Book of Bravery: A Novel 2,000 Plus Years in the Making

CHAPTER VI

Black Hearted

A walled television showed news coverage of Chuck Goyette leaving a TV station and walking to a waiting stretched limousine. 'The controversial cult leader stated he personally knows the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,' said accompanying audio. 'Resulting in several Christian groups accusing Goyette himself of being the Antichrist.'

A man in a charcoal grey Italian suit was the only one in the large office watching the broadcast. His name was Aaron Marx, a stern-looking 48-year-old hedge fund manager. He was lean, mustached, and cold-eyed. He had an air of sharp, efficient cruelty about him.

'This is embarrassing,' Marx said, critiquing the broadcast.

He threw the TV remote onto his desk and walked towards his office windows, passing a large portrait of murdering tyrant Mao Zedong as he went. In fact, right across his walls were pictures of unsavory characters and horrifying scenes.

Marx reached his office windows that offered views of New York's financial district. For five minutes, he stood there looking over eight blocks of money, power, and corruption. He could stand there doing that all day and night if it were at all practical.

On the street opposite, he could see his nightclub, The Devil's Pleasure Palace, which he'd owned for three years. A bit further along, he could make out the inconspicuous entrance to a local coven of the Order of International Satanists, of which he was a prominent member.

The intercom on his desk buzzed, and the voice of Kristen Goode, his personal assistant, followed.

'Good morning, Mr. Marx. Did you hear about Venice?'

'Yes, I did. What do you want?' he abruptly said.

'Mr. Irfan and Mr. Vacher are on their way up in the elevator to see you, sir.'

'Fine, send them straight in when they arrive.'

A Pair of Maniacs

Tony Vacher and Sabre Irfan were hard-looking but well-dressed men. Aged in their late 30s, they shared the elevator as it climbed to the penthouse level. Both were ex-military from their respective countries, France and Pakistan. Due to some extremely depraved behavior, they each earned dishonorable discharges.

More broadly, it could be easily said no one in their home countries missed them or wanted them back.

The smaller of the two was the Frenchman Vacher. He was completely bald-headed and squat in form. He was fixing his foulard necktie in the lift's mirror.

'You ever consider wearing a tie?' Vacher asked tie-less Irfan, who was scrolling through perversion on his iPhone.

'No,' Irfan replied without looking up from his device. 'I don't want to appear like a peacock.'

'And screw you too,' Vacher bit back. 'The more time I spend with you, Irfan, the more I can see why you nearly ended up as a whack-job jihadi.'

Irfan rolled his eyes, but just months earlier, he had indeed sought to join a radical Islamic militant group. More for the possibility of unbridled violence than for anything else.

A week before his planned recruitment, Irfan left Karachi and flew to the Thai seaside town of Pattaya for five days of depravity. After he befriended Vacher at a seedy hotel, this turned into a month, and the idea of jihad fell to the wayside. Together, they ran amok in the city's places of disrepute until the Russian mafia and the Thai police chased them out.

From there, Irfan somehow managed to get into the States, where Vacher made a work referral for him to Marx. Irfan was surprised when he was offered a high-paying security consultant position with Black Crest Management.