Free Capitol Punishment (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 3) by Ryne Douglas Pearson Page B

institutionalized bias. Then worse. That road had been traveled. No more. Never again, especially by his people.
    “Anne, you are a good person,” Levin said. “Maybe I can ask Ellis to find you a spot in the Cabinet. They could use people like you.”
    Anne chuckled at the complimentary suggestion. Levin was a major fund-raiser for the Democrats, and had an ear in the White House in the form of Chief of Staff Ellis Gonzales. Levin’s son had been a college classmate of his, and the bond stretched from family to family.
    “I’m flying out for a meeting with him on Friday,” Levin said wryly. “Anne Preston in the White House. Heh?”
    “You have pull with both big guys, huh, Rabbi?” Anne asked, laughing.
    “Occasionally.”
    “Well, I’ll stick to doctoring, if you don’t mind.”
    “Of course. How could we get along without you.” Levin thought seriously for a moment. “Especially people like Mr. Griggs. I hope you can help fix what has happened to that family.”
    “Me, too, Rabbi,” Anne said, knowing there was a starting point in any project. This one would be the father.
    *  *  *
    The son, however, had a very different concept of healing. Healing now held the converse of its dictionary meaning for Moises Griggs. Vengeance, strangely, carried the same definition.
    There had been another presentation that night by someone purveying knowledge to an assembled group, though this one was much smaller in number than that attended by the elder Griggs. Twelve, including Moises, had come to this place to receive the offering, to receive the motivation. In church it would be called the gospel. Here, as told by Darian Brown, leader of the New Africa Liberation Front, it was a clarion call to battle.
    The home of the NALF was a converted liquor store that had been looted to the rafters in the uprising of ‘92, and which the former Korean owners had decided to sell off so as not to have to return to a neighborhood they saw as rejecting them. And that it had, Darian Brown professed, and rightly so. Expulsion was a hallmark of the NALF doctrine, as was compensation to the sons and daughters of slaves. Compensation in the form of land, namely that of the slave states at the time of the Civil War. It was simple in Darian Brown’s mind. You move out the white people, and move in the black. Instant nation building. New Africa in this case. A homeland for the blacks robbed of their ancestral roots across an ocean. Returning to a continent ravaged by white colonialism was not an option. A piece of this pie—America—was the minimum payment acceptable on a bill long overdue.
    And that message held appeal for a number that, though small, was growing. Darian Brown knew it would grow to a large movement in time of its own accord, but that would allow time for the white man to chisel away at the hard edge of their determination. Softening them. Convincing many that peaceful measures would work. No. No longer. Darian Brown, a thirty-five-year-old product of the Los Angeles ghettos who had tested the bounds of the white man’s law, knew that time was their enemy. “Now” was their friend. This movement needed a spark to ignite it into a blaze that nothing could stop. And it needed members, committed individuals, to make that happen.
    But there were different types to serve the movement. There were workers, and there were soldiers. Darian needed soldiers now more than anything. The workers could lead boycotts, and harass businesses. The soldiers would serve a more vital role. One with risk, but one that would reap great benefits for the movement.
    In any group he spoke to Darian always tried to pick who fit into which class. This night had been no different, except for the fact that he saw a potential soldier in the group. Young. Clean. Not one of the foolish gangsta types who stupidly thought the NALF was an avenue to legitimize their self-destructive behavior. And this one had an intensity to his face, as if the muscles