The hell, Jack thought, with politics.
All he had to do was step out in front of the Impala. He could make sure the impact pushed him under the car, and while he was underneath he could rip out the engine supports and leave the Brownshirts stranded in downtown Atlanta, surrounded by militant jokers, a large urban black population, and all the crazed and potentially violent lunatics attracted by the madness and confusion of the 1988 Democratic Convention.
Jack tossed away his match and swung one foot off the curb. The Impala sped closer, trying to beat the yellow light. Jack stepped back and watched as the Nazis raced by in their car. The black swastika burned itself into his eyeballs.
The Four Aces had been dead for almost forty years. Jack just didn't do that sort of thing anymore.
Too bad.
8:00 A.M.
U2 blared from the radio, and the teenager beat out the rhythm line with a fork as he sucked down a glass of orange juice. His blood-red hair had been cut into a brush over the round skull, with a long skinny braid hanging down the black leather jacket. High-top black tennis shoes, fatigue pants completed his ensemble. The image was aggressively punk, but the face beneath the shock of red hair was too soft, too young for real bad-ass punk.
The contrast to his grandsire, who stood in front of the television, was startling. Dr. Tachyon, eyes slitted with interest as he listened to Jane Pauley of Today interview a panel of political pundits, had his violin tucked beneath his sharp chin and was busily sawing through a Paganini violin sonata. He was hearing perhaps one word in three, but it didn't matter. He had heard it all. So many many times before. As the months of campaigning ground down to this place-Atlanta. This timeJuly 1988. One man-Gregg Hartmann. One prize-the presidency of the United States of America.