The Natural Order of Human Events

© 2011 by Vincenzo Spiaggi. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 07/21/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3985-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-3984-2 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011913004

Printed in the United States of America

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

For all my mentors

Contents

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Epilogue

That that is, is;

That that is not, is not.

Subchapters denoted by a triple asterisk (* * *) signifies a continuation of the ongoing Time line.

Subchapters denoted by a single asterisk (*) signifies a flashback sequence of events.

Prologue

December 30, 2008

It was still quite dark at six o’clock in the morning; the only light illuminating the rain-soaked street was from a lamp post a half a block away.

The young man’s pace quickened as he turned the corner, the blowing wind pummeling him with cold rain, sleet, and airborne grit. He leaned into the tempest, tightened his jaw, held his woolen hat on his head with his left hand to keep it from blowing off, and began to run with great effort toward his destination: The Hussein Ibn Malafi mosque, the spiritual and political hub of a particular Muslim neighborhood in London, England.

Zulaqi Hazerai had been up since three o’clock—which had become normal behavior for him of late—with what his doctor called intestinal/psychological stress syndrome, an ailment brought on by the eighteen-year-old’s worrisome concerns over the fate of his half-brother and mentor, Laqish, who had disappeared somewhere in America three weeks earlier. He also grieved for his other half-brother, Muhammad, who had been brutally murdered in America two weeks before Laqish went missing.

Zulaqi had not slept for more than three hours a night since he’d learned of Muhammad’s murder and Laqish’s subsequent disappearance, and the sleep deprivation—along with the stressful innards that kept him from eating regularly and digesting his food easily—had taken a toll on his physical constitution, leaving him weak, a little disoriented, and high-strung. Indeed, the little sleep he did get each night was fitful and broken by recurring, frightening nightmares of being left alone in the world. Ever since he was a small child, his oft-occurring, and sometimes-violent, dreams had had a tendency toward the frighteningly bizarre.

Before his brother Laqish had left for America, he assured Zulaqi that he would send for him as soon as he could, as soon as he established himself as the new imam at the Ibn Asir Meshqiri mosque in Boulder, Colorado. You are a mature eighteen-year-old, Zulaqi, Laqish had said, trying to bolster the boy’s self-esteem, for he knew that Zulaqi was not nearly as mature as he should have been at that age. I am sure you can take care of yourself until I summon you to join our struggle in America. It won’t be but a few weeks, I assure you. Now, remember this: Trust no one, and never leave the apartment unarmed, just like I taught you.

Laqish had ostensibly gone to America to avenge the murder of his twin brother, Muhammad, and also to take control of Muhammad’s mosque in Colorado and turn it into a magnet for holy jihad in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States, just as he had done with the mosque in London. He told Zulaqi that he was counting on him to be at his side in America in the fight against the many infidels of the West.

Zulaqi, of course, was excited to be going to America, if only to utilize his skills against the Great Satan and other enemies of Islam, skills he’d honed sharp since he was a young boy—he was a master bomb maker and a knife-wielding assassin.

Yet, as bloodthirsty as Zulaqi was, he had been rendered ineffectual as a jihadist operative because of his present, weakened physical condition. He just hoped that his physical and emotional afflictions would not be permanent, because he needed to be strong for his brother… that is, whenever he would be summoned to join him. He hoped it would be sooner than later.

It was on December 9, just a few days after Laqish had gone to America, that Zulaqi was notified his brother was missing; he was told the disturbing news just two weeks after he’d learned about the death of Muhammad. That evening, he began losing sleep in earnest… the next afternoon he began losing his lunch with regularity.

*

Zulaqi’s father, Abdul, had left Yemen just before Operation Desert Storm in 1990; with him was his very pregnant teenage wife, Zorana, an Iraqi. Within two weeks after they arrived in London, she gave birth to the young jihadist-to-be, Zulaqi. Abdul’s first wife, the mother of the forty-year-old twins, Laqish and Muhammad, had died three years earlier in 1987, a victim of a Sharia law that allowed Abdul to beat her to death because she was seen in public talking to a man who was not a member of Abdul’s family.

Then, in the spring of 2003, Abdul and Zorana, while traveling in Iraq near Baghdad, were killed in the crossfire of a skirmish between an American army platoon and a gang of Saddam Hussein’s thugs during the early stages of the Allied Forces’ invasion. Zulaqi, who had been staying in London with Laqish at the time, was emotionally devastated by the news of the death of his parents.

Laqish, who had been educating Zulaqi in the ways of jihad since he was eight, now became the boy’s true father figure. Muhammad, Laqish’s twin brother, had spent most of Zulaqi’s growing-up years in the Middle East, teaching his own brand of glorious, jihadist-style martyrdom to Palestinian youth.

Between 2003 and 2008, Laqish taught his younger brother everything he needed to know about the art of killing infidels—including the killing of unenlightened, not-yet-jihadified Muslims—especially using explosives and sharp objects. Zulaqi was an excellent student and a proficient assassin, and well on his way to becoming psychopathically insane.

Under the tutelage of Laqish, Zulaqi played a major role in several terrorist actions in London—including the subway bombings of July 7, 2005—and he brought to a bloody end the lives of several so-called moderate Muslims who had plotted against Laqish and his small, but influential, band of renegade jihadists at their local mosque.

Early in 2008, Muhammad moved to Boulder, Colorado, to become the new imam at the Ibn Asir Meshqiri mosque. And, while Zulaqi also revered Muhammad, it was Laqish who was Zulaqi’s every-day mentor and sole director of his future.

If anything ever happens to me, Laqish had said moments before leaving for America, you will be able to stand alone against the world because of me having taught you all your important survival skills. I am sure of it. Praise be to Allah.

But Zulaqi had never even thought about being an orphan… ever… and the fact that Laqish even brought up the subject of his possible demise was a shock to the boy’s psyche. He always considered himself to be a good soldier for Allah, but he never thought of himself as being a lone wolf, or even as being the leader of a pack of wolves. He thought Laqish would always be there for him, guiding him along the right and righteous path. The thought of being alone in the world, without his brother’s guidance, did not appeal to him one bit. He liked taking orders; he liked following a plan of action; he did not like being put in a position where he would be forced to be intellectually creative and innovative.

When Zulaqi’s mother and father died, he was mortified. When he learned about Muhammad’s gruesome death, he was stunned and did not speak for two days, such was the depth of his grief. And now, with Laqish missing, and the specter of never seeing his brother again weighing heavily on his mind, Zulaqi was bracing for yet another major emotional trauma, and he did not know if he could psychologically deal with the reality of Laqish’s death, should it come to pass. Ergo, the sleepless nights and the stomach problems.

*     *     *

A strong gust of wind hit him broadside as he approached the mosque, knocking him off his feet, landing him in a puddle of cold, dirty water. Too exhausted to curse the weather, he picked himself halfway up and crawled to the front door of the mosque on his hands and knees, gaining refuge in the covered alcove outside the front door.

Zulaqi was in charge of opening the mosque every day for early morning prayers, which normally began at about half past six. It usually took him no more than ten minutes to turn on all the lights and turn up the heat. Fifteen minutes after the furnace would click on, the overnight chill would mercifully be out of the building’s jasmine-scented air. He would also go down to the sub-basement to make sure everything was ready for the day’s bomb-making activities, and he would smile at the increasing size of the deadly arsenal.

Soaking wet in the relative protection of the front door’s alcove, he stood, reached into his jacket pocket, took out his key and, still in the dark, found the door knob with his cold fingers, inserting the key into the keyhole. He opened the door and reached inside to flip the switch that turned on one of the foyer lights; then he flipped the switch for the outside light, illuminating the area just outside the front door. But before he closed the door, he checked the lighted alcove outside, just as he did every morning; a precautionary habit taught to him by his brother Laqish.

That’s when he noticed something strange.

Just outside the entrance were three medium-sized packages that Zulaqi had not seen in the darkness before he’d unlocked and opened the door. He brought the packages inside and turned on another light in the foyer, then he closed the front door behind him. Each package measured three feet by two feet by a foot and a half. He checked the top of each package and noticed that the FROM address labels appeared to be some address in Boulder, Colorado, USA (although he could barely read them because they were wet and beginning to shrivel). And, knowing that Laqish was supposed to have been going to that particular American city, he smiled, thinking that his older brother had sent him some sort of gift. However, he did not notice that the TO address labels had been peeled off.

Zulaqi reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pocket knife; then he proceeded to open one of the boxes. Careful to not imbed the knife’s blade too far into the package, he gingerly cut the packing tape with the precision of a surgeon and then folded back the flaps of corrugated cardboard. He parted the thin layer of loose Styrofoam peanuts until he exposed the important contents inside: a dark green piece of travel luggage with a label that read, in Arabic, Faisal Amir Amsilani.

Confused, Zulaqi did not understand why the baggage of one of Laqish’s bodyguards would be returned to the mosque in a cardboard box. He quickly opened the second box with the same results: a similar piece of luggage, this one was dark red, with the name Marwan Abdullah Marwani, another of Laqish’s bodyguards, on the label. The third box revealed Laqish’s dark blue luggage, also with his name on the label.

With the three pieces of luggage placed next to each other on the floor of the mosque’s foyer, Zulaqi, still puzzled by the packages, opened the zipper of the green piece of luggage.

If he’d had any food in his stomach, he would have thrown it up all over the box’s contents. Inside was the severed head of Faisal Amir Amsilani, which was sealed in shrink-wrapped clear plastic. He knew whose head it was because of the deep scar on the forehead. The head also had a bullet hole right between its eyes.

Zulaqi retched, then he retched again, but the only thing he sensed was the foul smell and taste of bile filling his nose and mouth. Then, with his senses going wild, he zipped open the red suitcase, only to see the severed head of Marwan Abdullah Marwani; it, too, was encased in clear plastic. He knew whose head it was because of the missing left ear; Marwani’s head also had a bullet hole right between its eyes.

Zulaqi, now with the tingle of shock slowly consuming his entire being, frantically opened the blue piece of luggage; and there, in another sealed, clear-plastic casing, was the head of his half-brother, Laqish. Even with two bullet holes where Laqish’s large nose used to be, he easily recognized his brother’s face.

Zulaqi had opened the packages before he’d turned on the mosque’s furnace and auditorium lights, and, as he fainted and collapsed into a state of unconsciousness and denial, he chided himself for not doing his assigned tasks properly. On his way down to the floor, the front of his already-unconscious head struck the pointed corner molding that protruded about four inches from the wall, and about six inches above the floor. Once he hit the floor, his already large nose broke as it crashed against the shiny marble tile.

Moments later, the mosque’s front door opened and in walked several Muslim worshipers; they were aghast when they saw the blood that was smeared on Zulaqi’s face and head, and oozing from a gash over his left eye and from his now-crooked, already-swelling, nose. Within an hour, the entire neighborhood was abuzz with the news of the events at the mosque.

*     *     *

Four days later, Xerxes Malouffi, a thirtysomething, non-religious Englishman of Persian ancestry, and co-owner of Malouffi’s Pizza and Malouffi’s II—two pizza parlors at opposite ends of the same London Muslim neighborhood that was home to the Hussein Ibn Malafi mosque—had just returned home from a New Year’s Eve ski holiday in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. It was a spur-of-the-moment mini-vacation; he’d left for Italy before dawn on December 30, skied for three days, and returned to the sterling realm on January 3.

He landed at Heathrow International Airport at nine in the morning and drove directly to his apartment to drop off his luggage. Then he headed over to Malouffi’s II, entered the kitchen through the back door, put on his apron and began doing pizza-prep-type things with dough and peppers and cheese and garlic. Making pizza was his passion; indeed, while skiing in Italy, his mind was on making pizza; and, while he’d had an enjoyable time vacationing, he just couldn’t wait to get home. The world’s most-perfect food—he truly believed that his pizza was the best on the planet, and that included the strange-looking concoctions the Italians called pizza—was calling to him across the wide expanse of southern Europe, a call that was just too spiritual to be neglected for too much longer.

About five minutes after he arrived, his father, Nabil, came into the kitchen; when he saw Xerxes, he smiled and gave his son a hug. Good to see that you’ve come back without any broken bones, my son. How was your vacation?

Father, it was wonderful. But I was very lucky to get out of Heathrow on the morning I left. Terrible storm. But we eventually made it out without too much of a delay. And I met some very nice Italian women on the slopes.

Really? His father was anxious for Xerxes, his only child, to get married and give him some grandchildren. Any likely candidates for marriage?

(One of the reasons Xerxes had gone to Italy was to find an Italian wife . . . or, at least, to survey the field to see if any good Italian female chefs would entertain the idea of returning to England with him to make pizza and babies.)

"Not really, father; although some of the lady chefs I met did asked me to move to Italy to cook with them at their restaurants. I told them that I’d think about it. Not that I really would consider it, of course… but it was, at least, a way to get into their beds. Anyway, what’s the news of the neighborhood? Anything exciting happen while I was gone?"

"Anything exciting happen? his father said as he opened a large can of crushed tomatoes and began preparing a batch of pizza sauce. The word exciting would be an understatement, I think."

Oh, really? Please tell me about it.

Well, we finally learned about the fate of Laqish Hazerai and his two goons, Faisal and Marwan.

Fate? You don’t mean… ?

Yes. Yes, I do. Nabil picked up a knife and moved his right hand across his throat in a graphic gesture that clearly illustrated to Xerxes that their heads had been lopped off.

Xerxes stopped kneading a piece of dough and looked at his father. And how do you know this, father?

Because, on the morning you left for your vacation, Laqish’s younger brother, Zulaqi, found several packages that were left outside the front door of the mosque. Inside those boxes were the heads of Laqish and his henchmen. They were shrink-wrapped in plastic and then stuffed into their luggage, which had been packed inside three separate boxes. An absolutely ghastly sight, from what I’ve been told.

(On December 29, Jack Davidson, the chief of World Interconnect, or WI-7, a New York-based organization that monitors and hunts down some of the world’s worst terrorists, collected the packages at a post office in London while he was on a stopover between flights from Israel to New York. He then took the packages to Xerxes, one of his undercover operatives; Xerxes then placed the packages at the front door of the mosque later that evening. After arriving home a short time later, Xerxes decided to leave town for a few days. Italy would be nice, he’d decided.)

Goodness gracious! Xerxes, of course, did not tell his father that he was the one who had placed the packages at the mosque. He, however, had no idea concerning their contents; as far as he knew, he was just doing his good friend, Jack, a favor. Indeed, he hadn’t even posed the question to Jack as to the contents of the boxes. But, knowing Jack Davidson and his worldwide web of business partners, he was not surprised when his father told him what the contents of the packages were. And how did Zulaqi handle the gruesome discovery? Xerxes asked.

Well, he’s in the hospital… in a coma, with a pretty bad gash above his left eye. I guess he’d been in poor health of late; you know, what with the death of Muhammad and the disappearance of Laqish. The boy had been emotionally strung out for weeks. And now, with Laqish’s death… well, I imagine he just lost his emotional composure, to put it mildly. I mean, you know how he worshipped Laqish. Anyway, he’s all alone, now. No parents, no siblings. An orphan. An orphan in a coma, no less.

How did he get the gash on his head?

He must have hit his head when he passed out. I understand there was blood on a rather sharp piece of molding just above the floor. Broke his nose, too. Must have happened when his face hit the marble floor.

Ooh. That must’ve hurt. I mean, his nose is big enough as it is.

Quite right. He took after his mother; she had a big nose, too.

Does anybody have any ideas as to how long he’ll be in the coma?

No. Last I heard, his vital signs were stable; but he remains unconscious and unresponsive to outside stimuli.

"Well, at least he’s off the street. And we’re certainly all a little safer with him under wraps. I mean, the kid is a certifiable lunatic."

You got that right. Runs in the family, I guess, what with both of his brothers and father and mother having been psychopaths, too. Religious ones, at that.

Yeah. And they’re the worst kind.

*     *     *

Late that evening, Xerxes placed a call to his friend Paul Davidson in Wyoming. Paul, Jack Davidson’s son, was the special projects reporter for The Sheridan County Sunrise, an award-winning weekly newspaper in the north-central Wyoming village of Story. Paul had played an important role in the process that led to the disappearance of Laqish Hazerai and his goons in Colorado a few weeks earlier.

Happy New Year, my good friend, Xerxes said into the phone as he stood in a phone booth in Piccadilly Circus.

And the same to you, my Persian ally, said Paul. "How’s the pizza business doing on the eastern shore of the great pond?"

It’s doing famously; thanks for asking. However, I do have some juicy news for you.

Does it have anything to do with Laqish? I mean, why else would you be calling me… other than to wish me a Happy New Year, of course?

Well, it only concerns Laqish indirectly. Now, I’m sure that you know by this time that Laqish and his two henchmen are dead… While Xerxes did not know all the particulars concerning the deaths of the three Islamic jihadists, he figured that Paul had had a hand in it somehow.

Uh… that would be correct.

 . . . But did you know that their heads were mailed back here and delivered to Laqish’s mosque in London?

No, I did not. But I’m not surprised. Paul knew of the decapitations, but he was unaware of the return of the heads to the mosque in London. I’m just glad that Laqish is a problem we won’t have to deal with any longer.

Actually… that’s why I’m calling you.

Why? Do you think his ghost will rise up and keep causing us problems? Paul asked, facetiously.

No, not his ghost. His younger half-brother, Zulaqi.

Paul lost his breath for a moment, then he said, "Half-brother? I had no idea he had any other living relatives."

Yes. Zulaqi is Laqish’s only remaining immediate-family relative, and he’s the one who found the heads that had been left in the shipping boxes in front of the mosque.

Damn! Do you think he’ll pose a problem to us in the future? I know how revengeful these people can be. They’ve got memories like elephants. It runs in their blood.

"Well, he won’t be a problem in the near future. Zulaqi is in a coma at the Kensington Circle Hospital in London. It was brought on partially by emotional stress, I would imagine; I mean, he was the one who found the heads, and all. But, if he ever comes out of the coma, and if he’s able to recuperate fully, well, then I’d say… perhaps. Apparently, he’s also got a really bad cut over his left eye and a broken nose. They say he sustained those injuries inside the mosque when he fainted as he went into shock after discovering the heads. I guess he cut his head on the molding around the base of a wall, and broke his already big nose on the marble floor in the mosque’s foyer."

Sounds ghastly. How old is the kid?

Eighteen. I just found out about the Zulaqi-in-the-coma situation today, and I haven’t had the chance to tell your father about him yet.

No problem. I’ll let him know. So, how dangerous is the boy?

"Well, let’s just say that Laqish was his teacher; that ought to give you an idea as to how dangerous he could be. Zulaqi used to come into my pizza place with Laqish, so I know all about him. He’s a bomb maker and he likes to cut people up. The word psychopath comes to my mind. Yes… I think that would be an appropriate one-word description. However, if you want me to describe Zulaqi with another word, it would be… lunatic."

*     *     *

Paul reflected for a long moment after his conversation with Xerxes had ended; he knew who he had to call.

(Levi Ashkelon—a senior football player at the University of Wyoming, who had just completed his senior season by being named to the Mountain West Conference’s second team all-stars as a linebacker—was an Israeli; he was preparing to return to Israel as a member of the spy organization, Mossad, upon his graduation in June. He was a perfect candidate for Israel’s covert spy group. Indeed, it was Levi who had assassinated Muhammad Hazerai, Laqish’s twin brother, just before Thanksgiving, and it was Levi who had performed the decapitations of Laqish, Faisal and Marwan in an indoor parking lot at the Denver International Airport on the evening of December 7. Accompanying him at the Denver airport was his aunt, Greta Vogelein, the deputy director of WI-7’s regional office in Denver. However, they did not actually kill the jihadist trio. That service was performed by Sharfiq Zebdahni, a moderate Muslim and a member of the Ibn Asir Meshqiri mosque in Boulder, Colorado; Zebdahni shot the men and stuffed their bodies behind a dumpster as Levi and his Aunt Greta watched from afar. Levi performed his surgical work on the already dead bodies after Zebdahni had left the scene.)

Levi, it’s Paul, he said into the phone.

Hi, Paul. How was the trip to Arizona? First anniversary, right?

Paul and his wife, Farrah, had recently returned from a short vacation to southern Arizona to celebrate their first wedding anniversary on New Year’s Eve at the home of their good friend, Johnny Skull.

Yeah. We had a wonderful time. So, how’s your life going?

Oh, I still have eight days before my classes begin again, so I’m just semi-vegging out a little. I’m working out a lot, eating pizza… you know, normal stuff. Jenny will be moving up from Oklahoma in about a week. I’ve got a lead on a few small houses for her to choose from. She said she wants to live in a house of her own, rather than in an on-campus dorm.

(Levi met Jenny Jessup over the previous Thanksgiving holiday; she was transferring from Oklahoma State University to enroll at UW in Laramie for the upcoming spring term. Majoring in criminal justice, she had three semesters to go before graduating in May 2010. Levi was hoping for a romance to sprout between them. Jenny’s twin sister, Saundra, who had just earned a master’s degree in journalism from OSU, was about to begin work at The Sheridan County Sunrise in Story, Wyoming.)

Sounds good. Anyway, Levi, I’ve just learned some interesting news.

Don’t tell me that Laqish has come back to life?

No, but he’s got a younger half-brother. His name is Zulaqi, and, from what I understand, he’s a bit of a nut case, too.

Really? Man, will we ever be rid of these psychopaths?

"Yeah. I hear ya. Now, might I assume that it was you who shrink-wrapped the heads and sent them off to England?"

Of course it was me. I sent them to a post office in London; your father collected them, then he had the Persian deliver them to the mosque.

"Really? That’s strange. I just got off the phone with Xerxes—he didn’t mention anything about him bringing the heads to the mosque. And he certainly didn’t mention anything about you sending the heads to my father… In England, no less."

Well, I’m sure they didn’t mention it to you for a good reason, whatever that may be. Maybe they just wanted to see how the whole thing played out first before telling anyone about it. When I sent the heads, I had no idea what your father was planning to do with them.

Yeah, maybe you’re right. Or maybe events just unfolded too quickly and they didn’t have time to clue me in, what with my father just coming back from Israel and me being on a mini-vacation, and all. Jack Davidson had just spent several months in Israel, assisting the Israeli Defense Forces ramp up for war in Gaza.

Could be. Anyway, I’ll let Aunt Greta know about Laqish’s half-brother. I’ll also let my father know; I’m sure he’ll inform the Mossad and the IDF. Levi’s father was Tuvia Ashkelon, a high-ranking officer in the Israeli Defense Forces. I’ll leave it up to you to tell your father about Zulaqi.

Okay. But I’m sure that if he decides to take any action, you’ll be getting a call from him sooner than later.

*     *     *

At three o’clock in the afternoon, Levi Ashkelon entered through the side door of the Kensington Circle Hospital in London, and walked toward the nurses station. Two days earlier, Jack Davidson had called him, requesting his presence at the hospital with the express purpose of eliminating the comatose Zulaqi Hazerai before he came out of his coma. Jack was acting under the suggestion of Tuvia Ashkelon, who knew that his son, Levi, was perfect for the job. Their justification was that Zulaqi would certainly seek revenge against his brothers’ killers when he would eventually awaken from the coma.

Levi still had several days remaining before the Christmas break was to end—before classes were to begin, and before Jenny was scheduled to show up in Laramie—so he figured he’d do the job and make it back to Wyoming with time to spare.

He passed the nurses station without stopping and headed toward the stairs. At the top of the stairs he turned right and walked toward Room 206 of the Intensive Care Ward. Just before he reached the room, he smiled as he fingered the stiletto switch-blade knife that was hidden in his jacket’s inside pocket.

He opened the door and was dismayed to see that one of the beds was empty. In the occupied bed was an old man; he was unconscious and had what appeared to be a hundred tubes and wires protruding from his body. On a table next to the man was a bank of medical monitors.

Levi looked back at the empty bed and thought to himself, Damn! I wonder if they moved him to some other room. Or maybe he died overnight. Or maybe he woke up from his coma and went home. Or maybe I got the wrong room number and he’s someplace else in the hospital.

Levi walked out of the room and headed down the stairs toward the nurses station. He was an imposing figure at six foot five, and the nurse behind the counter had to strain her neck to look up at him as he towered over her.

Can I help you, sir? she asked, smiling at his good looks.

Yes. You had a patient in Room 206, a young man named Zulaqi Hazerai. He was in a coma.

Oh, yes. He left early this morning.

A disappointed Levi said, "Left? You mean he woke up from his coma?"

Oh, no. At least I don’t think so. They just came and took him.

"They took him? Who took him, and do you know where they went?"

It was a bunch of Arab guys. They said they were taking him out of the country for treatment and observation until he came out of the coma.

Damn! Did they say to what country they were going to take him?

Sorry. I don’t know that. I was here at the time and all I saw was a bunch of rag heads wheeling him out of the elevator on a gurney, along with a bunch of medical equipment and hanging bottles of intravenous solutions. They were mean-looking guys and there wasn’t anyone in the hospital with big enough balls to stop them. They were in and out of here in a matter of minutes. To tell you the truth, I’m glad he’s gone. All those weird visitors over the past few days made me nervous. They stunk up the place, too. The place smelled like a barnyard for a couple of hours. Goats, I think.

Just then, Levi’s cell phone rang. Hello, he said as he backed away from the nurse and turned his back to her.

Levi, it’s Xerxes. Are you at the hospital?

Yeah. And guess what… ?

I know. I just learned that Zulaqi was spirited out of the hospital early this morning.

When did you find out?

Just moments ago; I overheard several people talking about it in my pizza place. I guess he’s still in a coma, though.

Well, do you know where he is now?

At this very moment, the word is that he’s on a private jet… on his way to Yemen.

Yemen?!

Yes. And you know what that means?

Yeah, it means that getting to him will be harder than it would be if he was going to the moon.

1

April 19, 2010

The telephone’s tone sounded at a quarter after three in the afternoon, it’s mild whimper of a B-flat note gently waking him from his power nap as he lounged on the plush couch in his east-side penthouse office in New York City, just two blocks from the United Nations. He had gotten into the habit of taking a fifteen-minute nap every afternoon at three o’clock, and he always woke up refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready to tackle the next half of the day.

Jack Davidson—the chief of World Interconnect, or WI-7, a secret, international terrorist-tracking organization—opened his eyes at the call to duty. The first thing he saw as he stood and looked out the window was the UN monolith, the building he oftentimes referred to as The Tower of Babble.

As he picked up the phone, he remembered that his executive secretary had had an appointment at the dentist that afternoon, thereby forcing him to answer the phone by himself. He was just glad that he’d had his nap. Hello.

Hello, Jack? Levi, here.

Levi, where are you?

I’m in Tel Aviv. Anyway, have you heard the breaking news? It just happened within the last two minutes or so.

No, I haven’t. I’ve been… indisposed.

Well, we did it… that is, thanks to our lobbyist friends within the French and British governments.

Levi, what are you talking about?

It’s Paarsalu. Mikki Paarsalu. They’ve chosen him as the new Secretary General of the U.N. Finally, we have one of our own in a position to do the right thing with that piece-of-crap organization.

*

A month earlier, Choon Yool Pak just happened to be watching television in his office at the main headquarters building of the United Nations as it broadcast a story of a homicide bombing in Jerusalem.

Anaqi Annie Jalaoui, the Syrian-born, self-educated CNN reporter, and her one-man camera crew, had been on the scene when the explosion occurred. She had been warned beforehand as to where and when the carnage would take place, but she was unable… or unwilling… to warn anyone else. It had been a slow news week and she was hungry for a story, and warning the people at the restaurant, the Israeli authorities, and other news organizations, would have quashed her scoop.

In the television broadcast, the tall, dark-haired woman reporter was seen standing across the street from the blast; smoke, dust and the odor of explosives still filled the air, ambulance sirens blared, rescuers scurried behind her as she faced the camera and spoke in her signature, deep-throated, faux-British accent, her mannish facial features portraying a forced sense of urgency and compassion. About a hundred people were estimated to have been inside and outside the café when the blast went off just moments ago, and it appears that most all of them are either dead, dying, or badly injured. We probably won’t know the total number of those killed for a while yet.

Then, when Jalaoui placed her left hand on the listening device in her left ear as if she were receiving some important news, a look of mortified surprise came over her face. "I am now receiving some disturbing information . . . It seems that a Hamas spokesman has just notified the Israeli authorities that the main target of the suicide attack was the immediate family of Choon Yool Pak, the South Korean Secretary General of the United Nations; apparently, they’d been on holiday in Jerusalem. The attack, the spokesman said, was a reprisal against Secretary Pak’s recent U.N. speech in which he pointed to Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Palestinian Authority as the main source of the most recent unrest in the Middle East. Apparently, a suicide bomber stood next to the Secretary General’s family as they ate their dinner at a sidewalk table in front of the café; they were at ground zero of the blast . . ."

While the reporter appeared to show complete surprise at the identification of the Secretary General’s family, she did not show any remorse for keeping secret her previous knowledge of the impending attack from the general public or the Israeli authorities.

However, the CNN cameraman, unbeknownst to anyone else, actually had the camera running and focused on the front of the café for a full two minutes before the blast occurred. In the video, two men could be seen walking up to the Secretary General’s family—one wore a typical Arab headdress, one did not. Then, ten seconds before the explosion, the bare-headed man quickly walked away from the scene while the other man remained at the table with the Koreans; he had an explosive device strapped to his chest under his jacket.

But the pre-blast segment of the video showing the two Arab men and the actual explosion was not transmitted by the cameraman to CNN’s headquarters to be played for the television audience—nor would it ever be played for the television audience—lest the CNN cameraman implicate himself in suppressing the information of the impending carnage.

It was at that moment in time—about thirty seconds after the stunned U.N. Secretary General learned of the deaths of his wife, children, mother and sister—that he turned his shocked gaze from the television screen and unhesitatingly reached into a desk drawer, grabbed a gun from a hidden compartment, placed it into his mouth, pulled the trigger and blew out the back of his head, such was his feeling of deep despair. As he felt the bullet tearing out top of his spine, he thought to himself, I never wanted this thankless job, anyway. It was his last conscious thought before entering the realm of eternal darkness.

*

After the seemingly never-ending eulogies and tributes for Secretary General Pak at the United Nations, and after the seemingly never-ending and irrational tirades against Israel for being the site of the murderous event of March 19—to the point of insinuating that Israel was the culprit behind the assassination of Pak’s family, mainly because of its stubborn desire for continued existence in a hostile region of the world—the debate over Pak’s successor narrowed down to two candidates: the Spanish ambassador to the United Nations, Felipe Alvarez Casablanca, and the Estonian ambassador to the U.N., Mikki Paarsalu.

The Spaniard had the