25
New York City
United Nations Building
The agents had taken their places in various places around the outside of the building, awaiting the arrival of a short motorcade that was to be carrying the Muslim leaders of two prominent countries in the Middle East. Imam Adad al-Bahrain of Saudi Arabia, and Imam Mohamad ibn Alsabadhi of Yemen were to arrive with a Secret Service Escort to meet with world leaders and persuade them to take an active role in a manhunt for the Jesus Assassin. The leaders and their followers believed that FBI and Interpol were both run by Christian heretics, and they wanted the UN to level the playing field and catch this assassin. The imams had no clue that the FBI and Interpol already had officers all over the place. Although they had objected, the US ambassadors and the UN representatives themselves had insisted that the imams welcome the use of the Secret Service to insure their safety at this meeting. The Muslim leaders had been reluctant, but went along with the suggestion because they realized the US would never want anything to happen to embarrass their precious Secret Service; and they had a pretty strong track record for the past several decades when it came to protecting their President.
Agent Knox had taken up a position directly across the street from the main entrance, sitting in a Chevrolet Impala FBI car along the curb. Malik was waiting inside the front lobby, and Beth had claimed a spot further away at a street corner a block away. She was trying to keep an eye out for any signs of sniper activity. There were other FBI agents in place at various locations around the building at the request of Agent Knox, and Malik had made a similar request to his Chief about having Interpol counterparts in the vicinity as well. They were ready for just about any attack - from the outside. The Secret Service had already done their prep work and had a pre-planned course for the imams to follow into the UN Building that would keep them separated from the expected crowd and on-lookers.
Knox picked up a radio that he had clipped to his belt.
“Fed Team, Knox knocking– radio check…over,” he spoke into the radio.
“White as snow…reading you clear as a bell – over,” Agent White replied.
Finally Malik spoke up on his end, “Sheriff Sharif copies as well.”
Everyone seemed as ready as they were ever going to be, and all agencies anxiously awaited the limousine motorcade. Meanwhile, the scene on the street in front of the building was being monitored by one more individual; the agents and law enforcement officers unaware of his presence. The Arbiter was camping out up in a high perch from one of the tall buildings down the street. He had a high powered 30-06 long rifle, with an especially clean scope mounted on the top of the gun. He looked down through the scope now from his spot on very high ground to check its clarity and settings. The rifle he was using would shoot at this distance with certainly enough velocity to be lethal, but not so much pressure and force around the bullet; therefore limiting collateral damage. Now the Arbiter would play the waiting game like everyone else.
Finally two large black armored limousines came around the corner, flying each of their respective country’s flags as they approached the front of the building. The limousines were flanked by two large, black SUVs. As the vehicles approached, agents and officers were talking to each other; everyone was on high alert, and snipers and people on the ground were searching for any hint that the assassin was close. The Arbiter focused his sites on the area near the curb where the limos were pulling up now. Once all four vehicles came to a full stop, several men in suits, wearing shades and ear buds, got out of the SUVs and formed a wall of people along the curb in front of the two limousines. The passenger in the front seat of each limousine got out and opened the rear door for their assigned Imam to exit the vehicle. Although the Imam from Saudi Arabia was in the first limo, and the Imam from Yemen was in the second, both men had decided they were going to walk in together, so the Yemeni caught up to Imam al-Bahrain of Saudi Arabia.
The two Secret Service Agents who rode with them formed up in front and behind the Islamic leaders. The man in the front had short brown hair and shades, a very muscular build, and a thin mustache. He must have been the one who had been through this before, because he led the way up the sidewalk and into the front of the UN Building. The Agent behind the imams was a very fair-skinned bald man with a similar build to the man up front, dressed in the customary suit, shades, and ear bud. As the small group got closer to the front doors of the building, the human wall of agents that had been in front of them had separated off into two lines, one on each side of the entering party, to fight back the crowd of supporters and on-lookers that had already gathered. While walking into the building, none of the agents, investigators, or even the Arbiter could find anything suspicious. Shortly after passing through the front doors, the imams and their entourage headed to one of the elevators. Unfortunately, they were only going to present their ideas to a small panel and committee; not the whole of the United Nations, so they were going upstairs in the tower to one of the smaller conference rooms. The UN had planned it this way in order to prevent so much fanfare.
As the elevator doors opened, the imams and their Secret Service agents boarded the elevator while their human wall lined up again in front of the elevator doors to prevent anyone from following. The doors closed and the elevator began its ascent.
After he saw through the small crease between the doors that they had passed five floors, the bald Secret Service man suddenly got the other agent’s attention and asked, “Wait a minute…did anyone hear that?”
Just as his cohort was raising his hand up to his mouth to speak into his hand mic, the bald assassin sprang into action and struck the real agent’s hand down and caught him with a quick throat punch with the other hand as he pushed the hand holding the mic down past his face. The imams were stunned as expected, and the elevator was still in motion. The assassin took no time pulling one syringe out of his pocket. He hit the imam from Yemen behind him with a series of sharp elbows to his torso and face, and then stabbed the other imam so many times with the hypodermic needle it was like a blur. The agent clutching his throat wasn’t out of the fight yet. He kicked out at the assassin, attempting to hit him in his common peroneal nerve to incapacitate him. The assassin put his elbow down at his side to block as he squatted down slightly. He knew he was running out of time, so he caught the Secret Service man in the temple with an elbow. The man went down and fell limp on the floor of the elevator. The imam whom had all the needle strikes applied to him was convulsing on the floor, while the other was carrying on in Arabic about how much pain he was enduring and yelling in English for help. The assassin struck the remaining imam in the head with a hard knee. As the imam fell all the way to floor, the assassin grabbed another syringe out of one of his pockets. He jammed it into the remaining imam’s neck and pressed the plunger home. The Imam had the normal expected reaction, and in a matter of seconds, took his last breath. While the Secret Service man still laid there unconscious, the assassin took two gold crosses and placed them in each Imam’s right hand.
Robert Brady waited until he saw a small open area through the crease between the doors, then pressed the emergency stop button as the elevator approached the 20th floor – five floors below the location of the meeting room where several key world leaders awaited the Imams’ arrival. He quickly stripped out of his Secret Service disguise, and was wearing a dirty old polo shirt and wind pants underneath. He shook a small apron loose out of his front pocket and tied it around his waist. He left the suit, ear bud and thumb mic, and Secret Service badge in a pile on the floor of the elevator. He also took a small pocket knife out of the inside pocket of the suit jacket, and he started cutting into the base of his neck line. Brady had been wearing a false flesh-colored skull cap made of a flexible polymer that gave the strong appearance that he was bald. He sliced a thin line of where the false bald head was attached to the inside of his undershirt, and then peeled the rest of it off – revealing his red
hair underneath. He picked up the small walkie-talkie that had been attached to the ear bud and mic, and he quickly took off the clip that slid into place on the back of the radio. He wedged the small hard plastic into the crease between the doors, and wedged the elevator doors open slightly; just far enough to squeeze his fingers in between them. Brady was not a small man, and was able to pull and then push the doors open the rest of the way with brute strength. He knew that once the emergency stop had been activated, he would only have a few minutes to clear the elevator and escape to find another path back to the ground floor. The elevator had stopped a few feet above the 20th floor. Once the doors were open, Brady sat on the edge and squeezed through the gap between the elevator floor and the ceiling and dropped to the hallway on the 20th floor. As soon as he hit the floor, he checked the hallway intersection at the elevators and ran towards a red exit sign he saw at the end of the hall.
The assassin made it to the corner stairwell and entered just as another elevator beeped back at the intersection he’d just left. There was no sign of interference coming from below, so Brady took the stairs as quickly as possible, sometimes three or four steps at a time. He went all the way down to the maintenance level and headed out the maintenance door. As he exited, he realized he had come out to the side of the building. He had a fake hot dog vendor’s cart waiting for him up closer to the front of the building, but across the street. He ran over to a crowd of tourists exploring and examining famous sculptures and statues scattered on the grounds of the UN Visitors’ Center. He weaved through the crowd, catching some curious glances but losing their attention after blending in to bodies of moving people. He saw his vendor’s cart across the street and made a run for it. Although all hell had broken loose inside the UN, the assassin got to his cart and began slowly pushing it up the street.
Malik was waiting in the lobby near the elevators, when he realized there was a commotion among the Secret Service agents standing in front of the elevators.
He radioed in to Knox, “Sheriff here – seeing a disturbance with Secret Service. Gonna go check it out and find out what’s going on.”
Knox responded, “10-4…let us know what you find out.”
Malik ran over to the closest agent, holding up his badge and introducing himself.
The Secret Service agent replied, “Inspector – we have a serious problem. I know you guys have been working this case. Come with me.”
Malik followed the agent to the elevator, guessing he knew what he was about to see. They got on the next elevator and he saw the agent hit the button for the 20th floor. On the way up, the agent filled the inspector in on details of their last few radio transmissions, and told him that the Imams’ elevator had been stopped in between the 20th and 21st floors. He went on to tell him that they discovered their problem when they were able to make contact with one of their agents who had been assigned to the Imams’ protection detail. The elevator opened, and the man from the Secret Service led Malik to the elevator next door. The elevator doors were open, and Malik immediately noticed the Muslims in their robes, each sitting up against the back wall of the elevator holding crosses in front of them - looking well rested and at peace with the world.
Malik then noticed another Secret Service man standing to the side, rubbing his temples.
“What happened?” he asked the special agent as he flashed his credentials and the man’s cohort nodded to him in approval.
“Inspector, the guy was new to our detail. I had never met him, but we aren’t paid to question orders from above, so I was just going through the motions. The other agent was bald, muscular, about my size, and highly trained in hand-to-hand combat. He still had shades on in the elevator, before he busted me up on the head pretty hard. I honestly don’t remember anything after catching his last elbow.”
Malik glanced back into the elevator and saw some miscellaneous items on the floor. He saw a flimsy piece of rubber that looked like the upper half of a volley ball. He bent down and picked it up and realized it was the top of a bald head. He took his radio off his belt.
“Knox…White…He’s struck again. And he’s long gone by now.”
There was silence on the other end of the radio.
The Arbiter watched the pandemonium in the streets below, and he scanned the crowd through his scope for any signs of someone bolting against the flow of people. He could only figure that his target had struck from the inside, and if that was the case, he’d probably be making his escape. He took a step back from the window he was perched in and got a glimpse of the bigger picture. He looked all around the city block and the surrounding parts of the UN property for anything out of place. He was slowly trying to piece together the way he would probably escape if he were going to kill someone inside the UN Visitors’ Center, simultaneously peering down through the window and looking for a brief sign. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something moving more slowly than the crowds had been moving at the UN. There was a small silver cart with wheels being pushed along by someone under a red and white umbrella. He watched closely as the man and the cart made their way to the end of the block and began a slow turn around the corner. As the man had moved farther along, more of his head and face were finally revealed as he made his turn. The Arbiter finally realized that the man had red hair, but also noticed that the man was about to make it to a copse of trees. He stepped back up to his weapon to get a better look, and as he did, the man with red hair suddenly stopped and turned around. As the Arbiter watched the redhead scan the horizon, the man’s gaze stopped in the direction of the Arbiter’s location. The Arbiter zoomed in on his scope to get a better look at his new target. When the redhead’s face came in to clear view, the Arbiter saw a man staring back at him; his green eyes suddenly squinting, as if he were trying to focus in on the Arbiter’s position. The Arbiter hesitated for a brief moment as if to take a double-take. He had seen those green eyes once before – in a hangar somewhere near Baghdad! He bent back down to his scope and was ready to fire and eliminate his mission objective; it was no coincidence that his target to follow was in the same place as the location of two fresh assassinations. But as he looked back through the scope, the redheaded man was gone…he’d vanished - just like a ghost.
Brady casually looked back over his shoulder as the crowds in the UN plaza were scrambling and panicking over the apparent news of assassination. He was across the street and down about half a block away, slowly meandering along with his hot dog cart. Nobody seemed to pay attention to some white guy trying to make his living selling hot dogs on the streets of New York, so there was no suspicion aimed his way. He approached a tree line as he came to the next corner and enjoyed a cool breeze that flowed in from the nearby river. Just as the wind was cooling him off, he felt a small tingling in the back of his neck. It’s said that those who experience fight-or-flight situations on a regular basis develop a sixth sense, kind of like eyes in the back of their head – that make them sense danger before it happens. Brady had perhaps experienced more danger than most, and his senses were sending him that warning now. He stopped pushing his cart. He slowly turned to scan the buildings in the distance, and in the far corner of a large tower, he noticed an open window. It wasn’t the window that caught his eye; it was a small glimmer of light in the middle of a small dark space. Brady, of all people, knew the glint off a scope of a rifle anywhere. He knew he had a fraction of a second to react. He didn’t know who was behind that scope, but he wasn’t going to get to try and find out if he didn’t leave the vicinity fast. Just as he expected to hear or see a round hit the pavement behind him, Brady ran as fast as possible for the trees and shrubbery around the next bend. The report of a rifle never came. Unknown to Robert Brady, the Arbiter’s momentary hesitation saved his life.
26
New York Times
The Jesus Assassin Strikes Again
Well I hope you Christians are happy! I recently received several of your so-called articles of concern, and even gave yo
u the courtesy of allowing some of your work to be seen in print. Do you still think this Christian assassin is a good guy? Is he really doing us a favor? Yesterday, our beloved hero murdered two imams in cold blood – inside the United Nations Visitors’ Center! Are you seeing what I’m seeing, folks? Because from where I sit, this is some pretty violent action taken by someone who is supposed to believe in a Prince of Peace. The two imams were set to meet with members of the UN, to ask for help in hunting down this international criminal – they never even made it to the meeting! And don’t get me started on our friends at the FBI and Interpol. These guys obviously couldn’t catch a cold…let alone an assassin. I for one think after this embarrassment on our own soil, we should give the UN a chance to step in. Someone has to catch this guy. It is the least the UN can do, since they never got to hear the Muslims out.
As for the FBI, they might as well pack it in. This guy has killed four people that we know about, and they obviously aren’t getting any closer to finding out who he is. Whatever part Interpol has in any of this, they might as well go back to Europe; they might have better luck catching the Pink Panther. This kind of bumbling over a religious fanatic is exactly why I’m so against religion in the first place. If you want to find out more about how we can make it in this world WITHOUT God or Allah or Neo (Insert godly title here), then check out my weekly postings in my column, ATHEISM WEEKLY. IF you are the Jesus Assassin – please stop the senseless killing. You are only reinforcing the very principles I write about every week.