt would be shouted at for making. Setting the wine and nuts down onto the table, he went to turn on the television. Mexico City’s television scene was quite new, only existing for five years now, and had three or four channels. They were all owned by different families which were just now finding their niche and conglomerating into the Telesistema Mexicano corporation. Channel 2 was for national news, Channel  4 was oriented towards entertainment and musical productions. The rest were a mix of educational and variety programming.

	Before the president had realized it, he had fallen asleep on the couch as the television news anchors talked about a particularly complicated bank robbery attempt in Guadalajara. Despite their numbers and planning, the [i]Federales[/i] had caught up with them the next day when their getaway car ran out of gas and arrested them, somewhat anticlimactically, without incident. He had settled in amongst the comfortable velvet throw cushions of his sofa with his feet kicked up onto the coffee table, feeling the slight tingle of intoxication before his head drooped down to his chest.

	A telephone ring abruptly woke him from his nap. Each room in the residence had one, or at least each important room. It made family time difficult for them, to the point where the president had to instruct his staff not to call in the evenings unless it was a serious matter. This went doubly so for Sundays. He had gotten up from the couch and smoothed out the wrinkles on his shirt, looking outside the window to the pine trees and foliage in the garden. The sun had set but the lights of the rapidly growing Mexico City glowed against the horizon instead, a kind of artificial dusk that necessitated he slept with an eye mask in bed. Álvarez fumbled his way in the dark to the phone, desperately hoping it was just his wife calling from a friend’s place or something equally benign.

	“Raul?” came the voice of his chief of staff, a longtime friend by the name of Francisco Herrera. He was always working in the office on weekends or in the evenings. Part of it was him making the rounds to his subordinates like he would when he was a Mexican Army officer known for visiting his soldiers’ guard posts and charges of quarters on weekends or holidays, but he had been working nonstop in the few months after his wife of just fewer than twenty years had divorced him.

	“Francisco,” answered Álvarez, his hopes turning dour upon recognizing that this would be official business. “Why the call? It’s a Sunday.”

	“Raul, I need you to call our secure office back on your scrambler phone. This is important,” Herrera stated simply. “I’ll be there to receive your call.”

	The president acknowledged and hung up. He looked around for a pen and paper on the coffee table and hastily scrawled a note for his wife, if she came in while he was on the scrambler phone: “Am in the vault: work call.” Then he found his slippers that had been kicked off in the corner, turned off the TV, and quickly grabbed the glass of wine. He shuffled down the hallway, stopping only to fill the glass up in the kitchen, and went to the end where a wood-paneled door that looked like the entrance to a closet hid in the corner. On his belt loop was a ring of keys, which he fumbled with before finding the correct one. The door unlocked, revealing a staircase down to the basement and another door below.

	This door, nestled amongst the president’s various woodworking equipment and other miscellaneous shelves containing his hobbies and DIY interests, was distinctly marked as being for authorized personnel only. He opened it with another key on the keyring and went inside, closing it carefully. The secure office had been constructed with specific soundproofing and other features enabling him to be informed of classified or sensitive work from home. A simple black telephone with a placard labeling it “SECURE” was connected to a rack of humming machines. This was his scrambled telephone: an identical set was in a similarly secured office in the Palacio Nacional. Wiretapping would only yield a humming and buzzing sound, if the deeply buried phone line had been compromised at all.

	The phone rang for a few seconds, before Herrera picked up directly. There was no operator to direct calls; this specific one was just for the palace’s secure room. He would need to be in the office personally to access the entire system of departments and divisions with a secured-line switchboard.

	“Alright, Raul, here’s what’s going on. About a half hour ago, a representative from the Japanese embassy got here with a telegram from Tokyo. He said it was urgent, from Mister Ito himself.”

	[i]Tokyo,[/i] Raul mused. He checked his wrist, before realizing that he wasn’t wearing his watch. His attention turned to a clock in the secure office, pointing to the time: 8:46 PM, Mexico City time. He had only the one clock in his personal office, without the others to easily tell time across the globe. After trying his hardest to remember, he settled in on it being 11 or 12 in following morning in Japan, perfect for a leisurely start-of-the-morning telegram to get that week’s business in order. He rolled his eyes at the inconvenience, but there was really no way around it. Either they or he got a rude awakening. “What do they want?”

	“They asked for a meeting with you, tomorrow morning. It is urgent. And they wish for the Secretariat of War and Navy to be involved as well,” Herrera replied hurriedly.

	The Secretariat of War’s mention surprised Álvarez. The Japanese had been involved in a war against the British for some time now and… The president’s eyes widened. “Can you read me the telegram? You have a copy, don’t you?”

	Herrera acknowledged and paused on his end while he unfolded the copy of the document in his pocket.

	[i]PRESIDENT RAUL ALVAREZ,

	WE ARE TO BEGIN NEW OPERATIONS AGAINST BRITISH IMPERIAL FORCES IN SOUTH ASIA. AS CONTINUED FRIENDS OF MEXICO, WE REQUEST ASSISTANCE IN OUR CAMPAIGN OF LIBERATION AGAINST EUROPEAN IMPERIALISTS. WE REQUEST DISCUSSIONS OF THE FEASIBILITY OF MEXICAN OPERATIONS AGAINST BRITISH IMPERIAL TERRITORIES IN THE AMERICAS AND CARRIBBEAN SEA. THE PURPOSE OF THIS OFFENSIVE IS TO BEGIN ANOTHER FRONT AND FURTHER WEAKEN BRITISH DISPOSITION IN OVERSEAS TERRITORIES. THE AMBASSADOR HAS BEEN IMMEDIATELY DISPATCHED TO DISCUSS THIS PROPOSAL. PLEASE ANSWER WITH CORRESPONDING PROPOSAL AS SOON AS POSSIBLE: BRITISH NAVAL MOVEMENTS NEED TO BE DISRUPTED IN A TIMELY MANNER.

	MINISTER MASAMI HOJO,
	ARMY MINISTRY, EMPIRE OF JAPAN[/i]

	The president said nothing over the phone, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “Hmm,” he finally uttered after a moment to process the new information. Thoughts began racing through his mind: a war with Britain? On the side of the Japanese? They had always been friendly, with Japan and Mexico establishing one of the most consistent pan-Pacific trade partnerships that the region had seen in history, but armed conflict was another thing. He would need some time to collect himself to meet the request. Obviously it was not a frivolous telegram of hypotheticals: the Empire of Japan was nothing if not aggressively up-front and businesslike. They surely had war plans in place that they were actualizing as him and Herrera spoke.

	President Álvarez downed his wine and spoke into the handset of the phone: “Francisco, I want you to schedule a meeting immediately tomorrow morning. Seven AM sharp.”

	Herrera acknowledged the request simply as Álvarez began listing names: “Get Torres and Admiral Aguilar,” he ordered, referring to the War Minister and the admiral in charge of Caribbean theater operations; “wake up the Vice as well and make sure Mr. Ito brings his military attaché.”

	The conversation ended as both men gravely noted their dispositions. After Herrera confirmed the itinerary, he asked if Álvarez had anything else. The president said no, and ended the conversation with a stark comment for Herrera to get some sleep while he still could. The president hung up the phone, now adjusting to the room of spinning turntables and whirring machinery in their racks. A dim hum could be heard, records faintly playing their buzzing sound over the telephone lines. With that, the president locked up and secured the room just the same as he entered it, before heading up the stairs and to his bedroom. His wife was not yet back, and he had stripped down to his undergarments to fall flat into the grandiose bed that dominated his bedroom. An alarm was set, and he fought to get some sleep before he changed history the next day.