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Sahara's Song

 

 

PROLOGUE

    (Washington, D.C. 1939)

 

    “You’d be a bastard fool not to search for it!” Knox felt his temper getting the best of him, but he didn’t care. Didn’t this stiff know what he was being handed? He glanced uncomfortably at the man seated next to him on the park bench and then shook his head. “Bloody democrats,” he spat under his breath. 

    A family of mallard ducks waddled back into the lake, quacking out indignant cries at the four men in black slacks and ties who disturbed them with their methodic pacing of the area.

    "Why did you bring this to us?” the man asked. His eyes studied the yellow-haired Irishman with a mixture of amusement and intent.

    “Who would you have me give it to then?” the Irishman cried, throwing up his weathered hands in frustration.  He glanced anxiously at one of the pacing men, who stopped at the sound of his outburst and was now watching him, one hand moving carefully to his waist.  The Irishman caught a slight gesture from his bench-mate and the man lowered his hand and continued his slow stroll.

    “C’mere, I’m not trying to get rich off this thing, right.  I just want it in proper hands. Not some struggling communist country, but a country that has enough money to search for it and enough decency not to use it to terrorize the world.  I’m telling you for Christ’s sake, it’s real! It’s real and it’s out there somewhere just waiting to be found. You can have your own translators look at the document if you don’t trust ours.  Then you’ll see and you’ll know why it must be found.”  The Irishman’s shoulders fell under the weight of his next thought, his age showing in the wrinkles between his brows. “If it is found by some fellah, some country that wants to come to power through destroying life as we know it…this weapon will allow just that to happen.  As it already has.”  He stopped and tried to find a reaction in the face of the man before him. There was none. His glare was met with stone.