Any Day Now by Terry Bisson (The Overlook Press 2012)

"Something's coming," said Annie.

It was Rimshot's pink Caddy, slipping and sliding through the light new snow, with a smiling Dane at the wheel.

It was Merry, with a New York Times.

It was spring in the south of the planet. Robben Island, South Africa's Devil's Island, had been attacked at dawn by masked commandos in speedboats: three sleek twenty-seven foot "cigarettes," approaching from both the north and west. Whispering in French and shouting in Russian, the commandos had overpowered the guards and loaded all the prisoners onto a waiting submarine while two Tupolev Badgers circled at a thousand meters, providing unnecessary air cover.

One Boer and one Coloured guard played hero. Both were killed in the ensuing gun battle on the stony west beach; one Cuban "adviser" and two Congolese commandos were wounded, and one speedboat was disabled. When it was IDed as a Baikal the South African government had issued a formal complaint to the United Nations, backed by Israel and the US.

Meanwhile Nelson Mandela and several of his comrades were welcomed in Kinshasa by the Congolese president, Patrice Lumumba.

"There's your new world, said Lowell. "The Russians are Bolsheviks again. Since the coup."

"Of course they deny they are even involved," said Merry.

"Of course," said Lowell. "Everyone always denies they are involved in everything."

"You both oughta know," said Dove, glaring down at Lowell and Merry.

Three to Kill by Jean-Patrick Manchette (City Lights Books 1976)

There is no way of saying how things will turn out for Georges Gerfaut. In a general way, you can see how things will work out for him, but not in detail. In a general way, the relations of production that contain the reason why Georges is racing along the ring road with diminished reflexes, playing the particular music he is playing, will be destroyed. Perhaps Georges will then show something other than the patience and servility that he has always shown up to now. It is not likely. Once, in a dubious context, he lived through an exciting and bloody adventure; after which, all he could think of to do was to return to the fold. And now, in the fold, he waits. If at this moment, without leaving the fold, Georges is racing around Paris at 145 kilometres per hour, this proves nothing beyond the fact that Georges is of his time. And of his space.

Return of the Secaucus 7 (1979)

Blame it on Fidel! (2006)

The Big Fix by Roger L. Simon (Warner Books 1973)

"Mr. Seymour Bittleman - you should pardon the expression - has made a ridiculous misinterpretation of history," she told the boys as they climbed onto her lap. "After seventy years of struggle, he now announces that Kautsky was correct at the Second International . . . Vey es Mir! . . . Don't you remember what Trotsky wrote in 'A Letter to Party Meetings,' that the Kautskian line leads to nothing but revisionism and Social Democracy?!"
"The rabbi of Kotzk said: Everything in the world can be imitated except truth. For truth that is imitated is no longer truth." Bittelman grinned and stabbed a piece of coldfish with his fork.
"Now what the hell does that mean?" She tugged at her babushka and made a face somewhere between Ethel Merman and La Pasionaria.
"The rabbi of Ger said: I often hear men say they want to throw up the world. But I ask you, is the world yours to throw up?"
"Shut up, Bittleman. I don't want you polluting these children's minds with your cheap religious talk. Next thing you know you'll be putting on a prayer shawl and quoting Hillel."
She turned away from him with a wave and I opened the lunch in front of us. Bittelman snickered and tucked a tiny napkin into his white shirt already stained with fish oil.