‘Like something out of an early American gangster film,’ thought Mannie.   He half expected to see Cagney and Edward G. Robinson drive up from opposite ends of the street, point Tommy guns at each other and drawl, “You dirty rat!”

Lost in rapture, Mannie strolled down the near empty streets, losing all track of time.   Then at 8:22 he was forced to risk drawing attention to himself by racing madly through the streets in a bid to return to the beer hall in time for his date with destiny.

*      *      *

As a consequence of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by Hanz Juchster, President Kennedy was not assassinated on November 22, 1963.   In early 1964 Kennedy passed a bill through parliament, outlawing the CIA.   As a consequence the Watergate Affair did not occur and the Ayatollah Khomeini failed to take control of Iran in the late 1970s.

In 1965 Kennedy won office again, but was forced to stand down on March 1967, after being politically destroyed by a scandal that became known as the Berkeley Affair.

In July of that year John F. Kennedy committed suicide, a ruined man!

*      *      *

As the fated time drew near, Mannie could hear the droning of a great number of engines away in the distance.

At 8:44 a cavalcade of black sedans pulled up outside the beer hall.   A small, comic figure strode confidently from the lead vehicle to the doorway, flanked by an entourage of at least a hundred armed guards.

The armed guards were a precautionary measure to protect against trouble from rival political factions.   But who in their right mind would ever suspect that there was anything to fear from the harmless-looking vagabond loitering near the doorway.

“All clear,” said one of the guards at the front of the procession and the human barricade parted ranks to allow their leader to make his grand entrance.

At the instant that his hand touched the door, Mannie Zoller stepped in front of the door, pulled his right hand out from beneath his burlap coat, and fired five shots into his target’s heart from point-blank range, with a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver.

*      *      *

The Berkeley Affair resulted from a student protest at Berkeley Campus, against American involvement in the Vietnam war.   Thousands of angry demonstrators staged a sit-in at the campus, setting up a picket line and taking over complete control of the school.

President Kennedy gave the order to break up the sit-in at all costs.

At first things moved slowly, as the police carried away the picketers one at a time, to clear the main entrance.   Then the students began to resist the police and things got out of hand.   Someone (no one could say later who) gave the order to “Shoot to kill!”

Nearly four hundred students were wounded by machine-gun fire, forty-three students were killed.

*      *      *

The five shots rang out through the beer hall and roused the police inside from their reverie.   Bursting out through the doorway, they grabbed Mannie and disarmed him only seconds before the private guards moved toward him.

“Kill him!   Kill him!   Kill him!” chanted the guards, drawing their pistols.

A shot rang out from the raised revolver of a policeman and one of the private guards died.   The others moved back and reluctantly allowed the police to escort Mannie to a black sedan, to be taken away to stand trial for murder.

It was in the early stages of the trial, that the awful truth hit Mannie: He had gone back too far!   No one knew what a great act Mannie had done!   No one knew of the fifty million lives he had saved!   No one knew of the atrocities the dead man would have committed, if Mannie had allowed him to live!

As they slipped the noose around his neck, Mannie realised, “To them I’m just a gun-crazed madman!”

So Mannie Zoller died on June 10, 1925, a little over seven months after the day that he had killed the man whom the Nazis had already started to call the Fuhrer!

THE END