"When did you become the psychologist?"

"Tell me I'm wrong, John."

"You're more than that. You're completely insane."

"And you're an empty, dissatisfied shit trying to escape your ancestor's coat-tails."

"I think you're describing yourself," Lightholler murmured.

"So, you finally get it then?"

"I get it."

Lightholler looked away. He put the sedan in gear and brought them back onto the road. All he had seen and done ... for the sake of contingency. For the sake of friendship?

He asked, "How am I doing so far?"

"I'll keep you posted."

Lightholler heard the gentle laughter in Kennedy's voice and kept his eyes on the highway.

They crossed the Mississippi some time after dawn and abandoned the sedan by a watering hole near the aptly named town of Mud Lake. They washed in a frigid stream. Kennedy stood in the water beating his arms against his chest for warmth while Lightholler's sturdy, pale body cut through the sparkling blue.

Surfacing for a lungful of air, Lightholler said, "Tell me, which one of us is Tom Sawyer?"

They retrieved their clothing and the satchel from the sedan, then walked back into town, arguing briefly along the way over which car to steal. Lightholler favoured a battered black Austin; Kennedy suggested a lighter colour, saying it would be less conspicuous and better protection against the heat of the day. They settled on a cream-coloured Blitzen with Louisiana plates.

They switched plates at the next town and drove west.

Arkansas unfolded in hills and valleys, in forests of oak and pine, laced by the languorous tresses of the slow, wide river. They ate in a diner across the road from a train station and watched as negroes rolled crates along the platform and loaded them into the long grey freight car of a Confed Pacific.

Kennedy thumbed through a discarded newspaper, held the headline up for Lightholler to read. NASHVILLE REDOUBT. JAPANESE ASSAULT HALTED.

The kicker called it a "Night of Infamy". President Clancy was convening Congress that afternoon. Kennedy scanned the paper for his name and found nothing. He interpreted the mild euphoria he felt as a result of poor sleep, but that assumption took little away from his satisfaction.

They got back into the car and headed west again. He nodded off mid-afternoon and woke to find they were just outside Little Rock. He offered to take the wheel at the next gas station, but Lightholler shrugged off the suggestion.

The Ozarks grew out of the horizon, a purple fringe, gold-tinged in the early afternoon sun. They switched at Benton after he told Lightholler they were about an hour from Morning Star. Lightholler was asleep before they hit the highway.

He turned on the radio and trawled for a local station. Between the evangelists and easy listening he caught a traffic report. A trailer truck had jackknifed on Route 70. There was oil on the road and a trapped passenger. Delays were expected.

He reached for Lightholler's cigarettes and lit one, drew a breath and tossed it. He flicked the dial and came up with some classical music. He turned up the volume, keeping an eye on Lightholler's closed lids. He let the music carry him.

His mind drifted. Considering the music's perfection, he began to question his own delusion. The scheme he'd formulated so many months ago had lapsed into chaos. It had fallen prey to powers as inexorable as gravity. Lightholler was right to question his role in the great disaster ahead.

A wind in the road brought them up to a crest. An oncoming coupe winked its lights at them. He slowed down. He made out the flash of emergency vehicles and the outline of the road train spread in a heat haze across the blacktop. There was a fire engine, an ambulance and two black-and-whites. A line of traffic had built up ahead.

He nudged Lightholler awake and explained the situation. Lightholler urged him to pull over.

A black van had broken down on the shoulder just ahead of them. Someone was working on a flat tyre while a woman stood by the roadside. She had her hair tied up in a scarf and, despite the heat, she had a shawl wrapped tightly around her body. Turning, she waved at them.

"I guess we'll need to double back. Find another approach," Lightholler said as they rolled to a stop.

Kennedy nodded.

Lightholler stared at the approaching woman. "All these people, why does she choose us to play Good Samaritan?"

Kennedy slipped the car into gear. The woman had reached his window. She motioned him to unwind it. He looked over at Lightholler, shrugged and shifted back to park. He rolled down the window.

Lightholler tapped his shoulder and pointed at the windshield.

Kennedy looked up. Two men were approaching from the van. He turned to look at the woman. She had wisps of black hair that curled from beneath her scarf. She wore a pair of heavily tinted sunglasses. Her shawl had fallen open. She had a nine-millimetre Dillinger in her hand.

Kennedy only had time for one word.

"Patricia?"

A GAME OF CHESS V.

The Kennedy Defence.

These are primarily weapons for those with patience, stubbornness and resourcefulness. Not for the faint at heart, the Kennedy Defence begins with a violation of principle and rapidly proceeds to parts unknown. Even in the hands of a seasoned player it outfolds more like a work in progress rather than a fully formed strategy. The encouragement of White's unimpeded advance to the centre, and the unfavourable early exchange of a pawn, finds little favour with today's masters. Most believe that the defence is too cramped and requires meticulous handling. The intriguing manipulation of the White's own pieces into a barrier against further development, however, may occasionally bear rich fruit.

Black's best chance is that the opponent will overplay his hand.

Excerpt from Modern Chess Openings.

Leon Browarnik.

I.

April 26, 2012.

Houston, Texas.

It always started off blurry, out of focus. Nothing more than peach fuzz. Shifting pink shapes against a pastel backdrop.

Webster marvelled at the convenient design of hotel rooms. If the mirror wasn't exactly opposite the bed, it was damn well close enough.

The image sharpened and the sound cut off abruptly. That was where Agent Birch stepped on the audio cable while trying to adjust the lens. By the time the agents realised their error it was all over. She was in the shower and he was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling, so all that was heard was the steady stream of water in the background.

Webster didn't need the sound. He'd seen the footage maybe thirty times by now. The film canister was propped on the table beside him. It was labelled: "Desert Inn, March, 2007. Room 12. Subjects: Caucasian male, 45; Caucasian female, 27".

He selected a purple pill. No-Som. Chased it down with a mouthful of water. He'd started taking them soon after the quacks had told him that the only way they could remove the pain was to remove his sight. He'd been popping them since New York had fallen. He hadn't slept in three days. He had two bottles: purple for up, pink for down. He'd save the pink for the flight out west, mixing and matching pharmaceuticals. Pastel City.

Purples gave him that buzz. That pop, pop, pop. Watching Malcolm's pert ass pop-pop-popping up and down. Peach fuzz. He'd popped an eye at Mazatlan thanks to that turd Kennedy.

He squinted watching her slide slow, up and down. A writhe that was part passion and part show, if he read her right. He watched as Kennedy's hands worked their way up from her waist to her breasts.

He took inventory.

He had his bag packed.

He had the Kennedy files on his desk next to the canister. The stuff Malcolm didn't get to see. The pathology report from late 2007-her miscarriage, scraped and scoped under a different kind of lens. What would Kennedy make of that?

He had Kennedy pumping up and down while the lab rat squirmed.

He had a thousand men, sequestered throughout the South and ready to roll.

He had a flight booked for Phoenix, as per President Clancy's request. A connect to take him to Vegas, and from there a scout to the Patton.

He was going to get to see the closing shot, up close and personal.

No-Som gave him that buzz, kept him up and running; his red eye skittering across maps and documents; dry mouth spitting out the orders and commands. Thoughts racing. Hot-wired.

Clancy convenes Congress. Kiboshes the Kennedy Crusade and calls on Clan and Country.

He liked the sounds the words made in his head.

She'd twisted around now to face the mirror but Kennedy was still holding on to her tits for dear life. Her hair was in her face, masking the eyes, but her lips were pursed in a rictus of desire.

Webster couldn't see her eyes but he could see what he thought were rivulets of sweat.

He had a nursery rhyme going round and round in his head. Maybe the last purple was a bad idea. Flight was in four hours.

Pop goes the weasel.

II.

April 26, 2012 In transit: Houston, Texas / Phoenix, Arizona He'd taken his first sedative over an hour ago, and coming down felt like breathing out real slow. It felt like something was emptying.

Buzz became headache and a dull weight on his eyelids.

The Raptor's cabin was empty. A bright seam was visible under the cockpit entrance. Through the windows, the flash of wingtip navigation lights and the flicker of distant stars. All else was darkness. Webster thought about the other Raptors-sleek black darts winging their way across the country towards their shared destination.

President Clancy had called him at 0600 hours, and Webster had told him that Nashville was a bust. No Kennedy, no Camelot operatives. They'd worked the story till they'd turned failure into success. They played down the Kennedy angle and juggled the kill-ratio until they were left with a whole bunch of dead nips and a reasonable number of martyrs.

Webster told him about the next phase of Avalon, the set-up in Arkansas. Clancy told him to kill the Kennedy angle. Webster explained that he had evidence pointing to a third secret camp, under Kennedy's command. Clancy had told him to kill the Kennedy angle.

Then the President filled him in. He confirmed that the Kaiser was alive and well and running the German show from Danzig. The Germans were concentrating on the East Coast, hell bent on relieving their New York beachhead. To that effect, they were routing all of their troops east of the Mississippi. Paratroopers held Richmond, and were working their way towards Washington. Brandenburg squads had already disabled most of the major choke points in a three-hundred mile radius of the beleaguered capital city, while the 5th Fleet controlled the waters from Maine down to Key West. Additionally, a joint British and Canadian force had blasted corridors through Pennsylvania and New York State and were digging in outside of Pittsburgh and Albany.

While the Japanese appeared stymied by the well-coordinated Anglo German assault on the Union, they'd met with a series of successes in their ongoing Russian and Indian campaigns. Heavy counterattacks were expected as the Japanese shifted the bulk of their army from the American West Coast, but for the moment the Far East appeared contained.

The Confederacy was expected to stave off any move from the south. To date, that had meant isolated firefights with Mexican forces in southern Texas. Large troop concentrations, however, had been reported by high-altitude recon flights across the border. It appeared as though the Mexicans were waiting for more conclusive results on the part of their Asian allies before making any real commitment.

That left the west.

Confederate forces were scant along the NevadaArizona border. Clancy had told him he'd been assured by the War Office that the japs weren't going to try anything across the desert. That they weren't going to cross the Black Rock, the Smoke Creek, or the Mojave. "If they come, they'll come from the north," he'd been told confidently.

Clancy had marched across enough deserts in his time. He told Webster he didn't buy it. Hence the need to set up an Advanced Command Post on the Patton. Hence the need to send nine senior military staff out west.

Webster had taken it all in. It was no surprise that Clancy had relegated Kennedy to the bottom of the shit list.

When the conversation turned to the Patton, Clancy told him the airship was packing atomics. He had mentioned a fleet of six German stratolites sighted over the Arctic, and they'd pondered the significance of such a flotilla.

Webster protested that he had things to do in Houston, but the President would not be swayed. He rang off at seven. Webster was back in his office by eight.

He went through a list of Bureau operatives currently stationed aboard the Confederate stratolite. He assigned a separate detachment of tactical agents for bodyguard duty. They would arrive on the Patton within the next six hours. He went through his files on the other men who'd be joining the post. All capable, all reliable. He had dirt on five of them, a reasonable majority.

He ran the Desert Inn footage a couple more times. It helped fuel his purple-driven thoughts.

He'd boarded the Raptor at sunset. He was thinking he could snatch a few Zs before Phoenix, maybe a couple more on the shuttle. He was thinking about Kennedy. Clancy might well claim he was no longer important, but Kennedy or his cohorts had been sighted at two different flashpoints that had escalated the conflict: Nashville and Savannah. And nearly half of Kennedy's men still roamed Nevada.

Kennedy appeared guilty of a crime that put Webster's paltry frame-up to shame. Imagine that? Imagine promising away a continent that wasn't his to give. Webster found the whole idea utterly fascinating-so marvellous and beyond belief that he simply couldn't put it to rest. What could Kennedy have been thinking? And who was his paymaster? Japan or Germany?

The age of conquest was long gone, but everyone was still going through the motions, offering first aid to a rotting carcass. Populations might be moved, languages and beliefs could be banned, but in China, Afrika, Australia-so many places-revolt was merely a question of when. The Union danced to Japan's tune, while thrice-conquered Paris champed at the worn German bit. Amusing ... terrifying ... pitiful.

He thought about the two Emperors, Ryuichi and Wilhelm. Of their personal injuries. Two sons dead: one by design, the other by default. It had all the trappings of a feudal skirmish, and all the charm of vendetta ... and emperors rarely suffered alone. These two had America laid out between them.

"Two eunuchs disputing a whore," he said, wondering which outcome he despised the least.

From Camelot to Avalon.

Camelot was like the grail itself. Once so close within his grasp and now forever lost. And like the grail-like any holy or unholy artefact-it reflected the desires of its observer. For Kennedy, it was the means to some unknown yet predictable end. Unknown in that his masters remained a mystery-though it now occurred to Webster that he had most likely been hedging his bets. Predictable in that he would certainly have secured himself a position of power in the new world order.

Webster knew what he himself wanted. One America, united and free. He was just uncertain about the asking price.

Drowsiness washed over him. He rubbed at his eye socket and adjusted the thin cotton sheet that passed for a blanket. He tried to concentrate on some image that might ease him into pleasant dreams. He pictured one of his secretaries, the thin one with the large tits. He put her in a bikini. He put her in a spa. He gave her Malcolm's face.

Delicious.

III.

April 27, 2012.

In transit: Las Vegas, Nevada / CSS Patton.