In perfect, very lightly accented English, he called upon Americans to “join hands and reach out in terms of embracing a sustainable platform of multi-stakeholder solutions.” He appealed for an international committee of “equal partners building a shared vision by which a roadmap to peace can be leveraged.”

The American dignitaries seated in the front row and the ambassadors and their entourages trucked in from the nearby United Nations nodded their heads in solemn concurrence.

Benson found it difficult to listen to such sanctimonious drivel. The polite speeches, the hushed ceremony, and the respectful memorial service were whitewashing the enormity of the evil this terrorist had committed. He recalled a very different newscast he’d seen some time before, one vastly more relevant to the problem confronting the world than this idiotic remembrance would ever acknowledge. A video had been released to the media — who had actually broadcast it — with lurid warnings of “disturbing graphic images.” The video featured hooded terrorists sawing off their hapless prisoner’s head. The terrorist’s joyous singing could barely be heard over the ghastly suffering of their wretched victim, who wailed in terror while they held her down. It was some sort of chant to their God.

Much as he had wanted to, Benson couldn’t take his eyes from the screen. One of the terrorists triumphantly held the bloody head aloft when the video abruptly cut out, never to be broadcast again. It left Benson revolted. He couldn’t imagine a crueler and more horrible death. He would have greatly enjoyed strangling these monsters himself as a fitting punishment. Join hands? No. Multi-stakeholder solutions? He thought not. Lining them up in front of a wall to face a firing squad would be more like it.

5

Time for a Change

“TIME FOR A CHANGE,” the bobbing signs read.

“Believe in America.”

“Forward.”

“Hope and Change.”

“Win the Future.”

“Hope is on the Way.”

“Something to Believe In.”

“Everything for Everyone.”

“It’s our Turn.”

“We Deserve It.”

Tricked out in garish clothing in the official red and blue party colors, flourishing hats bearing trademarked catchphrases, the crowds waved their signs back and forth and up and down, trying to get the attention of the cameras and of each other.

The band played timeworn standards everyone knew by heart, except that campaign buzzwords, among them “alignment,” “empowerment,” “leverage,” and “stakeholder,” were cleverly inserted into the original lyrics. The party delegates to the convention laughed and shouted uproariously, dancing off their excitement, many of them already drunk. After several hours of such fun, the older conventioneers plopped into their seats, gulping oversized, party-branded soft-drinks and munching on bags of donated snack foods, fervently awaiting the kickoff of festivities by the acclaimed keynote speaker.

With the selection of the party nominee long a certainty, the crowds would roar their approval of the Anointed One, and the ratings would pop, at least for a time. “Momentum” was the word the campaign strategists were using. “We gotta get some momentum going, Benson,” they kept telling him. “Let’s step it up. We’re expecting strong voter turnout this time, it’s neck-and-neck.”

Beyond the convention, the party elites would have little further use for the rank and file. When the stage lights went down the convention delegates would drift away and go back to wherever they had come from.

As a campaign fundraiser, Benson was obliged to go to the party convention in the late summer. He asked Jane to go with him. It would be like a romantic vacation, he said, but she had declined — wisely, as it turned out. They wouldn’t have had any time together.

A very tall man stood next to the candidate on the podium, topped with a brightly colored hat bigger than his head, festooned with campaign buttons. The band stopped playing. Cheering and clapping erupted from the audience, rising to a dull roar. The lights in the audience dimmed, focusing all attention on the brightly lit center stage. Senator Mel Ziller beamed and put his arm around the candidate’s shoulder, who looked more like a youngster standing beside him than someone who just might become the most powerful man in the world, the hope of a generation.

Smiling broadly, Ziller waited for the noise to subside.

“Like some of you, I keep asking myself which leader running today has the vision, the willpower, and yes, the backbone to protect my family. Without too much doubt, there is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future, and that man’s name is Joseph King.”

The crowd went wild. The speaker raised his hand and the commotion died down.

“Now, the terrorists would kill us if they could. To quash that threat, Joseph King has told Americans that their private plans and private lives must be repealed by an overriding public danger.”

The audience leapt to their feet.

“King! King! King! King!”

The candidate waved to the delegates with a sheepish smile.