Justice by Fire

17

Hurrying past the few patrons having breakfast, legislative aide Bob Prescott went to the pay phone at the rear of the fashionable cafe in the financial district of San Francisco. He pulled a handful of dimes and quarters from his pocket. Punching a long series of numbers, he then dropped in three dollars in coins.

"Good afternoon, sir. You've heard the news. Your men failed... The ones last night and this morning… No sir, he won't escape."

The stylish young attorney glanced to the nearest tables. A man and a woman spread a fanfolded computer printout on the table. The man, in a tie-dyed shirt blazing with a hundred colors, his thinning blond hair in a long ponytail, totaled figures on a briefcase-sized computer. The woman, in a conservative gray suit, explained the significance of several lines on the printout. Neither the man nor the woman had any interest in the man a few steps away speaking into the pay phone.

"They won't escape…The reporter told me he has the photographs and negatives on him. So they will burn with him… I activated the units I held in reserve, the mercenaries… no, not your countrymen, no one will link these soldiers to your country. That black journalist Jefferson will die. I'm using blacks to kill a black."