Kindle Edition
Author's Page
Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: BookRix
Type: Fiction
Pages: 187
Copyright: 9/3/2013
ISBN-13: 9783730947760
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
A young man is in the wrong place at the wrong time and becomes the hostage of a Middle Eastern terrorist, becoming a pawn in a chess game of international intrigue.
Tom O'Malley has a life that would make many Americans jealous, as he just graduated from Georgetown University, and is a handsome young man with a beautiful girlfriend. One fateful day, however, while finishing his part time job as a Pizza deliverer, Tom makes a delivery to a place where a Muslim Terrorist is holding Americans hostage, and Tom, too, becomes a hostage.
Not only does he become a hostage, however, but a celebrity, as the terrorist takes him out onto the balcony in front of television cameras and introduces him to America in a not very complementary manner. Tom's life is radically changed by this quirk of fate that makes him a pawn in a chess game of international relations. During his journey Tom finds out that the game is played by people who are far more powerful than he, and who don't care in the least about whether he lives or dies.
Meet Andre, the Muslim terrorist who was actually born a Christian in West Beirut before he, too, was kidnapped. Meet Amado, a Spanish translator who grew up in Chile during the violent military coup de tat that overthrew Salvador Allende. Meet Amy, Tom's girlfriend, who is deathly afraid that this unexpected adventure is going to change her lover forever. And meet drug dealers, media professionals and other fascinating characters, all of whom have a hand in determining Tom's fate.
Join Tom in his perilous journey, where we view a terrorist network that is global in nature, making convenient alliances to promote their goals. This young man is confronted by very serious threats, and some of the people that he is dealing with are not who they seem to be.
Excerpt
This was the moment André had been looking forward to for many years.
André Armoceeda had grown up in Lebanon and was not unaccustomed to chaos. He reveled in anarchy in fact, and a history of past successes in that dramatic part of the world had helped to place him on that balcony, flanked by two steely-eyed Iranian stalwarts. The Iranians were standing at attention and they too had Uzis, which were clutched upright with the barrels in front of their noses. André’s gun moved casually about as he spoke, as though he might like to shoot a few bystanders for the fun of it.
André had been born a Christian in Beirut in 1948, in what was then a rising metropolis by Western standards. It was fast becoming a playground for the rich, or a place for the display of western vices, depending on your point of view. His father was for a time fortunate in economic matters. As a young entrepreneur in what was then a tourist Mecca, he owned three hotels before they were demolished by Moslems in 1964; at this time André was kidnapped by the occupying vandals and taken away to Syria. He never learned what had happened to his parents, which was probably for the best. They'd been gunned down on their knees while his father's flagship hotel was burning down.
André was taken to the western part of Syria, which had just been cleansed of the Christians and their large private farming enterprises. Here he had a change in vocation. Instead of head bellboy he became latrine cleaner, then pig tender, wheat planter and gradually supervisor as he worked his way up the ladder. And the Syrians were impressed. Here was evidence of the advance of Allah, where a young man who was formerly a tool of the barbarians was rapidly becoming a soldier in the army of His justice. (And his last name was changed to Abdul, a far more fitting name for a soldier in the army of Islamic Justice.)
But André was drawing further into himself, which might be expected under such a difficult transition. He was, like his father, a strong willed man; but also, like his father, he was accustomed to adapt to circumstances.
And so it was not to help Allah when André joined the Syrian Army when he turned 18, but to obtain a higher form of servitude. Gradually rising through the ranks before an Israeli bullet removed the two small fingers of his left hand during the war of 1967, André Abdul had become a hero.
But he did not consider himself a hero, for he thought that the Syrians were cowards. They'd lost battles where they'd outnumbered the Israelis three to one. The Syrian infantry, formerly accustomed to bare feet, had on several occasions slashed off their boot strings with razors so that they might retreat more in a manner to which they were accustomed. Cowards! And as they were fleeing, the Israelis were firing on them with the same Russian tanks they'd just abandoned. Cut off your boots, get shot with your own weapons, and you call yourself soldiers?
But it was only in his own soul that André reminisced in this manner, for his main goal was to insulate himself from what he'd come to consider a world full of fools. So there was a basic irony in his character during his advance in the Syrian armed forces. The promotion to lieutenant colonel and the purchase of a house in Damascus did not satisfy him, as might be expected of one who had been diverted from upper class to serfdom. Andre wanted and expected to feel himself a part of the ruling class again.
So he resigned his position in 1982, and went back to Beirut, this time with the other team, as it were.
Here André was again successful. His brash demeanor and military connections stood him well in this chaotic environment, and even attained him the adoration of Iran's Party of God, as well as certain of the Ayatollah's chieftains. They considered him a great asset in their undeniable goal: the humiliation of spoiled and sinful Western decadence by the mighty hand of Allah.
His leadership and charisma were very noticeable in helping them gain a strong foothold on the Moslem side of the Green Line in East Beirut, where André Abdul was able to open a Swiss bank account with profits from the heavy arms trade there. Eventually, as his presence in Beirut became more well known, the financiers of Islam grew to respect him enough to let him plan and lead this essential mission.
So André was quite satisfied by the view that day from the balcony, the yellow POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape, the jeeps, the silent soldiers, and most of all, the cameras. He smiled benignly at these signs of crisis in the Western world of fools.
And he rose to the occasion for propaganda which might even increase his stature in that other Middle Eastern world of fools. The tools were certainly at his command. Hostages. A worldwide audience. Washington, DC, the center of power. But most of all he appreciated that last minute gift of fortune, that perfect vehicle of propaganda, the Pizza Boy.
“We have inside this building twenty hostages who shall not be released until our demands are met. I will not state these conditions now, but shall give them to you in writing through an intermediary.
“Now I would like to speak to you about the intermediary. He is an American citizen who was delivering pizza to the spies who work here; yes spies, do not bother to deny it. He is one of your own kind American people, a hard working individual who is crushed under the merciless heel of your capitalist pigs. How could we be more honest than through negotiations with one of your own downtrodden? Allow me to show him to you.”
Tom was inside the glass doors trembling during this little speech. His captors had re-costumed him for the presentation, replacing his ban lon shirt with a ribbed undershirt, his cotton blend slacks with a pair of sweat pants, and his penny loafers with a pair of Converse Sneakers which, unfortunately, were a size too small.
It was difficult for Tom as he was pushed roughly through the doorway by Allah’s servants in the tight and unfamiliar sneakers. But André was in his glory, rising far above this world of the mediocre. He raised Tom up to a firmer stance. There he stood, eyes squinting at the camera lights, his hands clad in plastic handcuffs, slightly chilled by the spring breeze on his new attire, as André introduced him.
“Here you are America, take a look at your Pizza boy.”
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