Operation Rock of Ages: Triumphant Illumination

ORA: TI Chapter 24 - 26

Chapter 24

Imam Musa was still staring at the TV screen. He still could not believe what he just saw. The Man's name was Jeremiah Ashe. He was an assistant to the President of the UN. This is impossible. He shook his head. He looked so unassuming. So... normal. It was eerie and quite unsettling. Several of the delegates, who had stood up, knew. They had been in this very room with him and Musa had never tried to and find out who he was. He felt so stupid. Duped to say the least. If he had known who The Man was, he could have killed him long ago and taken over The Man's plans for himself. He may not have been able to pull off the UN part of things, but he would be sitting on top of the greatest army of trained fighters poised to go after the rest of the Middle East.

Now it was too late. Jeremiah had fooled them with the clouds of mystery and made it impossible to touch him until it was too late to do anything about it. Rabbi Yoseph came into his office unannounced. "Ah, I see that you watched it as well and from the look on your face you took it as well as I did, old friend."

"I am angry. I want to reach out and strangle him barehanded. He is more of a monster than I gave him credit for," Imam Musa said with vitriol. "I hate him but will continue to do my part until I find a way to kill him."

Rabbi Yoseph laughed like the Imam had told the funniest joke he had ever heard. "My friend, if you see a way, I will help you but do not underestimate him as we have to this point. We were taken for fools but now we know." The Rabbi leaned forward, grabbing Musa's attention. "Musa, we have something he does not control. We need to make the most of it, my friend. We have the hearts of the people. Their spiritual lives belong to us. We need to plan on how to become more united. I am no longer just a Rabbi and you are no longer just an Imam. We will be a new creation of our own devising. Let's be wise and use what is ours. He may have the world at his fingertips, but we have the people in it at ours."

Imam Musa smiled. "You are smarter than you look, Yoseph," he joked. "Yes, I see the wisdom of this plan. We need to reorganize. Give ourselves new titles and work on getting all our priests looking the same, uniforms. They will be our own, private army."

Rabbi Yoseph smiled. He knew Musa would love his plan, he had counted on it. "Come see me tomorrow. We will have a relaxing dinner to celebrate his victory and plan our own. Even if it takes years, we will pay him back for this slight."

They parted ways and Musa looked at the reports and celebrations being planned around the world. Someday, the celebration for their victory, and the celebrations for Jeremiah's death, would be so much bigger and better, he would see to it.

Chapter 25

Duncan finished lunch finally. He had been interrupted several times to talk to people that randomly came up to the table. Some thanked him for his words and some just wanted to complain about how things were imperfect and needed to be fixed. A couple of people even offered to replace the council members that had walked off. He took names and told them that he may need to talk to them if the council members did not come back. Mr. Namir and Mr. Lukas just sat and talked in general conversation or just ate peacefully watching Duncan getting bombarded.

Claire came in at one point; she didn't laugh at him, surprisingly but did give him an update on Mariam. They made plans to swing by their apartment after dinner sometime. He was really looking forward to holding those little ones. Claire left to go see if she could grab Shachi and go take her to the clinic. She brought one of her leashes, just in case the vet insisted but it was quite unnecessary. Greg let her in when she knocked softly. Everyone was sleeping so she gave Shachi a sign and she came over and heeled. Greg had no idea when she was last went to the restroom so Claire said she would take care of that and bring Shachi back after the vet visit. Greg shrugged and assumed it was an arranged thing and went back to go to sleep before Rose woke up.