Chapter Six

Louis had taken the news with a sigh, half-expecting it, relieved that his mother was going ahead with the operation rather than delay and risk further damage to her health.

The previous week had seen Larry and Louis conducting themselves with a calculated composure while meeting with a local police detective at their home, a man in his late fifties who appeared unimpressed with their insistence that they had no idea who would ship them a mail bomb, and who in turn informed them that the bomb had been exploded at a remote site and that, “…it would have demolished your front door and entry hall and your living room would have been a shambles.” The detective had been courteous at all times, puzzled also that two “such reputable men as yourselves” would have been the target for the bomb.

“And there’s nothing you’ve done that would lead you to believe you have enemies?” the detective had asked a final time on leaving that Wednesday evening, December 5^th.

“We stay out of trouble,” Louis had said, looking relaxed and dressed in casual slacks, white varsity sweater with the George Washington University emblem on it, and in white athletic shoes.

“I’m sure you do,” the detective had said. “We’ll do everything we can to track down who did this. The FBI will be contacting you tomorrow, not doubt, after we’ve done our final analysis of the debris from the bomb and faxed them the report. Just remember, anything you can recall – even the sort of incident that you would have dismissed as not suggestive that someone had it in for you, a minor complaint from an associate? some dispute with a neighbor – past or present? – anything like that could help us put it all together.”

“We’ll let you know,” Larry – dressed in navy blue designer cotton sweat pants, emerald-green sweat shirt with logo of a national sportswear company that had paid over $6,000,000 for exclusive advertising endorsements the previous year to a pro athlete recently mentioned in a steroid scandal, and soft men’s Prussian blue house shoes – had said on showing the detective out the front door.

In that neither Louis nor Larry had any concrete reasons to suspect a particular faction or person of sending the mail bomb, they had agreed that even after the FBI became involved, they would not speculate to the agents about their suspicions that Louis’s relatives and their high profile anti-war activities might somehow have been one factor that had led the bombers to plan the failed attack.

Two FBI agents - who as it turned out had once questioned Maria Sigmar (in vain in that she had refused to answer their questions about the anti-war movement and had dismissed both men as, “… not significant persons….”) while in a minimum security Federal prison for leading a group of anti-war protesters onto a Federal military site - had called Louis at home around 9 a.m. Thursday December 6 and had set up an appointment to visit with Louis and Larry at home late that afternoon around 5 p.m., “…so Larry could conclude an important assignment for the Congressman,” as Louis had phrased it. The agents had wanted both Louis and Larry to meet with them around 10 a.m.

“Why such short notice?” Louis had asked. The agents had acquiesced and expressed concern as to the couple’s safety. “We’ll be here ready to answer all your questions,” Louis had promised.

That interview had gone smoothly enough, lasting just under an hour, with Louis and Larry showing the agents the white garden seat on which the mail bomb had been delivered. Since it involved the U.S. Postal Service, it was now a Federal matter.

They had held their breaths at times wondering if the two would ask about Omar and his Arab contacts, but the subject did not arise. One of the agents, who gave the name John Gibson Haines, did ask if Louis had been involved in the anti-war movement, to which Louis had proudly answered, “Yes, and there’s not one of us who has aroused any personal enemies in our protests or other activities.” That answer appeared to have satisfied the two agents, who said that unless they could trace something in the mail bomb debris to an original source such as a store where part of the device had been purchased, “… it will be wait and see. The safety of all Americans in situations such as this is of prime importance to the F.B.I.,” Haines had concluded. “We can only theorize for now what led to this and where it could lead next. Remember, we need to apprehend and prosecute whoever did this, since other innocent individuals could be next on their list,” a parting remark that had left both Louis and Larry taking deep breaths and debating – but only until the cats had been fed and their own dinner of Swiss steak and onions was on the dining table – if they should proffer ideas about Omar and the controversy surrounding his movements between Iraq and Ann Arbor, especially his return to his homeland in 2003 when Louis had first met his father.

“You can’t keep a secret in this town,” Larry had said after the F.B.I. had left.

“You mean our suburb away from the capital?” Louis had said.

“Everyone on the street saw that bomb squad here Tuesday night,” Larry had said. “The whole town has heard of it by now, and no doubt half of my colleagues in Washington. The other half who are frantic about losing their jobs next year if a Democrat retakes the White House will hear of it soon enough when they have time to think about something other than losing their positions.”

In fact, they had been screening calls with the caller ID, had left their answering machine on, and were thankful their cell phone numbers were not known to the neighbors, in that the local newspaper had called, as had news departments of four of the major commercial networks and the local PBS affiliate, all of whom had left courteous but insistent messages that they were “very interested”… and “eager to speak” with them about the mail bomb. They had not returned any calls from reporters.

“At least the media never showed up at our front door uninvited,” Louis had said.

Wednesday had seen neighbors stopping by to ask what had happened, with husbands and wives and their college age children bringing baked cookies and pastries, saying how glad they were that Louis and Larry had not been hurt, and offering encouragement such as, “… only a crazy would do something like that…” and “Don’t let it ruin things for you. We love having you as neighbors.”

In fact, Jessica, a light-haired, tall, athletic, college junior daughter of their neighbors directly across the street – their area of town being one of brick one- and occasionally two-story homes built in the late 50’s and the 60’s with ample shade trees along the curving road, the development having once been a farm meadow, with gracefully sloping yards, with prices ranging from $550,000 to $800,000, and usually with immaculately maintained lawns and gardens – had been at home the evening the mail bomb was taken away and had been so moved at the thought of Louis being in danger (also seeing that she had developed an attraction to him in part owing to his preference of mowing the yard during the summer wearing only tight gym shorts and athletic supporter – “since the grass feels so good under my toes…” as he would tell Larry) that she had told her mother in private, “I’d like to have a child by Louis, even if he could never marry me,” to which her mother (who had not too discreetly been carrying on a decades-old affair with a man who had failed to propose to her in time when they were just out of college, Jessica’s mother instead marrying a self-confident young plant manager with family connections who it turned out preferred being alone with handsome young men out hunting in the Virginia wilds to his young wife, that revelation causing Jessica’s mother and her lover – he in turn having married a shy young woman whom he had mistakenly thought loved him, a woman who had let him know on their honeymoon that she did not love him at all, who nonetheless had refused a divorce year after year and had done anything asked of her to help with her husband’s career which had seen him becoming quite prosperous – to meet at hotels in faraway locations and when Jessica’s father was out of town, to meet at each other’s homes) had replied, “Jessica, dear heart, why not tell Louis how you feel?”

Larry had informed the Congressman, and word of the mail bomb had spread rapidly through channels Larry never could trace, so that by Wednesday afternoon the day after the parcel was found, most everyone - from Senators to junior staffers from small states who had just arrived in the capital that September - had heard of the incident and that it had happened at the home of Larry McIntire.

As Larry and Louis sat down to their Thursday dinner, Louis was beginning to wonder if his uncle Ron with the New York City bureau of the F.B.I. would become involved, Louis having told his step-father Danny over the phone on Wednesday what had happened, “…but for now, there’s no reason to tell Mom is there?”

To which Danny O’Connor had responded, “Of course I’ve got to tell her. She’d be frantic to think she’s been kept out of this when you know how much she loves you, Lou.” Being a member of the Knights of Columbus for over nineteen years and having participated in every Christmas fundraiser for the organization since age twenty-three, Danny added, “I’m going to tell the guys at the order about this. This is not supposed to happen to a son of mine.”

Catherine had taken the news without sounding panicked, but did sound distressed to Louis, to whom she had said, “Stay out of harm’s way, dear. Don’t be afraid to look behind you if you sense something’s not right.”

It was over Thursday dinner on the 6^th that Larry had also remarked that, “And by the way, the Congressman tells me that the President has heard of this and is shocked, outraged that a staffer – especially a staffer for a popular Republican Representative - would have been targeted, and we could be in for quite a lengthy investigation before it’s all over.”

“Terrific,” Louis said. “We have something to look forward to…. Testifying in Federal court, reporters with videocams out front photographing Madeline and Augustus chasing butterflies….”

Then had come the news Monday evening on the 10^th, the call from his step-father Danny, that Catherine was to go into a Brooklyn hospital for surgery around 8 a.m. Wednesday.

“She’ll make it,” Larry had said, trying to comfort Louis the morning of the 11th while they had a breakfast that included: a fruit drink for active consumers made from pure filtered water, premium concentrated orange juice, glucosamine hydrochloride (to help protect cartilage), with Vitamins B3, B6, and B12, with about 120 calories per serving; a cheese omelet made from four whites of eggs (per serving), a pinch of cayenne and salt, 1 ½ ounces of grated cheese, and one ounce of butter; and cherry pastries from another bakery than the one where they had purchased their Thanksgiving dessert, seeing that they had reason to believe one or more of the personnel there had been privy to at least part of the NSA plot to plant the listening device in their home, “and on a holiday like that, of all things,” Louis had said.

As Louis pulled onto the Capital Beltway before 10:15 a.m., he turned on the FM radio to a program that Omar had told him about over the holidays: REALITY TODAY, with Hudson Elsmere Pembroke, a liberal talk show host whose live broadcasts from Newport, Rhode Island were part of an emerging network that reached over fifty major markets in twenty states and Puerto Rico, where the host had been mobbed by fans that summer after promising to donate part of his inherited fortune to the cause of Puerto Rican independence.

The flamboyant voice of a man in his mid-sixties with a slight East Coast accent rang out over the airwaves: “Reality Today, December 11^th, and your host senses like any caring fellow-traveller of the New Age of ‘Stop Big Brother’ and his voyeuristic security goons, the omen - or lest we tempt fate by looking for omens every time that descendant of Middle English ‘enleven’, from Old English ‘endleofan’ – and yes, you’re getting your morning etymology lesson early, sleepy Americans and welcome foreign guests whoever you are (passports ready in case the Feds stop you at the next street corner, amigos?) – crops up its numero one twice pretty face on calendars, clocks, and computer screens reminding us in lunar regularity that in the septimo month of that first year of this elitist millennium our friend un un, or eins eins, or as our Arabic listeners know – wahid wahid - reared its pretty head and nineteen Saudis et cetera with an attitude redid the Manhattan landscape in ways reminiscent of Genghis Khan and his Mongol methods of urban renewal.

“So yes, you soon-to-be-rid-of-Bush listeners beset with guilt about America’s shift to extreme right nasty anti-privacy antics and All-American good-looking CIA brutes who connive to mistreat naked hand-bound Muslims – it is the day after yesterday, when the perfect ten of each month graced the perfect beginning of another chapter in the weekly saga of how we will retake America from the thought police and not let it spoil our holiday shopping if someone in a military uniform is at the mall scowling at his bratty kids.”

This guy is so cool, Louis thought as he sped up along I495 north of the capital nearing College Park. All that money does give him an attitude, but at least he’s against the war.

He then noticed that a silver late-model 7-passenger SUV in need of exterior cleaning in the lane next to him had Jonathan Algernon alone in the driver’s seat. Algernon glanced over with a friendly nod – which Louis did not return, only looking blankly at the OSU professor for a moment - and Algernon slowed down somewhat, with Louis pulling ahead in traffic and glancing behind him over the next half hour to see the silver SUV somewhere in the flow of traffic, always within sight, but several hundred feet or more in back.

“First note of import this fine winter day,” came Pembroke’s voice. “Q.U.E.S.T.I.O.N. Global has posted an independently-verified report on its website that details an investigation into Pentagon and CIA funding of the suicide bombings in Iraq. Sad, but true; sad, if it is true, and who would doubt those jingoistic parvenus to power would up the scale on international upheaval by themselves putting precious American dollars into the hands of the Iraqi al-Qaeda, the depressed suicide-prone would-be bombers, even the fractious factions Shiia/Sunni/Kurdish – you name it, the CIA would fund it if it stirs up trouble in Iraq. So read the report; so goes the world. I wouldn’t trust those guys not to plant a bug in my Christmas ham if they thought it would serve their ends.”

Louis, still in the center lane and eager to get off the Capital Beltway and headed northeast toward New York, glanced to his left and saw a dark gray 2008 SUV hybrid with 270 hp, mileage significantly better than the average compact sedan, and new pollution controls, with Sherman Bond (dressed in cream and navy blue wool sweater) driving and Derek Palmer (dressed in thick long-sleeve cotton blend shirt of olive green with amber trim) passing him. Palmer looked over knowingly, as if not surprised to see Louis, who waved lightly, Palmer waving back lightly and turning to say something to Bond, whom Louis could see nodding as if in approval and even with relief.

Boy, everyone I know’s headed out of the capital today, Louis thought.

Pembroke continued. “No, friends, the end does not justify the means. History had taught the human race that before; the war in Iraq has confirmed that truism. Now we have a younger generation who will see the world through the prism of Congressional debates on how far to go in humiliating naked detainees, less-than-apologetic military physicians using their know-how to inflict the most gruesome pain – and none dare call it torture – and Presidents acting put-out that anyone would give a moment’s thought to all those illegal prisons overseas and who might be inside them held incommunicado, on and on and all of it so shamelessly aired to the innocent trusting ears of the young that it could set the tone for this century as one of less than enlightened government and certainly less than eloquent political debates. That’s why we’re getting both parties in both houses of Congress hot and bothered at just the thought of what the CIA and its licensed freelance torturers were doing – talk about extreme measures on those detainees’ extremities – on those destroyed, erased, made-to-disappear just-like-an-Arab-detainee tapes of ‘oh my how impolite of me I just about drowned you that time’ eye-opening brutality sessions, not using that ‘no-no’ word the President insists is not even in the CIA or FBI vocabulary.”

Louis’s cell phone rang. He recognized the number as that of his uncle Ronald Milton O’Toole.

“Hello?” Louis said.

“Lou,” came Ronald’s confident reassuring voice. “How are you?”

“Good. Worried about mom. How are you?”

“Also worried and just finished up an important meeting at headquarters. Had to stay overnight we were into briefings so late yesterday. Spoke with the director for over twenty minutes and he’s all for keeping me on in New York City so what with all they pay me I figure I’ll stay although I do get tired of eight hours a day inside that corner window office with all the leather and mahogany and crystal lamps. And I’m headed straight back to Manhattan now to see how your mother is doing.”

“So am I,” Louis said.

“You are?”

“Sure. Didn’t mom or Danny tell you I’m going up to be there with all of you tomorrow?”

“No, they didn’t. But then I haven’t spoken with them since Monday when Catherine called to say she’s going into the hospital tomorrow. I’m sorry to say I was so busy; the meetings were so high level I thought we’d have the Vice-President in with us for a bit, but he sent his chief of staff instead. But where are you?”

“I’m on the Baltimore-Washington Beltway now, just north of the capital,” Louis said.

“Lou, I just pulled onto highway 295 twenty minutes ago. We’ll get to Brooklyn about the same time.”

“Even better, I can speed up a bit and we can meet at my favorite spot for lunch in Wilmington.”

“Nice idea, but no need to speed up. Traffic is something else and it’s overcast. Play it safe. I can get there first and save you a seat. What’s the name of the place again? Haven’t been there in years, but I remember it well.”

“The Brandywine Mediterranean Room,” Louis said.

“Right then,” O’Toole said. “Should I call ahead for reservations?”

“Might as well,” Louis said. “I thought I’d be alone so I didn’t bother.”

“I’ll call and get us a table reserved and we’ll talk again before I get there.”

“Thanks.”

“And thank you. Nice coincidence you’re on your way home like me.”

Was it a coincidence, Louis wondered. Why do things like this happen? And Palmer and Bond. And why is Algernon here this month? Have classes at OSU ended for the semester?

Just then, he noticed that he was about to pass a bright red extended cab 2003 pickup truck that had been in the right lane ahead of him for several miles now, going not much more than 65 to 70 mph. A balding man age forty with brown and gray hair whom Louis had spoken with at the bakery where they had bought the Thanksgiving cake was driving alone. There were several large cardboard boxes in the bed of the truck tied down with nylon cord. Louis smiled a knowing smile, wondering if the driver had been part of the NSA plot to plant a listening device in their home. Then he thought of the boxes. What if? You don’t suppose there’s anything in those boxes that would cause more than heartburn if eaten? What’s he doing here? Louis wondered. That really summarizes how Bush and his war on human rights has the potential to ruin innocent lives. Am I going to be paranoid for the rest of my life, seeing bombs in the back of bakery trucks and looking for stalkers every time I pull onto a freeway? I can’t let it get to me like this. And Larry, bless his heart. What have I gotten him into?

Then he turned the radio back on.

“So, a step in the right direction,” Pembroke was saying. “Even the most distant Nightmare-of-Eden secret CIA prison will no longer be host-of-the-week to less-than-civil bodily manglings of anonymous interrogatees. Your second etymology lesson for today: ‘interrogatee’ – one who is interrogated – at length, and to think of the lengths to which our tax dollars go in providing those CIA paranoiacs a sense of security.”

Louis, feeling comfortable in a blue and white striped knit shirt, blue jeans, and tennis shoes, glanced into his rearview mirror and noticed a dark gray 2006 7-passenger SUV in need of a wash with two men wearing white dress shirts and ties closing in behind him in the far left lane. He signaled he was changing to the center lane of the three northbound lanes to let them pass and the driver of the gray SUV – tall, white, with short light brown hair with a lean harsh expression, obviously well-groomed and educated, age forty-one – clumsily veered toward the center lane as well for a moment, coming within two vehicles lengths of Louis before correcting to stay in the left lane whizzing past him, the passenger in the other vehicle – a man age thirty-eight with dark brown hair, average height, looking as if he had had his hair styled the day before, clean-shaven – gazing rather impertinently at Louis as they passed, nodding and with a slight grin on his face that Louis assumed was a calculated smugness and approval of the driver’s reckless maneuver.

Pembroke continued his monologue. “If we could only take wing and fly over all this modern-day tweedledee-tweedledum incompetence that has dragged America into over four years of an illegal tragic war. Now today’s broadcast will be homopterous, having wings to transport you from the frustrations of job or home or hair-brained highway menaces.

“Consider our first caller. Fernando. You’re our first caller today. Ready to take flight? Verbal flight that is?”

Fernando had been pre-screened by the talk-show producers, having called in from the Denver area. The deep bass voice of a middle-aged man with a slight Italian accent came over the radio.

“Yes, yes, Hudson,” Fernando said. “Thank you. What you said about the CIA funding death squads in Iraq.”

“In fact,” Pembroke broke in, “more complex than that, as one report out of Madrid suggests that billions in secret CIA funds have gone to pay for assassinations of Iraqi intellectuals, professors, doctors, and even as far back as the burning of the National Library of Iraq in 2003.”

“It was biblioclastia,” Fernando said.

“The destruction of books, yes,” Pembroke said. “Did they all own stock in one of those online booksellers or something? Trying to limit supply so the stock price would rebound? And orchestrated through the Pentagon? There’s another report out of Mexico City and confirmed by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Gaza that arrived at my beachhead in Newport last month that traces the suicide bombers and others less than sensitive to the plight of the poor Iraqi to Pentagon initiatives.”

“And they’ve united with the Israeli Mossad to assassinate over two hundred Iranian nuclear scientists,” Fernando said.

“I have that also from a credible source,” Pembroke said. “They’re creating swarms of death squads all over the Mideast, all using American taxpayer dollars. This from a similar report of the Committee of Solidarity with Iraq out of Belgium. They report that the U.S.-funded death squads have tortured and assassinated one hundred forty-one professors of several institutions and secondary educations: University of Baghdad, al-Mustansiriya, all of the Iraqian capital: Hilla (Babylonia), Mosul (Níniveh), Diwaniya (Quadisiya), Technical Institute (Basora), Saladino (Tikrit), Baquba (Diyala), Ramada (Al-Anbar), Kufa (Nayaf), Mosul (Mosul), among other academic institutions.”

“Why?” Fernando said.

“The experts are asking themselves that every day,” Pembroke said. “Poor, poor Iraqis.”

“That is my point,” Fernando said. “They need the poor to be empowered in Iraq. They need a ptochocracy.”

“Government by the poor,” Fernando said.

“And the reality today is that Iraq is governed by a shaky coalition of skilled politicians in a power grab reminiscent of the Wild East of the 1990’s in Eastern Europe, Pembroke said.”

“Exactly,” Fernando said. “There is exsuction of all the resources in Iraq by the rich nations of the world: the oil especially. The oil giants are sucking out all the oil and exploiting the poor. The poor in Iraq must be empowered.”

“And how do you propose such an admirable end find means to operate?” Pembroke asked.

“I am an iconodulist,” Fernando said.

“A worshipper of images,” Pembroke said. “What kind of images?”

“Public images,” Fernando said. “Not religious. The image is everything. Public relations images. The ichthyic masses in Iraq have been duped by the images of the sheiks and the imams who control the militias and the politicians who do whatever Washington demands.”

“Imagery akin to wizardry and Madison Avenue style mind control that even the most jaded student of contemporary culture can withstand,” Pembroke said.

“Precisely, Mr. Pembroke,” Fernando said. “Sound the gong. The media must change the image of the poor. Then they can assume power.”

“Power and image thus being impartible, in your theory?” Pembroke said. “The image of the fish at this time being rather gamy?”

“Put out a lifeline to the lifeless in Iraq,” Fernando said. “In lieu of that, change their image.”

“Are you involved in the Presidential campaign by any chance?” Pembroke asked.

“No, I work on the formulation of laticiferous cleaning products for a European conglomerate with research facility in Colorado.”

“Thanks for the call,” Pembroke said. “And now a word from our first sponsor.”

An sixty second ad ran about the community involvement of a high-tech NYSE Internet firm located in Silicon Valley: “….we aspire to create communities in which citizens are safe, our workforce devotes its time to improve communities, our employees work hard to enrich their communities,…employees work proactively to protect and preserve the environment in all the communities in which we operate, …fostering an environmentally friendly work culture, … we remain on the cutting edge of conservation efforts…”

Pembroke returned with, “Yes, friends, Bush has a scutulum. He can’t deflect the growing tide of anti-war sympathy – both at home and abroad – much longer. The runaround has got to stop. We’ll take a porismatic approach to stopping this war. There must be sixty ways to leave Iraq.

“On the first day of the withdrawal, we give a Rumsfeld in a palm tree; on the second day of the withdrawal, we give two Tony Blairs and a Rumsfeld in a palm tree; on the third day of the withdrawal, we give three French fries, also known as Freedom fries to intolerant pro-war fanatics since the cookbooks were rewritten back in 2003; on the fourth, four F15’s, on the fifth, we give Baghdad the next winter Olympics…”

As Pembroke continued, Louis – still in the center lane - noticed a black 2008 super heavy-duty four-door diesel-powered 4 x 4 pickup truck with sequential electronic fuel injection and recently washed and waxed passing him in the left lane, the occupants being three Arabic men in their mid- to late-twenties dressed in t-shirts and sweat-shirts, looking clean-shaven and intent, with full well-combed black hair, alert expressions, all three including the driver looking over at Louis as they passed him and seeming to recognize him. He recalled seeing one of them at Mosul University at the lecture Omar had given there in the summer of 2003.

Louis looked up and saw the sign over the highway indicating the Laurel-Bowie exit to Highway 197 was ½ mile ahead. Then he noticed he was about to pass the dark gray SUV again, the forty-one year old driver now in the right lane and presumably planning to exit before long. But within a few seconds, the dark gray SUV pulled right in back of Louis’s SUV in the center lane, leaving less than ten feet as they rushed along at over 75 m.p.h.

“What?!” Louis said, reaching for his cell phone, turning on the rear camera, and honking the horn twice loudly. “That’s harassment! Who are they?”

He instantly pulled into the left lane, allowing the other SUV to pass, the driver looking straight ahead, also honking loudly and ignoring Louis’s angry look, the passenger looking over toward Louis and waving smugly.

“Who are they?” Louis asked aloud, having pushed a button on his cell phone to dial Omar’s cell phone. “They’re trying to kill me.”

As Omar, who was at home in Ann Arbor, answered, the gray SUV pulled right again and began to exit at the Laurel-Bowie Road, with the oversized silver pickup truck suddenly screeching its brakes, the driver pulling behind Louis in the center lane and then veering dangerously into the right lane and also exiting right next to the attack SUV, the truck moving from left to right lane and into the exit lane in a matter of seconds at sixty-five miles per hour, then moving parallel to the dark gray SUV whose driver looked over in alarm as the driver of the pickup rammed the driver’s side of the SUV, causing it veer off the exit lane into the terrain and turn over once before coming to rest on its top, killing the driver instantly as it crashed into a barrier and leaving the passenger injured and unconscious. The silver pickup truck did not stop but continued onto Highway 197 and out of sight.

Louis’s eyes bulged.

“Hello,” Omar said.

“I’ve just seen a terrible accident on the Beltway,” Louis said.

“Are you all right?” Omar asked excitedly.

“I’m safe. I wasn’t involved. But I could have been.”

At that moment, in their rented townhouse apartment with full master bath, second floor guest bath, and ground floor powder room off the dining area, not far from the University of Vermont campus in Burlington, Ramesh was in the guest bedroom upstairs seated at his new (an Eid present from Tarek shipped the previous week) desktop computer with Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit), Intel ® Core ™ 2 Quad processor E6850, 4GB DDR2-800 MHz dual channel SDRAM (4x 102), 640 MB Graphics Card, USB Wireless LAN card and modem card, 800 GB Hard Drive, Security Features, and warranty that included convenient in-home service when needed, one year hardware parts and labor, one year 24x7 toll-free award-winning support, and as fast as one-hour email response.

Ramesh called out to Akbar, who was in the master bedroom – lying atop their bed on a king-size comforter of light blue, tans, and ivory inspired by the art deco area they had bought in Manhattan at an upscale department store around Thanksgiving - on the cell phone with Tarek, who was at an undisclosed location somewhere in Tunis. “Ghazi, Haris, and Nijad got ‘em! There’s a video stream from their camcorder and I can see the SUV those bastards are in smoking and now there’s a car slowing down and pulling off the exit lane to see what’s happened. Now they’re out of range, whizzing to that vanishing point that only our al-Qaeda travel office and Allah know for sure. They’ve saved O’Connor.”

Akbar repeated what Ramesh was saying, then called back, “Did they get video of Louis?”

“Yes,” Ramesh said. “Haris is sending it as an attachment now. Nijad says O’Connor didn’t show an ounce of fear.”

Akbar repeated that over his cell phone, then called back to Ramesh. “Tarek says it’s the Arab in him.”

“I know that,” Ramesh said, looking like his fun had been spoiled.

“Send the video stream by attachment right away. Tarek wants to show it to al-Zawahri and to the top man himself?”

“Himself?”

“You got it,” Akbar said. “Thanks, Tarek.”

He then hung up, got up from the bed, and went into the guest bedroom which they had furnished with collectibles purchased on weekend after weekend of garage sale, estate sale, and New England auction house visits since moving into their new quarters early in March of 2007 – “since it’s only the two of us and antiques do tend to hold their value against inflation,” – their acquisitions including a Rococo period half commode atop which Ramesh had set his sunglasses with UVA/UVB protection made in Italy.

“You’re real excited about this,” Akbar said.

“Can you blame me?” Ramesh said, studying the video of Louis avoiding being rammed the last time the dark gray SUV had pulled close behind him. “That guy is his father’s son. What a man! And Ghazi slam-dunked those abject, rattlesnake former FBI goons who had it in for O’Connor. Good riddance and more of the same next time they go up against Omar and his own.”

Back in his SUV, Louis had been describing the uneventful drive “…until those guys tried to rear-end me.”

“I think you should just continue on to Baltimore and New York,” Omar said.

“I will,” Louis said. “I don’t see any reason to turn around and go back. I had nothing to do with the accident. Don’t want to get involved in that back there. It wasn’t my fault and I have no idea who the people in the truck or that SUV were.”

“It sounds like the sort of thing happened to me when I returned to Iraq,” Omar said. “I was being stalked all over the place until I left in August to return here.”

“But why would anyone be stalking me?” Louis asked. “And the truck.”

“Yes,” Omar said. “It sounds as if they were sent to look after you. Which means your affairs, and your safety, are now of great importance to individuals we can’t help suspect are at extreme opposites: those on the far left fringe of the anti-globalization movement up against the more reactionary hegomonists in the neo-con arena.

“And here’s something new. Two of my colleagues at MU: Rafae Rahman al-Zamili and Abdul-Salam left this morning on a trip to visit university research libraries over the break. They’re flying into Philadelphia early this afternoon, in fact. I’d like to give you their cell phone numbers in case you can find time to meet with them.”

“I’d be glad to meet with your friends, dad,” Louis said. “Could you email me the info? I can access it from my cell phone.”

“That would be great. I think they’d have many ideas to share with you, seeing their interest in foreign language.”

“Sounds great,” Louis said.

They speculated more about the accident, whether it could have been a second attempt to harm Louis, after the failed mail bomb the previous week.

“And by the same men who sent the bomb or their associates,” Omar said. “Perhaps this will put an end to that sort of thing.”

“I don’t see how anyone could have survived that crash,” Louis said. “I had to look back through the rear window – which was down – but I could see it was against some sort of concrete pillar sticking up out of the ground near a culvert, which stopped it from rolling all of a sudden.”

“Thanks be to God that you’re safe,” Omar said.

“Yes,” Louis said. “Thanks be to God.”

He said he would call again once he got to his mother’s home in Brooklyn and hung up.

He began doing several things at once, still driving, plugging his laptop computer into the SUV’s computer port to access the photos taken by the rear camera of the attack SUV’s close approach. “We’ll see just what they looked like,” Louis said to himself.

1 1/2 cups olive oil
3/4 cups of balsamic vinegar
coarse salt
Pepper
4 large artichokes, trimmed and peeled
Juice of 1 lemon
3 large eggplants, sliced lengthwise 1/4 inch thick
1 large zucchini, sliced lengthwise 1/4 inch thick

1 large yellow squash, sliced lengthwise 1/4 inch thick
4 medium Portobello mushrooms, stemmed
3 roasted red bell peppers
3 roasted yellow bell peppers
2 leeks, white part only, washed
2 1/2 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
4 cups vegetable stock
1 teaspoon each of minced chervil, tarragon, parsley thyme and chives

Louis took a deep breath. He was near the city limits of Baltimore. I need a diversion, he thought and turned the radio back on to “Reality Today”.

Pembroke was digressing on the subject of journalists who had been killed in Iraq. “We are so fortunate in America to be able to practice our profession – in my case, radio journalism – free from fear of reprisals from political opponents. But we read too often now of brave Iraqi journalists who have paid the highest price of exercising freedom of the press. And the suspects in the killings include the Iraqi National Guard, sent out to silence reporters who have criticized the Iraqi government.

“So what is it today to be alive in Baghdad? Can anything keep Baghdad alive? They are always collecting now for funerals. And the displaced in Syria or Jordan are without employment, but that is better than many have in Baghdad. And the displaced are not returning because Baghdad is on the verge of reincarnation as a cosmopolitan night spot rivalling Paris; the displaced are returning because their host countries are expelling them, due to expired visas, or lack of funds. And they live knowing that gunfire could erupt any moment and a neighbor they have known for years – a simple man or woman or sadly an innocent child - is being murdered, and by whom? And they keep calling the phone of a cousin who has not shown up for a wedding and he never answered, and then his body is found, perhaps headless, with evidence of torture. They find so many victims shot dead in the living rooms of their homes; the police come and take the body to the morgue, and the uncles receive the body there and it is buried in Najaf, and no one ever knows who killed their cousin. And there are the brothers and nephews who simply disappear and no one has heard from them in months. That is what it is like to be alive in Baghdad today. And there are tens of thousands of Iraqi detainees – that we know of – being held by the U.S. government in Iraq, in their own native country - in conditions that should make us thankful indeed to be alive in America today. And that, my friends, is the end of the first hour of REALITY TODAY. After this word from our sponsors, we’ll be back with the second hour.”

Louis turned the radio off and continued the drive through Baltimore, pulling off the Interstate at one point to use the restroom at a modern service station/convenience store owned by a multi-national corporation not headquartered in Houston, Texas. He continued through the Ft. McHenry Tunnel, on up Interstate 95, and noticed from time to time that Algernon, Palmer and Bond, and Jessica – their neighbor’s daughter – were also on the freeway – in Jessica’s case in a 2-door 2006 blue sedan. He also saw the two F.B.I. agents who had sat in the back observing the premiere of THE RIDDLE in July of that year on the same stretch of freeway in a black 2006 luxury car with custom alloy hub caps.

What are they doing out following me, and what brings Jessica to Maryland today? Louis wondered.

It was around 12:15 p.m. that Ronald O’Toole called from the Brandywine Mediterranean Room. “Got us a table, Lou. How much longer before you get here?”

“I’m already in Wilmington near the Market Street Mall and will be there soon, if I can find a parking space,” Louis said. He found a space on 10th Street and walked to the restaurant, which was in a six-block pedestrian area with concourse. It was about three quarters full, with business people and socially prominent locals enjoying the popular spot with wide round tables with elegant white tablecloths, recessed lighting, and waiters with white aprons and striped vests and white shirts navigating around the tables bringing a steady flow of Italian and Greek dishes.

O’Toole had managed to get a table for four next to a window with view of a back courtyard area with fountain and graceful landscaping.

“How was the drive?” Ronald asked.

“Routine most of the way,” Louis said. He then sat perusing the menu for a minute, staring at the courses, but thinking intently how much, if anything, to tell his uncle about the accident.

The menu read in part:

FIRST COURSE

Spinach Salad
Chardonnay Braised Fennel, Shaved Parmesan

Prime Rib-Eye Carpaccio
House-Made Mozzarella Boconccini
Micro Basil & Olive Oil "Sorbet"

Seven Onion Soup
Roasted Garlic Croutons, Bailey's Hazen Blue Cheese

MIDDLE COURSE

Smoked Swordfish
Butter Lettuce & Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette

Rare Yellowfin Tuna
Porcini Dusted, Celery Root Purée & Shaved Celery Salad

Day Boat Scallops
Cider Braised Red Cabbage & Quince
Micro Mustard Greens

Braised Short-Rib
Sweet Potato Purée & Porcini Relish
　

Grilled Flat Iron Steak Caesar
Garlic & Parmesan Croutons

Wood Roasted Hawaiian Spot Prawns
Organic Mascarpone Grit Cake
Basil Salad & Smoked Rock Shrimp Butter

Club Burger
Applewood Bacon & Crispy Onion Strings

Finale

Apple Sorbet
Poached Lady Apples, Cider Caramel
Candied Walnuts & Port Syrup

Ronald started talking about the radio news. “As I was arriving in Wilmington,” he said, “there was news of an accident at the Laurel-Bowie Exit, an SUV that had rolled over. I felt my heart jump wondering if it could have been you. Sounded like it would have happened about the time you were passing through there.”

“It did,” Louis said. “Oh, it did.”

“It did?”

“I saw part of it actually,” Louis said, “but just briefly, it was over so quickly. In fact, they were in a hurry or something to exit and I saw it roll over but I was going so fast and didn’t have a way to turn around or slow down or anything so it was over in a flash.”

Ronald looked intently into Louis’s eyes, then read the menu and did not speak for half a minute. “Sad when you see something like that, isn’t it?” he said to Louis.

“It was upsetting,” Louis said, “that’s for sure.”

Just as they were being served, with both men having ordered the prime rib and iced tea, Lloyd and Craig - the two F.B.I. agents who had sat in the back at the premiere of THE RIDDLE - walked in the foyer dressed in conservative suits, white pin-striped long-sleeve shirts and ties, and stood waiting for the maitre d’ to find them a table. Ronald looked over to them and appeared to recognize them, nodding knowingly at the two men, who nodded back. Louis immediately recognized them as the men who had been so rude taking notes during the play, one of them looking Louis directly in the eye at the table as if, “don’t make any trouble for me.”

“Small world,” Ronald said. “I was one of their trainers when they joined the agency back; goodness, it must have been over ten years ago. I think I’ll go over and say hello when we leave, but let’s just enjoy this delicious food.”

“That’s why it’s my favorite place for lunch in this town,” Louis said.

Ronald mentioned how much his wife Louise like the serenity of the Maryland coast when they had a free weekend: bird watching along the bays in Calvert and Charles counties, sifting for fossils along the shorelines, sampling the spicy foods at the crab houses. They would charter a boat on spring days and meander up and down the Chesapeake before relaxing at a bed and breakfast with view of a marina and the Calvert Cliffs.

Louis remarked how much he and Larry wanted to volunteer come the new year at one of the wildlife sanctuaries – at the bald cypress swamp in the Calvert parks area – as well as to go canoeing and kayaking along the Patuxent River.

“Quaint,” was how Ronald described the waterfront villages, “golden sunsets seen through reeds over the bay, secluded shores with hammocks where we can sway in the breezes.”

They could see part of the downtown Wilmington skyline from their window seats and asked their waiter about night life, who said the Market Street area came to life with music and dancing once spring arrived, with rhythm and blues and Latino jazz played outdoors.

Too full for dessert, they prepared to leave, with Ronald offering to pay.

“I’ll meet you outside, Uncle Ron,” Louis said as they left the counter and Ronald started to walk over to the two other F.B.I. agents seated on the opposite side of the restaurant.

“Sure, Lou,” Ronald said, looking rather startled that Louis was leaving so abruptly. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

After standing out under the gray skies for over five minutes, Louis saw his uncle come out, saying that his two colleagues were also headed toward New York, “… and they said, in very hushed tones, they’ve heard about the parcel and want to do anything they can to find out who did it.”

“Thanks,” Louis said. “Larry and I will feel better when the people responsible are caught.”

They decided to remain within each other’s visible range the remainder of the trip, with Louis saying he wanted to drive through Philadelphia – “along I 95” – and head into New Jersey around Trenton, rather than proceed directly along the New Jersey Turnpike.

“Will do,” Ronald said, whose 2006 luxury car as it turned out was parked less than half a block from Louis’s SUV. They let their vehicle’s engines warm up for a couple minutes, and then headed back north.

About that same time, Rafae and Abdul-Salam were getting off their jet at Concourse A-East at Philadelphia International Airport. Their carried black sling backpacks and totebags. They retrieved their luggage without delay and proceeded to a rental car counter where they leased a white, three-row, 6-passenger SUV with less than 2,500 miles on it. While Rafae began driving, Abdul-Salam took out his notebook with AMD Turion Dual-Core Processor, Windows Vista Home Premium, 2 GB Memory and 250 GB Hard drive, wireless mini-card and 15.4” display and began typing.

“Says to head north along Interstate 95 and that he’s in his SUV and that we’re just minutes ahead of him if we want to take it easy until we see him pass,” Abdul-Salam said. “From the photo Omar gave us of his son’s SUV, we should have no trouble spotting him when he passes us.”

“And then?” Rafae asked.

“And then we keep him in sight in case someone else tries to kill him.”

“Omar sounded calm, but very determined when he called,” Rafae said.

“Nice of him to pay for our trips. I’m glad we can look after O’Connor for a week or two, so long as he doesn’t feel cornered with us following him up and down the East Coast. Those must have been expensive tickets for his father to get us on that flight, and on such short notice.”

“They were e-tickets. And you know; I don’t even know how much they cost us” Rafae said.

“Well, we’ve got his license plate number. And this does worry me.”

“What?” Rafae asked.

“This anonymous person who’s sending us emails about O’Connor’s progress to New York. Someone else is tailing him. So why do we need to risk getting too close and scaring him?”

“From what Omar said, his son is getting used to a lot of attention,” Rafae said. “Besides, he won’t be scared. We’ll try to meet him in New York after his mother gets out of the operating room, maybe tomorrow if he returns our call.”

“But he’s going to wonder how we happen to be in New York planning research at Columbia University,” Abdul-Salam said.

“So let his father tell him,” Rafae said as they passed Pembroke Avenue. Soon the Delaware River was in sight and they continued along I-95, catching sight of Louis’s vehicle about fifteen minutes later coming up from behind them.

Off and on over the next two hours or so, Louis noticed Palmer and Bond, Algernon, the red bakery truck, the white SUV driven by Rafae, his uncle’s car, and the vehicle with Lloyd and Craig.

The gray overcast skies gave the freeway a somber look. As he was nearing Manhattan, Louis turned on the radio again to a New York City station that aired the REALITY TODAY program with a delay of one hour. Pembroke was finishing up the final segment of the second half of the show with a monologue summing up the day’s events: “So whether you are rich, moderate-income, or poor: in your hearts – whether from New York or Spain, Newark or Puerto Rico, Japan, Dubai, Niger, Kenya – you must know how wrong the violation of human rights by the U.S. government in its relentless pursuit of its nebulous war on terrorism.”

You tell him, Louis thought. I don’t want any children of mine, if I were to have children, living in fear of the police stopping them and searching their cars for banned newspapers and censored books.

Pembroke continued. “Who are the liberators? Quién son los libertadores? El Cid was less than the hero who freed Spain from the Moors. More like a rioting maniac out to kill anyone who stood in the way of the royal Spanish aggressors who later enslaved the native populations of the New World, and for what? For gold? Remember the Berlin wall? Wer sind die Befreier?

“Chi sono i terroristi? Remember the Italian Red Brigade?

“Ainsi à qui nous accueillons-ils le retour? I say we welcome back the NGO’s, the American anti-war journalists who brave the dangers and chaos in Iraq to help the orphans, to report the sad truths about the suffering of the poor Iraqis.

Louis began thinking of translations of Pembroke’s final remark: What is the special leverage that America has in front of the world?

He felt certain he knew how it would be translated into French. Quelle est la force d'appui spéciale que l'Amérique a devant le monde ?

And into Spanish. ¿Qué es el apalancamiento especial que América tiene delante del mundo?

Before long he was pulling up in front of his mother and step-father’s home.

The riddle is life itself, he thought. But what is the answer to it all?