The Last Judgment

by Craig Parshall

  “Good point,” Will replied. “Any suggestions?”

  Redgrove was thinking. After a few seconds of reflection he continued.

  “There was a professor. Don’t remember what his name was. I met him when I was in the Middle East several years ago. I was working on a book on comparative religions at the time. Something tells me that he taught at the University of Cairo—a professor in what he called ‘esoteric religions.’ I can fish around in my papers. See if I have his card. Or his name and address. He might be a good person to contact.”

  Then Redgrove rose abruptly and extended his hand to Will.

  “I’ll pray for you. My soul is troubled that you are entangled in this. Be on your guard. And if you see any opportunity to withdraw from representing Gilead Amahn…I would counsel you to carefully consider it.”

  With that warning, Will turned to leave. As he reached the screen door, his old friend asked him one more question.

  “Since the Temple Mount bombing, have you had the chance to meet with Gilead Amahn face-to-face?”

  “No. I’m sending my investigator, Tiny Heftland, over there to do some field work for me. But before too long, I’m going to have to go over there and have a sit-down with Gilead myself. Why do you ask?”

  Redgrove began closing the door behind Will, but paused to add one final comment.

  “When you meet with him, you ask him something—ask him point-blank, ‘Do you believe you are a messiah?’ You ask him that. Or better yet—ask whether he’s the Antichrist.”

  Will’s old professor gave him a quick nod, and then closed the door tightly behind him.

  37

  AFTER HIS INITIAL SUCCESSFUL OVERTURES to the Arab delegation in Cairo, Warren Mullburn returned to Maretas and at once directed the captain of his three-hundred-foot yacht, dubbed Epiphany, to prepare for a three-day cruise.

  As the massive yacht sailed over the brilliant turquoise of the Carribean, Mullburn was in the stateroom when his butler tapped gently on the varnished mahogany door and entered.

  “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but Mr. Theos Petropolos has just landed on the heliport. He’s on his way down to see you.”

  A few minutes later a tall man, thirty years old, with dark hair, strikingly dark eyes, and chiseled good looks entered the suite, dressed casually in a silk island shirt, shorts, and deck shoes.

  Mullburn, who was finishing lunch, rose to his feet, flashed a smile at his guest, and strode over to shake his hand.

  “Theos,” Mullburn said with a smile. “Very good to see you. Want me to order you some lunch?”

  “Not necessary,” the other man replied. “I grabbed some lunch before I got in the chopper.”

  Mullburn sat down at his private table, and his visitor stretched out on a couch set below a row of windows overlooking the ocean.

  “Now that we’re face-to-face,” Mullburn said, “I need to thank you for handling that Middle East assignment. A job well-done. Executed flawlessly. Excellent work on the multiple firewalls between you and the direct actors, particularly regarding the grand finale.”

  “Thanks,” Theos said. “That’s certainly one thing I’ve learned working closely with you over these last five years. Protect yourself—immunize yourself—always work on a pyramid basis. You at the top. Limited direct access. And delegation that cannot be traced.”

  “I’m glad to see you appreciate your apprenticeship.” Mullburn grinned. “You’ve been a good student.”

  Petropolos was casually lounging on the couch with his legs stretched out to full length. Not the usual position for a man in the presence of the Warren Mullburn empire.

  “And I still consider you a great teacher. Even a mentor,” he replied. “Even if you weren’t my father.”

  “Care for a drink?”

  The younger man nodded.

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  Mullburn stood and walked over to the brass, mahogany, and crystal liquor cabinet behind him. He poured two glasses and handed one to Theos.

  “Let’s toast.”

  Theos rose quickly to his feet, drink in his hand, beaming at his father.

  “What shall we toast to?” he asked.

  Mullburn raised his glass, and so did his son.

  “I propose a toast,” the billionaire said, “to our global partnership—and to our family empire.”

  They clicked glasses.

  Theos made himself comfortable on the couch as his father stood, sipping from his glass.

  “I know things were not always good between us,” Mullburn said. “And I’m sure your mother had some very nasty things to say.”

  “Well, I have to report,” Theos replied, “that she would run you down…bitterly criticize you. All I heard were negative things about how you’d left her high and dry. And yet I saw with my own eyes how well you provided for her. Our Athens villa was very nice. And all of our needs were taken care of—I knew that you couldn’t be the monster that she made you out to be. And so, as I got older, I decided to make up my own mind. Judge for myself.”

  “And?”

  “And—I’m here. I’m working with you. It’s obvious that I’ve taken a tremendous risk…”

  “Of course you have,” Mullburn snapped back. “We all do. How do you think I created this world for myself? By being timid and weak and fearful? If you’ve learned anything over the last five years, it should be this—the only world worth having is the one you create for yourself. With your own hands. By force if necessary, but always by cunning. By being smarter, better prepared, and more willing to take risks than your adversary. Leadership requires brutal choices. And it demands the courage of mind to follow through. To execute decisions, no matter what blood may be let, no matter what losses may be incurred.”

  Theos Petropolos smiled.

  “Father, I want to make you proud of me. I want you to build in me the kind of character that has made you the man you are.”

  Mullburn returned to his chair behind the dining table.

  “I have another job for you. President LaRouge is continuing to apply pressure to me. He’s demanding more and more accountability. He’s treating me like a member of his cabinet. The fact is, he has to consider himself a member of my cabinet—that is, if he’s very lucky.”

  Both of them chuckled.

  “I’ll get some figures together later,” the older man continued. “But we need to remind our island’s esteemed president how very vulnerable he is. How I am his sole source of protection, domestically, internationally, economically, and most importantly—militarily. I control the Elite Guard of the Republic, not him. In an instant I can shut down all of our banks, change our currency, and orchestrate a coup. All in probably less than an hour. So as far as Mandu LaRouge is concerned, I’ll get back to you with the details on how I want you to handle him.”

  “Whatever you’d like me to do,” Theos replied. “You can count on me, Father.”

  Mullburn rose, put down his glass, and strode over to his son, who was still reclining on the couch.

  “Finish your drink while you head back to the helicopter,” he ordered. “I want you back in the palace. I’ll get some information to you then via Himlet.”

  The younger man quickly swallowed the last of his drink and shook hands with his father. But he hesitated at the door.

  “And we will have to finish our discussion sometime,” he added, “about your continuing progress regarding financial transfer.”

  Mullburn eyed his son carefully. “As you know,” he said matter-of-factly, “I’ve already begun shifting control of some important assets to you. I’ll continue making progress on that. I plan on regarding you as my successor. As I promised. And when the centralization of my economic structure is completed, I’ll be able to have more flexibility in bringing you into some of the major global ventures. Now—you’d better be on your way.”

  Theos threw his father a quick wave, then disappeared up the stairs to the top deck.

  After he had l
eft, Mullburn snatched his cell phone and punched in a number. His chief personal accountant answered quickly.

  “This is Mullburn.”

  “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s about Mrs. Petropolos in Athens…”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You know the monthly stipend I’ve been paying to her?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s been a fixed amount for as many years as I can remember.”

  “Stop paying it,” Mullburn growled.

  38

  PRESIDENT HARRIET CORBIN LANDOW was seated on the couch in the Oval Office, chugging from a twenty-four-ounce bottle of French spring water and paging furiously through a report that had just been handed to her by Secretary of State Thomas Linton.

  The secretary of state was seated in a chair across the coffee table from the president. His hands were folded politely in his lap, and he waited patiently for her comments.

  There was a knock, and the door cracked open a few inches as her chief of staff, a middle-aged woman with short-cropped hair and a datebook in her hand, attempted to politely interrupt.

  “Excuse me, Madame President. I’m sorry to interrupt, but you had asked that I let you know—”

  President Landow snapped, “I don’t want to be interrupted. No exceptions. Close the door, and I don’t want to see you until I ask for you.”

  She returned to the final page of the report, studied it carefully, flipped back to a few pages in the middle, then laid the document down on the coffee table and took another slug from her bottle of water.

  A few seconds passed, and the secretary of state made some initial observations.

  “Madame President, this is our best information available. I regret to say that as far as the Middle East peace process is concerned—”

  “Yes, let’s talk about that,” the president shot back. “As far as the peace process is concerned, the United States has lost control. We have been cut off at the pass by a fly-by-night, self-appointed ambassador of goodwill, Warren Mullburn, who buys himself this little banana republic somewhere in the Caribbean. And now he upstages the president of the United States. Is that what we’re dealing with here? Are you saying this guy has more leverage than the leader of the free world…which I am?”

  Secretary Linton chose his words carefully.

  “As I often advised President Warren—and I would advise you the same thing—the mediation process over there is always fragile. And it’s always subject to a changing political environment. That’s what makes it so difficult. We have multiple geopolitical entities claiming some interest in that process. But frankly, it all comes down to one thing—the massacre on the Temple Mount reconfigured all of the prior alliances, destroyed the fragile peace process that had been built up to that point, and basically threw everything up for grabs.”

  “I want you to bring me back into this process,” the president replied tersely. “Go back to square one. Back to the drawing board. Get Howard Kamura back into the middle of things—in the thick of it—and get him to elbow Mullburn completely out. If it means digging up some trash on him so we reduce his credibility to a smoldering ash pile…then so be it. This guy has more hooks on him…more dirty laundry than a Chinese dry cleaner in New York.”

  “Well, we know about all the stories regarding Mr. Mullburn. I’ve seen the intelligence on him. The problem is…he has escaped any definitive proof of wrongdoing, even though there are high suspicions involving many…many questionable dealings by Mr. Mullburn. In other words, he’s managed to construct a plausible avenue of deniability regarding everything that’s been alleged against him. As you know, the Department of Justice finally dropped its pursuit of him.”

  “Maybe it’s time to start up a new investigation of Mr. Mullburn,” the president replied.

  “I don’t think that is feasible,” Linton answered. “I’ve already talked to the attorney general. There is just nothing to go on. And at this point, if we convene yet another grand jury against Mr. Mullburn, he could make a good case for selective, discriminatory prosecution.”

  President Landow studied him for a moment before she continued. Linton was, of course, the selection of her predecessor, Theodore Warren. But she was stuck with him—at least for the time being. Her administration was still in its infancy, and a change in secretary of state at this early juncture would be politically disastrous.

  On the other hand, although Landow knew she had to work with Linton, that didn’t mean she had to like it.

  “Let me just say this,” Landow added. “You know what my priorities are. I want Mullburn squeezed out. I want the United States back in this process as chief negotiating agent. I want you to listen to me very carefully—I want a signing ceremony between the Palestinian prime minister and the prime minister of Israel, with me in the middle. All of us shaking hands. Right there. Clear?”

  Linton smiled cautiously and nodded.

  “And there is one more thing,” Landow noted as she flipped through the report. “Yes, here it is. You talk about the Palestinian tribunal that’s going to try the leader of that cult that blew up the Temple Mount—”

  “Hassan Gilead Amahn.”

  “Yes. Amahn. Your report discusses the procedural aspects—the imminent trial of Mr. Amahn—the fact that the Palestinians worked hard to make sure the UN didn’t take over the process because they wanted the death penalty very badly on this. Now, as you know, I take a middle road on that. Polls are still very strong about the vast majority of Americans wanting the death penalty against terrorists who kill innocent people. So I have no problem with that. But we need to get something understood…”

  “Yes, Madame President?”

  “Well, first of all, the United States has to have a strong presence. We have to be visibly in support of the Palestinian effort to bring this guy to justice. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes. We have several advisors from the Department of Justice assisting the Palestinians in establishing the tribunal. Drafting the procedural laws to apply to the trial. Selection of judges and so forth. Of course, the UN and the International Criminal Court have given the primary assistance in helping to fashion the tribunal. But the United States is also very much involved—”

  “No, you’re just missing this, Tom,” the president snapped. “We need to show that the United States helped to convict this man. We helped put him in the death chamber for his act of genocide against Muslims. That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “Well, we can hardly put that in a report,” Secretary Linton said with an air of surprise. “There has to be some semblance of a fair trial involved here. Madame President, you and I are both lawyers, and—”

  “Let’s not get off on the rule of law,” Landow replied. “I don’t need a lecture on that. I see three indisputable facts here. First of all, according to the polls I read just yesterday, about sixty-seven percent of the American people believe that this Gilead Amahn was the ringleader behind the bombings. That his religious fanaticism fueled the massacre. And then secondly, it is also pretty clear to me that Amahn was on the FBI’s terrorist watch list…we’ve got to mitigate that issue, it could be political suicide for us if it looks like he slipped through our fingers…”

  “Not exactly,” Linton replied. “He was not a known terrorist. In fact, nobody had identified him as a terrorist. It’s just that his ethnic background, his former Islamic ties over in Cairo, and his trips back and forth between the United States, Israel, and Jordan had some time ago raised the question about whether we needed to look at him more closely. So when he got arrested for starting a disturbance at an Islamic meeting in northern Virginia, we put a detainer on him so we could take a closer look. But the FBI and the DOJ decided he had no connections to any known terrorist organizations, so the hold was dropped.”

  “Well then, let me give you my third issue. And this is probably the most important,” President Landow concluded. “Gilead Amahn is proof positive that what I had been saying during the
campaign was absolutely true. A lot of folks…the conservative talk-show hosts—you know the same old bunch—they were going berserk when I was nominated as VP on the ticket. Especially over my comments about a conspiracy of the extreme Christian terrorist fringe. Well, all that ends up to be true, doesn’t it, if you look at this Gilead Amahn. He’s part of the lunatic element…this prophecy cult that thinks they can bring Jesus back to earth by blowing up half of Jerusalem. That’s the kind of religious fanaticism, the kind of right-wing stuff I’ve been up against all my life. And now it’s come home to roost. If they aren’t blowing up abortion clinics, then they’re blowing up Muslim sites to bring on the Second Coming. So…Amahn needs to be brought to justice for that massacre, and it has to be swift and final.”

  “Well, if it’s any consolation,” Secretary Linton replied, “the prosecution team in Ramallah has some very strong evidence. They’re very dedicated to bringing Amahn to a criminal conviction.”

  “Tom, let’s just cut to the chase,” Landow said. “I know the Palestinians. I’ve talked to those people since the Temple Mount bombing. I know full well that they want to crucify this Gilead Amahn.”

  Then she put down her bottle of water, leaned forward, and looked Linton in the eye.

  “So what I’m saying,” the president said with the full measure of her assumed authority, “is that we need to provide them with the hammer and nails.”

  39

  WILL CHAMBERS HAD CLEARED EVERYTHING from his calendar that day except for one case—The International Tribunal of the Palestinian Authority v. Hassan Gilead Amahn, Accused.

  He put in several calls to Deputy Secretary of State in Charge of Middle Eastern Affairs, Bob Fuller, but each time was referred to a secretary who indicated Mr. Fuller was not available.