Chapter Two

"The Iranian ambassador has the floor, Counselor!" The Secretary General slammed down his gavel before the General Assembly, once, twice, then thrice.


The Peruvian ambassador struggled to control his anger, only to be further outraged by the fact that his limited time, was now over, and the fears and concerns of his country had not yet been fully addressed.

"We had nothing to do with the attack!" The Peruvian counselor shouted in final desperation. "What possible material, or monetary value would there be in such an attack? You have no right to silence me..!"

"I'm warning you Ambassador," the Secretary General once again warned, in a low resonating tone, as the interpreter quickly relayed his message.

The ambassador was standing in a fit of rage. His face showed every sign of fatigue from days of gathering information prior to the United Nations visit and countless hours of preparing a legitimate argument, as to the lack of involvement that his country's officials had in the attack. His voice, shaky and tired, was heard over the last twenty minutes, but he felt only fell upon deaf ears, particularly the American officials, that would only comment on the fact that they were still looking into the attack. But what more information could there possibly be, that would lead them to any other conclusion? Why were they so resistant in offering anything further? The fear rose within the ambassador's sole, like an attacking submarine.

The mission was clear, exonerate Peru, and beyond anything his mind was telling him, the aching feeling from deep within his stomach would not lead him to believe that he had truly achieved this goal. He could only look to the Americans, futilely meeting their eyes with his, and experience the embarrassment of standing before the world leaders and representatives, ashamed for what had occurred, without offering a better explanation. Two of their own Peruvian representatives were lost in the attack, but this meant nothing to them, or did it? It was solely up to the Security Council now. If only there was more time.

Just outside the United Nations, a group of protestors shouted denigrating chants, blaming the United Nations for allowing such a catastrophe to have taken place in Peru. Given the purported steps the U.N. had taken toward world peace, its intentions were not enough to subdue the overzealous crowd.

"Keep it up!" Greg Caravelle shouted to the picketers, as he rallied more enthusiasm. Walking outside of the fervent group displaying slogans, almost as quickly as he had been able to gather the support of the people from the unemployment department, he darted to the nearest phone, and quickly dialed a memorized telephone number.

"Yes this is KNCU, 'broadcasting and everlasting'," a female voice came over the phone.

"KNCU?!" Greg questioned, as he had a hard time hearing the lady's voice over the shouting in the background.

"Yes, 'broadcasting and..."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. Listen, I have a story for you...Yes, it appears the death of the foreign relations advisor, Tim Rutherford has spurred some unrest among the good people of New York. If you want to get any of this on film, you'd better hurry down to the United Nations building...east side. Most of them work and only have time for an hour's demonstration," Greg felt no guilt in misleading the news station, in that he had only paid them for an hour's worth of work.

As the General assembly convened for lunch, several of the Peruvian advisors met their comrade at the doors, curious to find out how the presentation went, and if there were any further concerns. Time was limited for the Iranian ambassador, stalled by interruptions the Secretary General broke for lunch before he could speak. Most of the ambassadors had phone calls to make and policies to sell and were trying to make the most of their precious time.

A knot began to slowly form in the Iranian ambassador's stomach as the change of world events sparked a subconscious memory, like a smell bringing back memories of a better time. It nagged at him, though the memory was fleeting, for it had an irreconcilable parallel. What was it? Perhaps it was the pressure of not yet speaking before the General Assembly that gave into a growing feeling of anxiety. Trying to clear his mind, he stared away and down from the second floor, onto the sidewalk where cameras lined the east lawn, as picketers shouted and flashed signs, one of which read, "it's not time yet"..., then followed by the demonstrator behind her..."to let down our arms!".

"Amir!” a young Iranian student shouted, one of several touring the United Nations in a work study program for aspiring ambassadors. Born and raised close to Amir's old neighborhood, in a textile area of Qum, Amir knew of Hassan's family, and the limited means by which they had to achieve their son's objectives for a better life. Farther removed from the religious influences, rather his father lived life from day to day as a factory worker, planning for a better life for his own. Site of the gold-domed Shrine of Fatimah, and a resting place for past Saints and Kings, only highlighted the contrast to the drudgery that many people lived not lucky enough to be born into affluence. But that's the way life was sometimes, like the luck of the draw. On occasion though, someone does get lucky. Through Amir's connections at the United Nations, he assisted Hassan in achieving a government grant from Tehran for his foreign studies, and in many ways became the boy's mentor. Hassan, generally possessed an excitable personality, but there was something about the energy in which he approached Amir that alerted him to an existing problem. Continuing in Farsi, "the faqih has called an emergency meeting in Tehran. An American reporter was killed today outside of Dezful. He had been invited to take notes as an observer for the negotiations on eliminating United States imposed sanctions."

Taken by the shock of the news, he paused, "it was the first step toward normalizing relations that had been secretly given to us in years by the United States. How could this happen?"

Just then the Secretary General was approached, with news that drew concern in his face, that could lead Amir to no other conclusion...he had just been told of the recent event.

"When did this take place, Hassan?" Amir questioned, as he watched the Secretary General, undoubtedly preplanning a Security Council.

"Less than an hour ago."

"We must act fast."

Without hesitating, Amir approached the Secretary General, not once wincing in his determination. "General..."

"Amir? Jesus," the Secretary General uttered, as his advisors literally surrounded him now. "Please..."

"Sir, may I have a word with you?"

"Of course, Amir..." the Secretary General stated as a matter of fact, pointing down the hallway to his office.

In moments, they were entering, and the door closed behind them.

"For Chrissakes, Amir, what the hell is the matter over there?!" The General's face turned red as fire, and undeniably, an answer, sure as hell, would be forthcoming.

"I just heard, myself, General," Amir stated, looking as perplexed as the General felt, hoping desperately to have a chance to find out the facts.

"How long have you known me, Amir," the Secretary General questioned as he looked away from him.

"Five years, maybe six...General...Charlie, you've got to let me go back, and find out what happened in Dezful..."

"And in all those years, Amir, you and I have been friends. You know better than anyone how hard I've worked in bringing a peaceful resolution to the Middle East. This is the last thing the United Nations needs now. God damn it!...Find out the facts, Amir. If anyone finds out though, that you fled the country, it could look bad...real bad. Reporters are going to be all over the place....God damn..."

"Charlie..."

"Have Hassan take you to JFK."

"Thank you, General."

"Leave through the south entrance...don't look back. I expect you back here in seventy two hours with a written apology from faqih."

Amir turned back towards the General, "I can't give you that, Charlie...You know that!"

"You get it Amir...if no one else, you'll pay for this. The world's not ready to lie down anymore...They've had it. I've had it. And you give me five minutes in a Security Council, and you'll be sorry you ever attended your first day of college."

Amir left with a hole burning in the pit of his stomach and the lump in his throat exploding. Walking briskly down the hallway, every step brought the fear and reality of the Secretary General's statement closer to home. The likelihood of him returning at all was limited, and even still before the Security Council's meeting, his chances were less than none. If ever his job meant more, then now was the time the cards would have to be laid out on the table. There had to be a party to answer to this. The search for one may risk everything he had worked for. He could easily be killed seeking them out. And still he would be as good as dead, anyway, if Iran's trade was permanently halted only by the malicious act, no less, perpetrated by some extreme view points of how the world should really be. People were killed all the time in that part of the world, as they are for many different reasons around the world. How could just one death, be so crucial to a country's stability. And what if the American was just a mis-targeted victim? The poor bastard. What then? Amir thought.

*****

The oak trees that lined the road told the story of generations that lived within the surrounding neighborhood. Markings made by local youth that forever carved the initials of young lives were higher than anyone would notice, given the fact that the trees had grown twenty to twenty five feet since they were first planted. If the lines within their sturdy trunks were visible, the rings would place their first year around the population boom after the second world war, when the morals were forefront to the lifestyles, and family unity was more than just a good intention. The trees breathed life into the neighborhood, giving it character, protecting and nurturing the houses around, and forever keeping a record of days gone by.

Jay Conte grew up on this street. A son of a war hero, who seemingly acquired every medal possible for an enlisted man. It didn't seem fair that, one was to live a life without an arm, and sometimes all the love in the world couldn't make it right again. It seemed so anti-climatic, that he was to decide that was the way it would end, but when Jay's mom found him in the garage, with the car running, all the words simply fell into an empty hole, where useless things really belong. These things, just didn't happen here, but in those times, people gave of themselves, and the support of good friends and a strong willed mother only strengthened the family. Jay could find comfort in the fact that he lived a moral life, knowing that the house he had inherited from his mother had a worthy tenant.

The Fleetwood's hood fell under the shadow of trees blocking out the moon's light, visible through channels the wind created, as they formed a tunnel looking down the road. Shutting the car off the black car disappeared within its surroundings, as the engine was cutoff. Gabriel looked over at Abraham, limiting himself in conversation, with every pass through his mind, rehearsing his lines ever so carefully. What would set him into a rage was beyond him, yet the mechanics of his diabolical mind intrigued anyone that had enough intellect to recognize genius.

"Mr. Wells seems to be a good addition to our little project wouldn't you say, Gabe?"

"Mr. Trenton seems to have received him well, though I still have doubts, that he is fully committed to the project."

"How many scenarios do you think it will take for Aero_One to work? Even at this time, a propaganda campaign is being driven down the throats of our congressmen. Given the right time and event, fear will command the decisions, rather than logic, and once again, the aerospace community will thrive."

"Why an American reporter, though?"

"That's not how it works, Gabriel. Only Jim Wells had ties with the German companies trading out of Iran, and Saudi-, though. The stochastic generation of probabilities targets no one in particular. Who would have thought reconnaissance was not even necessary, with the implementation of statistical mathematics?"

Looking out the car into the darkness, only hearing hints of a breeze up against the car and the whistling through the trees, Gabriel dared to ask, "Why are we here, anyway Abraham?"

"I told you, we are here to..."

"I know...I know, but you’re parked almost two blocks away and..."

Abraham sat there, slowly moving to put his black gloves on. The look of intensity drew his thoughts to another part of his mind that no one could ever understand. Perhaps a thought driven from a childhood occurrence whether bad or good, yet undetermined and taking every ounce of his thoughts away.

"It's cold tonight..."

As if in a different world, the conversation was only of self-understanding. Gabriel's words bounced off Abraham as if he were sitting alone. He opened the car door, hardly uttering a sound, then closed it just as rapidly, forcing Gabriel to be completely mystified at his actions.

The shadows cast an eerie reverence to the moon's light, leaving spaces and pieces of the sidewalk unseen to the naked eye. Gabriel walked briskly, quickly tiring, trying to match Abraham's stride, and looking around him as the un-reconciled fear grew with every break and dip in the sidewalk.

In the distance, the trees waved in the night and a lamp post that should have been lit just beyond Jay's house, only exhibited the tardiness of a city worker. A figure then emerged, moving quickly towards the front stoop of the ex-director's house.

Gabriel's lungs were aged and exercise had hardly been a daily routine for him, since years past. Leaving his trust in genetics had been a reasonable assumption for longevity, but hardly allowed for a lung capacity that would take more than a block's worth of rapid motion. The years had worn him quicker than Abraham, yet a man driven by less than understandable terms, might have an edge on someone oblivious to circumstance.

The echoes off the walls of the gingerbread houses reminded Gabriel of his solitude, until the voices inevitably, broke the silence.

"I can't continue..." the wind whipped the words of Jay past Gabriel's ears, then just as quickly stole the ones to follow away.

"I...stepped-down for you Abe, God-da...You're nuts if you..!"

His concentration was suddenly broken by an oak branch slamming down, reaching across the width of the street, and the sidewalk on the far side, as it had weathered too many storms over the years. Gabriel's heart skipped a beat, as only ten feet further would have left him lying directly beneath two tons of weathered wood. The shots must have been almost simultaneous to the branch falling, for the limp body of Jay Conte was being pushed back inside of his own house, by Abraham, followed by the front door being pulled closed. Surveying the area, then focusing on Gabriel, who had witnessed the aftermath, Abraham looked slightly relieved, to find only an associate had witnessed the event. Though his intentions were for Gabriel to wait patiently in the car, it was supposed to have been an unspoken understanding, one of which Gabriel had not abided by. Stepping on top of the tree limb and over, Abraham jumped down in front of Gabriel, not even hesitating a moment, as the lights were finally found in the dark by some of the neighboring homes, as the people were awaken by the shock of the crash, or a popping sound heard in the night.

"Let's go," Abraham grabbed his arm and yanked him back in the opposite direction.

"What the hell do you think you’re doing, Abe...My god..."

"Why did you get out of the car, Gabe?"

Gabriel began to speak, but was suddenly interrupted by Abraham, as both of them blended into the sidewalk, heading back towards the car. "He was threatening to go to the authorities. Apparently he didn't take his dismissal as well as Rock had anticipated."

"I don't understand. I thought Rock was completely out of the loop?" Gabriel questioned.

"Rock has taken the same stance on this, as with any other project he has ever endeavored. He did what he had to, then limited his liability by limiting his knowledge of the events around him. Our friend Mr. Conte, however, paid Rock a visit today, asking to be let in on the project."

"How the hell did he know about it?"

"Someone must have tipped him off to the fact that he was the weak link. He was slightly upset, and demanded to be a principal in the project. It didn't take much questioning to find out that he knew little of the project, only that his pride had been hurt from his dismissal. But...there's nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal, Gabe. He would accept nothing less. Unfortunately for him, Gabe, I can deliver 'nothing less'."

"Rock told you to do this, Abraham?!"

Abraham's eyes widened from Gabriel's outburst, breaking the silence of the night that had acted as a silent friend to their stealth. Eluding an unsuspecting witness to their conversation was another obstacle that Abraham had not anticipated. Images beyond what was illuminated by the porch lights, were outside the realm of the eyes scanning and assessing the damage from behind the closed windows, and Abraham wanted to keep it that way. His fingers found their way around the neck of his quarry as if one were to reach for a jacket or a hat off a coat rack, as delicate, and graceful, yet backed by an un-countered strength, nearly lifting Gabriel off his feet, in the darkness. Gurgling sounds emanated from his mouth, but nothing more could be heard from him. It was no way to end, and for lack of training in self-defense, his mind frantically searched for an expedient resolution to the circumstances that would forever end his life, yet instinct drove him from an effective tactical maneuver, if one was to be obtained, to grabbing his captives hands, desperately trying to release them. Abraham had unbelievable power for his age.

The winds continued blowing harder as the trees broke away for an instant allowing the moon light to reflect on Abraham's left check and eyeball...in his eye, was a hollow view of an unconscionable soul, that Gabriel had never seen before. As Abraham slowly released his would-be victim, the realization was analogous to staring down the wrong end of a rifle as the enemy held the trigger steady, just waiting for him to flinch...Gabriel had seen death, and death seemed now as equal to life...for knowing he was to be near him through Aero_One's final phase, frightened Gabriel as much as the struggle for the oxygen he frantically drew into his lungs.

The battle for air left Gabriel kneeling within twenty feet of Abraham's Fleetwood. The sound of an engine starting could be heard, but lifting his head to see whose car it was, was not yet within the parameters of his oxygen deprived body. His head jerked upward from the sidewalk with every rush of air into his bronchial tubes, as if each jerk would help him to draw in more air.

"Come on," Abraham said, helping him to his feet, then into the car. "Just a little warning, Gabe. No harm done."

Gabriel held his neck as he settled in the front seat of the Fleetwood, still struggling from the lack of oxygen and the fear that was to follow.

*****

The sand had followed the path of a low air pressure channel created by the enormous fuselage of the Boeing 747, as it slowly crept to a rolling stop to within a few feet of the ground crew ready to wedge chocks on both sides of the tires at Tehran International. Sand and dust thrusting up and over the windshield hardly raised an eyebrow, as the pilots closed systems down, acknowledging with a radioed command for the ground crew to prepare for disembarking of passengers. Cloaking their faces prepared them for the harsh reality outside the protection of the aircraft, ironically reflective of the changing patterns of political tide pools that they had learned to live within during their lifetimes. The weather had been the least of their worries...sheltering thoughts from perhaps issues unimportant to them, or too important for reason. This was their homeland given the harsh cruelties that life brought forth, still remaining in their hearts as nurturing, and receiving as a woman's bosom, for lack of a greater reason...it gave them life.

Fifteen hours in flight had given light to more possibilities than could be reconciled in a lifetime, let alone, the hours remaining before Amir would have to address representatives from around the world. It was a gamble that perhaps even the Secretary General was aware of, given the circumstances, yet Charlie appeared only too willing to make it perfectly clear that possible actions would be imposed, without regard to comment, if a substantive explanation was not forthcoming.

He had no idea what he had asked of Amir, and in several lifetimes would anyone ever be born outside of a middle eastern state chance a tangible comprehension to the intricacies, and complexities, that allowed what the western world had considered such absolute chaos...yet in the reality of this paradox, lives were created, nurtured, and allowed to grow and flourish, in a world in any other person's eyes would be an impossibility.

The only difference was not in the outcome of the world regions, but in the patterns taken to obtain their own resolve. The big difference was that Iran left little patterns, for roads taken...they can and would quickly be covered up. As if a sugar cube were dropped in liquid, finding clues could only be there if they wanted to be found.

Protecting his face as he exited the aircraft, Amir squinted for some glimmer of recognition from anyone in the crowd below as they awaited loved ones through the treacherous weather. Finally, the familiar face of Rashid appeared briefly through the crowd patiently waiting...waving once to acknowledge his presence.

The two men exchanged greetings over the noise of the aircraft engines winding down, making their way to the government car allowed to approach the aircraft. Rashid, his driver, knew already Enghlab Avenue would be his point of destination and needn't hear Amir's command before they drove off in that direction.

Driving off the airport grounds, Mt. Demavend raised its snow capped peak high above the earth as a reminder of the magnificence of Allah and unscathed by the cruelties and inconsistencies that existed below. It was a reminder that few things still existed in life that left untouched, were more beautiful than anything man had bequeathed. Remembering how beautiful the Elburz Mountains were as Amir had flown over them into the city of Tehran, could not stop the anxiety building inside him, for now whether having accepted the circumstances or not, he was in charge of an investigation that would rock the political and, very likely, the religious world forever. The odds mounted against the very possibility of a Muslim gaining the trust in an investigation, a little voice kept telling him. An investigation that appeared, only to him, as unrelated to any religious faction. Few, as there may be, are trained to kill for their belief. How could he convince the leaders of the world that people so dedicated to the cause of religion...rather dyeing, than living by any other capacity, had no connection in a bombing that took the life of an American, no less. Only one person dead for a cause, as thought in their eyes, but many die every day for a cause that brings them that much closer to Allah. The reason wasn't whether or not the deceased were Islamic, but the fact that the dead are with Allah or God now.

To the world though, an American was dead. And that was the way Amir would have to look at it. He would just as surely kill himself, than be party to the persecution of Iran before the world, as this paradox quickly unfolded. The world had undoubtedly convicted his country simply for being Muslim, before the facts could be shown and little time could be spent in assuring them that an investigation was underway, without jeopardizing the outcome. At the outset, military retaliation would be a risk during the interim and little could be done about that.

The streets were crowded and hard to drive through as the distant Shanhashani Park could be seen from where they sat in traffic, blocked in by cars and pedestrians crossing in and around the cars. He had meet Farah there as teenagers, visiting the city on a school tour. In the lower city, distinguished by the covered alleys making up the multitude of bazaars, they toured through the many small shops and stalls. Amir bought her a necklace, expressing his undying passion. She secretly brought him into a small empty covert area amidst all the commotion and unveiled the most beautiful face Amir had ever laid eyes on. She kissed him and forever he would never consider another.

It was always his work that would separate them, but forever he would remain hers.

"I don't know why they don't make way, sir?" Rashid stated questionably. "There must be something going on?"

"I don't have a lot of time to figure it out my friend," Amir responded, frustrated by the people blocking the road. An obvious celebration was commencing and little respect for the officiousness of their presence was given. Grabbing the door handle, Amir decided the last leg of the trip would have to be the religious way, given the abilities that had been granted him. "I'll see you back at headquarters." I must make it to faqih.

And that was all before Rashid had fully turned around Amir had disappeared into the festivities.

Past the Azadia, the freedom monument and up Enghlab Avenue, and down an alley, the noise finally dissipated somewhat. Running almost faster than his normal five mile daily jog allowed, noise and languages that transgressed time and geographic regions, outlining the potpourri of cultures that made up the ancient city. Such a contrast to what the Americans proclaimed as history, would be relatively new given the time period in which Washington D.C. had been built. Time seemed to start wherever ones relative understanding of the world began.

"Oú va-t-il?" A voice questioned in the background.

Turning one more time into a friendlier area of the city and running one flight of stairs up to the first set of doors, Amir frantically searched for the keys. The door slowly opened before he had a chance to locate them to a young girl who had opened it ahead of her mother Farah, holding a ball in her hands. "Daddy!"

"Amir?" A voice so sweet to his ears melted the worries that he would have to inevitably deal with later.

"Ah, my little girl," he said to his daughter, kneeling down, but watching his wife enter the living area.

She smiled, as she rushed towards him, but with the sense that he had wedded her with, immediately knew that something was not right. Kissing him long and romantically as his daughter pulled on his clothes for an equal amount of attention, Amir held Farah out in front of him, then once looking down at his daughter. "I did not have time to call."

"This...this is about Dezful?" Farah asked concerned.

"Yes, Farah."

"The faqih has requested that you contact him immediately upon your arrival."

"How did he know that...?"

"He knows where you would go first. Only, I didn't expect you here until tomorrow."

Just then the phone rang, and without hesitation, Amir walked over to the couch table. "Hello?...oh sir...of course...sir...yes, okay." Amir hung up the phone.

Breathing in deeply as if to contain the too familiar pain of watching her husband be called off to some unknown mission of peace and ambassadorship, as if to suck in the brutality of the life she had chosen, or had been chosen for her. "Oh Amir..." She stopped.

His little girl looked at him, still holding the ball in her hands by the opened door leading to the hallway of the complex.

"I have to," he approached her with a kiss.

"Please be careful," Farah said sadly.

A horn could be heard blasting outside. Walking to the window Amir could see it was Rashid, who also knew Amir too well. "He is so disobedient."

"Rashid?" Farah questioned.

The look on Amir's face was read only too well. "He looks out for you. At least someone does if I can't always be there.

Without any further delay, Amir gave a kiss to his little girl and left.

*****

"Peter...hi, this is Jim," Jim Well's said from nearly half a world away. The California air was as foreign to his lungs as if he had never lived there. Beyond UniTech's grounds was noticeable desert potential and wherever the water ended the barren soil began. For him having been entranced by Germany’s beauty, what he saw through the window was just blatantly ugly. Why had he not noticed it before?

Peter Jorgenson knew not to ask any questions concerning the sudden departure, lest he risk the cancellation of the project entirely, having dedicated so much of himself to it. It was the only hope they had in completing the decoding of the files found in Katterbach's underground airfield. Approximately half the strategies were solved at least they had passed the preliminary testing stage, prior to Jim Wells taking them to the United States. If UniTech thought that they had progressed further into the deciphering of the strategies than stage five, then so be it. They had threatened to close the Ansbach project down. What other choice did they have, but to lie? Stage ten, the final and most crucial phase would dictate absolute probability. Since the days of the Romans, it was considered mathematically impossible. Within an acceptable tolerance would be a thing of the past. To know exactly what was to happen at any given time and place, given the data to commence stochastic modeling, seemed incomprehensible. It was the way into the future mankind had always searched for. Perhaps even prophets of yester-year were able to calculate events with some innate mathematical ability only they understood. Perhaps there was a quantified basis for Nostradamus's theories, after all.

"How is everything going...okay?"

"Yeah...I guess. I plan on wrapping this up as quickly as possible so I can return home." It seemed so ironic, as the words past his lips, that calling a place so distant and unexplored, socially and politically as Germany...calling it home lent credence to the fact that he hated where he was. He had evaded the bureaucracy for so long. Living there in essence had become a place of refuge. His family was settled in, and little Sam was learning German quicker than Jim could ever have hoped for. It was so isolated...so peaceful. God, do I miss it.

The conversation progressed to a close, leaving Peter with the feeling that Jim really didn't know when Aero_One would be completed...whatever that was?

"I only supplied them with the first four stages, leaving five through ten our personal discovery. Once the preliminary..."

"Listen...Jim, I know how important this project is to you, but..."

"I don't think Jack Trenton will need any more information than that."

"Okay."

Jim looked over at Jack, still staring at his Morango, conquest, testing an analysis out that might quantify a third strike possibility. Once the signal was given, there was no turning back, and one mistake would kill only innocent people, leaving the primary objective to a two strike scenario. The knowledge of this was burning at his guts, like an iron welding rod. His project had functioned flawlessly up to this point, yet in consideration of the recent political moves within new Russia the scenario now called for further incorporation of probability functionality if Eastern Europe was to be entered into the scenario. In other words, his equations were quickly becoming antiquated. Jim had furthered the hypothesis that Trenton had started only weeks ago. It was a project that he offered little information on, only that he would offer enough information for Morango to get within fifty miles of target destination. Anything outside of the Eastern Block, Jack would just apply his old methodologies to.

The tolerance was still too loose, and though asking a fellow scientist to divulge his untested methodologies only asked for weaknesses to be exposed prematurely, it was perhaps worth it, considering the worst of two possible outcomes.

"We're talking about murder, you know...Wells."

Jim Wells had finished his conversation with Peter, leaving him hanging by a thread. Very little information was all he had offered, and the Ansbach project now seemed farther and farther away. It was a different world. Almost out of reach from his current reality...murder.

"We haven't finished the testing yet, Jack...Jorgenson is working overtime in Ansbach to..."

"Jim..." Trenton, for the first time since Jim had met his comrade in this high tech game of political sabotage, turned to face him, in a humanistic manner that described beyond any words confining the parameters of pure thought, an acknowledgement of the absolute brutality that they were progressively committing. "Don't try to justify reasons for something we cannot possibly consider tangible to our world...you, you do justify what we're doing, don't you, Wells?"

"No, I..."

"It is murder, Jim...Ask our dear Mr. Peterson what will evolve from Aero_One. Yet derived from any vantage point, within the boundaries of reality this fucked-up world has to offer, murder's gonna be my answer...and it should be yours. When I look at you, I see a scientist such as myself, a few, if that many in the world today hold the discoveries of a life time in their heads. Like most, their just plugging their way through the day. You...Jim Wells, eat, sleep and drink this life. You're a scientist...probably the finest the world has to offer in quantitative, statistical research...but trust me, it doesn't make you any better than what you or I have become. All we can do now is lesson the agony for the few unfortunate, who were misplaced or turned down the wrong street one day going out to get some eggs for their kids."

Wells turned from him, engrossed within the context of his words, and taken by the inhumanity of it all.

"Listen, goddamn it!" Jack mistook Jim's evasiveness as a lack of compassion.

"I hear you, Jack."

"We're fucking killing people out there and you’re so goddamn tied up in your precious project..."

"I told you that..."

"Bullshit! You've got the analytics. I know how long you've been working on the Ansbach project, and you may pull that crap on Peterson, but the guilt's written all over your face. We're killing babies for Chrissakes here...mothers, fathers...whatever is going to pull that fuckin' chain of yours...!

"They're untested! Hell, I don't even know if they make sense!"

Jack was finally making ground in what had originally been a futile struggle for sharing a discovery that could potentially place a researcher's name in print in every text book required for an ivy-league education for years to come. Hitler's strategies that may very well have led the Third Reich into world domination, had they been completed in time, were ironically capable of limiting the kills necessary for success of Aero_One. Wells' was cracking under the whip, almost too easily. The strain of the job would probably never leave him the same and Trenton knew it. He didn't have the stomach for it like he did, though he may never had known it unless he saw Wells' reaction to his query. Jim must have known about the people he was destroying, didn't he? How long did he think he could keep it out of his mind?

"They'll continue to go untested unless..." Jim turned back towards Jack as he stopped, "look, their killing themselves over there anyway. All we're doing is moving the timeline up a little...giving the old supply and demand a little assistance. I just want to help the people I can help out along the way."

Jack could feel him weaken within his grip. Wells' intellect had projected him to a prominent standing within the community in which he conducted his research and given the right environment he had excelled to great achievements, yet his personality lacked the strength of Jack’s and with a little more pushing he could...

"It was his last greatest accomplishment," Jim said in a way that was no more rhetorical than absolute.

"Who's?"

"Though he probably didn't live long enough to know that, the theories existed. The Americans took out the entire caravan driving west from Nuremburg, or at least they thought so."

As Jim progressed in conversation, Jack decided Wells' reference was to Adolph Hitler.

"The reconnaissance team was sent in to recover what they believed to be the troop transport carrying the documents, but nothing was found. It should have been in a fireproof safe in one of the burned out trucks, but it wasn't. They believe one of the solders must have lived through the aerial raid, and made the trek thirty or so kilometers west to Katterbach. Most of the barracks had been evacuated at the time, and we can only speculate, but before the Americans came in to flood the underground airfields, the solder dropped the box in one of the passages...Could you imagine if we only had this information before now?" Jim questioned.

The look on Jim Wells' face was distant and unresponsive. His face showed the strain of years of tribulation and some successes, but mostly lack thereof, for the most part. Every line and crease therein defined a man at the cross roads of his life. No person, given their worst nightmare, should have to gamble between milestones and the slaughtering of innocent people. He was breaking down quickly and Jack contemplated whether he had pushed Wells to the point that he was no longer helpful even at his best with Morango. Jack still needed him, with or without the ten phases of Ansbach. It was going to be a long road ahead.