ZAHANA

PROLOGUE

With a cigar dangling on the corner of his lips he made his move. The card jerked and flew out of his hands. It landed on the table leading all eyes to the fallen card, all of them but one. His would hardly be the one that followed the crowd for they hummed a different song and danced to a distinct tune. The card, an ace of spades from a master of all jacks, lay flat on the table, narrating his victory without uttering a word. Five million dollars rested silently in the briefcase over his lap along with a grin forming waves around the right contour of his lips. A smirk no less than the devils call of death. A grin resulting not from the millions decked in that briefcase but by the victory he just had over Doc.

Doc short for Doctor Riad Abdullah, his friend in grief and foe in relief. A pal who relished every ounce of his agony and a foe who flared up at each of his victories. That, by the way, was exactly what just happened. A victory for Dan, his tenth against Doc of the only ten bets they ever had. Ten was a very significant number for both of them. Ten, the number of years they have been business allies. The number of deals they had closed together. And the number of countries they dealt in. Despite their rifts and differences, they shared one common trait - they both meant business, their way or no other way but one- the devil's call of death.

Doc had his eyes fixed on Dan which never left the sight of that smirk, not even for a second. Wrath drooled all over Docs face. Losing a billion to Dan would not hurt Doc as much as the words 'losing to Dan' did. Keeping the briefcase aside Dan called one of his minions. The briefcase was taken and safely escorted by his bodyguard, a well-built man who then assumed his former position right beside Dan. Dan held his glass of scotch, sipped a mouthful and spilled the remaining contents on the cards that were loosely spread over the table. He took the last puff on his cigar and threw it right over those cards. Within a jiffy, fire was all over the table. That move of his caused a slight splurge but it was nothing for a man who had recently won a couple of million dollars in a silly bet. With his back to the fire he ambled towards the couch. At the same time and in the same direction moved those eyes which had been fixed on him, for an incredulous amount of time, from the other side of the glass window. Unaware of this feat, quite implausible for his stature, in fact the first one of any kind, he sat on the couch relishing the taste of fire. Not the fire spread across the table but the one burning inside the man behind that table.

Tip-toeing on the ledge in a dark laden night was she with flashes of past replaying in the darkness ahead and ghosts of the future haunting behind her back. Life was definitely not a wacky adventure as many claimed it to be. Whoever said suicide was easy had certainly never tried it. Standing at 120 feet above the ground level with the wall behind her as the only support and no intention, whatsoever, of dying there that entire little maneuver of hers would be no less than a suicide attempt for plenty but for her it was more a part-of-the-plan stint than a treacherous life-taking shot.

'A shot plus two' she thought, yes, three shots were exactly what she needed to get it over with. The thought was good unequivocally but the circumstances, definitely not. With a herd of bull-headed bear-sized men inside that room and her with no back-up, perhaps that was not the day to celebrate the deceased. Affirming her decision was a man almost everyone in the country had seen but none remembered.

Far away, in the center of a dark room, sat a man quiet and focused. His stern, weary gaze was fixed on the object in front of his eyes. The screen gleamed. Its luminosity reflected on the glasses of his rectangle specs. But neither of those two gleaming objects could defeat the gleam in his eyes. His fingers danced on the keyboard while he enjoyed the music but not more than the drama. If action was his food then letters, the air he breathed.