Frank was still distracted by
something all during the flight and train ride into London. Thankfully, I had done all the planning
and our room was waiting for us at Frank’s favorite hotel. Once we were in the room he didn’t waste
time in showering and getting into his pajamas. There was already a pint of Jack Daniels
in the room per my instructions. He
sat in bed and channel surfed on the telly sipping his JD. At about ten-thirty he fell asleep and
at eleven I decided to power down for a pending update that I had been putting
off.
“Jack, Jack, wake the fuck up”,
Frank said with a slurred voice.
My reboot/reset button must have
been pushed by Frank to interrupt my update process. His face was a mess. Just then I noticed I was not standing
up like I was when I powered down.
I was on my side facing away from the wall. I immediately stood up and scanned the
room. It was a mess like Frank’s
face.
“Master, what has
happened?”
“You missed a great
party.”
“I find that hard to believe,
Mr. Huntington. I would guess that
you have suffered an attack. It is
eight o’clock the next morning.
When did this attack occur sir?
“Oh, the party was about three
in the morning I think. I remember
a sharp pain on my face and looking up from my bed and seeing a guy’s fist
coming down on me. I was not smart
enough to roll away to try and stop it coming. I didn’t feel too alert after that
either. It was all kinda foggy to
me but they pulled me out of bed.
“Sir, let me prepare an icepack
for your lip. It is very
swollen.”
“Yeh, do that. Order me another bottle of Jack Daniels
to kill the pain.”
“What did they want,
Sir?”
“I have no idea what they were
looking for by tearing up the place.
There were three of them.
Big motherfuckers. The one
that did all the talking was dressed like a hotel worker and the other two
looked like maintenance workers.
They told me to go back to the USA and stop meeting with the
Princess.”
“Well, it is obvious, they must
have been sent by Sir Terrance,” I said as I soaked a towel in cold
water.
“I don’t know, Jack, it could be
the Pope?”
“He seems so Holy to do
that.”
“If you saw the encrypted file
on him you would change your mind on that, but he doesn’t seem the jealous
type. Neither does Lutts, but he is
a hard one to read.”
I put the towel I had soaked
with water and wrapped around the ice that was in the ice bucket and handed it
to Frank. He winced as he put it on
his lip. I then proceeded to try
and put the hotel room back together.
Thankfully, nothing was really broken. As a diligent servant to my Master I
always monitor the international news feeds. Any subject that Frank had ever shown
interest in would garner my attention as well. From there I would decide how important
the news was and prepare every morning a list of headlines for Frank to look
at. If it was something really high
level of importance to what we were working on I would verbally tell Frank. At that moment there was something
big.
“Sir, something has happened
that relates to your current investigations.”
“What Jack” asked Frank putting
down his glass.
“Something has happened in Old
Jerusalem. I’ll turn on the
television so you can see.”
Old Jerusalem was the oldest
section of Jerusalem. It was
surrounded by a city wall that dated back to the Middle Ages. Within Old Jerusalem were smaller walls
that divided Old Jerusalem into four areas divided by religion. There was the Jewish Quarter where the
Western Wall and Temple Mount are.
The Temple Mount is the site where King Solomon and King David built the
first Temple in 953 BC. It is also
the site where God created the first man - Adam of Adam and Eve fame. Then there is the Armenian Quarter which
contains the St. James Cathedral and Monastery which was built in the
12th Century. The
Christian Quarter contains about forty holy places of which the Church
of the Holy Sepulcher, built in the Fourth Century, claims to be built on the
spot where Jesus Christ was buried and rose from the dead three days later. The
final quarter is the Muslim Quarter which has ten gates reserved for Muslims and
one reserved for Infidels. It is
the largest area with over 76 acres within its walls and 22,000 Muslims living
there. Within the Muslim Quarter is
the Dome of the Rock, constructed in 688 and is the site where Mohammed rose up
to heaven to confer with Allah.
Another important Islamic site is the Al-Aqsa Mosque first built in 705
AD, but since has been rebuilt three times due to earthquakes. It was once considered the farthest
mosque from Mecca and is adjacent to the Dome of the Rock.
Frank
knew all of this since he had written many articles while being a reporter based
in Jerusalem.
On the screen I had Sky
News. They showed the Dome of the
Rock plaza and it was filled with what looked like a party. People were dancing, singing and
drinking. You could see both
Muslims and Jews mingled together.
The reporter was droning on about how the whole city has opened up. Israeli security police were shown
dancing with a group of Muslim women in burkas. Conservative Jews were talking and
embracing Muslims and they all were drinking wine straight from the bottle. Another reporter showed the Western Wall
where normally there would be countless old men praying and bowing to the wall
non-stop. Instead there was a dance
going on and some young people were creating graffiti art on the wall. Just like the Dome of the Rock it was a
mix of people looking like they were having the time of their life. Frank finally focused his mind enough to
pay attention to what the reporter was saying.
“…. It all started this morning
when everyone in Old Jerusalem woke up for another day of tension and
tourists. Instead people realized
they felt an inner joy and feelings of brotherly love. The minarets were silent. The priests, imams, rabbis and monks all
abandoned their posts and were urging their people and anyone else to celebrate
how wonderful life is. All the
normal religious services that mostly tourists would attend were canceled. By ten o’clock this morning the city was
more like a world cup celebration than the most divided up city in the
world.”
Another reporter speaking from
New York asked the reporter at the Dome of the Rock if the clerics of the three
world faiths were concerned about their abandoning their religious duties. The reporter responded by saying, “I
have talked to a local Rabbi about two hours ago and he told me religion was
useless and not worth the suffering it caused the city. I interviewed an Imam of the Al Aqsa
Mosque and he said he realizes there is no god but love for your fellow
human. It is all rather astounding,
but I have to admit I also do not feel any urge to be religious myself. It is a funny feeling to feel no
feelings about God, but at the same time I feel blessed to be
alive.”
At that time the television went
back to the New York news presenter who said that the Pope has released a
statement stating that “It is a miracle that hatred has left the Holiest City on
Earth, but he is disappointed the Catholic laity has abandoned their duties to
Christ and the Church.” A Catholic
spokesman has said they would be sending replacements to take over the
guardianship of Catholic Holy sites immediately. The television then broke for a Coke
commercial and I muted the sound.
Frank stared at the screen for
only a second and then said, “This has got to be the work of whoever did the
nuns and the Buddhists. The bastard
is getting better. Any reports of
suicides or violence, Jack?”
“I have checked all the news
reports coming from Jerusalem and there is nothing bad being talked
about.”
“I wonder if it would be worth
our time to go see this ‘miracle’ first hand?”
“That is up to you, Sir.
“See if you can get a flight
today.”
For about two hours Frank surfed
the cable news networks of the world to get a feel of what was being said. Most of the major news bureaus kept at
least one reporter in Jerusalem.
Historically, it remained one of the hot spots of the world. When Frank was young and first starting
out he had done a few stints in the Middle East including covering Jerusalem for
about two years. One of his stories
about corruption in the Palestinian army won him a Pulitzer. He moved up and out as fast as he
could. I am not sure if it was the
lack of alcohol or lack of rationalism that made him hate this area of the globe
so much.
Frank slowly got out of bed and
made his way to the bathroom. A few
minutes later I heard the loo and then the shower. I had ages ago booked two non-stop first
class tickets to Jerusalem on a flight out of Heathrow for 2:35. I laid out a suit for Frank on his bed
and packed his bags. I also ordered
breakfast and several papers to be brought up. I was sure Frank would be interested to
see how widely the story was being taken.
There is never any rhyme or reason as to which story captures the world’s
attention and for how long. Frank
came out and started dressing and I told him the time of our flight. We had almost five hours to get to the
airport.
Frank was drinking his after
breakfast drink – Jack Daniels and Drop Dead Coffee while reading the
Times. Suddenly, he said,
“Shit.”
“What is it,
Sir?”
“Cats out of the bag. Here in the Times is an article about
how there have been two incidents of ‘religious sudden death’ recently. A reporter of the Times, Sarah Tellings,
has connected the Buddhist Temple and Jerusalem together. No proof, but she is clever enough to
see a connection. Other than the
religious reaction she mostly talks about how opposite the two reactions were by
the two incidents. One went violent
and suicidal and the other is like a 1960s Love In.”
“Does she mention the
nuns?”
“No. So I don’t think she knows everything we
do.”
Frank re-read Telling’s article
to see if he could figure out if she really knew it was being caused by
someone. I had to interrupt him,
after several minutes, and told him to look at Sky News, which I had signaled to
come up on our television. There
was the lady in person, Miss Sarah Tellings. She was being interviewed on Sky News
about Jerusalem and she was informing the world what she had written in the
Times. She was young. Not in her thirties from the looks of
her very pretty face. I checked.
She was actually twenty-nine and
had worked her way up to a top reporter spot at the Times. Educated at Oxford. Much of her reporting was on technology
and space. I relayed this all to
Frank after her TV interview was over.
“I have a gut feeling she will
not let this story go. I also have
a feeling she knows this just didn’t happen spontaneously. She pretty much hinted at that with the
interviewer, but used her charms to push away from that angle. She is a clever one. It won’t be long before the bulk of the
world press will be chasing after the same leads we are.”
“I am sorry, Sir. I know how important it is to have
scoops. You really had a nice boost when you broke the Princess
story.”
“Yes, I was paid very handsomely
by both my editor and the Princess,” he said with a sly smile.
“When did you want to start out
to the airport, Sir?”
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